Loss 46/101: Loss through disenfranchised grief and childlessness: Jody Day

#082. Have you ever felt like you didn't have the right to grieve something/someone? Or been through a loss that felt unacknowledged by social norms? Or maybe your loss was minimised or not understood by others. If so, that's disenfranchised grief. 

This is The Silent Why, a podcast on a mission to open up conversations around grief, to see if hope can be found in 101 different types of loss.

And as it's World Childless Week we thought we'd tie this week's loss into a subject that's also very close to our own hearts as a childless couple.

So loss #46 of 101 is exploring what's felt through disenfranchised grief and childlessness.

Our guest is Jody Day from rural Ireland. Jody is a well-known name in the world of involuntary childlessness, she wrote the book 'Living The Life Unexpected', started Gateway Women, is a psychotherapist, TEDx speaker (The Lost Tribe of Childless Women), World Childless Week ambassador and so much more (just Google her 😉).

In this conversation Jody shares the losses she's been through, why she's so passionate about speaking on subjects like disenfranchised grief and childlessness, how her childlessness broke her open more than her divorce, her long-term relationship with grief, and some of the healing moments she's had along the way for losses, like abortion.

Jody explains why she's a fan of grief, how she's learnt to recognise it when it appears, why she now partners with it, and how amazing it can be for transformation.

She also shares why she's a World Childless Week ambassador and what benefits weeks like this can have to help educate and create awareness. To find out more about that, and for all the free webinars they're offering this week visit: https://worldchildlessweek.net/whats-on

For more about Jody, her books, Gateway Women and all the other projects she's got on the go, visit: https://gateway-women.com/.

And find her on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/GatewayWomenUK
https://www.instagram.com/gatewaywomen
https://www.instagram.com/apprenticecrone
https://twitter.com/gatewaywomen

Transcript

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Jody: 0:02

Hi, I'm Jody Day and I'm here to talk about the disenfranchised grief of childlessness during World Childless Week.

Claire : 0:12

Welcome to The Silent Why, I'm Claire.

Chris: 0:14

And I'm very hot. It is very hot in here. England, bonkers temperatures.

Claire : 0:20

And who are you?

Chris: 0:22

I'm Chris.

Claire : 0:23

And in this episode we've reached lost number 46 of 101. Looking at disenfranchised grief and childlessness. It is World Childless Week after all.

Chris: 0:32

If you're new to us, this is a podcast on a mission to find 101 different types of loss, to chat to those who've been through them and find out if it's possible to find hope in all kinds of grief, while also asking all our guests the same last question...

Claire : 0:46

What's your Herman?

Chris: 0:47

If you have no idea why, check out the link in our show notes for a full explanation.

Claire : 0:51

Today's guest is Jody day from rural Ireland.

Jody: 0:53

I'm actually a big fan of grief. Not that it's in any way, a fun thing to experience when one's in the acute stages of it. But it is profoundly misunderstood and profoundly creative emotion to actually change us into a new version of ourselves that is able to live in the world with the thing that we didn't think we could live without. I mean, that is extraordinary. I think we need to be so much more grateful and appreciative and understanding and supportive, both of grief of people who are grieving, and, you know, of us and us supporting ourselves. When we're in the acute stages of it.

Claire : 1:30

She's become a well-known name in circles around women and involuntary childlessness. She wrote the book Living the Life Unexpected, started Gateway Women. She's a psychotherapist, TEDx speaker, and has been referred to as the'Beyonce of Childlessness' plus so much more, which you can find out through the links in the show notes, or by just Googling her name.

Chris: 1:48

Now, one type of grief that Jody is keen to educate people about is disenfranchised grief. And she's probably the best person to define it for us.

Jody: 1:56

It's a term first defined by Professor Kenneth Doka, in the late 80s, the form of grief, which is not socially acceptable, so you're not allowed to talk about it. You're not allowed to experience it and you're not allowed to seek support for it. It's probably like unrequited love, a very painful love that is not allowed to be expressed and not allowed to be in relationships. It's like unrequited grief.

Chris: 2:17

So this form of grief might not be acknowledged in society which could leave some with a feeling they might not have the right to grieve. For example, childlessness.

Claire : 2:26

In this chat, Jody shares with us about never having her own children, her time being single, not knowing who her dad is having an abortion and the healing moment that helped her face that loss and how her relationship with grief has changed over the years.

Jody: 2:39

My childlessness broke me open, perhaps even more so than my divorce. It brought me to my knees. I didn't know it was grief I was experiencing. But I think once I was able to understand that I was grieving and lean into it, there were so many ungreased losses backed up in my system that came out, then that just really floored me totally,

Claire : 3:01

We think you'll gain some invaluable insight through this conversation, particularly if you're dealing with long term grief, or just curious about what that might look like.

Chris: 3:09

We'll end this episode with Jody reading an extract from her book that will begin with her introducing herself.

Jody: 3:29

So hi, my name is Jody, I'm the founder of Gateway Women. I'm the author of Living the Life Unexpected. I'm a psychotherapist and I'm also a proud World Childless Week ambassador. I live in rural Ireland after a lifetime in London, and it's really great to be on the show.

Claire : 3:46

So I know you and I know your name. It pops up a lot in childless circles, because you're well known for your advocacy of talking out for for women in this area, especially but it's not the only loss you've encountered in your life. So just give us a synopsis of like your life and what loss and grief has looked like, you know, over the course of many years.

