Staying Power 04-29-26 The Power of Saying Goodbye

Hello and welcome to another episode of Staying Power, the show that is all about building

a better life and you want that and I want that, everybody wants that.

And so that's what this show is about.

For one hour every week we get together to talk about one slice, one ingredient, one

component of building a better life that may not be so evident in everyday life and

we hope that it resonates with you and you find it applicable in your own life.

And to join me in this conversation is the person who always joins me in this conversation

and she's been doing it for a while now and you know what, she's pretty damn good at

it.

It is my friend, my colleague, my co-host, so many things, Ashley, Kniebel, hi, Ashley.

Hi.

All right, ready to roll today?

Ready.

And you know, I have to say, I'm only as great as all those things that you mentioned,

partially because it's me, but partially because you have helped me grow so much, if listeners

ever tuned into my beginning episodes a while back, now that we're on what, 119 episodes

strong.

So if you ever listen to the first few ones that you have probably heard my growth and a lot

of it is because of JD.

Oh, I appreciate that.

Well, you know, and I can say the same thing.

I mean, and the show continues to grow really well.

And also we should say here at the beginning, first of all, thank you for joining us.

And if you're a first time listener, thank you so much for joining us.

We're excited to have you here.

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Wow.

Okay.

All right.

So Ashley, let's go ahead and jump into today's topic.

Okay.

In advance for everybody, this one is kind of a little bit of a meteor topic, a little

bit of a tougher one.

We like to touch lots of things in this show.

We touch on really happy stuff, kind of fun stuff.

We try to run the gamut of the life experience because building a better life is about developing

resilience and resilience really grows through working through tougher things.

Like as we mentioned last week, relationships, but I think also human beings grow as a response

to tension, right, and challenge more than just about anything else, right?

So, um, so this week, we're going to talk about saying goodbye, not because we're saying

goodbye, everybody.

You're still here.

Not one anywhere, right?

But we've had some experiences of late with saying goodbyes that kind of came all together

recently in some interesting ways and brought us to here, and I thought I let you kind

of bring us in on that one.

Oh, okay.

Sounds good.

It really was, again, my topic.

It was.

Last week was my topic, and this week, and yes, it's also my topic.

You know, I just, I, people have always said like, I'm a happy person, and I am a naturally,

like, up positive, gregarious, eccentric person.

You are as sedentary as I am through and through, and I love that you know that.

I am very fiery and spicy, but I do have, I know, surprised, like you didn't know already

if you tuned in.

But I do have moments where it's not that way.

I have my little gray moments of life, and sadly, I have had a small number of them, and

they've kind of compounded, and it's just like you said, like it's about saying goodbye,

and I literally went and said goodbye to somebody, and that all on its own was really difficult.

And then there was another person recently that I lost, that I did not get to say goodbye

to, or at least the last time I spoke to them and said goodbye, I didn't know it was going

to be a goodbye.

And so there's like two sides of loss that were unique to their own selves, but it just

was an all-encompassing of like, it's difficult because it's painful, but there's so much

more to this topic, I think, and of course, naturally, I bring it up to JD, and he and

his brilliant brain was like, oh, wait a minute, there's a lot in here that we can talk

about, and he was great and helps talk me through some of my sad moments, and I appreciated

the support.

But there's just this idea that there's a lot of things in life that we envision, and

you train for, and you prepare, and you rehearse, and usually they're all beginnings, new

things, like on a first date, or you're first at a new job, or the first impression you

want to make, or your new house, and your new space, and all these things, and we don't

ever prepare to say goodbye, or to let go and release.

That is something that we naturally tend to avoid, and we try to hold it arm's length,

and I understand to an extent of why it's not comfortable, but sometimes I wonder, like,

why do we try to just rush past it?

Yeah, or pretend it's not there.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

And you're talking about goodbyes in terms of people passing away, right?

Yes.

That was my experience.

Yes.

And that, of course, is the big one, right?

That's the biggest that I think there is.

And there's other forms of goodbyes, so when you brought this up, and we were talking

about it, and I was reflecting kind of stepping back, I was thinking, too well, of course,

we have goodbyes in our relationships, right?

Even if somebody isn't passing away, relationships end, and those are painful, too.

But it can also be goodbyes within ourselves, right?

It could be you're giving up, you're saying goodbye to a job, you're saying goodbye to

a way you've identified yourself for a long period of time.

It can be, and this one resonates with me, saying goodbye to old habits and ways of doing

things that are either no longer serving you or you realize are harming you, right?

