When Michelle Benyo faced the unimaginable loss of her son to cancer, she found a way to channel her pain into purpose, guiding other bereaved parents through the fog of grief. Her story, a testament to the power of transformation, is one we unravel in today's episode, where she shares her insights on Good Grief Parenting. With candor and compassion, we traverse the complex emotions that come with loss, emphasizing the necessity of acknowledging and facing grief to cultivate resilience and hope.
Our dialogue also brings to light the challenge of raising children in the aftermath of a sibling's passing. We uncover the often overlooked signs of grief in children, who express their sorrow in ways vastly different from adults. By fostering open communication and patience, Michelle underscores the importance of being present for our children's evolving understanding of loss. This episode aims not only to comfort but also to empower parents with strategies and resources, including the Good Grief Guide, to walk this difficult path with fortitude and love.
As we wrap up, our conversation takes a momentary detour to appreciate the unlikely joy found in the harshness of Minnesota winters. It's a lighthearted reflection on embracing life's every season, akin to the way we approach grieving—with the right attitude and tools, even the coldest days can hold moments of warmth and growth. Michelle's journey resonates with a universal truth: grief, when navigated together, can become a journey of shared healing and unexpected strength.
This podcast is meant to be a resource for the general public, as well as fellow therapists/psychologists. It is NOT meant to replace the meaningful work of individual or family therapy. Please seek professional help in your area if you are struggling. #breakthestigma #makewordsmatter #thingsyoulearnintherapy #thingsyoulearnintherapypodcast
Feel free to share your thoughts at www.makewordsmatterforgood.com or email me at Beth@makewordsmatterforgood.com
If you are a therapist or psychologist and want to be a guest on the show, please complete this form to apply: https://forms.gle/ooy8QirpgL2JSLhP6
www.bethtrammell.com
When Michelle Benyo faced the unimaginable loss of her son to cancer, she found a way to channel her pain into purpose, guiding other bereaved parents through the fog of grief. Her story, a testament to the power of transformation, is one we unravel in today's episode, where she shares her insights on Good Grief Parenting. With candor and compassion, we traverse the complex emotions that come with loss, emphasizing the necessity of acknowledging and facing grief to cultivate resilience and hope.
Our dialogue also brings to light the challenge of raising children in the aftermath of a sibling's passing. We uncover the often overlooked signs of grief in children, who express their sorrow in ways vastly different from adults. By fostering open communication and patience, Michelle underscores the importance of being present for our children's evolving understanding of loss. This episode aims not only to comfort but also to empower parents with strategies and resources, including the Good Grief Guide, to walk this difficult path with fortitude and love.
As we wrap up, our conversation takes a momentary detour to appreciate the unlikely joy found in the harshness of Minnesota winters. It's a lighthearted reflection on embracing life's every season, akin to the way we approach grieving—with the right attitude and tools, even the coldest days can hold moments of warmth and growth. Michelle's journey resonates with a universal truth: grief, when navigated together, can become a journey of shared healing and unexpected strength.
This podcast is meant to be a resource for the general public, as well as fellow therapists/psychologists. It is NOT meant to replace the meaningful work of individual or family therapy. Please seek professional help in your area if you are struggling. #breakthestigma #makewordsmatter #thingsyoulearnintherapy #thingsyoulearnintherapypodcast
Feel free to share your thoughts at www.makewordsmatterforgood.com or email me at Beth@makewordsmatterforgood.com
If you are a therapist or psychologist and want to be a guest on the show, please complete this form to apply: https://forms.gle/ooy8QirpgL2JSLhP6
www.bethtrammell.com
Hey everyone, dr Beth Tramiel here and welcome back to Things you Learn in Therapy, and I'll tell you, there is a lot of so much content in this that I'm like, yeah, this is exactly what you will learn in therapy. And I want to remind folks that this podcast is not meant to replace therapy. There will be really nothing that can replace the power of really great therapeutic treatment. Instead, I hope that you find these episodes as glimpses of hope, glimpses of feeling supported or feeling heard or seen or known and realizing that you're not alone. These struggles that we talk about in this episode are very real. It doesn't mean that we know exactly what you're going through, necessarily, but our hope is that you will see that grief is something that lives in a continuum that is individually yours, but that which you are not alone in. So this episode I am thrilled to share, both for this podcast and my other podcast, because I thought there were so many takeaways for parents who've experienced their own loss. But, honestly, for anyone who has ever experienced grief or for anyone who maybe hasn't experienced grief just yet, you will and you'll want to have taken notes on this episode y'all Enjoy. Get your notebook out, get your journal out. Be ready to write some things down, because Michelle Benio has so many great things that she's going to share. And don't forget to check out her freebie that she talks about. I'll make sure I have it in the show notes, but this would be a good resource for you to have in your pocket but also to share with others.
