David Kessler On How To Overcome Trauma, Heal Yourself, Live With Grief & Move Forward

Summary

The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast: David Kessler On How To Overcome Trauma, Heal Yourself, Live With Grief & Move Forward

Release Date: February 13, 2025

Hosts: Lauryn Evarts Bosstick & Michael Bosstick

Guest: David Kessler, renowned expert on grief and loss

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Introduction

In this poignant episode of The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast, hosts Lauryn Bosstick and Michael Bosstick delve deep into the intricate journey of grief and healing with esteemed guest David Kessler, one of the world's foremost experts on grief and loss. Drawing from his extensive experience and personal narratives, David provides invaluable insights into overcoming trauma, embracing grief, and moving forward with resilience.

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Michael’s Personal Journey with Grief (00:04 - 07:20)

Michael opens up about his traumatic childhood experiences, detailing the loss of his mother amidst a mass shooting in 1973 and the subsequent dysfunction within his family. He shares:

"When I went to community college, there was a class on death and dying. Suddenly, there was a language for what I had gone through. There were words for it." ([05:51])

This pivotal moment marked the beginning of his path to understanding and healing, highlighting the importance of education and awareness in the grieving process.

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Understanding Grief: The Five Stages and Beyond (08:21 - 10:05)

David Kessler engages with Michael on the classic Kubler-Ross model of the five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—and introduces the concept of a sixth stage:

"Post-traumatic growth became the sixth stage, the finding meaning." ([10:05])

This addition emphasizes the transformative potential of grief, suggesting that individuals can not only heal but also find profound meaning in their experiences.

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Navigating Trauma and Victimhood (10:05 - 17:05)

Michael discusses the interplay between grief and trauma, asserting:

"All trauma has grief, but not all grief has trauma." ([10:39])

He explores the societal tendency to minimize traumatic experiences, often leading individuals to adopt a victim identity. David and Michael stress the importance of reclaiming personal power to move beyond being victims.

Michael also touches on his current work, focusing on training therapists and leading online support groups, which allows him to manage his empathy fatigue while still contributing to the healing of others.

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Supporting Those Who Grieve (17:05 - 22:18)

The conversation shifts to practical advice on how to support someone experiencing grief. Michael emphasizes the significance of presence over solutions:

"Don't start a sentence with, 'At least they're not suffering anymore.' There are no right words. Just let them know you're here." ([44:10])

David adds, highlighting the continuous nature of grief:

"What we run from pursues us, and what we face transforms us." ([69:03])

This section underscores the importance of empathy, understanding, and sustained support for those navigating their grief journeys.

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Types of Grief and Prolonged Factors (28:34 - 44:35)

David shares his personal loss—his mother’s suicide—and the compounded feelings of guilt and what-ifs that accompany such tragedies. Michael provides insights into specialized grief work, particularly post-suicide:

"Anticipatory grief is the grief before the death. You're grieving all along." ([66:57])

They discuss complicated grief arising from sudden or prolonged losses and the unique challenges each type presents, emphasizing that healing is a personal and non-linear process.

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Connection and Community as Healing Tools (44:35 - 57:27)

Michael highlights the healing power of connection and community, suggesting:

"One of the things that's been proven to heal grief and trauma is connection." ([43:15])

Both David and Michael advocate for engaging with others who have faced similar losses, whether through support groups, therapy, or shared experiences, to foster mutual understanding and healing.

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Finding Meaning and Post-Traumatic Growth (57:27 - 69:03)

The episode delves into the concept of post-traumatic growth, where individuals emerge from their traumas with newfound strength and purpose. Michael reflects on his journey:

"People understand that all the fame in the world doesn't bring someone dead back. All the money in the world doesn't." ([20:48])

David adds that transforming pain into purpose is crucial for long-term healing, emphasizing that while grief never fully dissipates, it can be integrated into a fulfilling life narrative.

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Final Thoughts and Takeaways (69:03 - 70:34)

In concluding the episode, Michael and David reiterate the inevitability of grief and the importance of facing it head-on rather than succumbing to fear or isolation. They encourage listeners to seek connection, embrace their emotions, and recognize that healing is a continuous journey.

"Fear doesn't stop death. Death is going to happen. Fear stops us from living this moment." ([69:19])

This powerful reminder encapsulates the episode's core message: embracing grief as a natural part of life and using it as a catalyst for personal growth and deeper connections.

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Notable Quotes

• Michael Bostick ([05:51]):

  "When I went to community college, there was a class on death and dying. Suddenly, there was a language for what I had gone through. There were words for it."

• David Kessler ([10:05]):

  "Post-traumatic growth became the sixth stage, the finding meaning."

• Michael Bostick ([44:10]):

  "Don't start a sentence with, 'At least they're not suffering anymore.' There are no right words. Just let them know you're here."

• David Kessler ([69:03]):

  "What we run from pursues us, and what we face transforms us."

• Michael Bostick ([20:48]):

  "People understand that all the fame in the world doesn't bring someone dead back. All the money in the world doesn't."

• Michael Bostick ([69:19]):

  "Fear doesn't stop death. Death is going to happen. Fear stops us from living this moment."

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Conclusion

This episode serves as a profound exploration of grief and trauma, offering listeners both personal anecdotes and professional expertise. David Kessler’s insights, combined with Michael’s heartfelt storytelling, provide a compassionate roadmap for anyone grappling with loss. By emphasizing the importance of connection, understanding, and finding meaning, the podcast delivers tangible takeaways for enhancing one's capacity to heal and thrive amidst life's inevitable sorrows.

Transcript

[Michael Bostick]

The following podcast is a Dear Media Production.

[Lauren Everts]

She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire.

[Michael Bostick]

Fantastic.

[Lauren Everts]

And he's a serial entrepreneur, a very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostick are bringing you along for the ride.

[David Kessler]

Get ready for some major realness.

[Lauren Everts]

Welcome to the Skinny Confidential him and her. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential him and her show. Today we have David Kessler on the podcast. He is one of the world's foremost experts on all types of grief and loss. This episode covers a heavy subject and topic that many of us, or if not all of us, are going to face throughout our lives when it comes to grief. His decades of experience with thousands of people on the edge of life and death has taught him the secrets to living a happy and fulfilled life, even after life's tragedies. He is the author of seven books, including his latest bestselling book, Finding Meaning. The Sixth Stage of Grief. We go really deep in this episode with David talking about some of our experiences. Grief at some point, like I said earlier, hits almost all of us, if not every one of us. And it's something that I know everyone at some point is going to experience. So being able to digest it and understand it a little bit more, being able to come to terms with how to think about grief and how to go through the process of grief, this episode is really helpful for all of that. David was one of our favorite guests we've had on this podcast and we go deep with him with that. David Kessler. Welcome to Skinny Confidential, him and her show. This is the Skinny Confidential him and Her.

[David Kessler]

This subject is a heavy subject. There's a lot of, I think, a lot of. I don't know, it kind of feels like laser tag. You have to be careful with how you approach it because everyone's grief is different. But when I saw you speak about it and I saw your books, you're so eloquent and elegant with it. So I wanted to have you on. My first question to just set the stage is how you even get interested in this topic to begin with.

