Nov. 11, 2025
160. When a Dream Dies: Healing Through Major Life Changes and Invisible Loss
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Have you ever grieved something difficult to explain to others ... or to yourself? A dream you never got to live, a world you left behind after moving, a home you never got to call home, a relationship that never got off the ground?
In this powerful solo return, Bryan Reeves explores the deep emotional terrain of ambiguous loss: grief without closure, headlines, or a clear reason. From the loss of a dream wedding and the promise of parenthood to the emotional cost of eight moves in five years, Bryan shares personal stories and hard-earned insights on how to grieve the invisible, hold space for uncertainty, and honor your experience without needing it to make sense to anyone else.
If you're carrying sadness you can't fully name or explain, this episode will help you feel seen, and invite you to start healing.
⏱️ Highlights
00:00 – Why I Took a Break
01:32 – The Ireland Retreat That Changed Everything
03:20 – The Weight of Eight Moves in Five Years
04:45 – What Is Ambiguous Loss?
06:30 – Invisible Grief: Our Lost Wedding & Parenthood Dreams
08:15 – The House We Couldn't Live In
10:00 – Guilt, Grief, and Comparing Pain
12:05 – Grieving the End of a Day: A Malibu Story
14:00 – Why Some Grief Is Hard to Explain
15:25 – The Loneliness of Loss Without Witness
17:10 – Wisdom from Francis Weller on Communal Grief
19:40 – Moving In, Letting Go: A Nervous System Exhale
21:10 – Lessons From a Decade-Long Relationship
23:00 – Life Has Seasons—And That’s Okay
25:15 – Tiny Green Shoots: Signs of Spring After Long Winter
27:05 – New Beginnings: Retreats, Books, and Rebuilding
29:15 – Closing Reflection: You’re Not Broken for Feeling This
30:45 – Name Your Grief, Honor Its Place
📬 Connect with Bryan:
- 🌐 Join the newsletter & explore Bryan's coaching & retreats: https://bryanreeves.com
- 📺 Youtube
WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Bridging Connections, formerly known as Men This Way.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Brian, with Hawaii Reaves, former U.S. Air Force Captain turned author and professional coach to men, women, and couples.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Alongside me as co-host, my lifelong friend of over 40 years to air it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Here we have the raw, real conversations we need to be having about the topics that matter most, relationships, purpose, health, spirituality, and more.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Please subscribe to stay connected.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All right, let's dive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, if you've been a long time listener of bridging connections, previously known as men this way, you'll notice it's been about two months since I last put out an episode.
00:50.203 --> 00:52.166
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been an intense couple of months.
00:52.808 --> 00:56.233
[SPEAKER_00]: Kicking off with my elevates in epic Ireland retreat in September.
00:56.293 --> 00:58.076
[SPEAKER_00]: My first international men's retreat.
00:58.637 --> 00:59.879
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so excited about that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it turned out to be one of my most successful endeavors that I've created in my professional life.
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[SPEAKER_00]: at 16 men from four countries joining me for an epic inner and outer adventure of brotherhood connecting to deep purpose.
01:15.044 --> 01:16.630
[SPEAKER_00]: We climbed an actual mountain.
01:17.015 --> 01:23.344
[SPEAKER_00]: into the clouds, we swam in the cold Atlantic and just some other really cool shit that I can't talk about.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's top secret.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I was just deeply, deeply inspired and grateful for all these men that joined me in one of my most favorite places on the planet.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was in September, and then my wife and I, when I got back, we made our eighth move in five years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we've made eight moves, including three cross-country moves since 2022 and just what is that?
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're in less than four years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I decided I just needed to put the podcast on pause and was so much going on, you know, one of the lessons of this work that I've been doing for many years is that nothing is ever really as urgent or strictly necessary as we think it is.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And when I started podcasting in 2018, I did one episode a week for a year.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was exhausting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It burned me out so much so that I took the entire next year off until I realized it I could just do the podcast at a more ease-filled pace like the sky wouldn't fall if I didn't put out an episode every day and week And that proved to be really a breakthrough realization for me
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[SPEAKER_00]: And in these past few months, I once again found myself just needing a break from the podcast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I love myself, just that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's been super helpful.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And as I kick things off again with this short solo episode, I feel I feel it would be useful to start with what has been predominating my experience these last few years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You ever heard of the term ambiguous loss or ambiguous grief?
