#17: Moving With Grief: Cleo Childs on Healing Through Spoken Word Poetry

Moving With Grief: Cleo Childs on Healing Through Spoken Word Poetry

In this powerful and heart-opening episode, we sit down with Reese Zahner, also known as Cleo Childs, a spoken word poet who has transformed her grief journey into an art form. Cleo recently released her spoken word poetry album, Moving With, on May 15th. The album is the culmination of two and a half years of writing about the loss of her mother to Alzheimer's at just 28 years old. With deep roots in language and writing—her mother was an English major and her grandmother a 30-year English teacher—Cleo found healing through the creative process of poetry.

In this episode, Cleo shares the story behind Moving With, guiding listeners through her journey of grief, from having her mother, losing her, and ultimately reaching peace and acceptance. She vulnerably offers an authentic look at what her grief felt like, creating a sense of community for those navigating similar losses. Cleo's spoken word poetry not only honors her mother's memory but also serves as a beacon for others who are seeking solace and connection through their grief.

In this episode, Cleo discusses:

The inspiration behind her spoken word poetry album Moving With.
How writing became her tool for processing grief and finding peace.
The emotional journey of losing a parent and the path to acceptance.
How creative expression can build community for those who feel isolated in their grief.

Cleo's story is a reminder that even in the darkest moments, art and creativity can lead to healing and connection.

Connect with Cleo Childs:

LinkedIn: Reese Zahner
Website: cleochilds.com

This episode is essential listening for anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one or is looking for ways to process grief through creative expression. Cleo's spoken word poetry offers a raw and honest exploration of grief, giving listeners the sense that they are not alone in their emotions.

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00:00:01
Hello, everybody,

00:00:02
and welcome back to another

00:00:03
episode of Broken Beautiful Me,

00:00:05
Stories of Hope, Gratitude,

00:00:07
and Resilience.

00:00:08
And I am so excited today

00:00:11
because I get to talk to Claire Childs,

00:00:14
and she has released a

00:00:16
spoken word poetry album

00:00:18
called Moving With.

00:00:20
On May, this year,

00:00:22
this album is the

00:00:23
culmination of two and a

00:00:25
half years of writing

00:00:27
about the journey of grief

00:00:28
she experienced after

00:00:29
losing her mom to

00:00:30
Alzheimer's when she was

00:00:31
twenty-eight years old.

00:00:33
Her mother was an English major in college,

00:00:36
and her grandmother,

00:00:37
who was also one of her editors,

00:00:39
was an English teacher for thirty years,

00:00:42
so she came by her

00:00:43
grief-processing tool of

00:00:45
writing poetry very naturally.

00:00:48
With this spoken word poetry album,

00:00:50
she hopes to show the path

00:00:52
her grief took from having her mother

00:00:55
and losing her mother in the

00:00:56
peace and acceptance that she feels now.

00:01:00
She also hopes to give an

00:01:01
authentic and honest look

00:01:02
at what her grief felt like

00:01:04
so that other people going

00:01:05
through grief don't feel

00:01:07
alone and feel community in their grief,

00:01:09
which I can't wait to talk about.

00:01:12
You can learn more about her

00:01:14
and the project at

00:01:15
cleochilds.com and we'll

00:01:17
make sure to post all those

00:01:19
links with the episode when it airs.

00:01:23
Cleo, welcome so much to the show.

00:01:25
It is such an honor to have you here.

00:01:28
Good morning.

00:01:29
So it is a beautiful Sunday morning.

00:01:32
Yesterday was my fifth

00:01:33
wedding anniversary.

00:01:35
So my husband, thanks.

00:01:39
I know we went out and we had a great time,

00:01:42
you know,

00:01:42
just two of us and we celebrated

00:01:43
a friend's birthday.

00:01:44
So it is a great day to be

00:01:46
able to talk with you.

00:01:47
And I'm really excited about it.

00:01:49
And I'm just, you know,

00:01:50
I got a cup of coffee and

00:01:52
I'm ready and I'm, you know,

00:01:53
Happy to talk to you.

00:01:56
Perfect.

00:01:56
And we're going to let this

00:01:57
go wherever it leads us.

00:01:59
Now we're just going to have

00:02:00
a great chat this morning.

00:02:02
So before we dig in,

00:02:04
for our listeners who may

00:02:06
not know about your work,

00:02:07
can you just kind of give a

00:02:08
brief overview of the

00:02:12
amazing stuff you're doing in your album?

00:02:15
Sure.

00:02:16
So I'm Cleo Childs.

00:02:19
It is a pen name.

00:02:19
My real name is Reese Zahner.

00:02:21
And so,

00:02:22
but I realized that Zahner and my

00:02:24
fifth grad,

00:02:25
fifth grade graduation ceremony,

00:02:27
my principal couldn't

00:02:28
pronounce my last name.

00:02:29
So I was like,

00:02:30
this is not bode well for

00:02:32
future if I was ever to do something.

00:02:33
And so Cleo is my middle

00:02:35
name and Childs is my

00:02:36
maternal grandmother, her maiden name.

00:02:40
And so it's a name that's

00:02:41
really died out in our family.

00:02:43
And so I get the joy of

00:02:44
being able to bring it back

00:02:45
as my pen name.

00:02:47
And so I got into writing as

00:02:51
a natural processing tool

00:02:52
after I lost my mom to

00:02:54
Alzheimer's at the age of twenty eight.

00:02:56
She got diagnosed when I was

00:02:57
twenty one and I lost her

00:02:59
over the course of about six years.

00:03:02
And then she died suddenly

00:03:03
when I was twenty eight on Halloween.

00:03:06
And so I went through, I think,

00:03:07
two kinds of grief.

00:03:08
There was the anticipatory

00:03:09
grief of losing her.

00:03:10
And then there was the grief

00:03:12
that went through of losing her suddenly.

00:03:15
And I think that I thought.

00:03:17
that I was be I thought I

00:03:20
was a pro if there was such

00:03:22
a thing in grief because I

00:03:23
lost her for you know six

00:03:25
years and then I went

00:03:27
through when I lost her

00:03:27
suddenly and I realized

00:03:28
that I was a student of

00:03:31
grief rather than a

00:03:32
professional of it and so I

00:03:35
had to go and I had to

00:03:36
rethink what everything was

00:03:38
going on and so I in my

00:03:41
grief the only thing that

00:03:42
made it feel better was writing

00:03:44
And the way that made it

00:03:46
feel honest and authentic

00:03:47
to what I was experiencing

00:03:48
in my body was poetry.

00:03:50
And so I wrote poetry for

00:03:52
about six months.

00:03:53
I went into deep isolation

00:03:55
about six months after my mom died.

00:03:56
The only thing I would do is

00:03:57
I was right because it's

00:03:58
the only thing that made it

00:03:59
feel a little bit better.

00:04:00
And then I never intended to release it.

00:04:02
It was just kind of a hobby that I did.

00:04:04
It was kind of a means of expression.

00:04:06
And then back in December,

00:04:08
I got inspired by songwriting.

00:04:11
And I decided to take my

00:04:12
hand at songwriting as kind

00:04:13
of like a hobby, you know,

00:04:15
just something to see it.

00:04:16
It filled my cup up and I

00:04:17
thought it was fun and it

00:04:19
made me feel happy.

00:04:20
And so I did it,

00:04:21
but I never intended to release anything.

00:04:24
And then in March of this year of,

00:04:28
I went to a mentorship

00:04:30
session to learn about

00:04:31
songwriting and to get better in writing.

00:04:33
And it was with a record

00:04:35
producer of Nashville.

00:04:36
Who's my producer.

00:04:37
And he said that I was

00:04:38
amazing and he would produce me.

00:04:40
And I said, well,

00:04:40
this wasn't in my twenty

00:04:41
twenty four bingo card.

00:04:43
So but I was not anticipating this.

00:04:48
I was so excited.

00:04:49
All my friends, all my family was like,

00:04:50
I'm going to have a record.

00:04:51
And they're like, what?

00:04:52
And I was like, yes,

00:04:53
apparently I had no idea, but I'm good.

00:04:55
And, you know, someone sees value in it.

00:04:58
But I intended and I

00:04:59
released it with the hope,

00:05:01
which I've now been

00:05:03
confirmed that my hope, you know,

00:05:04
at least for one person is meaningful,

00:05:06
is that people

00:05:08
could under people could go

00:05:10
through and have a record,

00:05:12
not my record of what grief

00:05:14
looked like for me.

00:05:15
The reason why it was

00:05:16
important is when I was in

00:05:17
grief at the very beginning,

00:05:18
I bought all of these books

00:05:21
and I bought all of these

00:05:22
journals and I went through

00:05:23
and I tried to

00:05:23
intellectualize grief and I

00:05:25
was realized that it was a

00:05:28
defense mechanism because I

00:05:29
had to feel it.

00:05:31
But I also couldn't,

00:05:31
when I was reading all these books,

00:05:32
understand how,

00:05:33
when I was in a

00:05:35
disillusionment with God and anger,

00:05:37
And I was always deep emotions,

00:05:39
how anyone could get to

00:05:40
peace and acceptance from

00:05:41
an emotional standpoint.

00:05:43
And so what I did is I hoped to,

00:05:44
and I put the album in such

00:05:46
a way that you can

00:05:46
understand maybe

00:05:47
emotionally how one person,

00:05:49
at least me could go from

00:05:51
the depths of anger and

00:05:53
disillusionment with God

00:05:54
organically to having peace

00:05:56
and acceptance is,

00:05:57
which is what I have now.

00:05:59
And so, because I didn't have that answer,

00:06:01
I was trying to figure out

00:06:02
how could this happen?

00:06:03
And I tried looking for it

00:06:05
and it was something that I

00:06:05
couldn't understand.

00:06:07
And so I kind of released it

00:06:10
with the intention of being

00:06:12
able to provide an answer

00:06:14
that I was questioning

00:06:15
because I imagine that I am,

00:06:16
I believe that we are more

00:06:18
alike than dissimilar.

00:06:20
And I imagine if I was kind

00:06:21
of questioning about how someone could go,

00:06:23
if I was feeling disillusioned with God,

00:06:25
how someone could get a

00:06:26
peace and acceptance,

00:06:27
I imagine that's probably

00:06:28
not a question that's unique to me.

00:06:29
And so that was my answer to

00:06:30
the question I was looking

00:06:31
for two and a half years later.

00:06:33
And that's me.

00:06:36
Um,

00:06:37
Where do I start with this?