Say goodbye to an old way of being to reinvent yourself.

I mean, these are all things that you mentioned.

Why do we like beginnings?

Because beginnings we can feel good about because they're kind of these moments.

Saying goodbye is a process, it's a process leading up to that, or it's a process when

we're thrust into it, and there's a lot to that, right?

And so all these, but yet at the same time, as long time listeners of this show know,

we spend a lot of time on why these things that we talk about are actually hardwired into

us and are things that we need to experience and that we need to learn how to face and

to work through and to love through and live through and feel through all those things.

The neuropsychology of attachment and loss matters a lot, right, naturally smiling at me,

right?

Because that's my love for every week now.

That's right.

I don't know if you knew this, but foundational attachment research, John Balbi and others

have done a lot of work on this.

We always talk about humans are wired for attachment, right?

And for connection is a better way I would put it.

While we do, we do attach to things.

We attach to people, we attach to habits, we attach to jobs and identities, loss in the

brain.

This is interesting.

Activates the same systems as pain does, physical pain.

Activates the same system, which means if physical pain, you know, when you hurt yourself,

you pull your hand back if you put it on a stove or you burn it, you immediately pull

back, right?

It's flight, flight, freeze, avoid, whatever the case may be, it triggers that and it triggers

the same chemicals in the body and the same responses in the body as physical pain.

We know this from brain imaging studies, right?

And social loss, which is what we're talking about in a lot of ways, right?

Both the internal kind of goodbyes and the external goodbyes, social losses activate

regions in the body and in the mind and in our feelings similar to physical injury, right?

So that means goodbyes are experienced as a threat.

We respond to physical pain because the body says, this is a threat to your ability to

live, right?

So you pull your hand back from the fire when you burn it, right?

You jump out of the way of the car, those kinds of things.

And so we avoid goodbyes or we don't prep for them.

We don't think about them because we want to avoid pain.

There's the fear of finality, which is always hard, right?

The loss of identity and the, of course, the uncertainty about the future, right?

When you're saying goodbye to somebody else, you're losing them, of course, but you're

also losing yourself with them.

Last week we talked about relationships and how do you really cultivate ones that aren't

list making and are really built around connection?

Well, if you develop those things really strongly, really profoundly, when you lose them

and we will lose them, the person who is saying goodbye or is left behind is going to

experience terrible pain, right?

Because of that, it just simply cannot be avoided and we lose that part of ourselves

that was living in definition with that other person, right?

That's probably what you were feeling a lot with your, these two experiences we talked

about.

Yeah, they're both very, you know, unexpected, one a little bit less than the other, one

was very, very unexpected.

And just in the generality of what you were saying, like, yes, you lose something in the

moment, but there is something to be said about the fact that you are mourning the death

or the no longer of the future that you envisioned, you know, we don't, we don't look at people

and think like one day you're not going to be here.

Probably good that we don't.

You don't.

That's a little dark.

Yeah.

And I know there's a cliche saying of like, well, you know, you only got one life and you

don't know how long you have and it's so true.

And there are moments like this that really brings that to the surface a little bit more

and makes you realize how fragile life is and that we really don't know how long we

do have.

But I don't think that people, unfortunately, it seems like it takes a loss for people

to really understand like how much they value things and people and connections and, and

if you can have a moment like that and turn it into something where you're like, wow,

I lost this and I now want to pour into my other relationships so much more while I

have them.

Yeah.

Sometimes people feel that way with like parents, you know, they realize they're at that

pinnacle point of life where you have less time with them as opposed to before you had

all the time in the world and now you're like, I've got less time as opposed to more time

with them.

Yeah.

And maybe I should be spending more time with them or be a little less reactive when they

start to become forgetful and I get upset or whatever it might be, but there, there's

just some, and I don't know why you keep going back to it, but just the idea of like, how

do you rebuild yourself when you have lost what you were betting your entire rest of your

life on?

Now, the people in my life that I am either losing or have lost were not like lifelong partners

or anything like that.

They didn't completely like shatter my world, but it was really impactful.

And to not have any clue that these people were going to be gone and I thankfully haven't

lost a bunch of people in my life.

I'm still young enough where I'm, I think I'm just now starting to hit that period of

life where I'm going to start losing people more and more and more and it was really odd

because it seems like the last few years when I've been looking back just over the world.

We've lost a lot of people in the first four months of every year, lose a lot of celebrities,

the big, famous names or people that I know it's like, it was always in the first four

months and it was really odd in the beginning of this year.

