127. Getting Through Grief: Tips for Processing Grief and Healing Your Heart feat. Sharon Brubaker

Dec 20

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Today's guest is Sharon Brubaker—a certified life coach and credentialed Grief Specialist who has studied grief and healing for over 16 years. Sharon specializes in helping grieving women process their thoughts and emotions. In this episode, we discuss different ways in which people can grieve, the inaccuracies of the five stages of grief, tips on how to cope, ask for help, and heal when experiencing grief, advice on helping a loved one who is experiencing grief, and how our education system has failed to teach children about grief.

Sharon's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/griefhealingwithsharonbrubaker/?hl=en

Mentioned In The Episode…

+ Lost Connections by Johann Hari

+ Grief Share

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

Episode Sponsors

🛋This week's episode is sponsored by Teen Counseling. Teen Counseling is an online therapy program with over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network offering support with depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and more via text, talk, and video counseling. Head to teencounseling.com/shepersisted to find a therapist today!

About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

[00:00:00] Sadie: Welcome to She Persisted. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton, a 19 year old from the Bay Area studying psychology at the University of Penn. She Persisted is the Teen Mental Health Podcast made for teenagers by a teen. In each episode, I'll bring you authentic, accessible, and relatable conversations about every aspect of mental wellness.

[00:00:19] Sadie: You can expect evidence-based, teen approved resources, coping skills, including lots of D B T insights and education in. Each piece of content you consume, she persisted, Offers you a safe space to feel validated and understood in your struggle, while encouraging you to take ownership of your journey and build your life worth living.

[00:00:37] Sadie: So let's dive in this week on She persisted.

[00:00:42] Sharon: Here's my advice. Grief suck. and it sucks big time. Lean into the suck as much as you can lean into it. What do I mean by that?

[00:00:53] Sharon: If today you're feeling really sad, just acknowledge that you're feeling sad, feel the emotion. Sometimes I tell Grievers, just put your hand over your heart and see if you can tell what emotion that is. I miss. And then just say, man, I really miss him. And try to hold on to that emotion of missing him for as long as you can before your mind changes the subject.

[00:01:14] Sadie: Hello. Hello and welcome to She Persisted. Today we are talking about a very important and relevant topic because it is the holidays and grief is something that can come up for a lot of people, especially around the holiday season as you participate in traditions and spend time with family members and friends.

[00:01:32] Sadie: If you have lost a loved one, it can be a really difficult time to navigate emotions that come up and your mental health can struggle as a result. Today's guest is Sharon Brubaker. She's a grief specialist. As many of you guys know, grief is a subject that most people are not comfortable with, but it's really unique in that it's one of the few things that will affect every single person at some point in their life.

[00:01:52] Sadie: And so Sharon is on the podcast today to talk about. , why we don't teach grieving skills at a young age. We talk about navigating grief as a teenager and what specific coping skills teens can use if they are grieving. We talk about Sharon's own experiences. We talk about how to support someone grieving, what you can do, what is helpful, what's not helpful, and really just a all-encompassing conversation about how to navigate grief yourself or support someone that is experiencing that.

[00:02:19] Sadie: I learned so much in this episode. I know that you will as well. Huge thank you to Sharon for coming on the show and being so vulnerable and diving into a topic that we haven't covered before, but is so, so important because like I mentioned, grief is something that everyone will experience. With that, let's dive in.

[00:02:35] Sadie: Well thank you so much for joining me today, Sharon. I'm so excited to have you on. She persisted.

[00:02:40] Sharon: How exciting. This is gonna be so cool. I've waiting to do this interview. I'm

[00:02:45] Sadie: so excited. And I'm so happy to have you here. I have never done an episode on grief before, but it's something that's so many teens steal us.

[00:02:52] Sadie: I'm so excited to have an expert perspective, to give all the best tips and navigating it yourself and supporting. .

[00:02:59] Sharon: Yeah. And I, this is why I was excited to be here is because we're not talking about this enough, and we're definitely not talking about it for our young people. Right? Yeah. And here's the other thing.

