S3E14 - Carol Banens - The Grief Journey

Carol Banens lost her husband 4.5years ago. She has gone on a transformational journey from grief to joy, along the way unpacking unresolved grief from the loss of her sister, leaving her 36 year career as a physical therapist and becoming a life coach. She has created The Joyful Life Blueprint for midlife women ready to move from feeling empty and lost to creating an epic next chapter, and is now adding in grief coaching to help others through this challenging and painful time so that they can see the possibilities of joy in their life again.

Social media and contact information:

www.carolbanens.com
https://www.facebook.com/carol.banens/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carol-banens-6a575432/
https://www.instagram.com/carol.banens/

Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome back to the Relatively Damaged podcast by Damaged Parents. Today we have Carol Banens with us. She lost her husband four and a half years ago. She's gone on a transformational journey from grief to joy along the way, unpacking unresolved grief from the loss of her sister leaving her 60. Oh, excuse me.

[00:00:19] Damaged Parents: Leaving her 36 year career as a physical therapist and becoming a life coach, she has created the Joyful Life Blueprint for midlife women ready to move from feeling empty and lost to creating an epic next chapter, and is now adding in grief coaching to help others through this challenging and painful time so that they can see the possibilities of joy in their life.

[00:00:40] Damaged Parents: Again, you can find Carol at https://carolbanens.com.

[00:00:44] Damaged Parents: Carol, welcome to the show.

[00:00:47] Carol Banens: Thank you so much, Angela. It's great to be here.

[00:00:51] Damaged Parents: Yeah, I mean, I think the reason you had come on, number one, you've got an amazing story. I mean, it couldn't mm-hmm. , it had to have been a struggle to move from physical therapy to, to coaching.

[00:01:03] Carol Banens: Yeah.

[00:01:04] Damaged Parents: But losing a husband.

[00:01:06] Carol Banens: Yeah.

[00:01:07] Damaged Parents: I mean, Were you guys married? How long ago did you meet? What's the story?

[00:01:11] Carol Banens: Um, uh, he was my second husband and we were together for 16 years, only married for four. He was a jazz pianist. So music was a very big part of our lives cuz I played a piano and he got sick in 2012 with lung cancer.

[00:01:25] Carol Banens: And then the, the last six years of his life were very much. Dealing with that and you know, you're better, you're not better. And, and the cancer journey that one has. And at the same time I was dealing with a mother in England who was not doing well and a friend with Alzheimer's. So there was a lot going on all at the same time.

[00:01:42] Carol Banens: But yes, it, it was of course, it was terrible. It was very difficult even though we knew it was gonna happen. And this, I think this is what surprised me. We were ready. We knew he knew. I knew we'd done all the preparations, and yet it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had no idea. Mm, I had zero idea.

[00:02:04] Damaged Parents: Now, did it hit you? The day he died, or did it hit you a little bit later? How, what was that process like for you? Mm.

[00:02:11] Carol Banens: That is such an interesting question because, no, it did. I mean, yes, the day he died, yes. And yet the f the two week, it was almost two weeks till his funeral. And I thought, oh, I'm doing pretty well here. Wow.

[00:02:24] Carol Banens: This is okay. I'm doing well. And then the moment the funeral had stopped, crash it all came ba.. You know, it, it all happened. And the ex exhaust, the sheer physicality of it surprised me. The exhaustion, the just, oh, getting out of bed. The tiredness, the cognitive issues. Not, I read a lot. I love reading. I couldn't, I couldn't read an article or a newspaper.

[00:02:49] Carol Banens: I would, you know, a couple of sentences and I'm like, yeah, that's good. I couldn't focus. Mm-hmm. , so, You know, I'd love us to sort of talk about grief because going back to my sister, I was nine, was I eight? I was nine, and my sister died. She was just 21. She was a physical therapist. She fell off a mountain and um, my father said, My father

[00:03:13] Carol Banens: used,

[00:03:13] Damaged Parents: hold on, hold on, hold on.

[00:03:15] Carol Banens: Yeah.

