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Episode 50: The Power of Therapy for Processing Grief

May 22, 2022 | Podcast Episode

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After recording 50 episodes of SSFYL and talking about grief to countless guests, each with unique stories and perspectives, I noticed a common recurring theme that almost everyone mentioned— the power of therapy. Whether it was the loss of a parent, a child, a friend or a job, just about every guest (and myself) has recognized therapy as the best way to grasp and navigate their grief. In this episode, I’m highlighting messages and words from seven different guest episodes that I thought were profound and might hopefully give you a new perspective on therapy!

Hear about the misconception that you need something to be wrong in your life in order to go to therapy, why therapy is a form of bettering yourself and should be treated like going to the gym for physical wellness, a therapists take on therapy, finding the right therapist, taking pride as a male in therapy, and even how you can start therapy today.

Episodes Highlighted:
Grief and Motherhood, Coping with Miscarriage, and the Loss of a Bachelor Nation Icon with Sarah Fraser (Episode 13)
The Grief of Unmet Expectations and the Surprise of Postpartum Depression with Brittany Hook (Episode 33)
Author Shawn Hitchins on Queer Perspective of Grief (Episode 30)
Grieving the Loss of a Career in the Pandemic with John Piccuto (Episode 36)
How a Psychology Grad Student Deals with Her Own Grief with Meredith Hannahs (Episode 37)
Creativity After Grief and Masculine Vulnerability with Sabir M. Peele (Episode 42)
Belonging and Community in Grief: Engaging More Deeply With Your Life with Becca Piastrelli (Episode 44)

Transcripts (Please Note: This transcript was computer-generated so please be mindful of errors):
[00:00:00] Brittany: I finally started seeing a therapist
[00:00:02] Jessica: therapy
[00:00:02] Sarah: grief therapy,
[00:00:03] Sabir: telling a therapist
[00:00:04] Meredith: therapy.
[00:00:05] Brittany: therapy.
[00:00:06] john: It’s been transformative. I don’t think I could be. As happy as I am today, if it were not for having gone to therapy,
[00:00:13] Gianna: Want to take a guess what today’s episodes about?
Welcome back. This is a big one. This is episode 55. Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss. I cannot believe that we’re hitting this milestone. I mean, I can, because you guys are amazing and you keep me going, so thank you for that. I’m really excited to have made this milestone. I have no plans on stopping anytime soon. So 50 hopefully is just the first of many milestones to come. I want to start by saying thank you so much for all of the support over all of these episodes.
You are helping me break this taboo of grief and get these conversations going. Let’s dive into it. Let’s talk about it more. Let’s make it a little bit less taboo for everybody to talk about it. I hope that this has [00:01:00] been a great outlet for you to listen, to, to feel a part of this community. I hope it’s been something for you to send to your friends and family that may not quite understand what you’re going through.
I hope it’s just been a really great resource and it’s something that you want to keep coming back to every single week. Let’s. Get it a hundred, let’s get to 200. Let’s make this thing so big that everybody is talking about grief and people understand. It and understand what we’re going through. So thank you so much again for being here. Today a special episode. Hmm. Do you have a hint at maybe what it’s about?
Yeah, we’re going to talk about therapy because I know there’s some of you out there that are maybe still hesitating about it. Not sure if it’s for you. Not sure if it’s your thing. And I really encourage you to check it out. We have a great sponsor for today’s episode, too, who will make sure that you get the help that you need. That’s a better help. www.betterhelp.com/s S F Y L. That code gets you 10% off of your first month of therapy. How amazing is that? [00:02:00] You’ll learn more about better help in the middle of the episode. I decided to do an episode on therapy because as I reflected back on all the episodes that I’ve done, I realized that there’s a lot of running themes in some of my episodes. One of them has been, and we’ll do an episode on this at some point.
How its simplicity in terms of how you can help people that are grieving. If you think about the things that stand out to you for what people did in your life that really helped you very simple things. For me, one of them was a friend that went to CVS with me and helps me run some errands when my brain was complete mush or a friend that would just send heart emojis every now and then with no expectation of me responding to her, but just letting her know that she was thinking of me. It’s simplicity.
So another running theme is therapy. I realized almost every episode contains some information about therapy or a guest therapist that they’ve created a great relationship with Or how much their life has changed. And their grief has changed since going to therapy. [00:03:00] I thought it was a good opportunity To collect some of that information, put it into one episode to help you get a full understanding of how therapy can help, if you are in therapy.
Kudos to you. Very proud of you.
No need to turn off this episode because there actually might be ways that you can learn how to handle your therapy sessions for the best result in handling your grief or just whatever it is you’re going through in your life, because everybody has a different way that they approach therapy. So you can learn that through this episode as well.
Also stay tuned for next week. We have a very special episode with Rebecca. So far of modern Los are you serious? She’s like the godmother of grief. I am stoked that I was even able to do this interview. She has a new book that is for presale now, but it is coming out on Tuesday the day of the interview.
So. Let’s make sure you mark your calendars for that. Make sure you get your Amazon account ready. You’re going to want to order this book. I know it. And the meantime head over to Instagram at so sorry with Giana, be my friend DME. Let me know what you want to hear in upcoming [00:04:00] episodes.
Head over to apple rate and review the podcast, throw me those five stars would really appreciate that. Especially for episode 50, right?
And as always, I love you. Thanks for being here.
All right. Starting off the episode today with Sarah Frazier. Sarah was my 13th episode of so sorry for your loss. I remember it was like, kind of, you know, still in the beginning stages, I didn’t really know how I was going to be formatting some of my interviews and my recording was like a little off, but.
I was so excited to get Sarah. She is an incredible radio personality. You can hear it in her voice. I mean, she’s just very vibrant. She recently moved to LA and Do not be surprised if you see this chick with her own talk show at some point.
She lost her father when she was a teen and her therapist changed her life in a big way. When she made the connection from the death of her dad to.
The unhealthy eating habits that she had
Sarah started to become more mindful in her eating and really changed her lifestyle because of it. We talked about how [00:05:00] awkward people get with grief. She emphasized the need to keep tackling it in your own life if you want to learn more about sarah’s journey it’s episode 13, but here’s sarah frazier.

