6: How Tending to Grief Can Heal Our Lives with Barri Leiner Grant

Barri Leiner Grant [0:01 - 0:18]: North node, even in a partnership, how does my husband wish to die? Not just what's in his will and how we're separating the money, but do you want to be buried? Do you want to be cremated? Who do you want to speak? Do you want to write your eulogy? Let's write an op ed.

Paige Nolan [0:18 - 0:19]: Let's sit down.

Barri Leiner Grant [0:19 - 0:43]: Maybe we'll write an ethical will. I think if we bring this into the daily vernacular, just as I hope we can like calling work and say, not going to be in today. I know it's been three years since my mom died, but it's her death anniversary and it's really greasy and we're calling the day that we can take off like the common cold. Like that is desire.

Paige Nolan [0:51 - 3:24]: Hi, I'm Paige Nolan. Welcome to I'll meet you there. A place where heart centered conversations are everything. Living what matters is the truest thing, and sharing the journey is the best. Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I've been looking forward to sharing this episode with y'all because my guest is someone I think you should know. Today. You're going to meet my friend and colleague, Barry liner Grant. I met Barry socially in Chicago in 2019, and I learned about the work she was doing as the founder and chief grief officer of the Memory Circle. Ever since then, I've tracked Berry's presence in the grief support space, and I so appreciate her voice and the way she leads us through what she would call the griefy passages. Berry is a certified grief coach and educator, and through the memory circle she offers people a better place and space to process loss. Barry calls this grief tending, and you will hear in our conversation how she made her way to this fulfilling work. We start with Berry's mom, Ellen, who died in 1993, and make our way through Berry's personal experiences with grief and how her healing played out with the help of others through becoming a mom to her two daughters and how ultimately she's arrived to where she is now squarely standing in what I believe is her life's work. Berry is generous with the lessons she's learned, and she's a wonderful guide to help us show up with grace and compassion for ourselves and for each other in times of loss, which I've come to believe is just all times. I have a lot of nice things to say about Berry. She's authentic, she's down to earth and creative. She's original, she's smart. But at the very top of my list is that she is joyful. She enjoys her life, and she brings the spirit of joy and vitality to her work, which is exactly what grief needs. One last note. Berry often works with writing as a way to heal, and she's always finding lovely quotes and poems to incorporate into the memory circles. So at the end of our conversation, you're going to hear Barry read a poem and offer us a prompt. If you're a person who is open to writing as a way to heal, or if you just want to try it for fun, go ahead and grab your journal and enjoy the invitation to reflect that comes at the end of this episode. Here's my conversation with Barry liner Grant. Well, I'd love to start with Ellen. I mean, it's the best place to start.

Barri Leiner Grant [3:26 - 4:20]: So I come to this work because I lost my mother, Ellen, in 1993. And Ellen Jane was a woman before her time. She was a copywriter, she was a wordsmith. She was a super mom. She was a fundraiser when she and my dad decided to consciously uncouple, if you will, they remain beautiful friends. So I feel like she taught others how to even do divorce well, which was really helpful to my sister and myself. She then created job share with her best friend, who also was separating, and they went to get their real estate license together and became the dynamic duo.

Paige Nolan [4:20 - 4:21]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [4:21 - 4:45]: It was so amazing to watch because she was first to so many things and was ballsy and was irreverent and yet was such a lady with the most beautiful manners and so elegant. And she seemed so ahead of her time, but also like an incredibly old soul.

Paige Nolan [4:45 - 4:47]: Did she cook?

Barri Leiner Grant [4:48 - 5:24]: She cooked a few things really well. So there was meatball night. There was mom's special spaghetti sauce. There was always the grill. There was always a flank steak on the grill with mom's marinade. Shoot. Shoot. She had some go tos. And then as we became, as she became busier in real estate, there were, like, little notes of us, ways that we could start the dinner, like, start the stovetop stuffing. And then she would always find, like, the fast way, but she would always find a way to, like, doctor it and make it very ellen.

Paige Nolan [5:25 - 5:34]: Yes. How did you guys spend time as a family? What are some of your memories when she was alive, of your family time?

Barri Leiner Grant [5:34 - 6:46]: Ah, the beach. The beach. The beach, the beach. Like, we grew up in the, near the Jersey shore. She grew up in deal, New Jersey. And when she had the opportunity to make our first home after she and my dad met in DC, she convinced him that we should go back to New Jersey. So our childhood, I think, probably resembled hers. And so the beach was like the central character I feel like the boardwalk and a rite of passage was definitely learning to play skeeball. It was like, oh, I love that. Probably my best sport, embarrassingly. And also shamefully proud of that. I think also it was adventuring. Like, she also made the idea of having, like, 25 hours in her day compared to other families who seemed to only have, like, 20. We were always last at the mall or out to dinner on a school night. Really? I thought that was magic. That was like working mom, but I really thought it was.

Paige Nolan [6:46 - 6:50]: Yeah, it sounds like magic.

Barri Leiner Grant [6:50 - 7:20]: It really was. And so if you needed, like, the poster board for school or you needed, like, green sweater for green, you know, green day or some superhero something or a costume for your, you know, play. Yeah, we were dashing all around and getting it all done, but it really always felt more of an adventure. And we were always on e, on the gas tank. Like, her. Her battle cry was lean forward. Girls were running on luck.

Paige Nolan [7:21 - 7:27]: Oh, I love it. Are you like that as a mom? Have you carried on that adventurous spontaneity?

Barri Leiner Grant [7:27 - 7:36]: I never have gas. I never have juice on my phone. I'm always running till the bitter end of, like, squeezing it all in. Yes.

Paige Nolan [7:36 - 7:45]: Yeah. And so tell me about the period in your life. How old were you and what was going on in your life when Ellen passed?

Barri Leiner Grant [7:45 - 8:51]: So my mom sadly died suddenly and without warning. At 50, she took a day off and went to the beach. Yeah, at Sandy Hook, which was a beautiful public beach. And she just decided that it was too hot to sell anybody a house that day. I was 27. I was married and living in Manhattan. And the good news is that the moment I connected with my sister, I said to her, if there was anything left, that you would tell mommy that you need to say that you're sorry for anything at all. And I don't know what made me feel like I needed to ask her that so urgently. But we both thought about it for a minute, and every single conversation that we had with our mom ended with I love you. And they were daily phone calls, and they were the absolute minutiae of knowing everything about your day. Yeah. So there was nothing left unsaid or unspoken. It was just way too soon.

Paige Nolan [8:52 - 9:23]: Way too soon. Did you even understand what grief is or was at that time? Tell us about that initial, because some people listening might be either in their acute grief phase or maybe they've come through it. And I just want to understand, because you have become so well versed and so grief informed, as I've heard you reference, which I love that term, since then. But take us back to the raw. You're 27. You get that phone call. What happens in the next couple of years after she dies?

Barri Leiner Grant [9:24 - 10:09]: Nobody said grief or grieving. Everybody came and paid their respects, and we had a beautiful funeral, and no one offered me any idea of doing anything past that. And so I didn't know that there was a process. I didn't know that that terrible hurt, that longing, that pain that was connected to the way that I was feeling, felt like I must be feeling this because I had that incredible attachment to this incredible woman, that I didn't realize that there were tools that I could have that could have helped ease the pain or name what I was feeling. Grief.