[00:03:15] Damaged Parents: Was she also a mount, you said she was a physical therapist and then she fell off a mountain, so

[00:03:19] Carol Banens: Oh, yeah. Yeah. She was

[00:03:20] Damaged Parents: also a mountain climber, or

[00:03:21] Carol Banens: she was, she was my, I was, I was lucky. I was the youngest. I never got hauled up the mountains, but my father pulled all the other kids up mountains and she loved it.

[00:03:29] Carol Banens: She absolutely loved it. And um, it was about a week after Christmas. It was January the sixth, and they came around and said your daughter's died and the only thing my parents ever said to me was, Susie's died. She's fallen off a mountain. Hmm. We didn't have a funeral, we didn't have a remembrance service, we had nothing, no conversation.

[00:03:58] Carol Banens: And I was young. My sister was about 16, my brother was older than that. So he would, he was, you know, probably in his twenties. Nothing. We did nothing. It's like, and I, and I understand that the grief, grief affects us in so many different ways, doesn't it? And some people just bottle it up and shut it down.

[00:04:16] Carol Banens: And I, I cannot imagine losing a child, being a mother, I can't imagine it. But to not talk about this beautiful spirit that she was, it, you lose the memory of them.. And I think that's so sad. And I think it's something that we never really dealt with and it affected my mother tremendously, of course, because there wasn't a lot of joy in the house after that.

[00:04:42] Damaged Parents: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:42] Carol Banens: How do you feel joy after that? And how do you feel Joy if you, if you don't go through the grief? If you don't, that was gonna be like,

[00:04:52] Damaged Parents: yeah, that was my gonna be my question. How do you get back to it? And you know, I think. for me, I have wanted to run away from those feelings.

[00:05:03] Carol Banens: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:03] Damaged Parents: before

[00:05:03] Carol Banens: mm-hmm.

[00:05:04] Carol Banens: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:05] Damaged Parents: And I would think that's what I need to do. Oh. Just, you know, and, and let it, and, and that's not letting it go. Running away from is not letting it go. It's, I have come up with this belief that somehow I have to walk through the fire of those emotions.

[00:05:22] Carol Banens: I think you do. I'm English. We didn't talk about emotion. We never really discussed it. Yeah. Excuse me again.

[00:05:31] Damaged Parents: No worries. I have found for me sometimes when, when emotions, sometimes talking about things, you know, For some reason I'll get a little tug in my throat, in my Yes.

[00:05:44] Damaged Parents: Especially if I'm on a podcast and something hits and .

[00:05:48] Carol Banens: Isn't it interesting because as a physical therapist, you know, and doing cranio- sacral therapy, this is the avenue of expression.

[00:05:57] Damaged Parents: The avenue of expression is what you're calling it. Yeah. Well, because doesn't the vagus nerve travel through the throat?

[00:06:03] Carol Banens: Yes.

[00:06:03] Damaged Parents: And this is like the most compressed area, right?

[00:06:06] Carol Banens: Yes, yes, yes.

[00:06:07] Damaged Parents: So look, we're tying all this together. Isn't that?

[00:06:09] Carol Banens: I know, I know. This is it. It is fascinating. It is fascinating. But going back to to emotions, when you've grown up in a sort of keep calm and carryon type of atmosphere, which is very English and stoic and stiff upper lip. You don't really let things get to you.

[00:06:25] Carol Banens: And so when my husband died and I knew it was coming and, and, and I thought I was grieving, I, I mean, I, I, I'm aware enough, I meditate and do mindfulness. I thought I was aware enough that I was dealing with it quite well, but I wasn't. I went back to work very quickly, three days after his funeral.

[00:06:44] Carol Banens: Silly. Because then you have to, especially as a physio, I was looking after patients with chronic pain. I had to be present for them, and so I sh sh shoved it down so I could just get through the day, just get through the day, and I'd come home and I was absolutely exhausted. I would, I sat for a year, I'd get home and I'd watch Netflix, and, and I couldn't.

[00:07:06] Carol Banens: I could barely move. Actually. I'd never, I'd never felt exhaustion and it gave me a lot more. Empathy for concussion patients who'd say, I just, I haven't got anything in me. And I'd think, oh, pace your activities. And then there I am sitting there thinking, yeah, pacing my activities. Might be shuffling the table, the, the, the papers on the table, but leadin a leadin body.

