I've been thinking a lot recently about what I actually know and have learned after 35 years of caringness, what's helped, what I wish somebody had told me earlier. The first thing is that grief doesn't move in this straight line and nobody should tell you it does. I thought it was supposed to go in those stages of grief like this to this to this to this and then you're going to be here and then you're going to feel this and you're going to come out the other side and then you're going to move on. But, it doesn't work like that. One day I I will be in a grocery store even now and a song will come on and it will undo things like all these years later and I'll think, what is going on What is going on with me?I already I already got through that. I already went through that. Nothing is wrong with me. Nothing is wrong with you. Grief moves more like an ocean than it does a calendar.It ebbs and flows. It can go real calm and quiet for stretches and then a wave comes and knocks you out flat. It's not a sign you're not healing. That's just kind of how this works and anybody that tells you it doesn't, maybe hasn't been through this. The second thing, we don't just move on.I really believe we move forward. And I've watched, not just with my mom, but with my dad losing two wives in his lifetime. We move forward. Those two things sound similar, but they're actually completely different. Moving on implies leaving her behind.Like, okay, chapter closed, what's next? Moving forward allows you to know you're going to carry that person with you into every new thing. So, my mom doesn't get smaller as my life gets bigger. She comes with me and I think about her at every significant moment. Like, she is there.
Just not how I would love her to be. The third thing, and this is one that I have leaned on. I want you to say her name. Talk about her. Tell the stories.
As long as you're speaking her name and sharing who she was, you are keeping something alive that has to die just because she did. And you don't have to let go of that love in order to make room for new love, too. All those things coexist. They really do. And I feel like I've become living proof of that now.
I could never have seen that at 20 or 25 or 30. Like, I was I just couldn't have seen it. I actually tried to ignore that pain and cover it up with other things. And it wasn't until I really worked through it, and I worked through it with a therapist, and I've done some different things to really understand all that, not feel so angry. Grief and happiness can live in the same house.
And it's interesting, Wendy Suzuki, a neuroscientist who has been on the show, said this to me, and I never forgot this. She lost her father and her brother within months of each other. I cannot even imagine. And she said that what she realized through the grief was that she couldn't feel that depth of pain without there having been that depth of love. Think about that.
You couldn't feel the depth of pain without there being the depth of that love. And she said when she finally understood that, that the grief was just the love with nowhere to go, she exhaled. And I have to tell you when she said that, I thought about it all weekend after she left the show. We recorded the show and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, no one's ever said that to me before. I've never even thought of something like that." So, maybe you're in a lot of pain right now.
Maybe you had your mom for a long time, but she passed recently and this is your first Mother's Day without her. And my arms are around you if that's the case. But I want you to know, if you're in a lot of pain, it's because you loved a lot. That's not a wound. That is evidence of something really beautiful that you had.
And for the women in complicated living relationships, while I have not been through that, what I've come to understand is that grieving what you didn't have is also really so legitimate. Grieving the mother you needed and didn't get. That version of this relationship that you see a lot of other people in, that you were hoping for or still hope for. That grief that you're going through, that deserves the same space and the same type of compassion as any other thing we're talking about. You're not less than that that's not less than just because your mother is still alive and maybe you don't have that relationship.
It's interesting, I booked Kelly McDaniel on this show, who wrote a book called Mother Hunger. And I read the book and I knew the questions I was going to ask her, but I don't think until she was right in front of me that I really, really understood the framework of all of it. And it's been really powerful. It's powerful for women who didn't get what they needed from their mothers. And she identified three essential elements of maternal love that I'd never thought about before.
Nurturance, protection, and guidance. And I never split anything up like that. And a lot of it's because my mother was sick for a very long time before she died. And maybe I just I just didn't have any clear you know, I didn't do any clinical work in all of this. But what she found in her clinical work is that when any one of those three things, nurturance, protection, and guidance is missing, you feel it in different ways in your life.
You feel that hunger for touch, for belonging. Some people feel a constant low level of anxiety that they don't know where it comes from. Some feel like they don't have an internal compass for their own choices. That is not a character flaw. That is a gap that was created and never filled.
Here's what also stayed with me. Those three things can be found elsewhere. You're not too old or too late for that. Nurturance, warmth of somebody who sees you and says, "I'm here." That could be a friend. That could be a a mentor.