[00:05:10] Sarah (Episode 13)

[00:05:10] Sarah: People are awkward about grief and they’re awkward about tears, but just like, do it just cry, break down because everyone’s feeling that they just don’t know how to react either to it. Right. Right. So, and you know, if you’re a parent and, and your spouse dies and you have kids in high school, like get them in
grief therapy,
even when they say they’re okay.
Cause like my brother and I both talk about it now and we’re like, shit, you know, so many things happen in our lives. my brother drank a lot. I over ate might therapist always says this to me, what you resist persists. And I think that’s the biggest thing is, is you think, oh, you just think you’re over grief and it pops back up.
So yeah. Keep dealing with it and letting it out.

[00:05:51] Gianna: Next up is episode 33 with my very best friend of almost 25 years. [00:06:00] Brittany Huck. Now Brittany suffered two miscarriages. So if that is something that you are going through, please listen to that episode. A lot to share there. And, uh, it was something that we’ve always gone through in our friendship because I’ve been very open and have gone to therapy since high school. And Brittany just felt it wasn’t something for her. And when she went through the miscarriage,
I had said to her, you know, I think it’s something we could really benefit from, but it took her on her own time, which I respect. And when she finally decided to go. Well you’ll see how it went

[00:06:31] Brittany (Episode 33)