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's a kind of grief that doesn't have a clear ending.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It defies closure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's hard to articulate.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's no funeral, no charred remains, no obvious thing to point to and say, see, that that's what I lost.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's the kind of grief that often goes unnamed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because even explaining it to someone else can feel impossible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes even explaining it to yourself can feel impossible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And today, I want to talk briefly about that because I bet if you really look within you two are carrying some ambiguous loss that you've not quite been able to speak to and thus not quite been able to truly let go of.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So what is ambiguous loss?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, over the past five years since the worldwide pandemic stole from Sylveen, I was going to be our dream wedding in Ireland.
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[SPEAKER_00]: which is if a schedule for April 2020, the pandemic hit in March of 2020, so like, by weeks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, since then, Sylvia and I have experienced something like 20 major life upheavals.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them we shared publicly, some we haven't, because we're high knitting anything or a change, but some are just hard to put into words.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, how do you explain grief when there's nothing obviously dead or broken to evidence it?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here's a few examples.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I became fully estranged from my father, I think, in 2022.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And yet he's still very much alive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We lost the dream of having a baby.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sylvia and I, yet no baby was ever even conceived.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We bought our first home on an oak tree lined in Texas which was supposed to be the home where we put down roots and started a family.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But instead it became a massive four bedroom anchor that we couldn't live in or sell.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that's still carry that way.
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[SPEAKER_00]: earlier this year while house hunting in Los Angeles, the fires broke out, and we had only just begun looking for a home in LA, and although we didn't even have one yet, somehow we still lost a home anyways, like we lost the possibility of a home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Once again, finding ourselves displaced.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And through all that, there were no funerals, no burn-down house, hell, we still own a
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[SPEAKER_00]: And when people around us, friends, even very close loved ones, go through more visible loss, like, miss carriages, family members, lost to illness, suicide, or accident, homes actually consumed by the Los Angeles fires, like all those things have happened to people we care about.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to ask, what right do we have to grieve?
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[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: grief doesn't need anyone's permission.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't even require a logical reason that makes sense to other people.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like if we're really paying attention to our lives, that things people experience is moments we care about or enjoy are coming in and out of our experience beginning and ending constantly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I once worked with a couple who lives in Malibu and they would go to the beach in the afternoon.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And when the sun would start to set, the wife would always get sad, which made the husband really mad.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He would protest, it's just the fucking sun setting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It goes away every day and comes back the next morning.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you so upset about it?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, she was grieving the end of the day, the end of a beautiful moment with her partner.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, perhaps she was even grieving knowing that day was about to be ruined by his anger, that her sadness.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, his anger wasn't about her sadness, but about his inability to be with a grief with feelings he couldn't make sense of.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And her sadness was also surely provoking him to feel something that he deeply did not want to feel.
