0:00

This. Is hidden brain. I'm Shankar

0:02

Vedantam. In.

0:05

The Nineteen sixties, The psychologist

0:07

Elizabeth Kubla Ross was studying

0:09

patients with terminal illnesses. She

0:11

noticed. A pattern as they came to

0:14

terms with their mortality. The

0:16

patient seem to go to different psychological

0:18

faces. Elizabeth

0:21

Cooper Ross eventually classified these.

0:23

Phases into what she called the five

0:25

stages of grief. Denial.

0:28

Anger. Bargaining depression

0:30

and acceptance. The.

0:34

Five Stages where intuitively appealing

0:36

and offered people away to

0:38

understand a complex experience. Very

0:40

quickly, the simplicity of this

0:42

framework began to seep into

0:44

popular culture books, tv shows,

0:46

and later countless You Tube

0:48

videos. Your

0:51

mind is protecting you by completely

0:53

denying reality. Numbness may follow. It's

0:56

nature's way of letting you deal

0:58

only with your emotions that you're

1:00

you're capable of handling. As

1:05

often happens, a system that was

1:07

designed to be descriptive became. Prescriptive.

1:10

The five stages translated into popular

1:12

culture morphed into a model that

1:15

tall people they should expect to

1:17

feel certain emotions. And. That

1:19

their experience of grief would be

1:21

a journey from one stage to

1:23

the next. Finally five his acceptance.

1:25

So the fifth stage and mrs

1:28

the end game here and it

1:30

is the result of all the

1:32

stages of your grief. Over

1:35

time the five stage model of

1:37

grief became so ingrained in people's

1:39

minds that new insights based on

1:41

rigorous research. Did. Not get as

1:43

much airtime. For decades, the

1:46

popular understanding of what we feel

1:48

when we grieve was largely drawn

1:50

from the five stages model. Anyone

1:55

who's ever been bereaved or know that

1:57

people tell you about them, they. expect

1:59

you to go through them and

2:02

pretty quickly I became frustrated with them

2:04

because I don't want to be

2:06

told what I'm going to feel. I am desperate

2:09

to know what

2:11

I can do to

2:14

help us all adapt

2:16

to this terrible loss. Today

2:21

we bring you the story of a

2:23

researcher whose understanding of grief was transformed

2:25

by a devastating experience in her own

2:28

life. The surprisingly

2:30

powerful techniques she learned to cope with

2:32

tragedy this week on

2:34

Hidden Brain. Apple

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Hidden Brain comes from Amica Insurance. Amica

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provides more than auto, home, and life

3:57

insurance. They provide empathy. to.

4:01

What matters most to you matters most to

4:03

them, which means Amika will help you tailor

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expect from them. As Amika

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says, empathy is our best policy.

4:15

So by choosing Amika, you know you'll have someone

4:17

in your corner where you need it most. Lucy

4:28

Hone is a researcher at the University of

4:30

Canterbury in New Zealand. In

4:32

2010, she was living near Christchurch

4:35

when it was struck by a powerful

4:37

earthquake. The disaster and

4:39

a series of aftershocks killed 185 people

4:43

and destroyed most of downtown

4:45

Christchurch. Thousands

4:47

of people lost their homes. Lucy

4:50

had just returned from graduate school in the

4:52

United States. She was about to

4:54

embark on a PhD. Her

4:56

area of study, resilience.

5:00

Given the disaster unfolding around her, Lucy

5:02

rolled up her sleeves and started applying

5:04

what she had already learned to

5:06

help the people around her. One

5:09

day during a powerful aftershock, Lucy

5:11

was standing outside her home, which

5:13

was perched on the cliffs overlooking

5:15

the city. And

5:17

I just stood there looking down on our

5:19

village and I could see the children's

5:22

school there and

5:24

I could see them all lining

5:26

up, obviously being looked after and

5:28

counted. But what was

5:30

so awful for me was that I could also see the

5:32

cliffs on the other side of the village

5:35

really close to them, you know, like less

5:37

than a mile away from them tumbling

5:40

down in front of them. So it was

5:42

a pretty scary moment in my life. when

6:00

a woman in the audience raised her hand and

6:02

described a problem she was having. She

6:05

just said to me, I'm startling all

6:07

the time. I just am so jumpy.

