Grief, Suicide, and Finding Peace (Stress Management for the Highly Sensitive Person)

Client: [00:00:00] When I was 23, that’s a long time ago by now. Um, my mother committed suicide and I am. I, I wrote a worksheet some time ago, like, try, let’s, let me try again, so, so I’d love to work that with you. If I can. 

Todd: Welcome to wiggle room, a podcast where we start with stress and look for ways to turn it around. We used the process called the work of Byron Katie to.

Start with any kind of stressful thought, stressful situation, and then ask some questions and see where we go with that,

I’m Todd Smith and on the program today, a participant does the work on a situation from when she was young, when her [00:01:00] mother committed suicide, and she is, uh, basically at the morgue. Looking at the body for one last time, and she’s doing this work on she committed suicide. I’ll also be reading an article, uh, on moving beyond what is familiar, an antidote to grief.

So let’s dive into this work together. It’s a simple, powerful way to question what you think. And we’ll begin with the recording from this latest open session, which is, uh, she committed suicide. And as always, I like to share the unedited recordings here so you can experience. How the work actually works.

It’s not like, uh, you just push a button and it’s, uh, it always opens every door we’re exploring and so you’ll get to watch as this participant explores as she does this work.

Um,

Client: I would love to [00:02:00] bring an old situation that I haven’t. Managed to get over so far. Um, yeah, when I was 23, that’s a long time ago by now. Um, my mother committed suicide and I. I, I wrote a worksheet sometime ago, like, try, let’s, let me try again. So, so I’d love to work that with you if I can. 

Todd: Okay, great. Yeah.

So what did you write on your worksheet? 

Client: Um, well, it starts very simple with, I’m devastated with my mother because she committed suicide and. I can take many situations, but, um, yeah,[00:03:00] 

there’s one I can vividly remember. And then, uh, we’re standing in the, it’s like, I think two days later and we’re. We’re invited to the hospital, or maybe it’s even the next day, we’re invited to the hospital and she is, um, she is lying on a sort of a bed. It’s, it’s the Mor mortuary, I dunno what it’s called.

The morgue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she is lying there. And we’re, um, we are, we were invited to take a last look. So I went there with my father and my three sisters, and we’re standing around this dead body. [00:04:00] Okay. That’s my situation. 

Todd: Okay. So your mother committed suicide side. Is that true? 

Client: Yeah.

Todd: And can you absolutely know it’s true. She committed suicide,

Client: they say, so

I can’t absolutely know. No. 

Todd: Okay. So how do you react? What happens when you have this thought that she committed suicide and you’re standing in the morgue having a look? Last look at her body,[00:05:00] 

Client: I, I look at her face and it looks.

It looks more calm than I had expected, but it looks, it doesn’t look frightening. I,

it looks, and, and she looks quite whole. I realized in that moment that I had expected her to look alike, fallen apart, and because she jumped from high building from a high rise, and I had also [00:06:00] expected that,

uh, the look on her face would be very. Upsetting or very worried somehow, but it didn’t, which was, which even confirmed how strange this all was. Like the, the, the,

it was also. Unrealistic, like unreal. And because that didn’t match my expectations, but it was her, clearly it became even more unreal.

Yeah, she looked [00:07:00] very unreal to me.

Like it was her and it wasn’t her. So it, it, so I felt,

I felt unreal.

Yeah. Some total. Dissociation with, with everything actually.

Yeah.

Todd: So this is, you’re describing how you react when you believe the thought, when you have the thought she committed suicide. Feels unreal.[00:08:00] 

Any other reactions when you are standing there seeing her and you’re thinking, yeah, she committed suicide.

Client: I see. I.

I feel alone. There’s my, um, there are my sisters and my father. They’re there, but still, I, I still feel alone. I feel lonely and I feel,

I feel betrayed by her. Some in some way. I feel betrayed. I feel betrayed because I didn’t expect it. I [00:09:00] feel betrayed because,

yeah, it’s like, you should have told me. Why didn’t you tell me? I, I, yeah. I didn’t know. Because she didn’t tell me.