Speaker 1:All right, so, hey, everyone, welcome back to Kids. These Days, I am your host, dr Beth Tramell, and I have a really amazing guest with me today. Michelle Benio is joining on the podcast today to talk about a topic that you know. When you first looked at the description of this episode, you might have thought, well, that's actually probably not for me. You know, I haven't experienced what she's going to be talking about, but I'm here to tell you I really think there's going to be so much that you walk away from today's conversation with even if you haven't necessarily firsthand experienced the loss of a child. And so, michelle, I'm so thankful that you decided to join today, and can you let folks know a little bit about you kind of how you got into this good grief parenting approach that you're going to talk to us about, because it's sort of the unfortunate way that you stepped into this work but but we're really thankful that you did.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, thank you, beth. I'm really happy to be here, and I yes, I came equipped into this role, but not in some ways, but not one bit prepared in other ways, and that was here in Minnesota, where I'm from. We have early childhood parent education in every school district for parents and children of the early childhood ages, and I had a four and a half year old and a 15 month old, and I was starting this field and I spent my days with families of young children and to me that was the perfect, perfect life. But then, just a few months into my first year as an early childhood parent educator for for those classes, my son was diagnosed with cancer and I did not know how to deal with that. I hadn't experienced any crisis like this in my family before, and so it was no longer parenting as usual, and after a two and a half year battle with cancer, my son died.
Speaker 2:My daughter was three and a half years old at the time and she actually said to me mommy, half of me is gone.
Speaker 2:So I was just struck with the realization that I was going to raise this child through her whole life ahead of her.
Speaker 2:She would not have another sibling with half of her gone and I knew because, because of the importance of identity development and family members, particularly siblings, in the development of identity of young children that in a very real sense, half of her was gone with him. And how was I going to help her grow up whole and happy? And I thought, well, I'm in the field, so I felt like I sort of had a leg up, but I could not find any resources that helped me do this. They just weren't out there, and I should mention that this was actually 21 years ago. We didn't have internet like we do now, we didn't have Facebook groups and we didn't have studies and books that have since happened to help me know how to raise her. So at the time my concern was to just get her through her life, us, through our life without our our, without my son, her brother, and. But I knew, because I'm an educator at heart, that whatever I learned, I was going to have to provide for others because nothing was out there for us.
Speaker 1:And I can just imagine the I mean any kind of loss is just so excruciating to have to walk through. But I have thought before because I've worked with young clients who've experienced their own loss. You're not just managing your own grief, but you're also managing the grief of everyone else, including this little person who doesn't totally understand that he's actually gone forever, and not just to mention the hardship of just raising a preschooler at the time. I can imagine how overwhelming it was, with so many emotions, not knowing what to do, or there was nowhere for you to turn, and so I am just looking forward to hearing more about what came out of this.
Speaker 2:Well, you're absolutely right. The two hardest things that we'll ever need to do as adults is parent to child, because none of us get a manual with that and grieve a loved one and have our dreams. I mentioned young families. When we've got young children, we've got all of these dreams and suddenly they're just shattered and we can't see around that it's like how can I possibly have new dreams?
Speaker 2:So it needs to start with how do I live forward. Some of the things that I give families in the good grief parenting approach is the idea that grief is good. First and foremost, it's a normal, natural part of living and we don't want our young children to be exposed to something like this. But sometimes at this young age like my daughter, they are, and then we just need to give them that reality and we need to let them know that, as shaken as their world has been, good things are still ahead. There are still bright possibilities, new dreams and as parents, we need to find our way forward.
