In this August 2025 Month in Review, we revisit three powerful conversations that dig deep into the human experience. First, we look at the raw reality of loss in Grief Sucks (Ep322), exploring how grief shapes daily life, the concept of “pre-grieving,” and practices like routine, rituals, and self-care that help us carry the weight of loss. Next, in How to Handle Life’s Transitions (Ep323), we unpack William Bridges’ three-phase model of change while reflecting on the challenges of letting go, living in the “neutral zone,” and embracing new beginnings—like when kids head off to college. Finally, The Challenge of Acceptance (Ep324) examines what it really means to accept reality, breaking down myths about resignation and highlighting tools like mindfulness, journaling, and language shifts to help us grow stronger in both our inner lives and relationships.
Tune in to see August 2025 Month in Review Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Links referenced during the show:
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/monthinreview
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
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https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
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Episode #325 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Right. We are alive and we just jumped into the regular. If you used to catch us on the YouTube lives on Thursdays, we’ve just started the, the recording that you’ll hear on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and all of that. So this is the August month in review. Where are we at? 28th, right? August the 28th already.
And we have you again, sir. Yes, sir. Mr. Kyle King is hanging out with us. We have made the announcement that we’ve lost Adam. He has moved on and transitioned and we’ve transitioned in a new co-host month in review Guy, Mr. Kyle King. Welcome, sir. Well,
Kyle King: thank you for having Yeah, man. I really enjoy this.
Chris Gazdik: You’re, you’re a, you’re a senior already though. Yeah, twice. And this is, this is not a start. He was on the episode. What was the title of that, Neil?
Neil Robinson: So with Fraud. Fraud.
Kyle King: Fraud, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And mental health maybe something like that. Something like that.
Kyle King: Something randomized. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: He was here and he freaked us out about all the computer technology [00:01:00] crap that we have to do to protect ourselves.
And if you don’t do it, you get scammed for money. And what did you say? Billions of dollars industry, man. Oh yeah, it is very much so. It’s nuts. So this is through a therapist size where you get insights from a panel of therapists at home or in your car, knowing it’s not delivery of therapy services in any way.
As said, this is the month in review where we review kind of what we talked about and did in August. And it’s been an interesting month actually, because if you followed the show in the history you know that we have panel. Like I said, John, he comes to me and he says I need to talk to you.
Okay, John. He says I’m moving. I’m like, oh, okay. Moving to Florida also, I’m moving in two weeks. So we’ve had a major transition with Mr. Pope. Rest. Sure. He is gonna stay with us. He’s riding it out. So he’s gonna do virtual everything. So we then had Adam, so we’ve had a lot of show transitions.
Yeah. So this month in review was, is cool because we, we did a show [00:02:00] on grief and then we John moved literally, and Victoria and I did a show on managing Life Transitions. And John came back and was like a little bit of a reunion that was a little bit. Like weird in the beginning. I think Neil, right?
Neil Robinson: Well, because you guys hadn’t seen him in like a week or something and you guys, ’cause you guys see him every day in the office. So Yeah, it was, it was like a little reunion.
Chris Gazdik: I was a little bit giddy to hang out with John again, you know? And so we did a show on acceptance as a challenge.
Kyle King: Oh, so you’ve had it all around this month with everything.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. It was really themed out around like our little process right. With John and how rapidly it all was and kind of, you know, we peppered that all in. So, so this is a pretty cool month in review, I think because Kyle’s here also. By the way, so subscribe, click, look. We’d like to try to entertain you.
We wanna blow up stereotypes and myths. We wanna disseminate information about mental health. That’s our job. Your job is really truly to subscribe. It helps click the buttons, the likes and all [00:03:00] that kind of stuff. Particularly with ai. Maybe you could tell us how the algorithms work now. Oh gosh. I can’t tell you.
You guys are both techie guys over there.
Kyle King: Yeah. No, I can’t tell you how it works. I can just tell you the, the things that are happening with it. Yeah. You don’t wanna know
Chris Gazdik: five stars. John always wants contacted through a therapist. eyes.com. Look, this is the human emotional experience, which we do endeavor to figure out together.
Hey, we got somebody to welcome Neil. You wanna bang that out? I’m talking too much.
Neil Robinson: No, you need to ’cause I don’t have it on my notes. You can do it.
