¶ Intro / Opening
When we hashtag tragedy , we've reduced it to something that's just incomprehensible . In a way again , I get it it's a way of trying to help when we're not good at helping , but literally we have reduced it to a hashtag phrase which doesn't do the people who have suffered justice .
Could you imagine oh boy , this might get me in trouble , but I'm going to say it anyway Could you imagine going back a little over 20 years and seeing hashtag 911 , 911? .
Hello , welcome to Notes on Resilience . I'm your host , Manha Chylinski , and this is episode number two in our series about resilient hearts . Today , I'm talking about grief with Dr Dan Franz .
He is a coach and a counselor , a speaker , a consultant , a podcast host and he is the chief meaning officer for the Viktor Frankl Meaning Academy , and we had a really interesting conversation about what is grief and how do people deal with it after tragedy
¶ Grief and Support After Tragedy
and what can we , as family and friends , do to support them . I think you're going to find this episode really useful . Thanks for joining us and , hey , subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts and , if you like us , write a review . Hey , if you don't like us , also write a review . I want to know what our listeners think , so please share . Thanks so much .
Hey , dan , I am so excited . This is appearance number two for you on the podcast .
Yes , it's always a great opportunity to chat with you and I'm really excited with the topic we're talking about today and the questions you sent me .
Yeah , I'm glad , and I know I sound excited , but I'm about to tell you that what we're going to be talking about is grief , which is not necessarily the most joyful of emotions . But before I dig into the questions , I want to ask you a question , just to get to know you a little better .
If you could have dinner with any historical figure , who would it be and why ?
No , that's just too simple really , because his name is right behind me , my mentor , the person I have really followed for the past 10 years . My entire doctorate degree was based on Dr Viktor Frankl and his studies in the psychology of meaning , so that's a pretty easy one when we talk about history .
I think would be yes , I'm going to have to be Dr Frankl .
Absolutely . What would be the first question that you would ask him ?
Oh my goodness , I don't even know . If I'd ask questions I would probably sit in awe and probably have to close my jaw for a few minutes because I would just ask him anything casual , because in the videos there's plenty of old videos out there .
I love a good Austrian-German accent and he has one of the thickest ones , so I might just ask him how is the weather , or something like that to get things going , and then probably dive way too deep into existential philosophy and all that kind of stuff . It's funny . Quickly .
I was listening to a book of his , one of the books people don't know about he was talking about they went to a wine bar with Martin Heidegger . This guy , this gentleman , lived in the time of great existential philosophers and things and would go out for a drink with these people . So maybe I'd ask him about the great existential philosophers of his time .
Wow , I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that dinner . That just be amazing . Well , thank you for sharing that and just quickly tell us who you are .
Sure , wow , I'll give you the abbreviated version . I'm Dr Dan , more formerly known as Dr Daniel A Franz . I'm a licensed mental health counselor , a licensed co-addiction counselor . I do a lot of work in the Myers-Briggs type indicator . I'm a master certified MBTI practitioner and I'm also a diplomate in Dr Viktor Frankl's logo therapy , which brings me to also .
One of the new things that I'm doing is I am a chief meaning officer at the Viktor Frankl Meaning Academy , where we teach people how to live with meaning , purpose and resilience Some things we'll probably be talking about today .
Wow , that is amazing and I love your new project , by the way . And I love your new title , chief Meaning Officer . It is so perfect , thank you . Well , like I mentioned , we are going to be talking about grief today , because we are looking at the emotions that people experience after tragedy .
So , just to get us started , can you give us a definition that is grief
¶ Understanding Grief and Resilience
?
Well , my experience usually is grief is the overwhelming . I guess we could call it sadness . But there's a whole host of emotions that come along with grief anger , the behaviors of bartering and bargaining and trying to get through .
But a lot of anger and sadness that comes after , after a tragedy the sadness of loss , the sadness of life change , the sadness of things that won't be .
So I don't know about our listeners , but I'm someone who , for the longest time , only associated grief with death , so that grief was something you felt after someone you cared about died . But that isn't really true . We can feel grief for other and other at other times for other reasons .