Speaker 2:My course is called See your Way Forward After Child Loss and it just really helps parents see okay, now what do I do? How do I handle all the things that have come roaring into my life that I wasn't expecting? And it starts with realizing that grief is good, because we think of grief as this devastation that has just destroyed our lives. And how can we ever be happy again in the presence of grief? But we really can be. We need to learn to do that and do it gradually, but we can do that. So it's managing those two really challenging roles of grieving and parenting at the same time.
Speaker 1:And so many of us don't grow up with appropriate or even positive messages around grief, and what we know is we carry both our parenting messages, but also messages about loss, with us as we step into adulthood, and so I'm sure it's also about identifying what those first messages about grief and loss have been for us.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're absolutely right, because most of us grew up in families where grief was this elephant in the room, we, as adults, felt like they were supposed to be strong, not sure their grief.
Speaker 2:We certainly didn't talk about our grief and we just try to get beyond it. People who are in our lives when we've experienced a loss often think they're doing good things for us when they encourage us to just get past it, get happy again, move on. All of these things and that is not at all what good grief is. So in my program I actually have identified four heart. I call them heartbeats. They are just sort of the pillars of the program. And the first one is good grief beliefs, and it really is identifying how we view grief and recognizing, as you said, that much of what we learned as children was not healthy or helpful and there are better ways to look at grief and recognize that the only way to cope with grief is to go straight through it to allow it to be what it's meant to be, and it actually is a way for us to heal and recover from that loss. And so we talk about what we come into the experience, feeling about grief, and then how to shift that in a more positive way for our family. We talk next. The next heartbeat is continuing bonds, which is the idea of carrying forward the relationship with the child who died for my daughter saying half of her was gone. I needed to keep her brother in her life. Not that that was the only reason I wanted to do it. As grievers, we instinctively know we don't want to let go of our loved one, even though other people sometimes tell us we should know. Continuing bonds is really, again, a healthy part of healing is to have ways that we can continue that relationship and remember that person living forward. And then the third heartbeat is essential messages, which is the recognition that when we experience a shake up in our lives, you know there are things that we need to be assured of, and for children this is particularly true. They don't understand what death is. They don't understand everything we do as adults, but they certainly feel that something really awful has happened. The adults are upset. Adults aren't acting the same.
Speaker 2:One reason that parenting while grieving is a challenge is not just because we're trying to do both at the same time, but also because parenting changes after you lose a child. Suddenly, that reality that a child can die changes you as a parent as well as the other children in the family. So children really need to hear yes, we're so sad that David died and we're so happy that you're still here. We're going to get through this together. I know mommy gets upset sometimes, but we're going to be okay. This is okay. We're sad. Now we will be happier, we will get through this.
Speaker 2:The child really needs those messages that they are valued and that their world is still secure. You still are taking care of them. Then the last heartbeat is the choices that we make and how we're going to live forward, kind of the concrete things that we do as a family so that we can still have a future with dreams and live in the presence of grief, because grief doesn't go away. It's not something that's going to end and then you just go back to normal. Your life is going to be different. So what are some of the choices and intentions that you're going to live forward with? So those are the four areas that we talk about in the good grief parenting approach.
Speaker 1:I love those and I want to ask questions about them because they are so good and I can see how it would apply so perfectly to losing a sibling, but also how it applies to so many other losses too. The first thing I want to ask about is this idea of moving through grief. I think if you or I or anybody who's listening asks someone what is the first thing that you associate with grief, I think most of us would say pain, and so most of us live our lives trying to avoid pain, both physical, emotional, psychological Like we just don't want to experience pain, and so I think that that's a big part of why people often avoid talking about grief, engaging in grief work, and rightfully so, because it doesn't. It's not natural for us to be like, yes, let me experience pain. So how do you help people know that Like, yes, pain is okay and it still can be good grief?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, the pain is, is necessary. And also, I would say, when you allow the pain, it's sort of like when you have this secret and you don't want to tell anybody, and so you just keep it to yourself and at some point you share it with someone and suddenly it's just not so bad anymore. You think, oh, why didn't I tell them this before? It's sort of the same thing with grief. When we keep it locked in, there's no place for it to go, and when we bring grief into the light of day, other people can say, yes, I feel that way too, or yes, I understand that. Although the other thing about grief and I and I'm really careful to say this with any families I work with is, even though I've had this experience, I don't know your grief, I don't know anyone else's grief. I know some things about grief, but I don't know exactly what you're going through. All I know is that it's normal and natural to experience a lot of different things in grief, and when we can go straight through them, we find that we live in spite of it and it gives us. It gives us a sense of of strength and resilience and hope, because we're going through it, we're not incapacitated by it, and for young children.
