Overcoming Loss and Finding Joy with JoBeth Polley

In this episode of the podcast 'Seeing Death Clearly,' host Jill McClennen talks to Jo Beth Polly about her experiences with infertility and the death of her husband from brain cancer. Jo Beth shares how these profound losses shaped her life and career in helping others navigate grief. 

They discuss the isolating nature of grief, the importance of genuine support, and how such intense experiences can lead to personal growth and a deeper understanding of what truly matters in life. Jo Beth emphasizes that while grief is incredibly challenging, there is always potential for joy and purpose to emerge from it. 

The conversation also touches on the importance of presence over busyness, particularly in parenting, and how society often misguides us. Together, they explore the idea that by acknowledging and working through grief, individuals can find a renewed sense of connection and purpose.

00:00 Introduction and Host's Perspective on Grief

01:30 Guest Introduction and Infertility Journey

02:33 Navigating Grief and Isolation

07:07 Therapy and Coping Mechanisms

10:09 Spirituality and Physical Impact of Grief

15:55 Living with Purpose and Presence

21:15 Reflecting on Life's Priorities

25:33 Discussing the Pressure of Youth Sports

26:51 Reflecting on the Impact of Over-Scheduling

28:36 COVID-19: A Forced Pause and Its Lessons

33:33 The Value of Happiness Over Achievement

38:49 Grief and Joy: Co-Authoring a Book

42:40 The Importance of Seeking Help

45:24 Closing Remarks and Support

https://nwagriefspecialists.com/

https://www.facebook.com/nwagriefspecialists

Episode with Chris Mamone our coauthor https://www.buzzsprout.com/2092749/episodes/16878010

Transcript

JoBeth: [00:00:00] I can never say I'm thankful my husband died. I'm not sad about the fact that I empathize with people on a deeper level. I can show up differently in the world. When you experience deep grief, you have the opportunity to turn away from the things that don't matter, and it's a lot easier. 

Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly.

I'm your host, Jill McClennen, a death doula and end of life coach. Here on my show, I have conversations with guests that explore the topics of death, dying, grief, and life itself. My goal is to create a space where you can challenge the ideas you might already have about these subjects. I want to encourage you to open your mind and consider perspectives beyond what you may currently believe to be true.

In this episode, my guest, JoBeth Polley, shares her journey through grief caused by infertility and then the death of her husband to brain cancer. She discusses how these experiences have shaped her career, helping others navigate grief. Jo Beth talks about the isolating nature of grief. Society [00:01:00] struggle to acknowledge infertility and miscarriage and the importance of support that goes beyond surface level gestures.

The conversation also delves into how grief can lead to personal growth, spiritual awakening, and renewed focus on life's true priorities. We reflect on the value of presence over busyness, especially in parenting, and how societal pressures often misguide us. Tune in for this conversation that underscores the potential for joy and purpose to emerge from profound loss.

Thank you for joining us. Welcome to the podcast, Jo Beth, I'm looking forward to talking to you. I know we're actually working on a project together about grief, but I don't really know that much about your story, so why don't you just tell us a little bit about who you are, even outside of your story, anything that you wanna share with us.

JoBeth: Yeah, so the. Project that brought us together was rooted in the loss and grief that I experienced through infertility. That's where my story of grief began, was with that had basically like a perfect [00:02:00] childhood and I had lost great grandparents, but nothing other than that. My husband and I were ready to start a family and we tried and time passed and we ultimately.

Found out that we were not gonna be able to have children, and that was my first experience with just this very huge isolating loss. That's infertility. That's what connected me and our mutual friend Chris, was that loss because him and his wife also struggled in that area. And so there was that loss.

And then five years after that, I lost my husband to brain cancer. Those two things have really propelled me into a career where I help other people work through their grief. I learned really quick that it was a very isolating experience because in the depths of those times, you realize that you're the only one that can save you, and you're the only one that can help you.

When people bring food and pray for you and send [00:03:00] sweet cards, it's a very surface level kind of support. And you're the only one that can do anything about it. And so really wanted to take the hand of other women and lead them to a place of having a desire to live again after loss. And that's what I do today.

Jill: Yeah. And it is needed work, especially around infertility. There's not a lot of conversation that happens. With miscarriages, it's kind of not treated like a big deal to people that don't experience it. Sometimes they'll view women as like, why are you making such a big deal about it? It, I don't understand that personally, but I think being okay with death and grief, being a real part of human existence allows me to open up to all of the grief that's in the world versus the people that wanna.

