The Silent Why: finding hope in grief and loss
Claire Sandys is on a mission to see if it's possible to find hope in 101 different types of loss and grief (occasionally joined by husband Chris). New ad-free episodes every other Tuesday. With childless (not by choice) hosts, this podcast is packed with deep, honest experiences of grief and hope from inspiring guests. You also get: tips on how to navigate and prepare for loss, blogs, experts, exploring how loss is handled on TV, and plenty of Hermans. For more visit: www.thesilentwhy.com.
The Silent Why: finding hope in grief and loss
101 LOSS COUNTDOWN: 60 down, 41 to go
#123. Can hope be found in 101 different types of loss?
We're well on our way to finding out, as we reach another milestone!
We've hit loss number 60 on our mission to explore 101 different types of permanent loss, meaning we only have 41 (!) to go. Now over halfway to our goal.
In this episode, we (Chris & Claire Sandys) pause briefly to discuss life in general (something new we thought we'd try!), the last batch of losses (51-60), and what nuggets of wisdom we've taken from each guest.
We're loving every second of talking to others on this podcast, but we're also learning a lot about healthy ways to process our own grief, whether childlessness, pets, relatives, friends, health, or even just the day-to-day losses we sometimes face.
And the not-yet-famous-but-might-be-one-day 'Hermontage' is back! As we, once again, mix together the last 10 guests' Hermans. If you don't know what a Herman is, check out the link below.
Huge thanks to Thea Rickard, Mark Field, Laura Burns, Lisa Newman, Kay Backhouse, Jared Altic, Rachel Hart, Dannie-Lu Carr, Ken Anderson and Bex Eyles.
If you'd like to see our guests and encourage them, pop over to our social media for the latest collage of their lovely faces and hit 'like'.
Full list of our 101 losses: https://www.thesilentwhy.com/101losses
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Thank you for listening.
Take two Action 60 down 41 to go.
Claire:Here
Chris:Literally. We just started recording this episode and our recording programme stopped randomly after two minutes, so we are literally doing this again and we noticed after about 20 minutes of the most incredible award-winning showcase of a brilliant podcast conversation and I looked at the screen and thought it recording it's frozen
Claire:All gone anyway, anyway welcome to The Silent Why, if you're new, we're a childless not by choice couple hosting a podcast that is on a mission to find 101 different types of loss and to hear from those who've experienced them. Usually we are more professional than this and we don't have to do two takes, but I'm Claire.
Chris:Hello Claire, I'm Chris. So we're now well over halfway through our search for 101 different losses. We're at number 60 and every time we reach sort of a 10th loss, we record an episode like this we reflect back on the last 10, play their Hermans to recap on what those guests, those individuals, wanted us to learn from their experience.
Claire:Yep, and in just over three and a half years of podcasting we've put out 213 episodes, and there is plenty more to come. So don't worry, we're not going anywhere just yet. And you can see the full list of all our losses at thesilentmycom slash 101losses, where I put a link to every episode and a picture of our guests as well, if you want to see what they look like. So have a guess. What do you think is our most popular episode? So far?
Chris:I had the most downloads well, um, I had a guess. I'm not going to fake my answer, because we did this in the first recording don't ruin that.
Chris:I was going to do it live again well, my guess you were you did guess correctly, to be fair my guess was and is I don't remember the the number, though, so it's a couple of years back. I'm going to guess it was around loss number in the 20s probably Anna Whiston Donaldson. She lost her son who was I can't remember his age Twelve, twelve, okay who was swept away in a flood that happened where they lived in a brook that swelled up quite violently and he died. And she has a big following, big support network. She has written a book and it's amazed us over the last couple of years how often people are coming in to listen to that episode.
Claire:Yeah, and I don't know if that is because it's out there somewhere linked to her following or if it's the topic that people are just interested in, because we've had people with bigger followings. So it's not always about, like, the size of the following. But yeah, I don't know. But it is the most popular and you were close with your lost number. It was 10. Oh really.
Chris:Yeah, oh, it was 10 out, at least 10 spirit.
Claire:It is not. No, it is nowhere near. Third Not even on my list.
Chris:Fourth no Charming.
Claire:Right Now. I've noticed that some podcasts at the beginning they have a little chat about how life is going with the hosts and what's happening, and I quite like that section, so I thought we'd try it here.
Chris:That's because you're a caring person. Maybe Others are maybe fast forwarding that. Get on with it.
Claire:I think I'm just nosy. I just like to see what's happening.
Chris:Yeah.
Claire:So yeah, how are you?
Chris:Well, on a day like today, where the sky is blue and the sun is shining, and the birds in fact, because normally we stick up a whacking great bit of foam- in the window near where I sit to try and make the sound a bit better in this room, but we haven't right now, so hang on, bit of background noise, bit of bird Ah, how nice is that? That is nice, and it's not freezing cold. So it's felt like for the last 47,000 months. We've just had grey, overcast, damp weather in Britain, and that affects everyone's mood, doesn't it? The country's not the brightest place, but to days like today it feels a lot better. In fact, I was thinking about this, that, uh, you asked how I was and I'm.
Chris:I'm struggling a little bit with vertigo at the moment, which I had a spell of vertigo five years ago, four years ago and then it went and hasn't really come back.
Chris:A few little twinges, but it hasn't. It returned about two weeks ago and hasn't left since, maybe three weeks ago now actually, and it doesn't affect me massively. But I get these little spells of dizziness where everything spins, which are particularly brought on if I sort of tip my head backwards or I move too quickly, or if I, if I'm laying down in bed, it's on my right hand side, so if my head is turned to the right 45 degrees or so and I lay down, everything spins and then settles down, and I've been doing something called the Brandt-Daroff maneuver, which I'm doing every day to try and put this right, and so you're forcing yourself to lie down on both sides, wait for it to spin, settle all that sort of stuff, and then I get up and I'm so. I'm mostly okay, but every now and again things spin and I don't like that so much, and that is probably where I am this year spinny mostly okay and at times lay down too quickly and the room spins that if that makes sense.
Claire:Yeah, it's not fun. How about yourself? Yes, similarly, health, not where I'd want it to be. I think in the last podcast episode we mentioned I was having a new treatment and we were hopeful for this year, and we still are, but I'm not there yet. So I've had the HRT implant put in, which gives me hormones via an implant that they insert into a small incision on your stomach, and yeah, yeah, we'll see. We're hopeful for it, but it's not there yet we were excited, weren't we?
Chris:I mean if the amount of times you've had a treatment and something. And there's this whole sort of thing where most of the time, you feel the effects within whatever, and you so often I don't want to speak these things over as in any way, but it feels like you are so often in the minority that if it can go well, great. But for us, no. So this implant should have been something that well, it could have been something that we were excited that would make a big difference quite quickly, quite radically. And here we are still questioning is is it having any effect at all?
Claire:yeah, I mean it is and it will. I do believe it will. We're just not there yet so I've just got to wait a bit longer. But the frustrating thing is that there's just so much I want to do with the podcast and so there's a large amount of guilt sort of sitting there. I haven't put out any social media apart from the new episodes going out to promote those. I'd love to be doing more in between, like I used to, but I just can't bring myself. I'm not posting on any social media much, really. I haven't done much with the Herman account, which I'd like to have done. I'd like to do more blogs. I've got episodes I want to put out around the podcast that I just haven't got my new word, bandwidth, to put out.
Chris:That is a new word.
Claire:I like this word. Someone else used it somewhere and I was like, yes, I like that. I don't have the bandwidth for certain things that just you know on the internet. Sometimes it's stuttery and doesn't work.
