Ambiguous grief with Stephanie Sarazin

0:02 A listener production. This is Crappita Happy and I am your host castunn. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher and of course author of the Crappita Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. A while ago, Stephanie Sarazon went through a divorce and she found herself grieving for her former partner in the same way that she might if someone had actually died, but also knowing that there was something very different about what she was experiencing. She also recognized that there was not the same kind of external support or validation or recognition of what she was going through. For example, she jokes that nobody brought her casse roles. But it was through her experience that she became passionate about better understanding what this was that she was going through, and together with a psychologist, she identified that this was what she now calls ambiguous grief, which is a similar concept to ambiguous loss, but it does build on that concept, and steph and I did discuss what the distinctions are between ambiguous loss and ambiguous grief.

1:24 Ambiguous grief essentially is when you're grieving for a person even though they're still here. As part of the work that she did to better understand this experience, she talked to hundreds of people about their experience of ambiguous grief, and these are people who had lost loved ones to incarceration, addiction, or to Alzheimer's. So in our conversation, Steph shared with me the unique qualities of ambiguous grief, how we can better learn to acknowledge this as a society and to support people who are going on through this, and what I hope can be such a double edged sword. She also walked me through the model that she has developed together with a psychologist to help people to move through ambiguous grief. I really hope that you get something of value from this conversation and that you will please share it with anybody who you think might benefit from this.

2:20 Here's my chat with step. Steph. Thank you so much for joining me on the Crappy to Have You podcast today. Thanks for having me cas. I'm so pleased to be here. All the way from North Carolina. We're a very international podcasting experience today. I'm loving this global Yeah yeah, Steph. You have recently written a book and you are doing some great work in the world around this topic of ambiguous grief, which is a really I feel like this is such a relevant topic for so many people. I was super excited to have you on the show and talk to you. Can you start just by telling us first, what has. Been your experience? What got you interested in this topic?

3:03 Well, you know, I didn't set out to be, you know, somebody researching ambiguous grief. That doesn't sound like a lot of fun, and honestly it hasn't been. But you know, it really was born out of my own experience, my own desire to understand what I was going through. And you know, many years ago, I experienced a divorce that was really earth shattering in my world, and I just wasn't moving through kind of the aftermath in those early weeks, those early months in a way that felt to me how I should be moving through. And I know that may sound kind of off, because if you've not gone through it, which I hadn't, how do we know how we should be doing anything? But something for me, cas just felt off and it felt that my grief was different.

4:00 I could identify that it was grief. And though I hadn't had much experience with grief as we know it, which is, you know, grief by death, by physical death, I was aware that it was still different. And you know the Elizabeth Kogler Ross model that we all know so well, you know, which has been kind of modified as the years have gone on, but you know that described stages of grief that we might experience, anger, bargaining, denial, depression, acceptance, and then ultimately one one was just added and its meaning and I could identify when those things were happening.

4:44 But it wasn't still what I expected. I knew something was off, so you know, I really just went in search of trying to feel better. You know, when you lose a loved one to something other than a physical death, when our loved one doesn't die a physical death, it's a different type of grief. And as I started to research and really just try to feel better, you know, I was really looking for kind of a manual, a big sister to say, here, o'f been through it. Here, here's what you do. Right. It was different because you know, I there was no no eulogy. There was no funeral, there was no there's there were no casse roles in my freezer casts. You know, kind of not that we do grief very well as you know a society today, but when somebody does die a physical death, we know what to do, you know. We there are certain rituals exactly exactly, and here it was just you know, kind of a dearth of information. I could find plenty about divorce, I could find plenty about death, but not about grief for somebody who has not died. And you know, I really just began this work to heal as a way to you know, try to feel better. And it was it was really like just Alice down the rabbit hole.

6:15 There was just tumbled in and there just kept being, you know, more and more, and it led me to different doors and I just kept opening each door and learning more and learning more and talking to more people, and you know, I found some really interesting made some interesting discoveries. And divorces is but one of the activating events that can bring about ambiguous grief, and you know, ultimately discovered through research with a psychologist I partnered with that this is a process that most of us will experience at least once in our lifetime. Yet we don't have a name for it, and we don't know how to identify it or have the tools to move through it.

