Tessa (: 00:29

Hello there. Today's guest is a grieving mom, and she's found meaning in her loss through providing grief education to others. Her name is Suzanne Jabour. Suzanne shares how grief really works and how we can support people experiencing grief. She works with organizations and businesses to build skills and protocols to better support people who are going through that process at the office at work. And she's available as a speaker to share her story, to help normalize grief as a healthy response to losses. Begin small. She has a graduate degree in education and decades of experience as a trainer, and she's also a certified grief educator, transformational coach and workshop leader. I wanna welcome you, Suzanne, welcome to Say Yes to your Soul.

Suzanne (: 01:42

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Tessa (: 01:45

Well, I'm really glad you're here, and you know, you were sharing part of your story with me when we met a couple of weeks ago, and it's just so big. Right? And, and I just wanna say at this point before we jump in, you know, while your story is really big, I recognize also that everyone in my audience may not have that kind of big story or that big of a loss, but that there could be other types of grief in their lives. So I just wanted to bring that into the conversation today. And as you listen, as you listen to Suzanne, I want you to ask, you know, really just say like, or ask yourself, you know, what could be the thing that I'm grieving? What could that be? So whether it's a person or something else. So with that, Suzanne, please feel free to share what you're here to transmit today.

Suzanne (: 02:44

Thank you. And I, that's so brilliant that you've set us up that way, because we do have this strange sort of hierarchy of, you know, grief that are kind of worth grieving, you know, losses that are worth grieving. And I did very well on that scale, unfortunately, and it didn't serve me. So I really wanna join you in encouraging listeners to really dig into sort of, where are those losses? Where is the grief? Because if we can face it and we can embrace it, you know, there's so much richness there. There's so much ability to connect with ourselves, with others, with the universe, and, you know, really dig into the depth of who we're here to be and the depth of really what this life is about for us. So, as you said, my story is really big. My most recent loss was that of my son, Ben.

(: 03:38

and died in September of: 2020

(: 04:36

It was that level of a rupture. And so how did I then rebuild my life, rebuild myself, you know, what choices could I make every day, every moment to for sure, at the beginning. And if you've encountered this and you're way back, you know, for me it's way back. Thank goodness, you know, in those early, early days of a big loss where you just don't even know which way is up, right? The best analogies I can make are all water. They're all water metaphors. And that beginning phase for me really felt like I was underwater being tossed around. I didn't know which way was the surface. I couldn't breathe. I didn't understand how the rest of the world appeared to just be continuing on like normal , right? When, as I said, I was living in this post-apocalyptic nightmare with pieces of me literally in pieces on the ground.

(: 05:31

And I think when we start to really be aware of where we've experienced grief in our life, where we've had losses that have brought that emotional, you know, soup, that is grief, it is the loss of loved ones, for sure. It's a death. Absolutely. We understand that there should be grief there. We're not very good at it as a collective. We're not very good at supporting each other. We're not very good at, you know, doing it ourselves for the most part, because we don't have enough information, we don't have enough knowledge, we don't share enough with each other, which is really the biggest way that we learn, is in sharing with each other. So when we have something like grief, that's a taboo topic, we're not sharing enough for us to feel, you know, capable as we go through it. So instead, we feel shattered into pieces and like, nobody understands what's happening to us. And like, what's happening to us is new, when really what's happening to us has happened to many other people. But as a culture, we don't share that. So when we look at the places where we have losses, it can be the loss of a relationship. It could be the loss of an expectation, the loss of a job, the loss of pets for sure need to be on that list.

Tessa (: 06:44

Absolutely.

Suzanne (: 06:45

The loss of, you know, some way that we thought our life was gonna go, that then it becomes clear that's not gonna happen for whatever reason. And sometimes even change for the better. You know, we're so conditioned to focus on, this is so great, this is so great, this is so great. But every change brings loss and even change for the better still brings loss. And if we can look at that loss and feel into where the grief is, where are the emotions that are attached to that loss? And what messages are they bringing us? I mean, mine were, you know, all kinds of overwhelm. They were overwhelming at the beginning, and I knew that as a matter of survival, I had to stay conscious to them. I got a download in the very early days that as a matter of survival, I had to stay conscious and curious. Yeah so for me, a download is something that just comes, you know, from wherever, whatever your belief system is. For me, it's the universe. And it just drops in as an instant knowing. So you don't kind of have to go through the process of thinking something and then believing it and then knowing it. It drops in as an instant knowing. So that for me, is a sign that like, it's coming from something outside of me, and I should probably pay attention . It's probably some kind of big deal message that I should listen to. So.