6:09

Every time someone crashes a

6:12

saucepan lid, I seem to kind of

6:14

jump in the air and my heart is

6:16

pounding. And what do I do

6:18

about that? And I said, firstly, does anyone

6:20

else feel like that? And

6:23

the whole room lifted up their

6:25

hand. So I think it was a

6:27

real moment of collective

6:29

resonance when we

6:31

all realized that we had

6:34

exactly the same startle reaction

6:36

from those ever-present earthquakes. You

6:38

just never knew whether you

6:42

were safe and you never knew when the

6:44

next one was going to

6:46

come. So that kind of hypervigilance

6:49

was pretty omnipresent. The

6:53

problem was some of

6:55

this hypervigilance, it was totally

6:57

justified. Because

6:59

we had over 10,000 aftershocks

7:02

and five or six really major

7:04

events, one of those was on

7:07

Boxing Day. And I'd taken my

7:09

two sons and a friend visiting

7:11

from England over to one of

7:13

the big malls to the Boxing Day

7:15

sales. And we were

7:17

all just sitting there afterwards having something

7:20

to eat in one of the cafes. And

7:22

suddenly the whole mall started shaking and

7:24

so we got under the tables and

7:27

all the cups of teas were being

7:29

knocked over. But it really

7:31

terrified us. And I remember locking eyes with

7:33

my eldest son and that was probably

7:35

the moment that we

7:38

realized that these earthquakes

7:40

weren't going to go away, that actually we

7:42

were probably now in for a pretty rocky ride.

7:52

So I want to fast forward a couple of years. In the

7:54

summer of 2014, this is a couple

7:56

of years after the earthquakes,

7:58

I Think you're still working on your

8:01

own. Phd At this point you organized

8:03

a family a beach vacation. I was

8:05

several hours from your home and you

8:07

are planning to go with two other

8:09

families. You and your husband and two

8:11

teenage sons drove together. I understand your

8:13

daughter Abby went with another family. Yes,

8:16

that's right. so my friends. Sally

8:18

and I had arranged have family

8:21

in a get away on a

8:23

long weekend in June. And

8:25

them at the last minutes Sally's daughter

8:28

Ella who was the same age as

8:30

Abby just twelve years old at the

8:32

time signed up to say hey, can

8:34

Abby come with us in the call

8:37

in. They were great girlfriends and always

8:39

together so we thought nothing of his

8:41

and said yeah absolutely you help him

8:44

with harm. We drops Abby also and

8:46

them. Went on our

8:48

way. I'm we had of sort of for our journey

8:50

ahead. Of us and they didn't turn

8:52

up in a later when they

8:54

should have done that. We

8:57

didn't really sink anything of

8:59

it's at the time. Lucy

9:02

and her family went to a local restaurant and

9:04

sat down to dinner. Abby

9:06

still hadn't arrived, but they were not

9:08

too worried. the family Abby was traveling

9:10

with had probably just gotten stuck in

9:12

traffic. And so we

9:14

just card on having dinner

9:17

without them. And

9:19

then. The hotel owner

9:21

came and said to as

9:23

does a policeman. On the

9:25

phone for you and he'd like to speak to one

9:27

of you. When. Lucy husband

9:29

travel got on the phone. The

9:31

police officer didn't see why he wanted to

9:33

talk. He. Only said he needed

9:36

to drive out to meet them. I

9:38

think he said there's been. An accident and I

9:40

need to come out and talk with

9:43

you in person. That was the defining

9:45

moment. That was the moment when I

9:47

member Trevor looking across that man saying.

9:50

He. Is coming to see us and he

9:52

wouldn't say any more. But. They.

9:55

Don't. Bring you good news? Do that. and

9:59

so We hunkered down in

10:01

the lodges office

10:04

with the manager who we did

10:06

kind of know through other families

10:08

who knew her. And so

10:10

that was reasonably comfortable being with her.

10:14

But actually the whole experience

10:16

of course was anything but

10:18

comfortable. And I remember pacing

10:21

the room and possibly it was about

10:23

a 20 minute wait. You know

10:26

he'd come from the local police station

10:28

that just isn't very local.

10:31

So we had an agonizing wait. When

10:36

the police officer finally arrived he had

10:38

an odd question about Abby's

10:41

shoes. He asked me what she was

10:43

wearing and probably like any

10:45

mother I knew exactly what

10:47

my dear daughter was wearing and so

10:49

I told him. Abby

10:51

was wearing black Converse Chuck Taylor

10:54

high tops. And

10:56

he said to me in that

10:58

case I'm sorry

11:00

to tell you that your daughter that was

11:03

your daughter in the accident and

11:05

you know I'm tragically have to

11:07

tell you that she has died. And

11:11

he also told us that Sally my

11:13

friend had been killed and Sally's

11:15

beautiful daughter Ella who was such dear

11:17

friends with our Abby had also died.

11:20

So all three of them had

11:22

been hit by a car

11:25

who drove through a stop sign

11:27

and cloud into them. It's

11:31

hard to even imagine what you were going

11:33

through at this point Lucy. This

11:35

is literally every parent's worst nightmare.

11:39

But this nightmare was actually happening to you.