7:03 A couple of things you just said then, Steph one was wondering if you were doing it right, And interestingly, that's a question that I hear all the time, even in relation to standard grief. You know, when somebody dies, people still wonder if they're taking too long, or if they should be feeling like this, or they feel guilty that they're not feeling sad enough for that they're something wrong with them because they're feeling too sad. And I think the ambiguous component of it just add this, adds this extra layer of complication or confusion around what this And of course there is no normal and there is no like what you're supposed to experience. But I do think you're right that that ambiguity of the list, the fact that the person is still walking around in the world that nobody has died, raises all these questions about well, how am I supposed to feel about this you just touched on for you. If there was a divorce, I think would be really helpful to talk about what are some of those activating events that can trigger ambiguous grief?

8:05 So this is a loss that isn't an actual death, so it's divorce. Can you just outline what some of the others are, because know there are plenty. Oh absolutely, it's some surprise to me, you know. So familial estrangement is one a rejection of a friendship or a family member, addiction, Alzheimer's disease, cognitive decline of any sort, a traumatic brain injury, a diagnosis of a health condition, mental health conditions, gender identity, incarceration in doctrination to a cult or a gang, you know. And in all of these instances, our loved ones have not died a physical death, but the relationship has changed as it once was, and they are no longer in relationship with us as they once were. And for the individual who is grieving, you know, it is such a difficult place to be because of those events that I just named. Many of us will internalize shame or embarrassment associated with some of those and for me this was so curious, but it answered my second question, which you know, my first question was what am I experiencing? What is this and why is it different?

9:30 And my second question was why isn't anybody talking about it? Because I was looking for, as we tend to do in the human experience, you know, we're having a situation and we want to know cas, do you know anybody who's gone through this that you might put me in touch with. I just need to talk to somebody who understands. No. No, I just I didn't share with many people, but who I did share with, nobody seemed to know anyone. And if I couldn't find somebody to talk to in my network or my network's network, what in the world, why what was happening? And what I ultimately discovered was, of course I'm not the only person who you know, had a difficult, surprising divorce. But people aren't talking about those things because they don't want to be talked about, right, So they keep it quiet. And so people who are experiencing this ambiguous grief process often isolate and grieve alone.

10:37 And what really surprised me, Cass was as I was interviewing others who had identified with the experience, I found sometimes I was the only person they'd told. I spoke to a woman whose husband had been incarcerated, and she wasn't telling anybody. She saw something I had written online and reached out to say, oh, yes, you know me too. It's so oscillating. I actually hadn't even considered that that shame element that would keep people from sharing and connecting with other people. Right, And it doesn't have to be, you know, it really doesn't have to be. And Brene Brown says that shame cannot survive if it's put into a Petri dish with empathy. Right. So part of why I've started to write about this experience and ultimately publish a book about it, is so that people can grow their empathy, so we can be more compassionate toward one another who go through any of these things. Of Course, nobody asks for our loved ones to deal with substance abuse or addiction, or familial estrangement or any of those things that I mentioned, And yet when we go through it, there's such grief because of course there was such love. And if we could have more compassion for one another, then maybe we would have more cast roles than our freezer, you know,

12:07 maybe we could help each other. It sounds like I really hung up on the cast roles, I know, but I totally get it. We all know what you mean by that. It's the support, right, Yeah, it's just that emotional support and knowing somebody's there and thinking of you, Steph. It is interesting. I mean, it is often said that divorce can be more painful than death, because with death, it's final, you know, it's done. It's as traumatic and as painful and as awful as it is, there's a line in the sands that person's not around anymore, whereas if that person is walking around in the world. If you've got children together, you've got to see them in another relationship with somebody else, if you know that, and it can just it extends and extends the complicated nature of that relationship and that loss.