00:06:39
I think it's such a

00:06:40
beautiful expression of

00:06:43
both grief and celebration

00:06:45
of the life of your mother

00:06:46
and who she was.

00:06:47
I'm going to start with the

00:06:48
pen name first because I

00:06:51
love strong women and I

00:06:52
love that you are

00:06:53
celebrating the strong

00:06:55
maternal heritage you have

00:06:57
with your pen name, Cleo Childs.

00:06:59
That's just so beautiful.

00:07:04
With your mother,

00:07:05
you talked about two kinds of grief.

00:07:08
And my husband's father had

00:07:12
dementia as well.

00:07:13
And I would often talk to my

00:07:15
mother-in-law about it as

00:07:16
the long goodbye.

00:07:20
Because it's pieces of a

00:07:21
person that just slowly

00:07:23
dissipate into the surface.

00:07:27
Hello?

00:07:34
Hello?

00:07:36
I can hear you, but I can't see you.

00:07:40
Yes, let's see.

00:07:42
Well, I wonder.

00:08:31
Hello?

00:08:31
Sorry about that.

00:08:32
Technology is a wonderful

00:08:33
thing when it works.

00:08:37
We'll just flip that and

00:08:39
it'll be all good.

00:08:40
I was working on a website

00:08:43
one time and I broke code

00:08:45
when I was twenty one.

00:08:47
And ever since then, I'm like,

00:08:48
I have no clue how technology works.

00:08:52
Well,

00:08:52
I was doing an interview last week

00:08:54
and my lighting decided

00:08:56
that it wanted to be at the disco.

00:08:58
So, and I couldn't stop the interview.

00:09:00
So the light was like lighter and dark,

00:09:02
lighter and dark.

00:09:03
And I was like, okay, here we go.

00:09:06
That's when you put on ABBA

00:09:07
in the back and you do some

00:09:09
dancing queen.

00:09:10
Oh, a little bit of dancing queen.

00:09:13
That's my jam.

00:09:15
So side note from nowhere, but.

00:09:18
I just turned thirty this

00:09:19
year and my thirtieth birthday,

00:09:20
my husband, he's like,

00:09:21
do you want to do you want me to plan it?

00:09:23
And I said, no,

00:09:23
I'm going to play my own

00:09:24
because I love to play at parties.

00:09:25
And it was called Gimme Gimme Thirty.

00:09:28
And it was an entire ABBA

00:09:29
themed thirtieth birthday party.

00:09:31
And I got a sparkly jumpsuit

00:09:33
and I found these masks on

00:09:35
Etsy of the ABBA of ABBA.

00:09:38
And so we all wore ABBA

00:09:39
masks and I had a sparkly

00:09:41
jumpsuit and we did Dancing

00:09:43
Queen and I had like

00:09:44
Dancing Queen banners and everything.

00:09:47
Okay.

00:09:48
You're going to need to

00:09:49
email me a picture of this.

00:09:52
I got a photographer to take

00:09:53
pictures of it too.

00:09:54
So I hired a photographer

00:09:56
and we rented out a private

00:09:59
room at a bar and it was

00:10:01
behind the bookshelf.

00:10:02
And so it was, it was dancing queen.

00:10:04
It was,

00:10:05
and we all dressed up in seventies

00:10:07
gear and,

00:10:08
I like, it was an amazing,

00:10:10
it was an amazing thirtieth,

00:10:11
but I hired a photographer

00:10:12
to take pictures of it so I

00:10:14
can send you my thirtieth

00:10:15
birthday party because I

00:10:16
have pictures of me and my

00:10:19
sparkly jumpsuit.

00:10:20
And it says I had a little sash that said,

00:10:23
you know,

00:10:24
and then I had like a little

00:10:25
headband that said WTF, I'm thirty.

00:10:31
But I digress.

00:10:32
So I just love any time I

00:10:34
can talk about ABBA.

00:10:36
I put I'm happy to.

00:10:38
Okay,

00:10:38
we may be soul sisters here because I

00:10:41
am an ABBA lover.

00:10:42
I remember standing on my

00:10:44
best friend's couch in her

00:10:47
rec room with hairbrushes.

00:10:49
I mean, we were ABBA.

00:10:51
That's what we grew up on.

00:10:53
And when dancing things came on, yeah,

00:10:55
we read it away.

00:10:57
We're coming in.

00:10:59
So I do want that picture.

00:11:01
So, okay, so we'll jump in again.

00:11:04
I'm going to,

00:11:04
you just finished your intro.

00:11:06
We're going to,

00:11:07
we'll do our magic editing in the,

00:11:10
in the middle there.

00:11:10
But I, um,

00:11:13
I want to talk to you about that.

00:11:17
The long goodbye,

00:11:19
when you said in your introduction, um,

00:11:23
that you thought you knew

00:11:24
grief and then your mom died suddenly.

00:11:27
And, uh, and then you found out that,

00:11:30
you know,

00:11:30
instead of being kind of a

00:11:31
professional at grief,

00:11:32
you were a student.

00:11:35
And that's that truly

00:11:37
resonates with me because I

00:11:38
think at different stages of our life,

00:11:40
we realize that that I had

00:11:43
that figured out and I didn't.

00:11:45
There's there's many times

00:11:46
that I thought I had things

00:11:47
figured out with grief as well.

00:11:50
But it wears many masks, doesn't it?

00:11:55
I think it wears.

00:11:57
It wears many masks and also

00:11:58
wears many names,

00:12:00
and I think it also wears many emotions.

00:12:04
And it wears, it's very amorphous.

00:12:11
I wrote in a poem that I'm

00:12:15
putting on a different

00:12:16
album that will be released

00:12:17
at some point.

00:12:18
But initially it was dreams, how amorphous,

00:12:20
how docile.

00:12:22
How are the amorphous creatures to dream?

00:12:25
Something like this.

00:12:26
But I believe that not only

00:12:27
dreams are amorphous,

00:12:28
but grief is amorphous.

00:12:30
Because I thought I knew it.

00:12:32
I thought that I was

00:12:34
intimately familiar with grief.

00:12:36
And what I realized is that maybe I was a,

00:12:41
it was an acquaintance of

00:12:42
mine and then it became a

00:12:44
neighbor and then it became

00:12:47
a intruder into my home.

00:12:49
And then eventually it became a friend.

00:12:51
I think that it becomes,

00:12:54
it takes so many forms,

00:12:55
it takes so many fashions.

00:12:58
And I thought that I knew it.

00:12:59
And I realized I,

00:13:02
I did not until I think that

00:13:04
it's very multifaceted.

00:13:06
It kind of reminds me of maybe a prism,

00:13:10
right?

00:13:10
It's kind of like you can

00:13:11
have the sunbeam of going

00:13:12
in and you say that this is

00:13:13
what grief is.

00:13:14
But what you realize is that

00:13:15
it's very multifaceted.

00:13:17
There's many different colors.

00:13:18
I thought that, like, for example,

00:13:20
that when I was going

00:13:21
through it or when I

00:13:22
thought about what would it

00:13:23
be like to lose my mother,

00:13:24
because I knew that I was going to.

00:13:25
It was anticipatory grief.

00:13:27
There was anticipation into it.

00:13:29
I thought I knew,

00:13:30
I thought that because I

00:13:33
had done it for so long, not successfully,

00:13:39
but kind of stoically, I would say,

00:13:44
I kind of did it stoically, that it would,

00:13:47
when she passed,

00:13:48
that it would be easy somehow.

00:13:50
I thought that it would be easy,

00:13:51
that I had been doing it success,

00:13:53
not successfully,

00:13:54
but stoically and kind of

00:13:55
taking it on the face a little bit.

00:13:57
And then I realized that

00:14:00
when she actually passed,

00:14:03
that it was as devastating

00:14:06
to me as if I never had the

00:14:07
anticipatory grief that I did,

00:14:09
that I wasn't prepared that

00:14:11
I didn't have this.

00:14:14
I didn't have like a ramp up

00:14:15
where I became numb to it,

00:14:18
or I somehow became it, that it would,

00:14:21
I thought it would hurt so

00:14:22
much less because I've been

00:14:24
doing it for so long.

00:14:26
And then she died suddenly.

00:14:28
And it hurt as much as I

00:14:29
think is if I never had the

00:14:31
anticipatory grief to begin with.

00:14:37
What I learned and what I thought,

00:14:40
what I thought is that when

00:14:42
I went into grief,

00:14:42
that it would be all shades of gray.

00:14:44
I think I confused grief

00:14:45
with depression at the beginning.

00:14:49
I think that they may be,

00:14:50
they're not because I've

00:14:51
dealt with depression

00:14:52
beforehand and I thought,

00:14:53
but it's so much more painful.

00:14:54
It's so much more different.

00:14:55
But what I thought,

00:14:56
is that when you were in grief,

00:14:58
that it would be shades of gray,

00:14:59
or it would be one gray.

00:15:01
And I realized that some

00:15:04
days I was light gray.

00:15:05
I didn't feel as bad.

00:15:06
Some days I was dark gray

00:15:08
and it felt much worse.

00:15:09
Some days I wasn't gray at all.

00:15:10
I was red or blue.

00:15:12
And some days I was all the colors.

00:15:14
And some days I was no colors.

00:15:16
It became much more, not only,

00:15:25
It was much more intangible

00:15:28
than I thought it was going to be.

00:15:29
It was much more deceit,

00:15:32
not deceiving necessarily,

00:15:33
but unexpected.

00:15:38
It was much more unexpected.

00:15:40
Yeah.

00:15:43
And it kind of brought me to my knees.

00:15:45
It brought me to my knees in

00:15:46
a way that I was not

00:15:47
anticipating because I

00:15:48
thought I had been doing

00:15:49
great for so long in a one way,

00:15:52
in one form or fashion,

00:15:53
it kind of would numb me to

00:15:54
the second one.

00:15:55
And it didn't numb me at all.

00:15:58
I think that that made me angry.

00:16:00
There's a poem in the album,

00:16:01
it's about anger.

00:16:02
And I think what the anger

00:16:03
was is the fact that I

00:16:06
realized that I was powerless to grief.

00:16:08
I'm a recovering

00:16:09
perfectionist and a

00:16:10
recovering control person.

00:16:12
And I thought I could control grief.

00:16:14
I thought I could manipulate

00:16:15
it a little bit.

00:16:16
I thought I could fight it.

00:16:18
I thought that I was more powerful.

00:16:20
I could, through pure force of will,

00:16:22
be able to kind of bend it.