Paige Nolan [10:09 - 10:10]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [10:10 - 10:20]: So I wasn't doing anything that was, like, outwardly mourning past the funeral. And we know now that that's essential.

Paige Nolan [10:20 - 10:21]: Yes.

Barri Leiner Grant [10:21 - 11:35]: I didn't have any. Anybody talking to me about, like, maybe you should go talk to someone. Maybe there's some way in which you would like to remember her or honor her. This is going to be hard. Like, I didn't hear any of that. So my knee jerk reaction was to just hunker down. I owned my own PR agency at the time. We were all three. My sister, my stepfather, and I were all, like, returned to work, and I dug into work so fiercely, it just didn't even cross my mind that there was something else that I should do. But I really felt as if I was walking around with an open wound, that the world know that I was, like, bleeding out all over Manhattan. But it was secret and quiet. And I feel so sorry for that, Barry, because I wish someone had said, hey, this is what you might want to think about. So my resiliency took over, and I don't think there's anything wrong with being strong, resilient, independent. But I flexed that muscle so hard that I really didn't know that there was another way.

Paige Nolan [11:36 - 11:57]: Did you have moments of breakdown, like, the first New Year's Eve without her, or the. You know, like, were you experiencing the. You know, what I would describe as, like, an influx of longing or pain around certain. Maybe her birthday or her death date? Or were you not even. You were just getting through life and maybe not even tuned in in that way?

Barri Leiner Grant [11:57 - 12:48]: I think there were small moments of memorializing her on, like, our first mother's Day and the first grief anniversary. And they were all out of a sense of my own way of memory making. I mean, it's always been a part of me that my knee jerk reaction to most things is, like, how do we make this some kind of memory ritual. I had that gene before, but this really made it, like, heightened and formally. I feel like the first time that I entertained grieving in a way that was on purpose was when I became pregnant with my first child. But I realized, oh, no, I'm going to be a motherless mother.

Paige Nolan [12:48 - 12:56]: Yes. And what does that mean to then be conscious? Did you read a book? Did you talk to a friend? Did you get therapy?

Barri Leiner Grant [12:57 - 13:44]: In 1994, Hope Edelman spoke. Motherless daughters came out. That was the year following my loss. And in that book were the stories of women where, you know, consciously, of course, you know, on the planet, there are other women who have lost their mom. But reading the book allowed me to know I wasn't alone. And a lot of those women and what they did became sort of a map for what I might do and what those things as a motherless mother, which was outlined in one of the chapters of the book, was, yeah, let's get on the horn with a therapist who can help you with these big feelings, because I was also so cognizant of making it the happiest pregnancy I could so that I felt like I didn't want to pass along that bittersweet sadness to baby I was holding.

Paige Nolan [13:45 - 13:49]: Yeah. And so was that your first experience with therapy?

Barri Leiner Grant [13:49 - 13:50]: It was.

Paige Nolan [13:50 - 13:51]: Wow.

Barri Leiner Grant [13:51 - 13:52]: Yeah, I was.

Paige Nolan [13:52 - 13:54]: And would you describe it as a positive one?

Barri Leiner Grant [13:54 - 14:07]: It was so positive. It was very. I reached out to referral. It was a gentleman. He was warm and lovely, and he said, you might want to talk to my wife. She lost her mother.

Paige Nolan [14:08 - 14:09]: Oh, wow.

Barri Leiner Grant [14:10 - 14:34]: And so I think, so often when I work with folks or people come to me and ask me how, I think the best way to be supported is to find somebody that has experienced a personal loss. It doesn't have to be the same one as you. Although I think motherless daughters see other motherless daughters in such a beautiful way.

Paige Nolan [14:35 - 14:35]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [14:36 - 14:43]: She was warm and insightful. Just knowing that she had experienced a similar loss.

Paige Nolan [14:44 - 14:44]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [14:44 - 14:57]: Just created a. A camaraderie, a comfort, a trust, and a safe space for me to be the most open I had ever been with anybody about what it felt like with this hole in my heart.

Paige Nolan [14:57 - 15:56]: Yes. I think especially when you're expecting your first child and you're a motherless daughter, there's something. There's something unique about every loss we experience. But I think in that case, there's so many references to mothers in our culture that we don't even realize, you know, now that I've had dear friends lose their moms and just more tuned in to people's paths and humanity. Like, Mother's Day itself is a different experience, because now I'm aware of how it could be specifically experienced to people who don't have that kind of connection to their mom, or maybe their mother isn't physically here or for all the reasons. I have a lot of friends who have had experiences with fertility, you know, and maybe they've become a mother. Maybe they never. That ship sailed. And so I always think about women and their relationship to motherhood during that period. And so I'm glad that you. You felt like you had some support before she arrived.

Barri Leiner Grant [15:56 - 17:46]: I know, and that. And that was another gift, because I was so urgently seeking that beautiful, secure attachment that I had lost. And it was beautiful in that I went to find out the sex of the baby, and I was so desperate for them to just put the exclamation point on the fact that I already knew that I was having a daughter. Like, if there is a higher spirit, God connection to whatever it is that I was, like, trying so hard to believe in. After the loss of my mom, I was like, I will have a daughter. And so there she came, Emma Jane, who's named after my mom, Ellen Jane. And I just knew. And then in between my girls, I had three miscarriages and a lot of fertility issues, and, again, sought support. And it also was sort of an invitation as a motherless daughter. When so much of my support and guidance and nurturance came from that relationship, I had to seek outside help, and it was very hard to ask for help. So you're in this independent zone, yet you're so lost. You're doing all these things for the first time. The first person that you want to call is your mom. At least for me, it was. It was the one person that I knew would be able to give me the kind of guidance and understanding in those really difficult moments. And, you know, the OB became a place that felt like a place where I sought support and nurturance. And the way that I chose those people was really important to me.

Paige Nolan [17:47 - 17:58]: Was there a way to choose them? Like, was there. Was there, like, magic in the air? Did you get a gut feeling when you were going to work with particular women or seek mothering from women around you?

Barri Leiner Grant [17:58 - 18:50]: I don't think that I named it until many, many years later, knowing that I needed to be remothered. But the people that felt like warmth. It felt like a hug, felt like something was just right, and it opened, like, this chain of being able to converse, cry openly, yeah. Just welcome my story wholeheartedly. And being able to even say, this is gonna be hard without my mom. And it was just. It was an all female practice that came highly recommended, and it just felt like they had my back in a way that, I don't know, that I wouldn't really need it or was seeking. Had I had a mom that I knew was gonna show up and be like, you know, literally between my legs, I think Ellen would have been there between my legs.

Paige Nolan [18:50 - 18:54]: Oh, it sounds like it. Very modern. Like, let's go. I'm in the room.

Barri Leiner Grant [18:54 - 18:57]: She would have been the catcher. I have, silly.

Paige Nolan [18:58 - 19:14]: I love it. So tell me then, or lead us through what led you to then creating these spaces for other women and really anybody to participate in your memory circles and in conversations about grief and grief support.