I was like, I wonder if I will lose people in the first four months and oddly I have.

And it's very strange and I am like, well, it's part of life.

So what are we going to do with it?

I can't sit in the, the dark clouds forever about it, but what should I do?

I know the only way out is through and it's good to have good connections like we spoke

about last time about what we want to maintain and how that is healthy and what not and what

those people can do and to bring the curiosity and sometimes the messiness and that's when

you want to be able to show up and just be how you are and not have to be like filtered

like, okay, I'm a mess right now because I just lost somebody but I need to piece it together

because I'm talking to these people like, it's okay to not be like I was working out

in the gym and completely lost it.

And I really didn't care who was around because I'm like, this is so honest and a raw emotion

and I would like to honor it in the moment and I didn't make like a huge scene, but I also

didn't try to like totally piece myself together because I was in public.

Yeah, you know, it's so, it's so powerful what you're talking about and I am living in

an era now where more people are passing away, right?

And I mean, my early 50s and my circles, this is a topic, you know, you hear more and

more of this person I knew from high school, it's person I knew from college, right?

Certainly parents, right, passing away.

These are all becoming things that become more regular, I guess.

And, you know, I think the answer on some level is what do we do with it?

Well, in some ways the question can answer itself in when it comes to the person we've lost

or the person we've said goodbye to, that's its own thing.

What it can do for us is exactly what you just mentioned is reinforce, we don't know how

long we have with the others.

So the people that are still here, what do we do with them, what do we invest with them?

And we're getting ready to go into a break and so I'll tell a story on the backside of

the break to illustrate what I'm talking about.

But I've sounded it's kind of seen that happen recently with this core group of friends

that I have.

There have been a lot of good buys in the last few years in this core group of guy friends

that I've had for years.

And what we keep coming back to in all of this is each other and reinforcing this in each

other.

And I hadn't really thought about the way I've been thinking about it right now until

you brought this up.

So when we come back from the break, let's go ahead and kind of pick up where we left off.

And we will talk about other good buys, right?

It's just this one is I think these are the big ones, right?

It's saying by recognizing that mortality, what do we do with that?

Because good buys are a part of life and that's what we're really driving home here.

So stick around and of course later on in the show we will have our weekly segment.

This week it is the two minutes of terror and that's later on seems to fit right with

all this.

We'll be stick around with this on this very, I don't know, very meaningful, challenging

but I think really important topic on staying calm, be back in just a minute.

You know on staying power we talk a lot about building a better life.

And a big part of that is the space you live in every day.

That's why we're excited to partner with PARS Revive Renovation helping homeowners across

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Whether it's a kitchen, bathroom or full home renovation, PARS Revive focuses on thoughtful

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To learn more visit PARSRENovation.com that's p-a-r-s renovation.com and start building

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Welcome back to Staying Power, JD here with Ashley.

We are talking about the importance and the difficulty, of course, of saying goodbyes.

That can be do a lot of things to other people who pass away suddenly or not so suddenly

relationships, jobs, identities, elements of ourselves, all these things.

And hopefully talking about why this is not just important but also useful, beneficial,

and can have really good things come out of it as well.

And I left off for the break thinking about a story, Ashley was talking about.

And I have this group of friends.

There were four of us.

And kind of the first time I encountered what you were encountering and talking about

was about 10, 11 years ago when one of them passed away very suddenly.

And the rest of the three of us, we all went back to college years together.

We worked in camps.

We were camp counselors with each other where you all went to different schools, but we

all got together every summer for summers and worked together and lived together and

grew together.

And one of them passed away, our friend Matt, very suddenly.

We had kind of lost touch with him.

We had none of us had really talked with him in a few years.

And so it was a smack in the face, right?

Besides being horrible, it was like, whoa, why didn't we stay connected?

We thought we had more time, we kept saying that five more times.

And so we made a debt, we dedicated after that that we would see each other intentionally

as often as possible.

And one of them, my friend Seth and I, he and I have seen each other at least once a

year every year since then.

We've done that and my other friend Evan has been a part of that.

We do a lot of sports trips together once a year.

We have another one coming up in July, all these things.

And then a couple of years ago, I've talked about it on the show, Seth's beloved wife,

Jill, passed away from cancer.

She battled it for about four years.

And that was one of those life defining things, right?

It doesn't get any bigger than that.

And that's been a couple of years.

And those couple years, his brother-in-law had a massive stroke and nearly died.

And now just recently, another one of his best friends just passed away from cancer.