00:16:24
And what I realized,

00:16:25
and I think that that's

00:16:26
where the anger came from,

00:16:27
was the powerlessness to it.

00:16:29
Because I realized I was in

00:16:30
an unfair fistfight that I

00:16:32
was going to lose, that I was up against.

00:16:36
There was no chance of me winning.

00:16:38
And so I made the conscious

00:16:40
decision to feel everything

00:16:41
and to surrender and to grieve.

00:16:43
And by doing that and by

00:16:44
changing the perspective of

00:16:46
what I was doing, I think that

00:16:51
It probably allowed me to move with grief.

00:16:54
It allowed me to have this

00:16:55
perspective of mood with

00:16:57
grief because I wasn't

00:16:58
trying to fight it.

00:16:59
I was trying to figure out

00:17:00
how to live with it.

00:17:01
And which is something I

00:17:02
still try to figure out now.

00:17:05
And that's something I try

00:17:07
to figure out as well on my

00:17:09
day-to-day walk.

00:17:11
It shifts.

00:17:12
It shifts with

00:17:14
With time,

00:17:16
with certain things that happen

00:17:18
in the family, like certain milestones,

00:17:20
birthdays, anniversaries, all that stuff,

00:17:23
there's a surge of grief

00:17:25
that we maybe don't expect

00:17:27
that's going to bubble up.

00:17:29
And it hits you when you

00:17:30
least expect it sometimes.

00:17:32
You think that you are, as you said,

00:17:34
you think you've got it

00:17:36
figured out and you're fine.

00:17:38
And then you turn the page

00:17:41
and it's just another chapter of

00:17:43
of your grieving process, you know.

00:17:46
I love what you said about,

00:17:50
that's so profound about how, you know,

00:17:54
like neighbor, intruder, you know,

00:17:57
roommate, friend,

00:17:59
how your relationship with grief changed.

00:18:03
over time as you learn to sit with it.

00:18:06
And that's one of the things

00:18:07
that I think is the most

00:18:10
powerful thing on my grief journey.

00:18:13
And it sounds like you're

00:18:14
saying is that you have to,

00:18:18
you don't have to do anything,

00:18:19
but that sitting with it

00:18:21
and looking it in the face,

00:18:25
that's where the real

00:18:26
healing and growth happens.

00:18:28
Would you agree with that statement?

00:18:34
I read it to a certain extent.

00:18:38
I kind of go and I say that for me, grief,

00:18:46
I sat at the foot of grief

00:18:47
and I was taught by it.

00:18:49
And I was a student and I

00:18:56
don't know if that means that,

00:18:58
that it has to be the way

00:18:59
that you interact with grief.

00:19:02
I think.

00:19:03
you, it is grief could just,

00:19:07
it doesn't have to mean anything.

00:19:09
I think that's true.

00:19:10
I think it can mean something,

00:19:12
but I think it's equally

00:19:14
valid if nothing of this

00:19:17
learning process comes from grief.

00:19:19
I think that I've interacted

00:19:20
with a lot of people and

00:19:22
they have many different grief journeys.

00:19:24
And I think their grief is

00:19:26
so individualistic.

00:19:27
It has commonalities,

00:19:29
but it's so individualistic that

00:19:33
And every grief journey is valid.

00:19:36
I became a student of grief

00:19:41
and I learned from it and I grew with it,

00:19:43
but I think that it's just

00:19:45
equally valid even if you

00:19:47
don't grow with it.

00:19:49
I think you don't

00:19:50
necessarily have to grow with grief.

00:19:52
I think you can potentially,

00:19:55
but I think that that

00:19:55
doesn't mean if you realize

00:19:57
or you feel that I didn't grow with grief,

00:19:59
it doesn't make me

00:20:00
different or anything like that.

00:20:01
It just didn't,

00:20:02
it was something in my life.

00:20:03
That was a chapter of my life.

00:20:06
I think this is equally

00:20:07
valid a perspective as one

00:20:09
that goes and as someone

00:20:11
that learns from it.

00:20:12
That's a great point.

00:20:19
And I try to be,

00:20:21
I was taught that because

00:20:23
as someone I know, I was listening to it,

00:20:25
it somehow came to me,

00:20:27
is that they said it

00:20:28
doesn't have to mean anything.

00:20:30
It can just hurt and you can

00:20:32
feel like you've lost someone.

00:20:35
I,

00:20:35
with my grief journey is that it did

00:20:37
mean something to me,

00:20:39
but I don't think it has to

00:20:40
mean something to everyone.

00:20:42
I think,

00:20:42
and they're equally valid perspectives.

00:20:46
I think you can just miss

00:20:47
the person and you can feel

00:20:50
like they're no longer there.

00:20:51
And that's as valid as me

00:20:53
becoming friends with grief

00:20:55
as you can just say,

00:20:57
I I'm angry at it and I

00:20:59
don't want it to happen.

00:21:00
And you,

00:21:01
I think every relationship with

00:21:02
grief is valid.

00:21:04
I think that there doesn't

00:21:06
have to necessarily be a

00:21:08
lesson through grief,

00:21:10
but at the same time,

00:21:11
even if there's not a lesson in it,

00:21:13
it is still as equally

00:21:14
valid as if there is one.

00:21:17
And I learned from it,

00:21:21
but I think that you could equally not,

00:21:24
and it could equally be

00:21:24
still as a valid experience.

00:21:30
yeah um that is very true

00:21:33
and um you know I I found

00:21:37
and I I know that anybody

00:21:38
else who's lost anyone like

00:21:40
you said you ordered a lot

00:21:41
of books as did I and um

00:21:45
you know there's a lot of

00:21:46
different belief systems

00:21:48
and approaches to grief but

00:21:49
you're right it is as as

00:21:51
individual as a fingerprint

00:21:53
and quite dependent on the

00:21:56
relationship that you have

00:21:59
with that person and so

00:22:02
everything is okay all your

00:22:04
feelings all the feelings

00:22:06
that anybody feels are

00:22:07
valid right I remember when

00:22:09
I went pre-counseling when

00:22:12
my son passed because I had

00:22:14
no idea how to navigate it

00:22:16
and I was very much like a

00:22:18
control person I like to

00:22:20
have my ducks in a row and

00:22:24
then all of a sudden I was

00:22:25
like no idea what to do

00:22:28
do I do here right it's just

00:22:30
it was just such a period

00:22:32
of groundlessness um and

00:22:36
going for me going

00:22:37
counseling one of the

00:22:38
things that the counselor

00:22:40
said was that's okay it's

00:22:43
okay for you to be that way

00:22:44
like just it was almost

00:22:46
like I in in my in my

00:22:48
journey it was almost like

00:22:49
I needed to hear that

00:22:51
little bit of permission I

00:22:52
guess uh because I was so

00:22:54
used to trying to be in control

00:22:57
And I just happened to meet

00:22:59
the right counselor who was like, hey,

00:23:01
what you feel is what you feel.

00:23:04
It's valid, all of it,

00:23:05
every single bit of it.

00:23:09
And I think that that's, when I look back,

00:23:12
that was one of the turning

00:23:14
points for me where I felt

00:23:16
like I was given permission,

00:23:18
not that I needed it,

00:23:19
but I guess I did in my own psyche.

00:23:22
And when things would bubble up,

00:23:25
she would say,

00:23:26
I guess your brain's ready

00:23:27
to deal with that part of it.

00:23:30
She just didn't, it was never,

00:23:32
like I remember going in

00:23:33
one day and she said, I said,

00:23:35
I am backpedaling right now.

00:23:39
I cannot stop thinking about

00:23:41
this one very specific

00:23:44
piece about losing Steven

00:23:47
and I don't know what to do

00:23:48
and I'm going backwards and yada, yada,

00:23:49
yada, right?

00:23:51
And she was like, hmm.

00:23:52
you're not going backwards.

00:23:54
Your brain has healed enough

00:23:55
now that your brain's

00:23:56
telling you to be ready to

00:23:57
look at that part of it.

00:23:59
And I went, hmm, okay.

00:24:03
And it was just such a, I was like, oh,

00:24:06
so this is the way that I'm doing it.

00:24:09
It's okay.

00:24:10
And I had to convince myself

00:24:12
that at first that there

00:24:15
was all these different

00:24:16
ways to do it and all those

00:24:17
different ways were perfectly fine.

00:24:20
But I knew

00:24:21
It was like,

00:24:21
I don't know if it was my

00:24:24
schooling or what,

00:24:25
but it's like I needed some

00:24:27
sort of permission structure.

00:24:28
Do you think that,

00:24:29
have you talked to people who feel,

00:24:31
you know,

00:24:31
kind of that push and pull of

00:24:34
how they feel they should

00:24:36
grieve and what you say to them?

00:24:41
I think what I feel and what I,

00:24:44
I feel and what I explain

00:24:45
to people when they go,

00:24:46
when they lose someone and

00:24:49
they come to me and they say,

00:24:49
you've done this before.

00:24:52
What are you, what is the advice?

00:24:53
I think it's a very

00:24:55
interesting kind of hard

00:24:56
position to be in because

00:24:58
it's so individualistic.

00:24:59
What I can say,

00:25:00
what I always say is this

00:25:01
is my experience.

00:25:03
Yeah.

00:25:03
This is what I went through.

00:25:05
I think that there's

00:25:06
commonalities between

00:25:07
people's grief journey journeys.

00:25:11
But what I say and what I say,

00:25:12
what I say is that with my experience,

00:25:14
I realized,

00:25:15
or it felt like grief was a river.

00:25:17
Rivers float upwards.

00:25:18
Sometimes rivers float down.

00:25:20
They have twirling,

00:25:22
they have rapids in between.

00:25:24
Sometimes it feels like

00:25:26
there's a calm bit and then

00:25:27
out of nowhere there's a

00:25:28
bend in the turn and you

00:25:29
don't know what's going to

00:25:30
come and then there's a rapid into it.

00:25:32
I think that there's some

00:25:33
forward progression with

00:25:34
grief because it's time.

00:25:37
I think it's a lot of things

00:25:38
I say is time.

00:25:42
In the poem I wrote,

00:25:43
there'll be released another album,

00:25:45
the thing that I realized,

00:25:47
I said time presses begrudgingly.

00:25:49
forcing me to continue moving,

00:25:51
to think I'm immune as folly,

00:25:53
believing I am as human.

00:26:01
That's beautiful.

