Grief Changes More Than Our Emotions with Lynn Banis

Grief And A Meaningful Next Chapter

Carol Clegg 0:00

Grief can change not only how we feel, but how we see ourselves and the life we thought we were going to have. Today we are exploring what happens when, after profound loss, we begin asking a different question. Not simply how do I get through this, but how do I begin creating a meaningful life from here? So joining me today is Dr. Lynn Bannis, a psychologist, coach, and a grief and resilience mentor who helps widows move through loneliness and disorientation towards connection and purpose and the possibility of joy again. And she is the founder of Woman Rising Together. Lynn's work is deeply personal. She has shared that within three years she lost her mother, her younger brother, and her husband. And despite years of education and experience helping others, she discovered that nothing had fully prepared her for her own grief. And now, through rebuilding her own life, Lynn began bringing together her experience as a psychologist and a coach with what grief itself has taught her. And today, she helps others, widows, not only navigate loss, but begin imagining and creating what their next chapter might become. So welcome to Connect, Inspire, Create, a podcast exploring meaningful conversations about life, work, creativity, and the ways we can grow. Let's slow down the conversation just enough to notice what inspires us and how those insights can help shape what we create in our lives. I'm Carol Clay, your host, a gentle accountability and mental fitness coach, inviting my guests from around the globe with a wide range of backgrounds to share insights on how they live, think, and contribute to the wonderful challenges of just being a human in our world. So,

Meet Dr Lynn Bannis

Carol Clegg 2:05

Lynn, welcome, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Thank you so much. I'm so delighted to be here. And I hope those women who uh have had any kind of a loss hang in here because I don't just work with widows. I kind of expanded because I realized that if you lose your job, you lose your identity, just like you do when you're a widow. If if you have a divorce, if you have any significant thing, I'm thinking of empty nesters right now, sending their kids off to college. That's that's a big, big loss.

Carol Clegg 2:41

Absolutely. There's so many levels to it. We often sort of think it only has to be around death. But uh, what we're gonna dig into and what you're gonna share are gonna be, I hope, tools that my listeners can use in many areas of life and perhaps share with others that they might be walking the road with. Yes, absolutely. That often is the important part. But Lynn, before we dive in to talking about what you've discovered on your journey and how you've helped people, if you and I were just sitting over coffee and I had to ask you what lights you up outside this wonderful work that you're doing, what would you share first?

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Outside the work, my grandbabies, and they range now from nine to 35. So wow. So that there's a big range, and some of them had kids, so I have great grands.

Carol Clegg 3:40

Oh, fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

And are they close to you or some close to you? The great grands aren't, but two families of grandchildren are.

Carol Clegg 3:48

Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah, very, very important at this stage of life. So that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

It is, it is.

Carol Clegg 3:54

Yeah. So Lynn, you were a psychologist and a coach when you experienced your own losses. What

Compound Grief And Deep Loneliness

Carol Clegg 4:01

surprised you most about that grief when suddenly you were the one in amongst it all?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

I guess two things. The depth, and I and I want to differentiate here because I had compound grief, and what happens when you lose more than one individual?

Carol Clegg 4:24

Yeah, so you were talking about the compounded layers, which yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, the compounded grief is is difficult because each one opens up the earlier ones. So you have to go through it again and again. And then I had the third time, which was truly devastating. I did not expect my husband to pass. He went in for minor surgery and didn't make it. He threw a clot, and you know, that was that was that. So I think the depth of the grief and the loneliness are the two things that I just I wasn't prepared for. I mean, I had worked with people for years going through these sorts of things, and very empathetic. I under, you know, I'm I'm easy to sit and listen and support, but you don't understand until you go through it. Yeah, you just have to feel it yourself because there's there's nothing like it.

Carol Clegg 5:27

Yeah, you

Brain Fog And The Untethered Feeling

Carol Clegg 5:28

spoke about one of the things I picked up out of some of your your notes and things that I looked at was you described grief as being disorientating.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Totally.

