Jenn (00:53)
Great. Hey Edie. So glad you're here.
Edy (00:54)
Hi.
Edy (00:57)
I'm so happy to be here. Yeah.
Jenn (00:59)
I'm really excited
Jenn (01:00)
for this conversation today to share your work and your insights and your perspective with our audience.
Jenn (01:08)
Edie Nathan is a licensed psychotherapist, Asect certified sex therapist, an internationally recognized expert on grief, trauma, and sexual healing. With over 25 years of
Jenn (01:26)
Private practice in New York City, she brings a nuanced, human-centered approach to experiences often left unspoken. Edie Bridges' Psychology, Neuroscience, and Creative Expression, pioneering work on sexual grief, the complex loss of identity and connection following trauma. Rather than focusing on getting over grief, she helps individuals develop an evolving, embodied relationship.
Jenn (01:55)
with the loss that supports healing, agency, and self-reclamation. holding degrees from Fordham and NYU and extensively trained in trauma informed modalities. Edie is also the author of It's Grief.
Jenn (02:11)
The Dance of Self-Discovery Through Trauma and Loss and It's Grief. Notes to Self. Well, can't wait to hear all about these things and in more detail, but I believe that you are open to leading us through some kind of embodiment or mindfulness practice.
Edy (02:31)
Absolutely. So thanks for that introduction, Jen. And you know, in in in the course of our really crazy, hectic, often chaotic days, we we we often don't like take even a minute to just pay attention. And so to ourselves, to our breath, and everyone has their own breath work. So I'm not gonna
Edy (03:00)
Focus today on breath work, but rather on embodied curiosity. And
Jenn (03:05)
Mm.
Edy (03:06)
what I would love everyone to do at your own comfort level is to either close your eyes or have a soft focus. And soft focus is just closing your eyes with minimally like focusing on one spot in the room, on the floor, on your piece of clothing, just one spot.
Edy (03:31)
And yes, taking in a breath, and instead of focusing on how you breathe, just be curious about how it feels to just take in a breath.
Edy (03:50)
Does it stick anywhere? Does it stop? Do you feel like you can even take in an breath?
Edy (03:59)
Or does it feel like you could actually take in a deeper breath, but it's just not?
Edy (04:08)
And be curious if there was a place where it stopped. Just be curious about that place of stopping. Or if there was complete fluidity, be curious about how fluid it was.
Edy (04:28)
And just breathe normally.
Edy (04:34)
And now I'd love for you to be curious about a swallow. Want you to just swallow.
Edy (04:45)
And was it hard to swallow? Was it easy to swallow?
Edy (04:53)
And now I'd invite you to just gently put your hands either on your shoulders, right below your neck, or even on your neck.
Edy (05:15)
And just feel the touch of
Edy (05:22)
And the stillness of the
Edy (05:27)
And the kindness in that.
Edy (05:37)
And just relax into it and be curious about that sense of relaxation.
Edy (05:47)
And now move your hands away and see if you can hold on to the imprint of where your hands were.
Edy (06:02)
When we can begin to remember where we've placed our hands, and then we can remember how it feels when they are removed.
Edy (06:14)
We're able to embody a sense of self.
Edy (06:22)
That allows us to be with the self. Because there are moments in our days when we're so in the chaos or in other moments that we've lost our relation to the self. And just a touch brings us back. The removal of the touch and holding it allows us to maintain it.
Edy (06:54)
That's right.
Edy (06:57)
And so as we're moving through this conversation today, if there's anything that comes up for you and you want to remember just being with the self, go back to that place. And it doesn't have to be any of the places I've suggested. It can be just a holding of your hands, a touching of your your your chest, or your shoulders, or your face, or your thighs.
Edy (07:27)
And just know that you're with you and how sacred that is. And sometimes there are things in a conversation that Jen and I might be having, and we're not aware that that it's arousing you in any way or making you go to a place of of thought or ideas that you weren't planning on, you know, kind of visiting.
Edy (07:57)
And so in those moments, just make sure you take care of you. And you do that just by saying, I'm here to yourself.
Edy (08:10)
And thank you so much.
Jenn (08:15)
Thank you so much. How soft and and lovely that was.
Edy (08:21)
Mm-hmm.