Todd: And then how do you treat her in your mind when you think she committed suicide and she didn’t tell you?

Client: I suddenly. Feel as if,

I feel as if she’s not the mother I thought she [00:10:00] was. I feel suddenly as if she is a stranger and, and that. Gets magnified by this strange way. She looks like she doesn’t look like my mother in, in some, some way. And so, yeah, so the way she looks is, is it she looks like my mother and still she isn’t my mother.

And that is also how I think of her like. This woman that committed suicide is not the mother I know is because she didn’t tell me. I couldn’t, I couldn’t even think it up that it would happen. And so it, it’s, so, it also feels like that mother [00:11:00] is not my mother. Like that woman that did that is not the woman I have known.

So there’s a disconnect, a disconnection there. I, I, I, I just cannot.

I, I cannot put it together in some way. I, I don’t, I cannot connect the dots. It doesn’t make sense to me, but I cannot tell the story of how that happened. I,

yeah. Yeah. 

Todd: So that brings another area of how you react. Like since that [00:12:00] time, how have you reacted when you thought she committed suicide?

Client: Yeah. I, I, it’s like the story has never ended. Um, I always search for. I try to find a story that is complete, like I want a complete story. I want to understand. I wanna understand all of it, so I keep going back and keep trying to find answers. Yeah. It’s, it’s like, it’s never, it’s like a book with an open end.

It’s like you, you never get [00:13:00] to know, well, how did it end? Like, I wanna know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Todd: So who would you be as you’re standing there looking at her body without the thought she committed suicide.[00:14:00] 

Client: Yeah.

When you ask that, I realize that what is going on all the time in my head while watching her is I’m [00:15:00] trying to make. Uh, so in my head I see her like climbing up the building and then jumping down and then trying to make that happen in my head, or it does happen in my head and that is why I’m surprised to see her still whole.

But that’s. Very, very much in the, in the forefront of my head. So without that thought, I wouldn’t have those images in my mind. I just see the body. I just see my sister’s standing there. I see my father standing there. I see the morgue, I see the, I feel the [00:16:00] cold. I see the tiles. I see she already like nick kind of a casket.

I see the casket in the, in, what is it? The stuff that put put around the body.

I see her face what looks like her. There’s no life in it.

I see her body. I see her clothes.

Just that.[00:17:00] 

It’s peaceful. It’s still, her face is peaceful.

Yeah.

Todd: Yeah.

So how would you turn this thought around? She committed suicide.

Client: She didn’t commit suicide. 

Todd: Okay. [00:18:00] So can you find any way of looking at it that is. Valid for you to balance. She did commit suicide.

Client: I can see that. I never saw her committing suicide. That’s all. Hearsay what other people told me and they didn’t see it, so it was a police telling me, but they didn’t see it. And so they heard it from others that I don’t know whether they had seen it. [00:19:00] Um.

So there is, there’s the images in my head. They’re very strong. But that’s, I, I am, I’m well aware though that is not her. That’s me picturing her jumping from that building. I, um,

yeah.

And I, I also, it felt to me like it wasn’t real. It felt to me like I am, I have landed in a movie somehow I. [00:20:00] That is a bad movie in the sense that it’s a horror movie. It’s a horror story. But is this my life really? So, yeah, I, I, I really had to convince myself that, yeah, this is really true. This is really my mother.

Lying in this casket.

Yeah. I really had to convince myself that yes, this is the story. ’cause actually. I had great trouble believing it. Yeah. Hmm 

Todd: hmm. Yeah. [00:21:00] Like you said, it wasn’t your, it wasn’t your firsthand experience. It wasn’t, it was, yeah. Is there any other way of, of seeing this death besides. With the story she committed suicide.

Is there any, any other way of thinking about it that that plays with this idea? Maybe she didn’t commit suicide, even if she did, is there any way of looking at it, like what else happened, what else was going on?

Client: Can you say a little more about that? 

Todd: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So the turnaround is she didn’t commit [00:22:00] suicide, and what we’re doing is looking for examples of how that could be. I. True. And you found one, one already that it, you didn’t actually see it. Um, and many others didn’t either. And I’m just taking a look to see, is there any other way of understanding this turnaround?