Chris Gazdik: I did add that a little late, didn’t I? Welcome to Lisa Denny. She has joined the through a therapist, Oz family, and she is in California. So a little, little claps for, for Ms.
Lisa. Welcome. So I forgot to ask you before we turned the mics on do we have a rabbit hole?
Kyle King: You know, I’ve had a couple different interesting things that come up this week and I’m sitting here thinking like, wow, how impactful that is. And it’s something you and I talked about at the restaurant the other night, and it got me thinking.
I was like, [00:04:00] hmm. I don’t wonder how many mu much pressure this really puts on people and stresses people out. What about indeed fantasy? That sounds like a legit rabbit
Chris Gazdik: hole. Neil, what about fantasy
Kyle King: football? Look, no, we’re not going to. I’m mad at you, Chris. I’m still mad at you. But we can talk about public tell the world can talk about fantasy football.
Go ahead. See and I, there’s no prompting. He didn’t tell me about it. No, go ahead Neil. So,
Neil Robinson: okay, so in the league that he does, no one does live drop, but like him and me, right? And he got his son to do it this year. So Chris said, well, he starts putting on this calendar. He is like, well, we’ll just do it Wednesday.
I said, well, let’s do it this time, but let’s do it next week instead of this week. He says, well, we’ll do it now because people are complaining ’cause they want to want their team now. Okay, well then I’m like, yeah, that’s fine. Well, I got distracted doing work. He said, what? I’m, I’m not fighting with your, the rest of your, your people that does it.
So I’m like, okay, that’s fine. Well, I miss it. He calls me a couple times. I’m on the phone. I’m like, well, he’s probably asking about the show [00:05:00] tomorrow, blah, blah. And then I get the email like, your Yahoo team’s been drafted. Oh,
Chris Gazdik: I’m like so mad. So I’m so it’s, I feel so bad too. Honestly,
Neil Robinson: I wouldn’t care, but when it’s only like two out of the 10 people cared to live draft and I was 50% of the person.
Chris Gazdik: Right.
Neil Robinson: It’s kinda like, but yeah, fantasy football is kind of crazy, right? It is.
Chris Gazdik: So let me set this up. Adam started this with down the rabbit hole with Adam on the month in reviews and we’ve kind of enjoyed it. It’s a fun little segment that we do off the get go where Adam would bring in some sort of crazy random thing and that’s just the way his brain works.
He loved it, it fit in perfectly and I was wondering if we will continue this. Oh yeah. And Kyle is gracious to, to, to continue the, through a therapist eyes month in review tradition of going down the rabbit hole. Hopefully it has something to do with mental health and whatnot. We try to frame it that way.
But these are news stories. These are events. These are things that are in the world that you happen to see and just mm-hmm. Go down a rabbit hole with. And we get to talk about, you know, for briefly and see what, from a mental health perspective, it really means. [00:06:00] Yeah. Now you can’t do anything with Trump.
No,
Kyle King: no,
Chris Gazdik: no, no, no, no, no. Just kidding. That would be fun. Yeah,
Kyle King: no, no, it, it’s an interesting subject. ’cause I actually looked at, at it and it’s like, have there been studies on mental health and fantasy football? And there actually has, I’m like, okay, wow. I’m, I’m excited. Yeah. And it’s, it’s talking about the stress and the anxiety and how veteran players are less stressed and, and anxious and less experienced players.
They’re more stressed, more anxious. And especially when you throw, you know, money into the mix, or I guess, you know, the, punishment if you were the biggest loser of the fantasy football team, I gotta jump in. I’m
Chris Gazdik: bursting. I gotta say, where would I fit into this thing? As you set this up, being the two time in a row, champion.
Well see, you are a veteran player, right?
Kyle King: Yeah. So you’re, you, you have no stress, no anxiety, right?
Chris Gazdik: My son beat me last year, so no, I’m, I’m starting over.
Kyle King: But it’s kind of cool. It’s kind of cool to read about it. And then I read about the benefits of it and it’s like, oh, well your social aspects, the cognitive aspects.
And I was like, wow, that’s kind of interesting to [00:07:00] think about. It’s like you never really put that together. It’s like, yeah, you’re getting out there, you’re interacting and you are happy. Right? Endorphins. It creates all those happy thoughts and stuff like that, but also can create that negative thoughts.
