9. What if Grief is a gift?

In this episode we ask: What if grief is a gift? 

By this stage of life, we have all loved and we have all lost - a person, a dream, a version of the life we thought we'd live.  

In this conversation, we explore what opens up when we truly meet our grief, and why the older woman may be uniquely placed to hold the space for life's deepest transitions. 

About this podcast

We believe the voice of the older woman is medicine for the world.

Elizabeth Lovius and Liz Scott are two women post-55 with a combined century of living, loving and learning. Although opposites in personality, pace and lifestyle, we share a deep passion for inside-out transformation. Our individual career journeys have led us to inspire, coach and teach people to reconnect to their own inner wisdom in business and community settings.

In The Wild, Wise Feminine, we share our unfiltered conversations about what it really means to come into your own, be seen and hold the line for love.

Whether you're navigating the territory beyond menopause yourself, or simply curious about the wild wisdom that emerges when women start trusting what they know - we'd love you to pull up a chair.

If you want to get in touch - contact us at:  lizscottcoaching@me.com

For more about and how to work with Elizabeth Lovius www.elizabethlovius.com 

For more about and how to work with Liz Scott www.lizscott.co.uk

Transcript

Elizabeth Lovius 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Wild, Wise Feminine. We believe the voice of the feminine elder is medicine for the world. We are Elizabeth Lobius and Liz Scott. Two women with the combined century of living, loving, and learning.

Liz Scott 0:26

In the Wild Wise Feminine, we share our unfiltered conversations about what it really means to come into your own, be seen, and hold the line for love.

Elizabeth Lovius 0:39

We'd love you to pull up a chair. In this episode, we ask, what if grief is a gift?

Liz Scott 0:53

By this stage of life, we have all loved and we've all lost a person, a dream, a version of the life we thought we'd live.

Elizabeth Lovius 1:02

In this conversation, we explore what opens up when we truly meet our grief and why the older woman may be uniquely placed to hold the space for life's deepest transitions. Well, hello, Liz. Welcome back to our podcast. Lovely to see you in red.

Liz Scott 1:28

Oh, I know. We're both wearing red today, and we look really gorgeous.

Elizabeth Lovius 1:34

We do, we've got new hair, haven't we?

Liz Scott 1:36

There's nothing like a haircut, is there? I had my hair cut last night. And I keep looking at myself thinking, oh, this looks smart. Trouble is, when I try and uh recreate this after I've washed it, it's never quite the same. But never mind.

Elizabeth Lovius 1:50

I know how you feel. So today's topic, Liz, is something that's very, very, very dear to our hearts and close to probably us all, really. At this age, we don't get to live this long in life without having some kind of major loss that breaks our heart and you know is bigger than us, you could say, even is is is a greater experience than we're used to in our day-to-day. And and that is, we're gonna explore today the topic of grief, grief and loss. And then, you know, it could be the loss of a person, of course, a beloved person in our lives. But it also can be the loss of a dream. Something that is something you built your future on, and and for whatever reason, that dream is gone. It in it it it's a great it feels like a grievous loss. It could be the loss of work or a job, or it could even be retiring and losing a sense of identity as the achiever, provider, the one who makes things happen. And all of those, it could be even all of them. I know that I'm up against all of them in at the moment. So I would love us to just go deep and feel into our heart and soul what we what we've seen for ourselves about the journey of grief. And I know, Liz, that you have had that with your father, and that's one of the uh explorations the pilgrimage gave you is is navigating your own grief journey. So I'd really love to hear from you what you've seen about grief and loss for yourself.

