Special Episode – Finding Meaning in Grief: Lessons in Love and Loss

In this heartfelt special episode on Maker Manager Money, Lyn Christian, Master Certified Coach (ICF MCC), Executive Coach, Business and Life Coach, Speaker, Amazon Best Selling Author, and Owner of SoulSalt Inc. dives deep into the complexities of grief and the importance of acknowledging our emotions after losing a loved one. Join us as Kyle Ariel Knowles shares his journey following the tragic loss of his son, Jake, to suicide.

Lyn explores the concept of “throwing the bullshit flag” on societal norms surrounding grief, discussing how grief is often misunderstood and underappreciated. Kyle reflects on the lessons he learned about love, loss, and the necessity of community during times of sorrow.

Discover the significance of allowing ourselves to grieve, the power of vulnerability, and the importance of finding meaning in our experiences. We also touch on practical strategies for coping with grief, including journaling, support groups, and the healing power of physical activity.

Whether you’ve experienced loss or want to understand the grieving process better, this episode offers valuable insights and encouragement. Remember, it’s okay not to be OK, and your feelings are valid.

TOPICS COVERED
-The journey of grief after losing a child
-The importance of community and support
-Practical coping strategies for grief
-The role of vulnerability in healing
-Understanding the long-term nature of grief

RESOURCES MENTIONED
It’s Okay That You’re Not Okay: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture that Doesn’t Understand by Megan Devine

Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief by David Kessler

Grief.com Resources and Support Groups

University of Utah’s Caring Connections Grief Support

Soul Salt: Your Personal Field Guide to Confidence, Purpose, and Fulfillment by Lyn Christian

Lyn Christian: What we’re talking about is throwing the flag on your own bullshit, which is an interesting topic to bring into the life of a man who lost a son to suicide. And so what we’re exploring in this podcast is that journey. And when there were times when you either needed to throw the bullshit flag on yourself or on Jake, or the process or life. And when we say throw the bullshit flag, what we’re really saying is something that you and I just discussed as we were preparing and we looked at this rock group from Sweden, the Three Females. where their name is truth. We’re just looking for where can we throw the flag that says maybe we haven’t gotten to the truth, or maybe we’re not deep enough but we’re on top of it, or maybe we’re avoiding it, or something likened to that. And so that’s how we’re going to start this up, Kyle. And I don’t know if there’s anything you want to say to that and why you consented to this and felt like we could co-create something together on this theme before we start questions. But how are you feeling about this?

Kyle Knowles: Well, I’ve been pretty anxious. I feel like last night I was holding back the tears, just preparing for this. I had found some footage from Jake’s wake. Okay. Where I had just filmed before everyone came and I was, you know, going up the stairs and we had pictures of him going up the stairs. We had a guitar of his, a big poster of him. And then downstairs we had another guitar and a poster and an amp. So I was just kind of going around filming the whole thing and it just, was really hard to kind of go relive that moment. But I think the reason I consented to do this is because I thought I knew about grief, but I didn’t really understand grief until I lost Jake. And I actually had a call this week with a former vendor I used to work with who had a cousin that was close to him, they were close to the same age, who lost her husband to suicide. And he, this former vendor, he told me that because of the things I had shared with him, my vulnerability, and the things I had learned going through this process, it had really, he felt, helped him to show up for his cousin and really be there for her. So I feel like grief is something not talked about enough. We’re very illiterate as a society and we need to speak more of it because grief is just the other side of love. It’s loss. And if we’re going to love, then we also have to know how to grieve.

Lyn Christian: So maybe where we’re throwing the bullshit flag right now is on ourselves for not recognizing that the inverse or the opposite side of the coin of love is grief. That we all lose people and things and individuals that we’ve loved when they’re gone. It evokes something inside of us that maybe we’d like to avoid. And yet I’ve watched you go through this journey. courageously, sometimes in the fetal position, right? And you went through it. Like you went through it and you’re still going through it. And so I think we found where the first flag gets thrown is on those of us who don’t give enough credence or respect or even enough homage to grief. Is that maybe a message there?

Kyle Knowles: Yeah, for sure it’s a message. And I would even say I’ve learned that even pet loss, losing a pet, can be just as dramatic and hard to go through as losing a loved one. Our pets, if you think about it, my daughter lost her older brother this year and then just a few months ago lost what she calls her soul dog. This was a dog that she had adopted. It was 10 years old when she adopted it. And his name was Chewy. And this little dog, she had three dogs at the time. She had two dogs and adopted Chewy. And then her other two dogs don’t get up with her. They sleep in. She gets up early to work. She works from home. Well, Chewy would get up with her, follow her to the office, be with her like every minute of the day and really look forward to seeing her and hanging out with her. And so Chewy became her sole dog, even though she had these other two dogs. one of them since it was born. But anyway, so Chewy was her sole dog and it was sudden, even though he was 12 years old, he seemed just fine. And it was just a sudden thing where he’s, I don’t, I never knew this before, but pets, I guess when they’re getting ready to die, they don’t want to die around their owners, their humans, right? And so they go hide. And I never knew this, but she told me that Chewy was going under the bed, going under the table and hiding. And so she panicked, took the dog to the vet. The vet did all kinds of tests and said, no, we’re 90% sure everything’s just fine. This was just kind of a freak thing. Well, she left the veterinarian’s office and Chewy had a heart attack just within an hour of her leaving.

Lyn Christian: Wow.

Kyle Knowles: And she was going to get, I think, Chewy’s blankets and something because they were going to keep Chewy overnight. And they’re frantically texting her. And she went back there and found out that Chewy had passed away.

Lyn Christian: At the vets. Right. While she was gone. Yeah. So she was absent.

Kyle Knowles: Yep. And so this was another sudden death. This was maybe six months after Jake passed away. And so because of what I’d read, because of what I had studied about grief, I took the day off and went up and spent time with her because I just knew that Because I never, I mean, when I was 12 years old, I lost my dog, Sandy. And I was only, you know, 12 years old, 10 or 12 years old, and Sandy passed away. And it was a grief, like, I just didn’t understand. And looking back on it, I just thought it was because I was young, that I had a hard time dealing with it. But it wasn’t, it was because Sandy was my dog, my best friend, growing up. I would always hang out with Sandy if my dad was being mean to me or things weren’t going well and Sandy was always there and always happy to see me. So yeah, even pet loss and stillborn babies and miscarriages, these kinds of things, these are all worthy of grief and we need to pay attention.