[00:07:28] Carol Banens: And so grief, grief sort of, you know, really infiltrated my physicality.

[00:07:34] Damaged Parents: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:35] Carol Banens: And after about a year, I thought, well, okay, you're pretty young. You've got quite a lot of years left here, Carol. What are you gonna do now? You know, you, something has to change because you don't wanna be defined by this. I don't want to be defined as a widow.

[00:07:49] Carol Banens: I don't want to stay here on the sofa for the next 30 years. Now what? And I started to look into purpose and joy, and I realized, oh, I, I don't know what joy is. I've lost my joy. I don't know what brings me joy. And so that's when I started to really look into that a bit more.

[00:08:10] Damaged Parents: Can we go back to that real quick?

[00:08:11] Damaged Parents: I don't know what joy is. So you had, what I had heard you say was that I don't know what joy is, and then I also heard you say, I had lost my joy. So I'm thinking before the event of losing your husband mm-hmm. , that you had some idea of what joy or what of what brought you joy and afterwards,

[00:08:31] Carol Banens: Yeah.

[00:08:32] Damaged Parents: Different.

[00:08:32] Carol Banens: It's inter, yeah, but I don't think I really did, I'd lost my joy, what little I had because it was not, you know, we had loving parents as there is no, you know. They dealt with their grief badly and with our grief badly, cuz they didn't deal with it at all. But it was not one of those fun houses.

[00:08:51] Carol Banens: You know, education was important. Um, Work ethic was very important and my sister and I have talked about this. Yeah, it was not very joyful. It's not very much fun. So, Yeah, actually I may have had a little joy and my joy came from my children. My children always bring me joy. Well, mostly, and, you know, animals and nature and friends.

[00:09:11] Carol Banens: So there were things that brought me joy, but it was like I couldn't tap into it after, after Brian had died you know, make a list of what makes you joyful. I, yeah, I couldn't, I was, I was numb,

[00:09:23] Damaged Parents: Yeah, so that's a, I think that that's actually really important to talk about that numb feeling that happens I think after any trauma.

[00:09:30] Carol Banens: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:30] Damaged Parents: or loss or any time where there's a grief, grief that needs to happen.

[00:09:35] Carol Banens: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.

[00:09:36] Damaged Parents: a grieving process. Yeah. Because in that moment it's finding joy seems impossible.

[00:09:44] Carol Banens: It, it really does. It really does. Yeah. And, and that's why I think, certainly for grief, they call it grief work. You have to, you have to go through it.

[00:09:53] Carol Banens: You have to feel these feelings. And I think the problem was trying to push them away, trying to say, no, I'm fine. I'm good. How are you? Fine. Wish people wouldn't ask how you are when you're in grief. You're not fine, but you'll say fine, because you know, they don't really want to know. Well, they might, but it might be a hard thing for them to hear.

[00:10:14] Carol Banens: So you push these emotions down. And what I learned after I did some grief counseling is that, well, when you push grief down, you, you, you numb emo one emotion out, you numb them all out. So it was no wonder. If I was pushing grief down, I was also pushing joy down, but I didn't really realize that, so that's why it was so hard to find, so hard to tap into.

[00:10:36] Carol Banens: And so I'm so sad for my mom and dad that they weren't able to talk about my sister because it would've brought them eventually, some gratitude for her light for. Personality for who she was, for her gifts, even though it was a short life. And we need to move on to gratitude for what we have. And that was a big, big part for me, for finding joy again, actually.

[00:11:00] Damaged Parents: Mm-hmm. So did you start with like a gratitude practice daily? How did it start? You're in the middle of this sad, dark hole.

[00:11:09] Carol Banens: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:09] Damaged Parents: where you're not feeling emotions. So how did you start even thinking I need to do.

[00:11:16] Carol Banens: Luckily, I already did a gratitude journal so that I, you know, so I was already attuned to gratitude, but not, not quite as much.