Carol Clegg 5:37

Totally, yeah. Yeah, and the brain fog that comes in with that.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Um the brain fog and and the disorientation you have. To me, it's like being, for instance, in a hot air balloon, but you're untethered. There's nothing, you're connected to nothing, but you're not on the ground, you're not on a solid foundation.

Carol Clegg 6:00

Yeah, that you're not being able to direct. You also spoke about your lack of motivation, and you initially called it laziness.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Carol Clegg 6:08

Um, what do you understand differently now about you know what was the lack of motivation?

SPEAKER_00 6:13

The lack of motivation is your body's response, partially, mostly at the especially in the very beginning. What happens is when you experience a significant loss, your emotions immediately kick in, and your brain then says, Whoa, wait a minute, something's wrong here, and hits the hype fight or flight button. So that is, you know, you're you're you're in a protection mode, and your brain does need to protect you. That's its job, and it kind of makes a map of your life, and everything has, you know, it knows where everything is, but all of a sudden, something, a piece of that puzzle is gone, and your brain's going, wait a minute, what's going on? You know, how do I how do I protect my person? And so that's part of the brain fog is it's trying to adjust and reacclimate. And I mean, if you stop and think about all the things you do, all the things your brain does, holy cow, you get a hole in there, and it's leaking. Yeah. So your brain is really, really, really busy. And the interesting thing about that, and I think this goes along with people's misunderstanding about how long grief takes, you keep changing as you as you heal, and your brain has to keep changing. And so that brain fog that we talked about, which is just this disorientation where you can't think and you don't want to do anything, and it's just you know, you don't know who you are, so you're in that. What's happened? Who am I? Why me? You know, all of those questions that come up. And and then as as you come out of that a bit, then your brain begins to settle down. But we cannot think logically when we're emotional.

Carol Clegg 8:16

Yeah. We can't even see the end of the path. We can't sort of think, oh, I just need to. I know we often talk about grief, you know, in terms of sadness and loss, but losing a partner, not only absolutely sadness and loss, but from our aspect, it changes our identity and our routines and our relationship and our sense of future.

When People Think You Are Fine

Carol Clegg 8:38

And so, what do you think? You know, some of the challenges that after that initial period of grief, we we're talking about this this brain fog, but when everybody else assumes, oh, you're fine now, you're doing better.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

And you know, and they do say that, and you probably want to scream, I am not, I need I need somebody to talk to. And but we don't. We we in our society we do not have a clue how to deal with with grief, and it's kind of taboo. You don't talk about it, so how are we supposed to learn? You know, and and that's part of what I do too, is I speak with small groups and say, hey, this is what you can do to help somebody through this. And you know, we make so many mistakes because we're so afraid of it. We don't know what to do, so we're afraid we'll make a mistake, and then we say things that we've heard other people say that really hurt.

Carol Clegg 9:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

We don't realize it. You know, I mean, we just don't.

Carol Clegg 9:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

So yeah.

Carol Clegg 9:40

And you spoke also, and you mentioned the loneliness. I mean, we can have so many loving friends and family right around us, but there's still that loneliness, and I think it's also part of that journey of the new discovery of who we are. It's you know, it's not only the sadness, but it's now rediscovering. And it's a journey we have to take.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

It is a journey, and and that's another thing that in a way surprised me. I'd worked people through this, but I realized that your entire life changes when you lose a spouse. From the time you get up in the morning to the time you go to bed at night, it is not the same. And I thought, oh well, I can I can handle this, you know. I I'm I keep myself busy, I do lots of things, you know, and it's just gonna be he's not here. Hmm. Big learning.

Carol Clegg 10:37

Absolutely. I know that's and it's such a complicated relationship. Um, you know, we talk about this idea of moving forward and you know what that looks like, and knowing that we're changing. And I I talk about we to my audience because I too am now a new widow, having lost my husband six months ago. So this journey is a new journey for me. And then I lost my 22-year-old son who distracted driver 13 years ago. So the compounded grief I'm familiar with, but it's just um, you know, even those 13 years in between. Oh yeah. But then I say, you know, I'm I'm a little, in another way, a little better equipped to handle grief because I recognize certain things, and I know that one has to be gentle, but one has to keep trying. And so I know that that that idea of moving forward, it can be you know a complicated moving forward sometimes feels like we're leaving the loved person behind. So, how do we yeah, I'd love to explore with you, how do we begin giving ourselves permission to experience joy without feeling that we're diminishing our loss?