And you’re sitting there watching your team every Sunday, or you’re, you’re stressing over who the poh, who do I put in? Who do I take out?
Chris Gazdik: It has potential of ruining a football game.
Kyle King: It really could. Right. And then you see, you know, like Adam Thelan getting traded to the Vikings from the Panthers just yesterday.
Boy, now that’s gonna mess up teams. Right? I didn’t know that. Yeah. So it was all kinds of stuff. There’s
Chris Gazdik: a lot there. You know, I’ll tell you interestingly enough, where my brain goes, you know, okay, this is not, let me be a very clear addiction, right. People, people get into online gaming addictions and that is a real thing.
So we talk about addiction on the show. We have gambling, addiction, eating addictions. Mm-hmm. Sexual addictions. And actually the World Health Organization represents the who online video gaming. Mm-hmm. Addictions is a real thing. People will spend 16 hours in a 24 hour period doing this. Okay.
But [00:08:00] this is not that. I wanna make that clear with social media and and whatnot. However, it is fascinating to think of what you’re talking about in this way when obviously fantasy football’s not a video game, but I’m a gamer. I like games. Mm-hmm. I play video games and I have been shocked. I spent 10 years not playing video games when I was like Mr.
Dad and doing everything Dad. And I got back into it and, you know, do you play video games? Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, and Neil, I know you do too, right? Not, not
Neil Robinson: the same ones.
Chris Gazdik: Huh
Neil Robinson: I play differently. I play Gotcha. Games and stuff. I don’t do the actual first person games or those different things. What is the
Chris Gazdik: gotcha game?
What does he mean?
Neil Robinson: You, you can look it up. It’s you basically. Yeah. Your Star Wars games is actually a got gotcha game. Oh, okay. So it’s like that I play those kind of games. I don’t do like build up your gear and mm-hmm. Right. I don’t do the Assassin, creed, call of Duty, those types of things. I don’t do those first person shooters or those types of games.
Chris Gazdik: That’s probably good. I, I’ll tell you why. Because you know, for you, if you don’t know video [00:09:00] games, you, there’s, there’s what’s called campaigns. Mm-hmm. You play the game, you kind of go, that’s typically what I do. Yeah. And, and that’s fine and that’s good, but you get to the end of the campaign, you’re done with the game.
Kyle King: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Dude. I found this thing called StarCraft, and I played StarCraft forever. Years, years. I went on and on and on with this and I’m like, what is going on with this? And I realized what is fundamentally different is when you are gaming with another human being, you are in another level of endorphin and intensity and grab you.
And that’s where the addiction stuff does lie in, because you are competitive and you’re right, you’re literally against somebody. So yeah, man, you’re absolutely on point. When I play my brother in fantasy football, that’s a different week.
Kyle King: Yeah, it is.
Chris Gazdik: So there’s a lot here.
Kyle King: Yeah. That’s a whole conversation you could have.
It is.
Chris Gazdik: So go ahead. Oh, I thought you had a thought. So, so what kind of studies [00:10:00] did you see on this? What, where did you. What did you get
Kyle King: from that? What was it? Queen, was it Queen Mary over there? I think it was in British. I think it was some, some journal over there that I was reading about it. And but yeah, I was reading through the, some of the, the abstracts and some of the summaries of it.
And it was really interesting, you know, some of the things that came out of it, it was just how many people they studied. I think it was like 600 and. 30 some people that they studied and the different interactions, you know, from beginner to expert, you know, the levels of stress that it created. You know, having to maintain all those teams.
Because you also gotta think, you know, back to the cognitive aspect, it’s like you’re doing so much analytics with the mind.
Chris Gazdik: Oh yeah.
Kyle King: I mean, look, if you care, right? If you care, if
Chris Gazdik: you care, there are some, otherwise you could do the auto
Kyle King: right. Everybody could do the auto and be happy, but you know, really what I’m so sorry.
We wanna do, I’m so sorry
Chris Gazdik: I couldn’t resist it, man.
Kyle King: But yeah, that’s the thing. That’s kind of the things they, we were talking about. And but it does create, it can create [00:11:00] stress, it can create anxiety just because you are, you know, doing something that you, that competitive edge, you want to win. Oh yeah, you wanna beat that veteran person.