[00:03:10] Sharon: We don't call it grief. That's the problem. All the things that hurt our heart and make us feel broken, we're not calling it grief. Yeah. And that's why people think grief only goes with. .

[00:03:21] Sadie: Yeah. What are some other labels that people use for grief as an emotion or an experience other than actually labeling it?

[00:03:30] Sharon: So breakup of a romantic relationship. , right? Mm-hmm. , how about, and I'm gonna try to think of some things for, for this age group, but yeah, really liking a guy and then him going for your girlfriend, that's a grieving experience. That would be rough, right? Yeah. . Yeah. That's raw, right? And so having him go for your girlfriend or, you know, having friends, we a lot of this as girlfriends.

[00:03:54] Sharon: We, we are in there, we're supporting each other, but then all of a sudden we. Turn on that friend. That's a grieving experience. A grieving experience is anything that your heart feels that hurts. Anything that hurts your heart is a grieving experience. We, unfortunately, we only use it with death, but being bullied in school is a grieving experience.

[00:04:15] Sharon: When I was a senior in high school, I tell this story quite often. Now I'm telling it on a podcast, , my boyfriend that I was in love with and thought I was gonna marry for the rest of my life. Got another girl. Oh my goodness. Talk about a grieving experience. Yeah, I mean, think about that here. I was totally in love.

[00:04:32] Sharon: He was my first love. I loved him immensely. I believe he loved me also, I just think we got, you know, we, things happened and we got confused, and then he started hanging out with this other girl, and then she got pregnant. I had to keep going to school. and keep seeing her get bigger and bigger. So that was a grieving experience.

[00:04:50] Sharon: So anything that causes pain in our heart is a grieving experience. So let me just list a few abortion breakup of a romantic relationship. Having someone in your family go to jail. Adoption, if your parents were to adopt and bring in someone new, that's a grieving experience. Having your pet die, your bike getting stolen, your computer breaking, all of those are grieving.

[00:05:13] Sharon: Experie.

[00:05:15] Sadie: Yeah, I think it's really helpful to have the ability to describe it and pinpoint what you're feeling. I think all of those experiences bring up so many emotions, but being able to label that as grief brings a lot of clarity and then also a sense of peace because you're like, okay, I know I can ask for how to deal with this, or I know how to deal with this.

[00:05:36] Sadie: When you're like, I'm angry, I'm confused, I'm upset, I'm sad, I'm guilty. All of these different things, it can be really difficult to process through those emotions because you don't even know what you're experiencing.

[00:05:46] Sharon: 100%. Imagine if in kindergarten we taught kids grief. Yeah. Where would we be?

[00:05:55] Sharon: You know, you and I be as women adults, right? If I had to learn grief at a very young age, and not even grief, if I had learned processing emotions. Processing emotions, right? So I'm in kindergarten, I get bullied, I run to my teacher. She uses it as a teaching opportunity for the whole entire classroom instead of just saying, and then it

[00:06:16] Sadie: poor memory before you, the rest of your life,

[00:06:19] Sharon: of your life,

[00:06:21] Sharon: And then you're on a podcast and you start talking about it 20 years later. I'm way older than 25 years old, but you know, 50 years later. So, . if we did that, what a difference in how much more prepared we would be if we talked in, I'm gonna put quotes up here in emotions. Yeah. That hurt. That made me sad.

[00:06:39] Sharon: And that, here's the deal. We have to be allowed to say it, but the person hearing it has to be able to receive it. Yeah. And not comment on it. Or try to fix it. Yeah.

[00:06:51] Sadie: And I think even that, Pivotal piece of learning how to validate and be there for someone else's emotions, and then having a better skill set of how to cope with those yourself are two things that are so missing from our current education system.

[00:07:06] Sadie: And as you get into middle school and high school and your teenage years and you have all these really intense emotions and you don't know how to deal with them, I think it would do wonders for the rates of mental illness and mental health challenges that so many teens are experie. . I

[00:07:20] Sharon: agree with you a hundred percent.