Barri Leiner Grant [19:15 - 20:55]: I mean, it was a big, winding path to get there. I had a career in public relations. We up and moved from New York to Chicago, which Ellen would have been very against. It felt like my first middle finger to death and loss and making a grown up decision that she would have been really good and pissed at. But she also knew me as a writer, and I never wanted to lose my connection to that. Even though I felt really drawn to helping others and kept meeting motherless daughters and eking out a little more confidence and curiosity about talking about mother loss. I didn't dip into the work for a really long time. So I was reporter at the Chicago Tribune, and I was reporter at Chicago magazine, and I had all these ways in which I connected to folks in my writing about different businesses around Chicago, and in doing so, kept meeting someone who had experienced loss. And I realized that I had this enormous capacity to take in their story that I was. It was kindred and feeling that connection, and I couldn't really name it, but suddenly I felt like there needed to be more somehow. So in the course of doing a yoga teacher training, that was like a 200 hours teacher training in my local studio, just for me, just for deepening their practice, it asked if there was, like, some project that you would like to do that served your highest and best self as a new Yogi.

Paige Nolan [20:55 - 20:56]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [20:56 - 21:01]: Said it was to sit shoulder to shoulder in circle with others who would experience loss of any kind.

Paige Nolan [21:02 - 21:07]: And you wrote that out, like, with the long hand in a notebook. Okay. I love that.

Barri Leiner Grant [21:07 - 22:04]: Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was. It was what came through. And in no time, one of my teachers who I knew had also experienced loss. My dear friend Amy Owen and I co created a class. We made it on the day before Mother's Day. We called it, like, taking back the night. So as difficult as Mother's Day had been in the past for both for us, we thought, if we have this on the Saturday before, we can do some movement, some somatic healing, we'll write. We'll take all the writing skills that Barry has, and we'll get into some journal prompts, and we will create a circle that would have been, like, nurturing to us, because Amy had also lost her mother, marble. And so we invoked Ellen and marble, and we did. All these women in the room, and what we heard when everybody left was, this was so amazing. There's nowhere to go for this. I'm so glad you created this. When are you doing it again?

Paige Nolan [22:05 - 22:10]: That's so beautiful. How old were your girls when you were doing the yoga certification?

Barri Leiner Grant [22:13 - 22:14]: Quinnie was real little.

Paige Nolan [22:14 - 22:15]: Like, I moved.

Barri Leiner Grant [22:15 - 22:59]: I moved to Chicago. Back and forth. New York, Chicago, like, in zero three. Must have been around 0304. So she was a newborn. Tiny. Tiny. Yeah, really little. I can't even think about trying to think of her in, like, the mix of all of it. Yeah, tiny. Yeah. Emma must have been in grade school. And one of the things about school that was so interesting is that I thought, everybody deserves to have yoga in their life. And as part of my training, I did, like, a certification with children so that I could teach it in the Chicago public schools. Maybe she was bigger. Paige.

Paige Nolan [22:59 - 23:00]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [23:00 - 23:22]: Like, five. Maybe it was. Both girls were at this amazing, progressive public school, and it must have been. I must have been doing yoga then and part of the yoga community in Chicago, but it was when Quinnie was probably in the pre k program or something that I just thought every time I would come to my mount, I would say, everybody deserves it.

Paige Nolan [23:23 - 24:43]: Well, the reason I'm asking is because I know there are two things. A lot of parents listen to this podcast, and a lot of women listen to this podcast who are navigating their career paths, and maybe men, too. I just hear from the women more, and I feel like in my conversations that I'm having with these people, sometimes they'll think they're behind the eight ball or, I should have figured this out by now or that. And when I know your work, I love hearing your story in this way. And I think it's so important for people to hear that. The seeds of what your life's work is, your vocation, your calling, which I believe this grief. Work is your calling. That's how I've experienced you in this space. It's seated it's there. So I wanted to take my listener back and let them imagine your lifeline like this has been in the works and the way that you now do and facilitate memory circle, which I want you to talk about. But it's all these different interests that you have, and they've all been seated, and they all come together in this very unique, original experience that you're offering people. And I think that's true for all of our lives. You know, the future is in the seeds. You know, we're always growing towards what I think is our true expression, if we're paying attention. And it sounds like you were really starting to pay attention.

Barri Leiner Grant [24:43 - 26:20]: You know, I went many, many years in, I went to a shaman, and she said, you need to collaborate. And I always told myself the story that my mother would be good and pissed if I, in any way defined my life by my loss. And this woman basically said to me, oh, she's on board. Everything you've been doing up until now. And so it kind of felt like the pr department, the marketing department, the writing. Yes. List, the people you meet. It felt like every step was leading to that, right up to the yoga training. And I thought my mom would, like, be making such fun, like, she had this, like, woo daughter and. But the truth is that she used to see a friend who would read her and tell her if it was a good day or not a good day to sell a house. So she really was attached. It was that I was worried that the me that she knew that would be lost, that our connection would be lost. But this shaman said to me, oh, no, you have to learn to collaborate. So the memory circle was really born of the drive home that day when I thought, what does collaboration look like? What does it feel like? Because the work that I was doing at the yoga studio was very unofficial. I was still gainfully employed as full time stylist with folks like crate and barrel and designers and all of this. And I reached out to a friend that had, like, one of the earliest podcasts. Her name is Lena Brower, and she has a podcast called practice you that is so aligned with your work page, you would adore her.

Paige Nolan [26:21 - 26:21]: Yes.

Barri Leiner Grant [26:22 - 26:46]: She had a very comprehensive intake form. And the last line on the form said, is there anything else that you wish us to promote? And out of my fingers on the keys came the memory circle. Like magic. It was not searched. Never. I yelled to my girls. I was like, somebody go and see. Go on. Go, daddy, and see if it's dot.

Paige Nolan [26:46 - 26:51]: And, like, somebody techie, somebody young and, techie, go in there and google it.

Barri Leiner Grant [26:51 - 26:58]: We'll figure this out for mom. And, like, it was free and clear on all the sites, which is really, you know, no weird spellings and no.

Paige Nolan [26:58 - 26:59]: Yes.

Barri Leiner Grant [26:59 - 27:08]: No strange extensions. And it was just. It just felt easy, smooth, and almost fun.

Paige Nolan [27:09 - 27:51]: Yes. I think that's a real measure of where we're supposed to go with our lives, and I think it's one of the pieces of criteria that we often overlook because it's so natural and fun that you're like, oh, this couldn't be valuable. People couldn't want to do writing prompts with me. You know, I'm thinking about your work and how you've managed to weave in your connection to poetry and writing, and I love that about your work. So. So let's get into that. So, tell me a little bit more about how you landed. And. And did you initially go more the yoga route? And is it. Was it yoga and. And grief work, or do you feel like it was all. There was always a piece that was about writing and accessing your inner world through these writing prompts?

Barri Leiner Grant [27:52 - 28:09]: You know, I just thought, how can I make it my own? And how can I take the skills that I know and help folks process grief in the way that I knew it? And that was all pre training. Then I thought, I'm gonna get real about this.