(: 08:33

Yeah, it dropped in and I just had this knowing that I needed to be conscious and curious. So conscious was about upending the norm of ignoring emotions, of stuffing them in our backpack and pretending that's okay of, you know, pretending at all. I had no ability to pretend. So all those roles that we kind of play, all those masks that we wear, for me, they were instantly gone. I was full on in survival mode. And I remember saying to my daughter in the very early days, my daughter's older than Ben, she was 25 when he died. And I remember saying to her, you know what, everyone who's involved, like our extended family is all grownups, and I'm gonna be responsible for myself first, and then I'm absolutely here a hundred percent for you. And we're gonna figure this out together. And everybody else is just gonna have to adult.

(: 09:24

Like, I can't be the one who holds everybody else together. I can't be any of those things that I had been for a long time. And of course that then causes disruption for everyone else's lives. But I couldn't navigate any of that. I had to be really self-aware and self-compassionate as a matter of survival. So that's what the conscious piece was. The curious piece really was how in the depths of despair do I stay in that kind of growth mindset, and not in a way that feels like push energy or like I'm denying anything in order to just like grow, grow, grow. That wasn't the idea or the intention or the message, but it was that, you know, things happen to us and when they happen, we have to make choices about what we do next, how we respond. And I was very clear that my story was not going to be the sort of the story society tells you about a bereaved parent, which is that they are never the same again.

(: 10:25

Which of course, I will never be the same again. But I wasn't prepared to buy into the subtext that all that remained was somehow dysfunction and despair. Right? That was not gonna be my story. That I just remained curled up in a ball on the sofa, which is where I spent a lot of time in those early days. But it was about, you know, what choice do I make every day? Small choices, small decisions, baby steps, because I knew that I needed to keep living. And I was very clear that there was a life here to be lived, and it was mine. And so, how did I do that in a way that honors Ben, that honored my daughter and modeled for her what was possible? And really then the curiosity expanded to, you know, why does grief work this way? How are we so disconnected in a time when what we all crave is connection?

(: 11:21

Right? The people who wanted to support me, who were held back by fear, wanted to feel connected to me as much as I wanted to feel connected with them. But our culture and our societal norms aren't set up that way. So then the curiosity became about how do I disrupt that? How do I, with everybody who's listening with everybody who has any interest in this topic, you know, how do we co-create a new paradigm where we talk about grief openly, we acknowledge losses big and small openly, where we're not all performing, where the whole of the human experience is welcome, and that we understand when we feel that fear, we need to acknowledge it and instead lean into love.

Tessa (: 12:07

Yes. So in your experience, and as you were asking these questions, it sounds like not only were you talking about culture, but you were also picking up on things around specific people's stories, right? Clearly you have some thoughts about that. Like some of the rules, let's say, the unspoken rules that people that they adhere to. Did you also find, I'm curious if you found that for different individuals that there were differentiators?

Suzanne (: 12:39

Yeah, absolutely. The thing that is so fascinating to me about grief is that it's a universal experience that is unique every single time. So it's unique for me in comparison with you. So each of us is gonna have our own unique experience. And also every time we experience it, it's different. So for me, this was not my first big loss, not my first, you know, close death of a loved one. My dad died when I was in my early thirties and my mom when I was in my mid forties. And so I had had losses of people really close to me. And still, I wasn't prepared for what this death was going to bring. And I think that's very common, right? It's very normal for us to not understand how grief operationalizes and some of the symptoms that we would have.