Jody: 4:04

That's a juicy question. I suppose I start with my childhood. I my parents split up before I was born. So my mum was kind of encouraged slashed forced to marry someone when I was three, in order to create a respectable home for me. So I grew up in a in a pretty unhappy home. And, and obviously, without, without ever meeting my father, I still haven't met my father or seen a photograph of him and that's my half Irish side. And I'm, you know, so here I am, back in my indigenous roots, but still without my father. And, I mean, can't some of I mean for example, I've lost all of my possessions three times in my life, you know? So that's, that's quite a lot. I then I got married when I was 26 to the guy had been going out for since I was about 22. And when that relationship did Workout as a combination of my unexplained infertility and his mental health issues, which were kind of manifesting, unfortunately, in addictions. You know, when that marriage broke down, that was the most enormous loss for me, because I lost the person that I hope to have children with, I lost the person that I really thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with after 16 years, and I lost him to addiction. He did, he did keep his life, but it didn't look like it. You know, for a long time, it didn't look like he would. It took him 10 years to get clean after we, after we split up. And I think for anyone who has loved someone with substance abuse issues or other addiction issues, it is the most enormous daily loss of so many things. And I also come from a background where there was a lot of that. So I don't know, sometimes I feel, you know, I really don't deserve to be in many ways that kind of as sort of jaunty and well adjusted as I am these days, but I credit that for 15 years of therapy training to be a psychotherapist, which is just, you know, there are no skeletons left in any cupboards anywhere they've all been brought out. And also I have to credit the 12 step movement. So as a lot of people have heard of AA, but they haven't heard of a lot of its other 12 Step groups. And I think I for me, Al-Anon, which is the 12 step group for friends and families of addicts and alcoholics, absolutely was a huge part of me, you know, of the healing in my love life and helping me to integrate the many losses in my life that were due to being surrounded by as growing up alcoholics and addicts and then marrying one. So then I had childlessness and singleness, so yeah. I've, it's been, it's been, there's been a lot to, there's been a lot to deal with, and a lot of losses along the way.

Chris: 6:55

I mean, you mentioned with a smile on your face, losing your possessions three times. So you've clearly experienced all sorts of loss and grief those in different ways. It's a short question, but it's probably going to be a massive answer. But have you recognised a different, you know, you grieve differently to different things? Or is it sort of one size fits all?

Jody: 7:16

You know, I don't think I did grieve them. I mean, because I had, you know, quite a traumatic sort of background, I was so used to having the rug pulled out from underneath my feet, that in a way, I was quite desensitised to loss. And I just, I was quite a different character to who I am now, I was quite tough, I think, you know, and my childlessness broke me open, perhaps even more so than my divorce, it brought me to my knees. And I didn't know it was grief I was experiencing. But I think once I was able to understand that I was grieving and lean into it, there were so many ungreased losses, backed up in my system that came out, then that just really floored me totally. So I now have a much more fluid relationship with grief. And I know how to work with it when it arises. And it will be even, for example, recently, about five years ago, I moved from London, where I've been living, you know, I was born there, brought brought up in the countryside moved back to London when I was 19. So I've been there for 34 years as an adult when I left to move to rural Ireland, which was something I really wanted to do and was really excited about doing. But it brought up a lot of loss. Because as I sort of say, my work, even desired change comes with a side order of loss, because grief is the emotion that enables us to process change. Because all change is also lost. It means something is no longer there that was there. Because something new is there. Now that something new can be something we've actually created or something that life has just handed us. But I realised Oh, this I'm feeling some grief around the life I had the identity I had, you know, Jody, the Londoner all of that, and it was interesting for me because now I feel the body signature of grief. Often before I know it's grief on notice that I sort of shrugging a lot, maybe I'm doing some sort of longer sighs maybe my feet are slightly heavier, you know, kind of stroppy adolescent sort of trudging movements, and I'll go what's going on? And then I'll check in with myself. It's like, what am I grieving? And kind of 'Hello, grief. I've noticed you've entered the room. What are we doing here?' And then I kind of like take a mental inventory and go, Oh, okay, that's gone. That's never coming back. I'd say that now. I have a relationship with my grief and we are partners in life. It actually becomes part of your experience of what it is to be you. So I think even that early day when I said one day I will be over Que again, one day I will be on the other side of this, I kind of wouldn't really say that now. Because actually, I think now I'd say, one day, this isn't going to be so painful. And one day, this is going to be integrated into my reality of what it is to be God. And it will no longer be dominating my identity, but it will be integrated into my identity. You know, Grief is a form of love is created by love. And the love I have for my children hasn't gone anywhere. It's just no longer painful. You know, it lives in a kind of a precious place deep inside my heart. And my heart, my identity has grown bigger around it, to encompass it. But you know, if I didn't have a little bit left of my grief, then I wouldn't have anything left of that love. And I'm okay that there is deep in my heart, there is a jewel, where they are safe. And if it gets touched, it hurts. It's a bittersweet hurt. But it's no longer this overwhelming despair and sadness, that is at the front and centre of my mind. You know, 24/7 You know, and it's not that it shrunk, I think I've grown into the idea that grief is a companion for life might sound quite scary. But that's because we live in a very grief phobic culture that paints grief as some kind of problem. Maybe even a character weakness, maybe even something to be pathologized. Maybe it's even an illness. But it's just a form of love. And it's there to help us deal with an irrevocable loss or an irrevocable change. And it's such a profound and beautiful emotion, it has completely transformed my life and my identity. And I know it sounds like a very strange, I'm actually a big fan of grief. And not that it's by in any way, a fun thing to experience when one's in the acute stages of it. But it is a profoundly misunderstood and profoundly creative emotion, to actually change us into a new version of ourselves, that is able to live in the world with the thing that we didn't think we could live without. I mean, that is extraordinary. You know, I think we need to be so much more grateful and appreciative and understanding and supportive, both of grief of people who are grieving, and, you know, of us and us supporting ourselves when we're in the acute stages of it.