[00:06:31] Brittany: Another tool that you would talk about all the time, which helped me significantly therapy.
Oh, my favorite
[00:06:39] Gianna: tool. My tool,
[00:06:42] Brittany: my gosh, it took me. And I remember you telling me you need to talk to somebody, you need to talk to me, you talk somebody,
[00:06:48] Gianna: bitch. I needed to talk to somebody for
[00:06:50] Brittany: years. Like
[00:06:56] Gianna: miscarriage.
[00:06:57] Brittany: I just needed a good therapist, right? Yeah. [00:07:00] But
[00:07:00] Gianna: you had this misconception of but nothing’s really wrong in my life. I don’t, I it’s stupid for me to even go to therapy because nothing happened. It’s it doesn’t matter. Don’t wait until that.
[00:07:12] Brittany: Exactly. And I wish I, I wish I had gone years and years ago now, like I have such like a good relationship with my therapist.
So any who’s after the first miscarriage, it was about six months, seven months. I think it was like July when I finally started seeing a therapist and I was obviously pregnant again with Tyler I think that’s what helped me through so many things which we’ll talk about, but also the second miscarriage, like having.
[00:07:37] Gianna: support Yeah. Feeling like you had somewhere to go. And not that you didn’t have me and your husband and your mom, it’s just different.
[00:07:44] Brittany: It’s so different. It’s so different. And I think you have to be so comfortable with you. Can you hear him screaming there
[00:07:50] Gianna: said child.
[00:07:53] Brittany: So I was saying like, how. Utterly important is to have a relationship with your therapist where you do not feel [00:08:00] judged, like where you can come into therapy and just put it all out there.
I know that only comes over time. I’ve been seeing my therapist for a year and a half now and I wouldn’t say it’s like it happened right off the bat. Cause it didn’t talk to her. It’s just things that I would be embarrassed to say to even you or Josh or my mom or anybody else, like I can say right to her.
And it feels so good because I’m just like,
[00:08:23] Gianna: Hey, here’s my crazy ass thought.
[00:08:27] Brittany: Let me take you down this rabbit
[00:08:28] Gianna: hole, baby, like literally
[00:08:31] Brittany: rabbit hole. Therapy has helped immensely and I wish I had started sooner.
[00:08:36] Gianna: Uh, I could not be prouder of my best friend and all the work that she’s done to get herself to a good mental state After the grief of two miscarriages. Next step. We have Sean Hitchens, this wonderful author suffered also grief in twos with the death of his ex husband and boyfriend within six months. Now in his book, he had this quote that I had brought up.
[00:09:00] That God breaks your heart over and over until it remains. Open. Well he feels like after the deaths that he encountered he is incredibly open and here’s what he had to say about that

[00:09:13] Shawn (Episode 30)