[Michael Bostick]

Yeah, it's so true. Like, no one in the third grade is like, oh, please, oh, teacher. I want to be death grief. That's what I want to do, right? It's like, it's not. And there's so much grief in the world. You know, different ways. Relationships, death, narcissists, there's a million things. So when I was a kid, I had a mother who I thought she was just ill. She went to a hospital in the big city A few hours away. We went there, my father and I, to a hotel cross the way. While we're there, I remember one day in the hospital, I was able to get in my parents, as my mother's dying, had a monogamy discussion in front of me. By the way, never have a 13 year old present for a monogamy discussion. Not a good parenting technique. Nor is it a good relationship thing to deal with. So I had that weirdness. My family was dysfunctional. My mother would probably be considered narcissistic now. My father was an addict. So much dysfunction. And then she's sick. We're there. And one day at the hotel across street, someone yells, fire. Everyone runs out. Fire department comes up, extends the ladders. And the next thing you know, shooting starts. What? It turns out it went on for like hours. It was one of the first mass shootings in the U.S. holy shit. So I see people being killed. I see people being killed. Police, you know, so much. Hotel guests. My father's desperately trying to get us back over to the hospital. We do. Couple days later, my mother dies. It's so much trauma. My father had to call up because he couldn't afford the funeral. I mean, it was just like a lot of stuff.

[David Kessler]

From an outside perspective, I have. I have questions. When your mother died from the mass shooting or from something else?

[Michael Bostick]

She had an illness across the street from where there was a mass shooting.

[Lauren Everts]

So the mass shooting took place in a hotel that you were in. A hotel that you were staying in.

[Michael Bostick]

That we were staying at.

[David Kessler]

So it was across the street from the hospital that your mother was dying. Geez, that's like a.

[Michael Bostick]

It's like a hamburger cacophony of like, crap happening.

[Lauren Everts]

What year? What year was this?

[Michael Bostick]

73.

[David Kessler]

And then the monogamy conversation, when you said, how do you mean that they were talking about being with other people? What do you mean?

[Michael Bostick]

My mother, who's fragile and ill, said to my father, have you been with anyone? And I saw him look down and said, no.

[David Kessler]

And you knew he was lying?

[Michael Bostick]

He knew he was lying.

[David Kessler]

Do you think that she was just so sick that she couldn't even comprehend that you were in the room? And the ramification of that. Or do you think it's the narcissist?

[Michael Bostick]

Couldn't tell you? Probably all of the above. All of the above. And I also had like, you know, they would always fight, and when they fought, every argument a suitcase got opened, like. So it was like I came into my teenage years, I just thought, I am so screwed up. And so damaged. And I just thought, well, this is forever. This is like, just. I was just going to be screwed up. And then I went to community college, and there was two classes, and they're like, here's the easy classes. Human sexuality and death and dying. And then, like, Human sexuality was full, and I'm like, I can take death and dying. And like, all of a sudden, there was a language for what I had gone through. There were words for it. There was Kubler Ross with the stages. And I'm like, oh, oh, maybe I can figure this out.

[David Kessler]

So you were able to sort of control what had happened to you in a way where you, like, knowledge is power.

[Michael Bostick]

Yes. I'm like, but I thought I was the only one. I mean, I remember trying to talk to someone once in a stairwell of the hospital about, you know, this is really hard. I remember them saying to me, stay strong and stay strong, especially to a guy. But I think to anyone sort of means stuff your feelings and take care of everyone else. So I didn't know what to do with my feelings. I didn't know how to process any of this.

[David Kessler]

When you're that young, before you went to the community college, how did you deal with it? Did it manifest?

[Michael Bostick]

Dropped out of school. Dropped out of school in the ninth grade. Thought, you know, screw. I really thought this life screwed up. I was just trying to. I was lost for a few years and just walking the streets and trying to figure out what to do. My father didn't know how to be a parent, you know, and so it was later on that I went, oh, I wonder, can this be fixable? And luckily, I just had a neighbor who said, you can go get this thing called a ged. And I got a ged, and then I went to community college, and then I challenged my high school, and it sort of all began to get better as I was trying to figure out my own healing.

[Lauren Everts]

Can I ask you maybe an ignorant question? I don't know if it's ignorant or just misplaced a little bit. Can you experience grief with people that have not yet passed while you're still.

[Michael Bostick]

Oh, yeah.

[Lauren Everts]

While they're like, meaning somebody that's still with us. But there is something that's changed, and it's almost like you experience as if they have died.

[David Kessler]

You mentioned narcissist personality disorder.

[Michael Bostick]

Yeah, it's a great question. So just to, like, sort of think about this in the big picture, I think of grief is always a change you didn't want, and it's the death of something. A breakup is the death of that romantic relationship. A divorce is the death of a marriage. Betrayal is the death of the trust. Being with a narcissist feels like the death of yourself. And so there's all these losses and the death of a person and pet loss and everything else, all under this one word, grief.

[Lauren Everts]

And my follow up to that is, if that is the case, do the same feelings, a breakup or the things that you just described, does it elicit the same feeling chemically in the body as if you had actually lost someone physically or.

[Michael Bostick]

No, they all have a little differences, but essentially, yes. I mean, the things I teach really apply to it all.

[David Kessler]

Okay, when you learned all these things in community college, at first, is there something that really resonated and woke you up? Can you remember something that you were like, whoa, was it the five stages? Is it six or five?

[Michael Bostick]

It's five. And then I added the six.

[David Kessler]

You added the six.

[Michael Bostick]

And you know, the stages that Kubler Ross talked about are denial. I can't believe this is happening. And think about this. Whether you think about a relationship, a divorce, a death, can't believe this is happening. You know, we also have anger. You get angry about stuff. Bargaining is all the what ifs and if only we'll. What if I had done this? Would the marriage not have ended? What if I had done this? Might they not have died by suicide or, you know, gone to a different doctor? Then there's depression, the sadness. There's also so many acceptances we have to go through. And so there's so many different feelings. And those aren't linear. They're not like five easy steps, you know, to get through your grief. And the interesting thing is I heard so much over decades of working with people, we always talk about post traumatic stress from all these losses. I was interested in post traumatic growth, and to me that became the sixth stage, the finding meaning.

[David Kessler]

It seems like when something catastrophic or trauma happens to a person that's so life changing, they either use it almost to become, and I don't know if this is the right word, a victim, or they use it to fuel. Have you seen the differences between that? Is there a name for that? Do I even make sense with what I'm saying?

[Michael Bostick]

Yeah, it makes sense. So here's what happens is that sometimes these horrible things happen. And all grief doesn't have trauma, but all trauma has grief.

[David Kessler]

All grief doesn't have trauma.

[Michael Bostick]

Right? Think of your 105 year old grandfather who had a great life.

[Lauren Everts]

My grandma just passed. She wasn't well into her 90s and it was peaceful passing.

[Michael Bostick]

So there's no trauma there.

[David Kessler]

All trauma has grief, right?

[Michael Bostick]

Sexual abuse is the loss of the trust, the loss of the safety. Narcissism is the loss of the self. So there's always a loss in these things. And many times when people do trauma work, they forget to do the grief work, and you got to do both. And so when we talk about how we deal with these things, I think it's the thing to recognize we're actually built for this. But this is a world that has so minimized what has happened with people, whether it's sexual abuse over the years, a million different things. I mean, look at the Menendez brothers. There's all kinds of examples of people who. Menendez brothers. Not that they didn't do terrible things, but there was a. Oh, sexual abuse doesn't happen to men back then. All those things get minimized. And that takes us from being victimized to taking on a victim identity. And part of my work is to help people find their power again so that they lose that sense of being a victim. You may have been victimized, but you don't have to be a victim your whole life.

[David Kessler]

Out of all the people that you've worked with and interviewed and all your studies, is there a particular trauma that you. It's. It's really. It's a. It's. It's really difficult. Is there, like, a spectrum of trauma?