Lyn Christian: All losses then, all losses. Yeah, this is a big thing, the loss of… of someone and the fact that we have grief. So grief costs industry $75 billion a year from lost productivity. And it can last up to two years. So think about that one person that goes into grief. It’s not just a one year proposition. You know that. And employees who are in grief will take 10 more additional sick days a year. I’m not bringing that up as, Oh, look what it’s costing people in all the industries are losing money. I bring it up to say, there’s a metric. It’s, it’s actual, we can put our hands on it. It’s tangible. We can say there is a cost. If it’s showing up in dollar signs, you better bet that it’s showing up in triple cut, if not 10 times in heartbeats. So this is a big darn deal. We’re going to throw this BS flag on the flag of paying attention to ourselves when we’re grieving. And the first thing I’d like to talk to you about is this concept of you’re alone. There’s this theme of isolation when you’re in grief. And you think about this dog, Chewy, wanting to go under and be isolating because the dog knows they’re going to be passing on. And I’ve witnessed that in my own personal life when a dog would pass on when you’re not there. So they go into isolation knowing something. We go into isolation because we’re hurting perhaps. Talk about that theme that played out in your experience of you’re alone.

Kyle Knowles: Yeah, it’s a really good question. And just to backtrack just one second on since you showed, you know, you’re talking about metrics, yes, in business, I would say, I would throw the bullshit flag at three days of bereavement time.

Lyn Christian: That’s how much is allotted to employees?

Kyle Knowles: A lot of times, a lot of corporations. Three days only. Three days. Can you imagine losing your significant other, your spouse, your father, your mother, one of your children?

Lyn Christian: And getting over it in three days.

Kyle Knowles: Getting three days. I mean, it takes a week to prepare a funeral or some kind of wake and, you know, writing an obituary and contacting family members. I mean, it takes a long time. So the first bullshit flag I would throw where I’m coming from is the three days of bereavement time that corporations give.

Lyn Christian: I hope people are listening to this because that’s something that could be shifted.

Kyle Knowles: For sure. And I think if you’re going to say productivity or whatever the metric was, losing $75 billion a year, was that the metric? Well, a lot of that is because they’re not allowed to grieve, right? If you’re only going to give an employee three days of bereavement time, for damn sure they’re going to take more sick days throughout the year. Yeah, they will. And, and your stat about two years, I, I believe that, but I believe that grief is the rest of your life. So, so I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t understand what the two years means, but what I’ve learned is that grief, for example, if you, a care jar, used in canning, if you think about that as your life, and if you could fit, say, a racquetball in there and that’s your grief, over time, what happens is that racquetball doesn’t turn into a marble or a golf ball or gets smaller over time. The racquetball stays the same size. What happens is instead of just one of these glass care, I think that’s how you say it Yeah, the glass gets bigger right over time, right? And so what happens is your life experiences? expand and so you’re able to Sort of it seems like the grief might be smaller but it’s probably the same size because your love is hopefully doesn’t fade for that individual or that dog. And so you don’t want your love to shrink. So you really don’t want the grief to shrink. Now being able to manage your grief in better ways or One of the things I would say, and I’m getting off topic here with the original question, but what I would say is that I would throw the bullshit flag at the idea that you can heal. That this is just like a cut and then the skin will grow back together and you might have a little scar, but you were healed. This whole idea and the big push is You’ll get better. With time, you’ll get better. These are bullshit responses to say to someone who’s grieving. Because at the time, you don’t think it will ever get better.

Lyn Christian: No, it feels like this is the reality. Like this is how it will always be.

Kyle Knowles: This is the rest of your life.

Lyn Christian: Right. Yeah, I was in Yorkshire, England this summer talking with a gentleman who lost his wife and he used this sort of metaphor that you did, maybe with an orange, regular-sized orange that you put in a bowl, like a cereal bowl. And pretty much the orange fills up the cereal bowl. And the orange is the grief, right? Like the curd jar, the quart jar. And then your experiences expand your skills. They might get bigger and become maybe a serving jar where maybe you would put snacks. And maybe it was the size of two cereal bowls. And then as life goes on, orange is the same, the grief is the same, it’s the same size, it’s the same amount of hurt. Your capacity for dealing with it might grow to be like a serving platter eventually. Or maybe a bathtub and the orange is there. You are expanding as a human. And so to your point, it isn’t about healing, the pain will be there. I cannot imagine, you know, I’ve lost people, I’ve lost pets. I cannot imagine the loss that you’ve gone through and anyone trying to diminish the size of that loss by saying, well, it’s now a marble. Because it will always be the size it was, from what I’m understanding, yes?

Kyle Knowles: Yes, for sure. And another thing not to say to someone, and someone said this to me just the other day, is, well, at least he’s in a better place. This is So jarring. And first of all, no one knows where he is until they’re gone, until they die. No one knows. We can read about in the Bible, whatever religion you are, you can read about near death experiences, all these things, but no one really knows where someone goes when they die. And The flip side of that, they might just, their spirit or their essence might just go out into the universe and join all the other essences that have died before. So we don’t know. So never say to someone, he or she, or they are in a better place. Right. Because a better, if you think a better place is a place where you can’t enjoy chocolate or music, or hang out with your family and friends. It’s just so wrong to say that.

Lyn Christian: I love that. I love that. Put that into perspective. So we’ll go back to the sort of the original question to see if there’s anything there, because maybe what’s been spoken is more important than the question or the answer thereof. What we are talking about is the importance of not isolating. You might want to isolate when you’re in grief. I do. What’s the importance of community, Kyle, and catching yourself and not going to the isolation as much as you probably could? Granted, there are times when the isolation might be the best thing.

Kyle Knowles: What I’ve found is by attending a Lost by Suicide grief support group up at the University of Utah and through reading and attending things like written by David Kessler and he has grief.com if anyone’s interested in that there are online groups that you can join. But David Kessler actually worked with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, who came up with the five stages of, it was actually the five stages of the dying. And it was changed to grief. And he’s come up with a sixth, and that is finding meaning. And he wrote a book called Finding Meaning. But he would be the first one to tell you that grief is so individual, You can’t apply. It’s not one size fits all. And so people grieve differently. Some people might need to go drive in a car and listen to heavy metal for hours. Some people might need people around. They might need to hang out with family and be able to talk through their grief. Some people might need to be alone and write and journal or just sit and be alone and cry. And so I guess the bullshit flag that I would throw is that there is a way to grieve. Now, granted, there are healthier ways to grieve than others. I mean, if you have a drinking problem and you start drinking again, I think that might be a problem. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, or.

Lyn Christian: Cause you’re hurting yourself and adding to it. Yeah.

Kyle Knowles: If you’re hurting, if you’re going to hurt yourself or hurt other people, It’s probably the wrong way to grieve. So at the same time I’m saying there’s no wrong way to grieve, maybe there is if you’re going to hurt yourself or hurt other people. But everyone grieves differently. And for me, I needed a lot of alone time. I needed a lot of long walks. I needed to journal every day. And I needed to listen to music. And I needed to cry.

