Navigating Death, Loss, and the Human Experience of Grief with Michael Henri

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0:31 My name is Michael Henry and I'm excited to talk about today's episode and it's about navigating death, loss, and the human experience of grief. So this particular episode is a little bit closer to home for me this week as I had a friend pass away a few weeks ago and really had to go through that experience. So like you've probably noticed in some of the previous episodes, when I go into the emotional aspects, I like to come into it with a lot of real

0:56 raw examples. And that's what we like to be here, as authentic as possible on the Going Pro Yoga podcast. So thank you for joining us for this week's episode. Welcome to the Going Pro Yoga podcast. If you love. Yoga as much as I do then this podcast is. For you, we talk.

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1:51 Welcome to our podcast. So today we're diving into one of the most profound yet often avoided topics and that is death and loss. So as people, as humans, we experience loss at some point in time in our life, whether it's the death of a loved one, an ending of a relationship, or even the loss of part of ourselves, especially going through the yoga process or the hero's journey.

2:15 But how do we truly deal with death? How do we deal with loss? Or more often, how do we not deal with it? It's typically the case. So in this episode, we'll explore and the emotions tied to grief, the science behind the loss, and how our bodies and minds actually react to it. So just to kind of give you a little bit of an insight of to the story of what happened to me a few weeks ago. Well, not so much for me, but what I had to go through whenever I found out a a friend

2:41 had passed away and it was a very tragic, unfortunate accident in his passing. And when I found out, I basically received a text notifying of my friend's loss. And it was just one of those moments where I could feel changes happening into my body. And even though I was in the middle of not necessarily doing something, but I was on my way somewhere, it stopped me in my tracks.

3:08 And all of a sudden I felt like, I don't even know how to describe it. It was almost like I just, I didn't know what to do next. It's almost like I was like rebooted in like a not a good way. So basically I was walking out of a shawl.

3:24 I'd recently I just taught a lecture actually, and I was about to go to my, my vehicle to drive home And as I was checking my phone, I saw the text message stopped as I basically walked out of the reception and it, it was actually raining a little bit. So I actually was not in a hurry to get out. But when I checked my message and saw that my friend had passed, I basically was standing there for a good few minutes just kind of staring into like, Oh my God, like what happened? Like, how did this happen?

3:54 And I could just feel like all these thoughts going through my brain of like, almost like recycling scenarios, possibilities, stories and fears that just started to come bubble to the surface. I eventually sat down in a close by chair and just started to kind of feel into what happened, started to like send messages, find out like what's going on, what actually happened, you know, trying to make sense of the whole thing, right? And I was, you know, sitting in

4:21 that chair for probably at least an hour, hour and a half and, you know, started to find myself crying and feeling a lot of emotion about the passing of my friend. So the unfortunate thing that I had found out in that message is that I had just had dinner with this friend.

4:38 And the next day is when he actually passed, he had a an unfortunate accident where he had fell through basically a glass floor and had cut himself. And yeah, unfortunately the the cuts were just too far gone and it just was not able to come back from it. And I only found this out a few days after it actually happened. So when I was kind of piercing together the whole story of like what was actually had transpired, you know, I started to think about this after the

5:07 fact. Like, you know, this whole process of death and this whole process of loss is just, it's so overwhelming and it's so complicated and it's something that is often avoided. And I really wanted to have an opportunity to dive into it a little bit considering we have this podcast. I figured it's a great platform to talk about it. So let's kind of dive into some of the standard things like what is actually grief and kind of go from there. So standard definition that I

5:34 have here is grief is the emotional, cognitive, and physical response to loss. It's deeply personally, it's sorry, it's deeply personal and can manifest in many ways. So for me, I kind of gave my description. There are stages of grief, as per Elizabeth Kubler Ross, which if you've heard of this before, maybe you have a little refresher. We have denial.

6:01 Basically, this isn't happening, right? We have anger. Why did this happen? Bargaining. If only I'd done something differently, maybe I could have avoided this. Or maybe there could have been something that could have changed the outcome. Depression.

6:19 I feel empty and lost. And acceptance. This is the part of life. So as a yoga podcast, I just kind of want to integrate a little bit of the aspects of the stages of grief as per Kuba Ross's model. And that is with denial. We call Maya or the illusion, the struggle to accept reality, All right.