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[SPEAKER_00]: renowned grief expert, David Kessler says, anger is pain's bodyguard.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So a reflection question for you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever felt grief over something you couldn't fully explain to others or even to yourself?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever felt guilty or ashamed for feeling sad or hurt by something?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Others don't really understand.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And were you ever ashamed by others for feeling a sadness they insisted you shouldn't feel?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let's take a moment with that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the hardest parts of ambiguous loss is that no one quite knows how to respond.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You say, we moved again, and people say, oh, wow, that's exciting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You say, we made a costly real estate and mistake and can't get out from under it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: People respond with, well, at least you own something.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You say, we lost the dream of having a baby, and they try to fix it with, well, you can always adopt, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Or even better as my favorite.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I know a guy who does a thing that makes people have babies.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I can't tell you how many people have responded to that one.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I get it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Most of us aren't taught how to just sit with grief.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't have a headline.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Again, if there's no body, no ashes, no crisis, no court document, then it must not be that bad, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: But that's the thing about ambiguous loss.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's not about measuring.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's about meaning and meaning is personal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a kind of loneliness that comes from grieving something when no one around you quite understands what you are grieving or why.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and that loneliness can compound the loss over time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because grief without witness can feel like a ghost you're constantly trying to prove to others as real.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I read a profound interview with Francis Weller, author of one of my favorite books of all time, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, where he said this, expressing grief has always been a challenge.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The main difference between our society and societies in the past is how private we are with it today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Through most of human history, grief has been communal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The Pueblo people of the Southwest, for example, have crying songs to help move grief along.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The Mohawk traditions have the condolence ritual, where they tend to the bereaved with an elegant series of gestures, such as wiping tears from the eyes with the soft skin of a fond.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The healers in those traditions know it is not good to carry grief in the body for a long time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But now we're asked, and sometimes forced, to carry grief as a solitary burden.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the psyche knows we are not capable of handling grief and isolation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it holds back from going into that territory until the conditions are right, which they rarely are.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The messages get over it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Get back to work.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's the end of what I read in that interview with Francis Weller.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So a question for you is there a loss that you minimize because it doesn't have a headline or it's hard to explain.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What might it look like to honor your experience without comparison?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So back to this weekend is actually just this past weekend that's still been I moved into this new home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, oh my god, it's been two weeks now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Holy moly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's been almost two weeks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe it's been almost two weeks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We moved into what we hope will be a true home base for us for at least in the next few years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And in the days that followed moving in, Sylvia and I both experienced the strange wave of exhaustion.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Not just tired from unpacking kind of tired, but I'm talking about deep body fatigue.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like our nervous systems had been gripping onto something for years, and we're finally told, you can let go now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We've been running on high alert for so long, constantly adapting, constantly grieving without, without always knowing how to name it or speak to it, and certainly not having much witness to it other than the witnessing that she and I brought.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And now, we'll finally have a place to exhale, a refuge.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And with that rest comes reflection.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I've been thinking about all the ways that we've endured these seasons, both as individuals and as a couple.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We've had conflicting needs, different visions, different ideas about how things should go and certainly sometimes wildly divergent coping styles.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But they're at all, we've stayed together.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And just a few weeks ago, we celebrated our 10 year anniversary.
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[SPEAKER_00]: still standing still showing up still building.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is one of the big lessons I'm carrying into this new home in this new season.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that lesson is that life unfolds in seasons.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We live in a world that worships summer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: productivity, extroversion, growth, outward expression, but that's not how life works.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Life unfolds in the cycles and seasons.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And for us, these last few years have been a hard winter season, a season of upheaval, of death, of going underground, of grief.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I thought a lot about our ancestors who for thousands of years depended on the actual seasons of the planet of their environment of their climate for nourishment, you know, one dry summer or bad fall harvest or harsh winter and people risked actually starving.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was a common experience.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The modern world is so disconnected from the seasonality of food.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, our grocery stores, convenience stores, always having at least food processed in some far away factory that doesn't really deal in seasons.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We don't risk literal starvation like that anymore.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But as entrepreneurs consider, like we may experience winter through fewer clients through less incomes, through some downturn in business.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A married couple might go through a hard season of disconnection.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I work with couples that go through hard seasons of having a baby for the first time, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Those first two years of having a child are incredibly difficult season for a lot of men and women.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Or indeed, going through some painful loss that they must figure out how to hold as a couple.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And Sylvia and I have been in such a season of loss.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But we're feeling the shift, there are signs.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Tiny green shoots poking through the snow.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we finally this past summer became a fully licensed therapist after what has been at times a heart-wrenching marathon journey.
