192 Tim Ringgold: He Lost Five Friends, a Child, and a Father—Yet He Found Peace

[00:00:00] ck: Welcome to Noble Warrior. My name is CK Lin. This is why I interview entrepreneurs, practitioners about how they move from finite games to infinite games towards a life of greater purpose. I. Joy and success. Today, I have the honor of speaking with Tain.

[00:00:17] ck: Ringo is a BA board certified music therapist. He is an author. He is a highly sought after international speaker. He share stages with luminaries like Tony Robbins. But today we're gonna specifically talk about grief. Since 2007, he has been facilitating grief retreats and, um, I'm gonna go deeper there.

[00:00:40] ck: If you are interested in finding out more of his latest grief retreats, you can go to heal my grief retreat.com. Welcome to Noble Warrior, Tim.

[00:00:50] tim: Thanks for having me CK. It's great to be here.

[00:00:53] ck: So, right before recording, we were making light of this topic. [00:01:00] You know, grief, normally it's a very heavy, very, you know, hush hush. You know, let's not talk about it. And why I was excited to have you hear is this. Coincidentally, a few of my friends or acquaintances have lost their mother, father, parents due to some kind of sudden discovery.

[00:01:23] ck: Right? So having witnessed and there going through that journey with such dignity, it's a beautiful thing for me to watch. So I, let me start out by saying why grief

[00:01:39] tim: Hmm.

[00:01:40] ck: for,

[00:01:40] tim: So for me, yeah. Well, why grief for any of us, first of all, is that nobody gets out of being a human being without experiencing it.

[00:01:51] ck: Mm-hmm.

[00:01:52] tim: There's, there's three types of people out there. There's people who have grieved, people who are grieving, or people who will grieve because if you've [00:02:00] loved and lost. You grief. Grief is the feeling, the emotion that you experience when you lose a loved one or something you love. And so, humans naturally bond and love each other as a social species. And which means, uh, and since death toll is still holding it 100%, uh, all of us beat each other back, you know, to heaven or to wherever you decide someone goes, you know, beyond the grave.

[00:02:30] tim: And so at some point, uh, we're all gonna experience this journey of loss. And so it's a very normal, very natural, very universal, very human experience to have. And our culture's just. Terrible at preparing us for it. And my journey with it, uh, it's almost like this path has been placed before me. Um, my grief resume, sadly, is quite full.

[00:02:58] tim: Uh, you know, and it [00:03:00] started at like many people when you're young. I lost one of my grandparents when I was 11. My first, you know, my first visit with grief, you know, when my grandmother dies, my, my dog lady. Now, for many people, pet loss is really intense for them. And what I can tell you, when I was 10, the dog we had, they got lady before I was born.

[00:03:22] tim: And so lady was my sibling as far as I was concerned. She was my canine, you know, big sister. And when she died, I experienced grief. It was very real for me, but it really got catapulted into a whole new world when I was 22, because when I was 22, my five best friends were murdered.

[00:03:41] ck: All at the same time.

[00:03:42] tim: All at the same time.

[00:03:43] ck: Holy crap.

[00:03:44] tim: I went to five funerals in four days. I would get up, bury a friend, get as hammered as possible, pass out, wake back up, and have to do the whole thing [00:04:00] over again the next day and the next day, and then two on Sunday. It was beyond anything I had ever, you know, prepared for or had any idea how to handle. Um, it's unlike anything I've ever experienced.

[00:04:15] tim: Now, the grief of one person can be unlike anything you've ever experienced. Much less the grief of five. Uh, my dad died two years later from cancer at a comparatively early age for a man, and I was 27 and. Listen, when, when I was young as a boy, none of my friends had lost a grandparent. So no one knew what to say when my five best friends were murdered, like, who else has that in their locker?

[00:04:39] tim: So no one knew what to say. When I was 27 and my dad died, none of my friends had lost a parent. No one knew what to say. Uh, and so each time I went through those experiences, no one really told me what to expect, and no one said anything about it. And so I was just left with this giant, you know, ball of emotion that I didn't know [00:05:00] was normal.

[00:05:00] tim: I didn't know how to process it, and I didn't know who could relate. And then fast forward to 2010, and my wife and I, our second daughter is born with a very rare genetic disease, and she dies 17 months later. And so now I've lost my dad, I've lost my five best friends. I've lost my daughter. So I've lost in like, you know, all the directions. And that was also a unique experience. And it wasn't that any of them were harder or easier or worse or better. People get very competitive with their suffering. you'll, you'll hear people say things like, you think that's bad, dot, dot, dot. And then they one up each other

[00:05:44] ck: Wait, wait, wait, wait. People have said that to you after you share your, your quote unquote, uh, grief resume. What? That doesn't make any sense.

[00:05:53] tim: so you, you know, you know when like you go through something hard and someone's like, you think that's bad? I had blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they like, one up. You[00:06:00]

[00:06:00] tim: Well, I've

[00:06:00] ck: I, understand that under normal situations, but not, you know, something like death is so,

[00:06:07] tim: yeah.

[00:06:07] tim: So people get

[00:06:08] ck: you know, so,

[00:06:09] tim: that's a good word for it. Yes. And so people will suddenly talk about their grief

[00:06:14] tim: and like, oh, well, I, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:06:17] tim: And I went through blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, and you're not sure I. Where they're going with it.

[00:06:23] tim: Uh, and you know, people just tend, they, they can say the strangest things

[00:06:29] tim: when you're grieving. And uh, and so one of the things I just realized along the way was like, I don't get to choose whether or not I'm gonna lose a loved one,

[00:06:40] ck: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:42] tim: am gonna love people, and I'm going to lose them along the way.

[00:06:45] tim: And very quietly, during this whole journey of going through all of this, I went to school to become a music therapist. And as a music therapy student, my mom, who was a retired, uh, therapist, she [00:07:00] was facilitating a grief retreat. And she said, do you want to come on the retreat and do a segment on how music heals grief? And I thought, that's really cool. I'd love to. That was in

[00:07:10] ck: You were how old at the time.

[00:07:12] tim: um, 35,

[00:07:15] ck: Got it. So you had some have had some life experiences already.

[00:07:18] tim: Yep. Yep. And, uh, but my daughter hadn't been born or died yet, and so I start being a part of this retreat team, and twice a year I'd go out to Scottsdale, Arizona and co-facilitate this retreat with my mom and another retired therapist. It was lovely work. Uh, really God's work, just really serving others. And, uh, and then my daughter dies three years later and I take some time off from the grief retreat to go through my own grief. And it was really interesting because ck while I was going through my grief journey, I could see my mom's slides from her presentations on the retreat, like as I [00:08:00] was living them. And it gave me this roadmap for how to understand what I was going through that I didn't have. I. The earlier times that I had gone through grief and my healing from my daughter's death happened at a a, just a, what people found to be an extraordinary rate. Because back around 2010 when my daughter died, you may remember there was this thing called blogs.

[00:08:29] tim: Remember Blogs? How they were like a big thing way back in the day? Well, I used to write a blog about my daughter 'cause she had a rare disease and it was, she was part of them trying to find a cure. No one in the blog, in the comments could believe how well I was healing and how healthy my grief looked.

[00:08:46] tim: And I realized it was just because someone had taught me a framework for how to walk through it, what to expect, what are the best practices. And so I was grateful that I had [00:09:00] been invited on that retreat to help out because all of that helped me walk through my own journey. Three years later. And then after two years, I came back onto the team and kept leading and co-facilitating the retreats until Covid when they, everything went away.

[00:09:18] tim: And then my mentors retired. And after Covid I made the decision could I keep this going by myself? And I said, I think so. And so I held the next retreat by myself and I found that I could hold that container. Uh, I didn't feel worn out or overwhelmed by it. It, my heart just grew to the number of people that were there.

[00:09:36] tim: And I was like, wow. It's almost like I've been built and conditioned all the way along the way for this to be able to provide this. And so for me today, now I'm 52 at the time of this recording. I feel built and ready to help more people in more ways than I have [00:10:00] before, rather than just doing it on the side a couple of times a year.

[00:10:03] tim: I'm now hosting half a dozen retreats, uh, over the course of the calendar, and it just feels great because I genuinely feel built for it.

[00:10:12] ck: Yeah, man. And um, it's funny how true the Steve Job, you know, commencement speech saying it doesn't really make much sense looking forward, but you look backwards, you can see a through line.

[00:10:27] tim: Yes.

[00:10:27] ck: Who has had this many, well, I mean, again, right? Using your terms this, this amount of grief resume that you have had.

[00:10:34] ck: I mean, I'm not being like funny about it, but

[00:10:37] tim: No, it's okay.