[Michael Bostick]

Gosh, you know, I have seen so many different things, and I think they can all be horrific. I mean, there's a dear friend of mine that, like, you know, husband cheated, and it was just horrifically humiliating. There's, you know, other people I know that have had a murder. You know, there's just. There's so much crap in the world. Children dying, stuff happens. You know, sexual abuse. There's people who, you know. And one of the things I try to teach about in old wounds and trauma and how all these things go together is that these things don't just affect us. They really stop us from having healthy relationships. They stop us from having happiness. I think that's what I realized in my own life, that, like, oh, I gotta work on all this if I'm ever going to have a good relationship with people, if I'm going to be having, you know, satisfying relationships and honest and helpful relationships.

[David Kessler]

Did you work through the steps to move forward? And do you feel at this point, with all the work you do, that you have moved forward from what happened to you?

[Michael Bostick]

Yes. But here's one of the things I learned that I think is important, especially my old wounds, because the stuff that happened, neglect, my father's rage, someone else there was sexual abuse. A lot of those little voices and those old wounds never go away.

[David Kessler]

Yeah.

[Michael Bostick]

But you can really turn the volume down and learn to just ignore them. And I have a friend, Dr. Edith Eager, who says, take your traumatic wounds and turn them into cherished wounds.

[David Kessler]

And she's been through, she's been through it.

[Michael Bostick]

From the Holocaust to everything else she's.

[Lauren Everts]

Been on the show.

[David Kessler]

She has been through, through it.

[Michael Bostick]

I was just at her birthday. It was so. She's just like 97. Like amazing, amazing. And so, you know, to realize no matter what you've been through, you can make this life work, but no one teaches us. And the thing is, there's people like her and me who's been through so many things. I don't think, though, so many of us know to go get help. There's people who we all have friends that like, yeah. They just can't have relationships. Nope. They're just never happy with life. Nope. They can't hold down a job. Yeah. And we forget it's not truly them, it's their old wounds that run their life now.

[David Kessler]

So let me ask you this. We had this really amazing therapist on the show. She wrote the book Good Morning Monster. And I asked her all these questions about therapy and I was like, why.

[Unknown]

Aren'T you a therapist anymore?

[David Kessler]

And she had been a therapist, I don't know, into maybe her 70s. And she said, I ran out of empathy. I thought that was very honest and very self aware. With all that you've seen and done, do you feel one, that you'll run out of empathy or two, that you already have? Like, what is that? Like you've seen so much. When someone comes to you crying that they lost their pet parrot, how do you tap back into that and realize it's still grief?

[Michael Bostick]

And here's that question that makes you different. All right. So, yeah. So, you know, one of the things, Gosh, I haven't actually ever answered this one before, but here's right now all I do is train therapists and run groups online. And the reason I don't do one to one anymore is there's a part of me that it's hard to sit through. Yes. But no, I can't. No, you're wrong. It's never going to get better. I mean, it's sort of like if you're so committed to it's never going to get better. It's really Hard for me. I want to see people who are really motivated to change things. And there is a place where people are so wounded they can't believe change is possible. And I love running groups online and training therapists to help other people now, because that's all I do is. And coaches and people. Because there's something about when you have a group, when you, yes, bot me and go, no, no, you don't understand. I'm like, okay, I don't understand. Stick around, someone will understand. And then the next person who comes up will say the thing you needed to hear.

[David Kessler]

And it almost defuses the negative person.

[Michael Bostick]

Yeah, it's sort of like we're not sort of debating over whether healing is possible.

[Lauren Everts]

So let me ask you this question because. And this is populated. Lauren and I were actually just talking about this the other day. She was saying, like, why don't you. There's certain people. And this is kind of a selfish question in my personal life where at some point I have decided to stop providing advice or stop working through or stop listening to the same thing in my personal life. And the reason being is what I have to do with some of these, not everybody, but some people, is that some people are just determined to stay in the same place while saying the same thing over and over again. And so what I look at is I'd rather not have the fight or the confrontation or call the person out for something that I think could be changed. It's not my place if they're committed to that. And she was asking me the other day, she's like, why don't you say anything anymore to this person. Person that's close? I'm like, well, I'd rather just maintain the status quo of the relationship because I don't want to have the fight and the energy anymore or make the person uncomfortable any longer. Not that I have every answer, but for people like that that are just committed to staying it, what can we do to help them if anything?

[Michael Bostick]

Here's what helped me a lot. And it's going to be interesting where I found the answer. A friend of mine and I, we became great friends from doing a show together. Is William Shatner from Star Trek. Okay.

[Lauren Everts]

He's also in great health. It looks amazing.

[Michael Bostick]

Great health, like in his 90s, too. There was a rule in Star Trek. It was one of their. I forgot imperatives, paradifs. I forgot someone's going to correct me and tell me what they are. But it was. If you go to a planet and the wheel hasn't been invented, they couldn't tell them about the wheel. And I think about that. People have to find the answer. And I'm just like you. I am a fixer. You give me a problem. Like, I love. My friends are like, hey, I don't know what to do about this. And I'll. You want an answer? I got three options. I love helping people, but if someone's sort of in that place where they're just so wounded, they're committed to no change, I'm like, they gotta find the answer when they're ready, not when I'm ready. And I become exactly like you. I'm like, I can't. It's going to backfire if I just try to teach someone who doesn't want to be taught.

[Lauren Everts]

Yeah. Because she was asking me the other day, there's someone that's closer to life. She's like, you can kind of see maybe some of the choices they're making are not going to end well.

[David Kessler]

This is the hot tip. This is what I say to my friends now.

[Unknown]

Are you at requests for coaching?

[Michael Bostick]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Kessler]

And if they say yes, I said, you want feedback?

[Michael Bostick]

Yeah.

[David Kessler]

If they say yes, good. If they say no, they just want someone to listen no.

[Lauren Everts]

But a lot of time they say yes, and they really don't want it. Still.

[Michael Bostick]

It is true. It is true. All of the above is true. And the thing is, you have to give advice in a detached way, you know? Cause it worries me if I spend a lot of time with you and you're like, all right, well, that's the.

[Lauren Everts]

Way I look at it. I'm like, why sour the relationship and, you know, waste the time?

[David Kessler]

Let me ask you this. You have been around a lot of celebrities. You live in la. Is there a difference between the way you white glove a celebrity as opposed to someone that's, you know, a regular person off the street? Because there might. Sometimes there's a narcissistic element to certain celebrities.

[Michael Bostick]

I think grief is an area that's a little different. And here's why. Freud had a great quote where someone said, would you rather counsel someone rich or poor? And he said, rich. And they said, why? And he goes, they know the answer's not in money anymore.

[David Kessler]

Ooh.

[Michael Bostick]

And you know, in la, is that.

[David Kessler]

That's a real quote. He said that I'm not.

[Michael Bostick]

That's what I heard. I heard someone will fact check it, but that's right. But that's what I heard. And I think there's something amazing about that. That in la, especially if you're Doing grief work is. You know, people understand that all the fame in the world doesn't bring someone dead back. All the money in the world doesn't. You know, when I've been with billionaires who are dying and, like, they died the same way as everyone else. I mean, death and grief are kind of the great equalizers. You know, when I'm with someone who's getting divorced, their tears are the same whether they're rich, famous. It's really remarkable. And I'll tell you, like, on my online group, it's not like six people, it's hundreds of people. And it's on zoom. And you're leading it, and I'm leading it.

[David Kessler]

That's cool.

[Michael Bostick]

And we've had lots of huge celebrities in there with their camera off with a different name. No one knows they're there.