Jenn (08:22)
I think there's something about the idea of being with that can feel when we're especially when we are activated, can feel so unattainable and so hard to grasp. And I love the embodied cue around that,
Edy (08:39)
Yeah.
Jenn (08:39)
around the touch to
Jenn (08:43)
Not even necessarily to like calm down, but to be with.
Edy (08:47)
That's right. That's right. Because I it's I don't feel like it's my right to tell any part of you to calm down.
Jenn (08:57)
Mm.
Edy (08:58)
However, to be with, you be with in whatever capacity you can be with. Whatever
Jenn (09:03)
Mm.
Edy (09:04)
that means. Because I don't know what it means for you. I know what it means for me and I know it's ever changing. And it's kind of like, you know, we're talking about grief. Grief is ever changing as well. And so it's the same compliment
Jenn (09:16)
Yeah.
Edy (09:17)
because when when there is that activation.
Edy (09:20)
It's ever changing. And we never n there's no template for it. I if there were, it'd be so much easier, right?
Jenn (09:28)
Right.
Jenn (09:29)
Right.
Jenn (09:31)
I love that we are getting to have a conversation about grief. where I'd love to start is understanding more about kind of what brought you to grief and grief work and learning about grief and curio curiosity about grief. and I guess I'll preface that by saying, you know, I feel like I have a unique curiosity just because of my own experience as a clinician and a therapist, and feeling like
Jenn (09:54)
There was so much that felt welcome in the room in terms of like what I could hold with clients and be curious about. But grief for me was like this third rail where it just felt like, my gosh, if a client brings in like overwhelming grief, I don't know if I can hold my shit together. certainly as a young clinician I felt this.
Jenn (10:14)
I wanna dig deeper in there. So if you would, I'd love to hear more about how you sort of got to this work.
Edy (10:24)
Grief is not something that I think one chooses. I think it chooses you, right? And so I kind of felt I feel like I got chosen. And I got chosen from a very young age. Like I was gonna be dealing with this and looking at this. I think that we're we're all born with what I call the, you know, this Buddha. It's this sense of knowing, this sense of understanding, and then we it's
Edy (10:51)
it's taken away. And that sense of of what we come in with and what we know. And and I guess there might be good reason for it, but the loss of that kind of knowing part of me was a deep grief. It it presented a deep grief for me. It was the loss of of of.
Edy (11:16)
being able to save animals and bring them home and being told no you're not supposed to do that
Jenn (11:22)
Mm.
Edy (11:23)
and you're not supposed to like you know want to bring homeless people home and you're not supposed to want to kind of like just go out and bring people or animals to safety or you know you're not supposed to want to bury goldfish you just flush them down the
Edy (11:42)
Toilet. And so I didn't understand the world. And there was a lot of grief around that. N it it, of course, it quiets, but it has to go somewhere. And then just the idea of walking with some sense of loss.
Edy (12:05)
Some sense that there was something that was missing. And I the way that I define grief now as a clinician is that it's not just the loss of a loved one, but it's something that we're hungry for that can't be sated. It's something that we're yearning for that's missing.
Jenn (12:24)
Mm.
Edy (12:27)
And it can't be replaced. It doesn't mean that we can't find something else that nourishes us.
Edy (12:35)
But whatever's we're hungry for or that we're we're we're we're yearning for, it's just not able to be replaced. Like we can't go back to those times in our at two and three that have felt like moments of loss. We can't go back there, but we can find ways to nourish that which is alive in us. And and then fast forward, I was.
Edy (13:05)
Teased and had to face some predatory events that happened when I was nine. And then at 27 lost my partner. And and his death actually brought back the memories of the things that I had put away, secreted away, silenced, and made invisible. And it was that loss when I was 27.
Edy (13:33)
That began the true journey of I need to write about this, I need to talk about this, because the messages, Jen, that I was getting around that loss, those messages provided to me were you're young, you're gonna find somebody, don't worry, it's all gonna be fine. And none of it felt fine. And it all felt like everybody just wanted to clean it up.
Edy (14:01)
And there was nothing it was messy, it's not pretty,
Jenn (14:05)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Edy (14:07)
and and I couldn't really find a clinician who was willing to go into the depths.
Edy (14:17)
And I I get it and and and I hear you, you know, like as a young therapist, like and frankly, it it's missing in our training. You know, our training often, you know, you might get one course in grief instead of probably anyone you're seeing, which is my paradigm, and maybe I take it, you know, to another extreme, but I see in anyone who's coming in, they're walking in with grief.