12:57 So you know, it's very valid. It's all I'm I. Think you're right, and I think that is actually often said. You're right, that it is it is just often said by casts, but yes, it's often said. And I think, but why that is? And this is what this became kind of my hunch as I was going through the experience and then as I found my people, because ultimately I did. I found a workshop across the country with a three month wait of women like me, and it was so wonderful to be able to sit in a workshop with them for five days, you know, full days, every day for five days and be understood. And what I saw through myself and what I was able to identify because I had this group and we had stayed in touch after and we're still in touch all these years later, was that there was an additional I don't want to call it a stage, but an additional experience, a feeling that presents much in the same way that Elizabeth Koobler Ross described those stages that we mentioned earlier.

14:06 There was something but I just couldn't put my finger on what it was, and I could identify, Oh, I'm feeling angry right now, and then five minutes later, Oh, I'm oh, this is here's the depression right or oh I can tell I'm bargaining, you know, whatever the case might be where we're trying to kind of return to a calm homeostasis. But there was one more and I couldn't couldn't name it, and ultimately ended up partnering with a psychologist to develop an assessment tool and a survey and we collected data really to see if this would emerge because the hypothesis the hunch I had was that that extra feeling that was popping up was hope, and the data showed that indeed it was. So why is to your point, divorce harder than a physical death? I would say it's because there's hope that emerges, and for all of those activating events that I just named, hope is experienced too for those grievers, you know, hope that the addicted child will kick the addiction and return home, which is a big one. That a sibling will say, Oh, I'm sorry for blocking you out of my life for ten years. Can we talk? You know, or the jail sentence will be reduced, there will be a cure for Alzheimer's, whatever the case may be. Grievers can hope that their

15:41 loved one will return as they once were. And when our loved one dies a physical death, you know, had I been a widow, I would have given a beautiful eulogy. I would have had all of the support. I would have not expected him to show up on my doorstep. Nobody would be hoping for that when our loved one dies. But when the relationship is broken or changed, and that person is no longer who they once were to you, then that hope is something that can be a problem. Yeah, I was just thinking. I mean, I'm a big fan of Ted Lasso.

16:23 I don't know if you wanted right, it's the hope that kills you. That's the quote that kills you. It's I had a friend give me that shirt? Yes, yeah, did you? Yes? I can totally so double edged. And we don't hear about hope in any negative light really, and and I always, you know, I kind of say, dare you to google it and find me something that isn't beautiful and effervescent and just wonderful and warm about hope. And we need hope, Do not get me wrong. We yes, are human. Our humanity needs hope, and hope is powerful. And you know, Emily Dickinson, of course, has this famous poem where she says, hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all, and it just, oh, it's just so light and beautiful and oh don't we all want that? And it brings to mind for me a little Cinderella bluebird, you know, just perched on the soul and just it knows to keep going. But for ambiguous grievers, and I'm sure for others, hope can be kind of, you know, less the Cinderella bluebird and more the Iago parrot from Lion King, that annoying, squawking, incessant just stop stop and you know. And so that's what we found in our research is that there are two

17:54 kinds of hope that present for an ambiguous griever. It's internal hope where we're hoping for our selves and external hope, where we're hoping or where our hope is directed toward our loved one. And if we spend too much time in external hope, which is really easy to do, let me tell you, then we are at risk for complicated grief, a grief where you know, we're really just stuck, stuck and having a difficult time, you know, moving forward with our life without kind of defining it based on our loss. But if we can turn that hope inward and start hoping for ourselves, and you know, instead of doing all the research to find out you know, the best treatment centers or the you know, the best doctors or the best lawyers or whoever you might need to help get your loved one back to you, as they once were and took that energy instead and put it into ourselves kind of accepted the situation we have and grew to accept that this is my loved one in this new form, in this new state, and I'm going to give myself love and self care and I'm going to ask for support, and I'm you know, what can we do for ourselves?