11:42

Did you have a sense of being able to process what

11:44

was going on? And were you in shock? I

11:47

was definitely in shock. I think it

11:49

is a bit of an outer body experience.

11:52

You can almost observe yourself going

11:55

through the process. I

11:58

remember the physical sensations. of

12:00

feeling sick and

12:03

sweating and having a draw. We drank so

12:06

much water, I remember that. And

12:08

I remember pacing, couldn't stay anywhere.

12:11

I remember getting on the floor,

12:13

getting up, walking around. I just,

12:17

you know, you don't know what

12:19

to do in that moment. I

12:22

remember calling my sister and not being able to get

12:24

through to her and then

12:26

calling every member of her family and it turned

12:28

out they were all together in a

12:31

bar and they suddenly realised that something

12:33

awful had happened because they'd all had

12:35

these missed calls. And

12:38

I remember the other people in the lodge

12:40

and kind of feeling sorry for

12:42

them thinking, oh, this is such an awful thing for

12:44

you to watch. So you have

12:46

kind of odd, I think odd thoughts.

12:49

But actually what I remember Shankar most of all

12:52

is this feeling that that

12:55

was our new life story

12:58

and that her death would

13:00

be part of our

13:03

life story for

13:05

the remainder of our days. That

13:12

night, the police drove Lucy and her

13:14

family to a hospital in Christchurch. Where

13:17

we then met my sister and her family, which

13:20

was just a terrible moment. You can imagine

13:24

family collective grief.

13:26

And we

13:29

were asked to go and identify

13:31

the body and my

13:33

dear son Paddy went, said to his dad,

13:35

come on, dad, we've got to go and

13:37

do it. Just

13:40

awful moments. We

13:46

went home at five or six

13:48

a.m. and all just walked back into the

13:50

house and sat there in disbelief.

13:56

I do remember in those first

13:59

hours. and days, to be

14:01

honest, feeling like I was on autopilot

14:04

and that people were kind

14:07

of moving me around, standing behind me, kind

14:09

of pointing my shoulders in the direction I

14:11

had to go, you know, it

14:14

was just staggering, really numb.

14:16

And you just,

14:19

in disbelief, I think that is the thing,

14:22

isn't it, that when it comes out of the blue,

14:24

your world

14:26

has been smashed apart.

14:29

Nothing makes sense. And you're

14:31

just struggling and grappling

14:34

to get through each hour. Yeah,

14:37

and I honestly, I remember those

14:39

awful, grief sweats and

14:42

not sleeping, oh, it was awful.

14:50

I understand that at one point, soon

14:53

after Abby's death, a couple of

14:55

grief counselors came to your

14:57

home. Do you remember what they told you? I

15:01

do. We had a

15:03

few people come and give us well-meaning

15:06

advice. And

15:09

really, what stands out for me is

15:11

that I remember them saying

15:13

to me, you're going to need to write five

15:15

years of your life

15:17

off to this grief.

15:20

You know, you're really not going to be able

15:22

to function for the next five years. And

15:25

that we were now prime

15:27

candidates for divorce, family

15:30

estrangement, and mental illness.

15:32

And honestly, I remember thinking, wow,

15:34

you know, I thought my life

15:37

was already truly terrible.

15:39

I can't believe that people are kind

15:41

of dumping all this on us as

15:43

well. And I was horrified. I remember

15:45

someone talking to me about the

15:47

fact that they'd lost a brother who had

15:50

died. And then he said, and to be

15:52

honest, I don't really speak to my other

15:55

brother any longer. You know, his death tore

15:57

our family apart. And

15:59

I remember thinking, Okay right, that's

16:01

something else I'm gonna have to watch

16:03

out for. The

16:10

friends and counselors obviously meant well,

16:13

but after they left. Lucy.

16:15

Felt worse. It wasn't just that they

16:18

were telling her that her life was

16:20

terrible. The also seem to be

16:22

telling her that there was nothing she could do

16:24

about it. When we

16:26

come back Lucy said it to wonder if

16:29

that was true. You're

16:33

listening to Hidden Brain. I'm sure if you

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hidden. This

18:43

is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Lucy

18:45

Hone is a public health researcher at the

18:48

University of Canterbury in New Zealand. She

18:50

studies resilience. In the summer of 2014,

18:53

Lucy experienced every parent's

18:55

greatest nightmare. Her 12-year-old

18:57

daughter was killed in a car crash. Before

19:01

the accident, Lucy had been helping survivors

19:03

of the Christchurch earthquake. Suddenly,

19:06

she needed help herself. Lucy,

19:09

you've described a moment soon after the

19:11

accident when you found yourself standing in

19:13

your bedroom asking yourself a question. And

19:16

the question was, can I go on?