Not look at it and [00:04:00] not see it and not deal with it. They end up treating people, especially women that are experiencing infertility and miscarriages as kind of like, they, I guess, treat women in a lot of cases about being overly sensitive, overly dramatic, you know, all these things that we wanna label women as.

But it is a real loss and the more that we can accept that it's a loss and grieve the loss. The more that we can move on. And I like the way that you worded it, even just the desire to live again. Mm-hmm. As there is this feeling when you have a major loss like that, that changes your life and what you thought your life was gonna look like.

This feeling of, well, now what, I don't even want to be here. I don't want to continue to do this. Right. And that's a really difficult thing to live with, to sit with and to try to move on from. 

JoBeth: When I lost my desire to live, it was several months after I thought I was okay. It kind of blindsided me [00:05:00] and I was like, you know, I freaked out like what is happening?

Like. I was okay, like he died this many months ago. I've been fine, but now I've lost my desire to live what's happening after working with lots and lots of women, I'm seeing that that's a normal experience, but it's still a negative one. And again, it's very isolating. And so I really enjoy getting the opportunity to talk to people like you so that we can say if you're in a season of grief and you have lost your desire to live, there's another side of that.

That that you can look forward to. You can look at other stories. You can look at people like me and be like, she's proof that there's another side. This isn't forever. This is just a season that I'm in because I thought I was having this abnormal. Experience and then it's almost everybody goes through that, but it's not a place you wanna stay.

It's sad, it's dark, and it's a place where you don't feel hope or see hope. But yeah, you just have to have the belief that there's something on the other side of it and keep pushing through till you get to the other side. [00:06:00] 

Jill: That's why I have my podcast, so that people can hear the stories and understand that it's not them.

There's nothing wrong with them, that this is a normal response to. Loss death to the whole thing, and that's okay, but we don't have to accept it in the sense of like, well, this is what it is and there's nothing I could do about it, because that's not really true either. I feel like we're in a society where there's this desire to fix everything in a certain timeline, and you can't really do that either with grief.

It's not gonna follow a timeline. Like you said, you thought you were fine for a while and then all of a sudden it changed. That's kind of how grief works. You might be okay for a little while and then it might go back to a moment of, this is not how I wanna feel, and so what do we do with it? Everybody's a little different in how they've worked with it.

What did you find for you [00:07:00] was. Some tools, techniques, things that helped you move through that feeling? 

JoBeth: When I knew my husband was going to be passing away a couple months before he died, I realized what we were facing. I started going to therapy and I worked with a coach that was at the coach and a therapist, and I would, I told her, I was like, I, after he passed, I was like, this is a really, really bad place and I want to like expedite my healing process and my grieving process.

And she laughed at me. Lovingly laughed at me 'cause she was great and was like, you can't do that. And I was like, watch me. Like, watch this, because that's my personality is, you know, like, if you want to see me do something really great, tell me I can't, you know, and it just, it fuels me. And I loved her, so I was like, I am and you're gonna help me.

I was in therapy every week. My husband and I have children together, so we all went to therapy every week. It was definitely a group effort, but I was determined to throw everything at it. 'cause I wasn't sure what worked. [00:08:00] And so I was like, well, maybe therapy works, but also like I know how we hold grief in our body and that we're supposed to cry.

I started educating myself, and I think that is the downfall of every person's recovery, or not every person, but a lot of people, they just don't know. They think that time is going to make a difference and time doesn't make a difference. Time only makes a difference when you're actively working towards healing and recovering.

And so a lot of people are just like, okay, I'm gonna survive this first year, and then everything's gonna get easier. And then year two rolls around, nothing's easier, everything is still there. If you don't deal with the stuff that's happening, then it's not going anywhere. And that's a really sad realization when you put everything on hold for a year and then the next year.

Still in the same spot, and you're like, what happened? It's a myth that we believe I was making sure I was crying, which is really hard to do, especially when you're widowed with children because they're always with you and it's like you wanna cry in front of 'em because you want 'em to know that it's okay to cry, but you don't wanna to [00:09:00] cry so much that they are worried about you with a balance, but making sure you're releasing those emotions.

It was hard for me to go there sometimes, so I would listen to sad music. I would just sit and cry, let it be a full body release. Emotionally and mentally, I was exhausted every day, but physically my body was storing so much. I would always say that I was gonna go like tear my like self, like apart physically, like on the treadmill, so it would match the level of exhaustion I felt emotionally.

After I did that, I always had a moment where I was with God crying out because I had poured. Everything out emotionally and physically to the point where I could see him and feel him. It's kind of hard to explain, but I think a lot of times we forget the physical part of it. Grief is very physical. If you've grieved before, you've probably had headaches, stomach aches, rashes, a cough that won't go away.