Even as a newcomer, you want to beat that veteran. You wanna be in the top two, top three, whatever Neil has said, his whole purpose was that I not win.
Chris Gazdik: Do I recall that correctly?
Neil Robinson: That’s always my purpose is I always try to win in anything I do. So, but yeah, if you lose, that’s better. Yes. So, but no, and I think the interesting part about when you look at is like, I think about when I started fantasy football back in junior year in high school, right?
I’ve been playing for God 25 plus years now. When Yahoo. Yahoo was, i’m thinking like those first few years you just don’t like it’s you auto draft early, you learn. I drafted Kurt Warner and I blew away the league that year ’cause Kurt Warner came outta nowhere and that was like the best draft, like everything.
But then you know, you get, go through your motions of being like, oh, it’s easy. You get your routines. And then I started doing live drafting, right. It just upped the anxiety for that first little bit, right? So it’s always fun as you do this, as you either [00:12:00] get more teams or you go within new group or you do, like, there’s always that thing you can do to make it more exciting again, right?
Right. And so that’s what’s fun about it, right? You can do those things and then you get in your roles, I got my systems, I know how to pick my players. I know how to do that if people let me pick my players. Those types of things. So fair. But no, I think fantasy, I, I think one year I did all three major sports and like, so it was just a whole 20, like a whole year of fantasy for me.
And I was like, okay, this was a little bit too much.
Chris Gazdik: Right?
Neil Robinson: So, and that’s the risk, right? You get where you get 10 teams, you do different sports, and I think the addiction problems, when you start getting to the money side or you go into the, you know, the fanduels and all those ones, you start betting on everything
Chris Gazdik: endless.
Neil Robinson: So, so there’s that difference, right? A very concern
Chris Gazdik: on the online betting platforms. Oh yeah. I mean, it is, it’s just. It’s terrible,
Neil Robinson: but, but yeah, I think, I think fantasy football’s great. I think it can be very stressful, but I think it also be very fulfilling. Very fun. It is. Especially if you have some good, good group that you, you’re in a league with so
Kyle King: Well, and it’s also good because you, you know, like my group, we text constantly and we text, [00:13:00] you know, it’s friendly banter back and forth.
It’s like, your team sucks. Your team sucks. You know, it, it is like, my gosh, how in the world did that person get 170 points? I know I got beat by that by one person getting so many points one year and, but those are the kinds of friendly things that we can, it’s that comradery that we are building with, with our friends.
It’s absolutely community and it’s, it’s great. It’s
Chris Gazdik: fun. Absolutely. A community. And, you know, I think I could do something from a mental health perspectives with, with this as well, you know, sharing. Like, you’re right. You, you know, I was listening to you, Neil. It’s like the live draft is different. I, I literally have, and I can use the word anxiety with it, I mm-hmm.
I recall like, you know, getting home, like I was stressed for time and I was like, oh my gosh. You know, then I was worried about Neil. So honestly I was like, I gotta make sure that’s good, you know, and I, and I wanted to get, you know, people on the phone and, you know, ended up, I mean, it’s fine, but it’s just, there’s energy to it.
Yeah. There’s that anxious energy from a mental health perspective. I wanna, we can normalize that.
Kyle King: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Like people hear that word and they’re like, oh my god, Chris has anxiety. No, no, no. [00:14:00] It’s an anxiety reality that is normal and it’s something that we all experience pretty universally tied to different things, albeit, but yeah.
Fantasy football and could be. Nerve wracking.
Kyle King: It can, it can,
Chris Gazdik: you know. So that’s my rabbit hole. Well done, well done, sir. I think Adam will be proud. Adam. We love you buddy. Shout out to you. He’s probably listening.
Kyle King: I got some big shoes to fill, sir. You know, you you,
Chris Gazdik: you’re gonna do fine if you bring, if you bring football, man, you’re good.
You know, there is literally a South Florida football game on right now. Yeah. College football tonight I know is exploding. I know. Ha. The long wait is finally over and we got what?
Kyle King: LSU and Clemson this weekend. That’s gonna be an exciting match. All right. We’ve totally lost all the people. Doesn’t Ohio State play Texas too?