19:12 So I'm a big fan of hope, but hope when misdirected, can be as as dangerous as it is good. So we have to we have to watch it. That is such such a good point. Can I just ask you, Steff, you just use the word complicated grief? And I'm just conscious that there might be people listening who aren't familiar with that term. Are you able to just you know, I know that you're not. The psychologist, but are you able to give a little explanation of that what complicated grief is? And I think that's important because we did just say there's no there's no normal when it comes to grieving, but this is something to be people should be aware of when grief becomes complicated. That that is potentially. Yes, And again I had no idea because I'm not a psychologist. I have a public policy degree and have worked in nonprofit management. So this your world of psychology is just is new to me. And yes, so who knew complicated grief is very real and is a kind of grief where the individual is I don't want to say obsessed, right, they become focused, they come become hyper focused on their loss. And so it's too much time doing that you know, builds and it's it's quicksand it's you get stuck and it's just you know, it's a slippery slope down into complicated grief. And and you can, you can get help, but it requires professional support. Professional help.

20:38 Your friend unless they're a licensed therapist or you know, healthcare professional will not be able to kind of unstuck you. And and you know, we spoke earlier about well what is normal? What is what is you know, an acceptable amount of grieving time? What is an acceptable morning period? And this is where it gets a little tricky because who knows it's proportionate to your love, it's your personality. It has so many different factors that weigh into it. But for somebody who is in complicated grief, this will be somebody who has really been hyper focused on their loss for years, right, So it's if you're listening and you're thinking, oh, goodness, I've been grieving for six weeks or six months or eighteen months. Yes, that's understandable. Yes, And you know, if it gets to be a few years down the road and you find yourself feeling like you're unable to move forward with your grief healthfully, you might want to talk to somebody. And that actually just brings up another point, if I may, which is that the goal isn't to get over our grief, right. The goal isn't to you know, get rid of it and be done with it, which was news to me because, again not having the experience except for the physical deaths of my grandparents, you know, I thought I would be

22:09 go through a certain amount of grief and kind of move it through me and you know, up and at it and kind of move forward. And what I came to learn is that indeed, that's not how it works. And the goal, if you will, is not to get rid of our grief, but to learn how to take care of it. It's a part of us now, right, and so just as we would take care of any other part of ourselves, we can learn to take care of our grief too, so that it doesn't inhibit us and allows us to we can still carry it and have a lovely life. I hope that you're enjoying this conversation and realizing the benefits of positivity in your own life. If you are enjoying the show, please be sure to like and subscribe so that you get notified when you strac and head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and leave us a rating and review. Steph, So, as part of this research that you did to help you to understand this extra element which led you to the hope, you went out in you and you spoke too many many people who were experiencing ambiguous grief. What I'm curious to know what did you learn from talking to those people and going through those whether it's interviews or what you.

23:37 Did that added to your own understanding. What did you learn from them that was maybe different from what you had experienced, And where did you see the similarities? I imagine that would have been a kind of a really interesting process. It really was. It really was. And you know what I found in similarity is that boy, our grief really is proportionate to the love we have and grief is grief is love. You know, when our barista leaves or our postal carrier, you know, goes to a new route, we can probably get out of bed the next morning.

24:17 When somebody that is really important to us is gone, of course, we're going to have that proportionate grief and the sadness and all of the feelings that come with it. And that did not change across the interviews. That didn't change through correspondence I received you could you could, or or the survey data. What I found to be different and absolutely a game changer was learning about how other cultures grief and how sterile we are to it here in the United States at least. And you know, interestingly, the Queen has just recently passed, and we were able to see the pageantry and the beauty and the tradition that came with the ceremony and the ritual of her death, and it was okay for everybody to grieve publicly. It was okay for everybody to grieve in all of these ways.

25:29 And it was just such a sharp contrast to the day to day grief that we might see, you know, or really not see here in the United States. We don't even see hearses on the streets anymore. It's just a white cargo van that might carry a body from you know, the place of Oh yeah, isn't that interesting And and you know, growing up as a kid, we'd see that all the time, and and it's just interesting. Now it's uncomfortable, you know, you know, if you're out, if you're out for a walk at the park and enjoying your your autumn beverage, maybe you just don't want to see the hearse drive by. You know. It's it's really right. So but what I what I found to be incredible, was really just the lack of ritual, the lack of ceremony for ambiguous scrievers, and the power of ceremony and ritual in all areas of life. And again, none of us will have the queen's ceremony, right, but we'll have a eulogy. We can we can imagine, you know, we'll have the basics. And yet for ambiguous scrievers, there there's a death of the relationship, but without a body that's also died, there's no ceremony or ritual that comes with it. So what I found that was different is