You've had some strange thing that just randomly happens, and it's because of us holding grief in our bodies. The treadmill was [00:10:00] important to me in getting in weight training to release some of that, but I still believe that if you want to expedite things, throw everything at it. My spiritual life was really important.

Once again, when you are grieving, you realize that it's just you. Like there's nothing anybody can do to help you. I believe that God meets us there and allows us to see him and also lean on him because everything else is stripped away. It's a really beautiful thing in a time of deep, deep grief that we have access to.

If there are Christians listening, if you are grieving deeply and turning away from God, you're missing the greatest opportunity you've ever had for intimacy with him. If there is anything good that comes from deep grief, it's that everything's been stripped away and you can very clearly see who you can lean on during this time.

Jill: I really love that. There's really nothing that can connect us as deeply with, you know, I think probably even if [00:11:00] you're not Christian, a lot of people believe in something that you can call God, right? Whatever that is. And we all have a 

JoBeth: spiritual life. 

Jill: We all do. And. With grief, it can kind of crack us open in a way that can make us feel that connection differently.

Mm-hmm. It's just, and it's one of those things where you don't wanna say it's the silver lining, but it some ways, that's one of the good things that can come from grief and facing. Our worst nightmares in a lot of cases. If we can sit with it, if we can open ourselves to it, if we can embrace it, that spiritual aspect of the whole experience can be really beautiful and something that we wouldn't normally be able to experience.

That's one of the things that I love so much about working with. End of life with people that are dying. They go [00:12:00] through a little bit of that process, the grieving, the fact that their life is ending. There will be a lot of deep spiritual reflection and conversation, and I get to be part of that with people.

Yeah. And I really love that. 'cause to me, that's what makes life worth a living in general. Mm-hmm. I don't wanna chitchat at a party about boring. I wanna talk about the real stuff that everybody else shies away from and people that are dying or that are in grief. They're there with the real stuff. So they're there with the deep stuff.

I don't know what I believe as far as God and religion and spirituality. I believe something is there. I don't know what it is, but I really love that this work gets me in touch with it again, whatever it is in a way that a lot of people don't get to experience. I think that's really beautiful the way that you describe that whole thing for you.

JoBeth: Yeah. And I think something that people really struggle with who are [00:13:00] grieving is the gifts that come with grief. You don't wanna hear it, right? Like, shut up, don't give me that. And so I know there's probably people listening that are deep in their grief, and they may be turned off by this idea, but when we see people who are living in their deepest purpose.

And doing work that's really fulfilling a lot of time that is born out of grief, it's born out of a time of suffering, and so even though I can never say I'm thankful my husband died. Because I am not thankful that he passed away. I will miss him and grieve his loss and his absence of my life and the absence of my kids' life, the rest of my life, like I, and it's not grieve like I cry all day every day, but I'm always gonna think about that and be really sad.

What I'm not sad about is how it allowed me to see God differently. I'm not sad about the fact that I [00:14:00] empathize with people on a deeper level. Now I can be a better friend. A better mother, a better partner. I can show up differently in the world when you experience deep grief, you have the opportunity to turn away from the things that don't matter and it's a lot easier.

Like you wanna talk bad about that girl? No, I don't want to participate in that. In fact, I don't even want to know. I don't want to have that taking up space in my brain because it doesn't matter. You don't know her and I don't know her. What are we doing? Acting like we're experts on somebody else's life, we don't know anything.

It's a gift because it cleanses and it washes away stuff that is bad and unnecessary and unfruitful. There's no fruit that comes from gossip or small talk. It's just not purposeful. I'm thankful that out of this grief I'm able to help other people. I always wonder when I'm sitting across from somebody who's like [00:15:00] grieving deeply and they're in this dark place where there is no light, I'm there leading them through this process.

What's on the other side of this for this person? Are they gonna start a nonprofit? Are they gonna show up for their friends and family like they never have before Because they understand life the way they never did. What is this beautiful thing that's gonna come from this? And I keep my eyes on that.

And a lot of times people are like, how can you sit with people and probably you too? How can you sit with people who are hurting that bad and then end your call or walk out of the room and continue living your life? I always say it's because I know what's possible on the other side if I can get 'em through this part, and that gives me a lot of hope.

They're about to experience life the way they've never experienced it before, because they're choosing a positive path out of grief, which excites me. Gives me purpose. 

Jill: Yeah, for sure. And I wish that people could have this same experience [00:16:00] without the death. Without the grief. Wouldn't that nice? The loss? I know, right?