[David Kessler]

And you're. What are you talking about in these zooms? And what have people found so helpful because they're obviously such a hit?

[Michael Bostick]

Well, I think. And these are just for death of a person.

[David Kessler]

Okay.

[Michael Bostick]

And so we have 26 different groups from addiction and death of a sibling to death of a mother, father, child, you know, suicide, fentanyl poisoning. I mean, all the horrible things in the world. I have groups for them.

[David Kessler]

So it's niche groups.

[Michael Bostick]

Yes. And then there's big sessions where I work with one or two people online and other people watch. And so it's a group where, like, so many people, you know, have come, and there's a lot of celebrities that end up doing other things just to help people that they really get it. I mean, you know, whether it's people like Will Reeve, who. His father was Superman, Christopher Reeve, you know, he's really tried to educate others. Wynonna Judd, Ashley Judd have been really wonderful in helping William Shatner. I mean, a lot of people, you know, there's some celebrities I work with that are like, okay, we're done. This is private. No one will ever know. And there's others, like, let me help other people. Let me share. And there's no right or wrong way to do grief.

[Unknown]

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[David Kessler]

Maybe from this show?

[Unknown]

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There is one thing that I cannot live without, and it is my morning fascia facial manipulation. And I do this every single morning for 10 minutes. It's a little bit of a commitment, but it's changed the texture and the tightness of my skin. So I have to use a specific serum or even an oil with it. And the serum that I've been using lately every single morning is lawn combs. And the one that I like was actually recommended to me by a top dermatologist, Dr. Sheila. She has a podcast called Derma Proove. And she told me about this serum that has three insane ingredients. There's hyaluronic in it, there's licorice root, and there's also beta glucan, which is a powerful ingredient that's inspired by the medical field. And this helps to repair your skin's moisture barrier, which we all want. So I look at this as a habit stack. I'm getting a little bit of facial massage in while I use this very powerful serum. The serum is called Genifique Ultimate Serum. I liked it so much that I had the brand send me a bunch. Michael even stole a bottle. It's really, like, luxurious and it feels amazing, but it plumps your skin like no other. So what I noticed is when I'm massaging my face, it, like, gives my skin an umph and increases circulation while it's plumping. And that, I think has a lot to do with the hyaluronic acid, which is designed to hydrate and plump. The pure licorice extract is designed to help with skin tone, which is something I need because sometimes I can get some hyperpigmentation. And it also really helps soothe the skin. So this combo in the morning with my facial massage outside is a real win. I like to do it outside. I get my sunlight in. It's just getting everything all in at once. And you got to do that as a mom. You got to multitask shop now on lancom d usa.com you can use code TSC20. You get 20% off the Genifique ultimate. Make sure you try this serum if you're looking to upgrade your skin barrier and your facial massage game.

[David Kessler]

My mom died of suicide, and I would love to know how you Work specifically with people who have lost someone to suicide. Because it's so jarring and there's so much guilt and there's so much what if. What are the tools that you do to help people?

[Michael Bostick]

So first of all, it's your mother.

[David Kessler]

Yeah.

[Michael Bostick]

Your mother's always going to sting. Yeah, it's always going to.

[David Kessler]

And also when I became a mother again, it brings it up again.

[Michael Bostick]

Yeah, of course. So we're learning a lot. Death by suicide and addiction. What's going on? Just say what's coming up.

[David Kessler]

It's just hard to talk about.

[Michael Bostick]

Yeah. And it's hard to talk about because of the love you have for her and because of the tragedy that she went through. Here's the thing. Thirty years ago, we used to think about death by suicide and addiction. By the way, every one of those tears is a tear of love.

[David Kessler]

Oh, my God, he's so cute. He's so sweet.

[Michael Bostick]

True. It's a tear of love.

[David Kessler]

Well, I think suicide was really different than it was now. It was almost. I wasn't embarrassed, but I could tell the people around me were embarrassed.

[Michael Bostick]

So we know now death by suicide and addiction are illnesses of the mind. Illnesses of the mind. And all the things that people learned back then that, you know, committed suicide. I teach therapists don't use the word committed because committed implies a sin or a crime.

[David Kessler]

It's negative a little bit.

[Michael Bostick]

Yeah. And death by suicide is not a crime or a sin. It is an illness.

[David Kessler]

Yeah. And there's a lot that I think what people don't realize too. There's, as you know, there's a lot that leads up to it. It's not just like they decided to wake up one day and commit suicide. There's a lot of dynamic to it.

[Michael Bostick]

And here's some of the things people don't know is that the window of death by suicide is often 20 minutes.

[David Kessler]

What do you mean?

[Michael Bostick]

It can be like 20 minutes short. People think, oh, they must have been planning it for months. Sometimes it's a 20 minute window.

[David Kessler]

So you're saying, like, sometimes people are like, I just need, I need to die.

[Michael Bostick]

And it doesn't mean they didn't have illness leading up to it. But that wasn't a long, drawn out decision that we always think it is. Sometimes it's short.

[David Kessler]

I think in my case there was a long. I think it was long. Right. I just wonder, like, is there a tool for anyone who's listening that's experienced suicide that can help you get over the what if?

[Michael Bostick]

So I have a free three part series. That'[e-mail].

[David Kessler]

Okay.

[Michael Bostick]

And it walks through a lot of the things that come up and how to deal with it all. The other thing that I don't think the average person knows is We've seen children 3, 5 years old have suicidal thoughts.

[David Kessler]

Why?

[Michael Bostick]

Because it's brain wiring that's off.

[David Kessler]

Huh.

[Michael Bostick]

That's three, three, four, five years old.

[David Kessler]

And how do, how do you know that a three year old's having it?

[Michael Bostick]

They say it when they have talked about it. They have said it. Yes.

[David Kessler]

Like later on.

[Michael Bostick]

No. At that age. At three, at a young age. Wow. And so it's interesting. And part of some of the work I do is with the American foundation of Suicide Prevention. And they have so many resources. The other thing that you may have experienced. I don't know, you can tell me. We always talk about suicide prevention. I work in the field of postvention.

[David Kessler]

Right.

[Michael Bostick]

I'm always working after the tragedy has happened. And so a lot of times postvention doesn't work well with a survivor.

[David Kessler]

Why?

[Michael Bostick]

Because it makes them feel guilty. Like, oh, you know, we can save everyone. No, we can't. We should try to save everyone. Here's the thing I hope for, for our future. We know now if someone has like I had a little skin cancer, stage one, no big deal, you know, scraped it out, it's gone, it's all good. Right? We know. Stage one cancer, no big deal, get it treated. Stage four, there's advanced aggressive cancer. Ooh, it's going to be tough. May not survive it. I hope someday in the future we'll know. Oh, that person has stage one mental illness.

[David Kessler]

Yeah.

[Michael Bostick]

A little therapy is going to help them. Oh, you're a mom. Stage 4 Advanced Aggressive Mental illness wasn't going to be helped by anything in this world.

[David Kessler]

So there's nothing that you can sort of do.

[Michael Bostick]

And we know that there is a small segment that there's nothing we can do.

[David Kessler]

Yeah.

[Michael Bostick]

Because we can't differentiate it. We try everything because we don't know who's got advanced, who's not. It's the same with addiction. Some people absolutely get into a program, see a therapist, go to. Absolutely. And there's some people, no matter what we do, they're still going to die of addiction. But we got to try it all.

[David Kessler]

You got to try it. How do you know as a survivor of suicide or something, like say your parent had cancer or something horrible. How do you know if you're over it? I don't feel like it's black and white.