I think you’re right. Yep. That’ll be a good game at Ohio State, I think. I think so. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. It’s gonna be a good weekend, but we’ve lost all the non-football people, so let’s bring it back to grief sucks. Episode 3 22. I mean, that is so true. Just simply said. Right. [00:15:00] The three questions that we did is what loss are you still grieving and how does it affect your daily life?
’cause people don’t realize it is like with you. Secondly, how do you feel when others say things like, at least, or, you know, time heals all wounds. Oh, Victoria, and I hate that one. It’s like, ugh. And then what small act of self-care can help you today amidst grief. So what do you think about grieving? What do you think about the show?
It was weird, Neil, because we were like literally like, I mean, we’re okay, but like John’s leaving us, we’re talking about it.
Neil Robinson: Yeah. And that was, that was one of the funny things about this month is because you did. Play it very well with the transitions in your like Yeah. It’s almost like you planned it.
It was such a good job. You, you got John to move to Florida at the right time and then you planned the shows, right. It was great. But no, it was, ’cause I am looking at the notes you talked about like pre grieving, right? That stuff with John, you know, John’s leaving or you know, we’re dealing with that with my [00:16:00] family right now.
’cause my wife, her aunt has cancer. Boy, how she’s still alive. I don’t know. ’cause I mean it’s really bad. And as by the time she finally gotta the doctor, they’re looking like, well we just can’t do anything about it. But that’s been like four, six months. It’s like we’re just waiting to see, but she’s slow.
Every time we go see her, it’s always gonna worse. And so we’ve kind of been able to. Pre grieve, but you can’t really fully do that until it actually happens. I don’t think so. It’s, life is really hard in those things. But yeah, I think with John Levy, knowing that he’s not in here with you, like I said, once again, there’s a difference between me on my weekly show and then you and Victoria who sees him every day, every day, every day.
And now it comes in. Now the office is probably a little less, oh my God, it’s so
Chris Gazdik: weird to have the light on in the office. I had a student, usually the office, it’s like he has these soft lighting stuff, soft lamps, and it was like, oh my God, it’s bright in there. That’s not normal. It’s not okay. You know, where’s John?
Anyway, you know, the pre grieving thing, I wanna comment a little bit about that because it’s, [00:17:00] this is a different, I, I haven’t really thought a lot about or worked a lot with that, because you’re right, where traditionally I’ve taken the stance or, you know, we kind of know that your frontal cortex is in the front of your brain and that little nugget.
If you can see on the camera, like this is your brain, that little nugget on the top of the brainstem is the emotion center. Two totally different elements of how the brain works. And they have different, totally different processes. They communicate, talk together. But you have pre grieving it is a thing.
But I’ve always said that you cannot grieve until the actual losses happened. And I’ve always used the example of my dog getting older. I love Magnum, you know, and I always thought like, what’s it gonna be like when he dies? Will I cry? We’ll be upset. Will you get a new dog? What will that be like? You know, you can wonder about that.
Mm-hmm. But I, it was as though I had no idea my dog was about to die when we had to put him down. It, it was the, the, the emotions kicked [00:18:00] in. It was brand new. Never knew this was gonna happen. And I was just like, it was, I was horrible that I will never forget that ride to the, to the vet that day. So the thing is, is though this pre grieving and.
There’s, I, I don’t know that there’s a lot out about it. I’d be curious to kinda, you know, see if it’s really been, if it’s much of a thing. ’cause I’ve never really, I
Kyle King: don’t, I don’t know if you think about it.
Chris Gazdik: Well, I’ve never seen a conference on it. I’ve never really had any study on it. I’ve never had any kind of readings that I’ve seen.
I, it is just in my travels through mental health. It’s a non-issue. It’s a non thing. And I defaulted to the position I just kind of went with. But yeah, I’ll tell you for example, you know, now that this is, this is out to the world or whatever, you know, my ex was telling me that she was done with the marriage and whatever, and who’s at the house we’re six months.
Like, ah, that was a long time. Right. And that’s what I was thinking about when you were talking about with your, your aunt you know, you [00:19:00] know this is gonna happen, is that grieving. It’s a, it’s a new concept for me, sort of.
Neil Robinson: Well, well, and like I said, looking, I’m looking at the timeline. Like when we found out or she finally, ’cause we had a thought process.