(: 13:31

And one of the things I learned as I, you know, desperately sought, you know, information and thought leaders and people who were talking about grief and people who were supporting grievers. And you know, speaking about it in a way that resonated for me was that, you know, as you said, all of that expectation about how we're supposed to grieve really doesn't align very well with how for many of us grief happens. And the expectation that we are able to do it sort of privately and quietly, and preferably where we don't disturb anybody else, you know, perpetuates this kind of system we have where grief is this thing that's not acknowledged and it's not normalized, and it's not, we don't share about our experiences. I had no understanding of the level of brain fog I was going to experience, for example. And the more that I read and reached out to people. And you know, there's a brilliant scientist in the states who's doing all kinds of fascinating studies about what actually happens to our brain when we're grieving a loss. And it makes brain fog make complete and total sense because our brain is literally reprogramming itself.

Tessa (: 14:46

Hmm.

Suzanne (: 14:47

And I was able to look back and think, wow, when my dad died, what happened to my mom that she never told me about was she had intense brain fog, this grief brain that people talk about.

Tessa (: 14:58

Oh, that's interesting.

Suzanne (: 15:00

But she hadn't shared that with me. Like in hindsight, I can look at her behavior and think, oh, that behavior made complete and total sense. Right? Her life partner that she'd been with for 40 years was gone in a relatively short period of time. Of course, she can't really function very well. That makes complete and total sense. But because we don't talk about it, and weirdly we also hold a lot of judgment about it and how you should do it, we end up disconnected and we end up as the griever feeling like there's something wrong with us. I was absolutely convinced that not only had Ben died and I had lost who I was, I also had some version of instant onset brain disease of some sort. Right? Which of course wasn't true. I had absolutely normal grief.

Tessa (: 15:45

Exactly, yes.

Suzanne (: 15:47

But nobody had told me that. No one had warned me that, you know, my brain fog was gonna be intense, my relationship with time was gonna be disrupted. My bodily functions were gonna be all askew. Right? They're all wonky.

Tessa (: 16:01

Yes. Wait, now, hang on a second. Here you are in this really profound deep, big grief process. And now you're having symptoms that you don't understand, and no one's told you anything about it because there haven't been any conversations. And so now you're adding to what you're worried about. You're worried about your own health and your own state of mental wellbeing and physical wellbeing.

Suzanne (: 16:28

Yeah. And then the layers of grief become overwhelming, right? Because I'm grieving the loss of my child. I'm grieving the loss of myself. Now I'm grieving the loss of my health. You're grieving the loss of relationships because people who you thought would be able to show up weren't. And that's very common. It's understood in griever circles that grief will change your address book. And I got really curious about that too. Like, why is that? Why are we not able to show up for each other? And you know, the people who were able to show up for me were brilliant in, you know, prefacing that all by saying, I have no idea. Right? I don't know anything about grief at all, but I know that I care about you and I know that I wanna support you. And so can we figure this out together? Because we don't talk about it. We don't know enough about what people really need.

Tessa (: 17:19

Exactly. So those people showed up openly, really in care, regardless of whether they had information that was gonna help them give you support. They were just open and they said, I don't know how to do this, but I'm here for you.

Suzanne (: 17:34

Mm-hmm. .

Tessa (: 17:35

And that made a big difference.

Suzanne (: 17:38

Absolutely. And when I talk with people about, you know, the questions I get asked the most are, what can I say and what can I do? And so when I talk to people about what you can say, it's exactly that kind of language, right? It's open, it's from the heart. Really nothing. None of those old cliches and platitudes, we just need to do a ceremonial burning or something. You know, when I do a workshop about, what can I say, we actually do a big brainstorm of them and we write them all down and rip them up, because really we should just release them back to wherever they came from. I'm blaming the fifties, I don't know if that's right or not, but I'm blaming the whole leave it to Beaver era. I'm just putting it right there. But really what we need now is to just lean into love and be vulnerable and speak our truth.