[00:07:22] Sharon: And so this is the example that I give. If you can imagine a big, giant heart, right? A big old red heart with two big eyes and two big ears just hanging off the end. That's all you need to be is a heart with ears. You know what's missing? The mouth. You don't need to say anything. Whenever your girlfriend or your boyfriend, or your cousin or anybody comes up to you and just start sharing.

[00:07:46] Sharon: Just listen. Listen to what they're saying. Don't offer advice. Don't try to fix it. That's what we try to do. We want them, man, there's plenty of fish in the sea. You'll find another girl. Let's go out right now and start drinking. Let's go do this. Let's go do that. And the truth is, grievers just need to talk.

[00:08:05] Sharon: They need to talk. They need to hear their brain say the thing out.

[00:08:09] Sadie: Yeah. So in addition to talking through it, what skills are helpful to have in your toolbox when you are grieving an experience or relationship or whatever it is that is bringing up that,

[00:08:23] Sharon: emotion. So I teach also about a brain dump.

[00:08:27] Sharon: Literally just getting a piece of paper and a pencil or a pen and just writing everything out and hear, hear me out on this. It doesn't have to be a paragraph, or This is how I'm feeling. I put a bunch of the emotional words. . I don't like my math class. I don't like having to pay for my insurance. This is hard.

[00:08:44] Sharon: Really, just writing it out is a

[00:08:46] Sadie: great tool class. Like a letter to the person, like your situation with the boyfriend, writing a really long letter, being like, this is so terrible. How could you do this? You don't have to send that. How could you do like getting that out? Don't send it. It's so therapeutic.

[00:08:58] Sadie: I can't, don't,

[00:08:59] Sharon: don't nail that one. Therapeutic. The other thing is having that one or. People in our back pocket that we can talk to, right. That are really there for us to talk. And that they are the person that's the heart with ears and they just listen to us and we can just do the brain dump out loud and saying the thing out loud.

[00:09:17] Sharon: The other thing is if we don't have those one or two people, then being able to ask for help. I know on a lot of the college campuses, there's support groups that you can go to. There's support groups. A lot we can find online and meetup groups. Literally people are dying to talk. I heard today the reason that TikTok is becoming so popular is because people feel like they belong to something, right?

[00:09:40] Sharon: Yeah. This one lady was on TikTok Live, and they were just breaking out one of the videos. She said she was on for six hours because people kept joining and joining and joining. Oh my God.

[00:09:49] Sharon: Because people wanna feel like they belong to something and feel heard. Yeah, we wanna feel heard. It's so true. So one other thing I wanna add with that, just a real quick tip, is to talk in emotions. Say those emotions, even if they hurt, even if you feel like if I say this, someone's could be uncomfortable.

[00:10:07] Sharon: You, there's five simple emotions you can use. Mad, sad, glad, afraid, or embarrassed. Those five simple, emotions help in every situ. .

[00:10:20] Sadie: When is it time to ask for support and kind of maybe realize that something isn't going as well as it could? I mean, there, of course, all of these emotions arise. It takes a certain amount of time to be able to go back to not even functioning normally, but return to all of these activities and interests that you had before when you're grieving.

[00:10:41] Sadie: And it's interesting because when. wrote the dsm. I don't know if it's the most recent version or the one before when they were talking about the diagnosis for depression, there was this caveat where it's like, unless you've lost a loved one recently where all these symptoms are normal unless you've lost a, a close family member, friend, et cetera, and.

[00:10:59] Sadie: It's in the book, lost Connections by Johan Har. And he talks about, but there's no timeline there. It's like, this is normal if you have lost a loved one. But what if this has been going on for a year or two years? Then it's, it's not normal. So when would you. counsel, a listener to maybe ask a parent or a counselor or close friend for some further support, almost like warning science or things to be aware of if you feel like, okay, maybe this grieving process isn't something that I can do alone.