00:26:01
I think time presses,

00:26:03
and as much as I didn't want it to,

00:26:06
with time,

00:26:09
these rapids became farther and

00:26:11
farther in between.

00:26:13
They still occurred,

00:26:14
and maybe they were less,

00:26:16
but they still happened.

00:26:18
And I think that I thought

00:26:19
that that would not happen to me.

00:26:21
At the very beginning,

00:26:22
when I was going through intense grief,

00:26:23
when after I lost my mom, I thought,

00:26:25
how is this what's going to

00:26:27
be like forever?

00:26:28
I was barely hanging on.

00:26:30
And I didn't want underneath

00:26:31
the water when I went into

00:26:32
deep isolation for six months.

00:26:36
And then my head rose above

00:26:37
the water a little bit after inch by inch,

00:26:40
centimeter by centimeter, you know,

00:26:43
and then two and a half years later,

00:26:45
I'm still on the river.

00:26:47
but it's not in the same way

00:26:49
that I was at the very

00:26:50
beginning of when I lost my

00:26:52
mom in the first week afterwards.

00:26:55
But I think time plays a

00:26:56
huge part in being able to solve it.

00:27:03
I'm expanding on the album in a book.

00:27:06
And what I say is that I

00:27:07
went into a cave and now I

00:27:09
re-entered the world, kind of.

00:27:12
And I guiltily looked forward to it.

00:27:16
I think what's very interesting is,

00:27:21
I think there's chapters.

00:27:23
I think time played a huge part in it.

00:27:27
And I think permission to feel,

00:27:32
permission is huge.

00:27:33
I think it's a huge part in it because,

00:27:35
and I think that I have this,

00:27:37
I have this theory that

00:27:38
it's the hardest time to be

00:27:39
a grieving person in human history.

00:27:40
But I think one of the

00:27:41
things that comes into this

00:27:42
is that we're told that

00:27:42
there's good emotions and

00:27:44
there's bad emotions.

00:27:45
And with grief,

00:27:46
there's a lot of these

00:27:47
quote unquote bad emotions,

00:27:48
which is despair and anger

00:27:51
and isolation and being

00:27:54
upset and distancing and maybe just,

00:27:58
but there's also,

00:28:00
but I think the thing is

00:28:01
that what I realized is

00:28:02
those are emotions and

00:28:03
there's equally valid as

00:28:04
happiness and joy.

00:28:05
And there's equally valid as

00:28:07
camaraderie and compassion

00:28:10
and I think that by when I

00:28:12
realized that I was just

00:28:14
feeling emotions that were

00:28:17
valid that that helped to

00:28:20
allow me to feel them

00:28:22
without judgment because I

00:28:25
judged myself a lot for

00:28:27
feeling them initially I

00:28:29
thought it took pressure

00:28:32
off of me I think when I

00:28:34
realized that it's okay

00:28:38
Maybe it's okay for me to feel angry.

00:28:42
It's one of these things that growing up,

00:28:43
I was told, you don't need to feel angry.

00:28:46
You don't want to be angry.

00:28:49
It's valid for me to feel angry.

00:28:51
It's totally valid.

00:28:53
And it's okay.

00:28:55
And I think I allowed myself

00:28:56
to have permission to feel

00:28:58
things that were quote unquote bad,

00:29:01
which allowed me to be able

00:29:03
to open myself up

00:29:06
to writing and processing,

00:29:08
but also to open myself up

00:29:10
to not judging myself as harshly,

00:29:14
which allowed, I think, for healing.

00:29:17
So do you feel, you know,

00:29:21
because anger is such a

00:29:24
normal emotion for people to experience,

00:29:27
but you're right,

00:29:28
we do have labels of good

00:29:30
and bad emotion.

00:29:31
Do you feel like...

00:29:34
you know,

00:29:35
if you had not really looked at

00:29:37
that anger and kind of processed it,

00:29:40
that it would have been

00:29:40
difficult for you to move

00:29:42
to the place that you are now?

00:29:45
Absolutely.

00:29:48
Yeah.

00:29:49
And do you feel that that

00:29:51
period of isolation that you had,

00:29:55
that that really, I mean, you know,

00:29:59
isolation would work for

00:30:00
some and not for others.

00:30:02
Do you feel like that period

00:30:04
of isolation allowed you to

00:30:06
process those emotions in that way?

00:30:12
I think it allowed for me to

00:30:16
take the time that I needed.

00:30:19
Yeah.

00:30:21
And to do it.

00:30:22
Yeah.

00:30:23
I think that's what it allowed.

00:30:24
I think that's what it was,

00:30:25
was the isolation.

00:30:26
Not everyone goes in isolation.

00:30:27
Not everyone has the ability or the

00:30:34
yeah, it's not even ability,

00:30:35
the word I'm looking for is

00:30:38
just the time to go into isolation.

00:30:41
Not a lot of people have the capacity,

00:30:43
not the capacity, but the just,

00:30:46
I had no kids.

00:30:47
It was just me and my

00:30:48
husband and my dog at that point.

00:30:50
So I think that I had the,

00:30:52
not only the ability to go into isolation,

00:30:54
but it was possible for me too.

00:30:57
That's what I'm looking for.

00:31:00
I think by going into isolation,

00:31:03
It allowed me to really sit

00:31:08
with myself and it allowed

00:31:11
me to figure out what is

00:31:14
this thing going on for me.

00:31:16
It kind of,

00:31:17
I put up blinders to the world

00:31:19
for a little bit.

00:31:22
I think that for me,

00:31:24
the isolation was necessary.

00:31:33
to be able to really take a

00:31:37
look at what was going on

00:31:39
without distraction.

00:31:40
That's what it was.

00:31:41
My isolation was pretty much

00:31:44
me removing every distraction.

00:31:46
And I think what happened is

00:31:47
my world condensed on itself.

00:31:49
I think it completely, it was like a star,

00:31:53
right?

00:31:53
It just condensed on itself.

00:31:55
And the isolation was what became of that.

00:32:01
metamorphosis.

00:32:02
It was kind of like, I,

00:32:03
I say that I took my soul

00:32:06
down to a chemical level.

00:32:08
I basically rebuilt myself.

00:32:10
I disintegrated my entire

00:32:13
life disintegrated who I

00:32:15
was disintegrated.

00:32:17
And I rebuilt myself from a

00:32:18
chemical level.

00:32:19
And I think that that

00:32:19
isolation period was

00:32:21
basically my cocooning of

00:32:23
my soul and the same way

00:32:25
that butterflies go to a

00:32:26
chrysalis stasis.

00:32:27
That's what my isolation was.

00:32:30
Yeah.

00:32:30
I mean,

00:32:31
if you look back over all the

00:32:35
religious texts from every religion,

00:32:37
there's a huge component

00:32:41
that talks about isolation

00:32:43
and its connection to enlightenment,

00:32:46
like how many prophets in

00:32:48
various religions

00:32:51
throughout history have

00:32:54
taken that period and how

00:32:55
they essentially have

00:32:59
changed and grown and become

00:33:01
more enlightened about

00:33:04
their belief system,

00:33:06
the same can be applied for

00:33:07
grief in anybody's life.

00:33:11
You don't have to be a prophet,

00:33:16
but just sometimes tuning out the noise,

00:33:21
because it's a very noisy

00:33:22
world that we live in these days,

00:33:24
and sometimes tuning that

00:33:26
out is the only way that

00:33:27
you can really hear

00:33:29
what your soul is trying to say to you.

00:33:32
You can't hear it with all the noise.

00:33:36
What isolation did for me is

00:33:37
it connected me to my humanity.

00:33:43
It connected me to my humanness.

00:33:45
It reminded me that I was human.

00:33:49
And I had to sit with myself.

00:33:51
I think that's one of the things too,

00:33:52
is that we're in a world, to your point,

00:33:53
that's very noisy,

00:33:54
but it's also primed and

00:33:56
we're incentivized to

00:34:00
distracted yeah we're

00:34:02
incentivized for our

00:34:03
attention to be drawn and

00:34:05
put in all different places

00:34:09
I in isolation I removed

00:34:13
all that distraction I

00:34:15
didn't go on the internet I

00:34:16
did I read books but I

00:34:18
basically wrote that was

00:34:19
the only thing that I did

00:34:21
but I think that what it

00:34:22
did is it connected me to

00:34:23
my humanness it took me

00:34:25
back to my humanity it it

00:34:28
took me and put me

00:34:35
I sat with myself for the first time.

00:34:40
I used to be a gnat fly that

00:34:42
would go and wanted to do everything.

00:34:49
I wanted to be everything to everyone.

00:34:51
I wanted to do everything.

00:34:53
Not to say that I didn't

00:34:54
want to go and enjoy life

00:34:56
or anything like that,

00:34:57
but I think that the

00:34:58
intention was wrong with that.

00:35:00
It wasn't pure in the way

00:35:01
that I wanted to like soak up the world.

00:35:03
It was that I didn't know

00:35:05
who I was and I was trying

00:35:07
and I was a very much like

00:35:10
a amorphous kind of liquid

00:35:16
that would go and fit into

00:35:17
everyone's cup.

00:35:19
And I didn't know who I was.

00:35:21
And I think I became solid

00:35:23
in isolation because for

00:35:25
the first time I had to sit

00:35:26
with myself and figure out who are you?

00:35:29
That's what it was, is you argue,

00:35:31
what do you think?

00:35:33
What do you feel?

00:35:36
It became not only a

00:35:38
chrysalis and a metamorphosis of myself,

00:35:41
it became a solidity,

00:35:42
like I solidified myself.

00:35:45
And I think I had a much

00:35:46
better understanding of who

00:35:48
I am as a person through isolation.

00:35:52
And I think it grew, I think,

00:35:54
mainly through suffering,

00:35:56
because I think suffering is

00:35:59
I say, I don't know if I'm right or not.

00:36:02
My thought is that

00:36:04
intelligence can be learned

00:36:06
from books because we have

00:36:07
neuroplasticity, right?

00:36:09
Your brain changes.

00:36:10
You can literally make

00:36:11
yourself smarter by reading everything.

00:36:12
But I think that wisdom only

00:36:14
is taught through experience.

00:36:16
And so I became wise, more wise.

00:36:20
I'm not even sure if I'm wise,

00:36:21
but I had wisdom now for the first time.

00:36:26
that I could then apply to

00:36:28
figuring out who I am.

00:36:29
I think that's one of the

00:36:30
things that came out of it

00:36:31
was the wisdom was, who are you?