So , or what is the role of grief in the journey of someone who has is recovering from a tragedy ?
I think , grief in that sense , I think we experience grief after any kind of significant loss , so death being a loss , of course , a very significant loss , but then also maybe the loss of a relationship , the loss of a job situation or of an idea , even the loss of an expectation .
Sometimes , when our children go on to lead their own lives and we lose our influence over them and they make choices that we may not agree with , we can grieve that loss to the loss of ideas or expectations that won't come to pass . I believe the role of grief is first to give us pause to process right .
Very often grief comes , comes on unexpectedly , that loss we don't plan for , loss not a loss that we will grieve . So it comes on suddenly .
Grief is that natural pause to process it , to feel it , to filter through it and possibly to experience the other emotions necessary anger , loss , frustration , disappointment and ideally , hopefully , to find through that process some form of serenity , peace or maybe even joy afterwards .
So you've mentioned anger , for example , a couple times , some other emotion , and I know that we feel multiple things at the same time . We're not , and things don't stay in their lane and they cross over and there's all sorts of co-mingling of the emotions .
And I guess I'm curious for someone who is recovering from a loss , recovering from a tragedy , a disaster , a crime how would they recognize grief as one of the emotions that they're feeling , or do they need to recognize it ?
Yeah , maybe that's the initial . Maybe they don't need to recognize it . I think it's important , in a culture that we aren't very good at recognizing our emotions at all , to pause and truly understand what we're feeling . The emotions associated with grief can be confusing , so we may not know what we're feeling .
We know we're feeling something or we're feeling different . We're feeling off . To pause and identify that . Is it anger , is it sadness , is it depression , maybe anxiety or hypervigilance we experience . It's helpful to identify what we truly are experiencing .
So you know from your life experience and your expertise as a mental health professional what's the relationship between resilience and helping people deal with grief in the aftermath .
Great question . I love the growing field of resilience studies . I know in our previous conversations we talk about developing resilience after a tragedy , after a difficulty , after something happens and we're finding out more and more . No , we need to develop resiliency prior to it .
In my field of study , in logo therapy , we talk about the tragic triad , the difficulties , the human suffering . We will all experience pain , guilt and death . We cannot escape these things . It's part of the human condition . If we know these are going to happen to all of us , we're going to experience death or loss of people we care about .
We're going to experience pain and suffering , guilt . Why not prepare for it ? It'll be a surprise when it happens , but it shouldn't be a surprise that it happens . Therefore , to prepare for it and to develop a resilient mindset , a resilient mind , a resilient body , can help us endure those and , in some ways , turn those tragedies into triumph over time .
Yes , I appreciate that you said . It shouldn't be a surprise that these things happen Almost always a surprise that it is actually happening , but it shouldn't be a surprise that something- .
It's a surprise when it happens . We never know when to expect it . I had a terrible phone call this morning . A family member , a cousin's husband , younger than me . I passed away in the middle of the night . You can never prepare for that . You don't know when that's going to happen , but sadly we know tragedy happens .
Yes , I have to share that . My experience almost 11 years ago now was such an eye-opener for me in so many ways . One of the ways is the recognition that something horrific could actually happen . Not that I lived a perfectly pain-free life before that , but nothing big or that significant had ever happened .
I never expected or even anticipated that something like that could happen For me . In the aftermath , it was also the realization that , oh yeah , bad things can happen .
Yes , sadly , I think the more connected we get , the more we see news from around the world . We recognize bad things do happen . But I think it's also human nature . Maybe it's our nature here in the United States to think but that's not going to happen to me . I don't live there .
We have this sense of good , old-fashioned American invincibility which in some ways , right , that can be healthy until something happens and then it becomes so much more of a shock .
Right . Going back to grief , what's the role of community support ? How does that help people dealing with grief ?
I mean it's probably one of the most important factors . It is a factor in resilience , where the research today overwhelmingly says that those who seek out and accept community supports , accept connection , heal more wholly and more quickly than those who don't . I think that's just an overall good health right .
