Kristen

Welcome to the Close the Chapter podcast. I am Kristen Boice a licenced Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice pathways to healing counselling. Through conversations, education, strategies and shared stories. We will be closing the chapter on all the thoughts, feelings, people and circumstances that don't serve you anymore. And open the door to possibilities and the real you. You won't want to miss an episode, so be sure to subscribe. Welcome to this week's close the chapter podcast I'm going to tell you a story that I've been working with several clients that are dealing with grief and loss. And I've recently had a loss. And I found the work of Polly boss when I tell you it's an honour and a privilege to talk to Pauline. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. She is doing such incredible work. She recently wrote, she has written several books, lots of books. But her recent book, The Myth of closure grabbed me and I listened to it on audio quickly and appreciated her titled The Myth of closure, she talks about ambiguous loss. And I'm so honoured to have you Pauline on the podcast. So welcome.

Pauline

Thank you. It's my honour to be here. Thank you,

Kristen

yes, you are doing such incredible work. And you wrote the myth of loss during an actual loss. And you were just sharing the closure, I mean, the myth of closure, you are going through a loss when you started the book. And then you kind of put it down to 10 to your husband at the time. And then he passed away he died during that process.

Pauline

And it was also pandemics so I was totally alone. And after a while, of course the raw grieving, I couldn't write. But after a while, I took out the manuscript, the unfinished manuscript, and finished it during the pandemic was, so the reader will see the difference between the first chapter or two and the rest of the book, which becomes much more personal. I didn't think it would be honest, to not share that with the reader since the title was The Myth of closure. And I needed to say what my personal experience was with this as well. So I've been retired for some years. So I don't need to particularly write like it's an academic journal anymore. And I enjoy writing more personally. Yes,

Kristen

I felt like that resonated with me because I appreciate your vulnerability and your authenticity, about your actual personal experience with losing your husband, as hard as it is. And I'm so sorry for your loss. And you were kind of turning your pain into purpose. It felt like you sharing that it was relatable. It was like Oh, yes. And feeling during the pandemic, so many people lost people. And we're so alone. We were talking about it, but not that much.

Pauline

It was a bad time. Of course, many people had it worse than I, for example, I was with my husband when he died. Of course, I had all that garb on and masks and all of this. But I was with him, I could touch him, I could be with him. When I saw him take his last breath. I'm realising that not everybody had that privilege. And we couldn't have a funeral. But we had a zoom, as many people did. And then the one year anniversary, we had five of us met at the internment of ashes, five of us met and read poetry and had a little ceremony. So the rituals were not like they would have been. But that's at least there were some small rituals. And I believe there are other ways to honour a person you've lost in my writing might have been one of them. I never thought of it at the time. But you're correct. You find purpose in a way to honour the last person. And it wasn't so easy during the pandemic. But for me, writing was comfort. Writing was a way of making sense out of what happened.

Kristen

How did you come up with the book title? Because it just is brilliant, the myth of closure because so many people are seeking closure or our losses? Yes. If I just could have a cult if I could just get closure, I'd feel better.