Liz Scott 3:32

Yes, it's um it's a topic I've reflected on a lot. And uh grief, like you say, takes many forms. And certainly walking the pilgrimage, the the pilgrimage I walked last year, it was over 600 miles across England. Very personal journey. And what I hadn't realized when I started out, my dad had died six months before I started the journey, is that it would become very much a processing of grief. That wasn't what I thought it would be, that wasn't the intention, and yet I really recognized that in the journey. And one of the things I saw for me around grief, and this is something I think is so important to stress, is that w we all experience grief personally. There is no one way that everybody experiences grief. It's a very personal relationship with loss in life. And so when I speak of what I'm going to express now, I'm sharing my journey. I'm not saying this is how everybody feels, but certainly with reflections on my dad. He he had very severe dementia when he died. He was um, you know, he was incontinent, he he he couldn't walk, he couldn't hardly speak, he didn't know who anybody was, he couldn't remember anything. And so, in some ways, I had been grieving the loss of my dad for quite a quite a while. And when he died, then that was the end of his physical body and physical presence in my life. And I think what I began to see with the pilgrimage was that when he died initially, I I my memories of him were very much concentrated on the last one, two years of his life, where he was very incapacitated. And we stopped calling him dad because he didn't know that name. We called him Len, which was the name he had been raised with. And something beautiful happened on the pilgrimage because one of the things that began to loosen was that those memories of sadness of him with dementia began to sort of dissolve or fade, or it's a bit like looking through a steamed-up window, and I and I was able to sort of just wipe a little hole and see through and see beyond to those memories of my dad as a dad. And I began to realize that for me, as I was walking the pilgrimage, it it was a real gift. I began to see it was a real blessing that the grief I was feeling, the sadness, was mingled with love. Was really mingled with a gratefulness and gratitude of the dad he had been when he was fully mentally um competent. So in this instance, as I was walking the pilgrimage, quite unexpectedly, I began to experience childhood memories and started to wonder about my dad as a child. What was it like? I walked through his home county and uh I began to think, gosh, I wonder if where I'm walking is somewhere he knew as a child. So I began to have uh a relationship with him in my mind in a way that I hadn't had for years. And with it came this sense of gratitude and this real sense of a blessing and this noticing of the mingling of sadness and love, and they were all tied up together. So for me, that's how grief showed up for me, uh, particularly around the loss of my dad. And and and like I say, this is a personal experience. I'm not saying this is what everyone feels. It felt really beautiful, it felt really nourishing, and it felt really wholesome. And I felt really sad as well. I felt all of those things. So, yeah, that's kind of how it turned up for me. Yeah, no, I'm really feeling that.

Elizabeth Lovius 7:57

It I've lost uh my father, my sister early at age 51, and my mother-in-law, who was very beloved to me. But really, when I'm listening to you, I wanna uh I remember a moment by my sister's bedside as she was dying. And after she died. And we were all I was able, because of my husband, to fly to Australia and just be there for the six weeks it took to say goodbye to her. And I feel like that is a big privilege in its own right. Like your pr pilgrimage, I can feel the emotion, so there's gonna be emotion today, isn't it? The subject requires it. The privilege to be able to be present fully for that journey. I know you've been able to do that both with your father as he was dying and then afterwards with the pilgrimage and your own loss. And I was able to do make the dying of my sister the most important thing in my life to witness. And I remember getting on the plane and going there shaking. You know, you normally get on a plane to go somewhere on holiday or or some exciting thing, and it was I knew what I was going to, I was going to the death of my sister. But what I actually experienced by her bedside is a biblical verse, the peace that passes understanding. I was not expecting that. I was not expecting when you fully meet the moment with your heart and soul, with not much on your mind other than being fully there for whatever that moment is bringing you. Yes, sadness, heartbreak, sorrow. I noticed I couldn't think about the past or the future. There was no past and future. The future only involved my dead sister in it. So I didn't think about that. I just was where I was. And in that, it's like I felt, I'm just going to use the language that I use, the poetic language I use. I felt I was held by the angels. I felt that God was in the room giving us all the peace that passes understanding to meet the moment. It wasn't like that all the time, but there were moments where it was just felt like nothing short of a privilege to witness and be there. And I also remember what comfort can you give a dying person? They are going on a road you cannot and will not follow. One day you will, but you don't know. You can't tell them what's on that road. And my sister, she asked me, I'm not scared of being dead, I'm scared of dying. I'm happy to be dead, I know what's waiting for me. She was a very, you know, she had a faith, but I'm just scared of dying and and what that will be like. I do not know where this came from, Liz. But I spoke these words. I said, I don't know either. But what makes sense to me is that we are gifted at every stage of our journey. We our bodies know what to do. And you've had four children, and your body knew what to do in the moment of giving life, and it will know what to do in the moment of dying. And you it will be a like another transition if you allow it, just like birth, something bigger than you takes over, and you can have faith in that. I don't know that like a fact, but a deeper part of me knew it like the truth, and she was comforted. And I just feel like that was my experience of putting I put myself away and I showed up for the moment, and I noticed that I was held every step of the way. So I feel like that's a lot I've gone through there to relive that. So I just wanted to oh, I want to say one more thing. Um, so then my sister died, and we all went, it was early in the morning, and uh we all gathered around around her after she'd passed, and we all went outside, and it was sunrise. I swear to god, that was the most beautiful sunrise I ever saw in my life. I don't know how that was, but it was. And I shared it with my younger sister. And for me, that stands out as a peak moment in my life. So I don't know how that works, I just know that's my experience. So I feel like I want to pass it to you now while I gather myself.