00:36:33
Not who I want you to be,

00:36:36
not the world wants you to be,

00:36:38
but who the first time are you?

00:36:40
And I only did that because I isolated,

00:36:42
because I was suffering.

00:36:45
And I think through suffering,

00:36:46
I became connected to

00:36:48
myself for the very first time.

00:36:49
And I solidified who I am.

00:36:51
What do I stand for?

00:36:52
What are my thoughts rather

00:36:54
than what are the thoughts

00:36:54
that are put onto me?

00:36:56
because I isolated and I

00:36:58
only had myself to be able

00:37:00
to interact with really.

00:37:03
So for somebody who, you know,

00:37:06
who one of our listeners, for example,

00:37:08
might be out there and they

00:37:10
are going through grief and

00:37:12
they feel the need to isolate,

00:37:15
they would like to be able to do that.

00:37:17
But like you said,

00:37:17
not everybody can do that.

00:37:20
They have different responsibilities.

00:37:21
Maybe they have a few kids and they,

00:37:24
you know, so

00:37:26
what would be some simple

00:37:27
tips that we could give them?

00:37:30
You know, if they can't isolate,

00:37:31
like you put out,

00:37:32
how can they find that stillness to,

00:37:36
to process all of that emotion?

00:37:40
I think there's two things

00:37:41
that come up for me.

00:37:41
One is what I would say is

00:37:45
to give yourself grace.

00:37:49
That is you're going through

00:37:51
something incredibly difficult.

00:37:53
It's probably one of the

00:37:54
hardest things in human

00:37:55
existence to go through.

00:38:01
I gave a lot of other people

00:38:02
grace before I gave myself it.

00:38:09
So I would say,

00:38:10
and then I realized I gave

00:38:11
myself grace too over time

00:38:16
for going through something

00:38:17
incredibly difficult where

00:38:18
there's no roadmap that's

00:38:20
so individualistic.

00:38:25
some days I was like I don't

00:38:27
know what I can do but I

00:38:28
realized I was doing the

00:38:29
best I could and that

00:38:31
looked different every day

00:38:34
and sometimes I wasn't

00:38:35
doing the best I could and

00:38:36
that's okay too because

00:38:37
it's so hard so I would say

00:38:40
give yourself grace and

00:38:43
permission and know that

00:38:46
you are valid and worthy

00:38:47
and meaning and you mean something

00:38:52
I think, too,

00:38:57
is I used creative writing as

00:39:00
a processing tool.

00:39:03
I think what I would say is

00:39:06
if you can't go into isolation,

00:39:07
I totally understand.

00:39:08
If that's not even the path

00:39:09
that you want to take,

00:39:10
I totally understand.

00:39:12
It's the path that my grief took.

00:39:15
I think that there is

00:39:16
something so that it's not joyous, but it

00:39:25
Doing creative expression of

00:39:26
any kind was the thing that

00:39:31
filled my cup up.

00:39:32
I think creation,

00:39:34
whatever creation looks like for you,

00:39:40
maybe that could be able to

00:39:41
help a little bit or find

00:39:44
that thing that makes it

00:39:45
hurt a little bit less,

00:39:47
makes it a little bit more

00:39:48
manageable and figure out

00:39:49
how to do more of that in your day.

00:39:51
That for me was writing.

00:39:52
It might be going a little long.

00:39:54
It might be spending time

00:39:55
with your family.

00:39:56
It might be cooking or baking.

00:39:59
I think it's finding those

00:40:01
little pockets of joy

00:40:02
because they exist or

00:40:04
pockets of contentment

00:40:06
because they exist.

00:40:07
I think it's just being open

00:40:09
to figuring out what those

00:40:10
are and being able to

00:40:11
incorporate more of that into your life.

00:40:18
Yeah, I would agree.

00:40:21
I mean, and even, you know,

00:40:22
I'm just thinking back to

00:40:26
my own mother and how years

00:40:30
later at Christmas when I

00:40:32
make one of her recipes that is like,

00:40:35
it's almost like a

00:40:36
meditation for me and a

00:40:37
celebration of her.

00:40:39
And so you're right.

00:40:40
You don't have to

00:40:41
necessarily be in isolation.

00:40:43
We can find those moments

00:40:45
and giving ourselves

00:40:47
the grace to be able to do

00:40:51
that is so important.

00:40:52
You know, for women,

00:40:56
it's difficult to give ourselves grace.

00:40:58
We struggle with that.

00:41:00
It's a tough one, isn't it?

00:41:03
It's incredibly tough.

00:41:04
I think, too,

00:41:05
is that the other thing I would say,

00:41:07
it's why I called it Moving With,

00:41:09
is at the end of the poem,

00:41:10
or at the end of the album, it goes,

00:41:13
there is no moving on,

00:41:13
there's just moving with.

00:41:15
I remember what was, I accept what is.

00:41:19
I think you move with people.

00:41:22
I think it's what I realized.

00:41:24
I didn't lose my mother.

00:41:25
She just changed.

00:41:27
And I moved with her to her

00:41:29
birthday party a year and a half after.

00:41:32
I lost her with all of her

00:41:33
friends at her favorite restaurant.

00:41:36
And it was joyous.

00:41:38
And I have a little candle

00:41:40
that I have on my desk that

00:41:41
I go and I light when I

00:41:43
want to feel connected to her.

00:41:45
And I have pictures of her

00:41:46
around my office and move with her.

00:41:50
I didn't move on from her.

00:41:51
I think that's the other

00:41:52
thing is what I realized when I,

00:41:53
when I started to realize

00:41:54
that the grief that I felt for me was I,

00:41:59
I, I was grieving how I knew her before,

00:42:04
but that is,

00:42:04
but I still don't know her now.

00:42:07
you know it's one of these

00:42:08
things that I still take

00:42:08
the lessons with her I

00:42:10
wrote in a poem is that you

00:42:12
know uh what uh I

00:42:14
appreciate her kindness

00:42:16
when it's given to me I

00:42:16
appreciate your goodness

00:42:17
when people treat me gently

00:42:19
and I appreciate her

00:42:21
courageousness when I watch

00:42:22
others be courageous I see

00:42:24
my mother now in other

00:42:25
people and she moves with

00:42:27
me I'm never moving on from

00:42:29
her I think that that was

00:42:30
the other thing is when I

00:42:31
realized that I did not

00:42:32
move on from losing my mother

00:42:36
I just moved with her and I

00:42:38
bring her with me.

00:42:38
I talk about her all the time.

00:42:40
She's around me all the time.

00:42:41
I have her pictures everywhere.

00:42:43
You know,

00:42:44
I think that that really also

00:42:46
helped that perspective

00:42:47
because I thought I lost

00:42:48
her and in some way I did lose her.

00:42:51
I lost her physically,

00:42:52
but I think what was

00:42:53
interesting was that the

00:42:54
second that I lost her, cause I,

00:42:56
I was with Alzheimer's,

00:42:58
she didn't know who I was

00:42:59
at the end of it.

00:43:01
She didn't know who she was.

00:43:02
It was, and we wanted,

00:43:05
We wanted her to go.

00:43:07
And I think that's because I

00:43:09
thought that it would free her.

00:43:11
And somehow it freed me up

00:43:14
to connect with her again.

00:43:16
By losing her,

00:43:17
I regained her because it

00:43:19
freed me up to have a new

00:43:20
relationship with her.

00:43:23
And I think that I moved with my mother.

00:43:27
I never moved on from her.

00:43:29
And I think that by thinking

00:43:30
that perspective, it also made it

00:43:33
so much easier for me now to

00:43:35
incorporate her in my life.

00:43:39
Moving with is, I mean, it's profound,

00:43:43
really, just those two words,

00:43:46
because many people who are

00:43:48
bereaved do words like move on.

00:43:52
That's a tough thing to hear.

00:43:54
And I'm very much like you.

00:43:59
I celebrate the people that I have lost,

00:44:01
and they do move with me

00:44:02
throughout my life and inspire me,

00:44:05
and I continue to learn

00:44:06
from them years and years later.

00:44:07
You know,

00:44:11
because we are where we came from.

00:44:14
I often think when my mother died,

00:44:18
I remember reading,

00:44:19
and then again when my son passed,

00:44:22
I remember reading about

00:44:24
fetal maternal chimerism.

00:44:27
So there's a

00:44:29
and it's science but it's

00:44:31
basically that there's an

00:44:32
exchange of mother and

00:44:34
child cells so that there's

00:44:36
some of the mother's cells

00:44:37
and some of the child's

00:44:38
cells in each other's

00:44:40
bodies and that they're

00:44:42
still studying it but that

00:44:43
years and years later like

00:44:45
over thirty years later you

00:44:47
will find some of some

00:44:49
fetal cells in a mother's

00:44:54
mother's cells and

00:44:55
sometimes they move to the

00:44:56
brain as well and so they

00:44:58
They talk about this kind of

00:45:00
maternal connection that we

00:45:01
have with the children and

00:45:03
that it extends both ways.

00:45:05
And I used to think about that and think,

00:45:07
well, I'm still connected to you.

00:45:09
There's cells somewhere out

00:45:11
there that we're still sharing.

00:45:16
And just finding that place

00:45:17
of peace where they're still with us.

00:45:21
And one of the things,

00:45:22
because I want to talk

00:45:23
about your poems now.

00:45:24
We're talking a lot about grief,

00:45:26
but I want to talk about

00:45:27
something that you wrote, She Pours In.

00:45:33
I mean,

00:45:34
I could cry now even thinking about it.

00:45:35
It's just so incredibly beautiful.

00:45:39
Your words, She Pours In.

00:45:42
Would you mind sharing some

00:45:44
of that with our audience?

00:45:46
Yeah.

00:45:48
So this was actually,

00:45:50
which is it's I wrote it in

00:45:55
the middle of grief.

00:45:58
I wrote it in the middle of

00:45:59
grief at the very beginning of not,

00:46:01
I would say about maybe first two months.

00:46:03
And it was my understanding

00:46:07
of how can I connect with her,

00:46:08
this idea of connecting with her.

00:46:11
And it was actually the

00:46:12
combination of two poems

00:46:13
that put them together

00:46:14
because I realized that

00:46:15
they're intrinsically

00:46:16
combined with each other.

00:46:17
And I wrote them around the same time.

00:46:19
And it's physics says energy

00:46:21
can neither be created nor destroyed.

00:46:23
I believe my mother follows

00:46:25
the same rules.

00:46:26
She is lost to me in body,

00:46:27
but I find her spirit and

00:46:28
happiness around me.