Chris:That's how I feel I'm stuttery the good news I've just negotiated a new broadband deal for us which starts the end of March. It's going to triple our bandwidth. Wow, yeah great.
Claire:I'm sure that will help me massively. That's what I need. I need an implant that increases my bandwidth. So, yeah, so there's a lot I'd like to be doing that I'm not doing. So it's that constant level and I know a lot of people, even in normal life, without any hormone or health issues, will feel the guilt of social media and trying to do more with businesses and things. So that is difficult, I think, across the board. But yeah, I really have trouble just trying to put it aside and be like it's okay, you know, there's no pressure, I don't have to. But at the same time it's difficult because I sort of want to, but then I go and do it and I can't quite. So, yeah, but then you see, you know there's little things.
Claire:This morning I watched a video on social media of a man, like an older man in America, who was being given this birthday present on his porch and they were filming him because it was going to change his life. So I was watching him unwrap this box. I was like, what is it? What is it? And he gets out a pair of glasses like sunglasses, and they're like put them on, put them on. So he puts them on and and then his little arms start wiggling and um, and then he sort of starts to cry and doesn't know what to do with himself. And basically, these glasses.
Claire:He'd been born colorblind and these glasses gave him the ability to see in color. So he was looking around him at everything with this sort of wonder and I just thought, yeah, you know, there's so much we take for granted and there's so much to be grateful for, even when things aren't going well. And you know, I look out now and, like you said, the sky is blue, which has been rare for us. It's been grey and rainy and wet and miserable, like it often is here, just to see the blue sky, the leaves, everything I could see out the window. There's so much colour. That's something to be very grateful for.
Chris:Yeah, lovely, I love the sound of that. It does feel like, I think, being your husband and watching you. It does feel like life for you doesn't have vibrant colour much. It feels like you do see in sort of sepia or black and white. I don't know if that's fair, but you're a very gratitude-y person.
Claire:Oh, I never been called gratitude-y before.
Chris:What's the word Gratitude? Well, you're thankful. Yeah, that's one thing. I can say that even in your lowest moments, you're still so thankful for what we have, for where we are, for the comforts around, for the space that you have. And it's horrible to hear you talk about the guilt that you feel for doing things like social media posts. I mean, that's just for those that are just trying to drive a business. Really, this isn't a business. This is a pleasure for us. So it's horrible when you feel that guilt, but you do counter that you are a very thankful person thank you you're welcome in my head.
Claire:I see a lot of people out there that are grieving and really struggling and if they've found the podcast in some way or they've found our social media, I feel like it's my responsibility to offer them help, like, you're OK, don't worry. So I feel like there's people out there that need me and I know that Laurie will be listening and being like, oh, that's your Enneagram 2 speaking and maybe it is so. I need to put that aside. That's not the reality of it, obviously, but there's that fear in me that if somebody needs help in some way and I haven't done it or I've let the side down on my side, that that's not good. So, yeah, there's probably some pressure there that I can release from myself. But yeah, and I think you know, overall, when I'm in this sort of place, it does affect how you think cognitively and it can make you feel a bit down about things sometimes and I have to be careful then that grief doesn't come in from other areas I might have dealt with or I might not have dealt with and start to just add to the burden really of things.
Claire:So, like in the last three, four months, I've heard of three babies being born or being conceived to couples that didn't have children or couldn't have children or have had difficulties with having children. I haven't had any of those for a long time. So I think even things like that they just make you think like, oh, what am I missing out on? Not necessarily the whole having children as such, but something changing, something big in their life, some good news to tell people. I'm so desperate to contact our family or friends or anyone and say, oh, my word, I've got some amazing news. I would love to do that. It really makes me emotional when I watch people on TV winning competitions, doing things well, having these moments where it's just pure joy. I'm just like, oh gosh, I'm just so desperate for one of those. Maybe we'll get there. I'm hopeful, so that's the main thing.
Chris:I haven't lost hope you mentioned before on the podcast. I think about. Haven't lost hope, mentioned before on the podcast. I think about the importance of birthdays for us, because that point you make about being celebrated in a way is really important for us, that birthdays are all we have really I don't think I'm being dramatic are all we have as a reason for people to celebrate us. So it pains us when you know if people's birthdays are just one of many times and they therefore downgrade birth. I'm not getting old, I'm not bothering with birthdays. Is that actually it's the only time that we have that gives others cause to celebrate us. We don't share good news. We don't share big sort of work news, big family news. We don't have those moments that our families naturally gather around and celebrate. So birthdays is what it is. So, family, let's have some birthday cards this year.
Claire:I have actually been more. I've been a bit more brutal with birthdays and anniversaries and things. I used to be somebody who tried to message everybody on their anniversary, on their birthday. As the year's gone by, this year I've deleted anybody's reminder for their birthday or anniversary, that we never hear from for our anniversaries and birthdays, which is not like oh, I'm upset with you. It's more just a case of I can't take the burden of so many other people to keep messaging and celebrating.
Chris:Yeah, it's exhausting to keep giving out and partly driven by me turning around every now and again and being like claire, we've got somebody's birthday in the calendar. We're not seeing them for 14 years. Is it okay if we stop? Yeah, you're like, yeah, okay, take, take it out great well, I take it out.
Claire:Like you know. It says this and, following when you delete a recurring thing, I do that so it's always in the past.
Claire:It's still there, I still know when it is, if I need it, and you know, talking about things to celebrate. This year. We've been married for 20 years, which is a big thing, and we're going to do an episode near our anniversary on that and what it's been like 20 years of marriage tips and you know how to get there, what, what we've learned along the way, because I think that is something that's it is to be celebrated, but we also need to just be, you know, be proud of ourselves, because that's taken a lot of work and childlessness does split marriages. A lot of people just don't get through to this length of time because of all kinds of different troubles or falling out or, you know, falling out of love or whatever like that. So, yeah, that is something, and so everything.
Claire:Every time we do something special this year, like last week, we were in London and we went up the shard and had a meal we're trying to make everything we do like let's make it about our 20th anniversary. So this year we're trying to do some special things. I did actually hear somebody recently on a podcast say that they were doing before their 30th birthday. The year before they decided to do 30 things that were fun and different to tick them all off and she said it was a great year. I thought, ah, maybe we should do that. I think we could easily reach 20, 20 fun things in our year that we have done, that we can tick off and say we did that.
Chris:Well, that'd be fun.
Claire:Yeah, I've got that on my radar because we're planning our trip to Australia, hopefully later in the year. I reckon we could get like 15 just on that trip, so it'll be easy one to do yeah, okay, we could put a list together anyway, thanks for indulging me in our uh, how are we doing section yeah, good to hear.
Chris:Okay. So before we get cracking on chatting about the last 10 episodes, let's take a moment to remind ourselves who our last 10 guests were by hearing their introductions.
Thea Rickard:I'm Thea and I lost my dad, who I'm still not sure if I really loved.
Mark Field:Hi, my name's Mark Field, I'm a cardiac surgeon and I'm here to talk about loss in heart surgery.
Laura Burnes:Hi, I'm Laura and I'm here to talk about hair loss through alopecia. Hi, I'm Lisa and I'm here to talk about hair loss through alopecia.
Lisa Newman:Hi, I'm Lisa and I'm here to talk about loss through addiction.
Kay Backhouse:Hi, I'm Kay and I'm here to talk about the complex death of my youngest brother, sid.
Jared Altic:My name is Jared Altick and I'm a chaplain with the police department, and.