Liz Scott 12:58

No, it's so you know, it's so beautiful what you've what you've said, and I know our theme of this podcast is around uh older women, the feminine, and it's occurred to me that traditionally women are um around at childbirth, and it I also sense that the role of the older woman is to be around the transition of death. My my dear dad, I mean when he was dying, he was in hospital for three days before he actually died, and between us my sister and two brothers, we we we were with him. And and I actually was a bit poorly and and I was asleep when he died. I was about to get up for the alarm to go and see him that evening and and sit with him. Um and I and I remember my brother phoned up and said, Look, he's he's died, and uh and then said, Do you want to come and see the body? And I said no. And then there was something else a truer yes came through, and I was like, actually, yes, I do, I do want to see, I do want to see my dad's body. And my sister and my brother were there and I joined them. It was truly beautiful, and my sister explained, she's the only one of us who's had children, and uh she said, I can't believe I was there when he died, and I witnessed I have witnessed the first breath of a child in the world, and I've witnessed the last breath of my dad. And I just thought that was so beautiful and cyclical, and and it it it feels strongly within me, and again, a bit like you were saying this knowing in your bones when you gave that wonderful explanation to your sister that you trust that your body will know what to do, that your psychology or spirituality will know what to do if it transitions to death. For me, there's a kind of a knowing that the older woman it feels like has a real place around those that are ill and dying. A sort of a a sense of in the same way we bring children into the world traditionally, it's it's the the role of the midwife. It's almost like a midwife into that transition of death.