Paige Nolan [28:09 - 28:10]: Then.

Barri Leiner Grant [28:10 - 29:04]: I want to become certified. And so I did coursework with Jorah Carpenter, Hope Edelman, Claire Bidwell Smith, David Kessler. Like, all the biggest names in the space, I was like, I want to learn from them. I want to feel like, do no harm. Know as much as you can entertain still to this day, you know, continuing, going to school. I do more continuing education in the space than you can imagine as a non therapist. So I reach specialists, but not a therapist. So I'm always eager to create forward movement through whatever modality, whatever you can put in your toolkit so that processing grief feels right to you, that there are no rules, that there is no one way, there is only that we learn to live with loss and that in some way, we are moving forward.

Paige Nolan [29:04 - 29:34]: Yes. And through all your training, Barry, and in your personal life, because I know that you've gone through other losses since your mom died. How have you changed and how you experience your own grief and how do you move through? I'm always curious about that. You know, it's like, we come here to teach what we're here to learn, you know, so, how do you apply all these beautiful lessons that you're teaching us and holding space for us. But how does that apply to your own life? And what have you found most helpful?

Barri Leiner Grant [29:35 - 30:50]: I have learned to trust my intuition and curiosity in exploring anything next and new and interesting. And like I said, the memory making piece felt very comfortable to me. So I'm the girl who engraves things. I'm the girl who collects things that feel like they have meaning in and around my home. I took my mother's fur coat and made pillows. Like, any way I can incorporate and create a continuing bond with my mother and nurture my relationship with her, even across the veil, feels, yes, it has guided my work. And I don't know that I always believed that I could, but I think in my work, I realized how essential that was in my learnings. Keeping her alive means keeping her alive in ways that feel right to me, that feel on purpose to me. Me. And so on her birthday, I always buy something at discount to honor the idea that she was, like, the queen of discount shopping. Like an olympian.

Paige Nolan [30:50 - 30:51]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [30:52 - 31:32]: And I frame tidbits of my children's writing, and I lean so into meaning making in my life and memory making in my life that even taking her purse to the theater and keeping all the theater tickets of all the shows that she didn't, there's just something. There's such aliveness in that. I write to her. I write about her a great deal, but write to her. And there's such good science now about how the cells in our body don't know whether our person is earthly or otherwise. So imagine making that gorgeous cellular connection to our loved ones by writing to them.

Paige Nolan [31:32 - 31:33]: Yes.

Barri Leiner Grant [31:33 - 31:53]: When we write to them by hand, we use a part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, that responds in healing. So I always say to folks, like, just imagine that it's a healing process in addition to connection and just drawing and see how it feels. And if that feels totally weird to you, don't do it.

Paige Nolan [31:53 - 32:45]: Yes. And I think people are so afraid. Like, what do I do with the letter or what? I always tell people, you can burn it, you can shred it. You don't have to keep it. But letter writing, for me, in my life personally, and just when I'm helping other people with their lives, it is the best tool. It's inexpensive. You can do it anytime. You can do it anywhere you have a writing utensil. And I also think it's so important to note, you know, dealing with loss of a relationship or loss of a job or loss of a lover or loss of a friend. It's to speak to that person, you know, in a way, and share what you're dealing with and share with that person. It immediately moves the energy. It immediately moves the longing or the resentment or whatever you're feeling. It's a beautiful tool. So I'm so glad you're. You're telling our listeners about that. It's really important.

Barri Leiner Grant [32:45 - 33:15]: There is a chapter, actually, in Claire Bidwell Smith's book, and she talks about anxiety being, like, one of the things in Greece that we don't really talk about a lot. And shows up to her practice, and he's having anxiety, and he can't even name these panic attacks as he's having, as having any relation to grief at all. But he says his dad dies, and he has this incredible longing to tell him something. She says write to him, right?

Paige Nolan [33:15 - 33:16]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [33:16 - 34:26]: And I read the book as part of training, and so I did the exercise. And what helped me to create was to invite my mom in. So let's say I was going to my daughter's college graduation instead of it being, like, another moment that my mother was missing, even though she wasn't there. And of course, it would be much better if she were in person. I would invite her in. Dear mom, if you could see Emma, she's graduating cum laude today, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I invited her in, and it was so soul soothing. It was such beautiful connectivity. Again, it's not your person. I'm not bright siding letter writing as a substitute in any way, shape or form. But when you feel how calming, how connected, how wonderful it was to invite her in, it feels more like a calling in than a missing out. And before I could do that, the more I felt like my life was still so full and she was so proud. And as I wrote those moments, I realized also what they meant to me.

Paige Nolan [34:26 - 34:33]: Yes, it's like you live them double. You double down on the meaning and the memory making.

Barri Leiner Grant [34:33 - 35:18]: And it made me slow down and take in big moments in my life, too, in a way that I was sharing it with her, but I was also almost like a meditation. Everything just, like, slowing down and really taking in those moments. But as you said, it could also be to get quiet and get meditative and maybe light a candle and ask for her advice. Like, try to channel her advice through my intuition. Like, what would mom say? This is this really difficult situation, and what might her advice be? And maybe it was, like, about moving house or, like, some real estate question. You can hear her voice and, like, getting ready for a big event. Like, more blush, more blush.

Paige Nolan [35:20 - 35:43]: Put on a little dash of lipstick. It's so sweet. I love that. How do you feel about signs? You know, it's kind of along the same line of calling in your loved one who's passed. And in your memory circles, have you heard people's accounts of feeling like they're getting some sort of communication or affirmation from their loved one? And how do you feel about it in your life?

Barri Leiner Grant [35:44 - 37:44]: Yeah, I write about mine all the time. I mean, I have seen ladybugs since shortly after I lost my mom. The first time we gathered with all the grandkids back in New Jersey, we were on, like, our old Highway 35, where we grew up, and we stopped at cold at Carvel in the middle of winter. We saw that it was open, and it was my mom's favorite. On any given day, you can knew her car in the parking lot, and we ordered the vanilla cone, like the grandma Ellen cone. Call her grandma Ellen, even though she never knew any of her grandkids. And we're all at such a good time that all the windows fogged, and so we opened the window, and this ladybug flew in, and she just wouldn't leave. Like, we drove away on the highway after everybody had enjoyed their cones. And she. She was still with us and still with us until we were, like, laughing. And at some point, she must have flown out. But a ladybug would continue to visit on big occasions, ski trips. I mean, there was no mistaking that this was, like, Ellen was not missing. These family adventures highlighted days on the calendar. And also the first building that we moved to in Chicago for work. The work building was 444 North Michigan. And I have seen 444 nearly daily, to the point now that I've shared. Even clients send me their 444 sightings because they think it's me, too, even what they see. So I feel like that happens. And I always bring in a medium into my grief groups at some point along the way to talk about how we can invite in signs, how we can talk about connecting across the veil, trusting our own intuition, tapping our own intuition. And if it feel good to see what it's like to call in, you know, trusted mediums and see if you can connect with your loved one.