Jenn (14:46)
Mm-hmm.
Edy (14:46)
and it's not necessarily the loss of a loved one. Maybe it's just the loss, just it's the loss of the self. It's the loss of identity, or it's the loss of not not whole not not being able to identify one's own own gender or one's own desires or one's own ability to be in partnership. Those are
Jenn (15:08)
Mm.
Edy (15:09)
all paradigms of
Jenn (15:12)
Mm. It's so potent in what you say about like not being able to replace, like maybe finding something else that does feel loving, nourishing, but that
Edy (15:26)
Yeah.
Jenn (15:27)
piece around it's like it's it it is a hole that cannot be filled, you know? And
Edy (15:32)
That's right. It's a whole that can be full.
Jenn (15:35)
we try, I think, so hard. I think about.
Jenn (15:38)
in my own process around holding grief and and really until I was able to seek healing that was not in the mainstream, that was more like sort of medicine women that w work in indigenous communities that have that there's less fear around. I think there's so much fear around grief culturally, at least in like, you know, mainstream Western culture, you know, e even when we have rituals, and there might be pockets of course that are different, but
Jenn (16:06)
It's like, how do I just numb or fill or avoid? And I love the way you describe that piece around finding nourishment, but not fine, not getting sated.
Edy (16:20)
Yeah, because it and it is nourishing because it's hung because there's this hunger. And
Jenn (16:25)
Mm.
Edy (16:26)
the hunger, what what what what we're told in our culture here is just make it go away. When is it gonna go away? How can I clean this up? it's with death, it's with dying. How are we gonna clean it up? You know, we're gonna take it out of the house, we're gonna take the family out of this, we're gonna take
Edy (16:46)
the rituals and and manipulate them so they look like the same rituals, but they're really not. And so we just try to keep silencing it and cleaning it up instead of finding ways to give it a voice, to find new rituals,
Edy (17:03)
It's not about making the wounds go away. It's how are we going to live with them in such a way that they're no longer creating an obstacle to the life I'm living? Which
Jenn (17:15)
Yeah.
Edy (17:16)
is why the the the subtitle to the book is The Dance. It's a partnership. And how can we partner with something that feels so hard? Well, like anxiety, the more we try to push anxiety away, you know this.
Edy (17:32)
The bigger it gets. But if we
Jenn (17:33)
Mm-hmm.
Edy (17:34)
invite it in and we say, I see you, anxiety, how you doing? Okay, well, let's walk together. Let me let me learn when you show up, how you show up, how loud you are, how you affect my body, how you pour sweat down my back, how you tighten my jaw. And I'm going to like understand you. And instead of making you my enemy, I'm actually going to partner with you so that we can.
Edy (18:01)
We can understand how you show up, what you're trying to communicate, and the messaging that you're trying to give me so I can pay attention and you're no longer the enemy. Now you're you're like, wow, I need to be listening to this. I need to be curious here because you're giving me some information that's not collusive, but but you're you're in a you're an ally.
Jenn (18:27)
I I'm so struck also by the like the curiosity piece, right? And how much curiosity requires us to have kindness toward ourselves or s even some sliver of it. And how I think a lot of times too that a place that I know I've gotten stuck as a clinician is in a place of this is, you know, I don't know how to support someone in moving from self loathing, avoidant, like I don't want to face this to like, all right.
Jenn (18:58)
maybe a little resignation and then how do I actually open the door to like building a relationship with my grief, with my anxiety.
Edy (19:06)
Yes. And with the the self-loathing, you know, the the we talk a lot about shame and I shame is is a is a big piece and it and it absolutely functions within within grief of you're not doing this fast enough.
Jenn (19:23)
Mm.
Edy (19:23)
Or why didn't you know X? You know, fill fill in the blanks, you know. and and there is also though this this sense of
Edy (19:35)
when we when we go darker, that self-loathing of I I wasn't I wasn't brave enough. I wasn't I didn't do it good enough. I I'm not grieving the way I'm supposed to grieve. And and somehow we believe societally that there's a way and you're gonna follow some structure. And if you don't follow that structure, then you're doing it wrong.