My other friend Evan, a year ago, or a little over a year, almost two years ago now, his

dad died very suddenly, right?

And it just kind of kept happening and we kept looking around and talking to each other.

We talked about it like, man, why is all this, this is a lot, all at once.

Where's all this coming from, this type of thing?

And kind of the answer I came to when you were talking about, what do you do with all

of this?

Well, you grieve all of it.

You certainly go through it and it's ugly and it's unpredictable and there's no real

print to it.

But we keep coming back to each other and what we reinforce that.

The other day, when Seth's friend passed away, he was in Colorado to say goodbye to him.

I got this text from him to me and Evan out of the blue and it said, this goes without

saying, guys, but I just want you to know, I love you deeply and a lot of other things

in that.

And of course, we all respond with, yeah, of course.

The one thing that stands out to me though is that eventually, there's just going to be

one of us left, right?

And what do we do with that, you know, and who do we want it to be?

And honestly, because of how I am, because how I love these guys, I don't want them to

be burdened with that.

I will take that.

Sure.

Right?

Now, I'm not going to wish for that.

Right?

I'm not going to wish for that.

But I would take that.

Right?

But that type of thing, it reinforces the loss of something that we love or something that

we identified with.

If it is going to have value and it should have value, is to reinforce our commitment to

our love for our appreciation for the things that we still do have and the relationships

that we can still make and then help us build better ones.

Right.

Hopefully.

Right.

That is a really interesting story.

There's a lot in that story, but it's so relatable, you know.

And I mean, as much as these things are difficult, I appreciate them because of the fact that

they do remind us of how delicate life is and how elusive the end is to us and it is

such a nice reminder in a way of to really live your life.

Yeah.

you know, in some instances people will carry on and try and do things to honor the person

that has left the world. Of course. You know, and I think there is something so

respectable about that. And I think there's something really special about that.

Of like carrying on, you know, like if they were trying to accomplish something then they pick up

where that other person had to leave off. Yeah. And they carry it on and they see it through.

And I think that's such a special way to honor that person. But there's, there's different

goodbyes, right? Like you said, there's sudden goodbyes. Like I've experienced a sudden goodbye.

Oh yeah. You experience them. And they are hard because all of a sudden there's no closure.

They're just, they're just gone. And you can't do anything about it. And you can't repair. And

you're really shocked and disoriented. And then you're thinking back to what was the last moment?

What was my last interaction? And you're right. And am I okay with what our our parting words were

and it just feels so unreal. And and then there's also the anticipated goodbyes where maybe someone's

dealing with a long-term illness or they're just getting older and maybe they're getting

Alzheimer's or something like you're slowly starting to lose them. And that has its own set

of difficulties because it becomes exhausting. And there's times where I have been in this before

and sometimes I'm like, this is so hard like I want it to be over. I don't want them gone.

But this is so hard and it's so hard to watch people suffer that I almost wish it was just done.

So the suffering. And then that brings up feelings of guilt. Yeah. And then you're like how dare I

say that. But it's it's still true. Yeah. That's called anticipatory grief. By the way,

that's the term for it. Yeah. And that's as opposed to the unanticipated. You know, and it's

you're right. I mean, there's you have time to process it at the front end. You know, you can

intentionally connect with that with those people. You can you can develop those moments. You can

make sure you remember and say all the things that you want to make sure you say and all those

things. But the challenges are immense, right? It's prolonged. It's open ended. And you're kind

of living in kind of a dual reality. You know, I think of how it must have been for Seth, you know,

with his with his wife being sick. Having to be present for her to the best of the his ability.

And you're experiencing loss at the same time. I mean, that's that's disorienting, right? And

deflating and difficult. Um, you know, and then there's the chosen goodbyes, right? Which are

which are a different kind of tough stills tough all themselves. Oh, God, ending relationships,

leaving a role, walking away from a certain dynamic. What are you? I mean, you mentioned it guilt,

doubt, second guessing, right? And of course, the benefit of that, though, is agency. And there's

the possibility of change and newness and, you know, an ability to grow, you know, all of those

things. Um, well, there's a flip side to that too. Like, you know, we've been talking about these

goodbyes that are like difficult and kind of like downers. But there's also the positive goodbyes

of you mentioned it on the top of the show, but letting go of like old habits, old beliefs, old

identities and versions of yourself that no longer fit who you feel like you are, who you want

to be. They have served their purpose and they are no longer welcome. They are on their way. And

those at least you can acknowledge them and then let them go. And those ones actually can be