[00:11:24] Carol Banens: I can remember sitting on the end of the bed thinking, oh, what's the point? What am I grateful for? What am I, and I'd look at the pictures of my children again, and I'd go, well, you know what? I'm really grateful for my kids. And then I'm in Canada. It gets cold in the winter. I'm really grateful for my warm house.

[00:11:40] Carol Banens: I would just start with little things, and I made it a big practice to really through the day. What can I be grateful for? Now, is it my cup of tea? Is it the birds outside? Is it the sunshine through the windows practicing it? Cuz the more you practice it, the more you find it. It helps.

[00:11:58] Damaged Parents: Yeah.

[00:11:59] Carol Banens: It doesn't cover up the grief, but you are, you are moving in a direction, a forward direction rather than a backward direction.

[00:12:07] Carol Banens: And I think initially with the grief, we look back at somebody's life and our loss and how difficult it's going to be without them. And that's all true. And then there comes a point where we have to choose to live our lives now. And how are we going to do that moving forward?

[00:12:24] Damaged Parents: Okay, this is where I usually get a little confused, right?

[00:12:29] Carol Banens: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:29] Damaged Parents: and, and even in the midst of it, cuz I mean, I've had to go through my own struggles.

[00:12:33] Carol Banens: Yeah.

[00:12:34] Damaged Parents: it's like, Because like you were saying, you'd get up out of bed and we need to feel the feelings and then we also need to have gratitude. And, and then I hear you say, when I'm, when I'm getting out of bed, I'm, I'm thinking, oh, I don't wanna get out of bed.

[00:12:48] Damaged Parents: What can I find gratitude for? And it's, so, it's, is it. I don't wanna say that. Sounds like pushing it away. It's like, yes, I am sad and I can also be grateful.

[00:12:59] Carol Banens: Yes.

[00:12:59] Damaged Parents: Is it kinda finding both of those at the same time?

[00:13:02] Carol Banens: It's, I I absolutely would say that there's a duality to it. I think you can have both. As I mentioned, Brian was a, a jazz pianist and he had lots of CDs, and it's only now four and a half years later that I can listen to his music and.

[00:13:17] Carol Banens: because initially when I tried to listen to it, I would have that duality of absolute joy of, oh, I love his music. Thanks goodness, we've got this legacy of music, and be in tears for the loss that he's not there. So I think you can have it. Yes. The getting out of bed is one of the most difficult things, I think in grief.

[00:13:39] Carol Banens: It's just you wanna curl up, you wanna die, you just wanna be there, pull the covers over your head and not get out. But I knew that was not a road to go down. I knew I, yes, there was a little forcing. Yeah, you have to get up. You do have to get up. And I wouldn't say the moment I got up, I was in gratitude a little later once I warmed up.

[00:13:59] Carol Banens: But yes, it was, it was challenging to do that.

[00:14:02] Damaged Parents: Yeah. I, it is that first moment. Of getting up. Mm-hmm. , you know? Mm-hmm. , I I was just pondering that this morning. It, how do you get up and go when it's so hard to get up and go and on some level, Yeah. Experiencing both at the same time. It's, it's just one of those things that I think maybe until you get there, there's no way to clearly understand it.

[00:14:28] Carol Banens: I, I don't think so. And one of the, somebody actually suggested to me, and it was quite helpful, when you wake up, just write down in a journal how you're feeling. Again, almost accepting the thoughts. Gosh, I'm miss him. Gosh, it's hard to get out of bed. All of the thoughts that are burbling in your mind, getting them down onto paper and, and don't read what you've written.

[00:14:48] Carol Banens: I didn't read what I wrote for months and months. And then you look back and you think, wow. It's surprising you ever did get out of bed, but you do, you do because grief touches us all we need to talk about it. And people do get up, people do go to work, people do move on, and we all have our own timeframe.

[00:15:08] Carol Banens: It's, it's going to be different for everybody. So my grief journey is not gonna be your grief journey or Sally's or John's. It's gonna be different depending on our relationship with that person where we're at so many things. Right. But I think it, it requires that work and that decision that, okay, well now what?