Lyn Christian: So would you say those are your top four ways of metabolizing what you were trying to metabolize?

Kyle Knowles: Russ Nelson, who I grew up with, Russell Nelson, and I literally probably haven’t talked to him since high school. So I’m coming up on 40 years. But we’ve been friends on Facebook and, you know, connected on LinkedIn and things like that. But when he found out that Jake passed away, he actually reached out to me and he sent me a book called, It’s Okay That You Are Not Okay. And it’s by Megan Devine, and I can’t recommend it enough. I’ve probably given out 10 copies since I received a copy from Russell Nelson. And the idea that it’s okay that you are not okay, I mean, just the title of the book alone is helpful because We live in a society, I mean, that’s why we have life coaches and Tony Robbins and, you know, we always want to get better and get well. We have this frantic notion, we’ve got to lose weight fast and get better and get stronger. And maybe it’s the American way more than other cultures, I don’t know. But the idea that we need to get better. is something that, I mean, it was wild because We could have done a wake for Jake. First of all, he wanted to be cremated. So he was cremated. So there was no need for a viewing or funeral, really. And he didn’t want a funeral. But at the same time, I was under the pressure, again, three days bereavement. We got to get something going quickly. And so within just maybe it was 10 days, February 21st to March 2nd, however long that is, a little over a week, we prepared and had a wake for him. And this whole idea, you know, you need to do this and then move on with your life. And there’s a great outpouring when you have a funeral, when you have a wake, these kinds of things, there’s a lot of flower scent and cards and people calling and texting and checking in. And then when the funeral’s over, the outpouring really dies down.

Lyn Christian: Wow.

Kyle Knowles: So it’s almost like we should have waited longer in some ways. But I think there’s a lot of pressure and I think there’s a bullshit flag to throw there is this pressure to hurry and have the funeral so everyone can get on with their life.

Lyn Christian: Let’s get it done and dusted here.

Kyle Knowles: Done and dusted and move on with your life and buck up and, you know, carry on and be strong and tough. And I think especially as a father, trying to be tough and get everything organized and help arrange, make arrangements and organize the wake and, you know, do the cremation and these kinds of things. I think I felt like for like a solid 10 days or whatever until the wake was over, I was just on constant go, go, go. Didn’t really have a lot of time to grieve. For sure, I cried a lot.

Lyn Christian: But I didn’t take care of myself in the ways that, you know what I mean, there was no… The tears could be on the surface but the heartbreak was not getting attended to.

Kyle Knowles: Yeah, so I think this… It’s bullshit to hurry and get better, to hurry and have a funeral, hurry and have these things. But at the same time, if you got to get back to work because you only have three days of bereavement, maybe you don’t have sick time and maybe you’re not in a situation to take extended leave, then I can see why people do that. And also, I think there are other reasons in America we don’t I guess the idea of burying someone quickly is kind of just built into the way we do things. For maybe health reasons or government- Who knows, right?

Lyn Christian: Yeah, we’d have to dig into that. So two things we have on the table. Final thoughts on is it important to have community around you and be alone?

Kyle Knowles: I would say, yes, joining a grief support group was the second best thing that I did to support.

Lyn Christian: And the first best thing was?

Kyle Knowles: The book.

Lyn Christian: The book. Okay. So the book by Megan Devine. Okay. And then the grief and then long walks.

Kyle Knowles: Well, so the grief support group, and again, you can attend grief support groups that are tailored to your situation. For example, if you lost your spouse, you can attend a grief support group with other people who lost their spouse. For us, for my wife and I, we attended a grief support group where it was lost by suicide. And so we met some very lovely people. And grieving together with other people is very healing, because you feel so isolated and alone in the situation. And then you come to find out that There were widows who had lost their husbands. There were other people in the exact same situation as us. A married couple, one of the parents, it was their child. The other parent was a step-parent, the same situation. And they lost a 32-year-old son as well, who was all lost by suicide. In the situation for suicide, first of all, people don’t understand that there are over two times as many suicides in America as there are homicides. That’s a huge statistic. It’s gigantic and we don’t talk about it. And they even say that if you lose someone to suicide, if it’s lost by suicide, that the outpouring is not at the same level. If Jake had passed away from cancer, the outpouring would have been greater. I think it’s such a taboo topic. It’s so, there’s so much stigma to the whole idea of someone, you know, taking their own life, that it’s almost like People don’t know what to say anyway in any kind of grief situation. A lot of people don’t know what to say, but especially for suicide, they don’t know what to say. And it’s almost like sometimes people act like they’re going to catch a disease. And I know one reason why they don’t publish a lot of this information is because they don’t want copycat situations. They want other people to do this.

Lyn Christian: Yeah.

Kyle Knowles: And so I understand, but I think we still don’t talk about mental health enough, mental wellness. And this is a big problem, especially for males in America and everywhere.

Lyn Christian: Do you want to say more about that?

Kyle Knowles: In fact, I did a podcast this week with someone who was very vulnerable and I asked the question, When did you cry the hardest? And he said in high school, because he was going through some major depression. And this was in, I believe, the late 90s, early 2000s. And he said mental wellness was just something that wasn’t talked about. And in fact, he went to Notre Dame and he started a mental health advocacy group. And again, people were like, well, that’s kind of weird. But he had so many other classmates. Pull him aside. and they would shut the door to talk to him about their mental health. Wow. And I think for men, it’s like really, it’s different because men try to be tough. And again, he was a baseball player, tough guy, but dealing with this massive depression. And I think men just don’t talk as much to other men as women do. Women have a lot more friends. and they share with each other. And I think men need to get to the point where they share and are there for each other.

Lyn Christian: What would you want them to share if you could give a broad term to it?

Kyle Knowles: I think if you’re down, I think if you’re depressed, I think if you’re struggling, that you should try to reach out to someone who can help. And we should listen, and we should pay attention. And sometimes there’s things we can do, and sometimes there’s nothing we can do. But people understanding that they are loved and listened to is so important.

Lyn Christian: So reach out if you’re in there. I know I had an experience this morning, which I don’t usually have, Kyle, waking up and feeling sideways and reaching out. to a trusted source, say, hey, just, you don’t need to fix it. Just listen. Just need somebody else there. I think that’s what you’re getting at is the mental wellness can’t necessarily resolve itself if we stay in that isolation, right? So isolation may be pieces, may be part of a solution per individual. What I’m hearing is too much of it could be an indication that maybe we don’t have as much mental wellness and we’re going inward and maybe imploding a little bit.

Kyle Knowles: For sure. I think that whatever kind of fellowship you can get, and it doesn’t have to be church related, it doesn’t have to be religious. I’m just saying, if you can find a group who’s going through the same thing you are experiencing and going through, a grief group, and again, David Kessler at grief.com. There’s online groups you can join by Zoom. You don’t even have to go anywhere.