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[SPEAKER_00]: My Ireland retreat in September was a smashing success and we're off to a great start with enrollment in my year-long coaching program for men elevate 2026.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We've already got five men enrolled by October when I only have ten spots to offer and we start January.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sylvia and I, even a few weeks ago, signed with a really great literary agent to write our first book together.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm actually really excited for the lessons of our journey to find their way into our work.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So question for you, what's season of life for you and right now?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe in different areas of your life, you're in different seasons.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think might be an important lesson from maybe where you're in a winter season, where hardship and uncomfortable stillness, lack of progress, lack of movement are the norm?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Case you hear a little bit of whimpering in the background, I don't know if the microphone's picking that up, but that's my go-ner-achriever, who's Yellow John, who's sleeping right next to me,
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[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you get that squirrel girl.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, look, I don't have a neat bow to tie on this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have big U.S. losses and something you resolve.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If something you dance with, something you give language to, you know, peace by peace moment by moment.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you're carrying a grief without a name or a loss without a witness, you're not alone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Not everything we lose has a funeral, not every ending comes with closure, but your experience still matters, and it still deserves space.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're still in the middle of winter, or maybe, just maybe the ice is starting to crack, or maybe you're in full-on spring and summer, but wherever you are, I hope you know this, you're not broken for feeling grief, even when there's nothing obvious to others worth grieving.
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[SPEAKER_00]: May you allow yourself to courage to rest, to rebuild, start over, when spring does arrive, and may you fully receive the gifts of whatever season you're in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you for listening today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If this resonated out love to hear from you, maybe just take a quiet moment to name one ambiguous loss that you've never spoken aloud.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That in itself can be hidden.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we're kicking off a new season of bridging connections with new episodes, more conversations with my wife, Sylvie, with my co-host, Tate, and with intriguing new guests on all kinds of fascinating and deeply meaningful topics.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So until next time, thanks again for listening to bridging connections with Brian Riggs.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Bridging Connections, formerly known as Men This Way.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Brian, with Hawaii Reaves, former U.S. Air Force Captain turned author and professional coach to men, women, and couples.
00:11.954 --> 00:16.220
[SPEAKER_00]: Alongside me as co-host, my lifelong friend of over 40 years to air it.
00:16.741 --> 00:26.255
[SPEAKER_00]: Here we have the raw, real conversations we need to be having about the topics that matter most, relationships, purpose, health, spirituality, and more.
00:26.735 --> 00:28.358
[SPEAKER_00]: Please subscribe to stay connected.
00:28.738 --> 00:29.920
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, let's dive.
00:38.405 --> 00:49.763
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, if you've been a long time listener of bridging connections, previously known as men this way, you'll notice it's been about two months since I last put out an episode.
00:50.203 --> 00:52.166
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been an intense couple of months.
00:52.808 --> 00:56.233
[SPEAKER_00]: Kicking off with my elevates in epic Ireland retreat in September.
00:56.293 --> 00:58.076
[SPEAKER_00]: My first international men's retreat.
00:58.637 --> 00:59.879
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so excited about that.
01:00.540 --> 01:05.948
[SPEAKER_00]: And it turned out to be one of my most successful endeavors that I've created in my professional life.
01:05.928 --> 01:14.763
[SPEAKER_00]: at 16 men from four countries joining me for an epic inner and outer adventure of brotherhood connecting to deep purpose.
01:15.044 --> 01:16.630
[SPEAKER_00]: We climbed an actual mountain.
01:17.015 --> 01:23.344
[SPEAKER_00]: into the clouds, we swam in the cold Atlantic and just some other really cool shit that I can't talk about.
01:23.524 --> 01:24.105
[SPEAKER_00]: It's top secret.
01:25.387 --> 01:35.541
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was just deeply, deeply inspired and grateful for all these men that joined me in one of my most favorite places on the planet.
01:36.102 --> 01:43.933
[SPEAKER_00]: That was in September, and then my wife and I, when I got back, we made our eighth move in five years.
01:44.403 --> 01:52.905
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we've made eight moves, including three cross-country moves since 2022 and just what is that?
01:52.925 --> 01:54.649
[SPEAKER_00]: We're in less than four years.
01:55.304 --> 02:07.620
[SPEAKER_00]: So I decided I just needed to put the podcast on pause and was so much going on, you know, one of the lessons of this work that I've been doing for many years is that nothing is ever really as urgent or strictly necessary as we think it is.
02:08.321 --> 02:13.068
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I started podcasting in 2018, I did one episode a week for a year.
02:13.308 --> 02:14.950
[SPEAKER_00]: It was exhausting.