Pauline

Exactly. I think it's a by the way, I came up with a title years ago. It was a book waiting to be written. And some people of course, didn't like the idea because it's saying you can't fix it. And by the way that Kubler Ross stages even she said give them up don't use them anymore. Because loss is messy. grieving for loss is messy, even your own deaths, which she found messy as well. So the myth of closure fit sand with the new views about loss, death and grief, not just ambiguous loss. And that is you don't have to get over it. But you have to learn to live with it. And you can, it's not that hard, it's harder to want to get over it, and then realising you can't. So it's like a double cross, don't tell people, they can get over it because human beings can't. And I say, we now know some animals can't, for example, elephants. So just know that I had the title in my head a long time. And then it was time to write it. Writing comes when you're in the mood. And of course, it means that you can live with grief, and maybe even 20 years from now, I will see a place that my husband and I were together, or my little brother who died of polio at age 13, I still occasionally have a tear. If something reminds me of him or my parents. That's the normal grief. So in the book, I've also addressed briefly what's normal and what's not. And the majority of people who lose somebody are not sick, they're grieving. And that grief is a normal grief, I have to tell you what happened to me if I may, please, after my husband died, I had to go to the doctor for something routine. And at least in Minnesota, they ask you questions upon intake. And the first one was, do you feel safe at home? I'm very glad for that question. And my answer was, yes. The second question is, are you depressed? And my answer was no, but I'm grieving. And the nurse asked it again, are you depressed? And I said, No, I'm grieving. And she said, we don't have a slot for that. And then she said, Would you like some medication? And I said, No, I'm grieving. So we need to educate our medical profession, and our psychological professions, and the general public that grief is a normal reaction to loss. And there are at least two kinds of loss. One is clear loss, when you have a death certificate, or you see the body tickets last breath. And the second is ambiguous loss, where you don't know for sure, there are missing but you don't know for sure if they're alive or dead, or whether or not they can recover from whatever illness they're having. There are two kinds of ambiguous loss. The first one is physical. I studied the families of the soldiers missing an action in Vietnam. So they were physically missing but psychologically present, because the family kept thinking of them. They didn't know if they were dead or alive. The second kind of ambiguous loss is psychological. For example, someone you care about who has dementia, they're sitting in front of you, they're physically present, but psychologically absent, both of those kinds of ambiguous loss are troublesome, highly stressful to the people, experiencing them, the family of that person. And perhaps I've done nothing more in my 45 years working on this, than give a name to a kind of loss that never had a name before, but in fact, is very common. It can be applied to more everyday things like divorce, adoption, addiction, and people who give up a child in foster care. And just someone preoccupied with work. So they're home. But as one child said to me, once my dad is home, but his head is in a briefcase, so it's a stress based model, and not medically based. I don't pathologize it, it can cause pathology, deep trauma, for example, in war torn countries, and earthquake countries, which I'm working with both right now. And now more recently, and Maui, which was climate change, fire disaster, and many people missing. So we need to help people know that there is no closure for either a clear cut death or for missing persons.

Kristen

That's exactly right. I mean, that makes Thank you for saying all this because people often feel like, am I depressed? And I said, No, you're grieving.

Pauline

Thank you for bringing that up. There's a difference between sadness and depression. We need to know that is breathing people. You're going to be sad, deeply sad at first raw, sad, raw, painful, and then over time, as I said earlier, you may have a moment of it too. Your or a sadness if you hear a song or see a place or smell something even that reminded you of that person. That's sadness. It's not depression, major depression has other symptoms. So sadness is a normal reaction to loss. And the intervention for sadness is human connection, exactly what you're doing here, of course, it's on Zoom, but we know by now it works, doesn't it's human connection as or call somebody and have lunch with them, or go walking with them, join a book club, join a choir, and you have to have human connection. If you isolate yourself, it's dangerous to your health, you won't live as long there. The statistics show that depression, on the other hand, is a sadness so deep, that it causes other symptoms, edit immobilises you totally and there is often a self loathing part to that, which that that is very harmful. And if you hate yourself, or you shame yourself, or your loved ones dying, if there's something that heavy, then you need professional therapy, and sometimes medication, they find that that's about a quarter of the people who are experiencing death, even death. It'll be higher for people experiencing ambiguous loss, or you don't know for sure because the uncertainty adds to the stress level.

Kristen

When you brought up Elisabeth Kubler Ross, many people bring that up.

Pauline

Yes, they love her. I love her. We both had Swiss father's Swiss parents. I only believe that yesterday, my father was an immigrant from Switzerland, and my parents parents were immigrants. I grew up in a Swiss community and a New Glarus, Wisconsin. And I didn't leave it until I was 43 years old when I came to the University of Minnesota. So I love Elisabeth Kubler Ross, I understand the way she writes and her sort of hard work and made it part of Swiss upbringing. And then she got a stroke. And she lived with it for nine years. And you must read what she wrote after that, with David Kessler. And you can tell what Elizabeth wrote because they write separate chapters with us, David, and then Elizabeth writes, the two last books of her life. And in it, she says, I'm more than the stages. And that is messy. And it doesn't work that way. And it gives people the illusion that there's an end to grief. If you go through five stages, by the time you reach number five, you think you should be done? Well, no, she never met that. But in the United States, we're very mastery oriented culture, we don't like to talk about loss, we want to talk about winning. And so if you have to talk about loss, they want you to get over it and get over it fast. So many things were done to Kubler Ross is five stages that she never intended. And so give them up. They're good for pillars, depression, anger, and so on. But don't line them up a linear model is what we now know doesn't work. It's circular. It's messy.

Kristen

Thank you for sharing that. Because clients will come in and go, I'm in bargaining, then tell me what stage they're in. And I'll say we'll share more about that. Because they're hoping that they're going to feel better soon. Am I going to feel like this forever? Is the question. It's the million dollar question that when people come in for therapy, am I gonna feel like this forever?