SPEAKER_00 11:44

That's a great question, and we all struggle with that so much. And I encourage clients to think about this in this way. That person was part of your life, you shared your life with a person. We know that we adjust our lives to make a relationship work, and so now we have to look at taking the wonderful parts forward with us, and there's a number of things you can do.

Rituals That Honor Love And Loss

SPEAKER_00 12:22

I'll I'll mention a couple, and people might might understand this. The first Thanksgiving, I absolutely could not go to the family Thanksgiving. I could not make myself go and sit there with that empty. No, I I couldn't handle it, but what I did was my my youngest daughter hosted, and so I sent over small mason jars with the instructions that between now and Christmas, think about your granddad, think about times when you had fun, when he was silly, when he said something that stuck with you or made you laugh, put it on a strip of paper and put it in there and bring it to Christmas when we opened our presents. And we did, and and some people were going, I don't know whether we're gonna do this, but it turned out to be so healing, cathartic. We we all laughed and we talked and we shared experiences, and you know, somebody'd say something and somebody else go, Oh, yeah, I remember that. And do you remember, you know? So it was honoring, very honoring. And yeah, there were some tears. I mean, you know, the well the tears they're worthy of the tears, they're worthy of every tear.

Carol Clegg 13:47

Yeah, yeah. But I think that's such a beautiful thing to have done because all those firsts are such a struggle. And so your idea, do you have any other ideas that you might have done on some of the other firsts?

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Well, for Christmas, I had all always, I always hosted all the me all the holidays. And I said, guys, I I have three daughters, two of them live here, and I said, I just cannot make a full turkey dinner, and you know, I just I just can't do it. And I and I don't want to. So we got the kids together, everybody was sitting around, said, what can we do that's different?

Carol Clegg 14:24

But oh, you've just gone unmute, Lynn. You still unmute somewhere on your computer. There we go. You'd have to unmute. Okay, yeah. There we go.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

I did, I did one of them and did and there was another one. Okay. Okay. Anyway, but so that that first Christmas, I got everybody together, including the kids. And we sat around and we said, okay, what can we do that would be fun and different? And the kids said, you know, we don't need that big turkey dinner. And of course, they they don't want to sit around and listen to adults gab anyway, although we always played games and had fun. But they said, Well, let's do something easy, like like let's let's do deli sandwiches. And I thought, okay, that's fine. And so we put out the spread of all these different meats and all, you know, everything, and it was a make your own sandwich. And people had a blast. They were they were just saying, oh, try this, oh try this. And so we have kept that, and we we do different things. This this last Christmas we did, I did Mexican, and they love Mexican. So, so that is something that I think is is really, really important. And then the other, the other thing I want to say is that keep the conversation going. That's how you keep the memory alive. And so when I see the kids, one of the kids using something that was Bill's, I say, oh, he would be so pleased. And and on 4th of July, my youngest daughter's community always has a parade. And I had given them, excuse me, our two kayaks, and Bill had built the what do you call it, the thing that the trailer for.

Carol Clegg 16:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

So my son-in-law took that and he said, Okay, let's do this. And he built the cutest ship on top of it that the kids could ride in. And I said, Stephen Bill would be so thrilled, you know. So those kinds of things, because he meant a lot to my son-in-laws, because they could call him and talk to him. And both of them had fathers that that wasn't always the thing that they could do. Right. So it was a very, very deep emotional family thing with that loss. And and I didn't say this, but exactly one month before Bill passed away, we were at Christmas, and Stephen's mom and dad were there, and Stephen's dad passed away on Christmas Eve Day. So we had two grandpas gone.

Carol Clegg 17:11

Us within a short period of time.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Yeah. And I talk about rough on the kids. Yeah.

