Episode Summary
When someone passes away, the loss can bring us to our knees metaphorically - and sometimes literally. When it’s literal, that’s the body talking, echoing the heart. Crying can be like that too. Today we look at intention, death, and tears.
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Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes.
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Full Transcript
Kluttz: I just feel so at peace with what happened now and I just think that some of my family members are not there yet, and so I try to be careful about what I say because I don't want to dishonor their grief if it's taking them, you know, longer than it took me because everybody has their own journey in it.
When someone passes away, the loss can bring us to our knees - metaphorically and sometimes literally. When it’s literal, that’s the body talking, echoing the heart. Crying can be like that too. Today we look at intention, death, and tears.
This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Today I would like to introduce you to Ryan Klutz, a Women’s Marriage Coach based in Southern California. Ryan’s work was recommended to me by a friend who really admires how intentional she is.
Kluttz: I get up at about 5:15 so that I can have a solid hour, hour and a half to myself because I don't like to talk when I wake up and I don't want anyone talking to me either. So instead of forcing my family to be silent when they wake up, I get up early so that I can have that time and space to myself. And then I get to journal and meditate and drink my tea and then I take our puppy for a walk. And by then I'm ready to function on some level and, you know, if we run into someone who wants to interact with her or has a dog, you know, I'm fully ready to have a conversation with another human being. And then I come inside and everybody is starting to get up. And that's definitely the most important piece for me. So yeah, starting off the morning, doing journaling and meditating and then making sure that I have little bits of mindfulness throughout the day to keep it going.
Thomas: Do you have lists or things put around the house to remind you to drop into that place?
Kluttz: I put it in my list of things to do for my daily tasks for work because I've… Yeah, someone pointed out to me that because if I do struggle with that, then the place where I don't struggle is my to do list. And so if it's on my list, I'll do it. And that's what's been happening. [LAUGHS]
Thomas: Nice, nice. I just had this random memory pop in my mind of when I was working at a new job and I had a big list of things to do to remember how to do everything as I was being trained and I was very nervous. I stepped away from the desk, and I came back and somebody had written… somebody had seen my list, which I felt a little bit embarrassed about that somebody had seen that I had this list, and they wrote, “Do a little dance” at the end of it. [LAUGHS] So I did a dance and I checked it off. And I yelled, “I did a little dance!”
Kluttz: That's great. Yeah, that's, that's kind of the types of pushes that I need. You know, my husband will sometimes come out of the bedroom and see me hunched over my desk, and he'll try to gently say, “Maybe you should take a break. Maybe you should go meditate or something.” And normally what I was doing before was brushing it off and, you know, kind of feeling like “Don't boss me around.” Even though he wasn't, you know, he wasn't bossing me around. He was making a suggestion and trying… because he could see that that could be something that would be helpful for me in the moment. But I get… I would get tunnel vision on what I was doing. And so now, and this is just really within the last couple of weeks, because my grandpa passed away at the end of February. And it really… as difficult as it was to deal with at first. I mean, he was 96, so it wasn't like we were completely shocked about it, you know, we were just sort of enjoying the time that we had with him while he was still here. But when he actually passed away, it allowed me to see things differently. And to start recognizing that as much as I love to check off boxes and complete tasks, is that what I want to be able to be to say that I did when I potentially reach 96 years old? Or do I want to have, you know, I really enjoyed myself. And that was one of those things that I've read and seen… that list of the Top Five Regrets of the Dying. I'm fully aware of the idea of enjoying your life and I do implement a lot of pieces of those ideas but it just sunk in on a deeper level.
So when Ryan and I first met to chat and get to know each other before the interview, we thought it would be wonderful to have her come on Shame Piñata and speak about rite of passage she had been through with her husband and offer some perspective in the realm of conscious marriage. However, during the interview when she shared about the loss of her grandpa, the energy just kind of changed and I think we both knew that that was what needed to be spoken about that day. So you’re going to hear more about Ryan’s Ryan’s grandpa Jack. And I want to give you a heads up that her grandpa passed in kind of a sudden and kind of a sad way.