Speaker 2:One of the first things I talked to parents about is this self care piece of them making sure they are taking care of their own grief, because sometimes when you're caring about your child, then your tendency may be to focus on that child and to not allow your own grief, and that's not healthy for your child.
Speaker 2:They need to see you being the role model that acknowledges grief and they need to recognize how people grieve and that you know there's crying and there's feeling sad and they're saying that I hurt and all of these things, but then there's a better day and so our tendency is to avoid pain. But when we do that with children, we're really handicapped. Handicapping that and I would say that a lot of us as adults know that that's the way we were taught about grief, and so then we're faced with it and we don't know what to do with it, because we didn't learn that as children and childhood is really I. That's why I say childhood is the best time to learn about grief and loss, because then you grow into an adult who can handle it and live forward and and I talk about living forward versus moving forward, because living to me implies that vitality and that intentionality and that quality of going forward that that I hope all families can have after such a loss.
Speaker 1:I think there's so many good things that you just mentioned that I I want to just like recap, you know this, this idea that most often I've seen. You know, we fear this kind of emotional pain that we think comes with grief. And and I'm not, I don't want folks to hear me say this and minimize what this pain is, but I think most of us just don't know what that feeling is. So we think it's pain, it must be, like all of the other pain I've experienced. You know whether that's a needle at the doctor's office or it's a. You know, I got a scrape or a cut or childbirth Right.
Speaker 1:It's like we associate all pain as equal and I think most of us, who haven't necessarily experienced grief in our own lives, we don't know what pain in the grieving process feels like. All we know is that it's deep sadness and we don't want to be sad either. So I think we do bottle it up, we pretend like it's okay, we, we don't want to go through it. But then, once we actually step into that and step into like almost surrendering to the process of grief, we actually find out that we are stronger than we thought we were.
Speaker 2:Two things I would say to that is one yes, it is so. It is sadness, but it is so much more than that. And that's the other reason why it's important to look at it, because children grieve differently than adults do. You're not gonna see children crying and some of them may but many of them may just be playing and looking like they're not concerned, but I guarantee you they are.
Speaker 2:Some of them may start behaving in kind of obnoxious ways or clingy ways, or just kids who used to be very bold may now just not want to venture forth and do anything.
Speaker 2:Kids behave in ways that you think who is this child? And sometimes, especially with young kids in this early childhood age, you question, well, is this normal development or is this grief? And so we really do need to be aware that children grieve very much, by the way they behave and what they're doing physically, how they're playing. They may have stomach aches, they may not want to eat, they may not be able to sleep, all of these things that seem you don't know what they're about. If you've had this upset and this loss in your family, most likely that's your child grieving in the way that they do, and so that's important as well, to recognize that grief is. And so when we talk to kids about being sad and then try to cheer them up, which is what we often do with sadness, that doesn't work with grief, because grief is so much deeper and so much more complex than sadness, and so we need to recognize that and really deal with what's going on inside that child.
Speaker 1:I love that you clarified that, because I couldn't agree more that the way we see grief in kids is not at all probably what we think we're gonna see. And I think the other thing I want for you to clarify for listeners is so the grieving process for adults is very individualized, right, you said earlier, I experienced this kind of loss, but I don't know what your grief is like. I couldn't know because everyone has their own individual process. I think when I talk with folks about grief, one of the hardest things is the timeframe for grieving. Yes, right, so I think our kiddos. Can you just talk and clarify? Let me just start there.
Speaker 1:Talking clarify the timeframe for both our own grief when we lose a child, but also how do our kiddos go through a timeframe of grieving?
Speaker 2:That's such an important question because, again, a lot of well-intentioned but uninformed people out there try to put a timeframe on it they see you and they say, okay, it's been a year. There is no timeframe, and there is nothing wrong with any timeframe.