Claire : 12:32

It's really interesting, it got me thinking as well about learning about your grief and recognising him when he appears and and what he looks like and you've obviously had a long time working on that relationship. You said that childlessness was sort of what kind of cracked you open with it. Was there a point when you discovered that it was a grief? Or how did that happen? Because you were quite instrumental in the early days, obviously of recognising childlessness as a grief. So is there like a one point when you suddenly tweaked that, or did you just sort of learn it as you were going along?

Jody: 12:58

No, there was very much a point. I was in my second year of my training to become a psychotherapist. And we were doing a weekend training course on working around bereavement. And we were introduced to the grief model, the very classic Kubler Ross grief model. And we were studying it over the weekend. And it was the first day and it was like the Saturday and I went home that this feels very familiar. You know what we were discussing. It just just had a tone about it that just felt really familiar. And so I went home and I mapped out the Kubler Ross, five stage model against what I was experiencing around my childlessness. And it was a complete blue, perfect fit. And I was like, oh my god, I'm grieving. That's what this is. That's what this despair, this, this deep melancholy, that doesn't shift with anything that I know what to do. And then that was what was so confusing about it is, you know, I'd seen the doctors, I'd seen the therapists, I'd seen everyone about it and I and I had a lot of tools in my toolbox for dealing with difficult things because I've had a lot of experience and nothing that used to work worked. And I was having real difficulty feeling any joy. So even the things that used to bring me joy in my life weren't bringing me joy anymore. So it was like kind of all of the ways I would normally help myself through a difficult time weren't working. And I thought well, maybe this is just what the middle age feels like. You know, maybe I'm just going to be this kind of new, slightly miserable, grumpy joyless person for the rest of my life, or are and but it wasn't it was grief. So I had the moment I realised this is grief. I realised two things, and I feel quite emotional talking about it because it was such an important moment for me because I thought number one, I'm not going mad. Because the internal cognitive reality of grief is a very strange place. It's very different from our normal cognitive reality. And it can be very, very kind of scary to kind of like what am I Moscow along with me, I don't recognise these thoughts. And at this, why am I thinking these kinds of things and feeling these kinds of things? So I thought, Great, I'm not going crazy. Number two, I understood for the first time ever, this is grief, Grief is a process. That means one day, I'm going to be on the other side of this. And it was the very first moment, I had hope that one day, I was going to feel differently to how I felt in that time. So it gave me some hope. And it gave me some reassurance that this is a natural process. And I'm going to be okay. I don't know how I don't know when, but I am going to be okay. Again one day,

Claire : 15:42

I think it's almost like we need to shift our expectations that rather than assuming you might get through life, avoiding grief, which seems to be what for some reason, we have all have built into it, I don't know where that's come from, we almost need to shift it that you're gonna have grief, you're going to have to build a grief into your life, but you don't know yet what it's going to be. And we'll all have a very different one, or ones, you know, there'll be lots of them. But this is going to be your thing, and you will build it in it will be that it will become your identity, it will be with you for the rest of your days in very different ways. I think that would almost be like a sort of like, oh, well, you know, what am I gonna get? How am I going to have to change when it comes? We don't know. But we do seem to have this belief that it just it won't happen. Or we might get away with it. If we don't get away with it, something bad's happened to us. And we're the unlucky ones.

Jody: 16:23

I do wonder how, how recent that is? And how incredibly privileged that is. I mean, I you know, over the last 50 years, you know, certainly some of us have not experienced, you know, any wars, and we've lived at a time of kind of prosperity, and free health care, and so many things, which are all passing. And I think, you know, to my grandparents, who lived through the Second World War, and you know, when there was no national health service, death was much more present in people's life. And certainly, I think a death being around you much more and dead bodies being around you much more often really would change your relationship with grief. In a way perhaps our phobia of grief is also and the way sometimes we see grief and loss or some kind of character failure is because we have collectively been able to imagine that every human problem can be solved that if we have enough money, enough data, enough medicine, if we're good people if we work hard enough, if we pay our taxes, you know that somehow we can kind of control the human experience and loss, you know, unchosen loss and fertility, ageing and death can't be completely controlled. And we don't like that. You know, our ego really likes the idea that we have got the universe nailed. And grief and loss, they show us that we haven't. So we really don't like them.

Chris: 17:50

It's making me think of colours, and I guess nine out of 10 people, if you ask, what's the colour of grief, it's so black. And it's almost like we need to try and change the colour of grief. Because if you want to live with it as a love as a companion, maybe you maybe others don't want to be around black all the time. But if it was a different kind of like a yellow or a green, then it suddenly becomes a lot more acceptable to be your friend to accept yourself whatever it may be. But I think that sort of leads me into thinking about when you grieve over a long period of time, when you accept a situation over a long period of time, that then taps into something that you're talking a lot about at the moment, which is disenfranchised grief. So Can that be something that you feel in a short spell? Or is that predominantly when you're grieving over a long period of time?