Paige Nolan [37:44 - 38:31]: Yeah. And in my experience of calling in a sign or just believing in a sign, it's also an active choice to affirm that you got the sign. You know, that's your choice. And so I always tell people, it's like, why not believe? You get to believe, you know? And so practice and play like, it can be very playful, and it can really help you feel like you're. You're not alone in this. And that there's hope. You know, that's. That's the thing. It's. It can feel that void in our hearts, those holes in our hearts can feel hopeless at times. And then it's like, well, life is all connected in a mystical and mysterious way that we don't know, and that can be okay and even beautiful, but we have to decide to engage those ideas.

Barri Leiner Grant [38:31 - 39:59]: Erin, if you are someone who maybe didn't have a big belief before your loved one passed, you have to ask that. Ask them for a sign. They may be afraid to frighten you. And so everybody that I've ever worked with always says, ask for a very specific sign and call it in and say that you want it and that you wish to connect this way. And as soon as they've done that, they've seen all kinds of signs, synchronicities, things that they feel could only be for them. Like calling in at a sign the night before and then going into the bathroom and getting ready for a big event. And there's like a disco of flipping green lights in the, you know, in the back as they're trying to get ready. Big electrical things, hummingbirds, nature, all kinds of bags, cardinals. You know, everybody has something different that they wish to see. And also, if there's something that shows up that seems curious, I always say, look up the meaning if, like, in a week, you keep getting, like, the same number reoccurring, or all of a sudden you keep noticing a similar flower or you find a four leaf clover, or you're just curious about something, I always say, get even more curious and see what else to tell you.

Paige Nolan [39:59 - 43:08]: Yes, I have to share this sign that I got from my father in law. Boyd's dad passed suddenly at age 68, and I think Boyd was just about 40, and I was close with him because Boyd and I met in college, and his name is Richard, and he and I both loved work. He had left his big, long banking kind of job, and he had started a jazz music label that he was very passionate about. So I loved that, talking about the musicians, and I just love work. And he was always very encouraging of my writing and me starting my own business one day. So at the time, I was teaching, and we would have these great conversations about passion and vocation. And so I'm going to give a talk in New Orleans, and all my mom and her friends are going to be there. It's at a country club, and it's for a nonprofit that is about organ donation. And when Richard had passed, he was able to be an organ donor, and his kidney went to a mother in the Midwest. I can't remember where she lives, and it saved her life. And she had two small children, and this woman had written, Boyd and his two younger brothers, thank you note. So in this talk, which I'd never given before, plus, I felt, you know, it's interesting when you have your own business. I don't know if you've experienced this, too. When you're first coming out to your friends and family, it's like, what are they going to think? You know, that I'm talking about these things, and it's not like my life is perfect, and yet here I am, a life coach, you know, talking about living what matters and living with intention. So I felt a little vulnerable in front of this group of women, and I'm walking in to the country club, and I'm going to give my talk, and I'm going to end by sharing with the group this letter, this thank you note that was sent to Boyd and his brothers and kind of tie it all together. And the one sign that I had said I would like to receive from Richard was when he died, and he died suddenly, we were all in his workspace cleaning it out, and he had this huge tub of paper clips. And I always felt particularly bonded with him, as I said, overworking, but we were both capricorns. And just in his being in his workspace, that was always kind of where I interacted with him. So I had said out loud with my hand on my heart, hey, if you ever want to give me a sign, let it be a paperclip. So as I'm walking in, you know, I've got my little outfit on. I'd actually gotten my hair done, which I never, ever, ever do, you know, and I had navy blue on, and I had lipstick on. I was really nervous, and I said, I just. I'd like a sign. I'm about to go in there, and I'm. And I literally look down, Barry, and there's a paper club, like, right in front of my shoe. Like, as I'm walking into the country club, just right there on the front porch in New Orleans, it was so, so beautiful. So I'm sure you hear other stories like that in the memory circle, but it's a. It's so encouraging just to believe, you know, it feels like, oh, I. Who knows? It's God, it's Richard. It's life. It's just a paperclip that fell out of someone's bag. I mean, all of the above. But just to believe that it's okay and we're not alone and we're together.

Barri Leiner Grant [43:09 - 43:53]: I went on such a search for meaning. Like, how can a woman who is such an extraordinary mother and such an incredible fundraiser and gives back so much to the world, like, how could I have a belief in anything greater than us? This woman was plucked one day at 50, and she, too, wanted to be an organ donator, which our family discussed when I lost my grandmother. And she said, my grandmother sadly passed emphysema. And my mom said, if I can in any way help for the research of emphysema. So we met with my stepfather around the holidays, and it was miserable because she passed in summer, and it was like our first big holiday together. And we met in Manhattan.

Paige Nolan [43:53 - 43:54]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [43:54 - 44:05]: And we were leaving and all partying on the sidewalk, and he said, you know, I debated whether or not to tell you girls, but they couldn't donate mommy's organs because they found early stage liver cancer.

Paige Nolan [44:06 - 44:10]: Oh, wow. How did you respond to that?

Barri Leiner Grant [44:11 - 44:20]: Well, I just said, I can't believe you weren't thinking of not telling us. Like, he hesitated whether or not to share. And I had been so searching for the why.

Paige Nolan [44:21 - 44:22]: Yes.

Barri Leiner Grant [44:23 - 45:39]: And to me, that was the greatest ever why. Like, there were so many things that I had searched for. Recreating her last day had a receipt in her beach bag for three pounds of her favorite Santa Rosa plums. And, yeah, there was such joy in knowing she was at her favorite place on earth and just fell asleep in a beach chair, that if someone had given her a choice, that might have been it. But even more so knowing that the other choice that she might have was to have a long and painful experience with cancer. I think if someone had said to Ellen, you can have this, or you can have this, she must in the day at the beach. And so there was such comfort in that. And I think when we don't have those kind of discussions, open discussions with our family about what we choose for our own end of life. And it's so urgently important for us to have those, not just so that your family knows your wishes and those are made very clear, but when we do speak about what it looks like for us to have lived a well, you know, for a well lived life and to die well.

Paige Nolan [45:40 - 45:40]: Yes.

Barri Leiner Grant [45:41 - 47:50]: Kind of naming those things and then living into them backwards, you know? So if a family dinner is really important to you, but you're not having family dinners, if you value. Yeah, if you value being, you know, charitable, but you're not doing any, you know, giving back. It's like when you really sit down to think about how you wish to be remembered ethically, you know, like, not who gets my pearls, but who gets my principles of wisdom and how I lived my best life. You then write them down. You speak about them like, those are the discussions that we should be having at Thanksgiving and on birthdays, not just waiting until somebody dies to also tell them exactly how much you love them. And so I just think these are the discussions that we need to be having so that we're also not curious about what our loved ones may or may not have wanted in the end. I'm now in a lot of anticipatory grief because my dad, Neil, a very, you know, favorites and wise ad guy in his day, a madman, if you will, suffers from memory issues. And I'm so grateful that we had a conversation with him that was really difficult before we really knew where this was going and how quickly it was going, what his wishes were. And we know that clearly and without hesitation. And so now we feel like we're moving forward with him so deeply here in our hearts and in every decision that we're making. And that really helps us to be in the grief of losing him. Right. He's alive and very much before us, but we're losing every day, and it will be hard when he's gone, but not having to guess or hope that we're making the right decisions. But that knowing takes all of that off the table. And I can be very much in the presence of loving what's left.