really impactful one because you made the decision to let it go. Yeah. And you came to a resolution

and a conclusion about them before the release of it. Yeah. And so that's what said time is that

feels easier, better, more okay to do so because you have found a resolution. Yes. And it feels very

natural just to release it. And yes, there is something to be said of when you say goodbye to something

because the pain of holding onto it finally became bigger than the pain and the fear of moving on

without it. Yes. That's the definition of recovering from addiction is exactly that. And that

does have a deep impact. And yet what it also does and what it's done in my case and in the case

of many other people I know who have have gone through that process is it really starkly helps you

define what you really are about. You know, it doesn't work. You know what you don't want to do. You

know how you don't want to be and you know how you can be and you never want to go back to that.

So what do you want to be instead? You know somebody said to me the other day was a really kind

step. They didn't even mean it as a compliment but it was a huge compliment was they pointed out to me

that if there's one thing that sets me off when I hear it is somebody not keeping their word.

When they say they're going to be a certain way, particularly in relationships. You know,

I work with a lot of men who struggle in relationships and it can drive me nuts when you know

men do what men can do and they don't follow through on their agreements. That bothers me

because what I learned and how I want it to be coming out of addiction is I wanted to say what I

meant mean what I said and in everything people in my life had to have informed consent and by

that I mean wholeheartedly they needed to know who I was. They needed to know what I was about.

They needed to know what I cared about. And if they were going to be in a relationship with

me that had any sort of intimacy, physical, sexual, emotional, whatever it might be, they had to

know who they were dealing with so that they could know what that was about. And I have had many times.

People who have said thank you very much. I am not going to go with that. Thank you very much

for telling me but that is not for me. And those are difficult and at the same time

reinforcing of okay I always wanted but when I was running and gun in my crazy days I wanted

everybody to believe this version of myself that I put forward that I was a good guy that I was

you know different than everybody else but I wasn't. So the big drive for me was saying goodbye to

those things was can I be the person that I've wanted everybody else to believe I am. And in order

to do that I had to be that person when nobody was watching. And so I think those things

are important and I think if you talked to I know for a fact if I talk to my friend Seth and Evan,

my friend Matt's widow who's a friend of mine all them they would all be able to tell you these

these really important things that they have learned. And the depth to which they're

their sense of self and their love for other people has just grown. And it exists alongside

that loss. I think it's the same in even when we're saying goodbye to things within ourselves.

No I would agree. I mean it's not linear. There are so many different stages of things that

come up. It's fluid. It's not a checklist and it's not like okay I finished this stage and I'm

on to the next and you can feel like you have moved beyond and you're in a more stable place and

you're like okay I have done the beginning and instantaneous like gut wrenching grief and processing

of that and all the emotional turmoil you go through. And sometimes it lapses you know you have

moments in life that remind you of something and that it's difficult and you're like holy crap

I'm starting all over again. I thought I got past this and now you're beating yourself up over

and it's like those emotions we've talked about it a while back on the show but we talk about like

your emotions and what you feel are like the little children at the door and it's storming outside

and they're all on your porch and you don't just choose oh I want joy and excitement and fun

and laughter to come in but I'm gonna leave anger and denial and depression out on the porch

because it's like pouring rain and their little children and they need love and care too and

so you let them all in yeah and you house all of them and as as they're ready they will leave

they know how long they need to stay and you have to be okay when they are ready to leave yeah

and sometimes I think that can be what is hard about morning and loss is when part of your

body is like I've mourned enough and the other part of you is like I don't know yeah because if

I'm done morning that means I've totally lost that person forever and and it feels not okay and

that is just comfort that is not a nice place to be either like am I not honoring them anymore

because I'm not mourning them anymore yeah is it okay that I move on is is it too soon is it not you

know like what does that even mean yeah what is moving on even mean yes and am I allowed to do

that and you have to find those answers for yourself yeah and they're never clear right and they can

be different from day to day you know that's why like you know that Elizabeth Kubla Ross five

stages of grief is sort of what you're talking about I think sometimes if we turn that into a

checklist it becomes a problem am I in the denial stage am I in the acceptance stage by in the

depression stage when it's all those things all the time and depending on the degree of the loss

which does correspond directly with the depth of the love and the depth of the identifying and

the depth of the habit the deeper that is the harder it's going to be more difficult it's going to

feel and yet we can't turn this and so many people these days because that idea is so painful

try and turn all that off they try not to be connect they try not to feel they isolate right but