(: 18:22

So if, you know, as a grief educator who's immersed in this all the time, every day I'm reading and researching and talking to people, I'm gonna say something different than someone who doesn't know very much about grief. But wherever you are on that continuum, it's great to own that. And say, I had people say to me, there's no one in my life who talks about grief except you. 'cause I started writing very early on Facebook really as a way to get the spin outta my head. It was therapeutic for me. It had no magnanimous intention at all. But people would say to me like, there's nobody who's talking. No one in my life talks about this except you. So how can I support you? And how can we talk about this together and try and figure it out because we're not talking about it? And how do we change that? It's open-hearted, vulnerable, messy, imperfect, and brilliant at the same time.

Tessa (: 19:15

Oh, I love that. So let's go ahead and add the messiness into your formula.

Suzanne (: 19:20

Yeah. Oh, it's all about messy.

Tessa (: 19:23

I'll take some liberty here. You know, lean into love, be vulnerable and messy, and speak our truth.

Suzanne (: 19:31

Yeah.

Tessa (: 19:32

You know, Suzanne, as you're talking, of course, we're going through something right now in the world. We're thousands upon, thousands of people are going to be lost and already are. And there're multiple events happening all over. And we do need to talk about these things and not just looking at the judgements of it or, you know, all the, this should have happened and that should have happened, and whatever this person and that entity and that government should be, should be, should be. But really rather having these conversations about the losses and how do we support each other, these people and one another. How do we help all the people who are affected by what is going on? Right. And honestly, it's everyone.

Suzanne (: 20:14

Yeah.

Tessa (: 20:14

Even if we don't have, say, a direct loved one that lives in the middle of a danger zone, in a war zone, we are impacted. It is in the air.

Suzanne (: 20:22

Mm-hmm. .

Tessa (: 20:23

And I guess I'm wondering if you have anything that you could share with us today around that?

Suzanne (: 20:31

Yeah, I think when I look at what's happening, what I see is people who are completely enveloped in fear and they're operating from fear and they're completely disconnected from their heart. 'cause if you were disconnected, if you were connected to your heart, then what's happening would be unfathomable. And it's happening in multiple places in the world. It's happening multiple places in the world where people are so fearful with very good reason. Right. Our fear response happens in all kinds of healthy ways. And we don't have to understand the conflict or who started it or who did what to whom, or any of it to understand on a human level, what's happening is untenable. It's impossible. We cannot continue this way. And what we can do as a global collective is feel that fear and understand. Yes, I'm in the west coast of Canada and I feel fear about what's happening because it's expanding and ripples around the globe and people are responding to it with fear. And we're seeing in this time of crisis, as so often happens to us now, and I don't think happen anthropologically, but what happens to us now in times of crisis most often is we're divided because we feel fear because there's a crisis.

Tessa (: 22:10

Would you say that part of that fear is stimulated because that's like a primal mechanism to be able to say, that's what I need to be afraid of so that I can stay safe.

Suzanne (: 22:22

Yes. And unfortunately, you know, our fear response goes off as if there's a saber-tooth tiger walking across the front of our cave. And so we freeze, we're quiet, we let it pass by and go hunt something else. But there's no saber-tooth tiger. And so we get stuck in that fear response and we get stuck in thinking that we need to defend ourselves and protect ourselves to the degree as if there's a saber-tooth tiger right there. But there isn't. The vast majority of us, the vast majority of the time are safe. But we're experiencing a fear response as if the saber-tooth tiger is roaring at the mouth of the cave. So we need to acknowledge that fear because all of those emotions, right? And this is part of why I'm so passionate about us acknowledging grief. All of those emotions have a message for us.

(: 23:18

They have something to teach us and they need to be moved. We can't deny them or hold onto them because that we know now creates malignancies in our body. So we have to feel them, we have to move them. So we can't deny the fear. And this is where it gets a little bit tricky feeling. 'cause when that fear response comes, we have to acknowledge it. Right. I'm really fascinated by some of the science that they're, you know, is becoming so much part of the common conversation now about what happens in the animal world after that freeze response, right?

Tessa (: 23:47

Mm-hmm.

Suzanne (: 23:47

So we have fight, flight, freeze are now fawn, which I think is so brilliant, some of the naming around that. But that freeze response animals don't stay frozen.

Tessa (: 23:58

No.