Paige Nolan [47:51 - 47:58]: Did you all write it down? Did you have a conversation where you wrote or he wrote it down? Yeah. So it was a very intentional.

Barri Leiner Grant [47:59 - 48:06]: Yes. The three of you with them also just in the choices about how long did he want to live in his home, did he.

Paige Nolan [48:06 - 48:07]: I see.

Barri Leiner Grant [48:07 - 49:00]: Did he want caretaking there? Did he want one of us to move in with him? Did he, you know, what felt best? We talked around it all, and he's very easy and laid back, and his midwestern was showing and, yeah, he just wanted it to be easy for all of us. And I could tell it was a difficult conversation for him. But he had also lost his mom in the same way. And I think watching the way that he had to deal with that, I learned a great lesson in wanting to know from him while he still could tell us exactly what his wishes were. And it was difficult, but now it feels like freedom and love, and I can just soak up, like I said, loving what's left is so much easier when I know that we are carrying out his wishes without a question.

Paige Nolan [49:01 - 49:33]: Absolutely. It's like talking about dying and being very aware of your death is exactly what infuses your life with. With living. You know, I think it's that people have this idea, like, oh, I don't want to talk about that. That's morbid. Or, I don't know if I can talk about that. I'll have too many feelings. But you're going to have double the amount of confusing feelings if you don't confront it. And the truth does set you free. I've been. I've walked side by side with people who have had those conversations, and it's liberating. It's so, so important.

Barri Leiner Grant [49:34 - 50:03]: I say the same exact thing, having been through a divorce, I say the same exact thing about marriage. I say, you know, maybe while everybody is very much alive, happy, loving, before you walk down the aisle, not even a prenup. How would you want this to end? If we ended it beautifully, what would this. What would a beautiful ending look like?

Paige Nolan [50:03 - 50:04]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [50:04 - 50:06]: And I did that with my second marriage.

Paige Nolan [50:07 - 50:07]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [50:08 - 50:41]: And they're really difficult conversations to have. I'm not saying they're easy, but I think they're as essential as any other conversation that we have about our wishes, our needs. I think it deepens the connection when we know for sure, even in a partnership. How does my husband wish to die? Not just what's in his will and how we're separating the money, but do you want to be buried? Do you want to be cremated? Who do you want to speak? Do you want to write your eulogy? Let's write an op ed.

Paige Nolan [50:41 - 50:42]: Let's sit down.

Barri Leiner Grant [50:42 - 51:07]: Maybe we'll write an ethical will. I think if we bring this into the daily vernacular, just as I hope we can call in work and say, I'm not going to be in today. I know it's been three years since my mom died, but it's her death anniversary, and it's really greasy. And we're calling the day that we can take off the common cold that is desire.

Paige Nolan [51:07 - 51:21]: Yes. Barry? What do I do with my journals? It's the only thing I don't know what to do with. I have a lot of ideas about my perfect death. I want to die outside. I want to die with my dogs. But what do I do with my journals?

Barri Leiner Grant [51:21 - 51:24]: Do people worry about this every day? I mean.

Paige Nolan [51:24 - 51:37]: I mean, this closet right behind me, I know some people. Most people are going to be listening to us. If you see us on YouTube, I am always sitting in front of my closet, which literally has 200 journals in it, and Boyd is like, I am not going in there.

Barri Leiner Grant [51:38 - 51:44]: Burn the journals. Burn the journals. I say, make bonfire. Like, that's what I'll do.

Paige Nolan [51:44 - 51:45]: Okay.

Barri Leiner Grant [51:45 - 52:07]: Those are not the notes for, like, the unwritten memoir, because as a hardest way practitioner, most of mine are morning pages, and they're not read by me and not really meant to be read by anybody else. If you do have some that, you know, you never want anybody to see, you have to put a trusted person in charge.

Paige Nolan [52:07 - 52:07]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [52:08 - 52:21]: Thing they do upon your death is gather up the journals, and they are in charge, and they are meant to do whatever it is that you leave them to do with them. And if destroy them is your wish, you need to name somebody.

Paige Nolan [52:21 - 52:50]: I know. I've been thinking about that. This is good. We're talking about this for other listeners who have things like their laptop. I read this because I'm grief adjacent. You know, I'm not in the grief counseling space, but I get so interested in this because to me, it has everything to do with living. And I've read before that one of the number one worries with people who are helping other people at the end of the life is the laptop. You know, who's going to see what I've been searching on the Internet, who's going to see my documents, and I'm thinking, who's going to read my journals?

Barri Leiner Grant [52:50 - 53:08]: And your phone, also the phone. I mean, words. All of these things, like good and. Well, you know, my husband bugs me all the time. He uses, like, one of those things that we keep all the passwords and all the whatever. Yes. I. Freaking old school. If I should die file.

Paige Nolan [53:08 - 53:09]: I love it. Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [53:10 - 53:23]: Same every time I leave on vacation. I. I always say, you know, it's in the file. There are letters in there. I write. Every new year's Eve, I write a letter to my girls. All of those are in there.

Paige Nolan [53:24 - 54:01]: Yeah. Well, once you've been through it, what you've been through and what Boyd has been through with losing a parent, literally, 1 minute she's there, and the next minute she's not. Same with Boyd's dad, who also died in a place he loves. He died in a jazz club with music around him and with friends around him. Once you've go through that, I just think it changes your perspective. I mean, we got home from Boyd's dad, celebration of life, and we were super organized, you know, like, told each other the passwords, looked at all the documents, cleaned things out, because you just don't want to leave your loved ones with a mess. It's so important.

Barri Leiner Grant [54:02 - 54:28]: You can help folks uncomplicate the very complicated business of grieving if you do make those plans. I hear people that struggle when they don't have any end of life documents, paperwork, where you're trying to make sense of cobbling the life back together when you really just need space for grief.

Paige Nolan [54:28 - 55:10]: Yes, absolutely. I want to make sure we talk about this important part of grief, which is the grieving. And I know you support people, and this comes up in the memory circle. I hear this from a lot of people. What do I say to my sister who's grieving differently from me, you know, from the way I am? Or what do I say to my friend who just received a cancer diagnosis? How to go about supporting people in addition to supporting ourselves, but really these kind of social implications around grieving and how to hold space for others. Can you share some of your guidance with us?

Barri Leiner Grant [55:10 - 56:51]: Yeah, my greatest guidance is show up as your most authentic self. So I say the cook cooks, right. You don't want me to cook for you, but you agree, the one that can sit with you in the muck, so you'll find the listener show up as your most authentic self. So if you are not someone that would be showing up for a dinner party and they count on you for the dish, like in the living, what were you to that person? Also, just know that no two people, even in the same family, grieve the same way. So some people may have a very outward way of grieving, which would look like crying. And then some others can't even find tears. Both are exactly okay and right for that person. Unless you feel after, you know, many years that you are still can't make sense of the loss, are still wondering if they're coming back through the door, you know, unless you have very complicated and prolonged grief and really need to talk to somebody, I think what's normal is the way that you grieve. I always like to say to folks, tell me a story. I open up a conversation about their person. Let's say they've gotten a terrible diagnosis. I always say, tell me if you're afraid. Tell me what. Tell me what this feels like for you. But I'm worker and the listener, and so that's how I show up, and that's how I've always showed up. Sometimes it's just dropping off a meaningful book of poetry, right?