[00:10:38] ck: you know, it's the experience you have had and you had to come through the experience and then learn extract lessons so that you can teach others, right? To me, I'm a purpose coach. The reason why I'm a purpose coach is not because I was, you know, from the sky opens up and like, Tana, you should be a like, 'cause [00:11:00] I was lost.

[00:11:00] ck: I had to figure out my own way, figure out my emotions, find the tools. So then when I now teach other about my tools, it's from a place of embodiment rather than some armchair theoretical thing that I read in a book somewhere. Right?

[00:11:14] tim: Yes.

[00:11:15] ck: you know, you are uniquely qualified to share, here's the set of tools, the mindset, the practices to help people move through that very.

[00:11:26] ck: Human yet intense experience of grief.

[00:11:29] tim: Yeah. Yeah. You nailed it. I, I tell people like, this is not theory for me. And, uh, I think people, you. I, I'll speak for myself. I tend to appreciate learning from people who've done it.

[00:11:46] tim: Um, it doesn't mean people who haven't done it can't teach it, it, but for me, like, I want to hear your struggles and I want to hear exactly what were your obstacles

[00:11:58] tim: along the way.

[00:11:59] tim: I don't want [00:12:00] just the roadmap because with every roadmap there are obstacles, and oftentimes what I find is people who haven't done it just teach the roadmap, but they didn't experience the obstacles. And so like, if you know what the obstacles are, you can tell people before they hit 'em.

[00:12:18] tim: And I

[00:12:18] ck: that, that actually, it's a, it's a great segue. Uh, I know that interrupted you, but I

[00:12:23] tim: no, that's okay.

[00:12:24] ck: a, it's a great segue to what, what are some of the known obstacles and also the unknownly invisible, right? The, the, the one that's behind closed doors, the hidden ones that's so subtle or so sudden that, oh, I was so surprised when this thing came up.

[00:12:42] ck: You know? So are there some of the obstacles that you can help people identify? Maybe, maybe for those who are going through the grieving process right now, ala some of my friends, they can say, you know what, I didn't think about that as an obstacle, et cetera.

[00:12:59] tim: [00:13:00] yeah, yeah. Well, there's, there's so much to share. Um, there's a couple of things that come to mind and, and, uh, in oftentimes you'll hear it framed in the term of like myths and like there's a myth and people don't know it's a myth. They think it's the truth, but it's a myth and they hold it to be true.

[00:13:21] tim: And therefore it is, and it shapes. The way they experience their world. And, and one of the myths is that time heals all wounds. And so people think time heals grief. Time does not heal grief, it buries it. And so what happens is people get busy because our culture tells them you need to be productive. And if you're not productive, you are not useful.

[00:13:49] tim: You're a problem if you're not productive. And so you need to get back to it and get back to work. And so people get busy and they bury and [00:14:00] run from their, their grief because of its enormity. I understand there's nothing like it, so it's just much easier to just get busy and run from it. But the problem is that it's, it's always right under the surface.

[00:14:15] tim: And then if any external trigger or internal trigger kind of trips it. It explodes and it comes out and it comes out in all sorts of ways. Whether it's a, it can be a physical manifestation of, uh, inflammation or disease. It can be, uh, mental manifestation of a diagnosis of a mental health issue. It can be a social manifestation of withdrawal or isolation or social anxiety. Uh, and it can be a spiritual manifestation of a loss of connection, uh, for many people, a loss of hope or a loss of belief in something they, they were holding onto before and then they lost their faith in the midst of the pain they were going through. And they just tell themselves stories. And so

[00:14:59] tim: like, [00:15:00]

[00:15:00] ck: Can I add one more? Can I add,

[00:15:01] tim: Yes. Yes. Go.

[00:15:03] ck: Uh, because what you have talked about is internal, there's also the relational,

[00:15:09] ck: well, you know, uh, not knowing how to deal with that. So they lash out, maybe not wanting to, but nonetheless to their spouse or kids or employees or partners. And also make bad decisions because again, right, they're handling a lot of stuff internally.

[00:15:27] ck: So these are some of the things that,

[00:15:29] ck: yeah.

[00:15:29] tim: Yeah, no, those are, those are spot on. Those happen and people, so people are operating on kind of like a, uh, emergency, one half to one quarter of their normal capacity. Their buffer, their, their focus, their physical energy, their cognitive abilities. And so they're trying to stay running in a top gear that their brain and body are like, no, we're in like power save mode right now.

[00:15:58] tim: And, [00:16:00] but they just try to keep running and outrun that grief. And there's a great acronym that I wanna pass on to your listeners, and it's called A StuG. And a stu is a sudden temporary upsurge of grief.

[00:16:14] ck: Mm.

[00:16:15] tim: So you're going about your day. I'll give an example from my life. I was working in a physical therapy clinic. It was after my friends died, and there I was walking down the hall and I'm just going about my day doing my job, and out of the blue, bam, the wave of emotion hits me and suddenly I'm choking. I can't breathe. Tears are shooting out of my eyes, and I double over and stumble into a treatment room and have one hand on a treatment table while I'm trying to catch my breath while I'm crying. And five seconds earlier I was like, what table do I need to clean? Where are the towels? [00:17:00] And that's just a day. With a stu and people have these happen and they, you can't predict them. They can come on for no reason at all, but they can also come on for like an external trigger. A a site, like when I saw the billboard for the hospital my daughter had been in, when I was driving down the freeway, suddenly, bang, I'm back in the hospital.

[00:17:27] tim: Right? It can be a song can come on your, your, your song. Like if, if my wife had Passed Away and Unforgettable by Nat King Cole came on, that's the song we danced to at our wedding. You better believe that that song is activating all those memories and if there's any pain associated with those memories, it's coming out right then and there. It can be a smell, whether it's a perfume or a cologne or a food, right? All the sensory triggers that are out there, what that's showing you is that there's some unhealed grief. [00:18:00] And you can heal that grief, but you first have to be willing to feel it and you have to stop running from it. So time is not your ally.

[00:18:10] tim: We have people who come on retreat whose loved one passed away six years prior to them coming on retreat, and they're still frozen in that feeling of grief because they've just been running from it the whole time. So that's the first thing I, you know, to clear up for people. That time does not heal all wounds.

[00:18:26] tim: It definitely doesn't heal grief, it just buries it.

[00:18:30] ck: Are there obvious others? Let's do two more if you, if you don't mind sharing. What are some of the most misunderstood aspect of grief?

[00:18:38] tim: The o another one that's, that's really misunderstood and I get a lot of flack, I get a lot of flack for this one, is that gr your grief is not your love. Grief and love are related, but they're distinct. So I. Your love is [00:19:00] your love. Your grief is the feeling of the loss of your loved one.

[00:19:07] ck: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:08] tim: But as you feel those feelings of grief over time, they lessen because you're designed to heal from grief so that the pain recedes, but the love remains. And what people do is they equate the pain and the love, and so they're afraid that if they stop grieving, they'll stop loving.

[00:19:36] ck: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:37] tim: And that's why people stay frozen in grief. They feel like they have to because I mean, why would you wanna stop loving your loved one?

[00:19:46] tim: I. So they're like, well, I guess I have to feel this feeling because this is now how I honor my loved one by feeling these feelings, and when I even suggest that humans are built to heal from grief and that you can have no more pain and, and [00:20:00] have the love people, literally, no, that's wrong.

[00:20:05] tim: That's not true. I don't believe it. And I'm like, well, I'm standing here living it. I know it to be true. I've witnessed it in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of participants over close to 20 years. This is what's possible. Now, I honor people's decision to hold onto their grief as a sign of their love.

[00:20:29] tim: If that's their choice, that's their choice. But grief and love are two different things, and so you can heal your grief and the love remains and the memories remain. They just don't have any pain associated with them.

[00:20:45] ck: Now I'm a guide. You are a guide. Right. So we can point them towards what's possible, but obviously, you know, we are all sovereign beings. You know, they have their own agency, [00:21:00] so if they choose to still hold onto the pain as a way to honor their love, you know, it's their choice, so to

[00:21:10] tim: their choice. Absolutely. It's

[00:21:12] tim: just not required.

[00:21:14] tim: And, and for some people, they're like, I'm, I'm not functioning well. I'd like to function well. I'd like, I know I'm not well, I'd like to be well again, but I feel like I'm supposed to hold onto this thing, but I know it's not working for me. And so by, like, I wouldn't have healed as fast as I did if I didn't know it was possible to, it was just that someone said, you can.

[00:21:41] ck: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:41] tim: And it's up to you. And I was like, oh, what do I have to do? And they were like, just feel everything. Really lean into the experience and just be very present to yourself the whole time. And the more you lean into the feelings and the more present you are, the faster the timeline. We don't know what [00:22:00] the timeline is.