19:19

Can you describe that moment to me? Yes,

19:22

it was my darkest, bleakest

19:24

moment, I think, where I

19:28

did have a sense

19:31

that it all felt just

19:33

too hard. Every day,

19:35

it felt like we were

19:37

climbing a mountain. We

19:41

never got to the top. Every day,

19:43

you'd be put down to the bottom and

19:45

have to start the whole thing again. It

19:49

was exhausting and I lost

19:51

hope. I'm a pretty

19:54

hopeful person. And so I think that is a

19:56

moment that really stands

19:58

out for me. So

20:00

something that many people don't realize is

20:02

that grief isn't just in

20:05

the mind. As you say, it's

20:07

physically exhausting. It

20:09

certainly is, honestly, physically exhausting.

20:12

I did a lot of sleeping. And

20:14

of course, sleep gives you a

20:16

temporary break as well from the

20:18

thinking, because it is just goes round

20:21

and round in your head. And

20:24

I was lucky that I could sleep and

20:26

that our boys were of an age

20:28

where I could, you know, go to

20:30

bed at any time of day if

20:32

it was all too much. And

20:35

I knew because of my training, you know,

20:37

the importance of sleep as well. I

20:40

understand that you had conversations at this time with

20:43

your husband where you were

20:45

running through what-if scenarios

20:47

regarding Abby. Do you

20:49

remember what they were about, Lucy?

20:52

We once sat down on the rocks. We

20:54

live by the beach and we

20:56

sat there and, yes, having

20:58

those kind of what-if, we hadn't arranged

21:01

that weekend to go away. And what

21:03

if, you know, we hadn't let her

21:05

in the car, but then we also

21:07

said to each other, she

21:09

didn't suffer. We didn't have to sit

21:11

like so many parents at

21:14

her bedside for weeks

21:16

and months and watch

21:18

the life drain out of her. We

21:20

took, yes, some comfort from the fact

21:22

that she died instantly and

21:25

wouldn't have known what was happening to her. And

21:27

so we were, yes, in that sense,

21:30

we were just trying to

21:32

help each other focus

21:34

on the bits

21:36

that weren't so terrible. At

21:42

the same time, I think this is really

21:44

revealing about people's grief journeys in general, which

21:46

is that very often when grief

21:49

strikes a family, the people

21:51

whom you would normally turn

21:53

to for help are also Suffering.

21:56

And That can really make it difficult to find

21:58

your way out because everyone around you it is

22:00

also being weighed down by the state. Law

22:03

at So Trace on Current and everybody.

22:05

Graves differently, you know. and I'm

22:07

not A. My mother had died

22:09

when I was sir. see. And

22:11

Trevor lost his father when

22:14

he was twelve, so we

22:16

had both experienced Grace before.

22:18

But we were very aware that you know we

22:20

have. To. Fourteen. And

22:22

fifteen year old beautiful boys who were

22:25

obviously processing it in a different way

22:27

to their parents. And then

22:29

we had Will I be Friends

22:31

We live in a small family

22:33

community and so we had all

22:35

all of them. And we weren't

22:37

just one family, the two families.

22:39

and so the was a real

22:41

sense of collective Greece. You know

22:44

they lost two goals from the

22:46

local primary and one of the

22:48

moms, and I'm particularly so soon

22:50

after the earthquakes. You

22:52

say that to Greece had a way of

22:54

sneaking up on you. You you call these

22:57

increase ambushes. What do you mean by that

22:59

Her. Honestly, That awful

23:01

aspect of Greece is that you

23:03

just can't control the emotions. And

23:06

in the least likely

23:08

moments. They. Seemed say absolutely take

23:10

hold of you and so whether it

23:13

was sitting at a traffic light. So

23:15

once I write about how I went

23:17

to the supermarket which because it had

23:20

fallen down in the earthquakes we didn't

23:22

have a local six market for some

23:24

time you know, five or six years.

23:26

So it wasn't till after Abby died

23:29

that they reopened the local supermarket and

23:31

I want in their thinking Sap is

23:33

a sits back you know how good

23:36

is this and I just got to

23:38

the I'll the. Had her favorite

23:40

snacks in it. And just

23:42

stood there and dissolved. And it just

23:45

set me back to so many times

23:47

when her little kindergarten was across the

23:49

road and we'd come. They're. Off the

23:51

king day and in own seat by

23:54

of favorite fit Some We were always

23:56

together and I just stood there and

23:58

saw ah sir it is. Literally

24:00

that kind of Greece ambush.