Paige Nolan [56:51 - 56:51]: Yes.

Barri Leiner Grant [56:52 - 57:59]: Really dear to you that you may pass along with a little note on the inside. If it's very hard for you to speak what you'd like, maybe you can find someone else's words to say what it is that you'd like to convey. Sometimes it's dropping off something meaningful. Like, sometimes you can share a little. Like, we gave my mom shoes to. She had a really tiny foot, and we passed them along to a dear childhood friend of my sister's. Sometimes it's like spreading it around and imparting the beauty of what remains. I think there are so very many ways now. It's just that we don't want to ignore it. You know, people say, I didn't know what to say, so I said, yeah, that would be the only unacceptable thing, in my humble opinion, to do is to show up and not say anything. Even if you think you don't necessarily belong at a memorial. Like, sometimes people are like, well, I didn't get invited. You know, sometimes we're waiting for the mv called in to help. I think, just show up, show up, show up.

Paige Nolan [57:59 - 58:14]: Yes. I had a good friend tell me you will never regret going to a funeral. And I've used that line, when I can get to a funeral, you know, I get to the funeral if there's a way for me to go, and I think it's so true. People always remember who showed up.

Barri Leiner Grant [58:14 - 59:11]: I agree. And to show up, the greatest gift you can do is also jot down the day. Maybe that they got their diagnosis, maybe jot down the day that their loved one passed away. And put it on your own calendars, that you can check in with them and just say, I know this week ahead is going to be difficult. Also, drop things off just on the porch, like, you don't need to come out. But I just dropped off a big thing of paper towels and some toilet paper. It's full of companies. I'm just dropping it off. No need to. Just checking in. Just showing up in a way again, in a way that if you're great at organizing, if you're the errand, you know, queen of erranding, if you are really good at tech support, if you are really good at accounting, like, you'll find show up in that person's life as your most authentic and truest self.

Paige Nolan [59:11 - 59:52]: I love that. So I know, because I've participated in a couple of your groups that you facilitated, that you weave in poetry, and you often weave in writing prompts. So I would love for you to read to us some poetry. But before we do that, will you tell the listeners how you came to that and why writing and journaling, you mentioned the artist's way earlier, maybe share with people, because that's something. I know we talked about the letter writing, but I think journal or the artist's way or your relationship with that can help people to understand how practical that is and how powerful that is. Talk to us about that. And then I'd love for you to read in poetry.

Barri Leiner Grant [59:52 - 1:01:15]: You know, it was very natural to me to write about my mom, but it wasn't necessarily natural for me to write to her. And so when I started to explore that, I found this incredible relationship with her personally. But that all came as part of my training, which was so interesting. Yes. Then I started to become super interested in the science. And when I flip the lid on that and how that craft movement. So when we see the writing on the outside of us physically, it feels as if you could almost sit down next to your grief. When you physically see it outside of yourself, you can almost feel as if you've moved something through you, which I think is profound. I think also in the first year of grief, it can be so difficult to concentrate. And I always found that poetry was like this beautiful balm and south and such a bite sized way of keeping beautiful words around you. And you can, you know, wait to read that great book on grief and the how to of grief. Like, you know, they'll be there. They'll be there on the other side. But I always found, like, it was really, like a whole story in, like, a really bite sized way.

Paige Nolan [1:01:15 - 1:01:16]: Yes.

Barri Leiner Grant [1:01:16 - 1:01:23]: And the beauty. And it could be for some, that it's music. I tell folks, maybe music moves you and you can make a griefy playlist.

Paige Nolan [1:01:23 - 1:01:24]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [1:01:24 - 1:02:13]: Down with some of the songs that help you bring your grief up, like, really making an appointment with grief tending and really showing up for your grief in a way that feels on purpose to you. So we do all these things in my grief groups to just experiment and see how do I feel when I write. Yeah, same with morning pages. I feel like that's the clearing of the day. So you wake up in the morning and you write three longhand pages upon waking. There's jungian theory that says our ego wakes, like, 30 to 40 minutes after we wake. So imagine without Ben and without some internal critic talking about the way that you're writing, just being able to just write out whatever it is, all the complaining, all the inquisition, all the moaning and groaning, and, like, this is real crap. And shit.

Paige Nolan [1:02:13 - 1:02:14]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [1:02:14 - 1:02:27]: Then you see it out on the page, and I think, gosh, that's the windex of the day. We've done all of that clearing, and then we can walk out into our day with a little more clarity and a little more of, like, all that was in us. That silt.

Paige Nolan [1:02:27 - 1:02:29]: Yes. That is so good.

Barri Leiner Grant [1:02:29 - 1:02:36]: Yeah. That you can, like, dredge it up, throw it on the page, and leave the house without it inside.

Paige Nolan [1:02:37 - 1:02:37]: Yeah.

Barri Leiner Grant [1:02:38 - 1:02:38]: And then.

Paige Nolan [1:02:38 - 1:02:39]: It's so true.

Barri Leiner Grant [1:02:39 - 1:03:05]: The more we do that, the more we realize that we need anything that helps us in seeking movement. The reason that I started to incorporate also the reading of poetry to others is because I think it's like a wink and a nod to mothering and nurturance that I ask both to close their eyes and invite them to be read to. And I don't think there's really anything more beautiful.

Paige Nolan [1:03:05 - 1:03:06]: No, no.

Barri Leiner Grant [1:03:06 - 1:03:30]: And if. And if I'm not around or Paige is not around to read you a poem, like poetry.org or any of those, there are, like, buttons you can press and have, like, the poet itself, many living and some in the past that have recorded their poetry for posterity, that you can just have a poem wash over you and use a line or a word or even the feeling that you have as your very own prompt for writing.

Paige Nolan [1:03:31 - 1:04:38]: Yeah. That's so beautiful. I love that so much of what I turned to, I had learned as a preschool teacher. And one of my favorite things to do when I was teaching preschool, which was not even a job I wanted, which is worked for the family, but to read to children and to observe how children receive story and poetry, they just were meant. We are meant to receive the voice of another, the story of another. We're meant to move at a slower pace and be connected to creativity. And I think in our modern day world, when you're trying to grieve and you have a full time job and you're a parent or whatever you're going through, I think grief requires a different pace. And so, like you said, either creative writing or maybe it's dance, maybe it's yoga. I know when Boyd lost his dad, he would drive around a lot. For him, of course, music. He's a musician. You physically have to engage life in a different way to move through the world without the person. You know, the person is no longer in the world, and you have to make sense of that somehow.