[00:22:00] tim: It's different for everybody, but we just know it's faster. The more you lean in and we know it's slower, the more you resist. And it was like, well, okay, I would like to move through these feelings as fast as is possible. So I'm gonna really honor them. I'm really gonna lean into them and I'm gonna give myself permission to kind of put grieving as like my main job.

[00:22:23] tim: I'm gonna spend most of my day grieving. And so like, I didn't work much, you know, after my daughter died for quite a long period of time. I wrote about her. I grieved her I like, but I didn't like take my mind and put it on other things because I really wanted to. Honor that space because I had this idea that the more I honor it, the more I'm gonna heal.

[00:22:46] tim: And so that was my experience and I was like, oh, okay. So what they said, you know, it, it checked out.

[00:22:53] ck: Yeah. So I want to double click on what you just said about the time, but I also want to come [00:23:00] back to, uh, the third misconception, right? But, so we'll come back to that in a moment. So on the practical level, again, my fresh in my mind, friends lost their loved ones, their mom, their dad, whoever. How long do you recommend them to just, Hey, this is your main job for the moment, just like, just grief.

[00:23:21] ck: Don't worry about, you know, to go to your, go to work trying to earn money or time management or whatever, taking care of clients. Just focus on your main job. How long do you recommend your, from your hundreds and hundreds of people going through this process?

[00:23:36] tim: Yeah, so there, there is somewhat, based on research, there is somewhat of a timeline for grief for most people. And I would call it like 90%.

[00:23:45] tim: Uh, and that timeline is anywhere from six months to a year.

[00:23:50] tim: It's kind of like a nice big window, like your first six months. Your second six months are probably gonna, depending on the nature of the relationship, probably gonna be harder than the first [00:24:00] six months because the first few months you're actually in a state of shock

[00:24:04] tim: and you're not feeling everything you're gonna feel and you're surrounded by social support.

[00:24:09] tim: The second six months is where the social support wanes because in our 24 hour news cycle, people literally forget.

[00:24:18] tim: You lost your loved one because they've moved on with everything else that's been blitzing their, you know, brain on a daily basis.

[00:24:25] tim: And so that second six months is oftentimes for people harder than the first six months, depending on the nature of the connection.

[00:24:34] tim: Different connections can have different trajectories. And then for about 10% of people, they have, there's a couple of different names out there in the literature for it. Prolonged grief disorder, complicated grief, where just the circumstances around the loss were a little more either traumatic or intense or entangled with other things.

[00:24:54] tim: And that timeline can be longer and it can be, you know, that's the one where it can actually [00:25:00] get stuck for a lot of people. And we don't. Say, you know, well, that's gonna be blank amount of time because we, we just don't know for

[00:25:09] tim: that person. So, but that gives people at least just a rough general guideline of what to expect. the, the the real thing that you're gonna have to go through that's unique is that cycle of firsts. So the cycle of firsts is the first

[00:25:29] tim: Christmas, or the first wedding anniversary, or the first your birthday, or the first their birthday or the first anniversary of their death. All those firsts, um, those occur differently than Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

[00:25:46] tim: 'cause you could have 364 days, but then you haven't had a single anniversary of the person's death.

[00:25:52] tim: And so, so time. Does distort when it comes to holidays and [00:26:00] anniversaries and special occasions. And so it's important to honor that those days aren't gonna occur like any other day of the week.

[00:26:08] tim: Um, and to have a plan, something, what are you gonna do?

[00:26:13] tim: You're gonna honor that. You're gonna mark the occasion. And some doesn't have to be complicated, and it doesn't need to involve anybody, but you're gonna wanna just acknowledge the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

[00:26:25] tim: And, and as you do that over time, those days get easier, I promise you. And they like, there are dates on the calendar that'll always be different for me.

[00:26:36] tim: So April 18th, when my friends were murdered, October 22nd, when my dad died, October 11th, when my daughter died, those will always be in my head, but I can tell you with, as I heal my grief, those days hurt less and less with each. Successive lap around the sun, if you will. So there's, there's hope.[00:27:00]

[00:27:00] ck: Thank you for that. That's beautifully articulated. Is there a third misconception of grief that you care to share or top of mind, anything like that? This is not memory.

[00:27:10] tim: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's just kinda like what comes to mind that people should know is that, um, I think we talked about a little bit. So one thing that that's important in our talk crazy culture is that the process of grief for each individual, it's a fluid process and it's unique to them.

[00:27:31] tim: So what works for your grief may or may not work for someone else's grief process. And two people will be grieving the same loved one differently.

[00:27:43] ck: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:44] tim: You didn't have the same connection. You had your connection. So two siblings grieving a parent will grieve differently, not only because their own cathartic processes are different, but because they [00:28:00] had different connections. And what we're grieving is the loss of that connection. And so it's unique to each person. So, you know, comparison is the thief of joy, as they say. And another one is compare leads to despair. Uh, I love these little sayings because you do not want to compare anyone else's grief to yours and make a judgment about whether or not someone should be grieving differently.

[00:28:25] tim: Like a talker will say, you know, if he just talked about it more, I think you'd feel better. While a non talker, that's the last thing they need to do in their process.

[00:28:36] tim: And so there's lots of ways to heal your grief. Talking is, but one of them, it's a great tool, but it's not the only tool in the toolkit.

[00:28:44] tim: And sometimes it's flat out the wrong tool. So you people make the mistake all the time of projecting their own grief process onto someone else thinking about what would be good for them. And you don't really know what would be good for them unless you [00:29:00] know them really well. And if you know they're a talker, let 'em talk.

[00:29:03] tim: Like you shut up and you just listen. You don't have to say anything

[00:29:07] tim: and, and I think for a lot of people, they're so afraid to say the right thing. And I'm gonna let you all off the hook right now. The real key. It's not in what you say, it's that you're listening. You don't have to say anything other than I'm here. Thank you for telling me your story and I love you. That's all your loved one needs from you. When it comes to you opening your mouth, the rest of it is them opening their mouth. The process is for them to talk about it. If they're a talker, let 'em talk. There's some amount of times they have to tell their story before they kind of work it out.

[00:29:49] tim: And clarity comes from communication. So for a lot of people, just being able to talk about their feelings kind of puts them into a container, uh, and it makes [00:30:00] sense out of them rather than, you know, them swirling around in their head. You don't have to say anything. Your focused attention is the greatest gift you can give them.

[00:30:11] ck: Okay, so I'll, I'll come back to that. What, what can a friend, a loved one do in a moment, but I wanna ask you this question. 'cause you had mentioned about Oh, how you personally have dealt with. The loss of your daughter was very healthy by those, that radio block, that radio your block. Right? So what are some of the healthy and unhealthy, you know, signs and symptoms of grieving that you can help elucidate?

[00:30:37] tim: Yeah, that's really good. Really good. So, so I, I run like a gr, I run a retreat, part one, and then I, I run a gr a part two for people who have completed the first one. They come back and we do more work. And in that second one we really dive into the difference between healthy and unhealthy behaviors. And I'm a sucker for acronyms. And so there's this great acronym called A disturb, which is a [00:31:00] short term energy relieving behavior. Uh, and it's like, you know, your nervous system when it's stressed, it wants

[00:31:07] ck: Oh wait, what is, what does the acronym and what does it stand for?

[00:31:10] tim: disturb, its short term energy relieving behavior,

[00:31:15] ck: I see. Okay.

[00:31:17] tim: something that scratches the itch in the moment

[00:31:19] tim: to make you feel better.

[00:31:20] tim: And it's your nervous system trying to self-soothe.

[00:31:23] ck: Uh huh.

[00:31:24] tim: When you're stressed and grief is very stressful on the mind and the body. Your nervous system wants to self-soothe, so it will fire off ideas for what will make it feel better in the moment because your nervous system doesn't care about later. It just cares about now.

[00:31:40] tim: And so it's important to understand there's good now and good later. There's good now, bad later, and there's bad now, bad later, and there's bad now. Good later. When it comes to different behaviors we can do for [00:32:00] ourselves. So I'll give you some examples of what I mean by that.

[00:32:03] tim: Good Now, good later, like since we're talking about talking, having a heartfelt conversation with somebody and opening up about how things are going without being scolded or judged or told what to do or, or having the problem solved. That's really good now and it's good later. There's no negative knock on effect of doing that behavior. Good Now, bad later could be me going into my freezer and killing the, uh, trader Joe's coconut ice cream. Like, oh, that feels really good going down, but that's really not supporting me Later. I'm just filling my body full of sugar and that sugar is giving me a hit to be like, ah, dopamine, and I feel better in the moment. Good now, bad later. So there's lots of, you know, good now, bad later behaviors. Um, so that's good now. Good later. Good. Now, bad later, bad now, bad later. I mean, all kinds of things could go under that example. [00:33:00] Um, I would say for a lot of people, alcohol falls into that category because they're actually, they get into fights now, or they get even more upset because it's a depressant.