Jody: 18:33

Gosh, that's such a good question. As I understand it, and I talk about it in my work, grief is a social emotion. It is a form of love, you can't grieve on your own you or either you can grieve but you can't mourn on your own. And it can get stuck because what happens is grief has to be reflected in the heart and mind of another who gets it. And that can be online, or it can be face to face. But it's just that sense that it has to move into a social connection. So if you imagine that grief needs that other in order to do its morning work, to be recognised, to be validated, to heal our hearts to help us change our identity, and you're not allowed to talk about it. And if you do talk about it, you're shamed or told, Oh, you're not really grieving, you haven't really lost anything or aren't you over that yet? Oh, I thought you guys are okay with that now, or whatever it is, is just like just get back in your box. So, I mean, I don't know if there are any studies on this but I would imagine that disenfranchised people could get stuck for a long period and not in not in the kind of the healthy relational way that I'm talking about the I'm in relationship with my grief. I think it could be very stuck grief, very painful grief, you know, deep despair sense of not belonging to A world not belonging to the community, your story not being welcome, you know, an intense sense of being othered. For your experience would, you know there are many forms of disenfranchised grief that are recognised now from Kenneth Stoker's work. And actually one of them is secondary infertility. I mean, someone who has had a child, and would like to have more and can't have them, if they tried to talk about it, they will hear things like, oh, but you've already got one, or something like that. So it's once again, it's that sense of like, oh, you're not allowed to talk about that. I have decided that you're okay. So please be quiet. Another one is sibling loss. You know, when people lose a sibling, often when someone's talked to them that ask them how their parents are doing. But actually, the fact that they are mourning, the loss of their siblings can often be overlooked, you know, and mourning the death of an ex partner, for example, I have been divorced for over 20 years. I'm still close to, you know, my ex partner. That's where all my nephews and nieces are because I'm an only child, so very much still part of that family. And when you know, when he dies, I know I'm going to be devastated. And yet people say, but you split up years ago, because mourning the death of an ex is also disenfranchised grief. So why are you upset? You divorced 20 years ago, that's like, because we were together with 16 years, you know, he witnessed my 20s and my 30s. He was my witness, you know, I'm not just losing that I'm losing a part of me with him when he goes. So there are many ways it can show up. And the fact that it can't be spoken about is is is excruciating.

Chris: 21:37

I mean, this this sort of thing we could talk about for hours and days, as we mentioned, the very start, we're in the midst of World childless week, which is very much about raising awareness. So with the time you spent in it so far, have you come to a point where you think there's there is sort of an answer to help somebody with it, as it can be worked on? Or is it just about recognising it and spending time again, raising awareness of it, like well, childless week?

Jody: 22:05

I think it's probably both. I think individuals, if you're listening to this, and you are experiencing distress around your childlessness, that distress is likely to be grief. And you may not have labelled it as grief, and no one might have suggested it's grief. And probably the best thing that you can do is to find others who are experiencing it as well. Who can you can have frank discussions with online gateway women has an online community. And there are other online communities out there, you'll find a list of them on the World Charter suite website. I mean, I remember the very first blog I wrote, because gateway women started as a blog. And, you know, I thought maybe two people would read it. And you know, suddenly, there's all of these comments coming in. And I was sitting, there were tears running down my face. Because women were writing, I thought I was the only one with these thoughts in my head. How do you know exactly what I'm thinking? And just the sound like God, I'm not alone. So that sense, you know, find your people find your community. If you can find one in person, they're harder. But you know, you you know, there are there are, I mean, the gateway women online community, which is now called the childless collective, has kind of groups that meet up all over the world so you can meet other members, that is really helpful. Find your people. And if you are someone who is perhaps around someone who is experiencing involuntary childlessness, I would I would, you know, if they start to talk about their experience, and if they name it as grief, and if they name it as distress? My number one tip, is this, what ever the first thought is that comes to your mind that you want to say, take a breath. Just take a breath at that point, because it's likely that that statement will be what we call a bingo, because they are really, really programmed into the collective unconscious, like, and it might be something like, oh, kids, aren't all they're cracked up to be? Or are you dodged a bullet? Or have you thought of adoption? Or, you know, and if you watch my TED talk, I kind of go through quite a few of them. And these are very shaming statements. Because what they're saying is, I'm not really listening. I just want to fix it. Because you having this problem is not comfortable for me. And it's very shaming. So I would just say, you know, it's a very human impulse, there's nothing wrong with it to want to offer a solution. The solutions that can offer to people without children are either ones that are completely out of their reach have already been exhausted, or are totally fantastical. So the chances are just just just don't say that and ask an open ended question instead, that if they're opening up to you be that person that they can talk to, without judgement, just go, Gosh, I didn't know that. How was that like for you? You know, it doesn't have to be rocket science. You don't have to be a therapist. Just don't shut them down with a bingo.

Chris: 24:58

I think that does apply though. Too often we can think that about ourselves as well. It's not necessarily what others might say, we might say internally, you know, I certainly thought when we had sort of come to our line in the sand where okay, we progresses to, and then suddenly I was thinking of, you know, all this extra resource, extra money, holidays, all this, you sort of start thinking, Well, all I can fill my life with, if there aren't children, but you know, much of that hasn't come to pass. So I'm having to accept, okay, I had lots of maybe unhealthy thoughts about what life would look like for me, which hasn't worked out. So I need to continue to work through that. And that wasn't necessarily what people were saying to me. That was just my own thoughts.

Claire : 25:38

Part of you wants to think, oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah, I could do more of that stuff. But then sometimes you can't. And it made it made me realise, especially when people thought our house was really quiet. They'd always comment on how quiet your house especially they've got kids and they're just like, love it because it's quiet. It took me a while to recognise a difference between a quiet house and then like having peace. Because our house is quiet. It didn't mean it was always peaceful, because there's a lot of grief, there's a lot of loss. There's a lot of stuff we were working through the quietness, highlighted what we didn't have. So it was a lot of things like that I had to work through and kind of reconcile thinking, Yeah, I should be grateful for that. But then actually thinking well, actually, no, because that is the thing that makes it so empty here. There's a lot of things like that but just with the childless thing, obviously it's world childless week, you know a lot about that. So what you know, people are just like, I don't understand what do these weeks actually do apart from the fact I see stuff on social media, maybe what is the value of a week like World Childless Week?