27:00 that in some cultures, they they will they have ceremony for everything I was in. I went to Costa Rica and asked a lot of questions in Costa Rica and worked with Shamans and just really observed how they honor beginnings and endings. We don't do that here, especially with our new social media culture, new right social media culture in the last decade, where you know, you can go on social media and we celebrate beginnings and we should right engagements and baby showers and new businesses, you know, the oversized scissors cutting the ribbon. But what happens when you know there's a miscarriage or a divorce or the business closes, we don't. We tend to not see those posts right. And and there's a myriad of reasons why, and it can certainly be h it's a private matter, sure, but we don't celebrate our endings. We don't recognize our endings the way that we do our beginnings. And so what I found to be helpful for me, and have since recommended for others who have reported that it's been helpful for them, is to create your own ceremony. And I call it a faux uneral, which is a little cheesy.

28:22 I know, but it's not a funeral in the term, but it is a faux uneral. And you know, I had a faux uneral for my marriage and invited my two dearest closest friends only who knew my marriage, you know, most closely, and shows music and readings, and I was able to greet them at the end they spoke, you know, and then I was able to kind of stand and receive them, and it was so validating because in any grief we need we need one witness. Grief just needs one witness to validate the loss for another. That was really important and it's something we can all do.

29:08 Yeah, I really like that. And Steph, as you're talking too, I'm thinking about whether it is ambiguous grief or grief grief. There is also this kind of time period where people rally a little and bring. The cast roles and then it all stops. And that would have to be the same or compounded with ambiguous grief. Wouldn't it like that even if somebody is there and oh, you know, and they're in supporting you in the beginning, that then people just disappear and get on with their own lives. And oh, people get divorced all the time, what's the you know, like. It's just right, and it's it feels, you know, invalidating right, and so that's it's so difficult. And again if even if it as you call it grief grief, which is what I call it, it's it's I'm glad to hear you call it that, because I know it's not a clinical term. But right in traditional grief grief, they it's the same. And so we as we're learning more about grief and how to support others in grief, we're saying, ask, say their name, you know, say the person's name, ask, share a memory. Because you're not reminding somebody that their loved one has died. They know that they don't need reminding, So we need not be afraid we're going to make them sad, upset them because we said, oh, I just remembered I had a wonderful memory of your daughter. And most times you'll see somebody light up, thank you for remembering her, thank you for keeping her her memory alive

30:41 and saying her name. And you know, for ambiguous grievers, it's much the same. And yet there can be an added component where, depending on the type of relationship, break people people are asked, are not asking for different reasons. For example, I had I had a woman share once that her mother, who she was caring for, uh with cognitive decline and early onset Alzheimer's and then full Alzheimer's. You know, people weren't asking because there's there is no progress.

31:22 It's it's well known that there's no progress in a cure for Alzheimer's. Whereas if that mother had, say cancer, and there's treatment at least for cancer, you know she would maybe maybe people would ask, so because there was something she could report, Yes, chema went well, Thank you for asking. Yes, radiation is going well for mom. Thanks for asking. But people won't ask if they know the answer right, And so then again they're feeling less, they're feeling more isolated and alone. And you know, somebody has said to me, how do I know if I'm an ambiguous grief And I've said, well, if you're finding yourself wishing that your loved one had cancer instead of Alzheimer's, or that you're jealous of widows, you might be experiencing ambiguous grief right because nobody wants to be a widow and nobody wants a cancer diagnosis. Those aren't. Those aren't great things to have, They're not good things to have.

32:27 And so you know, it's a comparison. It's a pretty sure song. Yes, yeah, yeah, and interesting as you say that, I imagine that many people would struggle to admit that. Absolutely, absolutely, And it's embarrassing, you know, to say, I, yes, my friend and I had this conversation. Boy, those widows again with the cast roles, they're stocked all those Oh did she got to give that beautiful eulogy in front of all of those people? You know, and you find it, you know, wanting for yourself and so and this is really prevalent for those who are touched by addiction, where you know, as substance abuse rates rise, and you know there's many addictions of course, gambling addiction, sex addiction, shopping, work, alcohol.