Suzanne (: 23:59

They know how to then get back in re-regulation and they shake and they wobble and they move their bodies. But we don't do that anymore. I bet we probably did. So we can move our bodies, we can walk in nature. There's all kinds of ways for us to kind of release that fear mechanism and then really lean into love. How do I look at this situation with love? Well, when we look at it with love, we see, you know, people caught up in a conflict that has devastating impact on them that they don't control. And we see the need for us to step up as humanity and provide aid. And provide care and provide love.

Tessa (: 24:48

Yes. And acknowledge as we're providing those things to not have expectations and to allow the feelings of others to be there. And so that they're acknowledged.

Suzanne (: 25:04

Yeah. And all without judgment. Right now, especially, it just feels like we're so happily judgmental. We're almost gleeful about it.

Tessa (: 25:13

Mm-hmm. ,

Suzanne (: 25:14

Right? It's a way that we elevate ourselves over others. I think, I don't know, I have a lot of curiosity about why we're in this space right now, where we're so judgmental and so divided and we have to put all of that aside. We have to release that judgment and just look at each other as, you know, co humans, you know, fellow humans on this planet that need to all coexist or we're no longer going to exist. Right? We really are at that level of existential crisis where if we don't start taking care of ourselves each other and the planet, you know, we're really in big trouble. not, you know, not many, many, many generations from now, within decades, we're in big, big trouble.

Tessa (: 25:56

Within decades if not years.

Suzanne (: 25:58

Yeah. I mean, we're already there. Right. Every year someone said to me, did you know last year was the hottest summer on record? I said, yes. As were the last eight years.

Tessa (: 26:06

Exactly.

Suzanne (: 26:08

So this is not newsworthy anymore. Every year is the hottest year on record. Every year is historic levels of wildfires. Every year there's another earthquake. The storms are bigger. The, you know, the planet is needing us to step up.

Tessa (: 26:21

Yes. It's our home. And you know, unless you have your own private spaceship to go somewhere and you have your own private funding to build a new habitat someplace, this is going to be your home. And we've gotta start doing things there. Like, you know, that I think that's part of soul growth. I'm always looking at things like, well what is the story of the soul here? And I'm just in the question of like, how can this, you know, these wars, these tragedies, these horrible things that are happening against humanity, how are those supporting us in our soul growth? So rather than becoming fixed like I know better or I know this or you know, I'm more elevated and I would never do this, that, or the other, but to really like look at, because we're here, we're all part of this.

Suzanne (: 27:18

Mm-hmm.

Tessa (: 27:19

Whether we want to be or not. So I think maybe there's a question for all of us where we can be in curiosity around that, what is this growth about for me and how can I support others and their growth and in their experience of feeling loved and supported on the planet.

Suzanne (: 27:40

Yeah. And for me, that's the beauty of what happens in grief because it's a time when emotions are at the surface that we can't bury them. They're at the surface. So we can acknowledge them more easily than when we have to go hunting for them. Which some of us have to do some of the time because of the way we were raised and the way culture works, they're at the surface. That ability to be connected in a heart-centered way is so rich and so right and so ready for us. And instead we're creating isolation. So how can each of us look at that experience? Because if we're honest, it's happening to us all the time right now. We're feeling grief all the time. If you turn on the news, it's full of things that bring us grief. If you are walking down the street, you know, we're so disconnected from each other.

(: 28:32

We're experiencing so much loss and so much almost on an existential level of our sense of normal has been disrupted. Our sense of how our systems work is disrupted our sense of, you know, how weather works. I was even, we were talking the other day, my family about a trip we'd like to take in the spring and we were debating which month might be more pleasant weather-wise. And I said like, this is so funny. To me, this is now like an old fashioned conversation because who knows, it's become completely unpredictable. So how do we look at all of these things that are now unpredictable, you know, the new normal that we were all so eager to rush towards as we've learned better how to live with Covid among us has become constant disruption and constant disarray and constant breakdown of systems. So there's a lot for us to be feeling grief about. And if we can talk about it, if we can connect with each other and just feel each other's hearts, then we can shift what's happening for all of us.