Speaker 2:The only time to be concerned about how long you're grieving is if you really just not able, if you are incapacitated, if you really are unable to carry on your life, then be concerned. But I will tell you that, even though my son died 20 years ago, when I go in and look at pictures, like I've had to do for some podcasts I've guessed it on and they've asked me for pictures it can send me really to a horrible place after 20 years and I'm not living in that place. And so grief is. We will feel better. We will feel better. We will change.
Speaker 2:We go from the acute grief, which is just the devastation, to through a transition phase that ebbs and flows, that you don't get to a point and then you're beyond feeling the hardship and the pain of grief because throughout your life you can have a tax of it. But there's a point at which your grief can be something that you carry and you can. It informs the way you live your life, but it isn't necessarily as front and center. With children, the thing to keep in mind is because they don't have the full understanding of loss and death when it happens. As they grow up, they're gonna have new grief all over again. The three-year-old whose brother dies is gonna have a new understanding at the age of six or 10. That's gonna make them ask questions and they're, as they get to be.
Speaker 2:My daughter, whose brother died at the age of six, when she was three, when the year that he would have graduated from high school, she made a drawing of him as the valedictorian of his high school graduating class. She was just really aware of his absence. And when she was in college, in a poetry class, she named her anthology Every Poem is a Dead Brother Poem and so and it was at that age of young adulthood really, where she did a lot of processing of this loss. I don't reprocess my grief like that because I was a full-grown adult when it happened to me, but children are gonna experience it in new ways throughout the developmental stages and milestones of their lives. So this is another thing to be really aware of with grief and children.
Speaker 1:And I'm sure that it goes into that third heartbeat that you were talking about in terms of the messages that I picture a three-year-old asking questions, and I have four kids in my own a 14-year-old, a 12-year-old, an eight-year-old and a six-year-old and I can imagine ongoing questions, and so I'm sure that part of what you preach is also preparing parents that okay, yes, right now, in the acute phase of the devastation, we've got to have these messages. But then also, for every question that they have, whether it's convenient for me or not, no matter how I'm feeling as the parent, how hurt or wounded I am, I have to be prepared to share the right messages. So what are some of the ways that we can avoid those kind of mistakes, right where it's like I am so sad today, you know it's the anniversary and I'm so sad, and now my kid wants to ask me 28 questions about how did he die, and I just don't have it in me. So how do you maintain that through the years, particularly with kiddos who might want to ask those questions?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I think that's probably one of the things that parents struggle with the most and are sort of wary of and afraid of the most. And it isn't that difficult. It is simply being honest with your child at the level that they're asking being with, and this is a hard one. This is maybe one of the biggest obstacles. Even with the three year old saying that their loved one, their brother or their dad or their dog died, using the words died and dead, when it's your child, you choke on those words and it's your spouse.
Speaker 2:You choke on those words. We as adults don't like to say our loved one died, but it's really important to use it with children because it's the only accurate word that there is that really tells them what happened, and my three year old didn't exactly know what death was, but when she was five and she knew that dead was what had happened to David, she started to understand more and more what that meant. I didn't have to give her new vocabulary when she could understand it. I gave her the accurate vocabulary in the beginning, and a really good way to talk with young children about death is to say that the person's body stopped working, so they can't laugh anymore, they can't feel anymore, they can't do the things they used to be able to do, and they'll never be able to do that again and we're not going to see them anymore. Those are just factual things that typically satisfy a really young child, and then, as they get older, they will ask questions, and part of us, part of our challenge as parents, is to honor their questions.
Speaker 2:Yes, that can be really hard and they may ask over and over again, because that's another thing about young children when they're trying to figure something out. It's not that they didn't understand the first time. You told them they did. They did. They heard it, but they're grappling with it in their mind. So, yeah, they may ask that question over and over again and that can be so hard. Just try to give them what they ask. Don't give them any more detail. Your answers don't have to be long, but they do need answers to their questions that are honest and not misleading in any way.