[00:15:29] Damaged Parents: Yeah,

[00:15:30] Carol Banens: because you can't bring them back. No matter how much you'd love to, you cannot. You have to give up all hope for a better past and a future with them because they're not coming.

[00:15:42] Damaged Parents: Hmm.

[00:15:42] Carol Banens: And it's heartbreaking that they're not there with you to share.

[00:15:46] Damaged Parents: Mm-hmm. .

[00:15:47] Carol Banens: That's the reality of it. Yeah.

[00:15:51] Damaged Parents: I'm just, I was thinking in, in those moments of getting, when you were getting out of bed mm-hmm.

[00:15:58] Damaged Parents: was it, you know, with, with that pain, was it. I don't know if, I don't think easy is the right word, but I'm gonna use it anyway. Was it easy to shift into and I'm so grateful I had at least that time with him?

[00:16:11] Carol Banens: No, not initially. No. And especially the getting outta bed bit. I'm not really, I, I've never been a morning person.

[00:16:19] Carol Banens: I'm working on it. So getting outta bed always feels like a struggle. But I would say later in the day, yes, I was able to sit there. I was able to look at a photo and think back and go, wow. All of these things. But momentarily, I mean, it, it really is. That is something that came a little later. I think it was easier to be grateful for other things around.

[00:16:40] Carol Banens: I think you have to learn to honor their legacy. Actually, one of the things that I did do that I, I think was quite helpful for me is I made a CD of his last concert. We'd recorded his last concert. We'd listen to a few of the tunes and, and then he got very, very sick. And so I decided what I was going to do was make a CD out of this concert and send it to all his students and all his fans.

[00:17:02] Carol Banens: And I, you know, so I did that and that for me was sort of channeling my love for him, my memories for him into something I could share with others. And um, that was quite healing. Hmm.

[00:17:17] Damaged Parents: Yeah. So it sounds like every single person. Is going to have this different journey.

[00:17:23] Carol Banens: Mm-hmm. . Oh, totally.

[00:17:24] Damaged Parents: And it's cuz I don't know that, you know, like you were saying, John or Sally would've thought of, oh, I need, I'm gonna turn this and, and, you know, share mm-hmm.

[00:17:34] Damaged Parents: this love that I have for them. Yeah. You know, because some people I think will just take down the pictures Yeah. And not want to feel, and

[00:17:43] Carol Banens: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I know somebody who's. Her husband died and they, they can't even look at the pictures.

[00:17:51] Damaged Parents: Mm. And then similarly, I guess your, your sister though too, it just mm-hmm.

[00:17:57] Damaged Parents: she wasn't talked about. That process didn't, didn't happen. So was it early on with, after your husband's death that you're realizing, oh, I never processed Susie's?

[00:18:09] Carol Banens: No, it wasn't actually, it wasn't. I, I had a little bit of grief counseling at the beginning. Which was tough because it was held in the hospice where he died.

[00:18:17] Carol Banens: And um, was not the best energy for me to be there, so I stopped. And then last year, by the summer of last year, I'd kept working as a physio and I used to see six patients, an hour a day in of hour for each patient. Then I went to five, then I went to four, then I went to three. And I'm thinking, this is not good.

[00:18:33] Carol Banens: I'm burning out here. I don't feel good. And I literally took myself away from work for a month and decided I'm stopping as a physio. I, I can't handle this and I need some help. So I went back to grief coaching, co counseling, actually not coaching. And we talked about this grief, that unresolved grief that had not ever been dealt with.

[00:18:56] Carol Banens: And I thought, oh, I had no idea. I had no idea.

[00:19:01] Damaged Parents: Well, I'm thinking there are probably a lot of people who have no idea.

[00:19:05] Carol Banens: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:05] Damaged Parents: that of the grief that they're walking around with. That

[00:19:08] Carol Banens: Yeah.

[00:19:09] Damaged Parents: Will show up in surprising ways. How were you able to figure it out? Was it with talking to the grief counselor?

[00:19:15] Carol Banens: Yes.

[00:19:15] Damaged Parents: Or Okay.

[00:19:16] Carol Banens: Yeah. With talking to her. With talking to her.