Jody: 26:27

Well World Childless Week was started by a British woman, Stephanie Joy Phillips in 2017. When she realised that there, there wasn't, you know, I mean, childfree Person of the Year has been going on for nearly 50 years. But there wasn't anything to do with with involuntary childlessness. All of the kinds of weeks that we got tagged on to were basically fertility weeks. And you know, childless people, not all of us are childless because of failed fertility treatments. And also, we're kind of the bad fairy at the christening. Nobody really wants to think about childlessness when they're going through fertility treatments, so it's not we weren't really welcomed there anyway, either. So, Stephanie, you know, she'd been running a couple of Facebook groups around in supporting people who were involuntary childlessness. And it was just a kind of Brainwave. And she floated it with a few people. And they said, Yeah, yeah, do it. And that first year, it went absolutely ballistic. I mean, so many people got involved, and we're sharing the resources and, and so I think after that one, we really thought about, well, what what are we going to do with this in the future, and I've been an ambassador and supporting the project right from the beginning. Because I've had quite a big audience by then, and my audience has grown since so you know, in a by putting my weight behind it, that really helped as well. But I think the purpose of world childless week is number one awareness, like Chris was saying, getting the world childless week on to the awareness days, calendars of kind of organisations, that's really important as well. So starting to see that this is a week in the year when we think about these issues. You know, we have you know, that corporations and D IB, and HR has a long list now, things to think about, but childless people historically have not been part of that, that that list of kind of, well, these people have a different experience in the workplace, should we be thinking about that? So that's really important, but also just like you too, and just like me, pretty much every well all of the support in the world around childlessness is created by small organisations, one people, two people, three people doing it out of love. So there's no there's no big organisation, there's no money. No one's ever funded gateway women. No, no entrepreneur with deep pockets or philanthropist has ever rocked up at my door and said here, here's 100,000 pounds, what kind of campaign could you do with it? So it's mostly small, you know, self funded organisations doing amazing work. And one of the things well childless week also does is by bringing us all together and signposting what is out there in a concentrated way on the world childless Week website for that for that one week, it really helps people find the support they need. And you know, 15 years ago, when I started, there was nothing, you know, now there's so much, which is amazing. And I think the more there is, the better, because we're each going to sort of have a slightly different vibe that's going to appeal to a different so in a way, the more the more resources started by people for childlessness, there are the better because then someone might find the one that really vibes best for them. I mean, just if I become a mother, it wouldn't mean that necessarily, I would automatically get on with every other mother, or they get on with me. So why should in every childless person, find my personality and my approach really, really works for them? So it's great. So it brings together lots of people. It provides a whole week of free webinars. I think we've got 18 webinars this week, on a wide variety of topics. So they're all free. So it's like there's a week of support for individuals. Something that well childless week does that no other Awareness Week does is each day has a different theme and the content for each day Use theme is provided by childless people from around the world. So actually, it's also a place where people can express their experience. It's not a creative competition, it can, you know, it's some of them can be very raw or very polished. So it's also like a platform for us to express ourselves in different ways over the week. So it comes at it in, in so many different ways, the classic kind of awareness raising day, but it's also a community building day, and a resource sharing day, for a whole week. I mean, I'm, I'm so proud to be an ambassador of it. And I'm so proud for what stuffs done once again, completely unfounded.

Chris: 30:40

Just with all your experience, have you any headline thoughts on where men are with this? Because I know predominantly it's challenging as has talked about among women, female circles. Some men are there, some men are catching up, some men are hiding? What are your sort of headline thoughts on men and infertility or childlessness?