[00:33:09] tim: So it's bad. It's actually bad now. And then there's the repercussions, uh, from a hangover to the aftermath, to the physical issues. So that's bad now, bad later, bad now, good later might be taking a cold shower, cold showers. I hate 100% of the cold showers I take, and I've been taking them for six years.

[00:33:31] ck: Understood.

[00:33:33] tim: Not once have I looked forward to a cold shower,

[00:33:36] tim: but I take them because I know that it builds resilience for my nervous system. It's great for my immune system, it's great for my circulatory system, and it's great for my mental resilience to do things I don't want to do if I do something I don't wanna do first thing in the morning, every day.

[00:33:53] tim: Um, building that muscle of. Sometimes in life as adults, we gotta do things we don't want to do. And so now I've [00:34:00] got a track record of being someone who says yes to doing things I don't wanna do. So that's a bad now, good later. And so all kinds of different behaviors fall into those practices. So we can talk it out, we can work it out, you know, exercise, that's one of the, that's a healthy, uh, times two. Uh, we can journal where we, we write it out. Um, again, clarity coming from communication, and now the communication is just you in the pen. Um, we can play it out where whether you're playing a sport or you're playing a musical instrument, uh, that's a great way to be in the moment, engaged in something, in an embodied experience that's also expressive. Um, we can pray it out where we connect with some spiritual connection, some source that's outside of our ourself. Um, so there's all, and we can laugh it out. We can absolutely laugh it out. Listen, laughter is a coping skill and there's this great phrase, which is, if I didn't laugh, I'd cry. [00:35:00] And my wife and I have one, and ours is, you know, someday we'll look back on this and laugh. So why wait?

[00:35:05] ck: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. So, uh, I have a, some pushback about the, the bad now. Bad later.

[00:35:14] ck: Actually, no, the bad now. Good later. So, you know the concept of hor nieces. Yeah.

[00:35:20] ck: As in acute stress in the moment, but it's ultimately good like a coach hour or sauna or, you know, breath work, things like that is stressful temporarily, but ultimately produce a lot of good stuff for the body later on.

[00:35:32] ck: Okay.

[00:35:33] ck: So, so some people may say, right, hey, you're sick, so therefore don't apply more stress. To the body because you're just gonna make your body work harder to come out of the stress, right? Hands forth. The, the advice typically is, we feel sick, don't do the cold hour, or the sauna or the cold plunge or whatever the thing, right?

[00:35:55] ck: So similarly, you had just mentioned when you're going through a grieving process, [00:36:00] very hard for the mind, for the heart, for the, for the body even. So then do, do, so some people may say, okay, great, I'm just gonna stop working out, stop going, doing the cold shower, stop the, so that I can chill out so that I have the, the resources needed for my body, for my heart, for my psychology to heal.

[00:36:25] ck: Any comment on that?

[00:36:27] tim: I, I just wouldn't agree. I would say that's not a good idea. Uh, actually, uh, I'll, and I'll tell you a great example of this. Um, when my daughter died, I cried in the hospital room and then I didn't cry again, so she died. I'm in the hospital room with her, my wife's with her, I'm crying, and then I didn't cry. I didn't cry at her funeral. I didn't cry at the memorial, we had a couple of different celebrations of life. There's a long story behind that. No tears. But I would go to the [00:37:00] gym. Get on the treadmill as a part of me taking care of my body

[00:37:05] tim: because the better my body works, the better my mind works. 'cause there're two sides of the same coin.

[00:37:09] tim: So I would go run and I didn't feel like running, but I knew it was good for me. And every time I ran, I cried. I cried on the treadmill because I was moving. All of that stuck energy that as a man, I wasn't just letting out in other ways. But the physical movement of that energy produced the result of tears, which allowed me to express that emotion non-verbally. And I wanna break down what I just said because it'll be useful to express something just means to squeeze it out. Out press express. Right? And emotion is energy in motion in our body. Like we think thoughts in our heads, but we feel feelings in our body and they get buried and stuck in our body and physical [00:38:00] movement and low frequency like energy moves that energy. And so it was extremely cathartic for me. I didn't know that was gonna happen. It was a total like mystery. Like, wow, this is, and it, but it would happen every time I would go run. So I would just pick the corner treadmill all the way over to the right i'd, I'd run, I'd cry. But the beauty is CK I figured out tears and sweat look identical.

[00:38:28] ck: Hmm. I like that. That was great. Yeah, no, I love that. Actually, one of the phrase I say to my clients all the time, healing is moving energy.

[00:38:39] tim: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:40] ck: You know? Uh,

[00:38:41] tim: 100

[00:38:42] ck: yeah, it's the, the mechanism may be different, right? You, maybe you would like to dance. Maybe I like to sing, maybe I like to scream. Maybe I like to shake, maybe drink ayahuasca, maybe whatever, right?

[00:38:54] ck: Maybe I like to talk, maybe I like to journal. These are just various way of moving energy, [00:39:00] so I, I love

[00:39:01] tim: what we're doing.

[00:39:02] ck: what you said. That's great.

[00:39:03] tim: I appreciate that. And there's, there's one thing about the group, the retreat model that just to, to tie in on this, why a retreat model is so useful for grief. The, the emotions that we experienced during grief, for me, some of the most intense, deep emotions I've ever felt, uh, on this planet, and to you it was, it's like there's this conundrum because you can't really feel the intensity of them all at the same time.

[00:39:34] tim: It's so overwhelming. So you definitely pack it down and to try to just put one foot in front of the other.

[00:39:40] ck: Be functional. Yeah.

[00:39:42] tim: To be functional a hundred percent.

[00:39:43] tim: So you've, you've kind of packed this energy into your body and on a retreat, you pull off that road of life for several days and you allow yourself to mind the depths of that [00:40:00] stuck energy and allow it to express in that safe setting.

[00:40:04] tim: Because you've got the time, you've got the container, you've got a space container

[00:40:09] ck: permission as well. Other people are doing with you. You've got support.

[00:40:13] tim: psychological safety, the social support. Yes, yes. So

[00:40:17] ck: Normal

[00:40:18] ck: do versus in the middle of work.

[00:40:21] tim: Yes, it's, yes, you got it a

[00:40:23] tim: hundred percent right now. Now, going to like a grief support group is really valuable for a lot of people, and I honor that and I think it's great. Going to see a therapist one-on-one, also really valuable honor that really great. But in one hour you just only have 60 minutes to dive so deep before you have to come back up to the surface because you've gotta go pick up your kid from lacrosse.

[00:40:50] ck: Yep.

[00:40:50] tim: So you can only get and touch so deep of an emotion. So that's why for me, the model of the retreat is the kicker [00:41:00] as to why it works. And, and one of the best testimonials I ever got, someone wrote on one of the surveys, I healed more in one weekend than I did in a year of counseling. And it was like, you know, sign me up to do this for the till the day I die because like, if I can bear witness to that kind of healing that it's, it's, it's exponential instead of incremental and, and I think it just lends itself perfectly. To this particular phenomenon.

[00:41:33] ck: I mean, you're speaking to another retreat organizer, so you're speaking to the

[00:41:37] tim: Preach into the choir,

[00:41:38] ck: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Uh,

[00:41:40] tim: You get it?

[00:41:40] ck: I, I think, I think there's, for me, right, if I am being just to, um, I. The retreat container as well as a coaching slash mastermind type of container, like peer group type container. I think it's, it really is both.

[00:41:56] ck: 'cause retreat, you go super deep, you have some insights, some [00:42:00] frameworks and practices. The space and all that just go, just excavate, right?

[00:42:04] ck: And

[00:42:05] tim: good word.

[00:42:06] ck: it's in the every day that one practices to maintain practice exactly right. To integrate so that we can, so, so for me really is complimentary. It's not, this is better in my opinion.

[00:42:20] ck: In my opinion, it really is both. You get the best of both worlds.

[00:42:25] tim: Yes, I think that's well said. And, and for me, developing what I'm looking at for my, kind of my full expression of what my business looks like, because I just made this transition from driving to a retreat center to facilitate for the church, to taking this on for myself full-time and holding this space for people. What I'm noticing is that really the best model is probably a year long relationship that involves two retreats over the course, over a six, like one, and then six months later, [00:43:00] another one. Um, and then on top of that, a weekly, some sort of touchpoint. Um, because what I hear from the people who go on my first retreat and then they come back later on the second retreat, like there's no structure in between. And so they go on this super high rollercoaster. Then they don't have any, uh, like accountability. They've been given the tools, but no accountability or community. And so then they struggle to look for community and they try to organize it themselves. And since this is a retreat center that brings me in, I kind of don't get involved with it.