Like that's what I feel is part of my purpose, is to really encourage people to be okay with the fact that one day my life will end one day everybody's life will end. Mm-hmm. The people that we love, their life will end one day. That's okay. And when we get okay with it, it allows us to live life in a way that we can't live it.

When we're too busy pretending that that's not a reality, and gossiping and getting caught up in all the things that really aren't important, you just kind of lose those things. They just fall away naturally when you have to go through this experience. But I believe that we could. Allow those things to fall away naturally without having to have that experience happen to us first, so that when we do [00:17:00] experience a major loss, some of us might not.

Hopefully, I won't experience any traumatic major loss. My husband so far, he's happy, he's healthy, but I also know that could change any day. I know that tomorrow I could have this conversation with you and it could be a totally different thing. Right, because that happens to people every day, and I don't let that thought make me afraid.

What I do is I have that thought in the back of my mind, and so I'm grateful and I am present and I live differently. Mm-hmm. Now, knowing that it could change at any point, there's people that are like, that's really morbid. Why would you think like that? Or like, you're just calling it to you by thinking, and I'm like, no, I'm not.

I know that I'm not. I live my life differently now than I did before. I really sat and talked with people all the time that go through these experiences, which changes you [00:18:00] and you don't have to wait for a major loss to appreciate life even more. 

JoBeth: Yeah, I agree. And I think people are gonna be like, okay, how do I do that?

Because I don't want anybody listening to have gone through. What I have in order to discover that. As you're talking, I'm thinking, okay, people are like, how do you do that? This is something that I've just really come to realize recently that we live in such a noisy world. It is so noisy. I'm gonna say God 'cause that's my spiritual life, but there's this, a small voice inside of all of us, I believe, and you probably do too, that people come to us for advice, right?

I believe that everybody I sit in front of already knows the answer. They don't think they do. They don't have the confidence that they do, but I've, when IS presented, I'm like, what do you think you need to do? They know every single time they need encouragement and somebody to walk with them, but they know what they need to be doing.

If you're trying to figure out what really matters, are you [00:19:00] asking that question and are you willing to let go of. The things you really love to have, what really matters? I would start there. I would ask God what really matters? And I would sit and I would be quiet and I would listen, and there's gonna be things come across that are like, when I'm gonna cook for dinner tonight?

Oh no, that, that's not it. Let that keep going and ask the question again, what really matters. And at the end, you're gonna know what really matters. And what it is, is it's probably not this. Big house, big career, big healthy retirement account, or this friend group that you try to stay in to keep your social status good.

It's not gonna be those things. Mm-hmm. Once you realize what it is, you have to be willing to let go. How hard is it to get out of a friend group that just loves to gossip and maybe they're out participating in things that don't align with. What really matters? Are you [00:20:00] willing to give up the things that you know are preventing you from being there?

I think that once you have extreme grief, it just makes all that so much easier. I remember when my husband got diagnosed, it was on Facebook all the time. I was so interested, like, oh girl, what did you eat? I wanna see what you had for lunch. And where did you take the kids? That person got arrested in our small town just looking at everything, and then they said.

He has terminal brain cancer and he has 12 months to live naturally. I sat there for a while and then I opened Facebook just outta habit and I saw what somebody was eating for lunch and I was like, how could you be eating lunch right now? My husband's dying and I looked at somebody else. Oh, somebody just celebrated an anniversary with their spouse and they went to Vegas for the weekend or whatever.

I'm like, do they not know my husband just died or is like dying? Did they not know the whole world? That seemed so big and so noisy and so [00:21:00] interesting that I desired and I chased after all of a sudden I saw what really mattered, and it was not hard. It was, am I okay? Are my kids gonna be okay? And how do I help my husband in this journey?

And that's a very powerful place to be. And significant. And like you said, I want people to find it without the trauma and the hurt. And I think that if there is anything that people get from this conversation today, it's that you can. The faster you find it, the faster you're gonna find a life of love and peace and contentment.

Jill: Yeah. You're gonna live your life and when you get to the end, you won't look back and think how much time you wasted on Facebook. I played a little game with myself sometimes where I imagine. If I were dead and I was a ghost observing my family, but I [00:22:00] couldn't interact with 'em. You can watch them, you can listen to them, but you can't interact.

And then I was given by God five minutes and he was like, here you go. Five minutes you get to be back in that room. What would you be doing? You wouldn't be on Facebook. Not on Facebook. Absolutely not. And so it really helped me in those moments when sometimes, especially if like. It's like that pull, like you said, it's a habit where like your phone's there and you're just kinda like, ah, I'll just check real fast.