Pauline

And the answer is yes, but not so severe. And farther and farther apart. It's called oscillation, or you can say ins and outs, ups and downs, a good day or a bad day. At first, you have a lot of the negative but as time goes on, you have less, but don't expect it to ever go away. 100% It's okay, that it doesn't. And you have to find meaning at it, which takes time, in my case was that 88 year old man who had many health problems and couldn't walk in cancer, he had everything. So it wasn't too hard to find meaning in that but many of your listeners will have losses of younger people or things like soldier killed by friendly fire, which would be terrible to make sense of, or people who died during the pandemic, and they couldn't see them. They couldn't say goodbye. None of that makes sense. And when you have a sort of meaningless loss, murder doesn't make sense. For example, suicide frequently doesn't make Since obey me dying doesn't make sense, you'll know about your own losses, many don't make sense. It's not for me to judge. And so it takes a while. And I've always tell that story of The New York woman whose husband was killed at 9am. In the Trade Tower, he worked there. But ordinarily, he went in at eight and was out by nine o'clock when the plane struck. And that day, he overslept. And I talked to her about a year later, because I could see that her baby was now walking. And she had just had the baby after 911, when she was so distraught, because she said, It's my fault. I didn't wake him up, he overslept. He was in the tower when it was struck. And I talked to her. And she said, you know, that story I told you about it being my fault. She said, I now see it differently. This is meaning. And I said, What does it mean to you now, and she said, he always set his own alarm clock, I think he just wanted another hour to be with us before he died. Wow. So she transformed her meaning from a negative meeting, meaning it was my fault, which is not good to live with to a positive meaning, which she can live with and tell her children and grandchildren. That story, which is a very positive story.

Kristen

How did she get from feeling like it was her fault to then finding meaning,

Pauline

she got that way, by talking with peers, we set the stage therapists set the stage professionals set the stage of community meetings in the labour union hall, these happen to be workers who were cooked and cleaned and took care of the electricity and air conditioning and the Trade Towers. So they were working people. And we had three generations of people a meeting once every couple of weeks, and then once every couple of months for two years, and was talking with others, her peers, of course, we were supervising the discussions and all but we didn't interfere with the discussions, just the timing and structure. She got it from talking with her peers, I can't tell you the power of talking with other people. Not if you have a major depression, or addiction or some serious psychological or physical illness, then you need professional help. But the majority of people after a disaster are not traumatised, they are highly stressed and disoriented. And if you can deal with them in a large disaster, like the pandemic to by having group meetings, so I encourage people now find a group. I don't care if it's a book club or what, but find a group and your kids definitely need human connection. I don't like sending all the kids to therapy because it pathologized them. Why not in schools have groups where they can come and talk about their losses, or whatever stresses them. Stress is a good word. It doesn't turn people off, they'll come to a group on stress management or whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 2

Yeah, cuz then they don't think something's wrong with them. It doesn't evoke shame as much.

Pauline

Exactly. But the thing is, there isn't anything wrong with most of the people who've experienced this horrendous past three, four years, which have not been easy. But everybody is anxious and stressed, if you aren't anxious or stressed from what you've just gone through, there's something wrong with you. Because we had a major, major pathology in the environment. That's where the pathology was not in you. And some people were so clever, because you're out of control with ambiguous loss. And the pandemic was a huge one because you couldn't see the iris and we lost contact with our loved ones. And I've listed in the book, all the losses we had some people started baking bread, you remember

Unknown Speaker

that? Yes, the banana bread.

Pauline

It was a way to take back control. It was a wonderful coping mechanism. You have two hours of control. You follow the recipe, you make it up and in the end, you have a reward something good to eat was terrific. And I wouldn't repeat if you're in a situation of ambiguous loss where you have no control over finding the certainty is something small. That is something you can master and control, baking bread straightening a closet, singing a song of running, keeping your physical body in shape. You have to know what it is for you, but we all need something we can control when the context is out of control.