[00:11:27] Sharon: So a couple of things. Number one, , the DSM five doesn't have the word grief in it. Okay. And it hasn't until this year. No, no, no. I'm not correcting you. I'm just telling you they haven't until this year, and there's a reason why a grieving experience happens in our heart. Yeah. There is no pill that somebody can write you.

[00:11:46] Sharon: And no doctor can say, oh, you're grieving. Oh, your boyfriend got a girl pregnant at your school. Let me write you a pill. Yeah. There's no pill. Right. And

[00:11:54] Sadie: it's almost a catchall for feel however you want to, let's not do anything about it. It's, it's expected. It's the course of action here. Yeah.

[00:12:04] Sharon: Yeah, exactly. So that, that's number one. There was no, and then recently, this year, I believe they added complicated grief, which I don't believe is, I don't wanna go against anybody in the medical field. They're gonna think I'm crazy, but I think all grief is complicated grief. That's number one. Yeah.

[00:12:19] Sharon: Number two, we get a lot of misinformation from people giving us advice, and one of the bits of information they give us. Oh, honey, just give it time. Yeah. . It'll get better in time. It'll get better. Just give it time. Well, how much time? That's what I always say. How much time they that when that thing happened to me in my senior year of high school.

[00:12:41] Sharon: I came home grieving. I didn't know it was grieving till now. I came home every day and went to bed and put the coverage over my head and cried. I didn't feel like I had anyone to talk to. My mother didn't know what to do, and so at the end of one year, I was just like, okay, I'm better. Guess what came back to haunt me 10 years later?

[00:12:58] Sharon: Bad experience because I never dealt with it. So is there a time limit on grief? Here hear me out. There's no time that's gonna heal this broken. , it's the action steps that we take within nine. What are the action steps? Listening to this podcast, talking to someone, just talking about how I feel going to my school counselor and saying, Hey, this is not getting any better.

[00:13:20] Sharon: I'm having some crazy thoughts. I need to talk to somebody. , those are the action steps. Picking up the book, going in the library and finding a book on grief or finding a book on a broken heart and reading it is an action step. So everything that you do to move you towards healing, move your heart towards healing is an action step.

[00:13:40] Sharon: So it's the action steps within time. If I did nothing, , which I did when when I broke up with my boyfriend with I did nothing. Eventually the intensity over time is gonna drop down and almost feels like it's taken care of. But the truth is, anybody can come up and just say something and remind you of that moment, and you're right back there again.

[00:14:02] Sadie: Today's episode is brought to you by Teen Counseling. Teen Counseling is an online therapy program with over 14,000 licensed therapists within their network. It is better helps branch of online therapy for teenagers if you are struggling with grief or struggling with the overwhelming emotions that can come with.

[00:14:17] Sadie: Loss, it might be helpful to work with a therapist or work with a mental health professional, and if you are looking for a therapist, you haven't been able to find one locally. A great option can be teen counseling because you can get talk, text and video support all from your home without dealing with weightless and referrals and the very exhausting process that can be finding a therapist.

[00:14:36] Sadie: So if you would like to check out teen counseling, you can go to teen counseling.com/sheep persisted. You will fill out a quick survey to answer what you're hoping to work on, whether that is depression, anxiety, grief, relationships.

[00:14:49] Sadie: Or something else. And based on that, they'll match you with a therapist that meets your needs. So if you were looking for mental health support, I highly recommend teen counseling. You can go to teen counseling.com/she persisted to find a therapist today.

[00:15:01] Sadie: What are your thoughts on the seven stages of grief? Do you think that there's accuracy there? Are some of them true? Are they all terrible and you just see them in movies all the time and you're like, what is happening from your professional perspective?

[00:15:13] Sadie: What are your thoughts there?

[00:15:14] Sharon: My thought is you can Google my TEDx, where I debunk the stages of. I love it. Okay, so in 2006, my nephew Austin, your home at the lake. The one thing that Erica is my sister, Austin's mom and myself, the one thing we had in common were the five stages of grief. And so that's seven every day.