[00:09:13] Gianna: Also had a quote that I really loved about, and I think this was something I put this in the therapy section, because I think it was something that you kind of were able to come to this conclusion throughout your therapy, but that God breaks your heart over and over until it remains open.
[00:09:28] Shawn: Oh, I am more open than I’ve ever been. And it took something as you know, I think after someone dies and people like, how do you become vulnerable again? There’s a somatic practitioner named Richard Strozzi who talks about one of the ways that we can cultivate vulnerability is by just facing the sun, which is also great for PTSD, which I did suffer from.
And I inhabited my grief, so I had complicated grief. And so one of the best ways to sort of promote vulnerability and stave off [00:10:00] those two wonderful things that I carried around for a bed is bright light. I became someone who worshiped the sun and I’m a, I’m a red head.
I should not be doing this every day. At the same time I would go out and I would like face the sun wherever it was in the sky. And I would just close my eyes and by a loud. Yourself to take one or two 20 seconds, 30 seconds and just close your eyes and say, nothing’s going to happen to my body. In that time, you start building boundaries again, because you can actually see where your, you can feel the sun on your face.
You can feel it through your eyelids and you know, where you end and the outside world begins. And so that is how I started practicing
[00:10:47] Gianna: vulnerability again. And what does that practice call to
[00:10:50] Shawn: do that? nourishing your receptive state.
[00:10:52] Gianna: As I’m sitting here, literally the sun is reflecting off of one of the city buildings and you can see it like beaming onto my face.
I [00:11:00] feel like you and the sun planned this at perfect
[00:11:02] Shawn: timing. Yeah. Yeah. It’s divine. Yeah. You’re welcome. Yeah. I also write about. At the end of the book being in San Francisco and just falling back in love with life again, I’m still working on that with a human, you know, I couldn’t, I came with an an agreement with Kathy, my therapist that I wouldn’t date for a while.
Just because I was just ripped
[00:11:28] Gianna: apart.
And episode 36, we heard John pochito. Now, this is an unconventional type of grief and what we normally talk about here on this show, but John lost his job during the pandemic and in, so Kind of lost a sense of self. He liked me is an Italian. And in our culture, the males are supposed to be macho and strong and therapy. Isn’t really highly regarded. So it’s interesting to hear his story about how his family really supported him and how surprised he was by that and how [00:12:00] surprised he is by how transformative therapy has been for him.
I love this episode so much because we don’t really hear men Getting so raw with their feelings and praising therapy the way that john did so i love to bring in this male perspective from john potato
You said you started therapy a few years ago.
[00:12:18] john: Yeah, it was a few months after I lost my job. I went on the strip and I’m like came back and I basically immediately started looking for jobs.
And I was just having a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do. And I was like going on all these interviews and then I wasn’t getting offers. And I just got really, really anxious about the things that were going on in my life. I’m an incredibly positive person. I am an incredibly happy person. I usually never had trouble sleeping.
Mentally sleeping physically. I’m a terminal sleeper, but that’s the only, I mean, I mean, like keeping myself up at night with my brain racing. Right. these are all things that started happening to me. And I was like, I should talk to someone. I was like, it’s very, very clear that I am irritable. I’m miserable and I need to [00:13:00] start.
Identifying what these causes are and how I can learn from them. And grow.
[00:13:06] Gianna: Did that take a little bit for you to accept that you needed to take that step? Or were you kind of just like, all right, this is fine.
[00:13:13] john: I think thankfully I’ve been lucky enough to have. Wonderful relationship with my family.
I have the best family on earth. I couldn’t be luckier in that regards. And they were fully supportive of me going to therapy because it’s just like a normal thing. The fact that there. There are still a stigma attached to getting better. Mental health is crazy
[00:13:33] Gianna: I
[00:13:34] john: And I, you know, I. I’m full on the train of like making fun of athletes when they’re talking about their mental health. Like.
You know, I was that guy, right. I was that person like.
What the fuck you mean? You’re like, you know what I mean? , that was a whole by-product I think of like the culture, right? Like. That was the norm. And I don’t feel that way anymore. And I think.
It’s crazy to me. You know, you don’t have the full relationship that you have with [00:14:00] your parents and your friends where you can tell them everything. Right. Because it just feels like you’re offloading, right? Like it’s easy to. You know, Really stress someone out when you’re like telling them all the things that’s going on in your life and what you’re struggling with. And.