02:14.930 --> 02:32.770
[SPEAKER_00]: It burned me out so much so that I took the entire next year off until I realized it I could just do the podcast at a more ease-filled pace like the sky wouldn't fall if I didn't put out an episode every day and week And that proved to be really a breakthrough realization for me
02:33.104 --> 02:38.009
[SPEAKER_00]: And in these past few months, I once again found myself just needing a break from the podcast.
02:38.590 --> 02:39.971
[SPEAKER_00]: So I love myself, just that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's been super helpful.
02:42.334 --> 02:52.064
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I kick things off again with this short solo episode, I feel I feel it would be useful to start with what has been predominating my experience these last few years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You ever heard of the term ambiguous loss or ambiguous grief?
02:58.855 --> 03:02.398
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a kind of grief that doesn't have a clear ending.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It defies closure.
03:04.100 --> 03:05.401
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's hard to articulate.
03:05.661 --> 03:13.809
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no funeral, no charred remains, no obvious thing to point to and say, see, that that's what I lost.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's the kind of grief that often goes unnamed.
03:18.633 --> 03:21.836
[SPEAKER_00]: Because even explaining it to someone else can feel impossible.
03:22.357 --> 03:25.960
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes even explaining it to yourself can feel impossible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And today, I want to talk briefly about that because I bet if you really look within you two are carrying some ambiguous loss that you've not quite been able to speak to and thus not quite been able to truly let go of.
03:42.973 --> 03:44.275
[SPEAKER_00]: So what is ambiguous loss?
03:44.295 --> 03:52.588
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, over the past five years since the worldwide pandemic stole from Sylveen, I was going to be our dream wedding in Ireland.
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[SPEAKER_00]: which is if a schedule for April 2020, the pandemic hit in March of 2020, so like, by weeks.
03:59.909 --> 04:04.274
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, since then, Sylvia and I have experienced something like 20 major life upheavals.
04:04.635 --> 04:12.203
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them we shared publicly, some we haven't, because we're high knitting anything or a change, but some are just hard to put into words.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, how do you explain grief when there's nothing obviously dead or broken to evidence it?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here's a few examples.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I became fully estranged from my father, I think, in 2022.
04:26.217 --> 04:28.400
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet he's still very much alive.
04:29.241 --> 04:31.704
[SPEAKER_00]: We lost the dream of having a baby.
04:32.605 --> 04:35.289
[SPEAKER_00]: Sylvia and I, yet no baby was ever even conceived.
04:36.090 --> 04:44.701
[SPEAKER_00]: We bought our first home on an oak tree lined in Texas which was supposed to be the home where we put down roots and started a family.
04:45.241 --> 04:51.630
[SPEAKER_00]: But instead it became a massive four bedroom anchor that we couldn't live in or sell.
04:52.431 --> 04:53.592
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's still carry that way.
04:54.196 --> 05:09.901
[SPEAKER_00]: earlier this year while house hunting in Los Angeles, the fires broke out, and we had only just begun looking for a home in LA, and although we didn't even have one yet, somehow we still lost a home anyways, like we lost the possibility of a home.
05:10.702 --> 05:12.665
[SPEAKER_00]: Once again, finding ourselves displaced.
05:13.486 --> 05:20.457
[SPEAKER_00]: And through all that, there were no funerals, no burn-down house, hell, we still own a
05:21.398 --> 05:38.466
[SPEAKER_00]: And when people around us, friends, even very close loved ones, go through more visible loss, like, miss carriages, family members, lost to illness, suicide, or accident, homes actually consumed by the Los Angeles fires, like all those things have happened to people we care about.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to ask, what right do we have to grieve?
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[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: grief doesn't need anyone's permission.
05:47.319 --> 05:51.025
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't even require a logical reason that makes sense to other people.
05:51.566 --> 06:03.805
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if we're really paying attention to our lives, that things people experience is moments we care about or enjoy are coming in and out of our experience beginning and ending constantly.
06:05.187 --> 06:10.035
[SPEAKER_00]: I once worked with a couple who lives in Malibu and they would go to the beach in the afternoon.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And when the sun would start to set, the wife would always get sad, which made the husband really mad.