Lyn Christian: Yeah.

Kyle Knowles: We decided to go in person to our grief support group up at the University of Utah. And I think that really worked for us. And we were able to meet some really awesome people up there. And just, again, hearing their stories and crying for them and with them is so cathartic. And you feel like you’re not alone. Yeah. Because most people, when they’re going through grief, They feel very alone. They just lost someone that’s not going to be there the rest of their life. And they feel alone. So yeah, I think community is very important as humans. Connection, human connection is important. And again, technology, AI, all these things, I think are limiting and the phone. Of course the phone. It’s not the same. Connection, by texting each other, that helps, but being around other humans, there’s no greater need than there is now in this world.

Lyn Christian: That energy filled of one another for community. And then another message that you’ve come up with is it’s not okay, or it is okay to be okay, it’s not okay to not think that.

Kyle Knowles: It’s okay that you’re not okay.

Lyn Christian: That’s the title of the book. So, let’s go through the four things that you said you used again. You used the book, you used the grief groups, I know you said long walks and… Journaling. Talk about what someone listening might begin to do with a journal if they were, again, working through their grief and trying to expand around that racquetball or that orange.

Kyle Knowles: Yeah. So Julia Cameron wrote a book called The Artist’s Way. Yes. It’s an amazing book. And her recommendation, because she believes all of us are artists, We’ve just lost that artistry along the way. Sometimes it’s beaten out of us. For me, it was seventh grade, Mr. Roundy criticizing my artwork when I took an art class, right? And getting criticized, you know, doing an English degree and being surrounded by English professors who are there as academics and intellectuals, not as artists. So anyone that comes along who has a creative bent, their job is to take that out of them, basically, because they’re probably frustrated artists, too. But we all need to recover this artistry. And so she wrote this book, The Artist’s Way. And again, she’s written screenplays and all kinds of things. But she’s my sorceress. And I heard of the book and I read the book and she recommends two things to recover your artist. The first is to write three pages by hand, first thing in the morning, every day, every day, stream of consciousness, get all the dirty water out, all the shit, right? All the things that are scrambling in your brain. You can say, I hate my boss. You can say anything you want. This, the pages are welcome for you to just vent. And I started this practice six weeks before Jake passed away. So I was doing this.

Lyn Christian: So you were doing it already.

Kyle Knowles: I was doing three pages a day in the morning.

Lyn Christian: Okay.

Kyle Knowles: And I was complaining about this and that. And a lot of times it sounds really whiny, but she calls it morning pages. Right. M-O-R-N-I-N-G. And those pages became morning, M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G pages for me after I lost Jake. And I’m telling you, there is no greater therapy. Thank you for all the therapists, life coaches, everyone out there who’s helped me. There’s no greater therapy than writing longhand. And again, you can’t cheat and use the computer. Writing. Physically, if you looked at my My middle finger because of the way I hold my pen. It’s calloused like a guitar player’s fingers. It’s because I just finished my fourth volume. So she has a journal that goes along with the book that you can go along week by week. There’s 12 chapters in the book. There’s basically 12 weeks in each journal and there’s quotes from the book within there. So you’re reading about how to recover your artistry and you’re writing three pages every day. So yeah, mourning Jake’s loss and it’s changed my life to journal in this way. And it doesn’t have to be art. It doesn’t have to be creative. But what happens is you find snippets as you go, because the goal is to clear your mind to get ready for the day. And the idea is that a lot of times we put off doing art because of all these crazy things and the sensor and resistance that’s telling us you suck and you’re no good. And so you just put that on the page and then it becomes like almost laughable that some voice is telling you, you suck. Right. So yeah, the journaling, the other thing she recommends, I’ll just throw this out there just since we’re on the topic is taking yourself on an artist date, taking your artist self on a date once a week. And that could be anything, whatever you’re if you’re into painting, maybe you go to a art supply store, and you just hang out for an hour by yourself. I, this past week, I went to a movie by myself, but again, it’s to feed your soul and to help you rediscover those things that you enjoy, but I can’t recommend journaling in that way enough.

Lyn Christian: It helped you rediscover pieces of your identity. Yes. It helped you metabolize grief.

Kyle Knowles: For sure.

Lyn Christian: It sounds like it was something, and I don’t know what your opinion is about this, Kyle. There could be a message for someone who needs to create their own method of grief and allow themselves to continue a routine that they started before the grief to maybe be a lifeline to something.

Kyle Knowles: Yeah, I think so. And I think the fifth thing I would just say for the fifth would be, so walking was kind of a physical form of exercise, but Jake was a gym guy. He’s very fit. And so I wanted to kind of follow Jake’s lead and I got a gym membership and I started throwing around heavy weight. And that’s changed my life as well. Just there’s something about physically exerting yourself that allows you to, like you said, metabolize the grief. So long walks definitely helped. And a lot of times I’d go on meditative walks, so not listening to anything, but just listening to myself and thinking about Jake, having conversations about Jake and things like that.

Lyn Christian: Yeah, I can think of people, myself included, when we’re grieving, you know, we have our playlist that’s on repeat and maybe we walk and we walk and we listen and there’s something cathartic about the process.

Kyle Knowles: even if it hurts a little more sometimes when you’re in it, right? For sure. And I think nothing shines a light on your own life as much as a loved one passing away, especially suddenly. Because you understand that at any time it could be you, you know, you could pass away.

Lyn Christian: Yeah. Your own mortality kind of whaps you in the face.

Kyle Knowles: Every time we get on the freeway, we’re like putting ourselves in danger. That’s why every time it’s a bad commute and there’s a lot of traffic, I don’t mind at all because I’m like, I am not going to die from this commute. So I don’t mind traffic at all. If it’s bad traffic and everyone’s going 30 miles an hour, I’m fine with it because it shined a light on every part of my life and it resurrects all your griefs. So I had grief from losing my father to COVID, losing my mother to Alzheimer’s. I mean, all the little griefs from getting rejected by a girlfriend and junior high, like all these things are kind of surfaced and really shine a light on your own life. And you really wonder what the hell you’re doing here and what you’re going to do going forward. You really question.

Lyn Christian: Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s a kind of, kind of a reality. Like what the hell is this?

Kyle Knowles: Yeah, and it makes you really think through. And when this is happening, if you’re not writing in a journal, then it’s just a bunch of jumbled ideas in your head. There’s no clarity. And so writing every day, first thing in the morning, and you start looking for like, it’s really hard at first, because Especially if you haven’t written longhand for a long time. I mean, this is like exercise. My hand was actually sore, like somehow lifting or something, lifting a pencil, but holding it in that way for, because it would take 30 minutes to 45 minutes if you’re writing fast, sometimes an hour. Right. But you start looking forward to it and you start ideating about things you want to do, how you want to live your life, changes you want to make in your life. And I think grief just really narrows the focus and pretty soon you’re like, Okay, these are my, you know, these are my values. These are my pillars that I’m going to live by.