[00:19:19] Damaged Parents: Mm-hmm. .

[00:19:20] Carol Banens: Yeah. And the other thing about grief, of course, it's not always just the death of a loved one. It can be a divorce, it can be loss of job, it can be so many things. Change your life circumstances. One of my patients who's, who's got a terrible.

[00:19:37] Carol Banens: Terrible. Terrible pain in her foot. That's one of the worst types of pain they can get. Is that the grief of her quality of life? Of what she used to be able to do?

[00:19:46] Damaged Parents: Yeah.

[00:19:47] Carol Banens: So grief really does touch us all in different facets of our lives and we need to talk about it, I think, so that we can maybe deal with it.

[00:19:55] Carol Banens: Be a bit more open with it. Yeah. So that we can help others around us when they're going through that. Cuz we don't really know what to say. We don't really know how to support people. We're awkward about it. And yet we know it's gonna happen. ,

[00:20:09] Damaged Parents: we do. It's like that freight train coming, but then it's like the freight train's here and it's like we want to pretend it's not going by and we can still hear the train tracks, you know,

[00:20:19] Carol Banens: Yes, exactly. Yeah, that exactly . Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:25] Damaged Parents: Well, yeah, I would agree with you on grief can be about, just about anything, you know?

[00:20:31] Carol Banens: Mm-hmm. ,

[00:20:32] Damaged Parents: for me, my disability didn't come on until my late thirties. Yeah. And it, it's my hands.

[00:20:38] Carol Banens: Yeah.

[00:20:38] Damaged Parents: And so walking through the idea of what I was going to be as a mother, what I was going to be, you know, my kids were,

[00:20:45] Carol Banens: yeah.

[00:20:46] Damaged Parents: Six and eight.

[00:20:48] Carol Banens: Right, right.

[00:20:49] Damaged Parents: And I don't, I don't know that I knew I was grieving because, and, and I don't know if it was even helpful because there was always, well, if we just do this, you'll be fixed. Or if we just do this, you, you'll be fixed. If we just do that, does that same thing happen after a death?

[00:21:05] Damaged Parents: Oh, if we just do this, you'll feel better if you just do this, you'll feel.

[00:21:09] Carol Banens: I think people come up with suggestions like, well, just keep busy. That'll then, then you'll feel fine. Not so much though. I, I think there's, there's that, I know people don't understand it and who can until they live it. But I remember somebody saying to me, so are you over your grief at six months?

[00:21:25] Carol Banens: And I said, No ? No, not, not yet. No. And then somebody else said to me, isn't it just time that you let him go? I think, wow. How, how strange is that? Why would you let go of the memory of somebody you loved with all your heart? Why would you let that go? So we do all deal with it differently and. Yeah, I mean, I had photos, I had, I had tons of photos.

[00:21:52] Carol Banens: It felt like a shrine, I have to say. And then I started to pull them down. So I just had one or two, but I felt like I wanted to be surrounded by him. Mm-hmm. That was my way of coping. Other people, as I said, are like, no photos. No thank you very much. Music for music was our, our language. We both loved music and of course he did.

[00:22:12] Carol Banens: I couldn't stand to play the piano for the last four years, couldn't bear it. It was too, too emotional. Reached into my soul, crushed my heart until I could, and now I can.

[00:22:27] Damaged Parents: Yeah,

[00:22:27] Carol Banens: and who knows why? All of a sudden it's like, oh, now it's okay. There's no timeframe there. There isn't that timeframe, and it's not like you're trying to stay in grief.

[00:22:38] Carol Banens: I would say I worked pretty hard at work going through it with gratitude and walks and counseling and talking and beautiful friends honoring his legacy, making a cd. I did. I did. I did the work, and yet it wasn't until I started feeling better, I'm like, oh, this is really what it feels to be like. Carol, again, I didn't really know.

[00:23:00] Damaged Parents: So it, this was not a short journey then. It's not like someone passes away and six months later you're fine. No, I mean, it sounds like this has been for at least four years until you were able to sit at the piano again. Yeah. And would I, I'm not sure I wanna know the answer to this question, but would you say you're ever totally done missing them, you know?