You know, they’re not always going to tell you something that is not biased. Right? They’re going to tell you something that they have formed an opinion on based on the 30 years that they know you. So for me having a completely non-biased person, who’s just listening to what I have to say. About the things that I’m going through and saying, well, Hey, how about this? Or, Hey, how about that? And this is why you feel that way. Or maybe this is something you should try.
It’s been transformative. I mean, I don’t think I could be. As happy as I am today, if it were not for having gone to therapy, I don’t think I would be as like, well, I wouldn’t be working a regular job. Had I not started therapy, I would have 100% just gone right back to being a cog in the wheel. I’m getting on that hamster wheel and running in place.
[00:14:58] Gianna: I love that you’re able to [00:15:00] attribute not only like your mental happiness. But just like your place in society.
To the work that you’ve done in therapy. And that’s amazing.
[00:15:09] john: I mean, it’s just true, right? Like at the end of the day,
Had I not taken steps to like better myself and you can better yourself by going to the gym and you could better yourself by going to therapy. And I think. Like, I dunno, maybe this is just the new age, new wave thing. And I feel like. Like a fraud at times where I say that, but it’s true because I believe in manifesting positive things in your life. I believe that the, the mind is powerful enough to create the life that you want for yourself.
But like every muscle in your body, you have to work it out. You’ve got to like practically deconstruct it, rebuild it and work on it. And that’s something that I would, you know, twenty-five year old. John would’ve laughed at 35 year old John going to therapy. No question, but it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever done.
[00:15:56] Gianna: Today’s episode is sponsored by better help. You’ve heard me talk [00:16:00] about how therapy has been an absolute life changer for me. Like I legit don’t know where I’d be without it. So if you’re on the hunt for a therapy partner, you need to check out better help. It offers virtual services assesses your personalized needs and matches you with a licensed professional therapist that you can start talking to within 48 hours.
And it’s even more affordable than traditional counseling. Speaking of affordability, they’re allowing me to gift you with 10% off your first month. ‘ cause. I love you. And I want to see you get the help that you need. You absolutely owe it to yourself to seek the support of a licensed therapist. You probably already do your banking online, read your news online and do so many other things online. So Go ahead and take care of that. Aching heart again, code S S F Y L can get you 10% off. Your first month, they really make it so simple. So go check it out. Better. help.com.
S S F Y L that’s B E T T E R H E L p.com/s S F Y L. Thanks. To better help for sponsoring this episode.
Next from episode [00:17:00] 37, we have Meredith Hannah’s. Now Meredith is going to give us a little bit of a different perspective. Because she is a therapist. She also did lose her mom. So she’s coming at it from both angles. She’s looking at it as being a patient who has been in therapy for many years. And then also being the therapist who is helping people as they go through therapy. in this clip that I chose from her episode, she talks about how you as the patient can really control how your therapy goes. I think sometimes people think they just have to get in there and they sit down and somebody is just there to tell them how to handle their problems. And that’s not exactly it.
You can really be the captain and your own journey. And that’s important to know, because if you have a therapist who you don’t really. Vibe with, or isn’t really taking you on the right path. it’s perfectly acceptable for you to go in and say, Hey, I want to change this up a little bit.
Or it’s perfectly acceptable for you.
To seek out a new therapist. What we’ve heard a couple of our guests say,
And it’s something that I had to do. I was seeing a therapist. at the time that my dad passed away. I feel that she was good at the level of issues that I was dealing with at the [00:18:00] time, I don’t feel she was equipped to handle death and this all of the sudden acute extreme grief. I had gone to a few sessions because in my head, I said, you know what? She already knows everything about me. This doesn’t make sense to change. And it just wasn’t going anywhere. I, I couldn’t even make words. I just sat there on the couch and hysterically cried the whole time.
My husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, encouraged me to change. And thank God I did. I’m going on almost five years with my therapist now. I absolutely love her. And I really attribute a lot of. My success to her so here’s what meredith hannah says about having success in therapy