you don't you can't numb one set of feelings and leave the other ones intact you can't so if

you're going to numb the difficult feelings the ones the sadness the grief you're going to know

you're going to numb all the things that produce happiness and joy and peace and meaning making

and in the end that is what we're talking about is we have to make meaning out of

what these losses do what they tend to show us I think across the board is that we're a lot more

resilient than we think we are right we tend to think these emotions various kinds are going to

kill us if they become too heavy too overwhelming and yet they don't right I say this to clients all

the time and I've said it kind of laughingly on this show before but I think it's really true

every single person that you talk to that I talk to that you and I meet every single person who is

listening to this episode right now has literally survived 100% of everything that has ever happened

to them 100% you know if we're talking sports you're in the hall of fame right you know and with half

of that but we have now that doesn't mean that everybody is developing resilience in the same way or

that people are coping with it all the same way or people you know because the world is full of

examples of people not doing effective jobs in growing in ways that are healthy for them and others

when facing these things and yet still here right all of that is key and so I think the meaning

is what happens if you come out of something like that and says none of this matters everything's

impermanent you know the world is this way you can't count on anything and you bail out

you are guaranteed by making the meaning that nothing matters you're guaranteed to continue to

find reasons why things don't matter right you find what you're looking for and if you come out of

it saying I am going to not take the love that I have or the relationships I have or the gifts that

I have for granted anymore no matter what you're going to find ways to continue not to take those things

for granted you know it is an inside job all of it is is an inside job so okay whoo all right Ashley

let's take another break okay I think we both need a deep breath and when we come back not only

will we have some practical steps on some things and the hope that you can apply right away in your

life but we'll also have our weekly segment where Ashley and I take a couple minutes to talk about

something happened in the past week and it's this week it's the two minutes of terror so you're

going to stick around for that we'll do that right after the break you're on state if you've

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hey dad how do airplanes fly what's in this box can i touch this where does sand come from

is this treat good for climbing what happens if i makes these two things together

how are babies made what does this thing do kids are curious about everything including guns

talking to them about guns safety in your home is a good first step but you can do more

always keep your guns locked unloaded and stored separately from ammunition storing your guns

securely is the best way to prevent family fire including unintentional shootings for more

information on safe gun storage and ways to keep your family safe visit endfamilyfire.org

that's endfamilyfire.org what do we keep in the attic what's this thing called

can i ride my bike backwards like i said kids are curious it's up to us to keep them safe

brought to you by endfamily fire brady and the ad council hey JD do you want to have a better life

yeah doesn't everybody yes we do how do i go about doing that a good place to start would be

listening to our new show staying power what's it about it's about all the ways we can overcome the

challenges that we sometimes put in front of ourselves to live a better life where can i find it

can listen to it on 11.50 a.m. kkn w every Wednesday at four p.m. and friday's at nine a.m. or

wherever you get your podcast let's do this together every week on staying power bringing good vibes

to the pujit sound and the world alternative talk 11.50 welcome back to staying power JD here with

Ashley and we are talking about a difficult topic saying goodbye but a really important one and

frankly ubiquitous one in the human experience we all face it and we might as well just confront it

and recognize it as such an important part of actually living right and growing and it produces

beautiful things it can produce beautiful things so before we get back into those practical steps

it is time for our weekly segment where Ashley and i will take two minutes to talk about something

that happened in our week how it affected us what we got from it all in the name of vulnerability

sharing connection resilience all those things that make life better here we go two minutes of terror

one group that's what i keep wondering yeah hopefully not a mirror okay Ashley what do you go me okay

i have to admit this to everybody who is listening and watching and JD probably already knows this

but i have some terrible road rage and uh you know it's interesting i have why you're laughing

because he knows he's been on the phone with me a lot when my road rage goes like just way too far

oh it's awful it interrupts whole conversation very colorful very interruptive because it's

you know it just happens and i have to now it is verbal it is just verbal she doesn't take it out

with reckless driving you're right no i do control that but however i you know what i noticed

which is so not okay and i'm calling myself on the carpet about it because that's what i'm

what i do here this is what i do but when i'm the passenger and the person driving which is not

common but if i'm the passenger and somebody else is driving and they start losing it

i'm like well you need it like it's fine like it's okay calm down you know it's not that big of a deal

like just let it go you're judging them when i'm driving i obviously get a pass and i am just going

off on these people and i'm like Ashley you can't have it both ways i mean you can but it's not

care so allow them to have road rage so i can have mine yeah you can have yours you can have