6:40 And then anger, raga or dvesha, the attachment or the aversion. Attachment to the way things should be and angry that they are not. The bargaining, trying to ultimately see if there was a way to change the outcome. We call this the karmic lesson. Searching for meaning in the suffering. Searching for meaning in the suffering. Depression or duka, the suffering that we go under. And the emotional heaviness of the impermanence of the death or the loss.

7:17 And then of course, acceptance. Ishvara Pranidana, the surrendering to the divine and trusting that the greater flow of life is happening. So when I give those yogic perspectives, that actually makes me feel a little bit more connected to the process of going through the loss and the grief. But of course my brain very left brain, very neuroscience. See, I like kind of like a go a little bit more into like what's actually happening.

7:45 And I've talked a lot about before with emotions and what's kind of going on in the, the brain and the, the chemical reactions and stuff like that. And I always find it helpful. So I kind of go through it again with you guys.

7:56 So grief affects the brain's what we call default mode network, the part responsible for daydreaming in the sense of self. So This is why people often feel lost or disorientated after they feel or they, they experience a loss or a death. The amygdala.

8:14 The amygdala, which is part of your limbic system, part of the old part of your brain, the fear and emotional processing center, is highly active during grief and making emotions feeling overwhelming. The prefrontal cortex, which is more the new part of the brain, which is responsible for logical thinking, reasoning skills, these types of things is weakened or it's less active during these intense grief moments, which is why concentration and decision

8:41 making can feel even harder. Which very much explains for me when I found out the news and I was just kind of dead in my tracks and just staring into the abyss, didn't really know how to handle that information. Talking about it now I realize that those changes were happening in that moment.

8:58 So some of the chemical effects that happen in the body is of course cortisol, stress hormone spikes leading to fatigue, muscle tension and even weakened immune system. It's definitely not what we want. Dopamine and serotonin levels will drop, contributing to feelings of sadness, the depression, the lack of pleasure, or even just overall depressive symptoms.

9:21 Oxytocin, the bonding hormone, decreases when we lose someone we're deeply connected to, creating a sense of loneliness. Now this friend of mine, he was a new friend, so I didn't actually feel this sense of loneliness. It was mostly centered around sadness and probably, yeah, I'd say self reflection of like what happened and like what, you know, was there something that could have been done kind of going through that bargaining process?

9:54 But it's interesting to to talk about the oxytocin, the bonding hormone, and how that can be inhibited or basically blocked or decreased when we lose someone and it makes us feel lonely even though we are still all connected.

10:08 But in that moment, it doesn't feel so the heart health and the grief. Studies have shown that intense grief can lead to broken heart syndrome, where the heart temporarily weakens and is ultimately subjected to this emotional stress. So grief isn't just emotional, it's physical. Your body literally changes during the loss. And This is why exhaustion, physical pain, and even memory lapses are common when you're going through grief. So how do we as humans deal with

10:38 it or how do we not deal with it? So culturally and socially, ultimately, death can be handled in different ways. So some cultures will handle it well, let's just say, and they'll actually celebrate or they'll honor and they'll go through some sort of ritual process. Makes me think of my time in Mexico and Dia de Los Muertos, which is the Day of the Dead, where they mourn ultimately in solemn silence.

11:04 The those that have passed. Whereas some cultures, more so in the Western cultures, kind of my culture that I originally was raised in, often avoid talking about death. Or at least it's kind of tiptoed around, not necessarily fully, let's say experienced. While some of the more Eastern traditions may actually integrate a little bit more naturally. So the role of avoidance and denial. So this whole process, which is part of the model, Google's model, many people struggle with

11:36 discussing or facing the actual mortality leading to that emotional suppression, the mortality being that we will eventually die one day. Even just saying that sentence is hard to hear or even hard to say, but it is an event.

11:52 It is an eventual reality for all of us, for all living beings. Even, you know, scrolling on the Internet sometimes and I see things like just random facts, you know, things about like, oh, the 90s, it was like 30 years ago and all this stuff. And, you know, it makes me feel a little bit older. But then there's other random little things like in 100 years from now, everyone you know and everyone who you've ever known will no longer exist.

12:17 They'll have passed on. And it's a weird sentence, but it's also something to be like, oh, right, everybody passes, everybody has their time and they move on, right? That truth and not avoiding that truth is ultimately what I'd say the goal would be for a lot of us to be able to find more that emotional health and processing the death and loss of loved ones or relationships and these types of things.