[Michael Bostick]

I don't think it isn't over. I think there's a learning to live with it.

[David Kessler]

Okay, and how do you know that you've gone through the stages of grief? How do you recognize that?

[Michael Bostick]

I think there is a peace you find. Now, here's the thing. I use the word healing, and when I say healing, I think of healing as when the event no longer controls us.

[David Kessler]

That makes sense.

[Michael Bostick]

So the thing is, you want to be at the place in your life someday where you're going to know. And I've had this experience because of my work, you're going to know. If your child is, you know, 10 minutes late from somewhere, are you there in the ditch, oh, my gosh, something horrid and you're catastrophizing. Or are you like, I bet they're late and you sort of don't let your history dictate all your reactions.

[David Kessler]

It's interesting, though, how you can feel at peace and then another event can trigger something. I'm not a big fan of the word trigger. Not my favorite word.

[Michael Bostick]

I use activated or.

[Unknown]

Activated.

[David Kessler]

Yeah. I'm not a big fan of emotions, and I feel like, you know, I don't know if trigger's the right word. I like. It can. It can bring up emotions. For instance, like I mentioned when I had a daughter, it brings stuff to the surface that you.

[Michael Bostick]

For healing.

[David Kessler]

Yeah, maybe, Maybe. But it's just interesting how something can bring something up.

[Michael Bostick]

Yes.

[David Kessler]

It's almost like a pimple that you think you have under control, and then you realize you don't, and it's still popping up to the surface.

[Michael Bostick]

And here's the thing. And this is really hard. It's really hard for me in my life when crap comes up and reactions come up and triggers and activators and all that to go. This is wanting to be healed. This is like an old friend knocking at my door saying, I still need a little healing over here. And to give it its due, how.

[David Kessler]

Does someone who has. Someone who's experienced something really catastrophic to them be around them? Meaning, like, how does my husband show up for me in a healthy way? How does someone who's maybe lost a child, how does their partner show up for them?

[Michael Bostick]

With empathy and compassion and with not knowing. And the biggest thing is grief isn't about fixing them. When people have feelings, feelings need to be witnessed. So it's for you to go, wow, I see you're hurting.

[David Kessler]

There's nothing he can do, right, honey?

[Michael Bostick]

Let's go see a fun movie. Let's get your mind off this.

[Lauren Everts]

And you said this earlier, I'm a fixer.

[Michael Bostick]

Me too.

[Lauren Everts]

If you listen to the show, you're like, this guy doesn't shut up sometimes. But on this subject, if you notice, I just got real quiet because I don't have that experience and I don't have all the tools or the understanding. So I just, like, I think there's nothing for me to even understand how to fix in this scenario. So I just.

[Michael Bostick]

But you knowing that is a huge thing to not try to fix.

[Lauren Everts]

Because she knows, like, if she comes to me with a problem in her business, I'll be chatting.

[David Kessler]

Don't you think, though, David, And I really want to know your honest opinion on this. I look at what happened with my mother as a huge reason that I have taken control of my life and my business and my family and done some things that I'm really proud of. So it's. I love.

[Michael Bostick]

That's the meaning. That's the post traumatic growth.

[David Kessler]

I feel very expansive in the fact that if that had not happened, I don't know that I would be where I am today. I really can say that.

[Lauren Everts]

Well, and I would just say this, like, there'swe've done almost 800 of these shows.

[Michael Bostick]

Right.

[Lauren Everts]

This is probably the second or third time she's ever even mentioned this, Taylor. Right. Like, this is, you know, like, I don't.

[David Kessler]

I don't need it to.

[Lauren Everts]

There's probably people listening that have no idea that this is even part of her story.

[David Kessler]

I don't. I don't think it needs. I don't think everything needs to be part of my story. This is not like a talking point for a press piece that I want to go around about. But what I wanted to ask you was, don't you feel that if you hadn't experienced your mother in the hospital and your father's addiction and your mother dying and the shooting, that you. You would not be able to help all these people that you've helped?

[Michael Bostick]

Yes. But here's the other thing. I will say for every one of you, there's 20 people. We know that we can go, oh, what's her problem? What's going on? Oh, she had a suicide. That's why she's so lost in life.

[David Kessler]

I never wanted to do that. I didn't want to.

[Michael Bostick]

You and I are the exceptions because most people don't have it within them and don't have the resources to get out of it. That's why it's really important. Like, you know, with My groups around death online, there's like a small fee, but no one's turned away because. For lack of funds. Because these things need to be available to everyone. Resources. Somehow in your life there were resources around that you were able to take advantage of. I only have to go on my Instagram or Facebook or something to see someone whose mother died by suicide, hasn't left the house in 20 years.

[David Kessler]

So how do you.

[Michael Bostick]

And just take that in for a moment that like, you have turned your pain into purpose.

[David Kessler]

You have to.

[Michael Bostick]

I mean, I don't, but everyone can't. And why? Because we don't have the resources for it. We don't know how. We don't talk about grief. Let me tell you the fact that you're doing this show. I mean, my phone doesn't ring off the hook with people for podcasts. I mean, I do a fair amount of them, but this isn't the hottest topic on a podcast. So just what you two are doing right now is reaching people out there.

[Lauren Everts]

Well, what I find fascinating, listening to you talk and as I'm like digesting all this, at some point, grief and death or something everybody on this planet are going to face sooner or later. It's part of the human condition.

[Michael Bostick]

I always say the death rate is 100%.

[David Kessler]

Yeah.

[Lauren Everts]

And so I, you know, I think people. One should think about that a little bit and then also talk about it more because you're right. Like when I, when I, when Lauren brings up this subject and I seared with other people, people don't. People have an opinion on everything. Very few people have an opinion on death in this subject. It's like this is a moment where people freeze up. They don't know how to say. They don't know how to be. It's uncomfortable. You don't know how to treat people. You don't know what to say to people. You don't know how to behave. You don't know how to be there for it. And I think it's likely because it's so uncomfortable for everyone because everybody knows it's inevitable that it's either going to happen to them or a loved one or a friend or whatever, that we shy away from it when maybe we should be leaning into it to understand it a little more.

[Michael Bostick]

Absolutely. And even like I went on TikTok recently, I took that plunge and it's just so fascinating to me. I do videos all the time and I did this one on sibling grief that took off and I'm like, oh, people on TikTok have really had a sibling die and no one's talking about it.

[David Kessler]

So what is sibling grief? Talk about that.

[Michael Bostick]

It's like a brother or sister who have died.

[David Kessler]

But. But what, what, what did you say that people were so, like, intrigued by?

[Michael Bostick]

First of all, you're younger. And because you're younger, often when a sibling dies, like all your friends, you're the 20 year old and all your friends are partying and you just had your sibling die and you're not partying, you don't want. You get thrown into a different world. And sibling death is the only grief that will go. Were you close? Like, what? If I'm close, you're gonna give me some support?

[David Kessler]

If not, it's almost worse if you're not close, because then there's a guilt.

[Michael Bostick]

Element because you can't make it better ever. So there's all these things and we don't talk about it. You know, it's really a grief illiterate world. And people get so isolated in their pain. I want you to think about this. What's the worst thing we do in a war? After killing someone, we isolate them. What happens in grief? You try to talk to your friends who just brightside you with toxic positivity and try to cheer you up, and it makes you feel even more alone. And one of the things that's been proven to heal grief and trauma is connection.

[David Kessler]

The problem though, with it is when it first happened to me, everyone reached out.

[Unknown]

You're overwhelmed with how they reach out.