Rachel Hart:I'm called out in the middle of the night to help deal with loss. Hi, I'm Rachel. I'm talking about the loss of my husband to suicide when I was five months pregnant.
Dannie-Lu Carr:I'm Danny Lukar and I'm here to talk about precocious puberty and the loss of agency that that gave me over my body over the many years that followed.
Ken Anderson:My name is Ken and I'm here to talk about the loss of my police career, which led to my loss of self-worth.
Bex Eyles:Hi, my name's Bex and I'm here to talk about loss and grief that I've experienced during joyful life transitions.
Claire:Okay, so another 10 losses. There they are.
Chris:Good to hear, isn't it? And real variety, real variety in this 10.
Claire:I love it when you hear their voices come together, because it's like a real sort of family and I'm really excited when we've done 101. I mean it will be an editing nightmare, but I want to put all of their intros together yes, we need to hear all of them I want to hear them all together.
Claire:I'll do it, I'll speed it up, so it's super fast oh, that will be like 15 minutes just of introductions well, no, I'll speed it up super fast, but I just want to hear them all together. I love seeing all their faces together. When I do a post like I'll do for this episode on social media, I put the photos of the last 10 episodes on there so you can see them, and I always love doing those kind of putting them all together.
Claire:So yeah that's really cool. The first thing that we need to comment on really is the fact that last time we did a batch of 10, we weren't even halfway through 101. And this time we're over halfway.
Chris:Exciting, Very exciting. Is it exciting? Yes, or are you like? Oh, now we're on the other side. We're sort of coming toward we're not coming towards the end, but we're closer to the end than we are the beginning.
Claire:Yeah, I did have a listener message me and he was like oh no, no, don't finish, like don't get to the end. He was a bit worried about that and I had to reassure him. It had taken me three and a half years to get halfway through, so he's got plenty of time left.
Chris:A few decades. Welcome to the Silent Y podcast. We're on a mission to find 710 losses 700?
Claire:No, I'm not doing that. Yes, so there's plenty of time left. Nobody needs to worry about us going anywhere, and because we're putting episodes out every other week now it's slowed it right down. So in the the past we could be doing 10 in 10 weeks, but obviously now it's 20 weeks minimum so, and that's half a year nearly so yeah, there's plenty of plenty of time left for this podcast.
Chris:Well, I'm really impressed with, yeah, the variety of the last 10. We've covered a lot of ground with a real mix of experiences with some brilliant, brilliant guests yeah, it's a really good mix.
Claire:When I put these together, I was really sort of proud of us for the the mix of losses, because we've said from day one that loss is not just about bereavements and although they are the big things that hit all of us in our life and you know, they're definitely some of the harder ones that we go through perhaps, but they're not the only ones we go through and there are other losses that are just as difficult, and this 10 is a great example of the types of things and losses we can have or the ways we can lose people that might make it particularly difficult or hard to go through.
Chris:So yeah, it's a really, really nice batch it started with something in episode loss, episode 51. Something happened halfway through. Oh, yes, yeah, we paused, didn't we to 51, something happened halfway through.
Claire:Oh, yes, yeah, we paused, didn't we, to celebrate that we?
Chris:are halfway through the halfway point 101.
Claire:And we could only really do that, I think, because Thea Rickard, who was that episode on loss of a dad and in brackets that I don't know if I loved. So it was an interesting one, very complicated relationship with her father. He was an alcoholic and had lots of different issues to work through. So it was a very tough relationship. But you knew her from kind of a work contact link a while back. So because we knew her, I think I felt more comfortable in the middle of that episode pausing to say yeah, we got through halfway through For some losses.
Claire:If it had been a really hard or difficult one, I don't think it would have been appropriate. Of course we'd have been sensitive to that. But it happened to work out well that we knew Thea and she'd already shared her story online, so it wasn't a brand new one. So, yeah, it was yeah, but a really interesting one that I hope a lot of people will find if they're in that situation, because we do assume when you lose somebody, we do assume when you lose somebody, especially a parent maybe, that there was a loving relationship there and for a lot of people that is not the case. It's way more complicated and they might even have to be pretending they got on well with them and that they're grieving, or they're grieving quite hard, but they're sort of pretending they're not because they didn't get on with them, and people might question that.
Chris:And so, yeah, a lot of things going on there. We all know what it feels like to read about or be at the funeral of someone who died and all you hear really is the good stuff generally, isn't it Even in the news, when you know that criminal masterminds are being a bit silly now, but where people have died they've been caught up in gang crime or whatever else. It's only the good stuff. It's the tributes, it's the families's paying honor, marking the risk, you know, respect, paying respects to that individual. So it's the good stuff that comes out how good a brother they were or father they were, even though you know generally they were leading quite a naughty lifestyle yeah, I mean I can understand why it doesn't happen, but it would probably be helpful for majority of the population to know that.
Claire:You know, if someone said, oh yes, I've just lost so and so he was really hard to love. We had a very difficult relationship. We were often fighting. He got caught up in some stuff he shouldn't have been caught up in. It made life at home very difficult. We're really going to miss him and we loved him. But you know it's difficult. That would be an honest portrayal of somebody that a lot of people would connect with and understand more than maybe, like you said, here's this ganglord that's died and his mum's there saying he was a lovely boy and it's like, well, possibly he wasn't because he shot somebody last. You know something like that. So you're sort of a bit sceptical anyway. But yeah, you're right, we never hear much. I mean, occasionally I'm at funerals when I'm doing verging and I'll hear some people say you know, oh, he was really difficult, they were an amazing person and everything was great. And yeah, it can make you probably feel a bit left out if you're sat there and you haven't got that relationship with that kind of member of the family.
Chris:Well, for the individual like Thea, it's complicated when you lose a close family member For her it was her dad and to not know how to grieve that really, because how much do you miss them from the heart, how many fond memories do you have on them, how big a hole were they leaving your life? Other people will be probably supporting yous in wow, your dad's died. That's mega. How'd you feel it's like? Well, you know, can you say I have no idea. He was a really difficult character and she was so eloquent and she spoke about it so well. It was a real fascinating episode that was lost episode number 51.
Claire:It's a brave thing to admit I don't know if I loved him, I don't know if he loved me fully. That's a really vulnerable place to put yourself in. So, yeah, really appreciative of her with that episode. Then we had loss 52, which was a loss of life for a cardiac surgeon, with mark field, and this was a very special episode because you were there, yeah, and it was one of the most popular we've done.
Chris:I'm taking that personally. It was like I can't believe it, like I missed one lost episode and it's one of the most popular.
Claire:This is a real test to you, saying I want the podcast to thrive for you, I want you to have something that that flourishes, and the minute he's not there and it goes well, it's like it's a different scene, but no, but no. I'd been trying to get this episode in the diary for a little while. I'd been put in contact with Mark. He was understandably a bit nervous about recording it because not a lot of surgeons speak out about losing patients and having to deal with loss and telling people when a patient's died and things like this. So to be honest about that, it's a tricky thing for them to do in that kind of field. So it was an awkward one. It was a precious one because I really wanted this conversation, because I knew it would help a lot of other people. Well, I hoped it would help a lot of other surgeons really to understand that they're not alone in feeling these feelings.
Claire:And it got moved a couple of times because his work obviously he has to go and do things at a moment's notice sometimes and then I had a date in the diary and you couldn't make it and we had to make the call. Do we go ahead and get this interview or do I wait and try and risk rescheduling it. So in the end we went ahead and I did it on my own. So, yeah, it's a shame that you weren't there for that one, but it has been a popular one and I think that's because it's been shared quite a lot within the area of cardiac surgery and other people who are in that kind of environment, and he's told me he's had some really good feedback from it.