12:45 So from another sciency insights, avoiding grief can lead to prolonged what we call grief disorder, where symptoms persist longer than expected, leading to chronic depression or anxiety. Ultimately this pelt up pent up energy that isn't fully being expressed, isn't fully being felt, isn't fully being acknowledged.

13:05 So we live in a world where we avoid taking a talking about death until we're forced to actually do it. So for me, unfortunately I didn't actually experience a lot of death. Fortunately or unfortunately, I didn't experience a lot of death when I was younger.

13:20 My grandparents had passed away when I was in my 20s, but I was actually travelling the world and I was in Australia and I wasn't around to actually go through the process of, let's say mourning. I had my own mourning process where I actually did, you know, cry and stuff like this and kind of feel it out. But I wouldn't say I was fully emotionally intelligent at that point.

13:39 And I probably had buried and avoided the actual feelings that I, I needed to go through. And it was only till a couple years ago where I actually fully felt the ability to be able to process loss. And that is when my dog died, which sounds so let's say not as strong as a human passing, but for any of those that have animals, and if you've had your animal pass away, I'm sure you can understand.

14:10 So unfortunately, my dog had passed away about a year and a half ago and it was so sudden and unexpected. She was only 5-6 years old, basically passed from a parasite, blood parasite. And you know, I'd going basically she died. I was the only one home and you know, I was kind of trying to figure out what to do.

14:28 And the fortunate thing for me is I wasn't alone. I was I was supported by my neighbor Brendan, who's been on the podcast, the Seek Yourself podcast, Brendan Doherty, and then also my friend Byron who you who's also been on the podcast many times. They both came over and ultimately comforted me and was just holding space for me while I was going through my process. You know, talking about my my little dog Rosie, just talking about it now kind of makes me

15:00 get a little choked up. But ultimately that whole evening was just about honoring and acknowledging her existence and her passing and just fully allowing the emotions around it to be processed. The interesting thing about that experience for me is, you know, eventually what happened is we decided that we were going to bury her right away just for the, you know, the physical changes that were going to happen in her body. And a lot of the, you know, it's

15:27 just she was going to start to eventually smell and this stuff type of stuff. So we basically that evening with supportive friends, went to a location that was suitable for her and we basically dug a hole and created a burial ground for her. And I remember the whole process was, was pretty good for the most part.

15:49 I felt like I was mostly together. I know I was having my moments of tears and crying and things like that. But when I actually arrived to the site of where we're going to bring her and, and you know, she was in the basket behind my motorbike that I had driven.

16:02 And when I got to the location that was the most suitable for her, which used to be my old home and where most of our time was together, I just broke down in ugly, nasty crying tears. Just like I don't even remember that moment.

16:20 But it was, it was more than a moment. It was must have been minutes, 5 to 10 minutes where I was down on my knees just sobbing intensely while my friends just stood idly by just supporting and just being there for me. And I, I remember the moment, but I remember more after the fact where I started to experience, wow, that was so powerful for me to actually grieve not only the loss of my dog, but probably the loss of many different things in my life

16:53 that I had lost, including my grandparents, where I never fully got to grieve. So I almost felt like that opportunity that I had with my dog passing was allowing me to actually process more than just that exact moment of passing, which was really tough and really intense and heavy.

17:09 And fortunately I had the support around me to be able to do it. And we, we went through this ritual process of, you know, lighting candles and saying nice things and playing music and it was really beautiful. And it helped me to pass on from that experience.

17:27 So that way I, I basically no longer was able to avoid death versus if, you know, let's say Brendan and Byron hadn't come over and I couldn't have that opportunity to actually process that, then maybe I would have kind of moved on.

17:39 I would have distracted myself, watched a show, who knows, indulged in something to just kind of distract myself, eating food, these types of things, which I get it with those things are sometimes necessary depending on what we got going on in life. But I'm grateful that for me, because I didn't actually do that, I was given an opportunity to be supported into process. And I'm realizing now after the fact that I'm so grateful that that happened.

18:04 Right? So let's talk about the role of the rituals. So funerals, memorials, the purpose of these personal rituals help to structure grief and give it meaning. Studies have shown that participating in grief rituals, even personal ones, helps with emotional processing and resilience.