yours as long as you don't take it out on person with the car no but you know as long as they

stop riding the line and they actually merge this would make life easier that is the biggest

one by the way for people are wondering what triggers her the most in the car it's people not

merging well so if you're in the Seattle area and you're driving around make sure you're merging

the way you know how to merge okay which means when you're getting on the freeway

accelerate to the speed of traffic because it drives you're crazy if you know okay that's awesome

that's a good one okay mine is is based the fact that i am moving i'm in the midst of a move

and i'm moving very far i'm moving to a new place such as about 10 miles from my current place

so closer to work um it's downsizing a bit but i'm good about that because it's just me and i found

that i can i don't need a whole lot to be comfortable in life so i'm happy about that the terror

isn't so much about the move right that just takes care of itself the terror is i'm going through my

stuff i have so much crap you don't know i'm not not to this degree i was pulling stuff out from

storage and i have storage spots like under my bed and i'm pulling stuff out that i have not seen

in years and didn't even remember that i had for years are you happy to see these things or are

you like some of them i was like i have no idea that i still had that some of it i was like oh wow

why do i still have that other things was like i totally forgot i had that and some of it was

some of it was hilarious right i was like i actually wore that shirt wow i'm not wearing that anymore

stylus that right that was not happening anymore but it led to this i had to ask myself i actually

sat down and said to myself out loud by myself am i a pack rat why do i keep all this stuff

and and it a lot of it has to go like it's not going to fit in a new place so it's not a bad thing

but this terror of wow what's the site what's the psychology of holding on to all these things

does this mean that you have to say goodbye i have to say goodbye to stuff and it's actually been okay

because i've been filling it with bags and taking it to goodwill and stuff like that which has been

good but man was a little sobering going wow i haven't seen that in a while and there was one spot i

had this one spot in the closet where i was pulling things up and i pulled the stuff out and

stuffed in the corner was one sock oh no and it's a sock i've been looking for for the longest time

it's like blamed it on the washer and dryer right because that's what we all do we blame the washer

drive but anyway it was just one and i have no idea you know but i mean that goes to show that honestly

now that you've said hello to all those things you could probably say like well

haven't seen you in a long time so we can keep this going right yeah no need to bring back

yeah you know you don't need to come back no need to bring you back i honestly thought you were

going to say that you're worried you're going to lose like the new keys your place because you

have mentioned a few times before that you've misplaced your keys yeah nope nope haven't done that

yet are we good but yeah but dang over yet right so okay all right that was good all right so

let's get back now to actually when talking about saying goodbye i think that this last segment

let's talk about how to navigate goodbye and and to remember what they do give us yeah and it

doesn't mean we have to anticipate them or dread them or spend a lot of time with them but i think

it is important like you know we spend a lot of time preparing for beginnings and thinking about

beginnings it's okay to spend some time on ends you know with that too all right so what are some

practical things let's go ahead and start we can ping pong on i would say a first one to try

and bring some closure to yourself no matter how the goodbye is going is to create your own closure

close the loop yourself because that's what a lot of people struggle with right they

they spin out of control and they just are reckless because they're like i never got closure i

never got the answers i was looking for i never learned why or you know whatever it might be and

and when you realize that is your reality you're not gonna get that answer but you feel like you

need something create your own closure come to your own conclusion have a discussion out loud with

yourself right a letter of maybe like hey this didn't go as i wanted this is what i would have

wanted but this is how it's going and that's going to be okay because i'm going to move on from

this like this cannot overtake my entire life you know find something or create like a new habit or

ritual or something to help yourself through that yeah you do have to help yourself and sometimes

look at yourself from a third party perspective of like if this is my friend going through this

rough time like what would i do for them like right your friend is you right so what do you

need to do for you to help you get through this yeah yeah i think that's a good one yeah i think

it's really good um you know in addition to what we sort of already said you know allowing your

full emotional experience right don't resist anything right grief relief confusion gratitude doesn't

mean you have to feed them poor gasoline on them you know indulge in them or lose yourself in them

but experience them right and know that they are transitory right the waves of grief that come

through will not last forever there will be some joy there will be some some peace there will be

some reflection allowing all those things but in addition to that i think it is important and

sometimes i think we need permission to do this to honor what was lost what you said goodbye to

right imagine if we shared every if we shifted everything from it's over no matter what we're

talking about we shifted it from it's over to it mattered right i know for me i told you know

story of my own you know my own addiction days um did that matter yeah that mattered not so much