Claire:People really enjoyed listening to it. So I'm so pleased that that one has got out there because I do think it's a very important conversation for people to hear and if you know somebody who works in medicine in that area, then I'd recommend it, because he's very vulnerable about the fact. This isn't easy. It takes a toll and we're not really trained or taught how to deal with loss and grief and giving people bad news yeah, and they are human.
Chris:After all, they are human. You know. It does impact all humans when you're working around death more often than most people, more often than most people, certainly More often than most people. There's not many people that work around death is there? I don't for sure, Nor do you. So, yeah, that was episode 52, or lost, number 52. Following him again, real diverse mix of subjects was our good friend Laura.
Claire:Burns talking about Alopecia.
Chris:I thought you were going to finish my sentence. There we go. That was waiting for you. 20 years of marriage. We're so in sync, we're so in sync.
Claire:Yeah, yes, she was talking about alopecia. So Laura is the wife of the friend, of a friend who has become a friend and yeah, she's very honest and open about what it's been like to live with alopecia when it first arrived in her life, which was when she was I think it was like teens to early twenties and what that's been like. And, yeah, it's another kind of loss. And also, interestingly, she had this before she met her husband, john. So we spoke to her about what was it like dating and trying to find people and trying to meet people when you're going through ill health, because she's also had some brain tumours to work on and you know how's that been.
Claire:What's it been like, kind of trying to meet somebody and then meeting John. And John was here when we recorded the episode with her in person, which again doesn't happen very often for us doing it face to face. And because he was here, we actually did a bonus episode off the back of this one, with Laura and John together talking about what that was like, because John has had a lot of his own health issues. So we were talking about what that was like to work through. But also what was it like dating somebody and getting to know somebody without a piece, and they had a very funny story of the first time he saw her without her wig on as well, so that was a lovely episode for sure.
Chris:I think there's something in me that wanted to be a little bit shallow and just say, look, what was it like dating for the first time and then having to share the news that you don't have any hair, and just what you know for a guy. I wanted to ask John, what was that like? And because there are some guys that would run a mile that would be like, okay, thanks, thanks, but no thanks. What I'm looking at now is not your real hair, it's a wig. So, uh, there was a. There was an element of I mean, they're brilliant at conversation anyway there's an element of, I guess, just shallowness of what is it like, um, dating someone going out with someone leading to marriage of someone that's lost their hair?
Claire:they're a lovely couple and john is a great example of the fact that there are men out there who just don't care about that kind of thing. He loves laura so much. Whether she had hair or not was not even slightly on his radar or an issue for him. I think that's encouraging because as a female, especially when you lose something like hair, you can feel less feminine. You can feel like no one's gonna want me because I look different. It feels like a big thing. So to be reminded that there are men out there that really don't mind about that kind of thing and will love you for who you are and to be such a gorgeous couple together smashing couples.
Chris:So here we are with this podcast that we love, shining a light on all kinds of loss, not just bereavements, loss of loved ones. So we've had loss of a dad, loss of life for a cardiac surgeon, loss of hair, and then on to loss through addiction.
Claire:Lisa Newman yeah, loss number 54. It was a topic we had on our list from very early on and we've actually been in contact with Lisa about it almost since the podcast started. But we'd booked in to interview her about it and then she got very sick when she was abroad working and I think she talks about that during the episode actually and that was quite scary for her. It was a long recovery, so we put it off for a while and then when she was better and recovered, we got the conversation going again and we were like we really want to record this. So that was a really good episode. I'm so pleased we got to tackle that because there was so much loss in addiction and I think that's the case whether you're the person that's going through the addiction or whether you're the family.
Chris:So lind us what kind of addiction.
Claire:So Lisa was alcohol and drugs which at various points had landed her in prison. She'd been homeless. There was a real story there of the effects of what these things can take away from you. So a lot of loss in a lot of different forms.
Chris:Yeah, and the impact as well, talking about how it impacted her wider family.
Claire:Yeah.
Chris:The impact it had on her parents and how she'd come back to having a meaningful relationship with her parents now yeah and it was lovely to record with her in person if she lives nearby yes so, like with laura burns actually in the, we had a run of two episodes, didn't we, that were recorded with people in person, which was fantastic and we knew lisa outside of the podcast.
Claire:She wasn't just a guest, she was another friend as well. So that was lovely because we could be very honest with her. We could ask a lot of questions that maybe we would. I don't know, maybe we might not have gone as deep if we hadn't have known the person well, because it is a sensitive issue. You do have to be careful of things like language, I think, when you're talking about addiction with people. But she's so open. She's such a testament to life on the other side of addiction and yet still having to be careful and battle through it. But she's been sober for several years now. So it's yeah, it's a lovely, lovely conversation that I was really pleased we had and just gave me a lot of hope and again I just I just pray it gets out to the right people to hear it, because it it's a real story of of triumph really. But she really shows you how much effort it takes to get there and there were some real heartbreaking moments in it where I just my heart broke during it.
Claire:I think interviewing her, knowing that she had been in that place at that point, and I think it just built my compassion because at one point she said that she went into the public toilets in Gloucester I think it was and there was a woman there that was washing at the sink the homeless woman who was sort of high on something. And she said she realized that you know, that was her a few years back in the same toilets. That's where she would go to wash. And it really struck me that if I went into a public toilets and there was a woman high on something washing in the sink, there would be a lot of fear in me for this person and like, oh gosh, I don't know. You know, I'd probably want to get out as quick as I could.
Claire:And then I think about it being Lisa. My heart just broke because now I know her and how lovely she is and what potential there is. You know she's helping other people. She now goes into people's houses to help them get through addiction in their own home. I mean, what a job. It would be almost bottom of the list of things I feel like I could do for people. So I'm just so in awe that she's doing that. But it made me realise the people that are behind a lot of the things we see that we get scared about when someone's high, when someone's drunk, when someone's homeless. To see what they can be on the other side is really important, so that's what that episode taught me.
Chris:And then for her to finish that conversation with such a high level of gratitude as we were speaking about the first thing which we'll hear.
Claire:We'll hear a summary of her, herman, but gratitude is just massive in her life and it's such a beautiful way to sort of for her to a place for her to have come after what she's been through, just to have so much gratitude yeah, and there was some lovely healing bits there as well, with her dad had died since, but she was able to sort of reconcile with him and have a relationship with him and every time I think of her in that I hear her talking about the fact that when she spent her 40th birthday in prison and her dad didn't send a birthday card and I think her parents had always been there and she said it just broke her heart and I always hear that when I think of that episode, just think of all those people that are stuck in prison, that have birthdays and things and no one gets in touch.
Chris:That's the knock-on effect of these things. Family important to send birthday cards.
Claire:That's touch, that's, that's the knock-on effect of these things.
Chris:Family important to send birthday cards. That's the theme of the episode on to loss 55 of 101 lost through a bad or a complex death with k backhouse yeah.
Claire:So I think the terminology people talk about a good death and a bad death but I think the sort of actual terminology of bad death is, I mean, it's not very nice, it doesn't sound very nice. I think some people try and get away from that and it's more of a complex death. But I wanted to put bad death in the title of the episode because that is how a lot of people see and when they talk about these things it's a good death or a bad death, in sort of inverted commas, as it were. But Kay had witnessed her brother dying of cancer and it was a complex death. It was a horrible, horrible end to a life, and so that was really interesting to explore because it's like well, what effects does that have on people?