[00:18:38] Meredith (Episode 37)

[00:18:38] Meredith: And in our treatment plans, our first step is you define depression.
In your words, you define anxiety in your words, because I’m not going to know how to treat you. If I’m treating you like.
Depression from per patient a you know, and so I think that’s one of the big things too, is I don’t want people to get discouraged in their treatment if it’s not going the way they think, [00:19:00] because they’re also, that’s see. That’s another thing is. When you go into sessions, I feel like people think the therapist is in control and yes we are. We’re supposed to, you know, guide you and this and that. But if you’re.
Feeling like you want to guide that session. This is your time. You tell me
[00:19:18] Gianna: work for
[00:19:19] Meredith: want. Yes. Yes. I, if my framework doesn’t work for you, make your own, we can do it together. And that’s kind of the thing is I want people understand that therapy. And be collaborative that we understand that.
Some things aren’t going to work for you. And so kind of just being able to define that in your own words and to understand too. I think that it’s okay. I think that’s one of my biggest things is an everybody like jokes because it reminds me of my head of. Um, what was his name from the bachelor? Who like got so much flack? Oh, well I’m
[00:19:51] Gianna: Juan
[00:19:52] Meredith: They said.
They were like
[00:19:54] Gianna: it’s okay.
[00:19:55] Meredith: It’s
okay.
[00:19:56] Gianna: Yeah.
[00:19:58] Meredith: Like, what are you talking about? But I [00:20:00] say it’s okay. And then follow it up. to just be okay in that moment, that, that it’s a part of you. It’s not something that you need to throw out. You just need to embrace it, understand it and control it. And that’s just, you know, that’s the name of the game? So I’d say, yeah, that’s probably one of my biggest misconceptions is definitely the.
expectation of what
[00:20:22] Gianna: involvement that you can have in your own therapy plan.
[00:20:25] Meredith: Yeah. Yeah. it, I even say it as like, if you want me to run it. Okay. Like I have no problem. I know how to do that. But if you want to drive this session, go ahead. It’s your time. It’s you know, everything. but also I would highly suggest too, is the education portion, the hind, what your diagnosis is?
they have such great Ted talks too. And that’s something I utilized
[00:20:47] Gianna: In episode 42 with severe M peel.
He gave us such a great message about how everyone is feeling something everybody’s going through it. [00:21:00] So it’s okay to be emotional, open up, be vulnerable. Let those feelings flow. That’s the only way that you’re going to conquer it. And man, does he have some experience? He has lost both parents. He’s divorced. He’s been through depression. Similar to John from a few episodes ago, he talks about.
How he’s proud of being a man and therapy. And that he would encourage any male out there too. Go confide in the people around them confide in their partner let them know that this is what they’re going through and they just need to feel it because that’s the only way through and man is he right i love this episode here’s severe MPL.
[00:21:34] Sabir: so if I was giving a message to anyone, it would be like, for a guy, shit hurts. Tell wherever you’re whipped at, it hurts. Be real about it being vulnerable and understanding yourself will make it not seem so taboo because it’ll put you on past where you’re not going down like real dark shit.
Cause like you might be so emotional and insight and afraid to show someone that it puts you on the suicide watch. It might make you a violent person. If it’s your [00:22:00] partner, things of that nature, like you should think of it as like a precautionary thing. Like, damn, I’m super emotional or I feel sad or I should be emotional or I love showing my emotions to like liking art or things like that.
People feel like they it’s too taboo. It’s not manly. It’s mainly for you to just know who you are and
[00:22:18] Gianna: the way you phrase that, understanding yourself and knowing kind of like the red flags of when you might need a little extra attention to yourself, might need a little help, might need to do something different so that you don’t get to the points that you were just explaining.
That’s that’s really good point
[00:22:33] Sabir: Like you’re a guy and like, damn you either, like you need to cry. Like I cry all the damn time. Like you can cry either. Be more emotional. You can be more open with your partner that’s fine.
That’s good. Like, it’s good. Being emotional is good. That’s it. And understanding what that means. I know some days I’m just hyper emotional. Like I need to be there.
[00:22:55] Gianna: Yeah.
[00:22:58] Sabir: Like I came to like, let me suck that up real quick. [00:23:00] Cause I don’t need people to know that I got emotions. I’m a person. Like, what the hell is that going to do to me?
[00:23:04] Gianna: when you just build it up, I would say, you can’t ignore it. It’s going to find you some way or other. So it’s either you let it out when it needs to go out and it’s, you know, controlled or it just builds up and it explodes until it’s something so terrible.
[00:23:19] Sabir: You or hurt yourself so much being tied down from like, not grieving in an open way.
Not that you don’t have to grieve for everyone, but like out releasing like, damn, are you going to fit? Like, you’d be by yourself. Like, you know, I’m hurting, I’m in pain. I miss my mom. I miss my, I miss my dog. I miss my, my whatever and saying it or writing it or telling a therapist you grieving silently and not getting it out can lead to you being so.
The press and hurting everything around you.
[00:23:46] Gianna: Like everything. I appreciate your vulnerability here and, and sharing that with us. I wonder if you had any reactions from people that were maybe a little shocked to hear a male be [00:24:00] so forthcoming with his emotions,
[00:24:01] Sabir: I have a ton of people, like way more than I expected specifically. Who were like in the fashion world and everything, people who I’ve worked with in the past and things of that nature are like, yo, I’ve been on the brink of suicide recently.
Like I needed to hear this or like my such and such, just passing my mom or my dad just passed. And like, I didn’t know how to handle this. And like, just hearing that and like, I let people like, yo hit me up. Just talk to me, what’s going on. what people forget is that people need people. So like as much as you’d like might have a significant other, if you’re not open with them, but someone that you like look up to or follow that you feel like you have like some kind of relationship with, especially in like the social media era.
If they say something that peaks your interest or like they show how vulnerable their shit is. And you’re like, damn, I, I feel that. Or like, I never expected that from you because you look so polished and perfect. what I made myself do, if someone reached out to me and said something, I would ask them if they were okay, ‘
[00:24:55] Gianna: It’s just a reminder that everybody’s got something. Every single person, when you are vulnerable with [00:25:00] people, you only invite them to be vulnerable back. And nine times out of 10, they’re going to be, cause they got their own shit going on.