06:18.421 --> 06:21.285
[SPEAKER_00]: He would protest, it's just the fucking sun setting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It goes away every day and comes back the next morning.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you so upset about it?
06:26.653 --> 06:31.861
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, she was grieving the end of the day, the end of a beautiful moment with her partner.
06:31.901 --> 06:37.609
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, perhaps she was even grieving knowing that day was about to be ruined by his anger, that her sadness.
06:38.399 --> 06:47.574
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, his anger wasn't about her sadness, but about his inability to be with a grief with feelings he couldn't make sense of.
06:48.455 --> 06:55.466
[SPEAKER_00]: And her sadness was also surely provoking him to feel something that he deeply did not want to feel.
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[SPEAKER_00]: renowned grief expert, David Kessler says, anger is pain's bodyguard.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So a reflection question for you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever felt grief over something you couldn't fully explain to others or even to yourself?
07:10.871 --> 07:15.617
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever felt guilty or ashamed for feeling sad or hurt by something?
07:15.717 --> 07:16.899
[SPEAKER_00]: Others don't really understand.
07:16.939 --> 07:22.286
[SPEAKER_00]: And were you ever ashamed by others for feeling a sadness they insisted you shouldn't feel?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let's take a moment with that.
07:26.931 --> 07:32.318
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the hardest parts of ambiguous loss is that no one quite knows how to respond.
07:32.990 --> 07:36.153
[SPEAKER_00]: You say, we moved again, and people say, oh, wow, that's exciting.
07:36.914 --> 07:40.558
[SPEAKER_00]: You say, we made a costly real estate and mistake and can't get out from under it.
07:40.678 --> 07:42.680
[SPEAKER_00]: People respond with, well, at least you own something.
07:43.621 --> 07:49.447
[SPEAKER_00]: You say, we lost the dream of having a baby, and they try to fix it with, well, you can always adopt, right?
07:50.048 --> 07:51.089
[SPEAKER_00]: Or even better as my favorite.
07:51.609 --> 07:54.092
[SPEAKER_00]: I know a guy who does a thing that makes people have babies.
07:54.933 --> 08:02.220
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't tell you how many people have responded to that one.
08:02.892 --> 08:03.433
[SPEAKER_00]: And I get it.
08:03.993 --> 08:07.258
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of us aren't taught how to just sit with grief.
08:07.318 --> 08:08.239
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't have a headline.
08:09.020 --> 08:15.389
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, if there's no body, no ashes, no crisis, no court document, then it must not be that bad, right?
08:16.270 --> 08:18.233
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's the thing about ambiguous loss.
08:18.393 --> 08:19.654
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not about measuring.
08:20.155 --> 08:23.119
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about meaning and meaning is personal.
08:24.221 --> 08:31.330
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a kind of loneliness that comes from grieving something when no one around you quite understands what you are grieving or why.
08:31.985 --> 08:35.471
[SPEAKER_00]: and that loneliness can compound the loss over time.
08:36.273 --> 08:42.945
[SPEAKER_00]: Because grief without witness can feel like a ghost you're constantly trying to prove to others as real.
08:44.247 --> 08:56.389
[SPEAKER_00]: I read a profound interview with Francis Weller, author of one of my favorite books of all time, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, where he said this, expressing grief has always been a challenge.
08:56.673 --> 09:02.639
[SPEAKER_00]: The main difference between our society and societies in the past is how private we are with it today.
09:03.339 --> 09:05.862
[SPEAKER_00]: Through most of human history, grief has been communal.
09:06.783 --> 09:12.668
[SPEAKER_00]: The Pueblo people of the Southwest, for example, have crying songs to help move grief along.
09:13.429 --> 09:25.060
[SPEAKER_00]: The Mohawk traditions have the condolence ritual, where they tend to the bereaved with an elegant series of gestures, such as wiping tears from the eyes with the soft skin of a fond.
09:25.327 --> 09:30.093
[SPEAKER_00]: The healers in those traditions know it is not good to carry grief in the body for a long time.
09:31.135 --> 09:36.962
[SPEAKER_00]: But now we're asked, and sometimes forced, to carry grief as a solitary burden.