Barri Leiner Grant [1:04:38 - 1:07:04]: Yeah. And I think the interesting thing is that it's in our nature to go search for them. So in that search for them and that longing for them. How can you bring them back? How can you bring them in? Is it their favorite recipe? Is it their favorite piece of music? Is it doing the thing that they love? Or just being with their memory in a way that feels like you're creating connectivity? And like you said, for some, that's dance, where you feel that aliveness. Sometimes it's tough to your own mortality, but really, also, when you talked about being in community, we don't live so close anymore to a whole circle of those that might know us, where we live in these communities where everybody would know, you know, that so and so at the, you know, campfire has lost member. Or even the idea that you would be in a religious community, where when you are at a memorial service and you rise and the entire synagogue or church can see that you are the family that needs their support, finding ways to be witnessed so utterly important. And so that's really where the group work comes in for me, because I think when we're in circle, and I always say it's a wisdom circle and a wisdom exchange, because you'll say something to me, Paige, and I will know that I'm not alone in my thinking, or you'll impart some wisdom or words of advice or a way that you're healing, and I'll hear that, and it will be an invitation for me to try that on. And that exchange is exactly where the sitting shoulder to shoulder with others who. That is what I always imagined that there was, like, you know, my favorite place on earth was summer camp, and my mother went to my summer camp. And we have so much of that history in our bones. And so I think when I imagine that shoulder to shoulder spirit, it was with, like, my childhood campfire at the center of the core, and that you would read story and we would sing songs, and we would. That history was all incorporated. And so it also is a way of doing that. That being. I can envision you reading to the littles.

Paige Nolan [1:07:04 - 1:07:05]: That was the best.

Barri Leiner Grant [1:07:05 - 1:07:19]: I feel like that's what we feel. When I bring forward a piece of writing or something that's going on in the world, and we bring that up and we have a chat about it, we create that connective tissue that's often missing in our day to day.

Paige Nolan [1:07:20 - 1:07:31]: That's so beautiful, Barry, just shoulder to shoulder is such a powerful. It's so you, and it's such a powerful image. I'm going to sit back and close my eyes.

Barri Leiner Grant [1:07:31 - 1:07:41]: Will you read to us as you should? Yes. Okay, so this is a favorite by author Jane Kenyon, and it's called otherwise.

Paige Nolan [1:07:42 - 1:07:43]: Okay.

Barri Leiner Grant [1:07:43 - 1:08:24]: I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning, I did the work I love. At noon, I lay down with my mate. It might have been otherwise. We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks. It might have been otherwise. I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls and planned another day just like this day. But one day, I know it will be otherwise.

Paige Nolan [1:08:28 - 1:09:29]: I've heard you read it before, and every time you read it, every time you read it, it really gets me. I think a lot about gratitude. I feel very. I think gratitude is just one of those powerhouse virtues. It's the mother of the virtues. If you can practice gratitude, the other things can fall into place. And I love that reading so much, because whenever I feel overwhelmed with gratitude, this word otherwise is the perfect way to capture really feeling what you went through, like really having to, what you would say a memory, making a memory. And we could be doing something else right now, but we got to have this conversation, and a thousand things had to happen for us to have this conversation and for it to sound good, which it did. And I just think I'm very grateful, and I'm very aware that it could have been otherwise. So it's a beautiful reading.

Barri Leiner Grant [1:09:29 - 1:10:08]: Yeah. It always reminds me to take notice of not just that mundanity and how even in the small things that we would treasure of just the ordinary day, the one more time to just be ordinary is so extraordinary that knowing that it might be otherwise, as you said, is always a reminder to me. And we use that as a reading and a prompt. And so if listeners feel calm to do so, I would say use the line, it might have been otherwise, and just riff on that and see what comes.

Paige Nolan [1:10:10 - 1:10:15]: I love that. Thank you so much, Barry. What a treat to get you. Thank you so, so much.

Barri Leiner Grant [1:10:15 - 1:10:24]: Oh, I'm so happy to be with you, and I hope that it will be otherwise and in person next time.

Paige Nolan [1:10:24 - 1:15:08]: That's right, it will be. And we will let everybody know how to find you. So, everybody, please check out the show notes. I'm going to give you all sorts of links and ways to reach out to Barry. She's always hosting events in person on the east coast, oftentimes and virtually. And we will give you ways to sign up for those events and be a part of the memory circle. There's so many gems I've held onto from my conversation with Barry, and I want to share two with y'all that have been particularly meaningful for me. The first, Barry says this lovely phrase, calling in versus missing out when she was talking about something we can do when we're longing for a loved one to be present in our lives, and we're wishing that the person could be closer. Part of what is difficult about grief is that it has this out of control quality to it. I think this is true of all variations of grief, and it's particularly potent for the missing of a loved one. You can't pick up the phone and hear that person's voice. You can't touch the person. And it's not just the longing that gets us. It's the feeling that you can't do anything about that feeling. That's intense. Grief can trap us in a box of what's missing. And so I appreciate how Barry invites us to call in connection. We do have something we can choose. We can choose connection. We can choose ritual. We can choose to write letters to people, or choose to listen to that person's favorite song, or cook that person's favorite meal, or choose to be with the person's memory in a specific way that invites that person's presence to be more a part of our lives. And then that connection, that calling in, is bigger than the missing out. It doesn't take all the hurt away, but it gives us an outlet to seek our own healing. Secondly, Barry talks about finding ways to be witnessed in our grief and how allowing space for grief in community is so essential to healing. I appreciated the observation she made. We don't often live in community, where there are circles of people around us who would know we are going through loss. Some of us do. But as a whole, the way we collectively live is faster than it used to be. It's more distracted. We don't always know our neighbors. We don't know what they're going through in their families like communities did decades ago. That's really made me think about how important it is for us to share our heartaches with each other and find ways to be witnessed. And it's made me compassionate for all of us. We're navigating this new territory of how we live, and that impacts how we grieve and how we support each other and how we show up to care. Barry, I'm so grateful you're inviting us into the space of sharing with each other and that you've created the memory circle to help us to witness each other in such a healing way. For those of you curious about Barry's work, please reference the show notes to find out more about the memory circle and the offerings, including one to one grief coaching and support. I've participated in a few memory circles, and every time I sit shoulder to shoulder with Barry and the people who find her circle, I leave that experience feeling more connected and so grateful for the wisdom that each of us can offer another Barry, thank you for your joy, your optimism, your hope, your poetry, and the way you bring us together. And I'm grateful to each of you for listening. And please share this one with people in your life who may be in a griefy passage. It's always comforting to know we're in it together. That's it for today, and I will meet you here again soon. Thanks to each of you for being here and for listening. I'm so grateful we get to share life in this way. As always, full show notes are available@pagenolin.com podcast there you will find a full summary of the episode, timestamps and key takeaways and any resources mentioned in our conversation. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love if you would leave me a rating and a review. You can do that by visiting pagenolan.com. Love your reviews. Really do help people to discover the show. And if you know someone specifically who would enjoy this episode, I'm so grateful to have you all share. I'll meet you there with your friends. Lastly, if you have any questions or comments, or if you would like to share any feedback with me, please email to meet me there. I would love to hear from you. Thank you to the team that makes this show possible. Podcast production and marketing by North Node Podcast Network Music by Boyd McDonnell cover photography by Ennis Casey okay, y'all, that's it for now. I'll meet you there again soon.