When I get that feeling, I think to myself, if you were dead and you were back for five minutes, would you be looking at your phone? I was like, absolutely not. Even if I wasn't doing anything, I would be listening to my children. I'd be touching their hair. I would. Hug somebody, like there's a billion things I would do that have nothing to do with my phone or social media or gossip or all these other things that we get so [00:23:00] distracted by.

And that little exercise kind of game has helped me be more present. And I talk to my kids about it. I'm like, look, these things are designed to be addictive. This is not your fault. They're designed to be this way. And like you said about the noise, it's all just so much noise. So when I try to talk with people about that same kind of idea of sitting and listening to yourself, listening to whatever voice is inside, it feels really uncomfortable at first.

We're so used to noise and distraction and movement, and that's why most major religions have some type of practice where you sit. You're quiet like my grandmother was Catholic. She prayed the rosaries every night. I can picture her sitting in the dark. She had glow in the dark rosary beads. I can see the beads glowing and her sitting there in the dark praying her rosaries.

Whatever that practice is for you to sit and quiet your mind, it is hard. Especially at first, 'cause like you [00:24:00] said, all this other noise is gonna come in like, oh, I should be washing dishes, I should be cooking dinner. I need to respond to those. Eventually it does get quieter. But it takes practice. It's not just gonna happen with one session of sitting down and trying to quiet the noise.

And that's where unfortunately, traumatic experiences snap you into a moment. Yeah. You can't be as distracted by the noise because it's a whole thing. It's unfortunate that a lot of people have to wait until they get there, and I talk to people that are dying that they'll tell me how much time they wasted on things that weren't important.

They're like, now I realize all the things that were important. And it's too late. What do you say to that? I'll listen to you talk about it, but you're right. We can't go back and change time. So when we have the time now, let's do it now so that when we are at our deathbed, if we have the opportunity to reflect on our life, let's live a life now that when we look back on [00:25:00] it, we can feel okay that it's ending.

Yeah. Even if we're not happy that it's ending, at least feel okay because it's like, well. I did the best I could. I lived my life. I didn't waste time on things that weren't important. 

JoBeth: That's, that's 

Jill: a goal. 

JoBeth: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That's beautiful. And this conversation is really making me rethink some things.

I'm like, okay, how much time am I spending on this and on that. And I hope that's what everybody listening is doing too, is really reflecting and looking back. Even you and I with our level of awareness are still participating in it and wasting time. What came up for me when you were talking about that was.

You have kids, right? How old are they? 

Jill: My daughter is 11 and my son is 14. 

JoBeth: My son is 14 and my daughter is nine. Youth sports are a really big deal. Mm-hmm. And parents think they're a really big deal. I have one kid that wants to be involved in everything and one kid that's like, meh. I wanna go play with my friends, and if they're [00:26:00] playing basketball, I'd like to go play basketball with them.

If they're playing tennis, I wanna go play. She wants to go play, she just wants to have a good time. How important parents think that their kids have to be high achieving and hitting all the markers, making good grades, hitting their reading goal, excelling in sports, and going to camps. With my perspective, I'm like, none of this matters.

Mm-hmm. If the kid wants to go do it and have fun and they enjoy that, that's great. But like. When you're on your deathbed, when that kid is on their deathbed, they're not gonna be like, I'm so glad that my entire childhood consisted of practices and academics and just trying to level up constantly. That was a great childhood.

I think my generation is over the top when it comes to their kids. Life is just passing by. When my husband died. There was not one moment where I was like, man, I'm so glad that we spent three nights a week at baseball practice while he was working [00:27:00] and I was at practice and our kid was playing a sport that he doesn't even play anymore.

I'm so thankful that we did X, Y, and z. I cherish those times we had together and those vacations and those bonfires and picnics and family dinners. I wish people could have that perspective now and be like, even though this looks like I'm busting my butt so my kid can have the best life you may be.

Stealing something really important from them is all I'm saying. 

Jill: Yeah, and especially now, so I'm 46 and I look at the generation in their mid twenties now. They did all the activities and they did all the stuff and they went to the colleges and then they're like, I can't get a job. I can't pay my rent.

What is this doing for them, this pushing and. I think parents are insistent that their kids get involved in all these things. 'cause they're like, but this is what's gonna make them succeed in life and it's not really working and all it's doing is causing everybody [00:28:00] stress and anxiety. Again, I think how many people I've talked to, and these are the hardest conversations for me that have had children die.

It happens all the time. Hopefully it will not be either one of us, but. It does happen that somebody's children die every day. I don't want the last thing that I remember of my child or the last thing that my child thinks about of me. Is me fighting with them to hurry up and get ready to go to a game or a practice or another class that they're enrolled in.