Edy (20:01)
And I I just want to say something corrective here, which sounds funny because I just said you're not doing it wrong. There's no wrong way of doing this. Grief peace.
Jenn (20:07)
Mm-hmm.
Edy (20:12)
Whether it is the grief that has to do with the loss of a loved one or the grief over a life that you're not living the way that you want to be living it, that you've been in hiding, let's let's say.
Edy (20:29)
Not stepping into y the power that is yours to have.
Jenn (20:34)
Mm.
Jenn (20:37)
Can imagine too that in in your role there's been a a fair amount of like bursting the maybe the wish or the hope that it could be like I get through the five stages of grief or I get through the process and then I'm done or I'm healed. It certainly
Edy (20:51)
Yes, yes.
Jenn (20:52)
comes up a lot with trauma, which of course is is grief, right? Or there is so
Edy (20:54)
Yes. Yes, that's right.
Jenn (20:56)
much, you know, intertwined, but that can be also a challenging piece too, right? Around like, yeah, this is actually potentially life's work.
Edy (21:06)
Yes.
Jenn (21:06)
To be with our pain and grief.
Edy (21:08)
That's right. It's our life's work. And yet, you know, grief is like your fingerprint, right? It's as individual as you are. And it it it gets expressed differently. How can grief be a teacher? It changes us. And that can be exciting. That it it can open up a door that we didn't expect.
Edy (21:32)
it's that hero's journey. Grief is absolutely a hero's journey. Something happens to you, you are forever changed. Being forever changed means that you're gonna go through a cycle of, I don't know who my friends are, I don't know who my enemies are. You go into that innermost cave. Plato called it the inmost cave, and and it's where you
Edy (21:58)
Look at the shadows, you look at the obstacles, and and and and it's harsh and it's and and it's sometimes cruel and it's also illuminating. And
Jenn (22:10)
Yeah.
Edy (22:10)
without pain, there isn't growth. I see that inmost cave as as as getting in touch with your elk mist, turning dirt into gold. Right. And that's what
Jenn (22:21)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Edy (22:22)
grief does. It's like
Edy (22:23)
You're forever manifesting, I'm gonna turn this dirt into gold. And how can grief be my gold? And
Jenn (22:29)
Mm-hmm.
Edy (22:30)
you come out of that inmost cave, and again, you're assessing your friends and your enemies, and and and then you move through this beautiful, beautiful kind of lineage of time. And you look the same, and yet you don't feel the same, and you look, your worldview is different. And you're always going through that cycle.
Edy (22:53)
Like it's a forever cycle. And grief is ever changing, and it is not the five stages. Grief is nonlinear. And
Jenn (23:00)
Mm.
Edy (23:01)
so, as clinicians, if when we think, I just got some this to this wonderful place with my client, it doesn't mean that the next time you see that person.
Edy (23:15)
or that family that they're gonna be in that place.
Jenn (23:21)
That's right.
Edy (23:21)
And that's okay.
Jenn (23:22)
Right. And part of that, it sounds like is is us surrendering our own attachment to our clients' progress or where they're headed, all of that, you know.
Edy (23:32)
That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah.
Jenn (23:35)
I'd love to hear you describe how you orient to your eleven stages of grief and in in a sounds like a but quite a nonlinear way.
Edy (23:44)
Yes. So I'm glad that you said the eleven stages because I took those the the the five stages and I moved them into phases. And the reason
Jenn (23:53)
Yeah.
Edy (23:54)
that I changed them into phases is because I saw a stage as having as being finite. It starts here, there's a middle, and then there's an end. And the phases feel more fluid.
Edy (24:07)
and those phases are about
Jenn (24:09)
Mm.
Edy (24:11)
movement and nonlinearity. Though I will start with what I call the first phase, the emotional armor phase. And that emotional armor phase is a phase that I think is there for protection. So when we first get hit, when we first realize there's a grief reaction, a grief response.
Edy (24:31)
There's emotional armor. There's numbness.
Edy (24:34)
now I call it like you're dysregulated. It's not hysteria, it's not a sickness. There's just some dysregulation. There's there's this sense of of denial, for sure, and that denial protects.
Edy (24:49)
The numbness protects. The protest
Jenn (24:51)
Mm-hmm.
Edy (24:52)
protects. If you can get into no, I'm I this is not happening, good for you, great. And it's just not seeing any of this as needing to diagnose, needing to put it into the diagnostic
Jenn (25:08)
Yeah.