Jody: 30:59

Well over the years, I mean, I was often sick to you please start gateway women, and can you start gateway men? And I said, I really don't think it's my place to do that. And I remember once I had run, I'd run a workshop. And unusually, everyone in the workshop that weekend was partnered. And they said, We'd so love it, if you did something, you know, for our partners, and they were all partnered with men. And I said, No, probably wouldn't work. I said, Just go home, talk to your partners. See what they say if they really want to do something, I'd be really happy to create something to bring in a male, you know, co facilitator for the weekend and to create something. Anyway, the ones that came, most of them came back with like, no way. And the ones that did come back, but that was probably the most positive response was if you really want me to die. So So I said, that's actually a no. And so over the years after that, whenever I would meet a childless man who was developing a public profile of any kind, I said to him, Please can you start something please can you start a support group please. And then known in the in the trade that kind of known as Jodi's famous nudges? And I said, you know, I'd be happy, I'll mentor you, I'll support you, I'll help to kind of get the platform up. You know, I really want there to be something out there for men, but it needs to come from men. And I'm very pleased to say that after many years of nudging, both Michael Hughes and Andy harrow did they set up the childless men's community on Facebook. It was called clan of brothers for a while, and then they re changed it to the childless men's community on Facebook, Michael Hughes, I know him through he was a well childless week ambassador. He also went on to be 1/3 of the full stop podcast. And they have a community now the full stop podcast has an online community, which is for men, women, and people of all sort of gender expressions. So that alongside my dear pal, Dr. Robin Hadleys, work. He's written a great book, you know how as a man meant to be a man, I'd say that slowly, and very much kind of coming out of the UK, again, men are finding a voice. Robert Nurdin is an author journalist who's just written a book, I always wanted to be a dad, which I read some I was very honoured to read some early drafts of that's just been published and that's going to be that is actually out to by Robert nerd Nurdin and that's about being childless by circumstance, because all there are, as is, as with the female story, the childless after infertility treatments, was kind of where childlessness came in. And childlessness by circumstance, which was something I started talking about, is still a bit more hidden. And in the male story, childlessness by circumstance is much more hidden. And Robert nergens book is all about that, you know, he's in his 70s. Now, he always thought one of his relationships would lead to children, they didn't. And He's grieving that and he's in his 70s. And childlessness by circumstances, more nebulous, and so much more complex. Sometimes, then, because people can get their head around the idea of like, you know, if you're, if you don't have children, or you didn't want them or you couldn't have them, yeah, they can kind of get that. But everything in between, just like, oh, no, that that's way too great. I can't go there. And actually, very few of us, very few of us have a completely straightforward story. You know, my story involves not wanting to have children, you know, when I was young, because of my childhood, changing my mind and trying to have children and not being able to have them and then divorcing and hoping to meet someone else to try IVF with and not meeting the right person, so childless by circumstance and being single. So it's like, I've kind of experienced quite a few different varieties of it already. Including having an abortion when I was 20. When I got pregnant when I was sure I didn't want to have children because I was terrified of mothering as I had have been mothered. absolutely terrified. So, you know, that was something I had to grieve later. I never knew that would be my only ever conception. I still don't know why I couldn't conceive. It wasn't anything to do with the abortion, I had an operation, everything was checked out. But it wasn't until I was grieving my childlessness that the grief of the abortion emerged. And I write about it in my book. But I had an amazing experience with that when I was in St. Paul's Cathedral, with a group of Gateway women who were attending a service for loss run by saying goodbye for babies lost at any age at any stage. And I was there supporting women who had lost children through through miscarriage through IVF failure through early infant loss. And when I was there, they asked everyone who had experienced that loss to come up and light a candle, and it's in St. Paul's Cathedral. And I suddenly realised I wanted to light the candle as well, even though I felt I kind of didn't quite deserve it, because I hadn't, you know, hadn't had IVF fate, you know, losses and, and I just thought, No, I want to light the candle. And as I went up there, and I lit the candle, I realised that the baby I was I was lighting that candle for was the child that I aborted. And in that moment, I knew that he had been a boy. And I would have called him Paul, which would have been his father's brother's name. And I was in St. Paul's Cathedral. And as that smoke from the candle went up to the ceiling, I was very much in contact with the soul of that little boy. And I said, I'm so sorry, I wasn't ready to be your mommy. And I felt his forgiveness. And it was a very healing moment for me. And I do try to talk about my abortion because it's often ashamed loss. Within childlessness, you know, one in three women in the UK, has had an abortion at some point in their life. Many of those were already mothers will go on to be mothers, many of us, you know, we're not mothers, and do not go on to be mothers. But it's there's a kind of thing that, oh, you had a chance to be a mum, and you didn't take it. So you're not allowed to grieve. And we can, Chris, we say that to ourselves. And it can really get in the way of processing childlessness. And also being able to be really honest with other childless women, because we fear their censure.

Claire : 37:36

Thank you for sharing that. I know there'll be people listening, who will really feel that and that will just give them a lot of hope. I know what you mean, not on the same level of you know, last but we didn't choose to pursue IVF it almost feels wrong because some people in some countries don't get it. You know, we had two shots on the NHS at one point. People were why would you not take that. And it wasn't it wasn't right for us at the time. And looking back, we were pleased we didn't follow that path, because it would have inter interact with a lot of other health stuff I had, we didn't know at the time. But it is difficult. There's different all the decisions you make along the way. They put you in these little categories that make you feel like you don't fully belong in the childless category as a whole. And it's, it's incredibly hard to work through.

Chris: 38:13

There were elements as well, that resonated with me, because something we've talked about before, when you grieve something you never had in the first place where there isn't a physical something to to mourn over. There isn't a small grave site, there isn't something physical to bury. So the what you were saying about the circumstance, being childless by circumstance, quite often, I imagine in that regard, you're not left with anything physical to put away to bury to mourn over. So it add into that confusion.

Jody: 38:45

Which is why ritual is so important, because, you know, when when sort of archaeologists, you know, look at a human remains and look at old cultures, once you find evidence of ritual, and that's usually ritual around burying bodies, you know, that you found modern humans, it is, you know, along with making art, you know, ritual is so much a part of what it means to be a modern human. And by modern, I mean, you know, beyond Neanderthal, although even now we're starting to realise that perhaps the Neanderthals were more modern in inverted commas for radio than we have previously understood. But it's ritual makes tangible, the intangible, and it creates an object that a tangible object, a place a visit, an object, something, a moment, a shared experience, to share and talk about. And remember, I mean, one of the rituals I created, and it is, it is in my book for those who want to do it, which is so powerful is actually to write a goodbye letter to the children that live only in your heart. And to write it enter and to use the word goodbye in the letter to use the names that you would have given your children if you have done so. And to sign it off, you know, as mommy or daddy, or whatever the term was, you and have that letter, and then burn that letter. And if you do that, I mean, when I do it with a group of women, we read the letter out, you know, and then that person burns it in the centre, and we stand in a circle around it, and we watch it burn. And then the next person reads their letter, you don't get to keep the letter, because after you've written it, a lot of people really want to keep the letter, it's like no part of it is you have to burn the letter. But then you get to keep some ashes. So you take the ashes away with you. And then, you know, I get women sometimes, like 10 years later, writing to me saying, I finally worked out what I want to do with my ashes. Because one of the things I say, don't rush it, don't think you have to do something, you might want to keep them forever, you might want to bury them in your garden, but they'll say, actually, you know, I went to this really special place, and I released them into the air, or I've buried them in my garden, in one lady, actually, more than one person has told me that the plant that they planted on top of the ashes has like a rose in it, and the rose blooms every year, like on a significant anniversary for their loss. So it's extraordinary what happens or people keep them forever in a special pot or, and it's it creates something tangible. And also the place where we used to do the ritual, which was when I ran workshops in London, is actually in Regent's Park, some of the women go back to Regent's Park to that spot, because that's where, in a way, the funeral and memorial for their loss took place. So there's something tangible, so it's, you know, sometimes there's, you know, grief work, as I call it, and it you know, sometimes it can be thinking of creative ways to create a ritual around our loss, and also taking our loss. Seriously, seriously enough to do that. And because it's also quite scary to do, because we're really coming into relationship with our loss in a very profound way, when we do something like that, it's going to bring up a lot of emotion, it's, it's in effect is in effect, you're having a funeral, for your dreams, you know, that is not going to be like a walk in the park. But it is a before and after, and women say, you know, after that ritual, something shifted in my life. And that I wasn't expecting to shift. Because that is the power of ritual, you know, I don't know, I think maybe in the past life, I might have been a kind of priestess or something of ritual. I love creating them, I love holding them. I love the depth of emotion that they create, and that has to be held.