Speaker 1:I have a similar response when I talk with parents about any kind of hard conversation. Right, whether it's any other hard topic in parenting. It's like answer their question honestly, use the correct terminology until their curiosity is fulfilled, and don't focus on them understanding every single piece and making sure they know it and spending all this time harping on it. So I love all of that. And then how do you respond to the parent who says or asks you well, michelle, how young is too young? How much should I tell them? They're so little. How do I approach this topic with them when they're so little? I get the question of how much is too much and at what age. So do you get a similar kind of question and how do you respond to that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that that goes along with what you were just saying, beth, and that is we try to figure out what they need to know. We try to figure out what they don't know and what they should know and what they may want to know. We need to start from a very simple place. They died, their body stopped working. I'm really sad. We're not going to see them anymore. We'll miss them. That's pretty much the basics.
Speaker 2:Let the child ask more and when they ask more, don't think, oh, they must be thinking this, so I need to tell them this.
Speaker 2:Just answer what they asked. Don't get ahead of them, because chances are where you go when you get ahead of them is not at all where they went. If you wonder why they're asking a question and your mind starts to try to figure it out, then just say what made you ask me that and let them tell you, and they'll probably say something that is not at all where you thought their head was at and that can so much take the pressure off you as a parent to just really, really let them take the lead, and you always have time to give them more information when they ask for it, but they don't need to know everything at once. They just need to know that they're not going to see this person anymore. That's why you're sad. These things that are obvious to them and we're going to be okay, I'm going to take care of you, I'm still here All of those things that they need to feel secure.
Speaker 1:I know folks can't see me, but my head was just like nodding voraciously to everything you just mentioned because I just couldn't agree more. Too often we mess up the conversations because of our own anxiety, our own messages about certain conversations and we think, oh my gosh, what my kid is actually saying is this, and really that is not at all what the child's saying or even wants to know. I just think we complicate it and I love that. Your advice is just keep it very simple small steps, small conversations over and over and over, always just coming back to what it is that they need. I think that's so good. If there was sort of One take home message that you're like this is really what I want people to know about the work that you do, the things that you see with grief and families. What is kind of one of your take home messages?
Speaker 2:Well, if I may just quickly give three, one I already talked about Take three, you get three. I already talked about the importance of self care and I just wanna repeat that you, as the adult, get to take care of yourself and if you need support to help you with your family so that you can take care of yourself, do that you deserve. You need to take care of yourself to take care of your family.
Speaker 2:So, it's not a luxury. The second is that piece of conversation just be willing to talk to children about it. When we don't talk to children, they're manufacturing all kinds of things in their minds. They're scared, they're confused. What's going on in their minds is not good for them. So they just need for you to be willing to talk to them and hug them, do the nonverbal connect with them. Yes, and so don't allow the overwhelming feeling to separate you. Make sure you're staying connected as a family with your child.
Speaker 2:And the third thing that I haven't really we've sort of touched on it, but not really is simply to honor grief, and by that I mean all kinds of grief, because we all actually do experience grief for the first time in our early childhood years. It's not always the death of a loved one, it may be the death of a goldfish, you know, but when grief happens, grief is simply the response to loss, the response to the fact that something is gone that we will never have back, that we want, and so to honor that, however it comes into your child's life and help them understand these lessons about that. Grief happens, it's sad, it makes us not feel good. That makes sense. No, you don't always have to be happy. I don't need to cheer you up. This is sad. It's okay to be sad.
Speaker 2:That's really important for young kids to learn, and so those are my three takeaways, and I would just say a lot of this is addressed in a freebie that I have that I'd like to make your audience aware of, and it's my Good Grief Guide, which you can find on my website, which is goodgriefparentingcom. On the homepage, right at the top, you can download this Good Grief Guide, which talks about how grief is good, gives you some very concrete ideas about how to have some of these conversations a little bit differently with children, what kids need from us. We cannot fix grief for anybody, but we can certainly help it be better grief, and so download the Good Grief Guide, whether you feel like you need it right now or not, because at some point, as a parent with children, you will find some helpful guidance in it, and you may know someone else that you can share with. So, please, I really want you to have this when you need it, instead of needing to go look for it. So it's goodgriefparentingcom the Good Grief Guide.
Speaker 1:I'm so thankful that you brought that up. It was actually gonna be my next question how do people find you in the work that you do? And I actually really love that you kind of start on your webpage like I'm glad that you found me and I'm sorry that you had to.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly.