[00:15:36] Sharon: Yeah. They're, they're, you hear seven, there's seven. You here, 13. You hear all. So many . So many. Right. One of the other stages is, anger, right? Mm-hmm. . , so what would happen is every day I would call her and I would say, how are you doing?

[00:15:50] Sharon: And then she would give me the that she, believed that she was in, right? Mm-hmm. She said she was in denial. That's the stage. Yeah. And I said, how could you be in denial? And I whisper. , you know that he died, right? Almost like she was losing her mind.

[00:16:04] Sharon: Yes. How is it that after seven months of someone dying, you can be in denial? So I started to take a deep dive into these stages. I did an intense study on him, and it turns out Dr. Elizabeth Kbu Ross actually wrote 13 stages for the dying. Person. So when you were giving a life altered disease, she wrote these stages for her interns.

[00:16:25] Sharon: One of the interns became a psychiatrist, and he took five of the stages and he attached 'em to grief and did to us a huge disservice. So hear me out. You can be angry when someone dies. You can be angry when your boyfriend cheats on you. You can be in disbel. . You can even come to acceptance. You can bargain with God to please bring 'em back.

[00:16:45] Sharon: You absolutely can have those, and some days you may actually laugh, you may actually enjoy a bowl of ice cream, but the truth is your heart is still broken. Your heart is still broken.

[00:16:57] Sadie: When you're at that point where you kind of have that acceptance of I'm feeling heartbroken, that is just something that is coming with this experience, is that where working through the experience rather than just moving on and waiting for a certain amount of time to pass?

[00:17:11] Sadie: Or do you think that's just something that's always there and that always is kind of part of your emotional experience? .

[00:17:17] Sharon: So, four years ago I lost my very best friend of 15 years. Her name was also Sharon, and she used to tell everybody we're Sharon squared. And I would say, stop saying that

[00:17:27] Sharon: That's so lame. But anyway, now I wish she was here to say it. Yeah. So I'm gonna share my experience. Number one, my sister and I, we don't teach, closure because we sound like it's closing the door on your relationship. Yeah. We teach complet. . You walk a journey with everybody you meet in your life.

[00:17:45] Sharon: Even if you only meet them in your class and you just have one, semester with them. You walked a journey with that person. I walked a journey with Sharon from the day that I met her until the day she left this earth. We were best friends, we were inseparable. We talked on the phone 10 times a day.

[00:18:00] Sharon: We could talk about what color drapes to hang in our living room for like three hours, right? , when she left, I needed to complete my relationship with her and come full circle. Now, there are days that I absolutely miss her. There are days that are, man, I really need Sharon. I could talk to her about this.

[00:18:17] Sharon: She would gimme the best advice. There are days I absolutely missed her, but I am living my best life. And filled with love for her. I, I'm really filled with love for her. I, I will miss her until the day I live this earth. But I'm not broken. I can function. I go to events. I talk about her. I can look at pictures of her and I together.

[00:18:38] Sharon: If you met my sister Erica, you would say the same thing about her. She talks about her boys. She shares about her boys. She's, last week she was at the fair, you know, she travels. She's living her best. With them in her heart, and she knows that she had a relationship with them, but she's not broken. I do meet people 10, 20, 30 years.

[00:18:59] Sharon: It's as if they just had the loss because they didn't do the work. Yeah.

[00:19:04] Sadie: So in those early days, what is a first step or a first couple of things that you can do to either sit in that emotion, whatever those beginning parts of the work is, and it's probably definitely not diving through it or being like, this relationship is complete next step.

[00:19:22] Sadie: But those early days when you're like, okay, I wanna start to work through this. I don't wanna just avoid, but it's still really raw and real and overwhelming. , what advice would you give?

[00:19:32] Sharon: That's a great question. I love that question. So, what we find that most grievers do is they do one of three things.