Lyn Christian: This is my drop dead stuff. Like you isolate it from everything else. Non-negotiable. Yeah.

Kyle Knowles: Because I’m going to die. So what am I going to do?

Lyn Christian: What am I going to do before then? Yeah.

Kyle Knowles: And I don’t know if you’ve ever thought this before because I know when people get nervous and they’re like, oh, maybe they have to public speak or there’s some big presentation they have to give at work and you’re driving to work and you’re like, oh, I hope I get in a car accident so I don’t have to do this or what, you know what I mean? Like, and, and, and, or you get some bad news from the doctor or whatever, and you start panicking thinking, what if I die? What, you know, what if I die? But the better question to ask yourself is what if I live?

Lyn Christian: Or if I don’t die and I live?

Kyle Knowles: Then what?

Lyn Christian: Then what? And is this what came up in some of the journaling?

Kyle Knowles: For sure.

Lyn Christian: Yeah.

Kyle Knowles: For sure. And I started doing things like, I loved as a little kid kicking a soccer ball against a wall. And it happened to be our garage.

Lyn Christian: Yeah.

Kyle Knowles: And I wore out the grass in front of it. And I just, I would go out there for hours. This is when soccer was, we didn’t even have professional soccer in the United States.

Lyn Christian: Yeah, but you loved it.

Kyle Knowles: I lived for it. And I would go, I would watch soccer made in Germany. It was the only, you could watch one soccer game in the United States, at least in Utah, one game per week. That’s it. one soccer game, and it was called Soccer Made in Germany, and it was the Bundesliga. So it was German soccer. And Toby Charles was the commentator, and it was fascinating. So I’d watch the game, and I would see this perfect pitch that they’d play on. And I would go outside, and I would mow the lawn. So it was just freshly made.

Lyn Christian: Yes.

Kyle Knowles: And then I would kick the soccer ball and try different moves and just kick the soccer ball against the wall. And I played soccer till I was 40 and I had back issues. And that’s when I hung up my cleats, but I never lost that love for kicking a ball. So I bought this bounce back net. in the summer and I would just go out there and kick against it and just relive sort of this childhood thing that I loved to do. And it was very, and I would shoot baskets too. I would just, in our driveway growing up, I’d shoot baskets. So that’s what I did a lot of that in the summer. And it was just, The physical movement helping you process grief, I think it’s been said before, something like the word motion is in emotion. And so if you’re able to go on walks or do something physical, I think that really helps.

Lyn Christian: I appreciate you giving us some of these recipes, if you will, for what you did. And it’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to be a mess. It’s okay to fall apart. How about this theme of there’s no safe place to melt down because you know how grief… I’ve experienced grief almost like a corkscrew where on the southeast side of it you’re going to hit denial. And on the Northwest side of it, you’re going to hit the anger. And then there’s another place for the sadness, you know. And then there’s the negotiating that didn’t really happen or that magical thinking or whatever you call that where you’re like, you can’t quite grasp the reality.

Kyle Knowles: If only I would have done this or that.

Lyn Christian: Yes. So there is a place on that spectrum or that corkscrew for meltdown. like meltdown. And I don’t think very many people are comfortable with meltdowns. They are a way of life for many people. They’re something that has to be dealt with. Is there something that can be created by an individual who’s grieving so they can have what they need during meltdown time? I think you need to melt down. You need to do it. So that’s the first thing. For sure. So throw the bullshit flag on anything that says don’t go there.

Kyle Knowles: Big boys don’t cry.

Lyn Christian: Go there.

Kyle Knowles: Go there.

Lyn Christian: Big boys do cry.

Kyle Knowles: Big boys do cry. And Andrew Garfield who plays Spider-Man and was in the social network, he’s a great actor. He lost his mom and he and his family were very close to his mom. And what he talked about, and he will tear up in interviews, he doesn’t care because he says that this grief, this crying is just unexpressed love. And the way that he gets closer to his mother, and gets held in her arms again, is to cry. Right, right. And ever since I heard that, and I didn’t hear it until after Jake’s passing, but ever since I heard that, I’ve been okay with crying. And, you know, I had this, and I think David Kessler calls them grief bursts, when something could just, you know, bring you to your knees. And for me, we were talking earlier, but there was a song in the show called Shrinking.

Lyn Christian: Second season, by the way, those of you who are listening. Yeah.

Kyle Knowles: It just made me think of Jake and it just touched me to the core. And there are several songs and we were playing some before we started this, you know, and I just want to share because, you know, people have dreams about people they lost. And one of the dreams I had about Jake a few weeks ago, I had my arm around him and he was only five at the time. He passed away when he was 32. But I had my arm around him and he was about five years old and he was looking up at me and I was looking down at him. And I just said, I love you. I love you. I love you. And I learned recently My youngest son, James, has read a lot about dreaming and what it means and how you can sort of do things in your dreams if you pay attention. I learned recently that when you get overly emotional in a dream, it stops. And I was looking at him saying, I love you, I love you, I love you. And I woke up crying. And I’d never thought you could cry in a dream or I guess I wasn’t crying in the dream, but it woke me up. I just want to share this other dream I had about him.

Lyn Christian: Let’s go for it because I think we’d throw the bullshit flag if we said, don’t read this. We’ve got to have this podcast is going to be as nonlinear as grief.

Kyle Knowles: Okay. Okay, good. So that was one of two dreams I’ve had. Okay. Or Jake’s in them. The other dream I had, this was recently, this was only about a week ago. My daughter and my youngest son and my wife, I felt them with me. So they were behind me, but I was walking around and I was on a cruise ship for some reason. I’ve only been on one cruise and have no desire to go on cruises, but I was on a cruise ship for some reason. So whatever that meant or whatever I was trying to process in my dream, but we were walking up on deck or whatever and, and ran into my other son, Joe. And Joe said to me, did you hear that Jake bought a ticket to Sweden? And then I was magically, you know, you go from scene to scene without any, I didn’t have to walk there. All of a sudden I’m in some kind of stately cabin. It was almost like a conference room. I was like, wow, how was he staying in this suite basically, but he was standing against the wall. And I’m standing in front of him, and I’m like, Jake, I heard you bought a ticket to Sweden. And he said to me, yeah, but I put it up in the there and then. And I said, there and then, what do you mean? And he goes, and he did his laugh because he was very witty. And he chuckled and he said, you know, as opposed to the here and now. I put it up into the there and then.

Lyn Christian: Yeah, the someday it will happen, but not now.