00:46:30
I am grateful for her

00:46:31
kindness when it is given to me.

00:46:33
I appreciate her gentleness

00:46:34
when someone treats me gently.

00:46:36
I admire her courage when I

00:46:37
watch others be courageous.

00:46:39
She is everywhere when I

00:46:40
allow myself to see her.

00:46:42
When I open myself to her, she pours in.

00:46:45
My mother grants me an

00:46:46
audience every time I catch

00:46:47
my reflection.

00:46:48
She escapes through my eyes,

00:46:49
their shade reminiscent of

00:46:51
the magnolia tree she planted.

00:46:53
Her laughter hibernates my throat,

00:46:55
dormant until someone

00:46:56
clever entertains her.

00:46:57
She leaks from my fingertips,

00:46:59
a tap of wisdom I welcome

00:47:00
to overflow on my page.

00:47:02
The words she mispronounced in my presence,

00:47:04
I butcher with a new audience.

00:47:06
During her passing, she molded me,

00:47:07
shaping me into her earthly vessel.

00:47:10
I'm her legacy,

00:47:10
the incarnation of her life's work,

00:47:12
her representative to life.

00:47:20
That's so beautiful.

00:47:27
I'm having difficulty

00:47:28
forming words after that.

00:47:29
It's just so incredibly honest.

00:47:37
It goes back to this idea of

00:47:39
I realized that I could move with her.

00:47:41
Yeah.

00:47:45
that was my understanding of

00:47:46
trying to understand that

00:47:47
of how can I move with her

00:47:49
that was I was grappling

00:47:51
with this idea and that's

00:47:53
what I realized is that I

00:47:59
appreciate her so much more

00:48:02
because I see her in others

00:48:08
absolutely and you you talk about

00:48:12
One of the things you said

00:48:13
about your mom's legacy and

00:48:17
for our listeners,

00:48:18
I really encourage you to

00:48:19
go to Cleo's website

00:48:20
because there's some

00:48:22
beautiful pictures there

00:48:23
that to me just translate into joy.

00:48:28
But you talked about your

00:48:29
mother's kindness and what

00:48:30
a beautiful legacy that was to leave.

00:48:34
And I listened to a podcast where you said,

00:48:38
and I'm paraphrasing here, so excuse me,

00:48:41
when you are kind,

00:48:42
you feel close and accessible to them.

00:48:47
And that's so incredibly

00:48:48
beautiful because I use

00:48:50
gratitude and I use

00:48:52
gratitude as part of my journey,

00:48:57
not to be grateful for the

00:48:58
situation I found myself in,

00:49:00
but to look around and see

00:49:02
that there was still goodness around me.

00:49:06
And I would say that

00:49:09
you know,

00:49:10
when I look for gratitude and I

00:49:12
find gratitude,

00:49:13
I feel Stephen all around me.

00:49:15
And you said something along

00:49:18
the same lines about kindness.

00:49:20
What do you think about

00:49:21
those kind of higher

00:49:22
vibration emotions and what

00:49:25
they allow us to see in this world?

00:49:27
I think what they allow us to see is that

00:49:38
I think, I believe,

00:49:40
I believe that we are more

00:49:42
connected than we think that we are.

00:49:46
I don't think we're disparate.

00:49:47
I don't think we're separate.

00:49:50
I think that it really,

00:49:52
we connect with each other.

00:49:54
If I'm kind to someone, when I am kind,

00:49:58
not only is that the lesson

00:49:59
that my mother taught me,

00:50:01
that's my mother's kindness

00:50:03
coming through.

00:50:04
So my mother is now able to

00:50:05
be kind or she's brought back.

00:50:09
But that person goes and

00:50:10
takes that kindness and

00:50:12
maybe they go and they're

00:50:14
kind to another person and

00:50:16
it becomes a chain reaction

00:50:17
of this idea of my mother's

00:50:19
now being moved through other people.

00:50:25
I think to me,

00:50:28
what kindness and what

00:50:29
gratitude do is they allow

00:50:32
us to be appreciative and

00:50:36
to appreciate things and to

00:50:37
appreciate people.

00:50:39
And I think it doesn't necessarily mean to,

00:50:47
I think there's a different

00:50:48
way that I see it.

00:50:51
What I say is I would never

00:50:56
ask for what happened to me

00:50:57
to happen to me.

00:51:00
And I would never give up

00:51:01
the learnings and the gifts

00:51:02
that has come from it.

00:51:04
I am so much, I'm softer, I think.

00:51:10
I'm more still, more empathetic.

00:51:14
I give myself grace and I'm more grace.

00:51:16
I give myself more grace and

00:51:17
I'm more giving of grace to others.

00:51:20
I think it's made me a kinder, better,

00:51:22
gentler human being.

00:51:24
I think that losing my

00:51:26
mother to me made me wise.

00:51:30
I think it made me soft.

00:51:32
I think it made me so much

00:51:33
more appreciative of life.

00:51:36
And I think the reason why I

00:51:37
say that is because I

00:51:38
realized the finiteness of it.

00:51:41
I realized for the first

00:51:42
time that nothing is given.

00:51:44
I think I grew up and I

00:51:45
think most people do.

00:51:46
I think it's anthropological.

00:51:47
I have a theory.

00:51:48
I have lots of theories,

00:51:49
but it's anthropologically

00:51:51
important that we think

00:51:52
that we're going to live forever.

00:51:54
I think the reason why is

00:51:55
probably if we didn't think

00:51:56
that we were going to live forever,

00:51:57
then we wouldn't be the

00:51:58
people that would go off

00:51:59
and go into the wilderness

00:52:00
and go and find new pastures and,

00:52:04
go explore and move out and

00:52:06
migrate because we would

00:52:08
stay around the campfire

00:52:10
and we would not go

00:52:11
anywhere if we thought we

00:52:12
were going to live forever

00:52:15
or if we thought that we

00:52:16
were going to die.

00:52:17
I think that by realizing

00:52:19
that there's a contract

00:52:20
that I entered into with

00:52:21
life is that there is death.

00:52:23
That is the contract and I

00:52:25
have no control over it.

00:52:27
Every day I'm grateful.

00:52:29
Every day I'm grateful.

00:52:30
Every person I am grateful

00:52:32
and I bathe with people.

00:52:33
And I think it's made me

00:52:34
hyper aware of the good,

00:52:38
but also it's made me hyper

00:52:39
aware of how I can

00:52:40
contribute to the good.

00:52:41
I think it's made me so much

00:52:46
more present with people,

00:52:48
especially my mother.

00:52:49
That was the big lesson that

00:52:50
I think I learned from my

00:52:52
mother is because it was degenerative.

00:52:54
Every day was going to be

00:52:55
the best day I was going to

00:52:55
have with her.

00:52:57
I knew when she got

00:52:58
diagnosed that there was

00:52:59
going to be a day where I

00:53:00
was going to hear my name

00:53:01
being said from her lips

00:53:02
for the last time.

00:53:03
I knew that knowledge.

00:53:05
And every day I bathed in

00:53:07
her saying my name because

00:53:10
I knew that there was going

00:53:11
to be a day where I couldn't hear it.

00:53:14
But why does that lesson not

00:53:15
translate over into my husband?

00:53:21
So I go and every day he says, I love me.

00:53:24
When he says, I love you, I bathe in it.

00:53:27
And the same what I did when

00:53:28
I knew that my mother was

00:53:29
going to stop saying my

00:53:31
name because I know one day

00:53:31
I'm going to not hear him say it anymore.

00:53:33
And so I am so grateful for

00:53:36
it in a way that I was not

00:53:38
beforehand because I think

00:53:40
I appreciate the finiteness of things.

00:53:43
I understand the finiteness

00:53:44
of things and I appreciate

00:53:46
them and the gifts that I

00:53:47
find when they're given to me.

00:53:50
And I'm grateful for that lesson.

00:53:52
And I wish I didn't have to learn it,

00:53:53
but I'm grateful for it.

00:53:57
Yeah, I, I talked to someone recently,

00:54:00
he called it the gifts of desperation.

00:54:02
And it's true,

00:54:06
you never want to learn those lessons,

00:54:07
but they do change your path.

00:54:10
And in some ways, I mean,

00:54:11
we talked about staying

00:54:13
safe around a campfire.

00:54:15
But in some ways, finding out, you know,

00:54:19
just that

00:54:21
not every day is given and

00:54:23
that we have to live each

00:54:24
day to the fullest and

00:54:25
appreciate what is around.

00:54:29
I don't know about you, but for me,

00:54:31
that actually made me want

00:54:33
to kind of step away from

00:54:36
the campfire a little bit

00:54:37
more and explore and see

00:54:39
and do and meet and connect

00:54:41
with other people and community.

00:54:45
I think I realized the

00:54:46
importance of that as well.

00:54:48
Did you feel that same

00:54:51
We had talked about, you know,

00:54:54
that we're all in this together.

00:54:56
Did you feel that same thing?

00:55:00
Last night was my fifth

00:55:02
wedding anniversary.

00:55:03
And we went out to Fort Worth,

00:55:05
where I live.

00:55:07
And what I realized is I had fun.

00:55:13
But I did it not in the way

00:55:14
that I did when I was

00:55:15
twenty one or twenty.

00:55:18
I

00:55:19
danced because I wanted to

00:55:21
dance I didn't care of the

00:55:24
fact that maybe that comes

00:55:26
with age but I reveled in

00:55:30
spending that night with my

00:55:31
husband and going out and

00:55:33
dancing and I went up and

00:55:36
if I wanted to talk to

00:55:37
someone because I'm ninety

00:55:38
nine percent extroverted

00:55:39
according to a test and I

00:55:40
think that one percent you

00:55:41
know was missing from I

00:55:42
somehow accidentally like

00:55:43
clicked a C instead of a B

00:55:44
and that's how I got a one

00:55:45
percent missing you know I think

00:55:49
I went in and I didn't, it was,

00:55:51
I didn't care.

00:55:53
Yeah.

00:55:53
I can't dance.

00:55:53
I'm dyspraxic, but I like to dance and,

00:55:57
you know,

00:55:58
and I danced because it was my

00:56:01
fifth wedding anniversary and I was going,

00:56:05
but I think that in that

00:56:05
when I was twenty, I was like, oh,

00:56:08
I can't dance.

00:56:10
Oh,

00:56:10
I'm going to stay here in the corner and,

00:56:13
you know, just kind of not go in.

00:56:15
And now it was my fifth

00:56:18
wedding anniversary.