[00:43:35] tim: I kinda leave that on their own, but I can see what's missing that really needs to be there. And it's like on the back end of the retreat, like we, we have an integration call as a part of the retreat, and then there's already a one-to-one like coaching model that I'm like ready to be like, yeah, this is what, how we keep this going for you.

[00:43:55] tim: So that this just wasn't a really nice but exhausting weekend.

[00:43:59] ck: Hey, man. I mean, [00:44:00] consider what I just say, a little wink from, you know, the divine. Like, Hey, you know, if you wanna do that, you, you gotta, you got a little wink, A little nudge.

[00:44:09] tim: Yes.

[00:44:10] tim: Yes. I appreciate that. Yeah.

[00:44:12] ck: So, okay, so let's come back to, to the practical tools, right? So what were some of, because we mentioned a bunch already, what were one of the most, some of the most unexpected, like, wow, I didn't know I could do that to help me with my grieving process.

[00:44:29] tim: Yeah. You know, for me, um, for me writing about my grief in a public setting.

[00:44:37] ck: Oh, why, why a public setting? That's, that's really interesting.

[00:44:41] tim: Yeah. 'cause I, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have thought about this. I, because of the social support and feedback loop, because humans are social animals, right? So it's not enough for me, it wasn't enough to just be able to organize my thoughts and just express them onto a [00:45:00] keyboard. It was, organize my thoughts, express them onto a keyboard, and then have other humans that I don't even know resonating. With those words and amplifying those words and talking about how that helped them. And it gave them language to their own experience that they've had either five or 10 years ago that they didn't know how to put into words. But now I put it into words for me, and they saw themselves in my words because we're all the same in a certain way. You know, we're all different in a certain way, but we're also, you know, also still humans having a human experience. And so they could relate in many ways to what I was going through, even though the details of our journeys were different. There's a huge universality to the grief journey. And so I didn't realize that me blogging was going to be so healing for me. Um, and what I would do is I, so when [00:46:00] Bella was in the ICU, she was in the ICU for three months and every morning. Oh, so every night before I went to bed, I would, I would write a daily update how the day went. I'd go to bed, I'd wake up and I'd walk to this park on the way to the hospital and I would read the comments from all around the world, from the people who were already up and had already read the night before. And those comments gave me fuel

[00:46:26] tim: for that day. and and so each day it, I would go to, I'd write the blog, I'd go to bed, I'd wake up and there would be comments from the East coast and from Europe and from Asia that had already read it. And those comments gave me the fuel to show up again.

[00:46:44] ck: That's

[00:46:45] tim: And yeah, it was really, really a, it was, it was an extraordinary experience because they were mostly strangers

[00:46:52] tim: and yet we were having this very intimate

[00:46:56] tim: conversation over, I. The blogosphere, you [00:47:00] know, and, and people would say some of the most extraordinary things, like, I've got my faith back.

[00:47:06] tim: And I mean, like, to have been part of someone's faith journey where it was broken and then it got healed because of something I wrote for me, for my grief process. I mean, yes, please. So

[00:47:19] tim: It's like, so cool, you know, like what a, what a beautiful, you know, synchronicity. Um, so yeah, that, that's been wildly surprising that that kind of grieving in public

[00:47:31] ck: So, okay, so I, I have a, you know, uh, let me, I agree with you. I love your personal experience. Let me, let me cite, uh, Brene Brown a little bit. You know, she was an expert about vulnerability. You know what? Yeah. And then one of the principles that she shared in her Ted Talk, I believe one of, anyways, a principle that she mentioned is, um, vulnerability is earned.

[00:47:55] tim: Hmm.

[00:47:55] ck: her perspective is, you know, um, [00:48:00] the audience, whoever it is, needs to basically earn the privilege, the blessing of receiving your very intimate private insights and moments. And, and, and she didn't say this, but I would, you know, I, I assume I'm projecting, um, what she said is something that's deeply personal, like a grieving, like a loss and, or maybe spiritual insights.

[00:48:23] ck: You know, I have my experience with God, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah. Gentle pushback, you know, from Brene Brown. What do you, what do you say to that?

[00:48:33] tim: Uh, I'm not sure I understand what the pushback is. Can you try to

[00:48:37] ck: Her, her thing is, don't, don't make it public to people that hasn't earned your, uh, very privileged insights or moments or lessons. That's, that's her thing. She, she basically said, I. Share something that's truly personal, intimate, vulnerable, only with those that would essentially treasure it. [00:49:00] Kind of like, uh, the Bible quote, right?

[00:49:01] ck: Don't catch pearl in from the swine, so to speak, so,

[00:49:05] tim: Got it.

[00:49:06] tim: Got it. Yeah, I mean, uh, you certainly avoid the trolls that way. You know? Um, I can only speak from my own experience. Like, it may not have been the right thing to do.

[00:49:19] tim: Uh, it was the thing I did and, uh, I, I found it to be this wonderful synergy, uh, of, oh, it worked for me and it seemed to work for a lot of people.

[00:49:29] tim: And I definitely had people on the blog where there would be times where they took issue with what I was writing, or they took issue with what I was saying.

[00:49:38] tim: And there that did happen,

[00:49:41] tim: a hundred. And that can happen from your family,

[00:49:45] tim: you know, like you can get scolded for living your truth by anyone you know, or anyone you don't know. So I, I don't know how to qualify who earns that. I'm just a guy who's, for better or for [00:50:00] worse, willing to go first

[00:50:01] ck: Yeah.

[00:50:02] tim: with my, with my vulnerability, because I would push back to that. And the first thing I would say is, why would I expect anybody else to be vulnerable with me if I'm not willing to do it first?

[00:50:12] ck: Yeah.

[00:50:12] tim: So it's like, it's, it becomes this like, well, who's gonna go first, Brene? 'cause if we're just gonna sit here and be careful and, and, and keep our character armor up, I, I can appreciate that 100%. And yet I think one of the reasons why so many people resonated with our TED Talk was it was about vulnerability and she was really vulnerable.

[00:50:36] tim: And one of the, her, one of her calling cards is how vulnerable she is in all of her interviews and in all of her TED talks. And so, I don't know. I mean, it's like,

[00:50:48] ck: Got it. So there's a lot of paradox in in what

[00:50:50] tim: there's a little bit of a paradox in there. And, and, you know, paradoxes can exist in this world.

[00:50:55] tim: Like, like attracts like, and opposites attract in chemistry. Both of those statements [00:51:00] are true in chemistry. And so the world is, is full of paradoxes and I'm okay with that. I, I truly do sit in that two truths can coexist

[00:51:10] tim: and not agree with each other.

[00:51:12] tim: So if

[00:51:13] ck: beautifully said, and actually that's something that I didn't think about, so I appreciate your bringing that point. You know, she was very vulnerable. Her brand is vulnerability and look at what she does, not what she says. I think that's kind of what I'm getting from this. Yeah.

[00:51:29] tim: I think, I think she's been a huge gift to so many people because she demonstrated vulnerability in a very public, forward facing, courageous way,

[00:51:38] tim: and I think she gave people permission to be vulnerable. She gave people courage

[00:51:44] tim: to be vulnerable because it takes courage to be vulnerable because people could use that against you. And I think that's one of the reasons as kids, we learn to be very careful about our emotions because oftentimes when we open up to others, it gets used against us. And then we're like, well, I can't [00:52:00] trust that person. I can't trust opening up to people. I get burned. And she was a very public demonstration of what it's like to be vulnerable.

[00:52:09] tim: And I'll, I'll speak from, for, for me, like some of the most people I respect in the world are people who have been very authentic and very vulnerable on stage about their humanness and their mistakes, not their successes. And they're the ones who have given me permission to e courage to do the same. And it seems like people really appreciate that.

[00:52:30] tim: And so

[00:52:32] ck: Yeah,

[00:52:32] tim: I'll take the bumps and lumps when they, when they, when they come.

[00:52:35] ck: I mean, one of the people that we both know him mu um, a mutual friend or, um, you know, in my case more of an acquaintance, but for you more of a friend is Joe Polish. And I remember he really left an impression on me when he introduced himself. Again, I don't wanna share something that's personal to him, but he shared it in front of like a hundred plus people.