[David Kessler]

And then a year goes by and Mother's Day happens or whatever it is. Maybe it's Father's Day for you, or a birthday, and then it's crickets, which is. I get it. People have their own lives. I understand it. But I almost think it's nicer as a friend to check in later. And I'm actually talking about like five years, 10 years down the line.

[Michael Bostick]

When I talk about the rule of threes, I say reach out to them at three weeks, three months, three years.

[David Kessler]

Yeah.

[Michael Bostick]

Cause people are like bombarding, just like you said that first week, that first month. After that, people think you're over it.

[David Kessler]

You can't even see through the windshield in the first couple days, the first week.

[Lauren Everts]

And for those people that are listening, what is an appropriate way to reach out to somebody, to one, be sensitive to what they're going through, but two, to also give them, you know, some support.

[Michael Bostick]

So it's just to start with I don't have the right words and just know I'm here. It's literally not platitudes, but presence. People want your presence. I don't know what to say. And I love you. And I'm here.

[David Kessler]

He doesn't even know what to say. And he's like that. You're saying, I don't know what to say. And you.

[Michael Bostick]

And I love you.

[David Kessler]

And you've done this for your whole life.

[Lauren Everts]

Just to let the person know that you're a support system if they need it.

[Michael Bostick]

And quit trying to find the right words. You know, it's interesting. My website's grief.com got it many years ago. I see the back end. The most visited page is the best and the worst things to say to people in grief because we don't know them.

[David Kessler]

I know, but isn't that also kind of making it about the person, not the person who lost someone?

[Michael Bostick]

Yeah.

[David Kessler]

Like, it's like, what am. How am I going to appear?

[Michael Bostick]

That's why we're trying to find the right words. And there are none. There are none. And I always tell people, don't start a sentence with at least. At least they're not suffering anymore. At least they died quickly. At least, you know, it hurts.

[Lauren Everts]

But see, this is why. Because people are so uncomfortable. It's like they're trying to find anything to try to make the person feel a little bit more comfortable. But to your point, it's like at.

[Michael Bostick]

That point in time, you can't.

[Lauren Everts]

There's nothing to say.

[David Kessler]

You know, though you have to. Also, there is good things that have come out of death for me. I really do want to say this, like, one thing in my personality that's ingrained in my personality now, and I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing you could tell me is I don't find things that other people find a big deal. Because I feel like I've had. Like, there's people that have gone to war. And what Edith went through is way worse than anything I've gone through. But going through that at a young age has created a life for me where people will freak out about shit. And I'm like, it could be worse.

[Lauren Everts]

I've tried to explain this about my.

[David Kessler]

It's worked for me.

[Lauren Everts]

Yeah. I've tried to explain this about my wife to people close to us. Sometimes on the Internet, like when you've gone through something like that, when someone says something to you mean, on the Internet, or somebody says, oh, this thing. Or they try, you know, like things that people find a big deal, especially after the last few years, like when You've had that happen to you.

[David Kessler]

I don't care.

[Lauren Everts]

Is it really that big of a deal?

[David Kessler]

So there is. I do want to say about death, I. There are some positive things. You become more resilient. Muscles that you haven't used that would atrophy without being used, get used. Parts of your brain, you get a little bit of an armor. I'm. I'm a little bit. I don't care what people think about me. There's things that have happened from the death that I find really positive.

[Lauren Everts]

There's also, like, you know, some other, like in business and in personal finance, like, losing a little money or it doesn't. It doesn't rattle. Or like some people, you know, they lose a little bit. It's like the worst thing that's ever happened when you've lost a parent like that. Like, how big of a deal is losing a couple bucks?

[David Kessler]

So I think what I would like to ask you, I guess, is out of everything you've learned about grief, there are positives, right?

[Michael Bostick]

Yeah, it really is. You know, everything changes us. Everything in life expands us or contracts us. And so everything can expand us. It doesn't mean we don't wish for our mothers back. We don't wish for people who have died back. We want them back if we could have them. But we're also realists that we know can't get them back. So that's off the table. So how do we get more out of this? And, you know, it's interesting, people get so afraid of this subject. I ran into a neighbor who I hadn't seen in 20 years from a job I had years ago, and she goes, oh, I followed your career. It's really, you know, cool what you've done. She goes, I'd be your friend, but it'd be too depressing. Here's the shocking thing about me. People in my life, I have to remind them what I do for a living.

[David Kessler]

You're really late.

[Michael Bostick]

I'm like, you know why? Because I don't take this for granted. I don't want, like you. I mean, I understand life isn't guaranteed. And so when I know just from my work, oh, gosh, people died today, people died yesterday, and people are going to die tomorrow. That doesn't make me contract. That makes me go, wow. Let me really dive into this podcast with you.

[David Kessler]

You feel gratitude.

[Michael Bostick]

Gratitude and going deep and wanting to, like, drink up life fully.

[Lauren Everts]

That's very stoic in a lot of ways. And I'm sure you probably brought that up with Ryan, when you talked to him. Ryan Holiday.

[Michael Bostick]

Yeah.

[Lauren Everts]

And I think that, like, I think that's the. Funny enough, that's the right perspective to have about life. Some people go through life taking a lot of things for granted and acting as if they're never going to die, which could be a good and a bad thing. But I think that's why you, you know, you hear people's biggest regrets, and I'm sure you've seen this more than me at the end of life is like they regret worrying about the things that they shouldn't have worried about and not doing the things they wish they could have done.

[Michael Bostick]

And no one regrets, I should have worked later on a Friday night. I should have like really beefed up that resume. I mean, no one regrets those things. We had more money, right? We regret we didn't connect more, we didn't talk more, we didn't be with each other more. You know, it's those little moments that we all, you know, people always, like when I talk about the six stage, they're always thinking about meaning and like, oh, am I supposed to start a charity? No, you're just supposed to take this moment in, like, really take this moment in and enjoy it.

[Lauren Everts]

I personally get to see all of the different animals analytics for this show. Every time we release an episode and every time we do an episode around personal finance, it tends to pop. That tells me that people are hungry to learn more about how to manage their money, how to save more, how to invest more. I understand why. Before I started learning about personal finances, finances were a huge stress in my life. I didn't know how to keep money, I didn't know how to save money, I didn't know how to invest money. This is why I love platforms like Ynab so much. Ynab spelled Y N A B is a life changing app that helps you do what you want with the money you have. You'll create a flexible plan for your money through the simple practice of giving every dollar a job, keeping you focused on the life you want, whether that's being able to cover your mortgage, pay your rent, fund your 401k without sacrificing dinners with friends or that long awaited trip abroad. With Ynab, you'll stop wondering where your money goes and start deciding where it'll take you. Like I said, so many people run around stressed about personal finances because of a lack of understanding. They don't know where their money goes, they don't know how to keep it, they don't know how to Save it. They don't know how to invest it. And this causes so much turmoil in our lives and unnecessarily. So if we just understood a little bit more about our money and how to keep it, a lot of the stress would just go away. 92% of users report feeling less money stress since using YNAB. The average YNAB user saves $600 in their first two months and $6,000 in their first year. Imagine what else you could do with that extra $6,000 in your pocket. Life is short. Spend it well with ynab, we have an incredible offer for our listeners and viewers. Tsc him and her show listeners can claim and exclusive exclusive three month free trial with no credit card required at www.ynab.com skinny Again, that's Y N A.