Kristen

That makes sense, because we're looking for the closure. And you're saying, instead of chasing closure, which is an illusion, let's focus on something else that is going to be more fulfilling and help you move through those emotions as they come up, or

Pauline

gallons, is it the uncontrol, and both end thinking a balance of both and thinking I'm very strong on because you can't find a perfect solution, even to death. And certainly with ambiguous loss is you haven't got a perfect solution. Let's say it's divorced. So you're divorced, but the other person is keeps popping up, especially if you're sharing childcare, adoption is never perfect. And of course, the terrible things we're seeing in the news are far from perfect Maui, Ukraine, turkeys, earthquake, et cetera. And even our political environment of division, which is truly imperfect right now, either. So we're under a lot of stress right now. And you have to deal with it with both and thinking if you can't find a perfect solution. And that would mean it's a terrible time and time of hope, made I have to put them together, or I would go mad. You might also say, the pandemic was dangerous time, life threatening time and time of learning new things, a new way of being it was, I got better at zoom than I ever thought. That's so true. I had some other things. I mean, you learn to live alone and find out No kidding, I can do it. And neighbours would put some vegetables on my door sacks of vegetables on my door if they could go to the farmers market. And at my age, I decided I couldn't. So at that time, nice things happened, even though terrible things happened. So you learn to think not linear, but sort of more circular dialectical is what you might want to call it, you both have a positive thing happening and a negative thinking, let's say your loved one has Alzheimer's, she is both here and gone. So that's as close to the truth you can get. And then if you say that that way, you're not so upset by the ins and outs of the cognitive memory coming and going. Because that's as close to the truth as you can get. She's both here and also gone. And it actually calms people down if you allow them to think that way. And let's say there's somebody missing today, one way or the other, physically missing. You I say, He's probably dead and maybe not, and send the earthquake or the more Mawi. That's as close to the truth as you're going to get, and no one should take that away from you. That's why grief therapy does not work for people with ambiguous loss, they will get angry, and they should, because grief therapy assumes certainty of death. It assumes there was a transformation from life to death, it assumes the death certificate, those people don't have that. Think of the people with Maui's or anybody who was kidnapped child. You use stress therapy on them, not grief therapy, this stress therapy means you build their resilience to live with not knowing. That's not easy for us. It's easier for let's say in the Buddhist tradition, more Eastern thinking, but we are trained, at least in this country, to fix things and find a solution. We like certainty. And we've forgotten that there are many life events when there isn't any certainty. And so we criticise people for not getting over it. Or we criticised caregivers for acting strange. And I've heard professionals say all caregivers are depressed. No, all caregivers are sad, and highly stressed. They need human connection.

Kristen

This is so good, because you just said we're building resilience to not knowing with ambiguous loss. How do we build resilience to living with not knowing?

Pauline

Well, the one thing is to learn both and thinking that's essential. But I have given six guidelines for living with loss, ambiguous loss, which is slightly different than living with death, but maybe not. In other words, I don't see myself as a grief expert. I see myself as a loss expert, having added a kind of loss that nobody paid attention to before, but in fact, loss in general is an unpopular topic. Some people have misused my term, by the way, like anybody who hears to correct it, they call it ambiguous grief, that is a wrong. It's the ambiguous loss that leads to a frozen and complicated grief. And unfortunately, that can spread the misuse of the term. And that's a very, and it's also not ambivalent loss, sometimes, depending on the language, especially Germanic languages, but now I see it in Ukraine as well. They'll call it ambivalent loss. That's a translation problem. In some countries, there isn't a word for ambiguous. Whereas in Latin countries, they have many words for ambiguous. It says something about the culture, doesn't it? It does. That's fascinating. Yeah. So just No Ambiguous loss. And it leads to eight frozen, complex grief, unresolved grief, you have to live with it as unresolved. Yes, that

Kristen

makes sense. And you're going to share the six keys on how to live with it.