00:56:19
I think it freed me.

00:56:23
It's like the knowledge of

00:56:26
it frees me to be able to grasp onto joy.

00:56:30
I embrace joy and I grasp it

00:56:34
and I love it.

00:56:36
And when it comes up,

00:56:38
I appreciate it and I revel in it.

00:56:41
I revel in it and I don't

00:56:43
care to the same extent

00:56:45
that I did of what others think about me.

00:56:49
I have to go back and I

00:56:50
think I'm having fun.

00:56:53
And you know, it's crazy.

00:56:54
They always say this.

00:56:56
No one was on that dance floor last night.

00:56:58
I started the dance floor

00:57:00
because I didn't care.

00:57:02
Right.

00:57:05
Like I'm thirty.

00:57:07
It's my fifth wedding anniversary.

00:57:09
I like this song.

00:57:11
I'm going to go dance.

00:57:13
And wouldn't you know it?

00:57:15
And I don't want to say that

00:57:15
I'm the domino that, you know, went and I,

00:57:18
you know,

00:57:18
put an importance on myself or

00:57:20
anything like that.

00:57:21
But I looked around and

00:57:22
about a minute later,

00:57:23
that dance floor was full.

00:57:25
And I feel like maybe I could,

00:57:26
maybe I contributed to that maybe.

00:57:29
But I think that that's what it taught me.

00:57:32
And that's what it feels is, is,

00:57:33
is I give myself permission

00:57:38
to do into it and, and to,

00:57:42
go and explore and to take

00:57:46
every single ring every

00:57:48
single drop from life you

00:57:51
know and to not wait and to

00:57:55
not be bashful and not to

00:57:56
say how I used to say is oh

00:57:58
I love this song I wish I

00:57:59
would go dance I say I love

00:58:02
this song I'm going to go

00:58:03
dance I think that's the

00:58:05
perspective you know it's shifted

00:58:08
yes um so from your

00:58:12
experience with grief so

00:58:14
there's there's um a lot of

00:58:16
listeners out there um and

00:58:18
I work extensively with the

00:58:20
grief community so from

00:58:23
your experience if you

00:58:24
could if you had three

00:58:26
things that you could tell

00:58:27
people who are grieving

00:58:28
right now um or people who

00:58:32
are wanting to support

00:58:34
someone who is grieving

00:58:37
What would you say to them?

00:58:41
Give yourself grace and give

00:58:42
grace to others.

00:58:45
I think, number one.

00:58:49
I think, too,

00:58:50
is I wrote in a poem once

00:58:51
that well-meaning

00:58:52
sympathies begin to lash.

00:58:55
I think,

00:58:55
and also from that is people know

00:58:58
not what they do.

00:58:59
I think people, we are imperfect.

00:59:03
We are imperfect people.

00:59:05
I think we care deeply.

00:59:07
And I think sometimes we

00:59:07
don't have the words to show that.

00:59:09
And we don't know what that

00:59:11
way is to do it.

00:59:12
And so we do it in a way

00:59:13
that's not optimal.

00:59:15
I think people though,

00:59:17
what I realized is that they do care.

00:59:19
And I looked at the intent

00:59:20
behind it rather than the

00:59:23
execution of it.

00:59:25
And once I did that,

00:59:25
I gave a lot more gratitude

00:59:28
and a lot more grace to people around me.

00:59:31
I think also, so I'd say grace,

00:59:35
they don't know what they do.

00:59:36
They're trying.

00:59:38
If there's trying and

00:59:39
there's intent behind the try,

00:59:41
then I would give credence

00:59:42
and I would give a lot of

00:59:44
weight to the intent rather

00:59:46
than the execution because

00:59:47
maybe that had failed but

00:59:48
they tried and I appreciate the effort.

00:59:51
Now I do.

00:59:53
I would say another piece is to

01:00:06
I think it comes down to

01:00:07
this idea of permission to

01:00:13
feel to not do and

01:00:16
permission to feel without judgment.

01:00:24
I think that I judged myself

01:00:25
a lot from what I was feeling.

01:00:27
I said,

01:00:27
I shouldn't this is why am I

01:00:29
feeling anger, rather than anger.

01:00:33
And that's valid.

01:00:35
I'm feeling

01:00:37
bitterness, and that's valid.

01:00:40
I think, yeah,

01:00:42
and I'm feeling happiness in

01:00:43
the middle of grief.

01:00:45
And that's valid.

01:00:47
I think that I gave myself I would say,

01:00:51
by what I learned in what I

01:00:53
would say to you is there

01:00:55
is no such thing really as

01:00:57
good or bad emotions,

01:00:58
their emotions and we're human.

01:01:00
And we are emotional creatures.

01:01:03
You know, and to

01:01:07
see what those emotions are

01:01:09
saying I think emotions can

01:01:10
be great teachers what what

01:01:12
are they what like the

01:01:13
anger for example glennon

01:01:15
doyle I love glennon doyle

01:01:17
she says anger or emotion

01:01:18
because it tells you

01:01:19
something it tells you

01:01:22
something about what the

01:01:23
situation is you're angry

01:01:24
at something well what is

01:01:25
that thing I'd say get

01:01:26
curious about your emotions

01:01:27
don't judge them but get

01:01:29
curious and then I would

01:01:31
say my third thing is that

01:01:34
kind of touched on is

01:01:36
there could be pockets of

01:01:37
joy and grief there can be

01:01:41
or at least things to make

01:01:43
it and I would say one

01:01:49
don't judge yourself if you

01:01:51
feel or try not to feel

01:01:54
guilty that you feel

01:01:56
pockets of joy and grief I

01:01:58
did at the beginning

01:02:01
feel, you know, I would say,

01:02:03
find out what is the thing

01:02:05
that makes it hurt a little

01:02:06
less and see if you can do more of that.

01:02:10
For me, it was writing.

01:02:12
Writing was the only thing

01:02:13
that made it hurt a little less.

01:02:15
So I wrote writing and I didn't do it.

01:02:18
And I think that I don't,

01:02:19
I kind of at the beginning

01:02:20
felt guilty about that,

01:02:22
but I felt like I was

01:02:23
trying to numb myself and

01:02:24
it's not that I was trying

01:02:24
to numb myself or it's not

01:02:25
that I was trying to just, to,

01:02:27
to not acknowledge my grief

01:02:29
and to distance myself from it.

01:02:31
What I was doing was I was

01:02:32
trying to figure out ways

01:02:33
to also fill my cup up.

01:02:35
When I had no energy, I had nothing.

01:02:37
I was depleted.

01:02:39
I was an empty bucket.

01:02:42
That maybe put one or two

01:02:43
drops of water in my bucket.

01:02:45
And that's not selfish.

01:02:47
That's self-care.

01:02:49
And I realized that that's

01:02:51
okay for me to do that.

01:02:53
That's okay.

01:02:54
I'm not going and I'm not

01:02:56
saying I don't love my

01:02:57
mother any less because I'm writing.

01:03:00
It doesn't mean that I don't

01:03:01
miss her anymore because I'm writing.

01:03:03
It just means that I'm

01:03:04
trying to also be able to

01:03:07
do something in the middle

01:03:09
of grieving her and the

01:03:11
loss of her that makes me

01:03:14
feel it hurt a little bit

01:03:16
less and that's okay.

01:03:19
And I would say find those

01:03:20
and see if you can

01:03:20
incorporate whatever that is.

01:03:22
If you find it a little bit

01:03:24
more in your life and to do

01:03:25
it without judgment and to

01:03:27
do it because it's

01:03:27
self-care and self-care is not selfish.

01:03:32
It's not.

01:03:33
And I, you know,

01:03:35
if we think about what our

01:03:37
loved ones would want for us,

01:03:39
it would be those pockets of joy.

01:03:42
It would be all joy.

01:03:44
So feeling guilt about it, you know,

01:03:49
sometimes I would think, well,

01:03:50
what would my mom want me

01:03:52
to be doing right now?

01:03:54
And she always wanted me to be happy.

01:03:57
She wanted me to be happy.

01:03:58
She wanted me to be a good person.

01:04:00
And so...

01:04:01
fun of doing that it's okay

01:04:06
if I'm having those pockets

01:04:08
of happiness and spreading

01:04:09
it around a little bit

01:04:10
that's okay so what would

01:04:14
you say I mean this has

01:04:16
been an incredible journey

01:04:17
for you and I have to say

01:04:20
throughout this show please

01:04:23
you need to go to Cleo's

01:04:25
website and you need to

01:04:28
read some of her work

01:04:29
And you need to listen to

01:04:31
some of this poetry because

01:04:32
it's incredible.

01:04:34
But what has been the most

01:04:36
surprising thing that

01:04:37
you've learned about

01:04:38
yourself that you didn't

01:04:39
expect was going to come out of this,

01:04:41
but you're like, oh my God.

01:04:42
And that you did learn about

01:04:44
yourself in this incredible journey.

01:04:49
I can write.

01:04:53
Boy, can you write.

01:04:54
I had no idea.

01:04:56
I only wrote research papers.

01:04:58
Grandma.

01:04:59
put me through the ringer, I can write.

01:05:04
That's what I learned.

01:05:05
I had no idea.

01:05:06
I never tried writing before this.

01:05:09
And I think also I learned

01:05:12
through writing that I have

01:05:16
a perspective and I have a

01:05:19
voice and I can use my voice.

01:05:25
And that I think the number

01:05:28
one thing that I learned

01:05:30
which brings me such joy,

01:05:33
is that we are more similar

01:05:37
than separate.

01:05:39
Yeah.

01:05:42
That's a beautiful lesson to

01:05:43
learn and much needed in today's world.

01:05:47
We all need to take the

01:05:49
lesson and realize that

01:05:50
we're all connected and far

01:05:52
more similar than different.

01:05:56
In my gratitude group,

01:05:58
I have a gratitude group

01:05:59
called Just One Little Thing.

01:06:01
And I started it in the

01:06:02
depths of my own grief

01:06:05
because I had a younger son

01:06:06
who deserved to have a happy life.

01:06:08
And so we used gratitude in

01:06:10
the little things.

01:06:13
And I called it Just One

01:06:13
Little Thing because there

01:06:16
was days that it was hard

01:06:17
to find just one little thing.

01:06:19
And so we would do that at

01:06:21
the dinner table.

01:06:22
And that was how we tethered

01:06:23
ourselves to the present moment.

01:06:25
It didn't mean things were good.