[Unknown]

B.com skinny I like drinking my coffee with protein. And how I do this is I'm not super hungry in the morning, so I'll either have eggs before coffee or I'll have bone broth. And the bone broth that I always have is by Kettle and Fire. I like the one that's beef. It's 100% grass fed beef. It's so delicious. They also have chicken. Kettle on Fire is the cleanest bone broth on the market. But the best part is is it has 19 grams of protein per serving. And I have this hack that I do. So I have a rice cooker and instead of making the rice with water, my stepmom Julie was like, you have to try it with bone broth. So I've been making my rice with Kettle and Fire bone broth. I do a cup of it and then make the rice or I'll make like a big bowl of rice and then I'll put bone broth on top of it to get the protein. You could make a soup with it. It's so delicious. What I like about bone broth is there's so much collagen in it, which is so good for your skin. Kettle and Fire uses only grass fed and finished beef bones, which is a big difference between just grass fed. You can go do your research on that. But they really care when it comes to the ingredients in their bone broth. I have a pot on my stove ready to go. You can find Kettle and Fire in almost every grocery store nationwide. I remember when they were just in Whole Foods and now they're everywhere. So think Walmart, Target pretty much anywhere you can buy food. But if you guys want the hookup, you can save 20% if you go to kettleandfire.com skinny that's kettleandfire.com skinny. I was getting my hair done the other day by a hairstylist who hasn't done my hair in like a year. And she was like, lauren, what is going on with your hair? My hair has never been thicker. It's never been longer. And I don't get a lot of shedding anymore. I don't wear extensions. I used to wear extensions and I really attribute that to a couple different things. I'm drinking my bone broth, I'm eating lots of meat. I do micro needling on my scalp, scalp massage, silk pillowcase. And I also supplement and I take my supplements really seriously. When it comes to my hair, the one that I have always taken is Nutrafol and it targets the root causes. So if you have hair thinning, shedding or hair issues, this is a great one to try. What I've noticed since taking it is I've seen obviously improved hair growth. Like I said, I've just seen like more luscious hair and decreased shedding. My ponytail has never been thicker too. And people are noticing and I'm very excited about that, that I don't have to wear extensions. It's a clinically tested formula and most importantly, I just notice a difference in my hair. If you're unfamiliar, Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand. It's trusted by over one and a half million people. They're seeing thicker, stronger, faster growing hair with less shedding in just three to six months with Nutrafol. Start your hair growth journey with Nutrafol. For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription and you get free shipping. All you have to do is go to nutrafol.com and enter the promo code Skinnyhair. Find out why over 4,500 healthcare professionals and stylists recommend Nutrafol for healthier hair. Nutrafool.com spelled N u T R-A F o L.com promo code skinnyhair that's nutrafool.com promo code skinnyhair.

[Lauren Everts]

Can we talk about the stages for a second?

[Michael Bostick]

Sure.

[Lauren Everts]

Are there of the five stages and now the six that you've added, Are there certain stages that people tend to linger in or stay in more than others or some that they tend to go through faster than others or I.

[Michael Bostick]

Think because of our old wounds, acceptance feels like a bad word and people think, oh, if I accept it, does that mean I like it? I'm okay with it? No it just means you acknowledge the reality. I don't. Like my mom died or your mom died, but it's our reality, and we have to live with that. And many people fight reality. And fighting reality works against us.

[Lauren Everts]

So give me an example of what you've seen as a common fight against that reality.

[Michael Bostick]

Healing would be bad. I'm never going to heal. There's no help for me out there. No one gets me. I'm all alone. And, you know, that's just not.

[Lauren Everts]

That's not real in many cases.

[Michael Bostick]

Well, it's real for them, but they don't know there's a possibility of more help out there for them.

[Lauren Everts]

So is it like the old thing where it's like the person that is receiving, even if it's good, sound advice, it's like, easy for you to say. Easy for them to say, absolutely. You're not like me. You don't have my circumstances. You didn't grow up the way I did. Privilege I didn't have. It's like those people that they're not living basically in reality.

[Michael Bostick]

And you find reasons to justify healings not possible. And we don't know how to do this. Not just with death, but with relationships. I think the big thing I see in relationships is people need to grieve the person who's broken up with them or divorcing them or betraying them. You need to grieve them. In our culture, we think not only did we lose the person, we lost our soulmate. And I'm like, your soulmate isn't the one that leaves. Your soulmate's the one that stays.

[David Kessler]

Agreed? I agreed. I wish people, more people would realize that. And if someone wants to leave, let them leave. I'm not gonna beg someone to be with me. Like, I don't understand that. Why would I want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with me?

[Michael Bostick]

Because we're so wounded in our attachment from our childhood. We're so afraid if I lose you, I can't survive. And I always tell people we come from a long line of dead people. Like every ancestor you've had has had to deal with loss and survived, and so can you.

[Lauren Everts]

That's why I like reading history. It's my favorite subject is history. Because you realize how many at the time, insurmountable things people have actually surmounted and gotten past, you know, and you realize how much tragedy and trauma people have gone through and that we're still here chugging along. That's why I just think sometimes the context is Difficult for people to grasp when they're in a tough situation, like stepping out of it. So that's why they always say, like, the more you can step out of it and the outside perspective is so important because when you're in it, you feel like it's so unique to you and nobody else but you is experiencing it. This terrible thing when it just happened time and time and time again.

[Michael Bostick]

And one of the things I'll often have people do is either watch documentaries or biographies. Exactly to your point, like, if I asked you, who are the three people you admire most in the world, living or dead? I promise you, they went through a lot of shit.

[Lauren Everts]

Well, and one of our favorite books, and I'm sure you know that this is a great book, is Man's Search for Meaning. And the reason I think it's such.

[Michael Bostick]

An incredible Victor Frankel. Yeah, it's partly where I got this from, the idea.

[Lauren Everts]

I just. I'm not saying this to laugh, but I don't see how anyone could read that book and then wake up and say, my life is so unique and so challenging. And so. I mean, everyone's got struggles and everyone's trauma is their trauma. But you read a story like that, you're like, man, that was rough to get through, that was such a tough. And he came and had so much meaning at the end of that.

[Michael Bostick]

I can answer that, believe it or not.

[Lauren Everts]

Go ahead.

[Michael Bostick]

When we are wounded in our childhood, we get a wound of personalization that we believe no one has ever gone through this and it gets us so stuck. No one will understand me. No one gets me. And it's like, they can't come out of it to see, oh, no, not exactly like you, but something similar or even worse. I mean, with all losses, someone to your right hasn't had it as bad and someone to your left had it worse. That's just the human condition.

[Lauren Everts]

So for those people that do come out of it, how do they come out of it?

[Michael Bostick]

They come out of it usually by connection with others, usually by being around other people. I mean, some of the things that are just so helpful. I mean, we feel silly all the time telling people, take a walk, go take a walk, get out. Just get outside yourself. Just like you go to a movie, go read a book. You gotta get outside of yourself and have empathy.

[David Kessler]

I didn't have that. I wonder, like, I didn't have that. I just didn't have that at the time. I don't know. There was no connection with others that I had besides, like, my dad. And my sister. What? Like, what does that mean?

[Michael Bostick]

That might have been enough. Huh? That might have been enough. It's really the people who get so isolated that they have the hardest time.

[Lauren Everts]

When you had your grandma.

[David Kessler]

Yeah, but I didn't have. And listen, it would have been great at the time to have, like, a community of people that you could talk to, but I didn't have that. So I'm trying to look back and examine myself from afar. But I read a lot. And that I always say to anyone who's going through grief, like that's. That really helped me is to read.

[Michael Bostick]

Right.

[David Kessler]

What are the people and the mentors and the books that you feel like have? You know, you mentioned Viktor Frankl. Who are the people that you look to to find your own solace?