Edy (25:09)
manual. There's nothing wrong with you. There's everything right about you. And I see the emotional armor as armor.
Edy (25:17)
Because what do we need as we as we go through the task of looking at, engaging with, and tempering the grief? It's that armor. And I'm holding it like a like goddess, you know, it's like
Jenn (25:29)
Yeah.
Edy (25:33)
we're holding it here. And and so those 11 phases, though they're nonlinear, you know, there's no way to present something in a book or when we're talking about such things.
Edy (25:46)
in a in a nonlinear way at some point there's got to be some order but I see that that there's this role confusion like who am I I don't even know who I am anymore because I was a caretaker or because I was a wife I was a sister when you lose those roles it's like who am I now who am I now
Edy (26:08)
And and and we need to understand, I think as clinicians, when someone comes in and they're saying, I don't even know who I am, it doesn't mean they're anxious and it doesn't mean they're depressed. It doesn't mean that anxiety and depression aren't all functioning all together. And what might come in around the anger piece is rage. Because if knowing who knowing the different roles that they
Edy (26:34)
Played in their lives or play in their lives are essential, then losing one of those major roles, such as caretaker, can really have a major hit. And then
Jenn (26:44)
Mm.
Edy (26:45)
then you've got the co-creation of I'm rageful and I'm I'm depressed, depressed, or I feel lost.
Edy (26:57)
Do you see how they all come together?
Jenn (26:59)
Absolutely. And maybe even trying to tease them out into different even individual phases at times is probably
Edy (27:05)
That's exactly right.
Jenn (27:07)
not. Yeah. And it's interesting, you know, I'm like looking through your book and looking through your work. And and even I in my notes write down 11 stages of great. it's like there is that desire, like, when will this be done? You know, when can I move on?
Edy (27:19)
Yes, that's right. That's right. And to your point,
Edy (27:23)
there was a the the closure has been part of those five stages. thankfully now they're not even talking about closure as much in the grief world. And there's papers, more papers now, scientific papers, studies that closure doesn't happen. It's a misnomer. And
Edy (27:46)
I'm I'm I'm thankful for that because there's the the closure doesn't happen within the traumatic imprint either. And so instead of closure, I I talk about grace and coming to a place of grace, which is the obstacles have quieted. It doesn't mean they're not there. It doesn't mean that a scent that
Jenn (28:07)
Yeah, yeah.
Edy (28:07)
wafts in the air isn't going to take you right there. Because it it might.
Edy (28:12)
And it might take you there 10 years later, 20 years later. My partner, you know, died a long time ago now. And I carry his his Timex watch with me. And there are times when I just want to hear the tick of Paul. And I wind that watch and I hear tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And you know what? I need that in that moment. So
Edy (28:42)
Is it over? No. Can I integrate it? Yes. And that's what I want to do. And do I sometimes have images of him? Sure. Am I happily married now? Yes. And can I have the juxtaposition of an old love and a new love and carry them both? Absolutely. And are they in competition? No. Because the love from
Edy (29:11)
from that place of Paul enabled me to have the love of my now husband.
Jenn (29:19)
Hm. Wow.
Jenn (29:23)
Yeah, I'm thinking too about you're talking about a through line. You're talking about
Edy (29:27)
Ruleine,
Edy (29:27)
that's it. Thank you, Jen. Yeah. It's exactly what it is. It's like I I I want Chris, my present husband. I have I have shared Paul with him. He's seen pictures. He's seen the Timex watch. He's seen, you know, mm mm my pictures of my mom. He, you know, he met my dad.
Edy (29:54)
And he knows those stories and it's about keeping the through line alive, not so that you're in the past, but so that the influences of the past can continue to be part of your story.
Jenn (30:13)
Mm. Mm.
Edy (30:14)
'Cause they are part of your story, whether you want to to align with them or not, I know I'm br giving a lot of information here,
Edy (30:22)
I feel such deep passion and I about this because we we don't often have time to talk about.
Edy (30:30)
This. We don't make the time. And there are people out there, Jen, whose relationships were not good and stayed married, or couldn't leave the relationship until they were of age. And there there's information in the book. There's there's a story in the book about about the people who
Edy (30:59)
Have had to act sad over the loss of a loved one when there was really relief. And I just want to say hi to anyone who's listening, who this who this story of you having to fake it, fake the grief when there was relief, and that
Jenn (31:22)
Yes, yes.