I think COVID and my training were happening around the same time, so they kind of go together. But I think back to what my life was like before, you know, 2020. And the two kids, you know, my daughter was only in kindergarten at that point. My son was in third grade. And I have so many memories of being stressed out and anxious, dropping them off at school and like, almost like [00:29:00] literally shoving them out the car because I had to hurry up and get to work.

And then running from work to pick them up, to take them to karate and being at karate, looking at my watch. Alright, come on, we gotta go. We gotta go to the next thing. It was not good. It was not pleasant. I don't think any of us were enjoying it. At that point, I was probably drinking more than I should have, just because it was the only thing that I could be like at the end of the day, finally I could stop thinking about all the things that I should have been doing that weren't getting done.

It was not a way to live. I refuse to live like that anymore. I won't do it. My daughter, she wants to be in sports, but on the days when she's like. I really don't want to go to practice. I'm like, alright, I'm not gonna force you because forcing you is not going to help you. The more that she enjoys it, the more that she is going.

She's really putting in the time and effort. But if you really don't want to, life will go on. I do have the conversation, of course, of your team is [00:30:00] looking for you to be there because you are part of a team. So we need to take that into consideration. So I try to find that balance 

JoBeth: right. 

Jill: But yeah, I'm not gonna live my life of shoving my children into a bunch of stuff because I think it's gonna make them better human.

I try to just teach them well, to be good humans and to work hard and find the things in life that they love. It is hard being a parent and figuring. How to do this, quote unquote right? 'cause I don't think there really is any right. But as best as we can, 

JoBeth: having other people's perspective on it and being able to look at it from 30,000 feet view is really helpful because we should never just pull off of our own experiences because we're so limited in the way we think and see things when we're in the middle of it.

I'm so thankful for the time we had off from what seemed like life during COVID. I didn't know it at the time, but in. Two and a half years we were gonna be losing. My husband COVID took away baseball some summer stuff that was gonna happen. [00:31:00] We didn't go to church for a month. There were no social activities.

So all that stuff was gone and it was wonderful. I was about to break when COVID happened. I was like, if I have to yell at my daughter one more time and tell her to get her shoes or you know, like, come on, was when there were three, it's like they're somewhat responsible, but then it's like you don't wanna fight 'em on shoes, so you're debating whether or not shoes are even important anymore.

I was like, if I have to tell her to get her shoes on one more time, I'm gonna freak out. And it wasn't about her getting her shoes on. It was about the fact that she even had to. Mm-hmm. That we were in a situation where she had to put her shoes on, she had to leave the house. 'cause we were chasing sports because we went right out of football season into basketball season, into baseball season, and they all overlapped by a week or two.

There was no quality of life there for us. I think my son was fine, he was great with it, but for the rest of us, it was like, no family dinners, no time together. Saturdays were at the field and when COVID [00:32:00] happened I was like, well that was. Shutdown was perfect timing. I was about to completely fall apart.

I know this is terrible. I lost people in my life during COVI and it was terrible. But when bad things happen, we can always find something really positive in it. We got about six months of really quality time with my husband that we wouldn't have got otherwise. We would've been chasing the sports thing, and, and I, I can tell you, so anybody who's listening that has kids in sports and they're like, it matters.

I played all through high school. I hold records for basketball. I played in college and was really good in college, and now I'm out. I've not played basketball in a long time and do you know who cares? Nobody. Nobody cares that I was good. I mean, there's the comments here and there. Like somebody will say to the kids, you know how good of a ball player your mama was?

But it's not improved my quality of life at all. The point is I had a really successful career. In basketball, [00:33:00] one that people would be like, yes, I will love that for myself or for my kid, but the day. I took my jersey off in college and was done. I haven't had job opportunities because of it. I haven't met any people that have transformed my life.

I loved my coaches. They were great, but I don't make 15, 20,000 more every year because I played basketball for parents who are like, this is the way your kid could blow their knee out tomorrow and never play again. And then what do you have? You have to have a life, and you have to have purpose, and you have to be a good human.

That's another thing that I have realized even in the past few months, that I have this one kid that wants to do everything and be the best at everything, and then I have one that's just happy. I'm like, you need to be performing. And that. I'm like, no, I just want to be her. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

JoBeth: I want to be her. I want to be this person that's like.

Banging out some stuff on the piano that nobody can even like hardly listen to and just be so happy. I wanna [00:34:00] be her 'cause she flips over rocks and can find amusement and just excitement and rolly pollies. I wanna be her that can watch TV and not worry that her room is trashed. And that she has school tomorrow.