Claire:There's a lot to be discussed around whether these things should actually be able to happen. There was a lot of red tape that prevented her brother from having the medication that maybe he could have had to ease it at the end. So there's some of that. We didn't get into the weeds with that because obviously there's a lot of political situations there in different countries about assisted dying and things. But a lot of people will have witnessed somebody die in a not very nice way and that often, like she said, can leave you with PTSD. It can leave you with trauma. It's a very traumatic thing to see happen. So it was interesting to explore the grief around that and the impact on your grief and on you afterwards when you've witnessed something like that.
Chris:And with it being her baby brother, very close to him, and not only having to come to terms with this sort of terminal diagnosis but then watching something horrible happen. How did that leave her after he'd died? You know, with that whole thing Sometimes you'll hear that whole sort of well, they're at peace now, but still you're left with. You know for Kay being left with the trauma of having witnessed something really unforgettable and having to work through that. And she has done incredibly well, to a point that she's now helping out in a local hospice, working with other people and families and supporting staff members and the team at this wonderful hospice up in Lancaster. Through her experience, you know incredible and written a book as well.
Claire:Yeah, she wrote her experiences about what she went through into a book, which really helped her process that. So that's another interesting way to process grief and, yeah, amazingly, to go through something like that in a hospice. He did die in a hospice and then to go and work in one a different one, but to go and volunteer in one afterwards and she absolutely loved it. She talked about the fact that when she walked in for the first time she just sort of almost felt like she'd come home and that's amazing. Having had such an awful experience in one, to then want to go and give back in that way, I think is lovely.
Claire:And we did another episode off the back of that with Kay and Maddy Bass, who was one of the managers at the hospice, and we spoke to both of them about life in a hospice and what is it like, because they both spoke so warmly about how much they love working there and I've heard so many people say the atmosphere in a hospice is something quite special. I thought let's explore this because a lot of people are quite scared of the idea. They're quite frightened of them. But after that episode I was sold, to be honest. I thought this sounds lovely. So yeah, and then we went and visited that hospice and met them both in person, and that was lovely.
Chris:They bought us lunch.
Claire:They did, we had fish and chips at the hospice. It was a lovely atmosphere. It was a beautiful place. I mean, I was like you know, if we get into this terminal situation, I think I need to move up to Lancaster because there was like rooms with sort of areas out onto the garden where you could watch the birds, and all these separate rooms. It was beautiful.
Chris:You could wheel the beds outside of the room. Sort of large French doors almost take the bed out a bit, just to, yeah, just to see the birds on the feeders and hear the birdsong. It was, yeah, wonderful.
Claire:Lovely cafe. The bird song. It was, yeah, wonderful, lovely cafe, nice staff. Yeah, it was a really lovely experience. So that was another time when we got to actually go and experience something off the back of an episode, like when we did the funeral directors and we went to experience what that was like working in a funeral directors. It's just been great to have these experiences off the back of it and I think you know I was always keen to put ourselves in the situations that some of our guests have been in. I hadn't been in a funeral really, so it was good to go and see behind the scenes there. It was good to see our first dead body, because I hadn't really ever done that. I felt like that was something we should do. And a hospice was another one. You know it's a bit nerve wracking to think, you know, walking into these places, but actually it was a lovely thing to do and I feel so much these places and more open about them and more encouraging about them than I did before.
Chris:I'm still stuck on your words. It was good to see our first dead body.
Claire:It wasn't good. I think it's good, as a podcast host talking about grief, when we're talking to people who have quite often had to experience seeing bodies, to kind of put ourselves in those shoes a little bit. Yeah, it's good, in inverted commas, to put ourselves in these situations. Yes, I wouldn't say it's good to see a dead body.
Chris:No, Chris to put ourselves in these situations. Yes, I wouldn't say it's good to see a dead body. No, Chris and Claire Sands open for unusual work experience. Contact us if you can recommend somewhere we should go and work.
Claire:Oh dear.
Chris:On to number 56. We're now halfway through this 10. And this was a revisit to friend of the show. Yes, jared.
Claire:Altick Jared. We love Jared. Jared was a very early guest on a let's Chat episode where I spoke to him about life as a police chaplain and I said to you a little while ago I was like, oh, since we've started looking at loss through careers cardiac surgeon, pediatric nurse, funeral directors, murder detective, all these different things we've put into the loss list what is it like working around loss in these careers? Since we've done that, I said to you I really wish I'd put Jared in the loss list because I was doing them separately as let's chats at the time and you said to me, why don't we get him back on? So I was like, yeah, we should. So I contacted him and said, hey, jared, you want to come back. And he did, which is lovely.
Claire:Jared runs a podcast called hey Chaplin for cops, as they call them out there, and their families and he interviews them about you know what it's like going through that and how to support each other and all these sorts of things. And he's also put one of our episodes out on his podcast when I did an episode with him. So he's been an avid listener of the show. He's a great supporter and it was really lovely to have him back again and yeah, so we've got him in the loss list. Finally, loss 56 what is it like as a police chaplain dealing with loss and grief? He's a volunteer, so he gets called in to do death notification sometimes to go and tell a family that somebody's died, he'll go in and support the police officers.
Claire:He'll sit with their bodies while things are being sorted out and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, he sees a lot of loss, a lot of death, and it was a really interesting, very honest interview about what that's like, the toll it can take on his family, how it's taken him quite a long while to process that and not getting too blasé about these things and actually trying to remember that you know these are still still big, big things that people are going through.
Chris:So, yeah, really interesting episode and I think one of the things that struck me is how much or how often and this is probably the case, you police officers, whatever but for him, as a police chaplain, how often what he does is it starts with a shock, with a surprise, because his phone might go at three in the morning and he's got to go and visit some place or someone.
Chris:You know these things aren't planned, are they? You don't get noticed that, ah, could we put a date in the diary for you to come and just be at this crime scene, please? Could we arrange a date for you to come and visit this drug dealer's house to tell them that a member of the family has been shot dead? It always starts with a dead, it always starts with a shock, it always starts with being startled. And what does that do for your body? What does that do for your central nervous system, for the chemicals, the adrenaline, all that sort of stuff? Just operating like that, it does take its toll physically as well as, as you said, on the family, on a marriage being on call, wider family, children. A really interesting conversation with.
Claire:Yeah, and he mentioned compassion fatigue as well, which is something he's done, an episode on which I hadn't really heard or thought about before, but which makes a lot of sense for people in these kinds of careers. You know, you can get real fatigue about just being compassionate to others, so interesting topic to to open up there and very, very encouraging as well of the younger generations.
Chris:He was so positive about seeing young police officers laying down their life, really putting on the badge, getting up, going out in all weather conditions to try and make their communities a safer place, which is lovely to hear because we hear so much about youngsters now that certainly in this country they're just in playing on their games consoles, not doing very much, not out and about enjoying the sort of the fresh air like we did back in the 1930s. So, yeah, he was so inspired by seeing the younger police officers coming through and, yeah, giving up their their all really to make the place safer and then we had lost 57, where we spoke to rachel hart about the loss of her husband to suicide while she was pregnant.
Chris:So yeah, a lot of emotions there, a lot of things to work through there's a really nice I'd not say an end, but where she is now is in a really good place because of this experience, because it's I sort of want you know that, because it's a real challenging story, isn't it that she has faced being pregnant and then her husband taking his own life, leaving her on her own to go through this incredibly happy chapter, as it is for many people, having to do that on her own, knowing that this very bizarre episode happened in her life, that she can't answer, still can't answer.