Kluttz: He was still skiing at 93. My dad actually had to go visit him in Maine where he lived by himself in the middle of the woods with just his dog and say, you know, “Hey, I think it might be time for you to not ski anymore given your age and, you know, the fragility of your bones possibly …” And I thought that was funny. And I know at 94, he learned to ride a snowmobile… And he was just constantly doing things. And one of the things… my husband and I asked him what the secret to life was, and he said, “Never sit down.” And, you know, we took that to mean exactly how he was - he was always doing activities and enjoying himself, you know, because he talks about how other people who were also WWII vets, they passed away sooner because once they retired, they just stopped doing anything, because they felt for some reason that, you know, retirement meant doing nothing. And he was still driving, still plowing other people's driveways for them when it would snow because he lived in Maine and snows a lot. Winter is very long in Maine. So yeah, he was just a really incredible human being and for me to have... As sad as I can get that he's gone, the ability to use that grief to change my own behavioral patterns has been really, really powerful. And so I'm grateful for that. And I'm also grateful that he gets to be with my grandma now, because she passed away almost 12 years ago, and he really, really missed her still. So it's just sort of like a completion and I've become accustomed to grief and so I just wanted to start to sort of use it instead of fight it.
Thomas: Hmm. Can you say more about that, about using it?
Kluttz: Yeah, I mean, I definitely, you know, when I found out… it wasn't… It was an accident, actually. He had been plowing people's driveways and he pulled his truck into the garage, shut the garage door, went in the house, and went about his evening, had dinner and everything and then went to bed. He never turned his truck off.
Thomas: Oh, wow.
Kluttz: And so his… his bedroom was right beside the garage, basically just down a little hallway. And so carbon monoxide got into the house. And so he did go peacefully in his sleep. He blocked… the dog past as well. She was a very sweet dog. And so I allowed myself to have that time of just feeling the grief, just allowing the sadness to come out however it wanted to come out. I took off a few days and let myself just do whatever I felt like doing which ended up being part of the way that I saw I could be allowing myself to be doing way more of what I want to do on top of building the career that I'm working on. And so once I was able to let that part pass, it became, you know, the sort of the things I mentioned earlier of how do I want to feel about my life if I reach 96? Or, you know, whenever it's the end for me, how do I want to feel? And I don't think that I would be proud of myself to say, “Well, I checked off all my boxes”, you know… So I just started to sort of pivot and and be inspired by his life instead of being… instead of continuing to be sad, you know. I'll always miss him. But I felt like, for the first time, in losing someone, I really felt like I could ask myself the question, “How can this serve me?” Because going forward, you know, we all lose people in our lives and I can fully sit with the idea that you have to let the emotions pass, but I also want to learn from it. So that was a way for me to learn from the grief itself, what can I pull into my life that I loved about him? And that way, he, you know, continues to live on.
Thomas: Definitely. That's so beautiful.
[MUSIC]
If you enjoy Shame Piñata, consider checking out Daily Magic for Peace. Daily Magic for Peace is a totally different kind of show that invites you to grab an item and do a simple ritual for peace in Ukraine. Episodes are less than 10 minutes long with a focus on calming the nervous system and keeping your heart open. You can find Daily Magic for Peace wherever you're listening to this podcast.
Thomas: It's so rare for people to give themselves permission to feel the grief when they lose somebody and especially what we've been experiencing with COVID, I think we've all become sort of extra numb to… It's been so overwhelming and it's been difficult. And then there's the personal and there's the collective and there's the global and there's so many layers to it. So I think even now, it's even more amazing when people can give themselves the time to really feel. So healthy.