Pauline

Yeah. And they're sort of pillars, probably of some are from sociology, and some are from psychology, but everybody has heard of them. The first one is finding meaning. We talked about that. Another one is called adjusting mastery. I first called it temporary mastery, because I wrote that book after I'd worked in New York City, and the New Yorkers are very masterful. And so they would say things like, Can't the family see their old is smoking down there? And I'd say no, they can't see they're dead. Some people ended up in psychiatric wards, they had amnesia, some people left the country was so it's hubris, just say they're dead. Or so I said, tempering mastery. But then since then, other people have done the studies in small islands, across the ocean, patriarchal cultures, where mastery had to be increased by the women left behind, because if their husbands are missing, they're neither a wife nor a widow. And therefore they were mistreated by the community. So again, what they did, the International Red Cross did was gathered them together in community, so that there were many of these wives who are no longer wives or widows, and therefore had more strength in numbers. And the community no longer abused them. Because they were now a group, not one isolated person. So the idea about mastery is you may have to increase it or decrease it, you may need to empower the person more or decrease their sense of knowing. A third one is you have to reconstruct identity. And that's become a big one. Because once you have a loss, clear or ambiguous, your identity changes. Are you still a wife? If your husband's been missing for 20 years? Can you date? Can you remarry? Are you still a parent, if your only child is missing? These are questions that are real. And so identity has become a big one to deal with. Another one is you normalise ambivalence, because with ambiguous loss, it's a social ambivalence, not a psychiatric ambivalence, that the problem is in the context, not in your brain. So you have to tell people, you have to address their guilt, and their shame and their reactions to what is happening and tell them that ambivalence is normal. My mother is both here and gone. I wish I knew whether she's dead or alive. And then they feel guilty about that, because it means they're wishing her dead, they want remains error, DNA proof. And then they feel guilty about that. And you have to normalise all that messy situation. And it needs therapists just say and the general public just say it's normal to have mixed emotions with ambiguous loss, and maybe even with a clear cut depth, and then there's attachment and the assumption with ambiguous loss that you're attached to that person or object, otherwise you can't happen. Ambiguous loss. So it's a broken attachment. It's a loss that has no resolution. So it couldn't be more than a human being. It could be a pet, where you lose a beloved dog has run away or you've lost it or it couldn't be an inanimate object like your home, your home burned. I'm sure we're seeing that in Maui right now. And after his quake, cinnamon slides too. And finally it you have to discover new hope there has to be something new to hope for. And unfortunately, in the book I wrote in 2006, I said discovering hope some people construed that is hoping for the person to return to. I didn't mean that I meant something new to hope for and it may be having finding a purpose to help let's say kidnap have families of kidnapped children. So it doesn't happen so much where it might be working with Alzheimer's disease caregivers, an experienced caregiver helping a new caregiver, and cetera. But you need something that gets you up in the morning, some purpose in life. And it takes you a while to find that all of these six sort of guidelines are not in a line, they're in a circle, and you just jump in where you want to, and you go back and forth, it's messy, but you can't deal with them all at once. It takes a long time to find meaning in a loss. So don't expect that on day one. This

Unknown Speaker

comes up early. Yeah, see more about that.

Pauline

While I remember my identity has changed over the years, you would say mother first, when you're actively mothering little children, of course, say mom, my dad is a mom. I didn't say that so much once they went away to college, then my identity was professor, and then sometimes wife, whatever is going on in your life. But I'll tell you, the one that slapped me in the face was after my husband died, and it was paperwork, yes, by Maria Peptan check of loss, that it says widow, I didn't want to check it. I don't like that word. And yet, they insist the business people, you have to check a box. But I had a bad time doing that the first time because my identity has shifted. And the caregivers, by the way, their identity shifts, becomes huge identity. I'm a caregiver. And I didn't know it until someone else told me, of course, you're a caregiver, my husband was on a walker. And I didn't know I was a caregiver. But you know, I was loading him into the car and all of this thing. And so you slide into that identity. And some of your listeners may relate to that, especially if you're taking care of a parent to you slide into it. And all of a sudden you say my god, I'm a caregiver. And most people are reluctant caregivers, not what we want it to do. But then you slide into it and take on the mantle, and you do your best and to take care of and honour the person who needs to help. And then when it's over, you switch identities again. And in my case, it was to widow which I was resisting. Yes, but I guess I am right.

Kristen

And I think you're not alone in that. So many people feel like it's a gut punch when they feel like they're filling out that paperwork, where they've lost children. And someone says, Well, how many children do you have? Oh, that's

Pauline

very Yes. are still having stillborns or miscarriages? Yes, they stutter. They don't know how to answer it. My heart goes out to them. Yes,

Kristen

it's heartbreaking. How do you help people figure out how to answer because I find grief blurs the ability. They're taken off guard, they hadn't thought about that question, or they had anticipated the paperwork, or they don't know how to respond.

Pauline

I think everybody I mean, I would encourage everyone to come to their own conclusion. But I think as therapists we can help set the structure we ask the question, you might say, how do you see yourself now? How do you describe yourself? No, but I would ask that question over time. And let them know that this can change over time. With or does it loom so large in my head, now, I do other things I'm still writing grandmother may be the one that looms in my head now. Because that's pretty vibrant role. There's a lot going on there. And my own children really don't need mothering. But in order with the grandchildren, but I just find them fun there. I have three nerds and a firefighter, the firefighters girl, she has a crew of 10 men, I'm learning from her. And of course, the engineers and the physics PhDs. I learned from them so when I say it's a vibrant relationship, I'm learning from them. And it's fun, it's fun. So it's new life. It has a future in my relationship circle. It very highly valued. Yeah,

Kristen

I love that so much. I bet you are learning a lot from them. And I see people grasping to make this go away to make them feel better. They don't want this to be the reality and I love this and and both how do people get to that place where they can see and and both because a lot of people don't it's like all or nothing good or bad trouble you're either or they struggle with getting to the end of both and don't believe it's true.