24:03

That overwhelms you. And

24:05

were. Almost. Powerless to do

24:08

anything about it. and it was

24:10

okay for me cause I was

24:12

in a quiet supermarket. All at

24:14

the time that you know when it happens

24:16

at work. That's. Just it's

24:18

a really tough, challenging

24:20

aspect of grief. Sir

24:23

to grief counselors and others told you that

24:25

the next five years of your life are

24:28

going to be consumed by grief. that you

24:30

were prime candidate for divorce in a strange

24:32

men mental illness. Are you also heard about

24:34

the five Stages of Grief? What was the

24:37

conventional wisdom about the five stages of grief?

24:39

Sissy, So I think

24:41

to be fair, like most people,

24:44

I was kind of aware of

24:46

those five stages like most people

24:48

like a probably name's three of

24:50

them thought when people started telling

24:53

me about them. and and boy,

24:55

anyone who's ever been buried or

24:57

know that people tell you about

24:59

them, they expect you to go

25:02

through them. And a pretty. Quickly

25:04

arm became frustrated with them

25:06

because I didn't feel anger

25:08

and animosity towards the driver.

25:11

A news that. That.

25:13

Was a terrible mistake, but he

25:15

didn't do it intentionally. And

25:17

I wasn't in denial. You know, from the

25:19

very first moment, as I've said, I remember

25:22

thinking. Okay, this is my job. Now

25:24

you know my mission is to survive

25:26

This. And so they

25:28

didn't kind of sits. With

25:30

my experience that the other aspect

25:33

that quickly sauce trace it me

25:35

about the five stages is the

25:37

i just found them to passes

25:40

you know it's it's reasonably helpful.

25:42

To be told that these to

25:44

he might fail in a depression

25:46

and. Acceptance or anger

25:48

in denial and all of these

25:50

different things. But I see. His

25:52

life. I don't want to be told what I'm

25:55

going seal I am. say. sprouts and

25:57

know what i can

25:59

do to help

26:01

us all adapt to

26:04

this terrible loss. I'm

26:07

struck by the fact that at a certain point

26:09

in your in your journey of

26:11

grief over Abby's death you

26:14

were thinking like a researcher or

26:16

starting to ask yourself whether you

26:18

yourself could be a almost

26:21

a research subject that you're studying yourself

26:23

you're observing yourself you're thinking of your

26:25

own experience not just as a person

26:28

going through the experience but like a

26:30

scientist did you have a moment of

26:32

epiphany when you realized in some ways that you

26:35

could become your own research subject on this topic

26:38

I think I did I think it's fair

26:40

to say that yes was kind of an

26:42

epiphany aha moment and it is also

26:44

you know who I am I am

26:46

a researcher and I'm a

26:48

mum and a wife and so you're

26:50

always we all wear multiple hats don't

26:52

we it's just that mine happened to

26:54

be that I was

26:57

experiencing this devastating loss

27:00

and curious about

27:03

my experiences simultaneously

27:06

and that was the kind of aha moment

27:08

that I was doing

27:10

this internally kind of observing my

27:12

loss and my reaction to it and

27:15

then I thought well what I'm really

27:17

curious about is we have

27:19

all these tools from resilience psychology

27:21

which have been shown to help

27:23

people cope with potentially traumatic events

27:26

well how useful are they when

27:29

they are brought to

27:31

the context of bereavement and so

27:33

that's been the question that I've

27:36

been really exploring you know ever

27:38

since Abby died pondering

27:43

this question gave her the space

27:45

to analyze how her own mind was

27:48

responding to grief when

27:50

she noticed something about how she was coping she

27:53

reserved judgment about what it meant when

27:55

she engaged in what if scenarios what

27:58

if she hadn't allowed Abby to drive with the other

28:00

family, what if she hadn't planned a beach

28:02

vacation? She noticed how these

28:04

thoughts made her feel. She

28:07

paid attention to how she felt after getting

28:09

exercise or a good night's sleep. In

28:12

other words, she started behaving like

28:14

a scientist. She

28:18

eventually discovered there were things that made her

28:20

feel better and things that made her feel

28:22

worse. She came up with a

28:24

series of techniques that gave her a

28:26

measure of control over her grief. I

28:29

distinctly remember standing in the

28:31

kitchen at the cooker one day

28:33

thinking, seriously Lucy,

28:36

choose life, not death. Don't

28:38

lose what you have to

28:41

what you have lost. You're

28:44

listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar

28:46

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30:59

is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Lucy

31:02

Hone is a public health researcher at

31:04

the University of Canterbury. After

31:07

her 12-year-old daughter was killed in a traffic

31:09

crash, Lucy tracked her own

31:12

bereavement process closely. She

31:14

realized that she herself did not follow

31:16

the five stages of grief. She

31:19

also realized that we are wrong when we

31:21

think grief is only something that happens to

31:24

us. While it's true that

31:26

grieving people do not feel they have much

31:28

control over their emotions, there were

31:30

things she could do to change the way

31:32

she felt. They were active

31:34

choices she could make. These

31:37

choices did not erase her grief,

31:39

but they did allow her to feel like she could

31:42

manage it. The first

31:44

step was to realize there was a

31:46

difference between her reaction to grief and

31:48

her response to it. Yes,

31:50

so your grief reaction, you have

31:53

very little control over, and that

31:55

is all those physical symptoms that

31:58

occur when we are bereaved. grieved.