33:20 As our loved ones are struggling with these behavioral addictions or the substance addictions, the shame and embarrassment that's often attached keeps people from reaching out and therefore you know, getting the support. And so, oh, if only my child would have this, or if only my husband had had an accident, it would have been easier. Oh, that's a dangerous mind game to play with yourself wishing for something. Else stuff. So as part of your process, you then have, together with a psychologist, have formulated a process, the process that never existed which you were looking for.

34:05 For moving through? Is that fat to say? Ambiguous grief? Can you I know you've written about this in your book, but can you talk us through what that process involves? Well? Absolutely, thank you for asking. You know, I think first and foremost, it's identifying that this is what you're experiencing when we lose a loved one. We can you know to any of those activating events that I listed, Well, this is life and the stinks and I'm sad, and boy it's hard to go to work. You know, we might just kind of have these observations about ourselves or about our experience, but not really give ourselves permission to grieve. And so simply by knowing that this is a normal response to loss, to an important loss, is the first step just understanding giving yourself that permission. And all of those activating events I listed, I'm sure there are more that I've not uncovered. And so if your loss was not in the list, it doesn't mean that you're not experiencing ambiguous grief, right, And so that would be the first part. And then allowing yourself to really go through the experience of those feelings. And I say, if we can get better at identifying what feelings are coming up within us and allowing them to move through us and not resist it, it will be you know, clouds in the sky. It moves us, they will pass. And of course,

35:35 as you know, there are wonderful tools to help us do that. And mindfulness and meditation are new to me and my favorites. They are always at our disposal to use. They're easy, and they are game changers in our consciousness and our awareness and being able to discern what is in our control and what is not in our control can come from mindfulness. And when we do that, then we're setting ourselves up to encounter hope, which is kind of the middle of the process and so understanding, oh, this is hope that I'm feeling, and oh, I see that I've been manically researching and trying to fix this, trying to bring the relationship back for whatever reason. Right, some people will say, I don't I'm fine if she or he is back in our home with substance abuse.

36:36 I just want them back in the home, and you know or I for whatever reason, there's bargaining that's also involved in how to get the person back with you. But understanding that hope is kind of a double agent, right, It's it's you can be on the roundabout of hope. You can cycle kind of a figure eight through internal hope, external hope, internal hope, external hope. And the more which is normal and the more you can practice internal hope and redirect the external hope, because remember external hope is that has kind of a Candyland slide down to complicated grief.

37:17 The more we can practice internal hope, the more we will be able to move through to the path of what we call grief recovery. And I don't even really like the word recovery because the etymology of the word is to cover over something unsightly. And after going through the process of ambiguous grief, it's changed me, it changes anyone, right, And I don't want to recover. I don't want to cover that grief. I don't want to pretend it wasn't there.

38:04 And so it's a regeneration almost right where yeah. I'm feeling like it's integrating it. It is absolutely integration and just being able to integrate as we would any newness to our physical self. Right, or if you were you know, you have I can see you have beautiful blue eyes. If you were to have loss of vision in one eye, you would learn to adapt and integrate your new reality. Right. For whatever experience we might have, whether it's a you know, a diagnosis of diabetes or hearing loss or site loss or whatever the case, maybe we learned to integrate our world with our new physicality. And so with this new physiology on set with ambiguous grief, yeah, we have to integrate it and we can. We just have to start by talking about it as a first step.

39:07 Yes, I'm curious to ask your opinion, Steph about with the pandemic, there was a lot of talk about what you're feeling is ambiguous grief or ambiguous loss because we again, all of our loved ones are still alive, but we often couldn't see them because of lockdowns. Often we lost our usual structures and routines and the way that the way that we lived our life. What are your thoughts about that? About do you feel like for some people the experience of going through the pandemic was an experience that could be called ambiguous greef I. Do, I do? It's you know, And ambiguous loss was kind of my first stop as I was seeking my own experience. And ambiguous loss is a term that was coined in the nineties by doctor Pauline Boss, who was actitioner, and she was observing individuals who were experiencing the loss of their loved one with an uncertainty of physical death.