Chris:She's in a great place now. But, wow, I think one of the things that really struck me about or stayed with me about what she said was how she was that mum walking her baby in a pram, helping baby get to sleep or whatever, as you see mums doing. She was that young mum doing just sort of really keen to have some sort of interaction, just to someone, to say hi or to smile as they walk past. And I think I'd said at the time you know, I see those sort of mums all the time and I'd never dream that one of those had that level of trauma behind the scenes, that level of tragedy that they were still processing rather than just assuming happy young mum, everything's groovy, everything's great at home. But yeah, that stuck with me.
Claire:Yeah, and she was doing it all through COVID. She gave birth in COVID, so it was even more lonely, I think, in a way. But yeah, just looking for those meaningful interactions with people as she walked around. And it's another area, isn't it, where a baby's born and we assume everything's happy, like when someone dies, we assume everything was good. There's these assumptions that we go to as a starting point to assume that everything is wonderful, and that's not always the case.
Claire:A lot of couples split up after a baby's born. Sometimes you know there's a death of one partner or another and to be dealing with a death like that but then also to be dealing with it as a suicide. She was also very honest about the point that later on anger came through. There was an anger in her emotions to deal with and I thought, yeah, that's just very honest, talking about these feelings and how hard it was and when she was first told and not being able to process it and forgetting she was pregnant for a while when she was first told and then having to realize that, oh, my word, I'm gonna have to go through this. And we spoke to her just before she was about to remarry and she has got married since and her little boy is doing very well and, like you said, it's worth pointing out that she she's in a good place overall, but obviously that grief will always be there and especially linked to her son.
Claire:But yeah, it was a great episode to explore this area and, again, suicide was one that we'd wanted to do for quite a long time. It was a case of finding the right person to talk about it in the right way. But it was also a really good opportunity, on the back of that interview, to do an extra bit where we spoke about language, and suicide especially has had some really sort of negative language around it for quite a long time and it is hard to get out of your vocabulary. I find myself doing it every now and then because for years we've said someone has committed suicide. That was the vocabulary that you used, so those two words sit together very easily when you're talking about it.
Claire:But that kind of harks back to a time when it was a crime, so a crime was committed and you committed suicide. It's not a crime now, so we need to change our language around that. And died by suicide or took their own life. Things like that are easier and softer on the families. You don't have to to listen to that. So we we took time at the end of that episode just to explain that a little bit and why we kind of need to change our language around that she has, in the last six months, launched a really lovely set of cards, hasn't she?
Chris:I don't say greetings, are they greetings cards? Is that?
Claire:yeah, sympathy cards, all kinds of things. She's got candles and other things as well. Yeah, she's. She's launched. So her big thing was disco balls. That was her social media love loss and disco balls that's the name of the company.
Claire:Um and disco balls were all about shattered glass and kind of it coming together to make something beautiful, and they're actually a symbol of hope in a lot of quotes that I found when I was looking for a quote for that episode. So she's always had that as her social media. She's launched Love Loss Disco Balls as a company with her husband and they've come out with some brilliant greetings. Yeah, you're right, not greetings card like sympathy cards, but not the sort of ones that you go into the shop and find like doves and things with long poems about bereavement, but more like you know you've got this.
Chris:Bright colours, vibrant colours.
Claire:Very bright colours, yeah, lovely, luminous colours, and the messages on them are more like the kind of thing you really do want to send somebody, Saying things like like you are loved, always by your side, here for you, mate, here for you, girl, you mean the world to me, you've got this, you really matter to me. Just statements on the front, very big and bold, that are the kind of things you might want to send somebody, rather than a poem that said in deepest sympathy. These are cards just for probably a different generation really, and she was looking at all the cards that she got and she's worked out the kind of cards she wanted to receive or that would have been good, and she's created those for other people to buy. So thoroughly recommend checking those out. She's got some other bits on the website she sells as well and, yeah, she's doing a great job with that.
Chris:Loss number 58. Again, a very, very different sort of loss to what we've talked about in the last seven. Anyway, this was lost through precocious puberty.
Claire:Yes, this was not on my list because I didn't know it existed. Well, I knew it sort of happened, but I didn't know there was a name for it. Precocious puberty is early puberty, which can start from the age of about seven or eight onwards, and Danny Lou Carr got in touch with us and said she'd be interested in sharing her experience of going through this and the knock-on effect it has had on her life and how only now, as an adult, she feels she can actually talk about the impact it had because it was so big. So that was very interesting.
Chris:Yeah, yeah, certainly.
Chris:I don't want to try and recap on the episode in case I get something wrong, because you, as a woman, will know a lot more of the sorts of things that happen in puberty boys have puberty too, yes, but it's very different for boys but yeah, for her listening to her real experiences, her memories of how things were at school, when she was a young girl, outside of school, how she was seen, the impact of how she was seen by other parents, by other male parents, comments that were made, just the impact that that has had on her and the ripple effects of some of that stuff that have been quite seriously detrimental to her health, her well-being Incredible. So wow, I would never have thought of the ways that you could lose through early puberty. So a fascinating episode to listen back to.
Claire:Yeah, and I hope it's one that people will pass on to anyone they know going through it or parents going through it to try and understand it.
Claire:Because there is that tendency with a child to sort of be like, well, this is it, you just need to get on with it, and that's not helpful when a child is feeling that out of place she didn't know anyone else going through it. It sounds like the kind of thing would be perfect for groups of parents or somebody to put a group together where the kids can meet together that were going through it, just to see I'm not the only one feeling like this, so very lonely. Yeah, it makes you feel very isolated from your friends and takes a long while to sort of come to terms with it. And she spoke about, you know, having a loss of agency over her body and that had created a whole load of other problems since then of trying to come to terms with her body and how she felt about it. And, yeah, really interesting, one of those losses I'm just so pleased has come out of the woodwork and helped us understand it more so we can put it out there for others to learn about.
Chris:Okay, back into the police system again, following Jawed Altik and this time Ken Anderson, in this country British police officer or former officer, because he was talking about loss of a police career and his self-worth.
Claire:Yeah, ken Anderson was lost number 59. And yeah, really interesting, ken had been in the police, which was something that he absolutely, absolutely loved. He followed that right through to being a firearms officer, which is quite different. Over here not all our police carry guns, like in some countries. So to specialize and train as a firearms officer means that you're getting to the point where you're carrying a gun. He absolutely loved it all unfortunately had an accident in a car during a police chase and it damaged his back and then he was taken out of frontline duty, put into sort of office work and slowly from there just felt very let down by the police system and this family he'd been a part of suddenly just sort of felt right on the outside of it and that massively affected his mental health to the point where he was sort of getting where he took himself to the edge of a cliff to end his life and obviously came back from that because of a lovely, an old woman just sort of appearing really and saying are you okay?
Claire:It was a great testament to three little words that we can ask people literally saved his life and he's been very honest about talking to us about that journey, saying where he is now. He started a business, phoenix Rising, and I don't think he takes out of the woods. He still has to battle with a lot of things, it's still difficult, but he is determined to rise. He's got new coping mechanisms but it was a very interesting journey and talk about loss of the police career but also of his self-worth just completely lost all kind of sense of self-worth, which is really hard to listen to, but amazing where he is now.