32:00

And for me, that was

32:02

that aching right in my

32:04

solar plexus and that the

32:07

grief sweats, those awful nighttime

32:09

sweats, and then the

32:11

torrid rollercoaster of emotion. So

32:13

it's really hard to control

32:15

those, and we call that

32:17

grief reaction. But we

32:20

do also have the grief

32:22

response, which is about how

32:25

we choose to respond to

32:28

the grief. And that is

32:30

about the ways of thinking and acting

32:33

and the micro choices

32:35

we make all day

32:37

long, which can really

32:39

help or harm our grief. And so while

32:42

grief reaction, we have little control,

32:44

grief response is pervaded with choice.

32:48

As Lucy started to analyze her own

32:50

grief like a scientist, she stumbled on

32:52

the work of Columbia University researcher, George

32:55

Bonanno. Well, certainly George Bonanno's

32:57

work is really comforting.

32:59

And what he discovered was that

33:01

actually most people get

33:04

through grief on

33:06

their own without needing any kind

33:08

of medication or clinical intervention.

33:11

And so this kind of really

33:13

gave me hope. And the

33:16

other great researchers in this

33:18

field are Stroub and Schut,

33:20

whose oscillation theory I came

33:22

across, which is a different

33:25

kind of model of grief that says

33:27

that we need to approach our grief,

33:29

and then it's okay to withdraw and

33:31

take a break from grief.

33:34

And that's not avoidance and denial,

33:36

but actually a really healthy way

33:38

to grief. You're

33:41

talking about the researchers, Margaret Strouba and Hank

33:43

Schut. Describe for me again

33:45

what they meant by this term oscillation, because

33:47

you found both yourself going through this, but

33:50

also in some ways deciding to sort of

33:52

pursue this yourself. Yes.

33:55

I think it made sense to me.

33:57

So their theory of oscillation is that

33:59

we... oscillate between approaching our

34:01

grief and then taking a

34:03

break from it. But we

34:05

also oscillate between attending

34:08

to these two different

34:10

types of grief. One is loss

34:13

oriented and the other is

34:15

restoration oriented, meaning that you

34:17

kind of fluctuate between coping

34:19

with the loss, the actual

34:21

for me, you know, Abby

34:24

and how much I missed her.

34:27

And then the restoration bit is

34:29

about, and who am I

34:31

now? And how will I learn to

34:33

live without her and her place in

34:36

the family? And how am I going

34:38

to get back to work and go

34:40

to the supermarket and face my friends?

34:43

So you kind of ebb

34:45

and flow between these two

34:47

processes. And it's a real

34:49

kind of dynamic process. What

34:52

resonated for me was that we needed to take

34:54

breaks from our grieving

34:56

process. And actually, that's where

34:58

positive emotion can come in, too. When

35:01

Lucy first confronted Abby's death, grief

35:04

felt like an impassable mountain looming

35:06

before her. When she was

35:08

told she was a prime candidate for divorce

35:10

or mental illness, that mountain

35:13

grew larger. But

35:15

when she started looking at the scientific evidence, she

35:17

discovered cause for hope. While

35:19

a small minority of people do get stuck

35:22

in grief, the majority recover

35:24

and regain healthy levels of

35:26

psychological functioning. When

35:28

Lucy chose to spend time away from her grief,

35:31

this wasn't denial. Her brain

35:33

was doing the perfectly healthy thing of

35:36

oscillating between attending to grief and

35:38

attending to recovery. Lucy

35:41

also arrived at a third insight.

