David Kessler How to find meaning after loss TED
Transcriber:
Cloe Sasha Brooks: Hello, TED Community.
You are watching a TED interview series
called How to Deal
with Difficult Feelings.
I’m your host, Cloe Shasha Brooks,
and a curator at TED.
In this four-episode series,
we’ve been talking with psychologists,
authors and other experts
who have shared insights and research
about difficult feelings
and how we can handle them.
So now I will be speaking
with David Kessler,
an author who has written six books
on grief and loss.
Two of those books were co-authored
with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross,
a Swiss American psychiatrist
who was a pioneer in near-death studies.
And his most recent book,
published last year,
is called “Finding Meaning:
The Sixth Stage of Grief.”
So let’s bring David on screen.
Hey, David, thank you for joining us.
Let’s dive right in.
So many people are struggling
with grief right now
and the five stages of grief
are kind of typically known to be denial,
anger, bargaining,
depression and acceptance.
But can you tell us
about the sixth stage of grief?
David Kessler: Absolutely.
And I always like to point out
I was honored to work
with Kübler-Ross on her stages.
They’re not linear,
they’re not a map for grief,
there’s no one right way to do grief.
And I think as people experience them,
and also, as you know,
and some people may know,
I’m not only a grief specialist,
but I’m a bereaved parent.
I had a younger son, David,
die a few years ago.
Once I and so many people
experience acceptance,
we want more.
Acceptance isn’t enough
for our generation.
I think we want meaning.
And I believe meaning is the sixth stage.
And when we talk about meaning,
I always like to point out
there’s no meaning in a horrible death
or in a pandemic
or in a wedding being canceled
or a job being lost.
The meaning isn’t in the horrible event.
The meaning is in us.
It’s what we find afterwards.
CSB: I mean, I just think that’s
such a helpful perspective
for people to hold on to.
And I also really appreciate, you know,
you’ve written about these seven
different factors
that guide the concept of meaning
when it comes to grief.
Can you tell us
about those seven factors?
DK: They are, first,
meaning is relative and personal.
Two, meaning takes time.
You may not find it until months
or even years after loss
because you can’t rush the meaning.
You can’t say someone died
or a dream died or there’s a pandemic,
“What’s the meaning?” right away,
it often takes time.
And three, meaning
doesn’t require understanding.
You know, we may not understand
why a relationship ends,
why a divorce happens,
why a pet died, why a pandemic happens.
But we can still find meaning.
And four, even when you do find meaning,
you won’t feel it was worth the cost.
We’d always rather have
the person we loved.
And the fifth one –
and the fifth is a big one –
your loss is not a test,
a lesson, something to handle,
a gift or a blessing.
Loss is simply what happens in life.
And the meaning is in us afterwards.
And six, only you can find your meaning.
And seven,
meaningful connections can replace
those painful memories in time.
The post-traumatic stress
that’s going on in the pandemic,
I always remind people,
one, we’re not post,
and two, we can also
not just go through this,
but grow through this.
And there’s the possibility
of post-traumatic growth also
that I think is so important
during these tough times.
CSB: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Let’s bring up a question
from our audience.
OK, so someone asked,
“Having lost a daughter,
how do I explain my grieving process
to those who don’t understand
but want to?”
DK: You know, the reality is,
people often, as hard as they try,
may not understand our grief.
You know, I don’t know what it’s like
for you to lose your job,
you don’t know what it’s like
for me to have a child die.
And I think one of the important things
is for us not to compare griefs
and to know the world is big enough
for all our losses.
So I think sometimes we have to let go
of the expectation that they get it.
And we have to go,
“I know you can’t get it.
So let me tell you
what this grief feels like to me.”
And share our grief.
CSB: Yeah. And you, kind of,
have talked a lot about that,
how there’s big losses and little losses,
but they’re all valid, right?
And they all get to coexist.
DK: I remember that I was walking back
in April, in front of my house
with a friend, six feet apart
with our masks on.
And a young woman walked up to me
and said, “Oh, my gosh,” you know,
“I heard you do something in grief.
My wedding’s just been postponed.”
And she burst into tears.
And I talked to her, we –
You know, she shared her experience
and everything, and I consoled her.
And after she walked away,
my friend said, “Oh, my gosh,
I can’t believe she was going
on and on about her wedding,
when your child has died.
She’s going to get to have
another wedding.”
And I said, “No, no, no,
we don’t compare in grief.
We don’t have a broken head,
we have a broken heart.”
And everyone gets to have
their own unique grief.
And, you know, she’s been dreaming
about her wedding since she was five.
It doesn’t take away from my grief.
All these losses
live in the world together.
CSB: Let’s bring another question
from the audience.
Someone is asking, “Can you tell us
more about post-traumatic growth?
How can I start to grow from a loss?”
DK: It’s such a great question,
because we always hear
about post-traumatic stress,
But post-traumatic growth
actually occurs more.
And that is the finding meaning.
Here’s one of the myths:
We think we make our grief get smaller,
that that’s the goal.
The goal isn’t to make our grief smaller.
The goal is for us to become bigger,
to grow around this grief.