Edy (31:23)
I see you and I know you're there, and I know how hard this is.
Edy (31:29)
And I hope that you can find one or two safe enough people that you can say, you know, I'm not being hit anymore and I don't have to hide and I'm free.
Edy (31:45)
I'm free. So I'm I'm not grieving the way people want me to.
Jenn (31:51)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Edy (31:53)
But I know I
Edy (31:54)
also have to put on an act for the kids or for my family.
Jenn (32:01)
Yeah. So much expectation of how we're supposed to show up in in loss and in grief.
Edy (32:05)
Yeah. That's right.
Jenn (32:08)
And I love how you name even the different based on kind of our personalities or who we are, the ways that we might express grief, let alone the actual relationship and how that might show up.
Edy (32:19)
That's right.
Edy (32:20)
You say the the personality. So one of one of the chapters in the book is called Me, Myself, and I. And it is an exploration of, well, who are you? Are you are you more of a fixed personality? Are you, you know, much more mutable or are you cardinal? And I give examples of each. And actually they can come from the tarot of being cardinal and being,
Edy (32:47)
mutable or or more, you know, more fixed. And and imagine that you're at a at a boulder in the middle of the road and and there you are. The mutable person is going to stop anybody who's trying to drive past the the the the big the big mogul and say, help me, help me move. The fixed is going to say,
Edy (33:10)
Hmm, I'm gonna wonder how I can move this. And the cardinal is gonna climb up onto this big mogul
Jenn (33:18)
Mm-hmm.
Edy (33:19)
of a rock and say, I got this. I'm gonna climb over it. And you know, it's important to understand who you are in this. Not that you're not probably some manifestation manifestation of a little bit of each, but that you may be more of one than the other, because that's going to really inform.
Edy (33:39)
maybe the kind of help you need. Because if you're that cardinal, chances are you're not going to go to therapy. Chances are you're not going to go to a group. And and maybe you'll talk about it with friends, but you may want to look better than you look. And to just say, okay, in my private moments, let me, let me see me. Immutable, you're going to, you might go to a group, you might go to individual therapy, and then you might, you know, join something out there.
Edy (34:07)
Whatever that is, and that's good too. And the fixed, you might do it very, very privately, but might have might go to therapy once or twice and then say, okay, I I I've learned a few things and now I'm gonna do it on my own.
Edy (34:24)
And that's
Jenn (34:24)
Yeah.
Edy (34:24)
that's part of this journey too.
Jenn (34:26)
Hmm. Creating space for different expressions of grief, different ways to process. my assumption is that there's a certain intensity in working with grief for you. But then again.
Jenn (34:41)
You're describing yourself as a young little girl who's like, you know, wanting to be with animals potentially as they're going over to the other side or however you want to call it.
Edy (34:50)
Yes, yeah, yeah.
Jenn (34:51)
there is part of me that that is curious of like, how do you make space for lightness, joy, brightness when you're also able to hold and be with and are curious about all this other stuff.
Edy (35:06)
So if we think of grief as being both light and dark, and that that the lightness in grief, which sounds really like how could that even be? Is that it is a teacher and that it allows us potent the potential of expansion.
Edy (35:32)
of questioning the self, of being curious, of thinking, hmm, yes, I've had this loss and I've taken myself on. And actually since this loss, I'm realizing that I have identified as a caretaker, and I don't have to only identify as a caretaker. Hmm, I could, I could
Edy (36:02)
teach others how to be a caretaker.
Jenn (36:05)
Mm-hmm.
Edy (36:06)
I could be I could be a death doula. I could I could become more spiritual. I might I might become more aligned with a different way of walking this earth. I might find that what grief did was it introduced me to yoga.
Edy (36:31)
It introduced me to the how movement can help move where grief gets stuck in me, and that that it got stuck, let's say, in my gut, and that doing yoga and engaging in the spirit of yoga moving with grief through yoga, that I I arrived at a different kind of.
Edy (36:58)
Dream life, a different kind of sleep,
Jenn (37:00)
Mm.
Edy (37:01)
a different kind of embodiment of my soul and of my psyche, and that things began to open up in the world that had never opened up before. And so
Jenn (37:14)
Mm.