[00:52:59] ck: [00:53:00] Hey, my name is Joe. I am a ex, I'm an ex. I'm an ex. I was like, dude, the balls of this guy, he doesn't know us. And yet he was just like, Kaboom. Here's who, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the skeleton, quote, unquote, you know,

[00:53:16] tim: Yes. In his

[00:53:17] ck: about it, right? And then he would just like, this is me.

[00:53:20] tim: Yep.

[00:53:21] ck: Like, okay, great. I, I, I like you already.

[00:53:27] tim: Joe is literally one of the people I was just thinking of when I said there are people who I've witnessed do this. Joe is a d very close friend of mine and our journeys in recovery. We, we went on that journey for years together, wondering when it, we'd feel safe enough. To talk about that side of our life, and I watched him do it from stage.

[00:53:51] tim: He's the one who modeled it for me. And then I saw how much it endeared him to everybody who met him. Like [00:54:00] it was like I fell in love with him all over again. I remember being at one of his events that I was working at and he's on stage and I'm texting him. I know he can't read the text, but I'm texting him. I love you more than ever because he was sharing his story and he was sharing parts of the story that I knew, that I knew he hadn't shared publicly yet, and he was going for it and he was swinging out even further outside of his comfort zone than he had before. And the love just got bigger. You could feel the, the love in the room expand.

[00:54:33] ck: So, so, okay. So since you know him very well and then I know that we're talking about someone else, he's not here. Nonetheless, you know him well,

[00:54:39] tim: Yes.

[00:54:40] ck: so, but I'm so curious 'cause I, I would love to have him on the pocket. Asking this question personally because part of me is like, is that a shtick that he does or is he really pushing that comfort zone ongoingly just as a way to, or grow right to,

[00:54:55] tim: I get it.

[00:54:56] ck: foster that courage.

[00:54:57] tim: Yeah, I can answer that unequivocally. Yeah, [00:55:00] because I watched it and it's absolutely, he's at the edge of his growth curve or the edge of his comfort zone. He's right there in the discomfort when he's sharing that 100, like, that's authentic. He, like Joe, he models this like as good as anybody I know.

[00:55:19] tim: And someone I met through him is a guy named Tommy Rosen, who's also, uh, in recovery and has a very big platform online. And I've watched Tommy do it publicly, and I see the more you do it, the more comfortable you become in your own skin. And I've, I've watched, like Joe and I in 2010, talked about using voice changing software so we could have a podcast about recovery without disclosing who we were. We weren't ready in 2010. Neither of us were ready. By 2013, he starts saying it by 2014, he's saying it on stage by 2015. I'm saying it [00:56:00] on stage 'cause I've seen him stay it on stage and he's still alive. Like no one took a pitchfork or a a, you know, a, a torch to him. And I'm like, oh, he is still here. Okay, I'm gonna start swinging out and I'm gonna start sharing more and more of my story. And then I meet another person named Nikki Meyers, who's big in the recovery space. And when she introduces herself, she talks about all the warts and, and you know, all the skeletons right outta the gate. And I'm like. No shame, no nervousness. Just owning the, the completeness of who she is. Like she's a complete whole person full of skeletons and full of all kinds of other good stuff too, right?

[00:56:38] tim: And so like watching other people learn how to first and take and swing out and try and be like, I'm gonna be more vulnerable today than I was last time. Here we go. And then they're still alive afterwards, you know what I mean? And you're like, oh wow, okay.

[00:56:58] tim: They did it. And it's like [00:57:00] jumping off of the next highest cliff.

[00:57:01] tim: When you're cliff diving, you see your buddy cliff jump and you both, and then someone goes to a cliff a little higher and they jump and they survive and you're like, oh, okay. Coast is clear. I guess I'll jump from there too. Here we go. Ah, and uh, yeah, so

[00:57:16] tim: Joe's the real

[00:57:17] ck: that. I love that. Well, uh, for me, to, you, uh, appreciate your courage and it is definitely inspiring. And then actually, I will say one more thing that he said that really left an impression is, we're as sick as our secrets.

[00:57:32] tim: Yes.

[00:57:33] ck: And I was like, fuck, fuck is so right. Yeah. Fuck dude. You know, I wanna, you know, I, I'm all about freedom and purpose and joy and, and it was like, fuck man.

[00:57:44] ck: Like, lean into it. It really is the only way out, right? Hiding it, denying it, rejecting it, being angry about it, pretending you don't have it is just bullshit, you know? So.

[00:57:54] tim: a hundred percent. So here's, here's what I wanna say to that is for everybody listening to this, find either [00:58:00] another human being or a group of human beings where you can talk about just the worst things you think you've ever done and you won't get scolded. Like find a space, whatever that looks like, whether that's hiring a therapist, whether it's being a part of a men's group or, uh, any kind of group.

[00:58:17] tim: It doesn't have to be a men's group. Um, we're two guys, so I'm thinking men's group. Um, find a place where you can talk about the things that you don't think you can talk about with anybody and not get scolded because you're a human being, having a human experience. And I promise you, you're not the only one who's done what you've done, thought what you've thought or felt, what you felt. And in a very funny way, you're not that special. So that means you're not alone. And the only reason I can, I can say this is because at my very first 12 step meeting, I sat in a room full of guys in, in a circle and they went in order and just talked about the most intense personal [00:59:00] things that they were struggling with.

[00:59:01] tim: And that guy over there talked about feelings he had, that I had, that I had never told anybody. I had felt that guy talked about things. He thinks about that he's preoccupied by, that he's distracted by that. He fantasizes about that. I do too. And I'd never told anybody that. And then this guy over here struggles with this very specific behavior related to pornography that I struggled with, that I'd never told anybody. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm surrounded by me. This is what it is to be a human. And so that was some of, that was one of the greatest gifts that. that. was February 17th, 2003 in a church basement in Phoenix, Arizona. And that one meeting was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me because it taught me how the human experience is just this thing that we're all happening.

[00:59:49] tim: It's all happening at the same time, and we're all doing our best to try to navigate it. And you don't have to navigate it alone and you weren't built to. So [01:00:00] don't bother. Just I lean on you, you lean on me, and we don't keep score, and that's how we get through it.

[01:00:07] ck: I love that pub. I love that public announcement. Yeah, I love that. That's amazing. So, speaking on which, here's, here's my segue.

[01:00:16] ck: Um, I. Let me ask the question. I'll give you a little context while I'm saying this. Okay. Actually, I'll give you context first. So a friend of mine lost his mother to the cancer.

[01:00:26] ck: In the beginning reaction was anger. Anger towards the mom, anger towards God. Just, just complete anger, right?

[01:00:34] ck: But after years of drinking Ayahuasca and just had his own release, right? He's not on the other side. He now sees the loss of his mom through the cancer as a huge gift because without the cancer she, he wouldn't have found this beautiful medicine, atca.

[01:00:53] ck: He wouldn't have gone into this spiritual path that he's on right now. So he's not seeing the gift. Do you [01:01:00] believe there's meaning, purpose, or even gift that can be found in grief?

[01:01:05] tim: Oh, it's, it's an opportunity. Absolutely. Um, I don't think that there, I think that there's an unlimited possibility in grief that like, I wouldn't want to even predict what's possible in grief. All I can say is that grief can be an incredible gift. Um. Gosh, in so many ways, uh, for so many reasons. And for each person, you get to decide if the gift's even worth looking for or like to believe that there's a gift inherent in it, like you can decide whether or not that's even possible. I'm here to tell you, the human brain can decide anything's possible. It's just framing like interpretation. So we look back on an event, humans do this automatically. We look on an event and we judge the event, and we interpret the event in some [01:02:00] way, most of the time unconsciously. But we can consciously look back at any prior event when we've had some time and space through the benefit of hindsight. We have a word for it, and we can actually choose and frame a context for that event of our choosing that it can be neutral or it can be positive, and it can be what we call a blessing in disguise. So we have a phrase for that in our language. It's just that we usually don't consciously apply that in my grief retreat part two, we go through a really powerful process where we consciously look at parts of our relationships with our loved ones that are still salty, that we're still incomplete about, that still feel negative, and we consciously reframe them into something that's either neutral or positive, because that's the gift of being a human being, is we get the last say on anything that's [01:03:00] happened to us because we decide, we frame the interpretation after the fact. So you can look back at any past event through different lenses and see it differently and see it in a way that works for you. And I, I have to give credit where credit is due. I was at a landmark education event probably in 1998. And I think it was a Tuesday evening of the, uh, the forum. And I'm a, I'm a graduate, I'm a former introduction leader for Landmark.

[01:03:28] tim: I love their stuff.

[01:03:29] ck: So am I.

[01:03:30] tim: Alright, right on.