Having connections , having community around us , is an indication of overall good health . But when difficult times happen , my goodness , we need those people around us .
Yes , my own experience , where the mental health impacts were not widely discussed and there was not a lot of full-throated public support for the folks with mental health injuries . I'm curious . I mean that was 11 years ago . I'm curious . From what you see , do you feel like today there is better support in our communities after something happens ?
No , unfortunately . I think we have good crisis response teams , right , we have good crisis intervention , but I think , ongoing care . Unless those crisis responders say , hey , make sure you get to know a local mental health provider , this could last a while . You need to involve yourself with somebody who will be there for the long haul .
Just because you've gotten through this week or this month or this year doesn't mean you're completely healed . Make sure you're checking in with somebody . But I think that's also a sign of a greater symptom that , hey , we're just not great at understanding mental health as a whole right now , and that's because of the newness of psychology .
We're only 100 years old . We're just now beginning to learn what keeps people healthy and whole , and we're getting better at it . We grow each day , but we're still not that great .
Yeah Well , what steps do you think we could take on the broader scale to promote understanding of grief and all these other emotions in the aftermath of tragedy ?
I think again letting people know that too often when it comes to grief , I feel like maybe it's us as a culture , maybe it's us as a world we're just not good with that . We really want to help people , but we want to help people quickly .
So we have a lot of cliches , it's going to get better , or , in the face of death , you know well they're in a better place . It's going to be . It's time for you to move on . And my response usually is no , you get to take as long as you want . A year or two years is pretty okay .
If it goes much beyond that , then I'm getting more involved saying all right , well , maybe maybe we need to see why you're stuck , but you know , 12 to 24 months of processing , working through and as long as the person's doing the work to move forward . But I think that's a helpful message . This isn't a . You know .
This happens in an instant this trauma , this tragedy , this suffering but it doesn't go away in an instant . It has a long term effect on us .
Well , and when you were saying we like the quick , we like things to happen quickly , right , I mean we'd all want to take that pill to lose weight or to be smarter or to be in shape , when we know fully well the work that's actually involved .
The phrase that popped into my head when you said that was thoughts and prayers , as if that is going to somehow assuage the pain because somebody is thinking about me or praying for me , or they're probably not really . They've just said thoughts and prayers .
It definitely gives me the cringes , like when I see a line of that posted someone . It's like I get it . People are trying to reach out and say something , but they don't know what to say , so they say this new cliche thoughts and prayers .
It's like you know what , if you really want to help somebody say something meaningful , just take the time to come up with a line or two . But just two words with an and in the middle . I get it . We're just not good . We're just not good with grief , processing our own grief or helping others with it .
No , we're not , and I think we see that in the slogans that appear after a tragedy . So my own personal bet noir is Boston Strong . I can't stand it , but we've got Las Vegas Strong , we've got , you know , pick a city where something's happened and somebody's put the word strong after it , and I believe that that is .
People are genuinely trying to be helpful and trying to say something , but they don't know what to say , and this is a shorthand that feels like it is saying something .
Yeah , when we hashtag tragedy , we've reduced it to something that's just incomprehensible . In a way again , I get it it's a way of trying to help when we're not good at helping , but literally we have reduced it to a hashtag phrase which doesn't do the people who have suffered justice .
Could you imagine oh boy , this might get me in trouble , but I'm going to say it anyway Could you imagine going back a little over 20 years and seeing hashtag 9-1-1 , 9-11 , right , how disgusting would that have been . And yet now we're doing it with every other hashtag difficulty or tragedy .
People come and then we add I know you have , or at one time had a bit of a personal disagreement with adding strong to it , because it may not be just about strength , and so it really trivializes it , it reduces it , it's we can . Here's the point . We can do better . We should do yes .
Now to bring us back to the topic of grief . How does hearing the hashtags and reading the hashtag and thoughts and prayers and all of these things that we've just talked about , that we know we can actually do better on making a connection ? How does that impact somebody who is grieving their involvement in something horrible ?