Claire:And because he was in the police, I connected him with Jared Altick and since Ken Anderson has been on the hey Chaplin podcast. So if you want to hear more from Ken and a different side, different kind of take on it, a different interview, you can listen to him and Jared chatting together on Jared's podcast. So I was so excited that they connected and they'd put those two together because it was a good opportunity for Jared to speak to a police officer over here that carried a gun, which is obviously the norm for them over there. So yeah, that was a nice connection as well.
Chris:Yeah, I could identify a lot with Ken's, I guess, having his identity in his work and just being known for and being proud and having that prestige really amongst family friends. You know what an interesting job he had and he must have been on the end sort of the answering end of so many questions from interested friends and family about, wow, what was that like those experiences, and then to have that taken away from you in a completely unplanned and unwanted way clearly took him to the depths and he's he's bouncing back. So really good to hear about how hope has played a part in his journey. As with all of our people, you know, we're really keen to explore, you know, can hope exist in every type of loss? We use this podcast for that, so we ask our guests about, you know, when did hope re-emerge? Was hope there all the time? And it was interesting hearing Ken's answer to that.
Claire:And he also mentioned Andy's man Club, which I hadn't heard about before and is based in the sort of north of England, but he couldn't speak highly enough of how that had helped him. Just groups of men coming together that are going through a hard time being able to talk about it and open up, and they support people going through that. So that was lovely to hear about an organisation we didn't know about that's doing such amazing work there.
Chris:So that's good and then lost episode 60, beck's aisles and yeah, this reminds me, actually, what something we said about rachel hart and how she gave birth to her son at a time where you know, wow, great celebration, welcome to the world. Um, however, there's still these feelings of this wasn't how it was supposed to be and that sort of speaks into where we met Bex Iles and what she spoke about loss in good transitions yes, yeah, a really interesting one.
Claire:And when she was, when I first did a zoom chat with her to talk about it, to see what we could explore on the podcast, I just felt that what she was saying did connect with a lot of previous guests. We've had a few guests that have talked about that feeling of loss at the same time as joy and holding those things together. So it made a lot of sense to me and I know it's not something that everybody will understand or experience so I thought this is a really good thing to explore. Bex had been through a divorce, she'd been through infertility. It had been quite a tricky journey and then she'd remarried and when we spoke to her she was pregnant. She was expecting a child. We now know it's a girl. She's had the girl since, which is lovely. And yeah, she was just very honest about the fact that I'm going through these seemingly in verticals, good transitions of getting married again and having a baby that I never thought I'd have. But it's been surprising to me how much loss has been attached to that and how much I've had to work through. And, as she's a counsellor, she's very eloquent about talking about what this felt like, how she's worked through it. What's been difficult it was yeah, I think it's a really good episode because I think we all know, even if we haven't recognised it, we've experienced probably that loss and good things at the same time, but usually it's to other people.
Claire:So maybe your friend gets married and you were both single and you're really good friends and you know that from now on life has changed. So you're really happy for them, but at the same time you're a bit sad. It's the same for childless people. When someone has a baby in a close-knit group, you're like, oh, life has changed. I know that we're not going to be as close anymore, but you're happy for them. Usually you get that when things happen, you get a bit of happy and a bit of sad, but to have both of those inside you at the same time is a different experience. To think, oh my word, I'm pregnant, I'm really happy about that, but then also feel all this loss and confusion coming up from other things. I think, yeah, it was really good to explore, so I was really glad we did that. I hope it helps people understand that just because people are going through some really good things, it doesn't mean that there isn't still sadness and grief to deal with.
Chris:And that, on a wider subject, is something we've touched on in the podcast before, about things like New Year, other times you say happy, the amount of times that there's the pressure to be happy, whether it's happy birthday, happy New Year. The greetings that we make, you know, do we leave space around them? Yes, make the greeting, but do we leave space around them? Yes, make the greeting, but do we leave space around them to acknowledge that there can be some challenge, some?
Chris:trial some difficulty in that happiness as well. That, yes you happy new year, whatever. But was it, yeah, let's ask you that? So interesting to be sensitive, like bexels was talking about, to the celebrations that we want to honor and pay tribute to, whatever it may be in someone else's life, but to recognise that it's, you know, is it? Is it what you were hoping it would be?
Claire:Yeah, and when we put on the outro of that episode as we were recording it because we record the intros and the outros at a separate time from the actual interview by the time we recorded the outro, bex had her baby. So I messaged her and said would it be okay if I put on there that you've had your baby? So people know that that kind of went well and she was very happy for that. And then she was very honest with me and told me that it'd been a really hard birth and she'd been quite unwell since and readmitted to hospital. So she hadn't got those first days with her baby that she wanted to. Family were having to look after the baby. She was in hospital, she wasn't well and she was finding that really difficult. So I said to her can I do you mind me sharing some of that as well, because I think that's important for people to know that it's again, it's not all been good for you and she was very happy for me to put that on there. So we put that on the outro.
Claire:But yeah, just so grateful for her and her honesty in that area, because she was so desperate. She kept saying I want people to know that I'm thankful, I'm very thankful for all this good stuff. I was like like, yeah, I know, don't worry, we know that, but that doesn't mean there isn't loss to acknowledge. So even with having her baby, it didn't go the way she wanted and she was having to process and work through that. Oh gosh, I thought these would be the moments and I can't enjoy them because I'm ill. So even that she's having to process and work through. So yeah, you know, life just doesn't go as we want it to go and you need to acknowledge that and process it, or else you can just get quite bitter or angry or the grief comes out somewhere else.
Chris:And all of that has stayed with me and will remain with me. I know, going forwards in how sensitive I am with other people going through these sorts of transitions. I can't even say that word Transitions, transitions. It's nice to chat, it is. Thank you for chatting through these. In fact, we've got one of the highlights to come, which is hearing all their.
Claire:Hermans, again Hermans, yes.
Chris:Before we finish this episode.
Claire:Yeah, because if you're new to the podcast you might not know that we ask all our 101 guests the same last question.
Chris:What's your Herman?
Claire:Which you can hear a short episode explaining on the signupycom slash Herman, and it's like three, four minutes. You can read it, you can listen to it. It will give you a much better understanding of it than I can now. But yeah, basically it explains why Hermans are important and why we ask all our guests that, and then we gather them all together and every now and then we like to play them and actually I don't know if it's since we last talked on one of these episodes or not, but Hermans have become an actual live thing. It's actually been a year since they were launched, which is quite frightening.
Claire:But yeah, you can buy a Herman to give to people now. So if you know someone who's going through something sad or they're feeling a bit griefy or they've gone through a big loss, then yeah, we've got the perfect gift to send them. He comes with a little card to explain why you're sending him. Sometimes words are just really tricky. Flowers don't last long, chocolates aren't always good. You can send a Herman and it's a crocheted little grief companion that they can hold and they can just know that somebody's with them in their loss.
Chris:The whole purpose of this is that we loved the idea of like a sharing cake, a shared starter for bread, for example. When you look after something, you feed it, you nurture it, it grows, and then you multiply it and share it with others. That was the basis for what we created as the Herm and that we ask our guests you know what specific to them in their experience do they think about themselves, their character, that they have nurtured, cared for, and now they can share it with somebody else? So we ask them that question and then in this episode, as you said, we pull these bits together, offer a bit of a highlight, a bit of a cheat sheet, if you will, something that we affectionately call the hermontage so here for you are the last 10 hermans so I would say my gratitude.
Laura Burnes:Gratitude is more than just being thankful when things go well. It's an attitude of appreciation under any circumstance. So I think there's always things that we can have gratitude for. Sometimes we might feel like we have to dig deep for those things, but I think when we choose gratitude as a mindset, this then affects our attitude, helps us with perspective and helps us to ride the ups and downs of life.