[00:19:38] Sharon: They resist. Who wants to grieve? Yeah, they resist. It's almost like. They push back, they react. So we react by crying. Sometimes we think by reacting, by yelling and screaming and causing a big scene that we're getting out grieving emotions. But that's just reacting. Or we avoid. We avoid altogether. Okay?

[00:20:01] Sharon: I'm not going that way. Oh, I'm gonna go to sleep. I don't wanna deal with this. Remember I said I came home and put the, yeah. Coverage over my head. So we do one of those three things. Here's my advice. Grief suck. and it sucks big time. Lean into the suck as much as you can lean into it. What do I mean by that?

[00:20:22] Sharon: If today you're feeling really sad, just acknowledge that you're feeling sad, and just like you said, feel the emotion. Sometimes I tell Grievers, just put your hand over your heart and see if you can tell what emotion that is. I miss. And then just say, man, I really miss him. And try to hold on to that emotion of missing him for as long as you can before your mind changes the subject.

[00:20:46] Sharon: Yeah. And then the next time it comes around, try to do it again. Be open, talk, cry, feel comfortable crying in front of people. Journal if you have to. If people are not safe, if you're around someone and they're not safe, then don't talk to them. Don't share with them. if you need to sleep, sleep, if you go without doing self-care for 5, 6, 7 days and you don't take a bath and brush your teeth more power to you, you will not feel like eating and that's okay.

[00:21:14] Sharon: Your body will not let you starve. That feeling to eat will come back. Typically, most grievers around the three to four months are ready to start at least talking about doing some work, and they're really ready to do the work around six months prior to. , your body is in such disbelief that this has even happened.

[00:21:33] Sharon: You gotta just let it start. Coming in a little bit at a time and a little bit at a time.

[00:21:38] Sadie: What advice do you give for people? Not that have a warning sign that a grief is coming, but if you have a loved one that has like a terminal illness, or you are losing a friend that's moving away or something like that.

[00:21:54] Sadie: Maybe you're like, something's not right. Is there ways to kind of, not really prepare yourself, but I feel like. , those stages of grief, if you can even call them that. Yeah, those emotions do sometimes show up there as well, whether it's the denial or the bargaining or the problem solving.

[00:22:09] Sadie: So what advice would you give if it hasn't happened yet, so you're not even able to process those emotions, but you know that you're gonna be dealing with grief in the upcoming months, years, et cetera.

[00:22:20] Sharon: So a few years ago, my father passed away of cancer, and I remember standing at his bed trying to get my body to feel what I was gonna feel, right?

[00:22:31] Sharon: Yeah. So I was standing there and I was like, you can't, it won't do it. It just won't do it. But one of the things we can do, because you can, you won't be able to feel the emotions yet, but we can grieve in real time. And what do I mean by that? Have the conversations. Have the conversations. There was five of us, and we went to our dad's bed and we had a really great conversation with him. And I said to him, thank you so much for being on this journey with me and thank you for taking care of me and thank you for loving me. And I want you to know I love you, and I'm so honored that we got to do this together.

[00:23:08] Sharon: Those were my exact words. And he put his finger up and he said, you'd be good , because we weren't a family that says, I love you. And I love that story. And it's still so precious in my heart that was grieving in real time. Most of the time what happens is what is broken in our heart is all the things we never got a chance to say.

[00:23:26] Sharon: Right? So go back to when I was a senior in high school, I never got the chance to tell. You jerk? Yeah. What? How could you do this to me? Like I never got a chance to say that or tell her how I felt about her. Instead, I held it in and took it with me for 20 years. with my dad, I was able to share with him.

[00:23:44] Sharon: So one, I would say grieve in real time as much as possible. Talk to the person, have a conversation. Tell him the things that you need him to know, he or she, the things you need to know. Talk with others around you for sure. Write things out. Write a note, give him the note. If you can't, say the thing in person, try to write it out.

[00:24:03] Sharon: And there's no way to. Prepare for what's gonna happen, but be open to the fact of what's gonna happen and knowing it's. I love

[00:24:13] Sadie: that. If listeners are trying to support someone that is navigating this, I feel like the quintessential thing is you gave someone a casserole or some flowers, is that helpful?