09:37.643 --> 09:41.388
[SPEAKER_00]: And the psyche knows we are not capable of handling grief and isolation.
09:41.829 --> 09:47.857
[SPEAKER_00]: So it holds back from going into that territory until the conditions are right, which they rarely are.
09:48.678 --> 09:49.960
[SPEAKER_00]: The messages get over it.
09:50.601 --> 09:51.722
[SPEAKER_00]: Get back to work.
09:52.968 --> 09:57.356
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the end of what I read in that interview with Francis Weller.
09:59.019 --> 10:04.549
[SPEAKER_00]: So a question for you is there a loss that you minimize because it doesn't have a headline or it's hard to explain.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What might it look like to honor your experience without comparison?
10:11.716 --> 10:17.651
[SPEAKER_00]: So back to this weekend is actually just this past weekend that's still been I moved into this new home.
10:17.691 --> 10:19.396
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, oh my god, it's been two weeks now.
10:19.456 --> 10:19.957
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy moly.
10:20.018 --> 10:20.920
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been almost two weeks.
10:20.960 --> 10:21.160
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
10:22.765 --> 10:24.088
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe it's been almost two weeks.
10:24.558 --> 10:29.425
[SPEAKER_00]: We moved into what we hope will be a true home base for us for at least in the next few years.
10:30.526 --> 10:35.833
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the days that followed moving in, Sylvia and I both experienced the strange wave of exhaustion.
10:36.314 --> 10:41.200
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just tired from unpacking kind of tired, but I'm talking about deep body fatigue.
10:41.841 --> 10:48.490
[SPEAKER_00]: Like our nervous systems had been gripping onto something for years, and we're finally told, you can let go now.
10:49.297 --> 11:03.103
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been running on high alert for so long, constantly adapting, constantly grieving without, without always knowing how to name it or speak to it, and certainly not having much witness to it other than the witnessing that she and I brought.
11:03.284 --> 11:07.592
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, we'll finally have a place to exhale, a refuge.
11:07.657 --> 11:09.800
[SPEAKER_00]: And with that rest comes reflection.
11:09.840 --> 11:16.590
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've been thinking about all the ways that we've endured these seasons, both as individuals and as a couple.
11:16.990 --> 11:26.543
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had conflicting needs, different visions, different ideas about how things should go and certainly sometimes wildly divergent coping styles.
11:27.305 --> 11:29.508
[SPEAKER_00]: But they're at all, we've stayed together.
11:30.729 --> 11:34.795
[SPEAKER_00]: And just a few weeks ago, we celebrated our 10 year anniversary.
11:35.163 --> 11:37.668
[SPEAKER_00]: still standing still showing up still building.
11:38.871 --> 11:43.861
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is one of the big lessons I'm carrying into this new home in this new season.
11:44.703 --> 11:47.970
[SPEAKER_00]: And that lesson is that life unfolds in seasons.
11:48.831 --> 11:51.096
[SPEAKER_00]: We live in a world that worships summer.
11:51.481 --> 11:57.090
[SPEAKER_00]: productivity, extroversion, growth, outward expression, but that's not how life works.
11:57.631 --> 12:00.576
[SPEAKER_00]: Life unfolds in the cycles and seasons.
12:01.317 --> 12:09.591
[SPEAKER_00]: And for us, these last few years have been a hard winter season, a season of upheaval, of death, of going underground, of grief.
12:10.415 --> 12:29.354
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I thought a lot about our ancestors who for thousands of years depended on the actual seasons of the planet of their environment of their climate for nourishment, you know, one dry summer or bad fall harvest or harsh winter and people risked actually starving.
12:29.755 --> 12:31.258
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a common experience.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The modern world is so disconnected from the seasonality of food.
12:35.732 --> 12:44.463
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, our grocery stores, convenience stores, always having at least food processed in some far away factory that doesn't really deal in seasons.
12:45.204 --> 12:49.289
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't risk literal starvation like that anymore.
12:49.309 --> 12:56.397
[SPEAKER_00]: But as entrepreneurs consider, like we may experience winter through fewer clients through less incomes, through some downturn in business.