Well , I'm going to turn that around on you in a second , since you experienced it firsthand as professional who helps people . Again , it trivializes it . You see the phrase associated with the terrible , life altering trauma you went through on a damn bumper sticker . I mean what , what the hell ?
I couldn't imagine that being helpful in any way , unless that hashtag bumper sticker got you a couple bucks to go get better therapy , so you're not paying out of pocket , or or maybe helped you in some way , but I'm not sure it does .
Yeah .
So let me ask you , Monia , how did that impact you seeing the hashtag Boston strong when you were struggling ?
It still makes my muscles tense up . And I was in Europe somewhere a few years after and was walking down the street and somebody was wearing a Boston strong T-shirt and I turned around and just walked away .
This person , had you know , was not interacting with me in any way , but the second I read that T-shirt , which I am certain that person purchased or bought in the sense of solidarity , and I saw it and thought get away from me , like I can't even be near you wearing that T-shirt .
So anyway , what are some coping mechanisms or maybe therapeutic approaches that are effective for someone who's dealing with grief in the aftermath of a tragedy or disaster ?
So , in dealing with grief , some of the best things we can do even me as a therapist , as I mentioned avoid the cliches , avoid encouraging people to move on . You should be past this , and one of the best things we can do is just be human , just give them space , just to sit with them and hold space for them , just to be present .
You know , to sit down and have a cup of coffee and say , hey , how you doing , and then shut up and listen . Right , we're not good at that one either . Oh , you're not doing . Well , well , let me tell you what you ought to do .
Okay , let's stay away from that , right , and just be present with the people we care about , and this is good for people dealing with grief , this is good for other human beings we care about . Be present , sit down , have a drink and say , hey , how you doing ? And then listen .
Don't tell them what they need to do , don't tell them to get over it , just listen .
That can be so difficult because , first
¶ Effective Coping Mechanisms for Grief
of all , what you said , we tend to want to fix things and offer advice , but it also can be difficult to listen because they might say something that's very emotionally upsetting to us .
I don't know . I mean , that's a great question , but I had . I find that hard to answer because I do it every day . I've made a career out of it . I enjoy it because I and let me offer this to the listeners like I enjoy it because I know I'm helping somebody . Yes , I am on call . I'm helping somebody .
Yes , I am uncomfortable a lot of times throughout the day dealing with other human beings emotions . Now , I granted I went to school for it . I've been doing it for 25 years . I've got a bit of experience , but it is one of the most .
It's one of the most selfish things we can do , because it feels so damn good when we know we're truly helping somebody by being just a little bit uncomfortable and allowing them to work through their emotions .
Yeah , Well , thank you for sharing that . I have also gotten used very comfortable with being uncomfortable just because of my experience over the past 11 years . It still can be hard for me to be fully present and open when I know someone's going to share something . That's really difficult , but I'm better at it than I used to be .
Well , with this amazing speaking career you're building and that outstanding Ted talk you have , like I mean I can't . That would make me uncomfortable just thinking about doing it . So I'm sure you've gotten comfortable with it .
Ah , shock , stan , thank you . So in talking about grief , so how do cultural or societal factors or pieces of our identity , like race or gender , influence how we express or process grief ?
Well , I love the cultural ideas around grief . My business partner in Colorado , my partner in Logo Therapy and the Viktor Frankl Meaning Academy , spent a good part of his career as a rabbi . He talks a lot about the 500 funerals he officiated and the Jewish culture of sitting Shiva . And , by the way , there's an amazing I thought it was a new movie .
It's a I don't know five or 10-year-old movie called this Is when I Leave you on Netflix that depicts a beautiful , great cast family sitting Shiva for their father's death and it's such a touching story . Some cultures embrace it very well and others , I believe our westernized culture , just wants people to yay , I gotta get . How much longer is this gonna take ?
I gotta get back to work . You know we gotta get on with life . We have stuff to do and it takes time . So a lot of you know different cultures do grief very differently .
You know I reached out to someone who survived the plane crash in the Andes in the 70s . I think it was in the 70s and they were lost for 72 days and it was quite dramatic . And when I spoke to this person and talked about you know , ptsd , they said , oh , we don't experience that in my culture .