Carol Clegg 17:17

I yeah, talking about them, saying their name, um, not hiding that, crying when you need to cry, laughing when you need to laugh. I know that you know, at some point we've got to begin to say, okay, it's time to feed our soul again, and this just begin discovering, you know, what we want in our lives, what we want to welcome back in.

Relearning Who You Are Now

Carol Clegg 17:35

So when someone has spent years building a life as part of a couple, what is your advice now to how they can start to discover what they want now for their lives?

SPEAKER_00 17:45

I think that yeah, this is a really tough thing. And I just hit a wall, and it's been four years that something came up. You know how that keeps happening. You get this tsunami wave that just knocks you over. And I realized that maybe there are parts of things that I haven't grieved properly because there's so much connected. And it took me into some other life losses that I had to deal with. And so people need to understand that this does not go heal immediately, immediately, fully, and you're going to have things all of the of your life that pop up. And the important thing is that we deal with them. We we get to the point where we excavate this kind of stuff. Where did this come from? Is this mine? You know, is it something that my parent had said to me? And and and do I still believe that? And you know, all of those things. So one of the things you can do is to make a timeline, go back to your earliest childhood and think about what did you learn? And sometimes we we kind of I kind of get clients started by saying, I draw a blueprint of your house, you know, and where the rooms are and everything. And then we go around each room and what did you learn in this room? And how helpful is that? Or or you know, is that something you want to so those things really help get started and you know, look at all the different pieces in your life and pick out, you know, this fed my soul. I loved this, and I haven't done it in years. Here's another story. I used to make the little five-inch saw, maybe needlepoint Christmas stockings for everybody, put their name on them, and that was their place marker at the at the table at Christmas.

Carol Clegg 19:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

So, because I wanted the kids to have something to start their own tree with. Well, a great grandmother did that for us. And when Bill died, I stopped. I I had been I did needlepoint every night for hours. And the other day, my grandkids, my two youngest were over here, and Caroline, who's 12, always loved to do sewing stuff with me. Now, you need to understand, I I homeschooled them for a whole year. So we we did a lot of things you bonded, you did a lot of things. We did, we we did the COVID thing, and I had gotten out my needlepoint, and she said, Nana, you can start a needlepoint store with all this stuff you have. And I said, Yeah, you know, and I'm thinking I really need to make a stocking for the new baby. Uh I have a grandson who's expecting he and his wife are expecting. And Caroline picked up one, she says, Can I make one? So we sat there together, and that just brought up so much of the things I love to do. And I thought, you know, I need to do this again. This this was wonderful. I loved it. So going through and thinking about not is that a good thing or a bad thing? How did I feel?

Carol Clegg 21:19

Feeling, right? What did it bring? What joy did it bring to you? Yeah, and yeah, can you can you pick and then also exploring new things, you know, you perhaps you didn't like cooking and you could explore and go, does that bring you some pleasure? It's it's it's being open, I think, to an exploring mindset. But yes, this one I'm sure you get asked a lot by your clients.

What To Say And What Not To

Carol Clegg 21:40

But for those listening who love someone who is grieving and desperately want to help but don't know what to say, what actually helps?

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Actually helps. What actually helps is your presence. And whether that's you know, you're you're physically in a room with someone. Or you pick up the phone weekly or a couple times a week and say, and this is all you have to say. You don't have to say a lot. Hi, I was thinking of you today, and I just want you to know I really care. Is there anything I can do? Yeah, can I go to the grocery store? Can I pick something up for you? And the thing is, be prepared that they don't know what they want. Right. They're just so lonely and so sad that nothing appeals to them. They just want out of that emotional situation. And and so be very thoughtful. You don't don't try to fix them. They're not broken. And they don't want to be fixed. And trying to placate. Oh, he's in a better place. I wanted to scream at somebody. It's like, I don't care. I want him here. Right. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Even Christian is, you know, it's like, no, don't say that to me. Don't say that. Yeah. Yeah. So some of those things we we pick up because other people have said them. We have we heard and we think, oh, we think that's the right thing to say. Yeah. But think if if you want to take something to them, and do you have anybody else in the house?