[00:23:23] Carol Banens: No.

[00:23:24] Damaged Parents: With that grief,

[00:23:25] Carol Banens: no, of course. I, no, I would say of course not. How can you be but your life changes so that the grief isn't all encompassing. It's not what you're thinking about every day. It's not that, the sad emotions that. Oh, the heaviness, and you know, no. So grief is there, and sometimes you get something called a grief burst.

[00:23:46] Carol Banens: You'll burst into tears for no reason. It may last 10 or 20 seconds. Not long, and then you're good. .

[00:23:54] Damaged Parents: Mm. Was that okay? I'm interested in that, you know? Yeah. 10, 20 seconds, then it's gone. Yeah. So, so that, that would just come on. Would it be mm-hmm. , was it just easy to let it, let it, what's the, how do I wanna explain this?

[00:24:07] Damaged Parents: Kind of go like a wave in the ocean through you.

[00:24:09] Carol Banens: Yeah.

[00:24:09] Damaged Parents: Was it, was it easy and, At times did you feel like I just need to hold onto this wave for a little bit? That, that the pain because it of

[00:24:21] Carol Banens: the Mm. I didn't want to ever feel, I wanted to hold onto the pain, but for me, often I actually, not only did I not play the piano, I didn't listen to music because if I listened to music, cuz he played so many tunes, a tune had come on and poof, that would give me a bit of a grief burst.

[00:24:35] Carol Banens: But sometimes it can be. Driving along, or it was not now driving along, and all of a sudden you cry. It's like, oh, okay. And it's not a, it's so often there are triggers. It might be a smell, it might be a sound, it might be a place that you've been, it may be watching a movie and somebody dies. Might be something sad, you know, but, but sometimes they come on, we just don't know when they're going to hit you.

[00:25:00] Carol Banens: And they can come on quite, you know, randomly. But there was one thing I wanted to say about, yes, four and a half years, the average time for somebody to get over the loss of a significant loved one is five to eight years.

[00:25:15] Damaged Parents: Mm.

[00:25:17] Carol Banens: That's a long time.

[00:25:19] Damaged Parents: Yeah.

[00:25:20] Carol Banens: And so with the grief to gratitude coaching, which what I love is because you're supporting somebody through that journey, you're hopefully quickening up the journey.

[00:25:28] Carol Banens: You're helping them saying, you know, this is natural. How do we move forward towards gratitude? And then hopefully you can find joy again. But if we just stay stuck in that grief, stuck in that grief, stuck in that grief, and not do any action, then it's hard to get out.

[00:25:45] Damaged Parents: Yeah, it would be. Do you think there's anything society or or anyone listening that, that they could do better at?

[00:25:54] Damaged Parents: If they're around someone going through grief or if they're going through grief themselves?

[00:25:58] Carol Banens: Mm-hmm. .

[00:25:59] Carol Banens: I think if you are around somebody with grief, and I didn't know this until I was the person in grief, it's be careful what you say to them. I know we all say, Hey, how are you? That's what we say to each other.

[00:26:11] Carol Banens: Probably not the best thing because they're not really doing well and they don't really want to tell you. And they'll probably just say, well, I'm fine. But the other one is, don't say you understand. Oh, I understand how you feel. I lost my husband, or I lost my cat. I had that one. I lost my cat. Whatever.

[00:26:29] Carol Banens: You don't know how I feel. Maybe it's better to say, I can't imagine what you're feeling. So just thinking before you actually say anything and sometimes don't say anything at all. Just take somebody's hand, give them a hug if they're that, you know, if you're close enough to do that. But actually somebody did something really beautiful for me that really was such a gift.

[00:26:52] Carol Banens: They paid for my grass to be cut all summer. And I'm like, wow, that was amazing. I didn't have to go out. I didn't have to think of it. So sometimes offering to do something, if you know somebody has young children say, how about I always pick them up on a Wednesday after school for you, or Let me do your shopping, give me a list.

[00:27:15] Carol Banens: Because when we say, call me if you need me, we don't.