Edy (37:15)
it's it's maybe I've taken on new rituals, maybe I've gotten into drumming or rattling or or reading.
Edy (37:25)
maybe my concentration has changed. And so it's it's that grief presents the the the light and the dark. And it is dark and it's heavy, but when someone starts to open up and they begin
Jenn (37:43)
Mm-hmm.
Edy (37:43)
to see a new pathway, they go through that hero's journey. They go through the meeting the collective unconscious and realizing they're not alone.
Edy (37:56)
Huh. Wow, that's pretty energizing and magical and
Jenn (38:03)
Mm.
Edy (38:04)
delicious.
Jenn (38:06)
what I'm hearing is allowing grief to change us, you know, and and not wanting to hold on to how things were or wish that they were away and allow
Edy (38:15)
Mm-hmm. No.
Jenn (38:18)
it to to impact us, leave an impact and and change us.
Edy (38:23)
That's right. I mean, as I'm talking, my my body is actually vibrating. Okay. And I'm paying attention to it because I don't often like sit in a session like on a podcast feeling my body vibrating. And yet there's the it's it's as if like they're they're paying attention to a vibration that is maybe otherworldly.
Edy (38:52)
That allows an expansion
Jenn (38:56)
Mm.
Edy (38:56)
of we think of it in one way, but it can actually be journeyed with and held in another way. And
Jenn (39:09)
Mm.
Edy (39:09)
it can concretize us, not in a way that we're being taken down like we're like in concrete, but rather the concrete is breaking up.
Edy (39:22)
And we're actually becoming free from an idea that grief has to hold us down and instead maybe it helps us fly. Because if we're not afraid, then what else is there?
Jenn (39:46)
what's coming up for me. I'm thinking about, you know, I lost my father very unexpectedly, but four years ago-ish. And one of the things that hit me almost immediately was there was this, there was initially a grief and then a s a relief around.
Jenn (40:04)
not having to expect him, not getting caught in the expectation or the hope that he would change. My father was a very loving man who had a lot of limitation, a lot of depression, it was sometimes like living with a ghost actually. And but but there was always a sense of love. And once I was able to stop struggling because there was no longer the option, at least in this world, for our relationship
Edy (40:28)
Yeah.
Jenn (40:29)
to change.
Edy (40:30)
Yeah.
Jenn (40:31)
Then I could like receive the love that I think I had been so armored and guarded around. And that was like initially it was grief around that, like we're never gonna
Edy (40:39)
Yeah.
Jenn (40:40)
have this relationship that I always wish that we could have. And then it was like, shit, there's so much love here though. And there actually always has.
Edy (40:47)
Yeah,
Edy (40:48)
that's right. And there was liberation.
Jenn (40:51)
Absolutely. Absolutely. And to see that actually the relationship with him, my relationship has changed and it's deepened,
Edy (40:58)
Yeah.
Jenn (41:00)
which I never would have thought possible. you know, having not lost a parent, certainly lost others, but not lost a parent before. And that has has made me so curious about about the growth potential and about the potential for a relationship to grow and change as we do.
Edy (41:18)
Absolutely. first of all, thank you for sharing that story, because it's precious. And there was something magical about that, right? You had a
Jenn (41:32)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Edy (41:33)
transfer of energy, if you will. Your your the the energy that you were holding when he was alive was this hope that things would change.
Edy (41:47)
The magic of that shift was realizing that it was gonna be okay if it didn't, and that now you could actually honor the love.
Edy (42:00)
Okay, and being able to honor that love that had always been there. You then got the gift of being able to go back over your life
Jenn (42:12)
Mm.
Edy (42:14)
and redefine moments and cherish
Jenn (42:16)
It's fine.
Edy (42:17)
them.
Jenn (42:20)
This is true, right? And and we wouldn't always think of letting go of hope as a liberation, but absolutely. You know, you
Edy (42:29)
Yeah.
Jenn (42:29)
know, there's something about accepting, I guess, who someone is.
Edy (42:33)
Yeah, and and and it was hard to accept who he was because you kept you s kept seeing his potential. Okay. So so this can happen when someone is even living. And I think
Jenn (42:47)
Yeah.
Edy (42:49)
that's where grief is. it can happen in our very alive relationships where there is this hope, this expectation.