[00:24:24] Sadie: Is that what, being on the receiving end, you're like, this is so great that I have all these flowers in my house, or this casserole was actually really helpful. in Your experience, what was helpful? What would you advise listeners to do if they wanna support someone, they. Be that open listening ear without giving advice if someone comes to them.

[00:24:42] Sadie: But is there anything that makes it a little bit easier? And just lets people know that like, I'm here if you need it, and it's okay if you don't, but kind of making sure that that people know that you're in their corner.

[00:24:53] Sharon: So, number one, the griever doesn't want the casserole. They don't want the casserole.

[00:24:58] Sharon: They're like, I don't want this dang casserole desert

[00:25:00] Sadie: head in the freezer. What am I

[00:25:01] Sharon: supposed to do? ? I rather have my friend back. But here's the deal. , the casserole is not just for the griever, it's for all the people that are coming to love up on the griever. So I'm just talking about in general, the griever's not gonna want it because they don't want that, that thing, they don't want you coming to their house with stuff.

[00:25:19] Sharon: Here's what I bring When I show up at a Griever's house, and if I get the call really early, I bring a case of water, I bring a pad of paper and a pencil. And these all sounds so crazy, but I'll tell you why I bring a case of water, especially if I'm there, right when I found out that someone, they've lost someone or a tragedy has happened because now all the casseroles are coming and those people are coming, and the people who are having a grieving experience, maybe they don't have water at their house, but a case of water sitting on the counter, it's like, at least we can offer you some water.

[00:25:51] Sharon: Right? Yeah. That. , the pad of paper in the pencil is because the phone is gonna start ringing off the hook. Not necessarily the house phone, but everyone's cell phone. What's going on? What's happening? And the griever might be in the room crying and grieving. Whoever is there can now take a note and that that pad can be there for anyone Who's there?

[00:26:12] Sharon: Anyone who comes by to bring a casserole. Mrs. Smith came by and brought a chicken casserole, and now the Griever knows who brought. That's why I bring those three things. The other thing that I do is I may hang out for two or three days just to see what they need. I may bring a counselor myself. I'm just there helping to pick up their house.

[00:26:33] Sharon: The funeral may happen or that car accident may be over, whatever it may be, may be over two or three weeks after that is when you need to go back, because hear me out. , we have a loss. Everyone shows up, they do everything they're supposed to do, and then they, they're gone. And guess what? It becomes crickets for the griever.

[00:26:56] Sharon: Write down the special days. Write down their loved one's birthday. Text them on that special day, text them on Halloween, text them on Groundhogs Day. We don't know what they're feeling, so reach out to them and love up to them all the way.

[00:27:09] Sadie: That's so important and I really like what you said about the water, because I remember my grandmother was recovering from,

[00:27:16] Sadie: It was either right after she got her Whipple surgery or she was doing chemo for a cancer diagnosis, and she's one of those people, she lives in Florida. She's one of those people where if someone comes over, she's like, can I get you a treat? Can I make you some food? , if you bring something, she'll write a thank you note.

[00:27:31] Sadie: If you're on the phone, she wants to talk and respond to your message. And it was. So exhausting for her because she was like, I can't not do these things, but when people come over, it's just such a burden. She didn't want it to feel like a burden, but it takes so much energy. So I love that idea of kind of taking that step out of it for that other person, making things easier and letting them kind of have that separation.

[00:27:53] Sadie: And then when they feel up to it, they could go back and write a thank you note if they feel like they have to do that or offer the beverage they have to. So that's so. . That's

[00:28:01] Sharon: amazing. It's really crazy how in, in those first few days people are showing up. The talking is going on, the castles are showing up, and as the griever it's overwhelming.

[00:28:10] Sharon: Yeah. But yet they need it. But they don't want it. It's, it's a mixed bag of tricks. Right. Yeah. It's conflicted feelings. They have conflicted feelings. I need you here, but I don't want you here. .