Speaker 1:I mean that just really kind of sums up everything that you have talked about and shared today, and I'm so thankful that you were able to join today, because even just hearing you talk about it and realizing although I don't have this experience personally I can imagine how so many of these things can apply to so many other grief experiences that parents can prepare themselves for. I love that you're talking about this Good Grief Guide, because grief is going to happen.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it's moving. The movie Inside Out is such a good example of grief. So, good and nobody in that family was admitting that they were grieving and they all were in their own way. And when we share grief as a family, then we do go through it, we do live through it and it's good grief because we grow from it. So that's really what I want for all of your listeners.
Speaker 1:It's so good. So you know what we forgot to do at the beginning. You're fun fact.
Speaker 2:Oh, my fun fact? Yes, and I had it already because you were ready, so we've got to share. What's your fun fact? Well, my fun fact is that I'm coming to you from beautiful Minnesota on a blue sky, smartly, smartly, sparkly, crunchy white snow day. It's three degrees and this is my Favorite kind of day of all. My favorite day is a Minnesota January day, and so I'm kind of an anomaly, I say I'm a kind of person who's supposed to live in Minnesota. I now live in the Twin Cities area, but I grew up up on the Canadian border and I Just signed up today for the winter challenge for cure search for children's cancer and it is to walk, you know, a certain number of miles in the winter and as soon as we get done here, I'm gonna get out there and add some miles, because this is my favorite day.
Speaker 1:This is your jam three degrees, look, I'll take blue skies. I'll actually even take snow. Oh yes, three degrees. I don't know. That's like 30 degrees less than what I sort of would like call my like edge.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, it's so crisp and energizing to me.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, you might be the anomaly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you dress for it. You know you don't go out in shorts, although, I don't know, maybe Minnesotans do they probably do.
Speaker 1:There's probably folks walking around the street by you that are wearing shorts. I saw a meme last week. So my son last year was in nature preschool, so they were outside and his teacher was like I Don't know where she was from, probably Minnesota, because she was like I love all weather and there's no bad weather, only bad clothes and he was outside in the rain and I mean and he loved it. It was great. Kids, kids love it. We grown-ups tend to ruin it. But I saw this, this, this picture on Facebook, where there was like these cots. You know, the early childhood educator in you will, or parent educator will will, will kind of love this. But there were like four cots and it was snowing outside and they were outside taking a nap and they were like all bundled up and I'm like the kids probably loved that and there were probably parents who were like writing their senator about how that's child abuse or something I don't know.
Speaker 2:But well, let me share with you another fun fact, and that is that I Lived in Norway for three years. I went there as a National Guard soldier to do two weeks of winter survival training and part of our training was to build us, to dig a Snow cave in the side of the mountain and sleep in it. So we did that, we slept in this snow cave and I I loved it, you know. But when I woke up, but when I woke up, the, the ceiling of the snow cave was just a few inches below, above my face, because when you sleep and the condensation, you know, gets on the snow, it kind of it makes it heavier and it sort of drops down. So I was in this snow cave with the ceiling just a few inches above my face. That was kind of freaky. Yeah, for those of you who can't, see my face.
Speaker 1:I'm sort of just like jaw dropped, like I can't believe what you're describing is a real life situation.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, so maybe your son's teacher is Norwegian, because that's really their attitude to no bad weather, just bad clothes.
Speaker 1:So I'll have to ask her because, yeah, she's, she's really into it. I love that experience and I I've just really enjoyed getting a chance to kind of chat with you today, and I know my listeners Are going to be excited about this free download. I'll make sure I put that in the show notes. Yes and yeah, I mean you have a lot of great resources on your website and I know you've done some other podcasts, interviews, so I'm going to make sure that all the listeners get access to be able to know where all those things are. So thank you for being with me today.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're welcome, and on my community page, where many of those are, they can also connect with me directly and have a conversation and have a conversation if anyone needs that. So thank you, beth. Yes, I'm really glad this worked out today. I've enjoyed meeting you too, and I appreciate the work that you do with families and kids, so thank you for having me here. Thank you, and.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoy your walk this afternoon.
Speaker 2:I will Thanks sounds good.
Speaker 1:All right, everyone, until next time, we'll see y'all.