I thought I wanted what my son was doing, you know, my whole life of achieving and hitting these markers and being the best. But what I've realized as a mature adult is that like, actually, I just wanna be happy. I wanna have a ripple effect in this world. I wanna do some really epic things to change other people's lives.

I wanna be happy. I wanna have peace. And that is not what we're teaching our kids. 

Jill: No, that's 'cause that's not what we were taught. And that is the thing that I try to give myself and others, grace as well. We're really just doing what we were taught. We're just repeating. 

JoBeth: Yeah. And 

Jill: we're trying to go through the motions of, we were taught that going to college, getting a good job, making a lot of money, having the house and the cars, all this stuff is gonna make us [00:35:00] happy.

And then you get to that point where you're like, oh, all right, now I got all the stuff, but I'm actually not happy. If anything, I'm kind of like you were, I really think that pre COVID I was at a breaking point. I was really not mentally doing well. 

JoBeth: Yeah. 

Jill: And I just kept adding more things, thinking that that thing would be the thing that would help me to feel better and.

The adding more things was just taking me away from my family even more, because then I was out doing more things. It wasn't helping my stress level, it wasn't helping my mental health at all. Yeah. And then like the world shut down and I actually had already decided at that point that I was gonna stop drinking.

That was kind of like my New Year's thing. I was like, I don't have a problem with it, but again, it's just a distraction. It's just mm-hmm. Keeping me from doing what I really wanna do. And I wanna become a death doula, and I know I have to study at night, and if I have a glass of wine or two at night, I can't do the thing.

And so I stopped drinking and [00:36:00] everybody else during COVID was like, I drink all the time now. And I'm like, yeah, no. Oh yeah. Everybody 

JoBeth: started drinking. Yeah, I was considering it totally 

Jill: sober, like I don't drink at all now. But it was really honestly one of the best things that I did for myself. And yeah, for me, with everything shutting down, it forced me to face some of the things I was.

Ignoring by being so distracted and it gave us time together and there was a lot of terrible things that came with it. Right. But there also was things that I think we needed on a whole in society. And it's interesting 'cause even you mentioned earlier how when we're grieving we get these unusual symptoms.

Right? Unusual things mm-hmm. Will happen and. I've kind of wondered about that in the sense of like so many of us, I think were in a lot of ways, it is grief, right? Where we're living this life that we thought we [00:37:00] wanted to live, we thought we were supposed to live. We feel trapped in it now because we're there and it's not really doing what we wanted it to do.

It's not giving us peace. It's not giving us happiness. Maybe in some ways this was like a grand scale of that idea of so many of us walking around, not well, and it kind of now manifested itself collectively throughout all of us. But I don't know. I don't know. I hope that we don't have to experience anything like that ever again.

I don't ever wanna go through that again. 

JoBeth: Can we just learn our lesson without it? Exactly. That would be ideal, right? Like learn the lesson without having to experience it through grief or national crisis. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hopefully, and I don't know, but we're a little stubborn humans. Mm-hmm. We don't always learn our lesson.

No. I think it's part of being a human that we have to go through some [00:38:00] experiences, good or bad, positive or negative. Yeah, there's gonna be pain and suffering in our lives. There's also gonna be joy and happiness, and we can have both things. We, I don't think, honestly, can experience sometimes the joy in the happiness as much.

If we don't actually feel the pain and suffering, stop numbing it. Stop drinking, stop staying busy. Stop doing the things to numb. Because I'll see people like that, that are grieving, that they'll be like, you know, my loss was 10 years ago and I still, I'm just like so stuck in it. And I'm like, well, part of why you're stuck in it is 'cause you're not actually facing it.

You're not sitting with it, you're not experiencing it. Right. You're just trying to be like, I don't want this, so I'm just gonna push it away. And then you stay stuck and we don't want that. 

JoBeth: Yeah, 

Jill: and I know we are getting close to our time, but I know we're working on co-authoring a book together with what is, there's like 23 of us.

There's a lot of us. Yeah, 

JoBeth: it's, yeah, it's [00:39:00] gonna be really cool. You talked about Joy and this book that we're all working on is about grief. I think once readers get inside, they're gonna see 20 different examples of how grief and joy can coexist. And how you can experience grief but have joy later or that it's coming, that there's always something good if you are open to it, if you allow it, I think it's gonna be a very inspirational book for people, because when you're in grief, it's dark, it can't explain it.

Any other way except for you're in this dark hole and you can't see anything. There's no hope, there's no light, there's no existence of anything outside of it. I hope that this is in every hospice facility. I hope it's in every hospital where people can open it up and see an example of what's possible.