Kluttz: Yeah. I mean, within the last year, I think people either were forced to feel, or, you know, just tried even harder to push it down, which is super difficult when you're stuck at home and you don't get to see anybody. But yeah, that's part of what I teach is letting your emotions out. Because someone once said to me, “What comes up must come out.” And if we don't address it… and I think people get scared when they think of, “Oh, I'm going to address my emotions.” And I learned several years ago that our emotions are really just feedback about how we're feeling. And it's not, I think we tend to feel like, the way I feel right now is I'm going to feel for the rest of my life, if I let it out. I'm scared of letting it out. And if we do let it out, it passes so much more quickly. It's been a week and a half and I really miss him, but I don't get choked up when I talk about him anymore. And you know, a few days ago, I still was, so I just give myself the time and space to let it out. And now I can feel the acceptance and the peace and the joy of who he was and the connection that we had. And I'm also really happy with the relationship that we had. Because, you know, sometimes when someone passes away, you immediately think of all the things that you should have done or that you wish you had more time for. And I felt completely at peace with the fact that we visited him, I called him, we emailed, and I texted him pictures of our daughters and our dog because he really loved dogs. And so I didn't have that feeling of, “Oh, I wish we would have, you know, seen him more.” You know, we did a lot and we actually were planning on seeing him this summer. So there was a part of me that was missing that and was, you know, because… even though he was 96, I really hadn't even thought about the possibility of not seeing him this summer. And so that was actually probably one of the hardest parts of the grief for me was accepting that. But yeah, I agree that a lot of people don't allow them to sit… don't allow themselves to sit with their emotions and I think it's just kind of a societal norm that you need to just suck it up. Keep on going.
As the interview went on, our conversation turned to the power of tears, how they help us, cleanse us, rebirth us. How they are a physical process highlighting our body’s innate ability to heal and self-regulate. And we both acknowledged times when we didn’t want to cry out of a desire to protect someone else.
Kluttz: Actually just… four days after I found out, I was listening to soothing music laying on the couch and like going in and out of crying as my, my girls were sitting on the couch watching a movie. And I wanted to be able to let it out but I didn't want to…. I didn't really want to talk to them about it in the moment. So I was, you know, sort of in this in-between place where I know, it's okay for me to cry in front of them, but I just kind of want to lay here and let it out. And as you know, the tears were coming out, it felt like, I had this thought of, “This as a physical manifestation of just my body needing to release these emotions.” And it's really powerful.
Thomas: And then if we follow it and let it happen, you know, if it's a safe enough place, or we're just able to go there, let ourselves just drop into that, it can really just do what it needs to do.
Kluttz: Yeah, it's just it feels counterintuitive to do that.
Thomas: Yeah. Have you noticed your tears being different for different kinds of crying ever?
Kluttz: Actually, no. I have not noticed that. But I feel like the next time I cry about something, I will start to pay attention. Like, you know, how it feels when they're when they're coming out. That's very interesting.
Thomas: When I'm really emotionally attached to something, and I'm really like, “This is unfair!” … and I'm creating, like a lot of content, that my tears are sort of small and hot. But then I had this other experience where it's some… I don't remember what even what it was, but a couple of times something was just breaking my heart that was just… it sort of had a beautiful quality to it. It wasn't like tears of joy, but it was just… there was a lot of selfless feeling to it…. an innocence. I don't know how to explain it, but the tears were, like, cool and large. And they just had such a different feeling to them. And I was like, “Wow, this is crazy! My body creates…. I cry different apparently depending on, like, what I'm processing.”
Kluttz: I've never noticed the difference in temperature. But I guess the amount that comes out sometimes can differ. I actually… when I watched a live stream of the funeral and you know, I have… I had already allowed so much of my grief to come out that when other people were speaking and crying… especially my dad when he was speaking, because he was the second oldest but my uncle that was the oldest died in a plane crash, gosh, almost 20 years ago now. So he's been the oldest for a while and so he spoke and it was a good mix of sad and then light things that made people chuckle. And I had my husband makes fun of it when they show it in movies, but I'd had one single tear went down! And then other times, it's like across your whole bottom of your eye and it feels like it's just like gushing, but I don't know what the difference is as far as how I'm feeling when those things happen or when other things happen. So I'm gonna definitely watch out for that.
I’m glad that you got to spend this time with us and that you got to meet Ryan and hear a bit of her story. And I hope that your relationship with your own tears is a connected and loving one. The people we love are such a gift and losing them can be so very hard, like a hole ripped into the tapestry that is us. I encourage you to be as gentle as you can with yourself today if you are going through a recent loss and know you’re not alone.
Ryan Kluttz is a marriage advocate teaching women to empower themselves in their own marriages. She has been married herself for 16 years and knows what it takes to make it amazing. Ryan currently lives in Southern California with her husband, two daughters, and their puppy. Find her work at married and manifesting dot com.
Our music is by Terry Hughes. Find us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata, reach us through our website, shamepinata.com. And subscribe to the show on your favorite player. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.