35:46

I know from resilience psychology

35:48

that it's really important to

35:50

choose where you focus your

35:52

attention. And so I absolutely

35:54

had this voice in my

35:56

head that would

35:58

be aware if I were. was

38:00

on the boys. So in fact we went instead

38:02

to their school just that day to meet

38:05

with the teachers and just kind of check in with

38:07

them because they'd just been back at school about three

38:09

weeks I think. And that felt like a much

38:11

better use of my time

38:13

and I distinctly

38:15

know that what I appreciated

38:18

was that I was kind of putting

38:20

myself in the driver's seat and taking

38:22

back a bit of control. So

38:25

in some ways I think what I hear you

38:27

saying is that when people are experiencing grief partly

38:29

what we almost expect them to do is we

38:31

expect them to follow scripts and sometimes we provide

38:33

the scripts to them and say here's what you're

38:35

supposed to feel and here's what comes next and

38:37

here's what comes before this and here's what you're

38:39

supposed to do after this. And

38:41

in some ways by taking back that narrative

38:44

you can start to make choices that in some

38:46

ways craft your own journey. And it may be

38:48

that the choice that you make is different than

38:50

the choice that your husband makes but it's important

38:52

that each of you exercises the agency

38:55

to make the choice that in some

38:57

ways is the best fit for your

38:59

mental makeup and your psychological well-being. Yeah

39:02

that's completely it that we

39:04

all grieve differently. Grief is

39:06

as individual as your fingerprint.

39:08

There's actually very little evidence

39:10

that says that we go

39:12

through those five stages. They

39:15

have been perpetuated because they're a

39:17

tidy model and health practitioners and

39:19

people like to that they are

39:21

drawn to the fact that when

39:23

people are grieving and it's such a

39:25

horrid time that if they can just

39:28

give them a tidy five-stage model then maybe that

39:30

you know makes them feel better and it's

39:32

easier for the health practitioners to kind of

39:34

give this model. But

39:37

actually it's not like that. It's messy and

39:39

untidy and in our work

39:41

people rarely say that they

39:43

go through those stages. I'm

39:46

wondering if there were other choices you found yourself having

39:48

to make where you could ask yourself the question is

39:50

this going to be good for me or is this

39:52

going to be bad for me? Absolutely.

39:55

It became my kind of

39:57

go-to strategy and I would

42:00

You know, I'm all for experiencing

42:02

all kinds of emotions and

42:04

I didn't want to shut them out but

42:07

I definitely wanted to find

42:10

my way and wallowing

42:12

in things that are beyond my

42:15

control was not helpful

42:17

to me and as I say I felt

42:19

like the fight was on for survival. Lucy

42:23

fought back to her days as a

42:25

graduate student studying resilience at the University

42:27

of Pennsylvania. At one

42:29

point, her professors worked with the

42:31

US military to develop a resilience training

42:34

program for a million soldiers. That

42:37

program was based on the same

42:39

underlying idea, pay

42:41

attention to where you

42:44

pay attention. There was very

42:46

much that kind of cognitive focus

42:48

that you need to be aware

42:50

of the way your thoughts

42:52

and actions are combining and really

42:55

question whether the ways you are

42:57

thinking and acting are working for

42:59

you or working against you. And

43:02

so they did lots of that sort

43:04

of took positive psychology, this field of

43:07

being strengths based and put that into

43:09

a package so that they could train

43:11

the drill sergeants who then in turn

43:14

could train all of the rest of the

43:16

army. And I love the

43:18

phrase that they use in this training which was

43:20

hunt the good stuff. And I love

43:22

that idea because you're speaking to your audience in

43:24

a language they can understand but it's

43:26

the same idea that's being preached in cognitive

43:28

behavioral therapy. Absolutely. So

43:31

they actually created the hashtag

43:34

HTGS, hunt the good

43:36

stuff. And actually somebody

43:38

after Abi Dai gave us

43:40

a poster that said accept the

43:42

good. And I think

43:44

these two phrases accept the good and

43:46

hunt the good stuff speak to the

43:49

fact that language is really important here.

43:52

What we're talking about is that we

43:54

want to encourage people to tune

43:56

into what is still good in

43:58

their world despite... You

46:04

say that resilient people understand that

46:06

bad things happen, that suffering is a

46:08

part of life and that knowing this

46:11

keeps them from feeling like victims.

46:14

Can you expand on this idea, Lucy? What do you mean by

46:16

that? Yes. So I

46:19

think understanding

46:21

that everybody

46:23

suffers in parts of life, you

46:25

know, that actually very often

46:28

daily with trouble and suffer, and

46:30

that is absolutely part

46:32

of the universal existence, stops

46:35

you from feeling singled out

46:38

and discriminated against when

46:40

something goes wrong. But critically,

46:42

it also stops you from

46:44

beating yourself up when things

46:46

go wrong. And so when

46:48

we live in an era

46:51

of perfectionism, it's

46:53

so important for people to understand that, you

46:55

know, we all stuff up and do

46:57

things wrong all day long, and that doesn't mean

46:59

we need to be punished. It doesn't mean

47:01

we're useless. It just means

47:03

we're human. And this

47:06

idea actually goes back a really long

47:08

ways, Lucy. Hidden Brain is a show

47:10

that's primarily about science, but I can't

47:12

help but make the connection with the

47:14

origins of Buddhism. You know, according to

47:16

the story, the prince

47:19

Siddhartha is supposed to have seen, you

47:21

know, people age and suffer and die.