01:06:27
but it meant that there was

01:06:28
still good around us even

01:06:29
on those difficult days.

01:06:31
So that's kind of how I

01:06:35
launched the group.

01:06:36
So for example,

01:06:38
today I'm grateful for

01:06:41
cooler temperatures, allergy meds,

01:06:45
because I live in the city,

01:06:49
cooperating laboratory retrievers,

01:06:52
and I am,

01:06:54
mostly thankful for meeting

01:06:56
you and being able to chat

01:06:57
to you about your beautiful poetry.

01:06:59
When you were reading She Pours In,

01:07:03
I was internally

01:07:04
celebrating my own mother as well.

01:07:06
And so your writing is an incredible gift.

01:07:10
So that's what I'm thankful for.

01:07:12
What are you thankful for today?

01:07:16
My husband.

01:07:19
I adore my husband.

01:07:21
He has been my best friend

01:07:24
He is my favorite person in

01:07:25
the whole world.

01:07:28
He is the love of my life.

01:07:32
He is the best person I know.

01:07:35
He accepts me for who I am

01:07:39
without trying to change

01:07:40
who I am to better fit him.

01:07:43
He loves me wholeheartedly and fiercely.

01:07:49
And he is good.

01:07:53
He is good.

01:07:55
He is the best thing in my life.

01:07:57
He is my home.

01:08:01
And I'm grateful for my home.

01:08:06
That's beautiful.

01:08:08
You're going to have me in a heap here.

01:08:11
It's beautiful.

01:08:14
And I feel like I should do

01:08:15
a shout out to my husband

01:08:16
too because he's really awesome.

01:08:17
But I left him off the list

01:08:21
sort of evaporated.

01:08:25
It's, and it is as simple as that,

01:08:29
as those,

01:08:30
the gratitude and the little things,

01:08:32
the people who accept you

01:08:33
and love you and let you be who you are.

01:08:38
And, you know,

01:08:40
I can almost feel that

01:08:42
supportive relationship

01:08:43
when I need your help.

01:08:45
There's such a freedom and

01:08:46
honesty to your work.

01:08:48
And I think that that

01:08:50
doesn't come without support, right?

01:08:55
to make the people who love

01:08:57
you and need people brave.

01:08:58
And that's, when I look at what I do,

01:09:02
I could never do it without you.

01:09:04
I just couldn't.

01:09:05
I wouldn't be brave.

01:09:08
And so that is one big thing, I think,

01:09:12
for sure.

01:09:14
Before we close out this

01:09:16
beautiful discussion,

01:09:17
I just want you to let our

01:09:19
audience know where they

01:09:21
can find your work.

01:09:25
tell us about your website

01:09:26
and any upcoming projects,

01:09:28
anything that you want to

01:09:29
share with us before we think about it.

01:09:32
Yeah,

01:09:32
so you can find it at cleochilds.com.

01:09:35
So C-L-E-O-C-H-I-L-D-S dot com.

01:09:39
I have,

01:09:40
I put the album out on all the

01:09:42
platforms so you can go and listen to it.

01:09:44
It should be there.

01:09:47
And then there's pictures of

01:09:48
my mother and there's kind

01:09:50
words people have said about it.

01:09:52
and um there's also if

01:09:54
you're visual I put the

01:09:55
poems out there so if you

01:09:56
want to listen to them but

01:09:57
you also want to read along

01:09:58
or you just want to read

01:09:59
them separately you can be

01:10:00
able to do that and then I

01:10:03
would say the the next

01:10:05
project is I have is I'm

01:10:06
expanding on the I'm

01:10:07
expanding on the album by

01:10:09
adding it I had to the

01:10:11
album you know is only

01:10:12
fourteen tracks but I wrote

01:10:14
a lot about the journey of

01:10:16
grief when I was going through it

01:10:17
And I wanted to, I want to,

01:10:19
so I'm working on it, is to expand it.

01:10:21
So because I think I went

01:10:24
through things that were

01:10:25
not isolating to me,

01:10:27
but I felt isolated in them.

01:10:29
And I want to be able to put

01:10:31
it out in case someone else

01:10:33
is kind of going through a

01:10:34
similar situation where

01:10:36
they feel isolated.

01:10:37
And like,

01:10:38
they're the only ones that maybe

01:10:39
this happened to.

01:10:39
And granted,

01:10:40
I only went through my journey

01:10:42
and I can only write about that.

01:10:43
But I am expanding on it.

01:10:46
And so I am writing the book.

01:10:48
So I'm compiling it.

01:10:49
I'm getting edited right now.

01:10:51
And then I have an album

01:10:53
that will be coming out eventually.

01:10:56
I'm really excited about it.

01:10:58
I realized that I had

01:11:00
something to say about grief.

01:11:02
I didn't realize I had

01:11:03
something to say about being a woman.

01:11:06
And I do.

01:11:08
And I did.

01:11:09
I wrote an entire album in one week.

01:11:12
I got very inspired and I

01:11:14
wanted to write about

01:11:16
different stories and

01:11:17
experiences that I know of

01:11:19
that I haven't heard in the media before.

01:11:22
I wanted to talk about

01:11:23
different women that I know.

01:11:24
I know these women.

01:11:26
I am these women in some regards.

01:11:29
But I knew and I realized

01:11:32
that I had heard a lot of

01:11:33
stories that I hadn't heard

01:11:34
stories about women that I knew.

01:11:37
And I wanted to tell their stories.

01:11:39
And so I did.

01:11:41
And so it's,

01:11:42
we're figuring out when we

01:11:43
want to release it.

01:11:45
But I realized I had something to say,

01:11:47
not only about grief,

01:11:48
but about being a woman.

01:11:50
And so I am telling stories

01:11:51
about women who I have not

01:11:53
heard their stories told before,

01:11:55
but I know them.

01:11:56
And so that'll come out at some point.

01:12:01
I really wanted to say that.

01:12:03
Because I agree,

01:12:05
there are so many stories

01:12:07
about women that need to be

01:12:09
told in my name.

01:12:11
excited to listen to that.

01:12:12
Do you promise that you'll

01:12:13
come back when the album is released?

01:12:18
Yeah, absolutely.

01:12:19
It's been a wonderful,

01:12:20
delightful conversation.

01:12:21
Of course I will.

01:12:22
I'd love to.

01:12:23
Please.

01:12:23
Yes.

01:12:23
Yes, yes, yes.

01:12:26
You know, because we're mutual ABBA fans,

01:12:28
the next time you come on the show,

01:12:30
we'll bring some music into this as well.

01:12:33
I won't be singing it

01:12:34
because that would get your

01:12:37
subscribers would go down

01:12:38
immensely if I started singing.

01:12:41
Cause I can't sing with a flow.

01:12:44
So I try not to, I can't, I love,

01:12:47
I love to sing, but man,

01:12:49
the only way that I can

01:12:50
really sing is if I'm on a

01:12:52
dance floor and the music's

01:12:54
real high and every, you know,

01:12:57
really loud and everyone

01:12:58
else is dancing and I love to sing.

01:13:01
I love to do karaoke, but I'm not good.

01:13:04
I want to be very clear.

01:13:05
Like I have many talents,

01:13:06
but singing is not one of those talents.

01:13:08
My entire family, grandma,

01:13:11
In her infinite wisdom,

01:13:12
this is a true story.

01:13:13
Grandma said,

01:13:13
we are so bad at saying that

01:13:15
we don't need to subject

01:13:16
ourselves to ourselves.

01:13:17
And grandma cuts into the family.

01:13:20
So we Gregorian chant happy

01:13:21
birthday because we're so

01:13:23
bad that she decided that

01:13:24
we were literally

01:13:25
subjecting ourselves to

01:13:26
torture by sitting as a family.

01:13:28
So we Gregorian chant happy birthday.

01:13:31
So that is, I'm not kidding.

01:13:34
It really freaked out my

01:13:35
husband when he first came

01:13:36
in and I was like, come in.

01:13:38
you're gonna hear some

01:13:39
chanting for happy birthday

01:13:41
and he's like what what are

01:13:43
you talking about and then

01:13:44
he looked over at me and I

01:13:45
looked at him while we're

01:13:45
going happy birthday to you

01:13:48
happy birthday to you and

01:13:50
my husband's looking over

01:13:51
at me like what did I get

01:13:52
myself into so I will not

01:13:55
for the sake of for the sake of your

01:13:58
your viewer base I will not

01:14:00
and for the sake of

01:14:01
yourself and myself

01:14:02
included because uh I we

01:14:04
grandma is like we are that

01:14:05
bad I will happily enjoy

01:14:08
you singing to abba while I

01:14:10
kind of mouth along the

01:14:11
words and dance along in

01:14:13
the background but uh I

01:14:15
will I shall not

01:14:16
participate because it is

01:14:19
that bad I am that bad

01:14:25
Well,

01:14:25
we will have a virtual dance party

01:14:27
with costumes.

01:14:28
Okay.

01:14:29
We're going to make that

01:14:29
deal now and we'll just

01:14:30
play the music in the background.

01:14:32
You and I can dance.

01:14:34
I love that.

01:14:36
Yay.

01:14:37
This is my favorite thing in

01:14:38
the whole world to do.

01:14:39
I love to dance.

01:14:40
I'm highly dyspraxic.

01:14:41
I cannot move my body in a

01:14:43
way that is any way other than just,

01:14:47
I'm a, I'm a really like, I like,

01:14:49
I love to dance.

01:14:50
So I am highly about this, but

01:14:52
you just, you know,

01:14:53
going in and dancing with

01:14:54
no judgment is of myself

01:14:57
mainly is what I love to do.

01:14:59
So thank you for giving me

01:15:00
the opportunity to dance

01:15:03
with no judgment attached to it.

01:15:05
Because I'm also not a very good dancer.

01:15:08
Me either.

01:15:09
So yeah, we're in good company.

01:15:11
So it'll all be good.

01:15:14
Thank you so much, Cleo.

01:15:16
I really,

01:15:17
really appreciate you being on the show.

01:15:19
And for our listeners, I encourage you to,

01:15:22
to go to Cleo's website and

01:15:25
listen to her album because

01:15:27
it's just stunningly beautiful.

01:15:30
Thanks so much, you guys.

01:15:31
We'll see you on the next episode.

grief journey,Loss of a Parent,creative expression,grief and healing,Grief Support,Healing After Loss,spoken word poetry,healing through art,Processing Loss,Alzheimer's Awareness,emotional resilience,coping with grief,mental health,grief recovery,