Kyle Knowles: And I started to get emotional and I said to him, But I want you to be here. And I woke up because I was angry.

Lyn Christian: Yeah, you were angry that he wasn’t here. Were you angry at him? I was angry at him. Because he wasn’t here. Because he wasn’t. Not because his ticket was somewhere, it was because you were talking and then what? What happened?

Kyle Knowles: I got overly emotional and just said, but Jake, I want you here. So you gave what you wanted to Jake. And what I learned from it was that, first of all, none of us can control anyone else. We can’t. True. And what I wanted was more important. just being there with him. Interesting. And it ruined the dream. It again made me wake up. And it made me think of so many times that we are not just present and going with the flow. We want to force what we want onto every other person. And we want to get on to the next thing. We want to move this ball down the field. We want to move this car down the road. And we spend so little time being present, really present. And it was such a lesson for me. And I swore that next time I have a dream and Jake’s in it, that I will be present. Because I could have just said, oh Jake, do you want to go on the deck? Do you want to go see Joe? Do you want to go see Miranda? Or can we sit down and talk about something? We sit down and talk. My youngest son James said, you could have spawned guitars. And had a jam session.

Lyn Christian: Right, right, right.

Kyle Knowles: We could have played guitar together. He was an amazing guitarist. Basically, when we jam, I’ll show you our studio upstairs before you leave. When we jam, he was just, it was like having a professional there that was just there to support us and grace us with his presence. And I wanted to share those two dreams just because I’ve heard that people that grief dream and have these kind of experiences. And so I guess my advice would be to just be present, not only in this life, but in your dreams and don’t try to force things. And I know you might be mad that they’re gone, whether they died of cancer or got in a car accident, you might be mad at God or the universe. for them not being here. But what about the moments? I mean, I just left a corporate job that I was at for 16 years. And I just, I remember just a handful of things. And they’re just little snippets, moments of time. Some stories were funny. It was never the big presentation or wow, we did this or that. It was the moments interacting with other people.

Lyn Christian: In the whole 16 years? The whole 16 years. The tiny moments, like that one in the dream where you could have been more present with Jake. Interesting. So a message to fellow grievers. Because when we’re grieving, we may be dreaming more. What do you say to us?

Kyle Knowles: I would say, enjoy them. I mean, I heard Jake’s voice.

Lyn Christian: You were there.

Kyle Knowles: I was there, and I heard his voice. And the way he moved his hands was the same gestures. And how witty he was to say, I put it up into the there and then. And I really don’t remember hearing that phrase ever before. I’m sure it’s out there because I always hear the here and now. But for him to have a play on where it was very much like Jake.

Lyn Christian: Yeah.

Kyle Knowles: He loved language. He had a vocabulary better than most kids. So I would say to people who dream, enjoy it. Don’t force the issue if you’re dreaming about that person. I know you might be mad they’re not here. You might be in denial that they’re not here. But just be there with them and enjoy hearing their voice and seeing them. And the same goes with crying. Cry. It’s okay. That’s how you draw yourself closer to the person or your pet that you lost.

Lyn Christian: Because crying is…

Kyle Knowles: a form of love. It’s unexpressed love. Unexpressed love. We never get enough time with anyone.

Lyn Christian: We don’t. Given fact, for all of us listening, to remind ourselves of that, and perhaps even something I’m taking away from the dream experience that you shared, so just a touching experience, and I appreciate the visceral honesty that you gave us with that. Maybe that can be for all of us to remember The next time we haven’t seen somebody for a while or the next time a child takes our hand or the next time we’re enjoying something, be there now, be there, be there. And see what happens when you’re just fully there. Those are the moments that you remembered in those 16 years of work.

Kyle Knowles: When I was really there.

Lyn Christian: Yeah.

Kyle Knowles: And enjoying a moment with other humans.

Lyn Christian: I know you have some cautions and some places where you would say beware, because you’ve talked to me about it, about making big decisions while grieving. I think the most recent grief scenario I went through, if I can call it that, I did have to lay low from big decisions and just kind of get through until my executive functions were back on. What do you want to say about that, Kyle?

Kyle Knowles: I would say, yeah, I think you need to grieve. I mean, this is, this is the problem with three days of bereavement, right? That’s not enough time. You’re going to take more sick time. You’re not cognitively going to be functioning very well in your job, whether you work for yourself or work for someone else. And that’s okay because that’s the process of, of grief and grieving. And so I would say caution, but sometimes A death, again, shines such a bright light on you, you might also want to throw caution to the wind and go do the things that you’ve put off because now you realize that we’re only on this planet for a short time.

Lyn Christian: So there’s a good bullshit flag to throw down and say, wait, or somebody else knows better, or there’s a rule book somewhere that you need to consult. And it’s like, life is short. It’s not going to get any longer. And sometimes you need to go for it. And maybe what we’re saying, Kyle, you said it earlier in not so many words, but in strong sentiment, we’re each walking an individual path. So what we’re talking about right today, maybe give somebody else the freedom to use that executive brain and make an executive decision for themselves. And if it didn’t turn out the way they wanted it to after they make it, change it. But nobody else can drive your bus, right?

Kyle Knowles: Right.

Lyn Christian: And you were in charge of your own grief. I watched you from the beginning to where we are today. You drove that bus and you may have taken consultation or insights or wisdom from other people. At the end of the day, I know you drove that from your own wisdom. Would you agree with that?

Kyle Knowles: Yes, and I think the journaling was the key to that. So if you’re just putting a bunch of words and ideas into a blender in your head and turning it on to puree or whip or whatever, that’s not the same as taking those words and ideas and clearly writing them down so that all of a sudden they become clearer just by the act of writing. And you can see them in black and white or blue if you use a blue pen like I do. They’re right on the page. They’re right on the page and then you’re working through those each morning and you can get somewhere. That’s why I’m saying it’s the best form of therapy because the best therapist at the end of the day, you know yourself better than anyone else. You could spend eight hours a day with a therapist. You still know you better than the therapist. Sometimes it’s hard to see yourself and that’s why there are life coaches and executive coaches and business coaches and things like that. So you can get perspective and bounce ideas off of and you can gain from that. But you’re the only one that knows what you need.