12:57.238 --> 13:00.402
[SPEAKER_00]: A married couple might go through a hard season of disconnection.
13:01.613 --> 13:08.541
[SPEAKER_00]: I work with couples that go through hard seasons of having a baby for the first time, right?
13:08.581 --> 13:13.968
[SPEAKER_00]: Those first two years of having a child are incredibly difficult season for a lot of men and women.
13:15.470 --> 13:22.358
[SPEAKER_00]: Or indeed, going through some painful loss that they must figure out how to hold as a couple.
13:22.378 --> 13:24.861
[SPEAKER_00]: And Sylvia and I have been in such a season of loss.
13:25.842 --> 13:27.785
[SPEAKER_00]: But we're feeling the shift, there are signs.
13:28.586 --> 13:31.249
[SPEAKER_00]: Tiny green shoots poking through the snow.
13:31.550 --> 13:40.058
[SPEAKER_00]: So we finally this past summer became a fully licensed therapist after what has been at times a heart-wrenching marathon journey.
13:40.979 --> 13:50.307
[SPEAKER_00]: My Ireland retreat in September was a smashing success and we're off to a great start with enrollment in my year-long coaching program for men elevate 2026.
13:50.427 --> 13:58.975
[SPEAKER_00]: We've already got five men enrolled by October when I only have ten spots to offer and we start January.
13:59.427 --> 14:07.579
[SPEAKER_00]: Sylvia and I, even a few weeks ago, signed with a really great literary agent to write our first book together.
14:07.599 --> 14:13.447
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm actually really excited for the lessons of our journey to find their way into our work.
14:13.467 --> 14:16.331
[SPEAKER_00]: So question for you, what's season of life for you and right now?
14:16.892 --> 14:20.237
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe in different areas of your life, you're in different seasons.
14:20.842 --> 14:33.397
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think might be an important lesson from maybe where you're in a winter season, where hardship and uncomfortable stillness, lack of progress, lack of movement are the norm?
14:38.824 --> 14:50.798
[SPEAKER_00]: Case you hear a little bit of whimpering in the background, I don't know if the microphone's picking that up, but that's my go-ner-achriever, who's Yellow John, who's sleeping right next to me,
14:53.343 --> 14:54.485
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you get that squirrel girl.
14:56.327 --> 15:00.393
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, look, I don't have a neat bow to tie on this.
15:01.594 --> 15:04.258
[SPEAKER_00]: I have big U.S. losses and something you resolve.
15:05.420 --> 15:11.608
[SPEAKER_00]: If something you dance with, something you give language to, you know, peace by peace moment by moment.
15:11.989 --> 15:18.017
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're carrying a grief without a name or a loss without a witness, you're not alone.
15:18.402 --> 15:27.932
[SPEAKER_00]: Not everything we lose has a funeral, not every ending comes with closure, but your experience still matters, and it still deserves space.
15:29.194 --> 15:45.912
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're still in the middle of winter, or maybe, just maybe the ice is starting to crack, or maybe you're in full-on spring and summer, but wherever you are, I hope you know this, you're not broken for feeling grief, even when there's nothing obvious to others worth grieving.
15:47.191 --> 15:59.087
[SPEAKER_00]: May you allow yourself to courage to rest, to rebuild, start over, when spring does arrive, and may you fully receive the gifts of whatever season you're in.
16:00.349 --> 16:01.590
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you for listening today.
16:02.391 --> 16:09.421
[SPEAKER_00]: If this resonated out love to hear from you, maybe just take a quiet moment to name one ambiguous loss that you've never spoken aloud.
16:09.441 --> 16:11.123
[SPEAKER_00]: That in itself can be hidden.
16:12.098 --> 16:25.665
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're kicking off a new season of bridging connections with new episodes, more conversations with my wife, Sylvie, with my co-host, Tate, and with intriguing new guests on all kinds of fascinating and deeply meaningful topics.
16:26.567 --> 16:32.419
[SPEAKER_00]: So until next time, thanks again for listening to bridging connections with Brian Riggs.