Pauline

Well first of all, remember that you want your banker to not use both and thinking or and and both, as you call it. I like how you say it. So there are things in our life where or you shouldn't think this way. But when you have ambiguous losses or uncertainty in your life, it's very helpful as stress reducing to do that. In therapy, I suggest therapists give a few sample questions, or a sample statements rather, both and statements. Depending if it's dementia or terminal illness. my loved one is both here and leaving. my loved one is both as he was, and totally changed cancer, for example, if they're physically gone, like your kids have left for college, my kids are gone on their own. And they're still here in my heart and phone, however you want to say it, give them a few samples, and you'll find that people, even kids, teenagers will come up with their own before you get very far and your your samples. So give them an example, especially now if they're from a culture that does this better than we do in a western culture. They will say, Why are you asking me this? I think this way all the time. Buddhism, for example, but for the most part, perhaps most of your clients are from a mastery oriented culture. We like certainty. I Sir love it. We love it. Background love it. And I've spent 45 years making my peace with ambiguity.

Unknown Speaker

I'm right there with you. It's my lifelong journey. Yeah,

Pauline

exactly. In this culture, it is. And it's doable. You'll find for example, listen to some Jazz, Jazz music, listen to if you go to the orchestra, something that's new and different than Mozart and Beethoven, push yourself out there, travel to a new place, I just did that. And make some new friends that you ordinarily wouldn't have learned a new language. Well, my new language is technology

Speaker 2

that oppressor and oppressed, you're doing well,

Pauline

technology, make new friends do something new, something different. That is a tolerance for ambiguity. There is a tolerance for ambiguity of scale, by the way, you can Google it and get the most recent version, we should increase our tolerance for ambiguity. And so go to some improvisation theatre. That's a huge exercise in tolerance for ambiguity. They're good at it. And jazz musicians are good at it. So push yourself then I tend to do that still, because I get bored. And also, I like the feeling of trying something new. It has a feeling of satisfaction after it. If you failed, then you just do it again. And you try it until you can. I can't do improvisation, but I can certainly enjoy it and go to a theatre, an improv theatre and enjoy it.

Kristen

How do you get the courage to step out of your comfort zone? I think a lot of people want to shut down and isolate and they're scared did like even go out there and try new things?

Pauline

Well, I am scared. I just took this train ride to Glacier National Park. I was scared. And I wasn't sure I could do it. My family didn't go with me to help, which they sometimes do if I travelled to Europe, which they always do now if I travelled to Europe, but I was with a group of 10 alumni from the University here. So we helped each other and it was just fine. And I found very pleased that I did it. And another trip I took Yeah, I got COVID was a boat trip on the Danube. But it was a mild case. And I was in a hotel at that time in Switzerland overlooking a beautiful view. And my son and daughter were with me at the time. And they went to the mountains an hour away to hike when I read three books, because I was isolated for I think, six days or more. Maybe it was seven. So sometimes bad things happen. But they're not terrible. They're culpable. You can cope. And that's what you find that this is the reward you find you can cope with more stuff than you thought. That's the truth. Yeah, for sure. And that makes you feel good. And feel strong. Yeah, resilience is that

Kristen

that's so encouraging for a lot of people need to hear that they need some encouragement, they need some inspiration. They need to hear other people being sitting in that place of stepping out of their comfort zone and it gives them the courage to potentially do it themselves. So thank you for sharing your wisdom with us today. And all of your books have changed so many lives. And I'm so grateful for your heart and your energy and your wisdom and conversation today. Thank you so much, Pauline.

Pauline

Yes, and if they want to find one And I've written books and articles, www ambiguous loss.com. We'll get them to that information.

Kristen

Thank you. It was a pleasure. And I'm just so grateful for you. So, go grab the birth of closure and her wealth of other books. You will be so inspired as the word I don't know. But you feel seen there's a felt sense of feeling seen and understood, and less alone. So please go get the books, dive into them. And know that we are here with you walking alongside you in your journey. Thank you so much for listening to the close the chapter podcast. My hope is that you took home some actionable steps, along with motivation, inspiration and hope for making sustainable change in your life. If you enjoyed this episode, click the subscribe button to be sure to get the updated episodes every week and share with a friend or a family member. For more information about how to get connected visit kristendboice.com. Thanks and have a great day.