Lyn Christian: And in the moment you need to make those decisions. Yeah. And I think another way to give individuals listening to this the freedom and throw the bullshit flag on you’ve got to do it somebody else’s way or you know there’s a right way. There’s a one right way. is to be an experimenter and just experiment your way through it. When I work with career reinvention clients I have to remind them that we’re all just grown-up kids and we learn the same way, right? You don’t know if you’re going to like that toy but if you play with it then you know. You don’t know if you’re going to like that food but if you taste it then you know. You don’t know if you want to wear those shoes but you put them on and you go, that’s how I want to feel in my feet. And so the same thing with the grief process Experiment, try it. I know people who would probably be here sitting in your seat going through something similar saying it was the meditation or it was something else. You found the journaling and that can work for a lot of people. And it really worked for you. So there’s a tool for people listening. Meditation could be another thing. But we have to find our thing, right? We have things. You did more than one. I want to go to something, you’ve said it today, you’ve said it to me in past conversations. I felt this way when I lost a friend to suicide. Sometimes I still have twinges. And she passed in 2005. What was her name? Lynn. Wow. Same name as mine. And it’s palpable again, isn’t it? Yeah. Those of you who are grieving or have grieved, you’ll have those moments where you feel it again.

Kyle Knowles: And you know what I’ve heard, Lynn? A really good, and this happened in Shrinking, actually, the last episode last week. Because those that don’t know, Shrinking on Apple TV, it stars Harrison Ford and Jason Segel and other people. But Jason Segel is dealing with the death of his wife. And he meets someone and she finds out that he lost his wife. And the first thing that she says is, what’s her name? And it’s such a simple thing. And I’ve learned this from before. I met someone on a walk not too long ago and they had just lost their father. And you can tell that it was there, it was palpable, just like with you when you mentioned Lynn, losing Lynn. And the first thing I said was, what was his name? And that’s when she opened up and said his name was Wally. And I was signaling that it’s okay. And people want to talk about the one they lost.

Lyn Christian: Yes.

Kyle Knowles: And they want to say their name. Say the name. Say and ask what their name is. This is just, I’m not trying to be Mr. Advice to you right now, but do you know what I mean? It’s so powerful because people actually want to talk about the one they lost. And sometimes they don’t because they’re afraid to cry or maybe you’re not the right person that they’re going to open up to. But at least you can ask.

Lyn Christian: And I feel like there may be for me a need. I would take it from away from the want to I need to speak of Lynn every once in a while. Why? Good question, right? What a great question. And so I’m going to pause right now and just say to those of you listening, if you’ve lost someone or something, say their name and then answer this question that Kyle has just asked. And you can pause right now if you need to. The why, why do I say I need to say her name every once in a while? I need to because she was, she existed, she was an incredible human. I need to because for so long I was angry, she was gone. And now I can say her name in peace while she’s gone. And I need to validate the process that she lived a life and I’m still living. And we don’t know what comes after, if anything. But hell, if this isn’t something real, like this thing of life and death, man, that’s a trip, right? That’s a goddamn trip right there. It’s a goddamn trip. Yep. And so there’s the need of just acknowledging and witnessing, man, we’re really into something here. You know, this is for real. Yeah. And it’s a hell of a ride. And just validating life and death for a moment is what comes up for me in this moment.

Kyle Knowles: And I think the way that you can support someone’s grief, not only is asking about the person, what’s their name? What were they like? These kinds of things. But just being a witness. A witness.

Lyn Christian: That’s it. To their grief. That’s it, Kyle. Being witness.

Kyle Knowles: Witnessing their grief is the best way to support someone’s grief.

Lyn Christian: Well, you know, you have my book, you’ve read it, you’re working through the exercises. There’s a place where I ask people to share their map or the salt of their soul. And in that witnessing, we can’t always guess what’s going to happen for the person being witnessed, but there is something that is transformative in that. And so I think that carries into this exercise of say their name and ask questions, be their witness. Go get one if you don’t have one and let them be your witness and see what comes up for you in that transformational place. And throw a bullshit flag on anything that says, don’t do this. No, do this, do this, do this exercise.

Kyle Knowles: It’s important because it’s a way of keeping their memory alive for us. That’s why we want to talk about them. That’s why we want to cry. And when someone mentions that they’ve lost someone or a pet, David Kessler recommends that you act as if it just happened. Because it doesn’t matter if it’s a year, two years, five years. I attended a grief support, lost by suicide, grief support breakout group just via Zoom on davidkeslersgrief.com and there was a person that helps kind of manage the group. He had lost his brother to suicide 25 years ago and he was attending and helping a grief support group 25 years later.

Lyn Christian: And he has street cred to do that. He has the chops. He can be there. He’s a valid sentient being.

Kyle Knowles: Yeah. And there’s a film, there’s a documentary film. It’s about a family from the UK who lost their brother. He was a filmmaker, a documentary filmmaker, who had lost his brother, and I believe there was one other brother and one other sister, and then two divorced parents. And they did not take the time to grieve the loss of their brother, who took his own life And the documentary filmmaker said that for 10 years, he couldn’t even say his brother’s name. And so he decided to make a documentary with his brother and sister and invite friends of the brother that he lost. and go on these long hikes or walks that they do in the UK. There’s all kinds of different things. There’s one in Scotland or Ireland and they did five or six of these long walks and on one of them they brought their father. You know, they had to bring him separately because their mom and dad were divorced, but they brought their father and they talked about their brother and just documenting this grief. And it had been 13 years since they lost them. And it was just like it had happened the week previous. Wow. And it was so powerful to me. And when I watched this, I thought, wow, this is me in 13 years. I’m going to be still just on my knees and crying. But as it unfolds, then you realize, wow, they had not attended a grief support group. They hadn’t read a book. They hadn’t said his name.

Lyn Christian: Okay. So there were actually some rituals or some activities, so I could sense that maybe the grief was just stagnant and you can’t… They didn’t take the time to grieve.

Kyle Knowles: They didn’t really take the time.

Lyn Christian: And there are consequences for that.

Kyle Knowles: Yeah. Because 13 years later, it was the freshest wound.

Lyn Christian: So here’s what I want to ask you, because this is what I experienced with Lynn, which was, I could have done more, and there’s some guilt, maybe blame. Do you need to throw a bullshit flag there, or should you be guilty?

Kyle Knowles: We need to throw the bullshit flag. Tell us why. I know it’s part of the grieving process. It’s one of the five steps of grief. Anger and negotiation is like, how can I get this back or do it right?

Lyn Christian: We’re trying to manipulate it somehow or deal with it, kick the car tire.

Kyle Knowles: And I think it’s very easy for us to blame ourselves. We wish we would have been there more for them. We wish we would have reached out more.

Lyn Christian: Yeah, we think about all the things we could have, should have, ought to.

Kyle Knowles: Could have, should have, would have. And it’s very easy to blame ourselves. But just like my dream, we can’t get angry and destroy what was a beautiful life and a beautiful person. by not just being present and thinking about all the good that they brought into our lives. And I think when we go into this anger and these negative emotions instead of thinking about what an impact they made on our lives and talking about those things and not blaming ourselves either. We can learn from it and we can try to be more present going forward with other people. But we did the best we could with what we knew. We’re always doing the best we can with what we know. And with all of our struggles and with all of scheduling conflicts and we’re busy trying to get this thing done for work and we’ve got this activity and things like that, we do the best that we can. And so we need to forgive ourselves.