[01:03:31] tim: All right. So there I am. It's Tuesday evening and we have to invent multiple interpretations of a problem we have and the Landmark Forum leader's like, okay, invent an interpretation that involves like the government and then invent an interpretation that involves aliens and then invent an interpretation that would be like a, a Disney movie.

[01:03:54] tim: And, and he made us walk through like seven different interpretations of the [01:04:00] problem we were dealing with. And at the end of it, he was like, here's the rub. Pick the one that works for you because you're making it all up anyway.

[01:04:11] tim: So that's the gift of grief is that you can find something in it if you want. To where it supports you and can be a blessing that's absolutely there. 100. And in fact, I just had the most powerful conversation today with another gentleman who had this distinction of when his father died, it was one of the most transformational experiences of his life. He told me, he goes, because I went from Prince in my life to King. And I said, what? And he is like, well, you know, my dad was the king. And so like, I wasn't living that distinction. And then my dad dies, and now there's no king in my life. I have to be. I've, I am assuming the throne. I'm 41 years old and I, as I'm assuming the throne, and I just thought that was the most interesting frame to think through.

[01:04:57] tim: He's like, my business doubled. I found [01:05:00] the woman of my dreams. It was the greatest gift. My dad's death was the greatest gift to me. And I was like, that is beautiful. He can see that that way and that he was able to look at the experience through that lens and then grow in such an amazing way as a result.

[01:05:17] tim: How cool is that? And he's like, not BSing anybody, like that's his dad died. This is true for him. You know? And I just thought, wow, from Prince to King is like one of the most powerful ways I've thought about for men when they lose their dad. I was 25, I was very immature at 25. I was very much a boy still.

[01:05:39] tim: And when my dad died, I was scared. I was a scared boy in a young man's body who did not know how to be a man, and who definitely did not earn the right to be called Mr. Ringold. I, that was my dad. You know, like I wasn't ready to be called Mr. Ringold until I. [01:06:00] Not very recently, I'm just gonna say from my own emotional maturity, like owning that mantle like I'm Mr.

[01:06:07] tim: Ringold now. Yeah. You better believe I'm Mr. Ringold now. I own that shit. But like there was a long time in which I wasn't ready to assume that mantle. And he said to me, he goes, gosh, wow, I'm so glad I had, I was 41 when my dad died, because yeah, I wouldn't have been ready at 25. And suddenly we're realizing this like even bigger appreciation, you know, for this journey.

[01:06:30] tim: And you know, none of us can pick the time in which our friends come and go. And when my daughter died, I had a 4-year-old daughter at the time when my younger daughter died. So just imagine trying to explain life and death to a 4-year-old. They're very concrete, right? And I said to her, I said, listen, these, these bodies, they're like rental cars. It's like a rental. It's a vehicle that takes your spirit through. Like life through time, through space. And here's the thing, [01:07:00] we never know. We never know when we have to turn it back in. Could be today,

[01:07:09] ck: Yeah.

[01:07:09] tim: could be 70 years from now. But here's unfortunately, Allie Bella had to turn hers in today.

[01:07:16] ck: Hmm. So speaking of that, since you

[01:07:23] tim: Hold on.

[01:07:23] ck: or support others going, well, number one, you've gone through it yourself multiple times. two, you're now the guide, right? Helping, supporting others who are going through this grieving process. How has your personal, spiritual, or exist existential outlook evolved over time?

[01:07:43] ck: You know, facing all of these losses that you've seen personally as well as, you know, outside of you?

[01:07:50] tim: Well, how much time do we still have? Because that has been a absolute MMA fight. I gotta tell you,

[01:07:56] ck: Yeah, let's hear it. Yeah, let's hear it.

[01:07:58] tim: woo low bro. [01:08:00] Like ab listen, one of the biggest things, I remember having a conversation with my dad early on, uh, while he was still here, and we're talking about like the justice and injustice of the world.

[01:08:12] tim: And if there is a, an all knowing, all powerful God, how could that all knowing and all powerful God allow the horrible things that happen on this planet? And he said, yeah, Tim. He goes, you know, it's in, in philosophy. It's this conundrum that, that, everybody, this kind of existential fight that we all kind of wrestle with, which is, um, why do bad people, why do bad things happen that everybody, this kind of existential fight that. That's like you, you have to kind of like get into the ring with the God of your understanding and, and work that out for yourself because there's, there's no script for this. Like, 'cause there's no, how do you make sense outta the world we live in? It's, it's too [01:09:00] much. So when Bella died, um, my, uh, while I was, every morning when I would go to the park and read the comments, I would say a prayer to God. Uh, and I would say, hold my fear. I'm gonna leave it with you so that I may walk into the intensive care unit with no fear. Like the, the village chief and his son in the beginning of Apocalypto. If anyone's ever seen Mel Gibson's movie, Apocalypto. There's this amazing scene where they, they're out in the jungle and the village leader and his son encounter a displaced tribe who are traumatized and it, the fear of, and the trauma of the other tribe gets on the sun.

[01:09:47] tim: He's feeling the fear and the dad looks at him and he goes, don't bring that back in the village. So every morning I would ask God to hold my fear so I wouldn't bring it into the hospital room [01:10:00] so that my daughter had me. 'cause she's looking cues from her dad, emotional cues. Even though she's in a coma, I know that there's more going on. May I be pain-free, may I be fear-free so that I can talk to the doctors without emotions so I can be like locked in. And, and I did this process every day. And I gotta tell you, I was in the ICU for 100 days and in those 100 days, CK there was only one moment in a hundred days where for about two seconds. I felt fear.

[01:10:32] ck: Hmm.

[01:10:32] tim: That's it. Two seconds, in a hundred days. It really, that that space, that process, God held that space for me and I was able to be in there fear free. But one day while I'm praying, before she dies, I get this download, he says in my ear, I'm taking her home,

[01:10:51] ck: Mm, your actual voice you hear?

[01:10:53] tim: actual voice in my head,

[01:10:55] tim: I'm taking her home. And I say, motherfucker what?[01:11:00]

[01:11:03] ck: How dare you?

[01:11:05] tim: Bro? What

[01:11:06] tim: bruh? You know all the things. And then it repeats. I'm taking her home. It was as clear as, as your my voice is right now. And I'm like, oh, no. Oh no, you didn't. You didn't. You didn't just send us across the country to discover this treatment center in Minnesota and have all these amazing things happens. You didn't have me write a blog and a book called Bella's Blessings, A humble story of Providence in which I invoke that your hand is guiding this whole thing and that book is published. You did not send us on this journey only to have me leave here without her. Fuck you. And he says, do you see the ants? And I'm like, what? He goes, look down. Do you see the ants? And I look down and I'm sitting on a [01:12:00] park bench and CK the park bench is next to a sidewalk. So the sidewalk stretches to my left, stretches to my right, and the sidewalk is concrete with like 10 foot sections. And one of those little grooves in between the 10 foot sections is right between my feet. And in that groove, there's a highway of ants going back and forth in the groove. So I'm like, yeah, I see the ants. He says, are they in your reality? What do you mean? Well, if you stepped on them, would you be affecting their reality? Yes. Okay, look up. So I look up, and I picked this park bench because I had a view of the downtown Minneapolis skyline from this park every morning.

[01:12:48] tim: Beautiful spot. And he says, can they see what you see? I just look back down. No. And he says, my son, [01:13:00] just because you can see what you think are my signs, doesn't mean you understand my mind.

[01:13:08] ck: Mm.

[01:13:11] tim: You are not me. I, and I said, that's fine. Fuck you. We're not talking.

[01:13:21] ck: Did you, uh, stop talking or praying or all that?

[01:13:24] tim: I stopped talking to him. I I was like. What the fuck do you want me to do? Like I, I, I'm doing everything I know how to do. I'm turning this over to you on a daily basis, and you're gonna pull the rug out from under us. Really? Really? That's your, that's your, that's your play in this. Like you've set this whole thing up only to do that. Fuck you, dude. Who does that? What kind of, and this is biblical conversations. I mean, this is like job, this is Jonah in the whale. I mean, this is shit that's been written about for millennia. This is the human experience. Like, what my [01:14:00] god, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus says it on the cross as he dies.