Elizabeth Lovius 15:47

Yeah. I don't know if that Oh, I love this, Liz. Yeah. I'd love to pick this up because the bottom line is all things in form pass away. That's just a fact. The impermanence, the Buddhists say, the impermanence of all things. No body, no thought, no feeling, no situation, no material asset. I mean what happened to Rome? You know, there used to be a Rome that ruled the world, all empires. So we know that intellectually. But ultimately, what I think what we're being asked to look at and therefore need mid whispery through, is to meet the reality of the impermanence of all things. And that is what death or loss is. There is no it is beyond us. It is not something we can control as much as we wish we want to we want to, we can't. So there's a humbling, we're humbled. And I feel like that as an older woman, we've been humbled by our ideals that we had as younger women and what we thought we would have or wouldn't have in our lives. And at certain points we lose a dream. I know you have, I know I have, you know, a dream that we had once, whatever our lives would be. And at some point that becomes clear we that's not for us. And that is equally a loss. So I think the nature of life is to love and to lose. And I believe that as older women, we learn it burnishes us, we grow from it, it humbles us, and yet we rise again. We rise again wiser, burnished by the as wood by the experiences of life. And that is what helps us hold space for others and say, Yes, this is loss, and this is the way of things. And how can I hold space for you to meet yourself in your loss? And I feel like that is something as older women we can learn to do, or we do learn to do for ourselves, and then that we bring that to the tribe. Uh, and I feel like ritual is really important because I know I'm making a leap here, but that I I think the feminine loves to hold the space for ritual, and I think we should um honor ritual. And I, you know, I kind of love the way they do it in Ireland. It's like we're all gonna sit in a room for a week, drink and talk and with the dead body, so we know that they're dead. So our minds and our hearts and our bodies can catch up with the reality, and this is what we do to grieve. And I feel like that's those ancient rituals are alive and well in certain Celtic countries, but I feel like somehow we can think we shouldn't, you know, I don't know, we we shouldn't talk about dying or we shouldn't talk. I think it's actually a very beautiful part of living is to honour. And I just finished with, sorry, I know I've been talking about this, but I say this because my friend died, my really good friend, and I didn't get to go to the funeral. But I saw pictures and I I saw, you know, I grieved. We're going to do a memorial on her birthday in July, and I know I have to be there, and we're going to dance, and we're gonna play her playlist, and we're coming together in as a tribe, and I know this is really important for my own journey, but also for her partner, and you know, it it feels like this is what women do. We bring people together to honour and celebrate life and death. So I can couldn't agree with you more.

Liz Scott 19:57

I I love that. It's so beautiful, isn't it? That sense of coming together, community, ritual, honoring, honouring um someone that's died. And and I guess the final piece for me here is uh a reflection on the transition of death and dying. And and you alluded to it before when you said, you know, empires rise and fall, people are born and die. I mean, that's the cycle of of life. And there is great hope for me because it points as well to the formless, this this formless, creative, loving, compassionate energy from which arises form and which form falls back into. And as I continue my journey as an older woman, I see that the nourishment I feel from reflecting on this space and grieving and death is a reminder of it, um, is is immense. It's sort of it it it it it feeds my soul, feeds my essence. So it's also a reminder that grief is a gift for me as well, as a as a reminder of this place to look. It reminds me that a bit like you were saying with the Buddhist principles, it's easy for me to get caught up in this world of form and money and things to do and busyness and to-do lists. And and yet there is also the other space which for me I'm being reminded to honour, to reflect on and be aware of. And that is the space of universal energy, the divine, creative energy. Um, and as I walk through life as a human, I feel Comforted to know that that is also entwined in the journey for me as an older woman.

Elizabeth Lovius 22:09

I just love this, and I I would just love to finish your continue your thinking and what I've seen about exactly this thing. We know the difference between a body that's got life in it, even if it's in a coma, versus the the life has left. We know that energetic animating life force leaves the physical, and we and we see it.

Liz Scott 22:37

Sometimes witness it like your sister, sometimes we we witnessed it after the fact, but we witness something.

Elizabeth Lovius 22:44

That energy, that animating life force goes somewhere, it can't not. Energy it can doesn't die, it just changes form. And we are coming home energetically, and then you can take it wherever your faith leads you from there, but it is a fact. Energy, what is eternal, does not die. And that for me, that's the most comforting thought of all.

Liz Scott 23:19

I think that's beautiful. Just reflecting on it in the way that we are, Elizabeth. I mean, we just don't have conversations like this. I don't with my friends in everyday life. It feels like life has got too much, is cantering along. Yeah. So I really value just having a bit of time and space to fall into this space with you and uh reflect on grief. So thank you so much.

Elizabeth Lovius 23:44

Thank you. My heart feels really open, and and to anyone that's listening, you know, thank you. Thank you for showing up here, and I hope we've nourished your soul too.

Liz Scott 24:03

You've been listening to the Wild Wise Feminine Podcast with Liz Scott and Elizabeth Lobius.

Elizabeth Lovius 24:11

And if you want to get in touch, take a look at the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.

Liz Scott 24:16

You can find us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.