You may create moments that are uncomfortable for others when you speak of the dead. The air may leave the room for a moment when as they freeze with fear and awkwardness. Their emotional uncertainty is not your work. - Dr. Sherry Walling

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Wellness + Wisdom Episode 515

Dr. Sherry Walling, a psychologist, author, and founder of the ZenFounder podcast, joins Josh Trent on the Wellness + Wisdom Podcast to talk about the lessons she learned from her own grieving process and what you can do to cope with the loss of your loved one.

Do you know how to cope with your own grief or the grief of others?

Join Dr. Sherry Walling and Josh Trent as they discuss the stages of grief, how to cope with the death of a loved one, why we shouldn't identify with our emotions, and what it means to time travel for our mental health.

 

Listen To Episode 515 As Dr. Sherry Walling Uncovers: [1:30] Knowing God

• Touching Two Worlds by Dr. Sherry Walling
• Why Dr. Sherry is now placing more importance on the here and now.
• The reason Josh was angry at God when he was younger and how he realized he didn’t truly know God.
• Uncovering why our anger implies hurt or needs that are unmet.
• Why for Dr. Sherry anger towards God means that there’s a longing for a return to spirituality and understanding of what God is.
• Anger is more powerful than despair.
• The Map of Consciousness Explained: A Proven Energy Scale to Actualize Your Ultimate Potential by David R. Hawkins

 

[10:00] The Stages Of Loss

• How anger expresses that something inside of us needs to change and why it’s a parallel to passionate desire.
• Jordan Peterson
• Why energy can’t be created or destroyed, only transmuted.
• On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
• How the grief when we are dying is different from the grief that we feel when someone we love is dying.
• Why grief is not only sadness but also anger and other dynamic experiences.
• Non-linearity of grief: Why we can’t follow a step-by-step path.

 

[14:05] Losing A Loved One + How To Cope With The Discomfort Around Death

• Putting her knowledge as a trauma psychologist into practice when her dad passed and her brother committed suicide.
• How she got to understand that deep grief is universal and that no amount of training could make her exempt from the pain.
• The reason why we feel void when we lose a loved one.
• Why her patients and clients see her in a different way after reading her book.
• How her book has parts that are written about her for her and other parts that are written for others.
• Sharing your experience with others doesn’t mean you’re healed but it means that you’re no longer bleeding.
• Why it’s ok to let it be painful and uncomfortable for some time when someone’s loved one dies.
• The importance of not skipping through the pain moment to the silver lining.
• Why the emotional quality of conversations about death should feel uncomfortable for a while.
• Transitioning to the celebration of the deceased person’s life without alleviating the pain.

 

[22:42] We Are Not What We Feel

• How birth and death go to the depths of what it is to be human and to love.
• The ways in which Dr. Sherry found a resemblance between death and birth when she was taking care of her dad.
• How not being close to birth and death makes us uncomfortable and scared of these experiences.
• Identifying with our emotions: Why we’re not what we feel according to Josh.
• Why emotions can feel like statements.
• What happens when we get stuck in emotions or attach to a story.
• The power of softness, flexibility, and allowing ourselves to feel our feelings without attachment.
• 483 Wayland Myers | NonViolent Communication: How to Stop Arguments In 60 Seconds + The Power of Loving Detachment
• Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships by Marshall Rosenberg
• A healthy way to detach ourselves from our feelings instead of identifying with them.
• Why language is essential when it comes to our emotions.
• How two opposed emotions can exist at the same time.

 

[29:40] Listening To Your Body + How To Choose Your Therapist

• Listening to the spaces in our body that get triggered with curiosity.
• Transference: The client redirects their emotions about one person onto their therapist.
• Countertransference: The therapist projects their emotions onto the client.
• How we hold imprints of the people in our lives in our bodies.
• Why Dr. Sherry believes that a dysregulation is a helpful tool when we listen to it.
• Her own experience with countertransference.
• What behaviors we should look for within therapists and why it’s important to observe our feelings toward them.
• The quickest way to spot the emotions that we have around our therapist.
• The importance of money and time containers in therapy.
• How some therapists can get a secondary gain from the sessions.

 

[39:50] The Privilege Of Witnessing Death And Birth

• Josh explains why living well and dying well matter to him.
• The duality of moving between the world of the dead and the world of raising children and being in love.
• Why she feels privileged and empowered by being able to shift between the two worlds.
• The death process inside of us when we become parents.
• Why Dr. Sherry thinks we don’t exist as an autonomous mechanism.
• The beauty of dyeing she saw when her dad was dying.
• Why she supports the raw version of her that wrote the book three years ago.
• How she holds space for her dad and brother during moments of grief.

 

[48:10] Time Traveling For Mental Health

• How psychedelics help us with our grief by transcending the physical body.
• Dr. Sherry’s experience with MDMA and how it added another layer to the memory of herself as her father’s daughter.
• 481 Scott Jackson | Rewire Yourself: How To Create A Life You Love With Freedom From Subconscious Sabotage
• Why timelines are a big part of trauma and psychedelic-supported therapy.
• Traveling in time for our mental health: Revisiting the past, being fully present in the moment, and setting the future self up for success.
• The importance of finding and remembering early memories of joy.
• Joe Dispenza
• What hope means to Dr. Sherry and why it’s a relationship with our future selves.
• Why gratitude is the opposite of resentment.
• How suicide can teach us about the meaning of life.
• Why play and challenging activities are important to Dr. Sherry.
• Zen Founder Podcast

 

Power Quotes From The Show Having Uncomfortable Conversations

"If I tell you a painful story and suddenly rush to all that I learned about it and all the reasons it’s ok now, I skip through the painful moment. The emotional quality of the conversation becomes relief instead of discomfort. It’s ok to let it be uncomfortable for a while and let people hold that space." - Dr. Sherry Walling

 

Birth And Death

"Birth and death are edge states. They are moments in our lives that don’t happen very much but they get to the depths of what it is to be human, to be in love, and to show up for people in their most vulnerable moments." - Dr. Sherry Walling

 

The Challenge Of Middle Adulthood

"There’s a duality between the world of aliveness and the world of the dead. Many of us will at times in our lives be called to move back and forth between those energies, that’s the challenge of middle adulthood. You’re in support and in connection to parents and elders who are further along the journey of death, and young ones who are just beginning life. You’re a bridge between the world of becoming and the world of ending." - Dr. Sherry Walling

 

Links From Today's Show 

• Touching Two Worlds by Dr. Sherry Walling
• The Map of Consciousness Explained: A Proven Energy Scale to Actualize Your Ultimate Potential by David R. Hawkins
• Jordan Peterson
• On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
• Detachment
• Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships by Marshall Rosenberg
• 481 Scott Jackson | Rewire Yourself: How To Create A Life You Love With Freedom From Subconscious Sabotage
• Joe Dispenza
• Zen Founder Podcast
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• Dr. Sherry Walling
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About Dr. Sherry Walling

Dr. Sherry Walling is a clinical psychologist, author, podcaster, and advocate for mental health. Her podcast, ZenFounder, assists entrepreneurs and leaders in navigating transition, growth, loss, and other complex human experiences.

Touching Two Worlds, her new book, is a poetic, incisive exploration of grief and joy in the aftermath of loss. The Entrepreneur's Guide to Keeping Your Shit Together, her best-selling book, combines the insight and warmth of a therapist with the truth-telling mirth of someone who has been there.

Sherry and her husband, Rob, live in Minneapolis and spend their days driving their kids to music lessons. She has also been seen performing as a circus aerialist on occasion.