Edy (43:00)
that the person we're
Jenn (43:01)
Mm.
Edy (43:02)
with is going to change and because you can see that the love is there and you can feel the love but only if only if only they could do and there's that hope the hope of change and it's it's the if only that exists within us right and if we
Jenn (43:20)
Yeah. Yeah.
Edy (43:22)
can calm the the the the the the if only that exists within us and that's a grief
Edy (43:30)
Cause we want them to honor ourselves and fill ourselves.
Edy (43:38)
That's the dance of differentiation. That's the dance of saying, I can hold on to me and I don't need you to change. And sometimes it is in death that we get there, and sometimes we can do it in life, but there in life is where the grief work is.
Jenn (43:57)
That's right. Beautiful. I mean, I feel like I could wrap the conversation there, but I really want to ask you one more question. I want to honor your time and everything, but I'm also just I know, me too. That's this is this is why
Edy (44:06)
Okay. It's all good. I can't even believe we've been talking this long. I've been so involved, you know.
Jenn (44:13)
we should do it. We have to do it part two, if you're up for it. I would love to.
Edy (44:16)
Absolutely.
Edy (44:16)
I would it'd be both it would be a pleasure. Yeah.
Jenn (44:20)
Yeah,
Jenn (44:20)
same. I think, you know, as we're having this conversation and we're kind of meandering in like ideas and feelings and, you know, all of this, I guess I wonder, is it ever challenging for you to be in day-to-day conversation? Like as someone who I experience in the brief time I've gotten to know you, as a deep individual that is so thoughtful and intuitive and all all the lovely things,
Jenn (44:50)
I don't know, is it ever challenging for you to pop out and just be in kind of the mundane of day to day?
Edy (44:57)
I don't think anyone's ever asked me that question.
Jenn (44:59)
Really?
Jenn (45:02)
I think about that shit a lot. So yeah.
Edy (45:04)
Thank
Edy (45:05)
you.
Edy (45:15)
So it's taken me a little bit of a while to figure out how the world works. Because I I have not in my life done chit-chat very well. And I don't talk, I'm from the Midwest, and we talk about the weather. Everybody talks about the weather. How's the weather? You know?
Edy (45:42)
And and I can do it for
Edy (45:44)
A a short period of time, but I I do tend to just want to know about someone. I tend to just want to know who you are. I want to know the whys and the ins and the outs, and I can be playful. for sure, for sure. but it's taken time to get to the
Edy (46:14)
to the play. And and I would say that my outlets for play come in the form of some ancient arts like clay and pottery and planting and being in the earth. And I I don't take anything lightly,
Edy (46:40)
I can be lighthearted and I can certainly be silly and I can be a jokester. I want to see people's hearts. And I want to be with the heart no matter what. And and and that comes in the form of ritual and shamanism and drumming and and doing regression work and and just
Edy (47:05)
Knowing that we all need to gather and laugh and drum and play through song. And so even the things that I choose to do, though not prescribed and can be very spontaneous, I I I I love watching containers form and I love the idea of the container.
Edy (47:33)
being a container of love and hopefully the safety and the trust that I cannot create, but that others might be able to bring in and share.
Jenn (47:51)
So absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing all of that too. I think I relate so much and even raising a child now who is a deep person and sort of watching that how to
Edy (48:04)
Mm.
Jenn (48:05)
navigate day-to-day life when not everyone is able to ready to, especially with youth, to go into those places and but
Edy (48:12)
That's right.
Jenn (48:12)
thank you for kind of being willing to go there with me.
Jenn (48:16)
Yeah.
Edy (48:16)
Well,
Edy (48:17)
I I figure if you asked the question, one can only ask that kind of question if they have been there themselves.
Jenn (48:25)
Indeed. Indeed.
Edy (48:27)
So your question opened a door and we were able to to to walk that path because you opened it. So thank you.
Edy (48:41)
Truly. Yeah.
Jenn (48:42)
Well I'm
Jenn (48:43)
so excited for our next
Edy (48:45)
Yeah.
Jenn (48:45)
installment, but thank you for your generosity of sharing your thoughts, your heart, your openness with us. I it's very moving to be able to be in this space with you.
Edy (48:58)
Ditto, thank you so much for allowing me to share this with you and for sharing so much with with with all of us here.