Lyn Christian: I agree. I agree with you. Thank you for sharing that. Many will need to hear this. I’ll put in juxtaposition with it a comment. I love hanging out with therapists. My work as a coach is somewhere between the healing arts of therapy and do it yourself, go read the book or listen to the podcast. And so I learned from them so many things. And one time a therapist said, you cannot be responsible for something until that thing becomes clear and you fully understand it, and then you should be able to respond. And I think about that now as I listen to you. We can’t be responsible for where they are and what decisions they made. because we didn’t have the information we now have now that they have taken their lives, or now that they have passed, or now that they’re here no longer, or they were lost in an accident. Now we have that wisdom of what it’s like to not be with them. Now we can respond to that, or respond to other people differently now, or to our own lives perhaps. What do you want to say about that, Kyle?

Kyle Knowles: I think it’s true. And again, me talking about journaling and is the best therapy, there is a need for mental wellness and there is a need for therapists. And more people should probably go to therapy and more employers should pay for therapy for their employees. They’ll be better employees, happy employees. are better employees.

Lyn Christian: Forget about the insurance plan. Let’s just really look at where is the fund for this that is like, go see the specialist that speaks to you that can work with you instead of some list. Find somebody maybe if you can.

Kyle Knowles: Yeah, and if it’s more available, people will be healthier mentally, and they’ll be better employees. We need more awareness around that. We don’t ever know what’s fully going on, even with our closest loved ones. We don’t know. We don’t, we can’t peek between their ears. The thing is we all have a totally different perspective of what’s going on in the world. And some, someone can have a perspective that’s very, way different than ours. Right. And so it’s very hard to fully understand. why someone would make this decision. But you have to just move it to it was a mental health issue. It was a mental wellness disease.

Lyn Christian: It was a situation that they were in.

Kyle Knowles: Yes.

Lyn Christian: They did not done that. Let’s go right there. Let’s dive into this. They did not do this to hurt you.

Kyle Knowles: They did not do this to hurt you.

Lyn Christian: It might be hard to recognize that and feel that when you’re angry, but speak to this more.

Kyle Knowles: They didn’t do this to hurt you, for sure. Even though that’s a consequence of it. Even though that’s a consequence. And if Jake were here, He would want us to be happy and living our best lives. And the way that you can honor Lynn and I can honor Jake is to be the best version of ourselves.

Lyn Christian: I agree.

Kyle Knowles: To be the most authentic version of ourselves and to not sweat the small stuff and to pursue our passions and to become more artistic and to travel, go places that we want to go. I mean, that’s what they would want for us.

Lyn Christian: Not for us to hurt, but maybe in their passing. This was a meditation I’ve done recently. Let it, let them, let them go. That’s where they went. That’s in some cases where they wanted to go and intended to go. Let them. and don’t make it about us. Because if we’re hurting, then that’s our grief and we need to deal with that grief because we cared about them, not because they tried to harm us and they did this to us. We are now in a consequence because we loved them. Yes.

Kyle Knowles: The best way to honor them is is to do things that they loved, too, and to talk about them, to say their name, to remember them, to tell stories about them, to not be worried about talking about them, bringing them up in conversation. There are things that you can do when you’ve lost a loved one. And we did this early on, and I plan to do this going forward. But I made a shirt that has Jake. on it. I probably should have worn it today. It’s Jake playing the guitar doing something I really loved. It’s a concert t-shirt now. It says Jake on it. But you can take a picture of your loved one. You can put it, you can put that picture, you can go to, you’re going to a restaurant with your family, you can take a picture, frame picture, put it right there, just like they’re sitting at the table with you. So you can remember talking about them. Nice. And do the same thing for holidays. Bring them with you. Bring them with you.

Lyn Christian: Which while you were speaking, I felt to say these words, be the grief. If you are in grief, be that. Be damn good at it, whatever that means to you. And throw the bullshit flag on anything that tells you. Brush it aside, ignore it. You can’t cry. Be the grief. Be the grief.

Kyle Knowles: I believe that. And I think you can do no greater service to humanity than to learn and really dig deep into your own grief, because then you will be open and able to help others when they grieve.

Lyn Christian: Yeah. Kyle, I’m going to breathe that one in. That one went deep. What have we not discussed that you feel like we need to say before we wrap today?

Kyle Knowles: I did have some notes that I wrote early on that I just want to go through.

Lyn Christian: I’m sorry, it’s kind of a prepared statement, but I think that if this is what you came up with, then we need to hear it.

Kyle Knowles: And maybe we’ve covered a lot of this, but it’s going to be funny because I think we might have talked about every one of these.

Lyn Christian: Well, that’s interesting.

Kyle Knowles: PSA on grief. My son’s no longer with us. Jake took his own life. And I was faced with the challenge of becoming a grief expert.

Lyn Christian: Without asking for it.

null: Yeah.

Kyle Knowles: And I became literate instead of grief illiterate. And this is what I learned. Number one, grief is very individual. There is no right way and wrong way of grieving. Number two, grief is something you learn to live with. How long are you going to grieve? How long is the one you lost going to be dead? Number three, reaching out and supporting someone’s grief. That’s the way you support grief. You don’t recite platitudes or I hope you get better. Just witness their grief. Number four, ask about the one they lost. What was their name? What were they like? A big fear that people who are grieving have is losing the memory of the one they lost. Number five, a couple of resources. It’s okay that you are not okay by Megan Devine. Grief.com, tender hearts. Local grief support groups, University of Utah, if you’re in Utah, has a caring connections group, and they also have a suicide prevention group as well. This will all be on the show notes. In grieving with others, you receive support for your grief, and you grieve for others and give support to their grief.

Lyn Christian: Thank you, Kyle.

Kyle Knowles: I think we covered all of this.

Lyn Christian: It’s a great list to reflect on and to review from the conversation. I want to honor you as a champion for so many things. I’ve seen you in the business world, I’ve seen you in your personal life. So thank you for being brave and facing this, going through this, continuing and now reaching out and supporting others. Kyle, the greatest thing that I feel like I’ve witnessed you do is dig deep into your soul and find out in the broken shards of your heart, which ones keep the lifeblood beating through your veins. And those are the things you’ve hung on to.

Kyle Knowles: So thank you for doing that. Thank you for inviting me to be on your podcast. I I can’t say I was looking forward to it, but at the same time, it’s such an important topic and I do in the future plan on speaking about grief and belief. And your voice and your message are really needed and you know that. Thank you for your support and you’ve checked in on me during this whole process and I appreciate you taking the time to check in on me and just witness my grief.

Lyn Christian: It was my honor. Thank you for letting me be there.

Kyle Knowles: Thank you.