[Michael Bostick]

I think it is people just like. Who have. I love looking at people with different views. Like, I studied years ago, like John Bradshaw and, you know, whether it's Viktor Frankl or Edith Eager. I mean, so many people who have found so many different insights and have been through it themselves, which I think is so powerful.

[Lauren Everts]

But don't you feel too also with reading? What I love about reading so much is that it's kind of like one of the only times that you can stop thinking from your perspective. Like you're literally thinking from the mind of someone else. When I read your book, I'm going to be thinking from the words that are coming from your mind, not mine. And then, of course, I'm gonna have a commentary on it inside. But almost as you're reading it, you're like almost another person for a minute.

[Michael Bostick]

And now it's about videos. I mean, I'm trying to make tons of videos just, you know, because now maybe if you can just give me three minutes for us just to talk about what you're feeling, for you to feel seen. And then you're like, oh, let me learn more about all this.

[David Kessler]

What are the videos that you feel like have activated? We'll say people on the Internet and why you mentioned the sibling. What are some other clips that you've put up there that you feel like people are responding to, good or bad?

[Michael Bostick]

Anytime I put something up about friends trying to cheer us up and trying to fix us, that always gets a huge reaction. Just talking about loneliness, you know, loneliness is such a big factor in our world. So that comes up a lot. Just helping people feel seen in their trauma and in their grief, letting them know they're not alone. You know, it's sort of on one hand. I want to make sure they feel seen. On the other hand, I also want to give them a little hope. And one of the things I'll say sometimes is if you are hopeless, that's okay for now. The loss is probably permanent. But your loss of hope is temporary. And I can hold hope for you until you can find it again. I can hold hope for you.

[Lauren Everts]

Is the trauma different or worse when a parent loses a child or when a child loses a parent? Or is it all just equally and different for each person?

[Michael Bostick]

Well, it's the same relationship, parent and child. And your parent is so core to who you are. And no one expects their child to die. So they're both really horrible. I mean, one of the things that people always ask me is which loss is the worst? Is it a betrayal? They're still walking the earth and betraying? Is it a child dying? Is it your parent died that you've had for, you know, 60 years? What's the worst? Your sibling? Your twin? I always go. Your dog, who's there every day? Your cat? I always go, the worst loss is yours. Like, I don't know what it's like to have to say goodbye to your mother. I had a different mother. So we can never know each other's losses. And we go into our mind trying to compare them. And I always tell people, you don't have a broken mind, you have a broken heart. Get out of comparing.

[David Kessler]

I totally agree.

[Michael Bostick]

Focus on yours.

[David Kessler]

You can't compare. I mean, you just can't. It's. It's. Everything is so situational.

[Lauren Everts]

Last question. On. On this kind of line of questioning, we were talking to somebody who just lost a parent who was sick and battling an illness for a long time. And we were talking to another person who lost their. Their parents suddenly out of nowhere. Have you seen those kind of deaths impact people in different kind of ways? Like in the question we were all saying, we were all sitting around saying, like, is it worse to kind of lose someone slowly like that? Or worse, to lose someone quickly and out of nowhere?

[Michael Bostick]

We talk about what's called complicated or prolonged grief. Sudden death causes longer periods of shock. Death of a child, longer periods of shock. Anything that broadsides you if you think you're happily married, and then one day, like, honey, we're divorcing. That's going to take longer. Any surprise always takes longer because you've had a moment.

[David Kessler]

There's been no preparation.

[Michael Bostick]

Huh?

[David Kessler]

Which is why suicide is so, so devastating. But it's also, to me, I was talking to my friend Michael said, and it's really hard to watch someone die in front of your eyes over a long period of time. It feels like you're dragging someone over the finish line when they're done. That sounds also horrific. I mean, you're right, though. You can't compare it.

[Michael Bostick]

Right. The worst loss is yours. And there's a thing we haven't talked about called anticipatory grief, which is the grief before the death. And you know, you know they're dying and you're grieving all along. In the same way, you can have anticipatory grief with mental illness. You're like, holy cow, they could die. With addiction. You also can have it with a marriage or a relationship. You could go, I can just feel this as, you know, winding down, and I don't want it to.

[David Kessler]

Can you grieve stages of a person? So, like, for instance, say, like, you have a parent that's, like, really strong and amazing, and they're like the man about town. And then as they get older, you see them in a different chapter. Is there grief in there?

[Michael Bostick]

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because you're grieving who they were, and you have to be with that new version of them. And so we do have to grieve all those moments, and those are losses. And, like, you see it with people with Alzheimer's or, you know, when people are losing their abilities, you have to grieve then that's a lot of anticipatory grief ahead of time.

[David Kessler]

And what about someone who is in front of you but has narcissistic personality disorder? Is there grief involved in the people? Yeah, because you don't. You can't really do anything about that.

[Michael Bostick]

Well, the thing is, I think we used to believe. And a friend of mine's Dr. Ramany, she's amazing that we used to really believe, like, I can change a narcissist. And we're seeing that's a real uphill battle.

[Lauren Everts]

And some people come on and say, you cannot.

[Michael Bostick]

And Ramany says, you can't. And I kind of lean that way. And people have almost feel like they've died trying. And, you know, it's gaslighting and suppressing of yourself, and you become smaller and smaller. And, you know, when people finally get some breathing room away from the narcissist, they can begin to revive themselves and live again, but it's almost impossible.

[David Kessler]

It's so difficult if there is someone who's listening. I bet there's all different kinds of people that have all different kinds of grief. Where can they find all of these groups? That you do.

[Michael Bostick]

Sure. So grief.com has tons of free resources. It's got the online group that's called Tender Hearts. It's got the grief certificate program. We do writing through grief and trauma programs. Lots of different programs are always coming up. All my books are listed there. This newest one, finding meaning, the workbook. It's like as if we're sitting down at your kitchen table working through the death of the relationship or the death of the person. I'm online, you know, whether it's. My handle is iamdavidkessler on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok, all those places, because there's really help out there. And the one thing I want people to know is, of course you wanna run from grief and pain, but what we run from pursues us, and what we face transforms us.

[David Kessler]

I think what you're doing is incredible. I think that this is so important for people who have grief. The workbook is amazing.

[Lauren Everts]

I also, before you go, wanna end on something that I think you previously said, which is fear does not stop death. Fear stops life. Maybe you could elaborate.

[Michael Bostick]

Absolutely. You know, so many of us because, you know, people who have had catastrophes catastrophize, and we think, oh, my gosh, people are worried about everyone they know being in a wreck, dying all the time, and they think, oh, I'm gonna try to prepare. And it's like, no, fear doesn't stop death from happening. Death is going to happen. Fear stops us from living this moment.

[David Kessler]

It's like a waste of. It's a waste.

[Unknown]

It's a waste of energy.

[Michael Bostick]

It's out of our control. What's in our control? This moment with each other.

[David Kessler]

Yeah.

[Michael Bostick]

This moment's in our control.

[David Kessler]

Where can everyone DM you? Pimp yourself out, David, on your Instagram.

[Michael Bostick]

I am David kessler. Go to grief.com they can email [e-mail] Sony. Many different resources out there because, you know, I just want people to know, no matter what you have been through, no matter how you've been victimized, no matter how you've been hurt, no matter how many people have died, healing is possible and there's hope.

[David Kessler]

Thank you for coming on the show. Maybe I'll go on Zoom without my camera. It's your group.

[Michael Bostick]

Let's do it.

[Lauren Everts]

Thank you, David.

[Michael Bostick]

Thank you.