Claire : 42:40

One of the things we ask all our guests out of interest, really, if you've ever asked the question, why, and more specifically, maybe for you, now you you've had such a long relationship with your grief. Do you still ask it? If you did ask it?

Jody: 42:53

Yeah, God, I spent years in that place. I think that, you know, part of the anger stage, you know, looking at Kubler Ross is kind of working through and the bargaining stage, it's like, you know, if I'd done it differently, you know, but I think that sense of unfairness, you know, why me? Why did this happen to me, I'm a good person, you know, all these people in the world that are horrible to their children that shouldn't have been parents anyway, all of that stuff. It's really normal part of the grieving process. But one day, I turned it on its head. Why not me? Why not me, had happened to someone. And it was the beginning of me, because one of the things that happens within grief is quite often what's called a loss of the assumptive worldview, which in simplistic terms, is how you think the world works. And for me, you know, my childlessness. On top of all of the things I'd experienced, it was just, you know, really universe? Is there a sign on my back that just says, kick me? Because, you know, I just like, is there anything left that can go wrong in my life. And I gradually began to realise that I was carrying within me, a very simplistic worldview, that I really should have left behind in the primary school playground, which is that good things happen to good people, that the world is fair, that life is nice, that if I'm a good person, nice things will happen to me, you know, that this idea that there was some kind of bargaining system between me and the universe, and I would get rewarded. I realised that how incredibly simplistic that was, and also how privileged that was, because there are, you know, the dice are stacked against people in so many different ways when we're born. And you know, for things that absolutely, we haven't chosen. I mean, we can be the nondominant ethnicity, we can have some kind of disability, there are many, you know, there are many, many things where people will judge us and put us in the out group, whatever the in group is, they'll put us in the out group, because of some privilege that we do not hold that has nothing to do with our choices. And I began to realise As the nature itself is fundamentally unfair, you know, if you're an antelope and you're the one that gets picked for dinner by the lion, that's not fair. But that is nature. And we are, you know, an act of nature a storm, a hurricane, definitely not fair. Definitely not, you know, what, why did they have to land in our town? So, I think because we have separated ourselves from nature, human culture, sees nature as something out there to go and visit has lost that actually we are part of nature. And nature is not fair. And nature is a moral, you know, a moral, it really doesn't have an agenda. It's, it's just random who, who these things happen to. And I think once I stopped thinking that I had been personally singled out by the universe, and started to realise all the privileges I had, as well as the things that hadn't gone well in my life. I think I started to have a much more balanced idea and that maybe, I don't think without my childlessness, I would have arrived at that point of view. I think childlessness because it did crack me open, it also forced me to go very deep, to find a new way of understanding my place in the world. And I'll be honest, a more humble one. That didn't expect life to work out well, for me, just because I was God. Like, why why would it? You know, it's, you know, life. You know, life is challenging for all of us. And some of us, it's really stacked against us right from the beginning, I had my own challenges. But I also have lots of privileges, you know, white middle class sounding, even though I had a working class upbringing, a good education, which was free. You know, I'm most mostly able bodied, I do have a few things going wrong. Even quite a nice speaking voice. There's lots and lots of things. And I have to say, you know, this is one that we're not allowed to talk about as women look ism, I was a good looking woman, you know, I'm now a much older woman, it's different. But this idea that, you know, I was born, when not as a kid, I was a weird looking kid. But when I became a teenager and a young woman, I had a certain kind of look and a certain kind of figure. That was sort of the way that good looking women were meant to look at that time, complete genetic fluke, had nothing to do with me. But luckily, my mum, she was very, very critical such I had no idea that, you know, that I was I was actually quite nice looking until until men started paying attention in my teenage years. But that opened doors for me as well. I didn't do anything to deserve that. And someone who, you know, has looks, which don't look like that. They get less opportunities. And yet, it's really interesting. Look, hism, we're not allowed to talk about it. I'm not really allowed to say that I was a good looking young woman is like, oh, you can't actually say that. It was a reality. And it was nothing to do with me. Gateway women, for example, probably wouldn't have taken off in the way it did. If I hadn't looked the way I'd looked in midlife, because when women looked at my website and looked at my photos, I looked normal. I looked like someone they wouldn't mind being. But had I looked a different way. They might have thought, Oh, she looks a bit weird, or I don't want to I don't want to be associated with childless women that look like that. Whatever that is, it's a minefield out there of things we're allowed to talk about, we're not allowed to talk about. And as you know, that is where you'll find me

Chris: 48:35

Leaving a map for the rest of us. Thank you. Jody, it's been such a pleasure, such a joy to chat to hear some of your experience. So the last question, we want to end our chat with love to hear how you summarise everything you've learned and gathered from the last few decades, into one short answer a pearl of wisdom to hand on somebody else, but yeah, what's your Herman?