And I thought , well , I think you do , you know , or some sort of post-traumatic stress , you know , you can't . I mean , I think for most people there's different , different levels of response , but you are certainly going to be affected by a tragedy like that , but culturally that was not something they were able to admit or cop to .
Well , and if I remember this , this was a group of athletes , right with these rugby players or soccer players .
Oh yeah .
Yeah , and so that suggests a in that , in that small group , a culture of resilience already right , because they had dealt with adversity , they'd become top level athletes and things like that . When I think of we don't do PTSD , I think of the greatest generation , our World War II veterans .
Right , we hear stories of how they came back and didn't talk about anything to anybody for a very long time . But oddly , this was also the , the , the great surge of the alcoholism rates in the United States . Is that a coincidence ? I don't think so , but you know it's .
You can either express the difficulties you're going through , you can express the emotions , or you can repress them . But if you repress them they're going to come out one way or another , and for very many people , especially in our cultures substance use and abuse alcoholism seems pretty prominent for that .
I think what you said is so important that the emotion is going to come out in some way , whether you let it come out and sort of dissipate and and deal with it or squish it down , and it kind of comes out as something else Again , wanting that like hill or that snap my fingers and it's fixed because we don't like to be uncomfortable and dealing with these
things you know , dealing with the grief after tragedy and all the other emotions is uncomfortable , it's no fun .
Well , and if we go back to the World War II generation , right , we didn't , we didn't know anything about this , we still called it being shell shocked . Yeah , you know , we had no idea about the impact .
And then Vietnam veterans came back and you know they had so much heroin and opium in Vietnam that they used to numb themselves out there that they came back and realized , okay , I don't need that anymore .
But they came back to a much different landscape and it was really , I believe , and the research seems to support it was only , you know , maybe 20 , 25 years ago , as we had soldiers coming back from Afghanistan and we started to realize what they were struggling with , that we started paying attention to what this PTSD might look like .
And you know , maybe only in the past 10 or 15 years have we really done some good , groundbreaking work in it .
And very recently in the span of history are we recognizing that it isn't just soldiers , you know , they were the ones that got us to realize this was happening , but then started to realize , oh , this is happening to people for who aren't in a war zone and who are having other kinds of traumas happen to them .
So when I talk about it and I get frustrated that people aren't really recognizing it , I have to remember it's only been so recently within my lifetime that even people are realizing this is a thing .
And it took how many coming home broken and struggling with PTSD symptoms . I mean thousands , thousands of soldiers , airmen , seamen coming back . And then we started realizing , oh my goodness , there are individual people , human beings , in our country who have gone through much worse . I wonder if they're struggling with these kinds of things .
Absolutely so . We're getting close to time to wrap up , so what advice do you have for friends or family members who want to support someone who is grieving or just dealing with that emotional aftermath ?
Take them out for coffee . Give yourself an hour , maybe more . Go for a cup of coffee and just listen . That's the best . I can recommend is to just listen . Avoid the cliches be present . Look into their eyes and listen to what they have to say is one of the most powerful things we can do for each other .
Oh , that's great advice . Thank you , dan , and thank you for coming on to talk with me about these emotions after tragedy and digging into what is grief . I really appreciate it .
It was a pleasure . I hope I get to come back again . It's always wonderful chatting with you and your audience . Monia , thank you for inviting me .
Thank you All . Right Bye everyone . Thank you for listening . I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I did , so if you'd like to learn more about me , Manya Chylinski I work with organizations to help understand how to create environments where people can thrive after difficult life experiences , and I do this through talks and consulting .
I'm a survivor of mass violence and I use my experience to help leaders learn about resiliency , compassion and trauma-sensitive leadership to build strategies to enable teams to thrive and be engaged amidst difficulty and turmoil . If this is something you want to learn more about , visit my website , www . manyachylinski . com or email me at manya@manyachylinski .
com , or stop by my social media on LinkedIn and Twitter
¶ Understanding Emotions and Grief After Tragedy
. Thanks so much .