That could be a therapist. That could be your community of women right now. Then there's protection. That's somebody that's in your corner that helps you kind of feel safe in the world. And then finally, the third one, guidance.
Maybe it's an older woman who helps you think through your choices and allows you to trust your instincts more. That's also available, too, if you're looking for it. Maybe that comes in the form of a friend you haven't talked to in a long time. You pick up the phone and then they just kind of know you and they're there for you. And I think about that.
I have had people that have given me all three of those things in the absence of my own mother. Women who have shown up in that role, not people I predicted. A colleague who checked on me more than she had any obligation to do. That was during my divorce. I had a therapist who helped me really understand myself and put things into place.
I have friends who have become family. They're with me on holidays every year. It didn't mean I replaced my mom. You don't replace your mother. But you can build something that holds you in some of those ways.And for women who have never had it to begin with, finding those things can feel like you're finally going forward. So, I hope that for you. I hope that you can open yourself up to, you know, finding your people, especially if you're in midlife right now and this is hitting in a lot of different ways because I certainly know it does. I always want to leave you with some things that are going to help a little bit because we never know when that wave is going to hit us and knock us on our butt. It could be a song, a smell, you know, I don't know, something that you see, a picture.For a lot of us it could come this weekend with Mother's Day here and everybody getting gifts and flowers and all sorts of stuff. I hope you can try not to run from it. I know the instinct and it's what I've done all along is to get busy, distract myself, push myself through, but the wave is going to eventually find you. And letting it come when it comes is less exhausting than trying to outrun it. Cry through it if you need to, feel it, talk to somebody about it, move through.That is actually how you do the work. Another thing I want you to do this weekend is move your body. And I know that sounds like something people say when they they don't know what else to say, but there is truth in it. When grief sits in you, it can feel like, I mean, it just can feel like this tight chest, like you can't get a deep breath, you can't breathe, it's all shallow, heaviness that won't lift, you can you can't even see any light. Moving, even if it's getting up in the morning and walking before everybody else gets up, getting outside tells your nervous system something different.It doesn't take the grief away, of course, but for me it kind of loosens things a little bit so I know it's okay to breathe. Something else I do, I did this for a very long a time afterwards. I don't know if I do it as much now, but I do it from time to time, is write to your mom. Write her a letter. Tell her what's been happening.Tell her what you miss. Tell her what you're proud of. Tell her what you're angry about if that's somewhere in you. You don't have to send it anywhere, of course, but I really believe that act of writing is a thing. Like AI is not going to do that for you.Writing it in your notes on your phone is not going to do that for you. I want to sit down and write. And for women with complicated living relationships, you can write to the mother you needed, even if she's not the mother you have. That letter's for you, it's not for her. That is all for you.You don't have to do anything with it but hold on to it. And then finally, I hope that even if it's not on Sunday, maybe it's Friday, maybe it's Saturday, find the people who can hold some space for it. Not people who want to fix it or hurry along, people who can sit with you in it. If you don't have that person in your life right now, maybe a good therapist, maybe somebody who works with grief could be that person, because I don't want you to carry any of this alone. And you don't have to figure it out alone, either.So, remember, if you are hurting this weekend, it is because you loved deeply. That is not something you have to get through. It is something you get to honor. Give yourself permission to feel whatever you need to feel on Sunday. You don't have to perform joy.You don't have to explain your grief to anybody. You don't have to be okay. And you don't have to not be okay, either. You can be whatever you need to be. Just be gentle with yourself, please, and know that we're all in this in different situations.My mom died so many years ago, and I still feel that. And some of you, this may be your first Mother's Day without her. If you have a story that you want to share about your mom, about what helps, about what this day brings up, leave a comment, leave a review. I want to hear from you. And if there's a woman in your life for whom Sunday is going to be hard, and you probably know who it is, maybe if you don't know what to say, just reach out and say, "I'm thinking about you." That's enough.That's all. That's all you have to do. I hope this helped in some way. I hope you know you're not alone. I hope you know that's what this show is all about.I want to thank you so much for listening to this show, for being here with us. We put a lot into these conversations because there are a lot of hard conversations that we have to have and I hope this helped in some small way and I will see you next time.