[00:27:20] Damaged Parents: I don't,

[00:27:20] Carol Banens: and we know it's no right. We don't. We don't because we have to cope, but, but also you don't want to bother people. Whereas if somebody's a little bit more forward and says, Hey Angela, I'm gonna pick your kids up, which day suits your best? Or Can I take them to soccer or can I take them?

[00:27:36] Carol Banens: It's like such a relief that somebody is offering to do that. That is super helpful. And also even asking, saying, you know, do you want to talk because one of the things that can be challenging for other people is, should I say their name? Should I mention anything? Will it hurt them? And yet, I read something, I think it was Gloria Vanderbilt who'd lost a child, and somebody said, oh, I, oh, I'm so sorry talking about them.

[00:28:02] Carol Banens: And she's like, no, I love it. It keeps their memory alive. Please keep talking about. Hmm. And I felt that with Brian. People talked to me about him because in Ottawa they knew him very well. So, you know, he's with me, I feel he's with me.

[00:28:18] Damaged Parents: That's beautiful. I remember a gentleman came up to me at church, a good friend of mine.

[00:28:22] Damaged Parents: Mm-hmm. much older than me, but a good friend and mm-hmm. , his brother had passed away. Yeah. And, And I think I, I can't remember what I said, but it turned into him telling me all these great things about what a wonderful brother he had had.

[00:28:37] Carol Banens: Yeah.

[00:28:37] Damaged Parents: And I just was really honored to be part of that conversation.

[00:28:42] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And to be there to listen. Sometimes

[00:28:46] Carol Banens: listening is the key.

[00:28:48] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And I have actually stopped asking, how are you, I think my new go-to is what's the most interesting thing that happened to you this week?.

[00:28:56] Carol Banens: Yeah, lovely.

[00:28:57] Damaged Parents: And people will tell me, you know, I had somebody, I was on a, a street epistemology se practice session and someone was worried cuz they, they, they were like, I don't like asking, how are you, I don't like small talk.

[00:29:10] Damaged Parents: And I was like, well, what do you want to know about someone? And, and he said all these fascinating things. And I was like, use that. You know, how many people wanna answer that question over how are you?

[00:29:21] Carol Banens: That's a great question. That's a great question. And the other thing you can do for somebody is say, you know what?

[00:29:28] Carol Banens: I have such beautiful memories of when whoever it was did X, Y, Z, or just sharing a beautiful memory about that person. It just, it's heartwarming for the person who's grieving.

[00:29:40] Damaged Parents: Mm. Yeah. Um,

[00:29:42] Carol Banens: Yeah, I think we have to talk about it. We have to tell people, yeah, it's okay to talk about them, but it isn't always though I say that, but some people might be, I don't want to talk about it.

[00:29:52] Carol Banens: So you have to ask. Do you want to talk? No, I'd rather not. Okay.

[00:29:57] Damaged Parents: Yeah, yeah, I agree. Ask, ask,

[00:30:00] Carol Banens: ask first because not everybody's

[00:30:03] Damaged Parents: the. No. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a matter of feeling out the situation. Mm-hmm. . Well, I, for sure. I'm so glad I got to have you on the show to talk about grief processing grief, and just this last little part I've really enjoyed about brainstorming on different ways to, well, you have some fantastic ideas and then but.

[00:30:22] Damaged Parents: The different ways of talking to someone.

[00:30:25] Carol Banens: Yeah.

[00:30:25] Damaged Parents: And it, I, I don't think it matters if it's grief from what I'm getting from you. It could be grief about anything. It could be grief of or trauma experience. Yes. Anything. Anything. Yes. Yeah.

[00:30:36] Carol Banens: Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:30:38] Damaged Parents: Well, thank you Carol Banens. You can find Carol at https://carolbanens.com.

[00:30:42] Damaged Parents: Her other social media links will be in the duly do down below. And thank you so much for coming on the show.

[00:30:49] Carol Banens: Thank you so much for inviting me.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Carol about how she processed her grief. We especially liked when she explained how everyone is different and sometimes small things bring on the tears.

And it's okay. To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on Instagram. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See you then.