She didn’t commit suicide, making sense of it. Um, regardless of what actually happened, we don’t, you know, she may have jumped, I don’t know, but. Is there any other way of looking at this? ’cause you’re standing there seeing her and you can say, oh, she is a suicide victim right there. She committed suicide.

Or I could be standing there looking at the same, same body. And there might be another way of seeing that besides she committed suicide.[00:23:00] 

Client: Well, the thing I can think of is.

Yeah. I don’t know. I’m quite stuck on this one. I must tell you, you know, the only thing I can think of is, well, maybe she didn’t really, [00:24:00] she was so confused and chaotic and you know, lost in thoughts that.

Maybe she didn’t realize what she’s doing, but I don’t really believe that, I must say. Hmm. 

Todd: Yeah. What what we’re we’re looking for is like what was going on for her, you know, what was really going on for her. And we can say, and it may be fair to say that she committed suicide. We’re not going to. Pretend she didn’t.

If that’s the most probable cause of her death, we’re not going to go into denial about it. No, that doesn’t help. But what we can do is look at like what was really going on for [00:25:00] her. Um, is there any way to look at it that way? 

Client: Yeah. Well, she, yeah, you can look at it that way and then. See that yes, she had problems and yes, that was a solution.

That was the 

Todd: solution, right? So you can look at it one of two ways. You can say she committed suicide or she solved the problem, 

Client: but then my mind goes 

Todd: directly. 

Client: But she created a lot of problems for me. 

Todd: And that may be true. Yeah. It may not have been like the ideal solution, at least from your point of me.

Right, right, right. But from her point of view, yeah. [00:26:00] She was doing what she could to solve a problem. She didn’t? Yes. Better solution. Yeah. Than that. That 

Client: reminds me of one thing she said to me that You are better off without me. But she said that a few weeks before that I didn’t even think about suicide.

But then after that I thought, okay, yeah, this is a way to be better off without you. It wasn’t my way, but yes, it was her way. 

Todd: Right. And she may have actually believed that, may have somehow, uh, convinced herself or believed that that 

Client: yeah, 

Todd: you would be better off without her. So then she felt even more free.

Yeah. Commit suicide. So even if she commits suicide in her mind, yeah. She’s solving a problem. 

Client: Definitely.

Todd: And just seeing that possible different way of looking at it just [00:27:00] softens slightly the experience. It’s still, still, we’re dealing with suicide, right? But it’s, we’re also dealing with a human being and we all try to figure out the best way to deal with problems and. Maybe she tried many things before that and this, this was the only thing that made sense to her to try next.

Client: Yeah.

Todd: Okay. So, um, if you have a few extra minutes, I can go a little longer, um, if you’d like. So, so what would another turnaround be? She committed suicide. I committed suicide. Okay. Is there any meaning on that that you can find? 

Client: Yeah, I can see how

I felt [00:28:00] like the un,

the unreal aspect of it was very much a sort of dying. Um, in that I didn’t, it felt like I didn’t feel a lot, or I didn’t, I, it was some coldness that came in, um,

just as a kind of. Protection mechanism or defense mechanism or, yeah.

It, like, it was just too much.

So I, I felt like I, I don’t [00:29:00] feel anything anymore. It’s like it cannot let it in somehow.

Yeah. And the other thing was I committed suicide. I was so busy with uh, um, with her suicide. It was like constantly on my mind. Like I, I woke up with it, I went to bed with it, and I realized only after six years for like riding my bike, and it was somewhere in the course of the morning that I suddenly realized, oh my goodness, I haven’t thought about my mother yet.

Yeah. So I was so. Busy with that. [00:30:00] Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s a kind of suicide if you like. You know, like I, I put my life Yeah, absolutely. On hold. Pushed it over to the one side, and then my, yeah. Whole focus was on her. Yeah, sure. 

Client: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I felt at that time like. I need to take care of my sisters.