[01:14:04] tim: You know, we all go through this moment where we're just like, bro, really? You, you're putting me through this. What kind of God does that? Like what kind of God had me go to five funerals in four days? Like what kind of God does that? So I've had these times where I've gotten punched in the mouth just so hard that I can't believe there's a God that would let that happen because he's either. He, he either doesn't know everything or he is not all powerful or he is not all loving. 'cause if he was all loving, all knowing and all powerful, why would he let that happen? That sucks. And so I was like, well, we're not talking. And he goes, I get it. It's fine. I'll be here when you're ready. It. Now, fast forward after Bella dies, we're blessed enough to have another child. His name's Julian. And one day Julian is on the floor in his bedroom having an [01:15:00] absolute temper tantrum. I mean, on the floor meltdown, right? His nervous system is just blah. He, he is acting out. He doesn't know how to deal with whatever's going on. He is a hot mess on the floor. And as I'm looking at him, I can just feel God smiling at me because I had all the time in the world as Julian's father for that temper tantrum. I realized in that moment that tempered tantrum had nothing to do with me. He's just figuring out life in this tiny little body, and I'll be here when he calms down. And then I realized that was exactly the way God was looking at me when I was swearing at him on that park bench. And I was like, okay, I guess we can talk again, but man, I have questions for you when this is all over.

[01:15:54] ck: Mm.

[01:15:55] tim: And so it's, it's been like a, a journey of loss of faith and then [01:16:00] really humility in that there's no way I could possibly understand everything that's happening. And faith isn't about understanding. That's understanding. And faith isn't about knowing. That's knowledge. Faith is when those two things fail, that's when faith begins. And like that's the litmus test. So if anybody thinks they've got faith, like go to the edge of your knowledge, go to the edge of your understanding and step off the cliff. That's where your faith begins, where you don't know how to make sense out of this shit, where you realize you're a tiny ant on a fe fucking rock in cold, dark space spinning around faster than you can even comprehend. You don't know your ass from your elbow. There is so much more going on beyond your capacity as this little tiny mammal to understand, I'm a five foot 10 human in a human body. There's no way I can possibly grasp the [01:17:00] enormity of what's happening. And so for me, faith has been side by side this journey of humility, of realizing what I can understand what I can't. And if I choose to make sense out of things, I choose to make sense out of them. If I can't make sense out things, those are the things I chalk up to God and I say, you know what? This is how I've made sense out of it. I'm gonna trust that I'm a part of a masterpiece that you can see. But to me, I'm just like a black speck of paint. I'm just this tiny little brush stroke and right around me right now, it's just all black. But if I was to scan back all the way to the enormity of whatever, you are this entity that binds all things from your perspective, it's a fucking masterpiece. And so when I can't make sense and I can't reframe things, then I just chalk it up to [01:18:00] the, you know, the maestro, the composer, the artist.

[01:18:03] tim: And I go, all right, plenty of black around here right now. Just saying a lot of black brushstrokes. Like, I'm feeling that way right now. I'm like, bro, like every day I go online and read the news and I'm like, I. Woo. Plenty of black brushstrokes. It's, it's pretty dark out there, bro. Okay. If you say so. Okay. And that's, that's, uh, that's been my, my journey.

[01:18:27] ck: Thanks for sharing that you are a master storyteller and, uh, and you really were dropping a lot of gems, you know, for those who have the, uh, awareness, you know, I think you, especially those, you know, of my friends who just literally lost their parents, you know, and, uh, it's tough, right? It's very easy to que it's very easy to question,

[01:18:55] tim: hundred percent.

[01:18:56] ck: all the things that you had mentioned, you know, the loving and the, the [01:19:00] knowing and the, and then all powerful, you know, what the fuck is this?

[01:19:07] tim: Yes.

[01:19:07] tim: Yes. What do you mean I have to eat my vegetables? Ah, you know, it's just like, yes, yes. It's gonna be okay. It's

[01:19:16] tim: going to be okay. One of the things I want to give the permission, I wanna give permission to anyone who's listening to this to get mad at God. I just want you to, I want to give you permission to get mad at God.

[01:19:25] tim: It's okay to get mad at God. God can take it. Um, anger is a normal and natural response to a real or perceived injustice.

[01:19:36] ck: Mm-hmm.

[01:19:36] tim: And the loss of our parents is in injustice to us. And so it is appropriate to get angry. You can get angry sometimes we get angry at the medical system because we medicalize life and death so much. We get angry at anyone, anything. And there's, there's degrees to it from fury to just [01:20:00] annoyance. And, and it's normal to feel that. It's natural to feel that. Don't feel guilty for feeling it. Feel it. Like really feel it. Let it out, let it rip. God can take it. And my thing is find healthy ways of expression. Um, take that out, that energy outta your body. Don't, don't pack it in. That's a woo as not a healthy, healthy energy to be trying to pack away somewhere in, in the tissues. And, and as Joe Polish has said before, uh, the issues are in your tissues. So, uh, you know, let it out or else it's gonna come back around sideways sometime later in some other way.

[01:20:38] tim: So if you're mad, get mad, like. I tell this story, uh, like on retreat, and you should see people, they're just like, holy shit, you swore at God. I was like, hell yeah. And they're like, whoa. You know, like, but in all honesty, like it's like, yeah, I'm a human having a human experience. What do I know? Like [01:21:00] I'm just, I'm no different than my son.

[01:21:01] tim: I'm just using English. He's just going, ah, but I have language to describe this, but my feelings are exactly the same. It's just misunderstanding of the moment. I don't understand. I'm mad. Make it better. Make it different. And so lean into that.

[01:21:17] ck: So let's start laying in the plane. If you, if you, if you don't mind one of the questions that comes to me, right. I don't really know. Let's say again, bring back my friends who lost their parents just now. I don't know what to say. There's nothing in my mind. There's nothing I could say that could ease their pain, their suffering in the, for the moment.

[01:21:41] ck: Right? And the best thing I could do is, I don't know what to say. Is there anything at all that I can be supportive? Is there anything that you need? And you know, if you want someone to listen, happy to listen anyways, but I'm

[01:21:57] tim: That was it.

[01:21:58] ck: you know, is there any.

[01:21:59] tim: That [01:22:00] was it. That was it. Like your friends need two types of people in their life right now. They need doers. They need people who can like help out with something. Can you do this for me? Yes, I'd love to. Uh, there's like right now in grief, their brains aren't working. They're not firing properly.

[01:22:20] tim: So certain things are hard and like a task and they just can't get to it. You could ease that burden by doing that thing for them. That would seem like effortless to you, and it would be so appreciated by them. So your friends need things done. They may not want to ask for it, but it's an expression of your love for them.

[01:22:37] tim: Now listen, this is how I, I wanna show my love. Let me bring you food. Let me do like, take something to the laundry. Let me schedule the repair guy for you. Let me do something. And then there's people who are good beers where, like you said, I can be here to listen if you need me, and, and you leave it at that.

[01:22:55] tim: And I'll tell you, I've had people where I've said, I'm here. [01:23:00] Feel free to vent, feel free to reach out. I'm a good listener. And they never reached out. But later on they came back to me and said, I just want you to know that I never took you up on it, but I never forgot it. And just knowing you were there made a difference. Wow. Cool.

[01:23:24] ck: Yeah. And man, I mean, the thing that's guarantee in life we're born, we're gonna die. You know, they're around those, around us. As beautiful as this life is, they're gonna be, they're, they were born, they're gonna be gone one day. We don't know when. And for me, this is my personal, uh, anytime somebody lost someone for me, it's just a reminder how brief this.

[01:23:51] ck: This life is, you blink three times, you're, you know, 50 and blink again. You're 80, you know,

[01:23:57] ck: if you're lucky. Right? So, [01:24:00] so how can we really like all the bullshit, all the little things, just like, kind of like your son, right? Like, oh, you know, I'm having a human moment. It's okay. But, you know, life is beautiful and, and do my best to, to really enjoy it, to treasure it.

[01:24:16] ck: 'cause this, you know, type of interaction is, is beautiful. And thank you so much for, for being here and, and sharing your expertise, your journey, your wisdom, your own noble warrior.

[01:24:29] tim: Thank you. Thanks for having me. This is a juicy and delicious conversation. These are the kind of conversations I live for. So thanks for creating this opportunity.

[01:24:39] ck: Yeah. And um, for those that are interested, definitely go to heal

[01:24:46] tim: Heal my grief retreat.com.

[01:24:48] ck: com.

[01:24:49] tim: Yep.

[01:24:50] ck: Yeah. So any last words?

[01:24:52] tim: yeah, I would just say to anybody who's like, considering it or like interested in that on heal my grief retreat.com, there [01:25:00] is a button where you can just schedule a call with me. I'm happy to support you in whatever stage you're in, whether it's, you're not sure how to help somebody else or you what you're going through, I'm happy to hop on a call with you.

[01:25:12] tim: That's my gift. Um, so anybody who uh, goes to there, you can see there's a button that just says, book a call. Listen, I'm, I'm here for you. So feel free to do that. Heal my grief retreat.com.

[01:25:25] ck: Amazing. Well, Tim, you're the real deal. Thanks so much once again.

[01:25:29] tim: Thanks ck.