Tessa (: 29:37

Thank you. Suzanne. I wanna thank you for being here today and just being so articulate and clear about the experience you've been through and now translating that into something that can make sense for so many other people. Would you like to let the audience know how they could get in touch with you? I know you've got a wonderful gift for them.

Suzanne (: 30:06

Yeah, absolutely. We have covered tons of ground today, . And so the best place to start is to head over to my website and grab the ebook. So that's a livedexperience.com/book. And that's gonna give you some really simple practical things you can do immediately, symptoms you can be watching for in yourself and others ways that you can reach out with support that are really helpful and create that connection instead of isolation. It's really aimed at how we navigate grief in the workplace because that's become my sort of zone of action because I see the other places we're trying to create cultural shifts, we're doing it at work, so that's why I've focused there. So it does have that lens to it, but it has all kinds of helpful ideas and suggestions that are really practical and heart-centered that you can apply immediately. And also on the website are all my blog posts. So you can go right back to the beginning of my grief journey and the things I was sharing and you know, other resources, principles that you can pull up about what to say, what to do. That website is the best place to start and the links to all the socials are there as well. So you can find me all the places.

Tessa (: 31:25

Fantastic. So before we go, you mentioned that your main way through all of that when your son died was to start taking baby steps, right? Consistent baby steps.

Suzanne (: 31:41

Mm-hmm. ,

Tessa (: 31:41

Do you have more around that or a specific tip that you'd like to give our listeners today before we close?

Suzanne (: 31:49

Absolutely. So my daughter and I made the rule when we were in those early days of overwhelm and there's so much that you have to get done that we would do one hard thing, bless Glennon Doyle, we said that to each other probably a billion times we could do one hard thing. And then the rest of our to-do list for the entire day was to breathe.

Tessa (: 32:09

Hmm.

Suzanne (: 32:10

And that was it. That's how we started. What's a hard thing that needs to get done today? And sometimes it was really hard things like phoning and canceling accounts or going to the bank or you know, all those untenable things that you should never have to do for anyone, let alone for your child.

Tessa (: 32:25

Yes.

Suzanne (: 32:26

And other days it was like, could we get the laundry done today? Can we do laundry? I didn't grocery shop on my own for about a year and a half, bless my friend who did all my grocery shopping for me. 'cause the grocery store is hard for grievers. It's just an unimaginable landmine place.

Tessa (: 32:45

Oh yes. I imagine it brings up all kinds of overwhelm with all those triggers.

Suzanne (: 32:49

Yeah. All kinds of activators at the grocery store for sure. So it is that sense of giving yourself permission to go slowly, to be aware that in every moment of every day you're making a choice about what you do next. And I think as a culture, we really focus on the big choices. You know, what big thing am I up to? You know, we're so programmed somehow to not really look at how the big thing never happens without all the little things. So for me, the best place to start if you're experiencing grief, especially if you're in that overwhelmed stage still, which is realistically about the first six months or so, is to just look at what little steps you can do. The big ones, you can't even imagine them. And that's normal. You don't know that because nobody's talking about it. But that inability to conceive big things is normal. So you can do little things and those little things all add up. I'm all about turtle power. I'm all about baby steps to success. We're not here to leap. We're here to take baby steps on a consistent basis to rebuild, to reimagine and how to honor our loss. How do we honor our loved one? How does our life that we're building, bring them with us, keep them present and create something really magical. 'cause there is a life left to be lived and it's ours.

Tessa (: 34:19

Yes. And I have no doubt that your son, Ben's spirit is here with you.

Suzanne (: 34:26

Oh, thank you.

Tessa (: 34:28

And undoubtedly in every single part of your life, you know, this is part of the honoring. Right?

Suzanne (: 34:35

Absolutely.

Tessa (: 34:36

That and to speak to it.

Suzanne (: 34:38

Yeah.

Tessa (: 34:41

Suzanne, thank you so much for being here today. My heart is just full and I'm so glad you were able to take the time to share your story. And I just wanna say to everyone here listening, like, just give yourself that space. Go slowly. And if you need support, ask for it. And if you lose people in your address book, you'll find others. So reach out and know that you're not alone. Alright. Blessings and light and bye-bye for now.