They were younger than me and I need to do my study. I was studying at the time and I felt like I have to somehow forcefully make time and put my attention on these things because my mother actually takes up all the space in my head. I am busy with this suicide constantly [00:31:00] not solving anything, and it was already over, but I, I didn’t realize that actually.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd: I, I like what you said earlier about it. It was like, I think you said something like, it’s, yeah, it was too much. It was more than I could take or something. It was too much. And just that gives a, it just can give an understanding for her. Like there was a, may have been a point when it was too much for her and you’re experiencing the same thing, so.

One of my favorite things about this work is the balance that comes in, right? She committed suicide. I committed suicide. It was too much for her. It was too much for me. And I start to see the, I can start to relate, um, even though I didn’t physically commit suicide. 

Client: Yeah.[00:32:00] 

Todd: So is there any other turnaround? She committed suicide. 

Client: Um. She didn’t commit suicide. I committed suicide. Um,

she committed suicide, and that’s a good thing. I

Todd: Okay, 

Client: sure. Or she stayed alive. Okay. Can you find that she stayed alive? Yeah, she stayed alive very much so, like since then, my father has died and that was a peaceful death and I buried him and then it was more or less over. Um, but my mother keeps me [00:33:00] busy.

Yeah. It is, it is just impossible for me to have her die.

Yeah.

Yeah. 

Todd: It’s like each of us has something that is just, that just won’t leave us alone. You know? It might be for one person. Uh. Their partner or their boss or their job, in this case, a mother like mother suicide. So that’s the kind of thing that often can make me seek out doing this kind of work or looking for some way to experience freedom.

Client: Um, yeah, 

Todd: internally.[00:34:00] 

She was just, you are a big part of your way. It sounds like. 

Client: She was.

Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. And still there to this very moment. Absolutely. Yeah.

Client: Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I’m sometimes I’m wondering, will there ever be a day that I have that I can have peace with this?

But I suppose that’s. Why business?[00:35:00] 

Todd: Right? It’s like, it’s like when I’m on the path, I’m always thinking, will there ever be a day when I’m done with the path and I will arrive at the goal, I’ll be free. Yeah. But the real answer is what’s the next step? And it keeps coming because. Yeah, there’s more there. This could be, this is something you can sit in with in so many different ways, right?

Like even the thoughts, like, she betrayed me. Um, that’s a whole other work there. Or I want to understand all of it. You know, I want the complete story. Those are underlying beliefs that can be questioned. And so when I have one that’s just. Tough for me. Like it just, it’s not like I do the work once and it’s done, but I’ve done the work many times and [00:36:00] I’ve, and it’s still, there’s stickiness there.

Then that’s when I try all the different related thoughts and I. I even questioned my motives for getting free. Like, I need to, I need to be over this thing with my mother. Is it true I need to be ever over this? ’cause that’s what, yeah. Forever done, right? Like who would you be without that thought when those thoughts of her show up?

More patient, right? More. We’re okay with that. So this is when I get a, a, a tough one coming. Then I know if I like to do the work, I can look, I can just keep working on this in different ways For a lifetime, I can show me [00:37:00] everything I ever need to know. 

Client: No suicide there. No,

Todd: she, instead of she committed suicide, she like re enlivened herself in your life. 

Client: She’ll live forever. 

Todd: She’ll live forever. Yeah. If she hadn’t committed suicide, she might have just died and you would’ve buried her and moved on you. You might not have, you might have gone years without much communication.

Who knows? But she really came to the forefront. Yeah. 

Client: Thank you so much, Todd. 

Todd: If you would like to participate in open sessions, like the one you just heard here, um, go to the work as meditation.com and then open sessions, and you’ll see the schedule of upcoming, uh, sessions where usually have one a week.

And feel free to, to join in [00:38:00] there and join in as a participant. Um, you have to sign a release form there, but if you, if you’re willing to share. Your work with others. It can serve all of us as we do this work together. Next I’m going to read, uh, from one of my newsletter articles, and this is called Moving Beyond What Is Familiar, an Antidote to Grief.

Everything felt new when I explored the Lost Coast of California, which is a place way out of the way I. Uh, along the Pacific, uh, coast, in, in that state, new territory of any kind can actually be helpful. When dealing with grief, it helps us to move beyond what is familiar. Everyone knows grief is attachment.

Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a job, or the loss of something precious, it’s always the attachment that hurts. The [00:39:00] mind is not just attached. The mind has often literally become identified with that which it loved. On a practical level, this means that the person or thing that we loved has become a part of who we actually are, a central part of our life, and when they die or when that thing we care about is lost a part of ourselves feels like it’s lost as well.

Even after this loss, the mind remains identified looking for what is no longer there. And that’s that experience of grief. Like I, I, I remember when my mom died, I want my mommy, you know, that was the thought I had. And it’s still looking, it’s still expecting for that, um, for her to be there. So this is a.

And so when my mom was alive, I used to be able to call up mom, talk to her anytime. Uh, she was just always around. And [00:40:00] when she died, I no longer had that option, but my mind still operated habitually. It would think, oh yeah, mom will know, or I’ll think to call her, or something like that. And then I would feel sad because I couldn’t call her anymore.

I was unable to fulfill that desire. It was like all the neurons, neurons in my brain had built all these pathways to the concept of mom in my mind, 40 years of connections. Um, and I imagine it’s like a map of all the roads converging onto a city and then suddenly one day that city no longer exists.

Like, what, what do I do? All those roads are going there, but there’s nothing there anymore to, to connect to. And so it takes time and attention to, to close all those roads or redirect them to other places, or to mark them as kind of historical only, um, or what other, other ways you may think of to, um, work with [00:41:00] those roads or repurpose those roads.

And because this job is large and takes time, the mind resists, the mind’s basically lazy. It wants to just stay with what’s familiar. Um. You know, it’s, it’s doesn’t want to do anything that it doesn’t have to do. With a well established relationship, the mind knows just how to navigate to and from that quote unquote city of the other person.

The setup is working for the mind. It doesn’t wanna start from scratch building new cities and roads, so it kind of gives up. It just kind of circles and, and becomes like a loop, right? I trying to go to that city, it doesn’t exist. Okay. What do I do now? Well, let’s try going to that city. Uh, well, it doesn’t exist.

Okay, well, what do I do now? Well, let’s go to that city and it just kind of goes around and around like that. This is grief. The mind thinks it shouldn’t have happened, and then it stays stuck trying to go to that city that no longer exists. And because it can’t [00:42:00] go there, it gets more and more frustrated.

And this zaps what little energy was available for rebuilding, and it becomes a negative feedback loop. Inquiry helps to break out of the loop. When the mind goes down any road to the quote unquote city of mom, it is always motivated by some want or need. I wanna share this with her. I need to talk with someone who understands me.

I need a hug. These are wants coming from inside of me that I wanna share or interact with my mother. When they come up and I question these thoughts using the work of Byron Katie, I find truer statements, these are turnarounds. I wanna share this with me, or I can talk with someone who understands me, not necessarily mom.

Um. I need to give a hug. Um, and these turnarounds get the mind to start looking outside of its little loop that it’s [00:43:00] been on and seeing other ways where it can actually either meet the needs that it has or it may find that it doesn’t have the needs. Like what I actually need is just to share this with myself and it’s enough so the mind starts to see other options.

Mom is not the only city in my world. I’m not dependent on just this one relationship to get what I need. Options start to open up and enthusiasm starts to build again. But this is a practice understanding. This is not enough. The mind has to go through this process of questioning each want and need until it sees that all the roads to mom are.

Not actually viable or even necessary. It takes time for life to bring up each one. It takes time for it to question each one and turn each one around, but the [00:44:00] alternative is doing nothing. Then the mind wins. It just doesn’t have to adjust. But grief continues to thrive. Unabated, the choice is yours.

Which way works best for you? If you want to look closely at grief, then um, there are articles on my website and, uh, you’ll also find coming up there is going to be some, um, uh, a little mini course on grief. So I’m just kind of giving you a heads up on that, and you can find all of that at the work as meditation.com.

So finally, let’s hear a quote from Byron Katie, and this is from her book. Question Your Thinking, change the World. Dying is just like living, it has its own way and you can’t control it.