47:23

And as a result of seeing that,

47:25

you know, internalize the very idea that

47:27

you're talking about, which is that suffering

47:29

is inevitable. And so in some ways,

47:32

the lessons that you're talking about

47:34

here might be in some ways

47:36

confirmed or backed up by, you

47:38

know, modern empirical scientific tools. But

47:40

they really are really age-old ideas.

47:43

I couldn't agree more. And even there's

47:45

elements of Stoicism in there as well,

47:47

isn't there? Yeah, we did

47:49

an episode about Stoicism with the philosopher William

47:51

Ervin, and he had this great line, do

47:53

what you can with what you have where

47:56

you are. And it's the same idea, which is we

47:58

can only do what we can. positive

50:00

emotions, for laughing with friends or

50:02

wanting to go out and see

50:04

a movie or just be out

50:06

enjoying themselves. Isn't it a shame

50:08

that so much of what is

50:11

kind of out there and expected of

50:13

grief is that you just have to be

50:16

miserable for a long time and that if

50:18

you're experiencing positive experiences there's

50:20

something wrong with you when actually we

50:22

know that that is so far from

50:26

the truth. So

50:28

your work has attracted a lot of interest,

50:30

Lucy, and obviously there are people who are

50:32

deeply moved by your story and your insights

50:34

about healthy grieving. But some

50:36

people might hear you saying that you want

50:39

people who are at the lowest points in

50:41

their lives to pull themselves up by their

50:43

bootstraps, that grieving people need to be responsible

50:46

for their own emotional recovery. Is

50:48

that an accurate representation of your work? Oh,

50:51

I certainly hope not. No, I

50:53

think I really do make

50:55

a very deliberate point in

50:57

resilient grieving to say to

51:00

people, never am

51:02

I trying to put more pressure

51:04

on the bereaved. Wow, that would

51:07

be furthest from my intention. All

51:10

of our work is created

51:12

for people who come to

51:14

us saying, thank you for

51:16

validating my desire to be

51:19

an active participant in my

51:22

own grief journey. And

51:24

so we know that so

51:27

many people now are

51:29

looking for ways to

51:31

support them through that

51:34

adaptation to loss. And

51:36

so we're not forcing people. And

51:39

we always say to people here,

51:41

actually, these are all of the

51:44

theoretically sound and

51:47

scientifically backed strategies that

51:49

we've come across. Try

51:51

some of these out for yourself.

51:53

See what works for you. Be

51:55

your own personal experiment and find

51:58

the group. The

52:00

journey that works for years. So.

52:02

I think I'm the. Giving people

52:05

are prescription saw hope I

52:07

think is the number one

52:09

aim of all work. You

52:12

you lost your daughter Lucy in two

52:15

thousand and Fourteen. And and you've written

52:17

about how it's a mistake to think

52:19

that time shrinks Greece by the time

52:21

does do something else Can you tell

52:23

me or insight about the circles around

52:26

your grief? Yes, I

52:28

am. This came from

52:30

and local Grace counselor and.

52:32

How serious? that? that? The Braves often

52:34

think that they're. Greece.

52:37

Or that's hold that that gory for friend cause

52:39

the time. But. Yet what

52:41

really happens is that Your Grace, Stays

52:43

the same and. Your

52:46

world's your life grows

52:48

around it. In.

52:55

As seven years we all on

52:57

Now from Abbey's desks on I

52:59

can notice. How our world

53:01

has grown. Beyond.

53:04

Her You know As much as

53:06

I'd love to have her with

53:08

us there are a new experiences

53:10

a new people in our worlds

53:12

who weren't around when she was

53:14

here and so I can see

53:16

the life literally has grown around

53:19

and a loss and her she

53:21

will always be a my heart.

53:23

All of our hearts and we

53:25

carry have forwards will never forget

53:27

her. Thought. Nice.

53:29

Grows. And goes on. And

53:32

as long as she's with us

53:34

and we have her legacy, then.

53:37

I don't want to say that that's because

53:39

it's not. I guess it's good enough. Juicy

53:45

Hone his a public health researcher

53:47

and practitioner and New Zealand. She's

53:49

the author of resilient grieving, finding

53:51

strength and embracing life after a

53:53

loss that changes everything. Lucy thank

53:55

you for joining me to the

53:58

on. Hadn't read. Thank

54:00

you so much for having me Shankar

54:02

and for all you and your listeners

54:04

time. I'm

54:30

Hidden Brains Executive Editor. Next

54:33

week in our Healing 2.0 series,

54:35

we bring you a very different story about grief.

54:38

We'll talk with a man who took a

54:41

radical step when he learned his mother was

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