Jody: 48:58

My Herman's around grief. Grief is the engine of change and transformation. It's something we need to learn about and become skilled with it will visit all of us it's not to be afraid of grief is the engine of creativity and transformation. That's my Herman.

Claire : 49:24

Well, if ever there was a conversation advocating for the positives that grief can offer I think it's this one. Thank you so much, Jody, for sharing so openly and honestly about your experiences. We really appreciate it and know that so many others will benefit from it.

Chris: 49:38

To find out more about Jody her books or talks or teaching. We've put links to her work in our show notes.

Claire : 49:44

And if you want to know more about World Childless Week and all the resources and seminars on offer, visit www.worldchildlessweek.net.

Chris: 49:51

And then there's Claire and I, read more about us and our story at www.thesilentwhy.com or on social media @thesilentwhypod and we'll be back with a brand new episode in two weeks,

Claire : 50:01

We're finishing with an extract from Jody's book, Living the Life Unexpected, read by the author herself, from Chapter Four entitled 'Grief is good'.

Jody: 50:11

"In Western culture, we've become fairly hopeless at coping with grief with loss. We failed to recognise its power, its meaning and its healing and run from it as if it were death itself. Yet grief is the emotional and psychological process that enables us to deal with loss. Avoiding it makes us emotionally stuck, unable to cope with life, unable to move forwards, becoming aware of the possibility that we may not have children that we may not have the family of our dreams is a heartbreaking loss. Unlike many of the other losses we may have experienced the end of fertility or the possibility of burying a biological child is an irrevocable and definite loss. It's a kind of psychological death and it's profound. facing up to it changes us forever. What we and others often fail to realise is the depth and reach of our loss, that not only will we never have children, but we will never create our own family, we will never get a chance to heal the wounds of our own childhood. By doing things differently with our children will never watch them grow up, never hold their hospital hands in our own. Never throw children's birthdays, parties. Never take that first day at school photo, never teach them to ride a bike. We'll never see them graduate, never see them possibly get married, and have their own children will never be grandmothers and never give the gift of grandchildren to our parents will never be the mother of our partners children and hold that precious place in their heart will never stand shoulder to shoulder with our siblings, and watch our children play together will never be part of the community of mothers never be considered a real woman in a society that equates motherhood with womanhood. We'll never be able to hope that someone will be there to support us with the practical and emotional challenges of growing old, let alone someone to leave our treasured belongings to visit our graves or take our lifetimes learnings into the next generation. If you take the time to think about it all in one go, which is more than most of us are ever likely to do because of the breathtaking amount of pain involved. It's a testament to our strength, that we're still standing at all. And yet, because the loss of our future children is an invisible loss. We often fail to recognise ourselves that what we are experiencing is grief, and others don't seem to have a clue what depth of pain and distress we are in. Some women are in such pain that they find themselves having suicidal fantasies I did. It's not that I wanted to die. I just didn't want to live the rest of my life with this level of hurt. If we miscarry lose a baby or infant failed to conceive, we'll never have the opportunity to try for one, our loss can remain invisible to others. It's known as disenfranchised grief because it's grief that our society does not recognise, and which consequently many of us feel shame for experiencing if we allow ourselves to experience it at all. And because our loss isn't recognised and reflected back to us with kindness and empathy, we often give up seeking understanding from others, and may instead learn to block out our pain with all kinds of self medication, including drinking too much over eating overworking or becoming a sort of recluse. In doing so we may remain stuck in a quagmire of unprocessed grief for years. If we had lost a living family by some tragic event, we would never expect ourselves to get over it. Yet we and others expect those of us who are childless to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, count our blessings and get on with things. No wonder so many of us are struggling. The treatment we currently receive is not just neglectful, it's downright cruel. And sadly, knowing no better. Many of us treat ourselves in exactly the same way. I've come to stand, understand grief as a form of love, because it's created by love. And it's a loving energy that heals us so that we can love life again. I like to imagine the moon with its bright face towards us reflecting the sun as love and The Dark Side of the Moon in shadow representing grief. We need to go through the whole cycle in order for the sun to come out in our lives again. There is no other way round. We either stay in the dark, or go through the dark and back out into the light again. Grief heals us, but we cannot do it alone. We cannot wait it out. Time does not heal grieving heals. But it cannot heal until it is witnessed and held jointly with great tenderness in the heart and soul of another. Just like love. Just as one of the most painful romantic experiences. It's unrequited love, I think disenfranchised grief is a form of unrequited grief, a grief that is not allowed to be expressed, not allowed to be in relationship. But grief cannot move into its active state grieving without a relationship because grief is a dialogue, not a monologue. And until we find a place to have that dialogue, either face to face, online, or with a skilled therapist, it stays wedged in our hearts like a splinter. And it festers as it waits, infecting our life and soul with sadness. It is vital that as childless women, we give ourselves permission to grieve our losses, and in doing so, allow the grieving process to heal our hearts. Without grieving we're stuck fast and without empathetic company, with whom to do our grief work. We can stay stuck for a very long time indeed, is not as gloomy as it sounds, because there's more to grief than sadness. And there's often laughter mixed in with the tears, and those tears are healing ones. After all, not every culture is as nervous about grief as we are. In the Mayan tradition. Grief is considered the highest form of praise and crying as a form of prayer."