40:11 So a soldier missing an action, a child who's been kidnapped, or somebody swept away in a tsunami, all horrible tragic experiences for a loved one to endure and wait word, and so they're kind of stuck in this. I call it kind of a grief purgatory where they don't know if they should be grieving or holding vigil and holding onto every ounce of hope. Right. And then doctor Boss's work was later evolved to add a psychological loss with a physical presence like Alzheimer's. So that was very close for me, but it was not quite because in my case, my loss wasn't ambiguous. My grief was ambiguous. I didn't know how to grieve it, and I was looking for somebody who had gone through it. Who could say, here's why it feels different, and here's what you can do about it. Right, So just to kind of pose those two things. And so I think when the pandemic came, I think it was a little bit of both. I think it was an ambiguous loss because we are in that purgatory of waiting, well, certainly we'll be going back to the office, right, and certainly we'll be together by you know, this holiday or that holiday. And so there was a mix of that. And then there's the mix of the grief, where so we have this loss, ambiguous loss,

41:41 and we have this ambiguous grief where we don't know how to get through it and we don't know, we don't know that what we're experiencing is grief. And if our identity is inextricably linked to a person or a a role, whether it be wife or manager or CEO or individual contributor or daughter, whatever it might be. In the case of the pandemic, when people were no longer able to fulfill their work identity, there is that loss and then there is that grief. How am I? Who am I? If I am not this without this other entity? Right?

42:29 And you know, I think for a lot of people it was the first taste of grief that they'd experienced. And it was actually an article that was written in The Atlantic magazine that prompted my literary agent to call me and say, I just I just read about this and just read your proposal, and I think this is timely. Wow. Right, So you know, I think grief is part of our human experience, Thank goodness, because it is love. And if we're going to live in love, and if love is all there is and again all the effusiveness of love, yes we want more of course, then we have to understand that, you know, grief is love's invoice. One of us will be paying the bill, so to speak. If we're going to love, then we have to know. And we don't because we don't talk about our endings because we don't know how to go through our endings because it's not modeled for us publicly in a in a in a normal way. You know, it's time to normalize it and recognize that what it, recognize the different kinds of grief so that we can support one another as

44:00 we experience it. I'm so glad to have had this opportunity to share this conversation with all of our listeners. I think this is so important and steph for anybody who is listening who would like to learn more about your work or how you can support them, or how to access your process or your book, can you just give me a little quick rundown so that people know where to find you. Well, sure, thank you, thank you. Yes. So. I started an online resource rise uprooted dot net and there are some stories there and other resources for people going through ambiguous grief or wondering if they might be. You can go to ambiguous grief dot com where you'll see my work with doctor Sophia Cardle and you can take the assessment yourself and find out if you might need to speak with a psychologist or therapist to help you through.

45:02 And there's also a survey there for Hope and I'd really appreciate that if you could take a minute and answer some questions on hope that if you think that might be you. And also my own website is Stephanie Sarazin dot com and my book is Soul Broken, a Guidebook for your Journey through Ambiguous Grief, and is available October eleventh. My hope for the book is that it is helpful for others. It's the book I wish I would have had. It's the book I wanted all those years ago, and I hope that it helps others through their painful time so they know that they are not alone. I have no doubt that it will. Thank you so much, step It's been such a pleasure to have you on the show. I really appreciate it.

45:47 Oh, I appreciate you, Cass, thanks for the important work you're doing. I'm so grateful to have been in conversation with you today. Steph's new book again is called Soul Broken, a Godbooks for your journey through ambiguous grief. Steph's website is Stephanie Sarazen dot com. I'll put that link down in the show notes. Remember, if you love Crappy to Happy, please do make sure that you subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Leave us at five. Star rating and review. It really does help us to find you listeners. If you would like to connect with me, I'm on Instagram and TikTok at cast Done Underscore XO, and you can find out all about otherwise. You can work with me. My online courses my books are all on castdone dot com.

46:29 I cannot wait to catch you on the next episode of Crappy to Happy listener