[00:28:20] Sadie: Yeah. She said the funniest thing was if they brought something that was in a tupper and she was like, but now I have to wash the tupper and bring it back to you with a thank you note on it.

[00:28:29] Sadie: Why couldn't you have just brought it in plastic? Because she was like, this is so much more work and it's something you would never think of until someone's been in that position. You're like, okay, got it. I will bring it in a plastic bag. I got you.

[00:28:42] Sharon: So they have less So we had a friend. Yeah, exactly.

[00:28:44] Sharon: We had a friend and their son, tragically died by suicide, and that was, I showed up with the bottled water at the notepad in the pencil and she was like, why'd you bring me a notepad? I said, I just brought it in case you need it. I'm gonna leave it right here on the table. Well, because of their situation, they were getting calls from police detectives and newspapers, and she called me three days later.

[00:29:05] Sharon: She was like, thank you for that notepad. . She's like, everybody's been writing it and they've been using it and it has helped so much, and how I figured that. was, I brought a notepad over when Austin died and we used the notepad for everything. Yeah. People are coming, flying in. Oh, so-and-so is coming to lax.

[00:29:22] Sharon: They're gonna be on this flight. This one's coming here. They're gonna be on this flight so everybody can use the notepad.

[00:29:27] Sadie: That's so smart. If there was one thing you could say to someone that is knee deep in the grieving process right now, they don't see not the light at the end of the tunnel, but they don't see the other side of this, what would you say to

[00:29:39] Sharon: them?

[00:29:39] Sharon: It's gonna get. . I promise you. I promise you, it will get better. You need to get some help because we don't know. We didn't come here with instruction book on how to grieve. We didn't come here with the instruction book on how to be married or how to raise children either. So why would we think we knew how to grieve, right?

[00:29:57] Sharon: Yeah. For me, I've had to learn how to be married. I've had to learn how to raise my children. I've also had to learn how to grief, reach out and get. from anyone that you can. There are a lot of support groups. There's a a big giant group called Grief Share. Sometimes just being in a room with someone else who speaks grief can make a huge difference in our life.

[00:30:18] Sharon: Absolutely. Reach out. Reach out to myself and Erica. You can find us@sharonbrewbaker.com. We're available all the time. Journal about it for sure. Record. , make videotapes of it as you're going through it so you can remember what you're going through. But more importantly is do something, get some sort of help.

[00:30:39] Sharon: Whatever you feel you need, and simply talking about it makes a difference. So it's like taking your heart and emptying it out. When you get to share all that, even to the ugly cry, you know where snots running down your nose and you're just like, it will help. It relieves some of the pressure.

[00:30:57] Sadie: I've loved that.

[00:30:58] Sadie: Thank you so, so much for sharing so much wisdom and insight, and this is such a valuable conversation that I know is gonna help so many people. Your website will be in the show notes. Do you have any social medias that people can follow you at if they wanna keep consuming your content? .

[00:31:13] Sharon: So I'm on Instagram and Facebook for sure.

[00:31:16] Sharon: They can find me there. I will be on TikTok soon. I'm trying that out. So , that's probably why I was about TikTok. Yeah, and definitely@sharonbrewbaker.com and we have a book coming out. Called Hope He'll Recover and they'll be able to find that on Amazon at the end of October.

[00:31:34] Sadie: Perfect. Well, when this episode comes out, it'll be past that date, so I will put that link in the show notes.

[00:31:38] Sadie: You guys can get Sharon's book. Thank you so, so much.

[00:31:42] Sadie: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of she persisted. If you enjoyed, make sure to share with a friend or family member, it really helps out the podcast. And if you haven't already leave a review on apple podcasts or Spotify, you can also make sure to follow along at actually persisted podcast on both Instagram and Tik TOK, and check out all the bonus resources, content and information on my website.

[00:32:03] Sadie: She persisted podcast.com. Thanks for supporting. Keep persisting and I'll see you next week.

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