Carol Clegg 23:16

With me, I do. I have my daughter here. So yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

So it's just the two people.

Carol Clegg 23:21

Three of us.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

That's a little bit different, but when Bill died, it was just me. Yes. You know, I had two daughters and family around, but it was just me. And people would bring me 13 by 9 pans of lasagna. And I thought, holy cow. First of all, don't keep bringing lasagna, at least in my family. And one of the things that brings me to is ask.

Carol Clegg 23:50

Be specific. Because a lot of people, when they say, you know, just call at me, I'm here to help you. And it's like, be specific with me, because tell me what your what you offer is, what your parameters are, and then I can, you know, say to you, I'd love you to grab me some milk from the store if you're going that way, because that's what you're doing. But the the offers of of just it makes it because people don't like to ask for help. None of us like to ask for help.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

No, no, no, no. And we don't want to be a burden.

Carol Clegg 24:16

In in without grieving, we don't want to ask for help. So then you add that layer onto it as well. But it's it's definitely, yeah. No. And then I have a friend who she messages me and says, You don't need to respond. I just want you to know that I'm thinking of you.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

That's the big thing right there. Or if you're gonna take some food, take one meal, and if you want to do a little more, take one portion that can be put in the freezer.

Carol Clegg 24:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

But at first, people really don't want to eat, they're not hungry. The emotions have have, you know, so think about something like a small bowl of fruit that's easy just to pick up and graze on, or crackers and cheese. You know, don't overdo because people aren't going to eat it and they they don't even want to open the refrigerator sometimes. I have had clients that said, you know, I couldn't open the refrigerator for months, and then I had to sell that.

Carol Clegg 25:08

I think so. One of the most important things that I hope people get out of ListyTest is to is to just realize that we do need to talk about this unless there are people to help us on this journey. So with that then, where do people find you if they are interested in working with you?

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Okay.

Finding Support And Closing Reflections

SPEAKER_00 25:23

I have just launched a membership platform that is free right now, and it is designed to be a significant help 247-365. You can go there, you can get information from experts who are dealing with this kind of stuff with clients all of the time. There are articles, there's classes, there's master classes, there's groups. It has all the functionality of Facebook. So think of Facebook and then add. I have created a whole lot of what I call AI mentors, and they run the gamut of the things you might be feeling. So if you get up and wake up in the middle of the night and you're beside yourself, you can't stop crying. I mean, a lot most of us have experienced this, and there is no one to talk to. You can go to this site, you can listen to music, you can pick any of the things to do, and the music is just music that's soothing, but the other tools all take the a coaching approach, and they find out what's going on, what have you tried, what have you not tried, what's worked, what hasn't worked, where are you right now? And then it comes up with three things you can do right now to start moving out of where you are.

Carol Clegg 26:52

So it's Will you give me that? I was gonna say, will you give me the address? Well, how they would find that.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

WomenRisingTogether.org.

Carol Clegg 27:01

WomanrisingTogether.org. I will make sure to put that in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

And it's women, not woman.

Carol Clegg 27:08

En. Yeah. Yeah, womenrising together.org. Perfect. And then I know that you're on LinkedIn and you have an Instagram account, so I'll pop those in the show notes. And so thank you. Thank you for this conversation. Just to remind ourselves that building a life doesn't mean leaving people, the people we loved and behind or pretending that this loss didn't happen. It's just making room for what's now gonna be life alongside Greece and allowing ourselves just to become curious of what can be possible. And it's one day at a time, we don't know what tomorrow is gonna bring. So, Lynn, thank you so much. I hope that my listeners are gonna be encouraged and for the site that you've shared with us to just reach out and connect with you and to those listening. Thank you for listening to Connect Inspire Create. If today's conversation has sparked something that works for you, I am thrilled. And if you think of somebody else that could do listening to this episode, please share it with them. And if you'd like to learn more about me, you can find me at Carolclerg.com or follow me along on Instagram at Explore Life and Flourish, where I am sharing a window into my travels, my healing, and the small ways that I'm learning to take care of myself as I move through this new season of my life. So until the next time, may your choices bring you closer to ease and flow.