It’s not “what are we going to do
after this pandemic,”
but “who are we going to be?”
It’s not, “what are we going to do
after this loss?”
But “Who are we going to be?”
How can we honor the person who died?
How can we make a life and a world
that’s more meaningful,
where maybe the bad thing
that happened to you
doesn’t happen to other
people in the future.
Or you shape someone’s legacy.
Or we keep talking about them.
As long as we talk about our loved ones
who are no longer physically with us,
they don’t really die fully.
So just allowing ourselves
to continue in life
is a bit of post-traumatic growth
and not shutting down.
And we need support.
You know, it’s interesting,
if something’s going on with our car,
we get support.
If something’s going on
with our apartment,
we get support.
Sometimes we think we just have to fight
our way through grief
and it’s OK to ask
for support and for help.
CSB: It’s so important to remember that.
When it’s not tangible
we forget how to ask for help.
Along those lines,
do you believe there’s
a time line for grief?
DK: Absolutely not.
You know, when people ask me,
“How long is my wife, my husband,
my best friend going to grieve,”
I always say, “How long
is the person going to be dead?
Because if they’re going
to be dead for a long time,
you’re going to grieve for a long time.”
It doesn’t mean you will always
grieve with pain.
Hopefully in time you can grieve
with more love than pain.
But there is no time line,
and I always say we don’t get over loss.
We don’t recover from loss.
Our loved one was not a cold or a flu.
We learn to live with it.
CSB: And for those who are maybe ready
to start on the path of meaning
as they move through their grief,
how does one start that process?
DK: It’s actually a decision.
Are you willing to find meaning in time?
Are you willing to let yourself
just live a little more?
Are you willing to try to think of a way
that might honor
what’s happened in our world
or what’s happened
in the loss in your life?
It’s a small decision.
Am I willing to grow?
Am I willing to live past this
in a way that honors what I’ve lost?
CSB: Let’s bring up another question
from the audience.
“How can we help our children
when they experience grief?”
DK: Such a good question.
You know, our children
are often the forgotten grievers,
And it’s so important –
Here’s one of the things:
Mourning is what we do on the outside.
Grief is what’s inside of us.
I can’t make you grieve.
I can’t make my kids grieve.
All we can do is model healthy grief.
And how do we model
healthy grief for our children?
We tell them part of our work
is to grieve fully.
It’s OK to be sad.
It’s OK to miss that person.
And to live fully.
Life also has to go on.
I’ve still got to go to work,
you still got to go to school.
So it’s the grieving and the living
is what we model for them.
CSB: And it’s so hard to with kids
because it seems like, in some ways,
they may not even know
what they’re feeling, right?
So, like, how much of grief with children
involves helping them
understand definitions
or even identifying feelings and all that?
DK: Yeah, and to just name it
and open the conversation
and just to let them know,
you know, you can always
talk about it with me.
You know, kids actually understand more
than we give them credit for.
CSB: That is true.
DK: And euphemisms don’t work.
Don’t tell them Grandpa’s gone to sleep
or Grandpa’s on a long trip.
You want to be honest.
CSB: So, OK, here we are in a new time.
We’re starting to come
out of this pandemic,
at least in some countries in the world.
How do you think
our collective grief might shift
in the next few months to years from here?
DK: Well, the one thing
I hope we don’t do is
I hope we don’t lose this ability
to have these conversations,
because that’s been one
of the pieces of meaning
that’s been important,
is for the first time we’re naming
these feelings we’re having.
We’re understanding grief,
we’re talking more about grief.
And I hope we don’t lose that after this.
I hope we understand grief
is such a natural part of life,
that everyone you’ve ever admired,
every amazing person in the world,
has gone through tough grief.
And there’s nothing wrong with you
when it happens to you.
It is part of our lives.
CSB: Yeah.
We’re coming close to the end,
so just as a final question
for you, you know,
if someone is really struggling through
the depths of their grief right now,
what’s just the most important thing
for them to remember?
DK: Reach out and get support,
talk to someone,
maybe someone who’s been
in grief themselves
that can share that with you.
It can be the family member, the coworker
and get support from an organization,
grief.com, as well as so many other sites,
have lots of free resources
that people can find.
And I also want to remind people,
we get so afraid of our feelings,
like if I start crying, I’ll never stop.
I remind people no feeling is final,
no feeling is forever.
You do stop crying eventually,
but release those feelings
in a healthy way.
CSB: Yeah, that’s really helpful.
I think that’s one of the things
that growing up has shown me the most,
is you know, any emotion is not permanent.
And so that’s a source of relief, right?
DK: And we get so stuck
in thinking “This is it forever.”
But we don’t know what tomorrow
is going to look like.
I always say take the word – always –
I say take the word “always” and “never”
out of our vocabulary.
When we go, “I’m always going to be sad,”
or “I’m never going to be happy again.”
No, you don’t know what tomorrow is like,
but today you’re feeling sad.
Just name your feelings for today.
CSB: Yeah.
Thank you, David, this has been
really, really meaningful,
and we’ve learned so much from you.
So thanks for joining us.
DK: Thank you.
CSB: Have a great day.