[00:25:07] Gianna: In episode 46 with Becca P Estrella. Jelly. We talked about community and ancestry and connecting with your roots and how that can help you establish who you really are and connect to yourself and how you need to treat your grief and Any emotional issues that you’re going through. with that, she really talks about this whole essence of reality TV and connecting to a community. So if you’re watching a show and you really love it, and you’re reaching out to other people that are also watching it, you’re reaching out on socials and seeing what everybody else is saying on it.
You’re building a community there, right? When I asked what her favorite was, she brought up a show that’s a little bit off the wall but her reasoning for why she liked it is connected to none other than therapy and needing to work together and how you can’t get through this just all on your own so here’s what she had to say
[00:25:54] Becca: I mean, I really like those survival shows where like, like naked and afraid.[00:26:00] it just, you know, they only really survived when they work together and I, this is so basic, but it’s actually something we often forget because we’re such like, I don’t need help.
I don’t need help. I’m fine. I’ll figure it out on my own
[00:26:15] Gianna: great point. That is of how much we think we can do on our own. And then how that feeds into grief. And we think that we don’t need others sometimes, or we don’t need therapy. We don’t need medication. We can do this ourselves. And like why
[00:26:31] Becca: though?
And then we say, oh, she’s so strong. Yeah.
[00:26:34] Gianna: Yeah.
[00:26:35] Becca: Yeah. What does that even mean? Yeah, so I watched these shows and I’m just like, oh, literally to survive. Like I just think about, we are animal bodies, you know, we are primal bodies that do not develop as quick as computers, you know? So there’s, this is why I think we need to whale and shake.
And so if I see these, like people naked in the wild who are just trying to feed themselves, it’s when they work together that they [00:27:00] live. I’m just like, there it is.
[00:27:03] Gianna: We really, we were all animals at the end of the day.
Finally for today, we have Jessica Roomberg from my most recent episode. Number 49. If you just listen to it, it’s just worth repeating this information. She is a mother who lost her child at 17 months old. She has gone on to have a foundation in honor of her daughter.
She’s doing everything she possibly can to move forward with her life, which is an important term to know, because you don’t move on, you don’t get over the loss of a loved one, but you can take it and you can move forward. So at the end of the episode, when I asked her what her advice would be for another mother going through the same. This is what she had to say.
[00:27:46] Jessica: The first thing I would say is to get a therapist and this is easier said than done because I’m the first person you see is likely not the person for you.
I mean, you’re very lucky if you like your first therapist. That’s amazing. I went through [00:28:00] like three before I found someone who I really, really loved and who really, I felt like not got me, but just knew what to do. I remember the first therapist I went to told me I didn’t look so good. Yeah. Yeah.
And I was like, oh, did you want me to blow dry my hair today? Like, I didn’t, you know, so like, yeah, finding that was like
[00:28:17] Gianna: your first time seeing.
[00:28:19] Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember my hair was like up here. Oh my God. Yeah. So find a therapist, a good one. And, and follow through with it. Like, you know, the more you talk, even this podcast right now, the more you talk and tell the story, I think that it helps you process.
Right. So I didn’t tell like the full story of what happened to Mila and. Several therapy sessions. And I remember app, like, it was a big session and afterwards I just felt like, wow, like I am, this is happening. And this happened. And so it helps you process.

[00:28:54] Gianna: So there it is 50 episodes down. I hope that today was helpful for you. If you’re on the fence about [00:29:00] therapy, feel free to reach out to me, reach out to any of the guests that were featured today. I truly, truly believe I would not be at the place that I am today. If it were not therapy, you heard like, basically those exact words from half of the guests that we had.
Thank you to my sponsor, a better help. Go check it out. better help.com/s S F Y L for 10% off your first month of therapy. It’s worth a shot. Go check it out. All right. And so next time. Wow.

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All The Skies

There’s no magic pill that can take away the pain of grief
But there are some pretty, little things that can help