Thea Rickard:I think the feeling of knowing that you can't do anything about a situation and to revel in how tangly and messy that can feel is my Herman, because a lot of the time that can make people feel quite powerless and actually I think that that feeling of not knowing what to do and not knowing how you feel can actually be incredibly powerful and it can also change the way that you see the world. It can afford you so much more wisdom, it can give you so much more sympathy and it can allow you to understand that absolutely everyone is putting forward a narrative and it allows you to kind of look below that and look beneath that and see people for the way that they truly are. I think that's my Herman, because it's given me a lot of peace.
Mark Field:So I thought a lot about this and I think it is around how we manage death. But one thing that I've learned is that if you manage that death badly, you can affect the quality of the life of the entire family for a generation. If I was to give advice to someone coming behind me, it was, yes, the death is tragic and there'll be all sorts of things and issues to cope with around that, but your focus has to be on the family. You know, certainly if it's during an operation and you have an opportunity to get out when you know things are going wrong and go and speak to the relatives, give them full warning, but also give them some hope. I think hope is really important.
Lisa Newman:I suddenly realized what my real Herman is, and it's got to be gratitude. It's got to be gratitude. Gratitude has probably been my little saving grace through some of my darkest times and has probably been at times when things feel so challenging and dark and chaotic. The tiniest little slither of gratitude for having a bed in a hostel or having people in my life that care about me have probably carried me through those moments, as I remember some very wise woman telling me gratitude is the breakfast of champions.
Dannie-Lu Carr:My home in is creative practice, because it's the thing that will bring you oh god, I sound like a self-help book, but it is the thing that will bring you back to yourself. It gives you a way to express what's going on and get curious and to create something from things that can feel a bit nasty or a bit unpleasant. If you get into a creative practice, there's always something that comes from that. There's like a new thing that comes from that and I feel like that's such an amazing thing to get involved in and it just has given me so much peace over the years in my head and in myself that I really would recommend everyone has a creative practice. You don't even have to be good at it. You know a lot of people don't do creative practice because they go I'm not very good at it. I'm like it doesn't matter be terrible at it, it's not about that, it's getting amongst it.
Jared Altic:I spend a lot of time with 25-year-old police officers where all of their peers are in their mother's basement playing Xbox, but they are putting on an armored vest, a gun on their hip and a taser on the other hip and they're going out into a dangerous world and they are clearing houses and responding to car accidents and doing all kinds of dangerous things that most people would never dream of doing, and they're doing it while being criticized and while being yelled at, and this desire to serve has moved me. That inspires me and I'm inspired to serve. I tell you what? There's not very many careers military law enforcement, firefighters, that's pretty much it. They raise their right hand and swear an oath that they would give their life for a stranger. I can't think of a higher kind of service, a higher kind of love than that.
Rachel Hart:So my herman would be music. Music is just such a beautiful way of sharing memories and creating memories. You know, if I hear a song that reminds me of someone or someone's loved one or my own loved ones, I'll always share that. I've heard it with someone Making playlists with people. Yeah, I was looking at what a Herman means, and it's something that you can't really buy and something that grows and something that outlasts you, and I think music's a really good example of that. It's a way of sharing a memory and just sort of triggers something completely different in your brain, and I think, yeah, by sharing that, it makes it even better.
Bex Eyles:I may have cheated a little bit in that it's a two-parter. The first thing for me is, I think, when you find yourself in the acute stage of loss, when it's really painful and you're in that heavy grief, my hermit at that stage would be absolutely to give yourself permission to be where you're at you know, allow yourself to feel what you feel and be where you are. And if you're in an exciting phase of life, it's okay that you can have loss at the same time. The second part would be when you're in that place of adjusting.
Bex Eyles:Loss can be such a fantastic opportunity to reflect on what you value and what you want to embrace in your life. Moving forwards, the best things that have come out of my life have been as a result of loss. So actually you can see, this is an opportunity to grasp hold of what really matters to you in life and how do you want those values to shape your new way of being my Herman is my attempt at taking my own life that then evolved into the business that I have started, which is Phoenix Rises.
Ken Anderson:I looked at your website and there were four main things that you used to describe what Herman was. It's's something that's nourished, grown and cultivated, and through my personal struggle that's what I've done I've developed this resilience and this empathy and a deep understanding of things. It's something that you can't buy with money. You can't buy what I've been through with money. Nobody would pay to have gone through that but it's invaluable because it comes from a real place, something to be shared with others and given away. Well, that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm sharing my story, I'm sharing my experience, I'm sharing my knowledge, I'm sharing my skills and my life, something alive and breathing Phoenix Rises. I want that to continue, and if I help one person, they will then take that away and they will naturally help somebody else. So my Herman is Phoenix Rises. It is a real passion project for me that is making a difference.
Kay Backhouse:My Herman. The thing that kept me going was this idea that inside of me, I was very aware that there was a tiny little pilot light inside of me that never went out so similar to what you see on the old gas burners and they'd have this pilot light that would just keep going and going and going. I felt like I focused on that a lot as I was meditating, when I was feeling like I just had no answers, didn't know which way to turn, no-transcript, and that is my Herman.
Claire:There they are, aren't they lovely.
Chris:Really lovely.
Claire:As always, thank you for listening to the Silent why we're so grateful that people choose to be with us on this journey and that they're interested in also learning about 101 different types of loss.
Chris:If you're still wondering who on earth this Chris and Claire are, what am?
Chris:I listening to Stumble across this by accident. You can find out more about us, about our story with childlessness. We've got a website which is www. thesilentwhycom. You can find more information about us there, about our episodes. We did our own episode called Loss of Fertility. That was back in the early days, episode number three. You can see the full list of losses on the website or just type in www. thesilentwhycom/ 101losses and a full list of our let's Chat episodes that Claire does, as well as her blog posts.
Claire:Yep, and this podcast is completely ad-free and we want to really keep it that way. I'm not a fan of listening to ads on podcasts, and I assume you're not either, so this podcast purely runs off the support of other people. So if you'd like to support the podcast monthly or as a one-off gift, you can buy me a coffee Well, actually it's a fancy tea, but you can buy me a coffee at www. buymeacoffee. com/ the silentwh y and you can support the podcast that way or by sending somebody a herman. That also financially supports the podcast. So thank you to anyone that does that, especially to the regular donors. They're literally doing that so that this is here for you.
Chris:So, yeah, huge thank you for anyone that's supported in any way and thank you for listening as well, wherever you are in the world. The last time we did a roundup like this, we'd reached over 116 countries and territories, and now that's up to 118.
Claire:I know it doesn't sound like a huge jump, but for our podcast we've reached two new countries or territories in the world. I find that so encouraging. It's so much more exciting than just doing the individual downloads. So yeah, two new countries and territories. It's brilliant.
Chris:It's clearly word of mouth across borders. We love it when you share these episodes. We love it when you share these episodes. We love it when you interact with Claire on social media. It makes a big difference. If you've not rated or reviewed us on your podcast platform, please do, because that tells the algorithms of the various podcast platforms that we're being listened to and it will promote us, maybe, and get us in front of other people's eyes and in their ears as well. Now we're going to finish this episode, as we do every loss episode, with a quote. This one's been used once before, but we're going to use it again because it sums up so much of what we want to portray through this podcast. It was written actually in the 70s by Leo Buscaglia.
Claire:It's not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of personkind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely.