what i was struggling with but what came out of it what i had to learn because of that

even what i lost because of it and what i lost was enormous and the things that i lost and the

people that i lost they mattered and in some ways they still do matter because they remind me

why i keep going in a different direction hmm that's interesting yeah they still matter i don't

necessarily spend a lot of time thinking about that it's been a long time now and i try to

be present with myself as much as i can but to say that it's over let it go i tend to believe that

that's a whole idea of letting go of the past is just kind of foolish it's a foolish idea yeah

because we don't but what we can do is instead of assigning it as this huge loss or it was a waste

of time or something like that it did matter it did matter and then if we compare that with

it mattered and so does where i am right now that can help us

i'm yes i mean creating the space for redefining those is what will help you bridge the gap

from back then to now because like you said you can't let go of history history is there history

brought you here yep now you can make sure in certain regards that history doesn't repeat itself

but you know an end is also a beginning yes and i know people are like that's so hard i can't even

think about that whatnot but eventually at some point as yourself is healing and processing and

going through it you'll realize that an end is also a beginning and it leads to new things and new

space and new capacity and new opportunity and new platforms for you to build and to grow and to

welcome in things that maybe you never thought you would do before and and sometimes people try

to do it immediately because they just want to fill the void yeah and i would say cautionary to that

because you're not trying to fill a void you want healing yeah to take over not just to fill a

space with some empty stuff you want to make sure you are healed and wholesome as you are moving

through this and welcoming in the new things i love that i love that the last one there's more but

the last one for the sake of time that i'll add it is share about it share give it air give it words

give it emotion give it space give it to other people right well i talked about my my group of

friends these three guys that of the four that are left and how often we talk about these things

right and we share about these things and we hold space for the other as they go through these things

sharing it helps us see that other people get it that even though we have to confront these good

buys on our own there are others who know what that feels like and there are others that are there

if you if it just gets tough to do it on your own all the time right it matters a lot and giving it

words when we give something words we actually end up figuring out a lot more about what to do next

than we would if we just kept it to ourselves absolutely well and you know you

you sharing your experience will probably help somebody else get through theirs

and in turn you will find people that have been through what you're going through right now

and there is there is something really powerful in knowing that somebody else has walked

this same path and they got to the other side and they're okay they're alive they're doing

all right somebody if they had gone through addiction and whatnot and heard your story and they're

like look at JD today that'll give them hope that like their life is not over because of that

like their life has so much more promise and meaning waiting for them in the future as long as

they just keep going yeah yeah it's it's actually been a it's been a humble privilege actually to have

worked with a lot of men who've been in that situation who have drawn some hope and drawn some

new direction from it and that's that's something that I get I feel good about you know I've helped

other people pull their own lives out of the dirt you know that's you know and they needed more

than just me that's for sure and they actually had to do the work themselves but it does matter

and it does help me at the times where I'm feeling low or when I'm questioning things they go okay

there's been value there right all right oh anything else I don't think so I think I shared a lot

did share a lot we did share a lot yeah there's a lot to this and and for and I know that all of you

that are listening are probably thinking about a goodbye or two that you're either going through

or you've done or you're having to contemplate or that you're facing and first of all we hope that

this was helpful somehow with this and that they pulled something from this that will help you

and also that just to remind you that you're right where you're supposed to be and you know this

is survivable and there's a lot that's really good about it and we would love to hear from you if

you'd ever like to reach out to us to tell us your own stories your own thoughts you can reach us

at staying power show at gmail.com you can also find in the show notes for every episode wherever

you get this as a podcast and our our YouTube channel in the show notes links to our social media

feeds you can communicate with us there and you can also find us at our radio home the website

for the show at 11.50 am kk and w in Seattle thank you to all of you for listening thank you to

our sponsor parse renovation again if you want to visit and see their quality work and consider

whether or not you want them to help you out it's p-a-r-s renovation.com they are in the east side

and larger puget sound area of the Pacific Northwest here in Seattle and we hope that you'll check

them out and if you do check them out you talk to them make sure you tell them that you heard about

them on staying power and watch what happens all right and so we will be back next week with another

episode about how you can build a better life and to find out what that topic is going to be you're

going to have to come and show up because we still have to figure that out kind of how we do

things right we kind of go with what's going on at any given point in life that's where we draw

from it so Ashley thank you so much for bringing all of this in thank you so much to all of you for

listening thank you to Nathan our engineer behind the board who you can't see but he's waving

yes he's waving and for me I'm JDK and I am after you see you next week

you