18:28 So creating some sort of personal ritual, even as simple as lighting a candle or writing a letter or giving the grieving process and anchor somewhere to actually be and exist, that has been such a huge thing. So yes, we did that for the dog, for the friend that passed away a few weeks ago.

18:47 Similarly, and actually the same people, we got together, lit a few candles and spoke about our friend and what we learned from them and what we'd like to move forward with having some sort of memory from that person's existence and what they inspired us for. And that was really helpful.

19:09 It actually made me feel like I had processed it very well quickly within the first few days and I felt like I can move on now. Of course, you know, rituals might be some might feel a little bit woo woo might feel a little bit not your style. But in my experience, while I was also kind of feeling this, you know, candle ritual thing, I could, I almost wanted to avoid it.

19:30 There was this innate part of me that just didn't want to do it. And I just wanted to kind of be like, I just want to, you know, deal with it in my own way. But the fact that it was somewhat structured and organized and being, you know, I was basically there's an accountability from the friends getting together it, it kind of made me feel like I should do this, I should do this. I know this is going to be good for me. And then now that I'm realizing

19:51 having this happen twice more recently, that that accountability to actually go through the process is super important to not allow that to build up and, and to fester into the body. Now of course, if you don't have that. Type of support or you don't want to do that with other people in a social way.

20:12 There's other other things you can do like I mentioned, journaling, of course, writing a letter to the person that you lost saying everything that you wish you could tell them. For example, even doing some sort of nervous system reset techniques as yogi's. A lot of us probably know some of those techniques, but just breath work or emotional release techniques. Slow, deep belly breathing, inhaling for four, holding for four, exhaling for 8.

20:37 Longer exhalations to soothe the nervous system, which ultimately activates that parasympathetic nervous system and lowers those stress hormones and helps to reset the body's chemistry. But ultimately, all of these things are helping us to move towards acceptance and moving on.

20:56 So acceptance doesn't mean we're forgetting. It means we're integrating the loss into life, accepting what has happened and moving forward, even still, hopefully with something richer. So you will lose someone you can't live without and your heart will be badly broken.

21:17 But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart. That doesn't seal back up. That is a quote by Anne Lamont. Now, everybody deals with loss and deaths in their own ways. And I'm not here to tell you how to do it. I'm not here to, you know, give you reasons to judge what you've done in the past or if you're listening to this, chances are there's something that's happened recently and you're kind of wanting to just learn a little bit more about it. And that's something that's one

21:46 of the things that I did. I started to listen more and research more about death when it started to become more prevalent for me in my life. And I found it really helpful to just learn and educate myself more about what is this process?

21:59 What is the reality of what's going on when we experience it, especially whenever we can talk about it, when we have parts of our prefrontal cortex or our logical parts of our brain to be able to actually make sense of what's happening and kind of like accept some of those things.

22:20 Versus in those moments when we're feeling emotionally charged or possibly overwhelmed, it's harder to actually use those logical parts of the brain as we described chemically and also physical changes, neurological changes, to actually kind of make sense of it.

22:40 So I think talking about it like on this podcast, listening about it, and even just addressing it with friends in moments that are most appropriate and not avoiding the topic is super helpful. And I think because that's the default for a lot of people as Yogi's, I think it's great for us to be beacons to help support people through that grieving process, possibly for even ourselves first and then of course for those afterwards. And it's really just about like

23:06 I given the example, holding space and allowing the process to happen because the process is going to be different. The emotions that are going to be experienced are different from each individual. It's more so allowing more so about allowing the process to actually happen.

23:20 That's really what it's about. So again, loss is something we all experience, yet we all really talk, rarely talk about it and how to navigate it. So I'm hoping that this podcast gives a little bit more insight on, you know, something that you might be able to do for yourself in those moments that will eventually happen. Because grief isn't something that actually needs to be fixed or repaired.

23:44 It's just something to be felt. So the more that we actually embrace it, the more space we create for the healing is going to be the most beneficial for us. So if you're grieving, be patient with yourself, allow yourself to feel because in the end, grief is proof of love.

24:04 Thank you for tuning in this week. And as always, if you have any questions, concerns, or comments, please let me know. You can reach out to me on Instagram. The handle is in the show notes. And of course, you can send us an e-mail podcast.goingproyoga.com. Otherwise, I hope you have a beautiful day and we'll speak to you next week.

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