'cause that's what we're all looking for. Has somebody else done this? 'cause if they can do it, I can do it. That's the mindset I wish everybody had, [00:40:00] and I am excited to see and read everybody's stories. 

Jill: Yeah, me too. And I'm gonna write, I'm not exactly sure yet what I'm gonna write. We're very early in this stage of this process.

I think probably when this episode comes out, we're shooting for November for the book to be completed. This might come out not too long before that, so I'm getting ahead of myself so I could take summer off of recording. I revisited the blog that I was writing when I was caring for my grandmother at the end of her life.

And. Re-experiencing some of the pain and confusion. Yeah. And the overwhelm that I still firmly believe. We don't need to feel when somebody's at the end of life, if we have a better support system, which our culture doesn't really provide yet. Right. We're kind of getting there. That's where death do has come in.

Hospice was wonderful, but they can't fully fill that role, and so. It's been [00:41:00] interesting revisiting the experience and reading the words that I wrote at that time and knowing what I know now, looking back on it, because it actually was just my grandmother's death anniversary last week and I realized that as much as you know, she basically raised me as much as I miss her and still love her.

I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for her death, because it really put me down this path to do the things that I'm doing. Don't think anybody could have even told me that at that time. It's not like somebody could have said to me because of this experience in 14 years, you're gonna have all of these things that you wouldn't have had if she were still alive.

I still wish I could see her. I still wish I could talk to her. I still wish that I can hold her hand and have tea with her and ask her advice about literally everything, even up to my plants dying and I don't know why. Please help me. [00:42:00] You know? She was that person for me for everything. But it really did put me down this path.

So I'm excited to see what my story's going to be because I know we're trying to talk about. Grief, but also the gifts from the grieving experience. I can't wait to read everybody else's stories. Chris was on my podcast, so I'll link to that episode for people listening to this one if they want to hear my conversation with Chris.

I know that the people that he brought together are gonna have really great stories, and so I'm excited to be working on this project. I know that will help make this experience a little easier for people. 

JoBeth: A hundred percent. 

Jill: And then if people want to find you, if they wanna reach out to you about working with you through grief, where can people find your information?

Do you have a website? The 

JoBeth: best place to find me is on Facebook. I'm Joe Beth Polley, P-O-L-L-E-Y, on Facebook. My website is NWA grief specialist. [00:43:00] It's, I'm on TikTok and Instagram, but not super active there, so Facebook is definitely the best way. I always encourage people, if you're in a really hard place, I may be able to help you.

I'm pretty good at knowing when I can't. I invite anybody who's listening to schedule. A 30 minute call with me, I feel very confident that at the end of the 30 minutes, you will have a really good idea what your next step is. And sometimes that's working with me. Sometimes it's working with me and therapy.

Sometimes it's just therapy. Sometimes it's rehab, and sometimes you just need a friend. And I can give you some insight on what the next step is for you. The most important thing is that you take one step towards your healing. I think that's a great way to start. 

Jill: It's true that. We're not gonna be a good fit for every person.

JoBeth: Right. 

Jill: And for some people the grief may be more than somebody that's more of like a coach can work with. You might actually need some therapy and that's okay too. There's no shame in that. There's nothing wrong with that. If you need to see a [00:44:00] trained professional, if you need maybe a little bit of medication, I know the first time I ever.

I had to see a therapist and I really didn't want to be on medication. And the way that he explained it is he was like, look, if I was a dentist and I was going to drill your tooth, I would give you a little medication so that you don't feel the pain so that I can do the work that I need to do to help make it better.

And he is like, I'll give you a little medication. You don't have to be on it forever, just enough to numb the pain a little so that we can do the work we need to do. There's no shame. So do what you need to do. And you won't regret it. It might be difficult to do some of this work because we've avoided feeling any feelings for a long time.

Mm-hmm. But when you get to the other side, you will never regret doing the work's. Right. You'll look back and be so glad that you did. 

JoBeth: For sure. It's just like a workout. Nobody ever works out and you're like, gosh, that was a waste of time. Like, no. You're like, oh, I feel good about that. Like you're proud.

You at least did something even if you didn't enjoy it. Treat your mind the way you think of your body. [00:45:00] So awesome. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. I'm excited to read our book that we're all doing together and hopefully somebody heard what they needed to hear today. That's really the desire of my heart.

Jill: Yeah, I get messages all the time that somebody will say, I listened to this guest and they said one thing and it's what I needed to hear. Yeah. So thank you so much for taking your time today. I appreciate it. Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or family member who might find it interesting.

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