Like she’s like, had this lump, blah, blah, blah. And like, you need to go get that looked at finally, like, so when they, when they came back from the doctors and she’s like, yes, I have cancer. It’s really bad, blah, blah, blah. Which like, well yeah, we knew there’s that initial shock, right? So you almost start grieving.
’cause you know that’s the start of
Chris Gazdik: that your emotion center started.
Neil Robinson: Right. And ’cause I know, I know what it was like at the house. I know it was like with my wife, you know, ’cause her aunt, it was basically like a second mom. She lived with her as a teenager. She spent a lot of time, she’s been a part of their life.
You know, it’s, it’s a big thing. This is gonna suck for everyone. Mm-hmm. I joke that she’s my favorite of that side of the family and she kinda is, but it’s just, you can prepare for it. But just like the dog. ’cause we had to put our dog down like two years ago. You see the signs, you wash them, [00:20:00] deteriorate, you wash those things.
And then, but still, when we had to put Kip down, the whole family just, it just sucked to life at you. Now granted, once again, if we came home and he was just dead at an out of the blue, it’d be different. Right? Same thing if you get, they get hit by a car. If you’re, you know, our neighbor down the road, like we hadn’t seen him in a while.
Finally we talked to the neighbor like, oh yeah, he got diagnosed with cancer 30 days later he was dead.
Chris Gazdik: Hmm.
Neil Robinson: And it’s like, it’s such a weird thing and it’s like you just don’t know. So there’s always that difference, right? When you get the opportunity to pre grieve, I feel like it has to help a little bit.
At least something if you act, if you actually preg grieve, if you actually process it and try to understand it, or at least get closure in the piece, I think it does help. But. Not gonna, it’s not gonna heal you, right. You practice you football, they practice, practice best. They go through their drills.
Until you’re out there at the game, you’re not gonna really know what it’s really like. It’s that same thing, right? Different. So I do think pre grieving is important. And I think [00:21:00] that’s interesting because I think our society likes to avoid, avoid things.
Kyle King: Well, and I’ll throw a perspective in here. So my brother passed away 25 years ago now.
Cancer at the age of 14. Oh my gosh. So that sucks. Never would’ve called it pre grieving, but we knew the time was coming. So I got the opportunity to sit with him and have a meaningful conversation with him before it happened. Wow. And I’m so thankful that I did, because I remember that conversation still, and you know, but, you know, hearing, hearing the pre grieving, you know.
Does that help? Did it help, you know, when that time actually came? I don’t know because my focus was on my parents.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I don’t think it does. Trying to help
Kyle King: them through.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I don’t think it does. And and that’s a really wonderful example. Thank you for sharing that. Because you know, I think there’s different tasks.
Mm-hmm. [00:22:00] Like if you think of the word grieving, and the reason why grief sucks is because, and we talked about this on this episode 3 22 in depth, you are experiencing all of the things that are depression oriented. Yeah. Right? And we listed all those things. They’re kissing cousins, like grief experience is a whole lot like depression.
When somebody has it. And so that’s what you’re dealing with. We almost need a different word, I feel like, than pre grieving, because grieving really is dealing with, I don’t have an appetite and the interesting things aren’t interesting. I can’t freaking sleep well. I am irritable. I, my sex drive just dropped.
I, these are the depression experiences, and grieving by definition is dealing with that. And you just can’t have that before an event.
Neil Robinson: But,
Chris Gazdik: so yeah,
Neil Robinson: I’m gonna go back to the statement. Knowing what happened with my wife and her mom, once they found out her, their aunt had ca, you know, Joyce had cancer and it got serious and it, they went through very [00:23:00] similar things as what you just stated.
My wife went through loss of appetite, she went through good sleep, she went through, and like I said, it wasn’t even, well, once again, Joyce is still here, but the finality hits, right? So they are able to process it some with the idea, knowing that this is coming down the road because there’s a finality here.
Chris Gazdik: Two different things though, you know what that means to me is two different Grievings events and, and we have so many, like Victoria and I really made that point. Clear. I mean, you, you know, with all the different examples, I grieved when I left West Virginia, I grieved when my kids left home, I grieved I’m grieving as I’m turning 50, I’m like, God, you’re
Neil Robinson: old.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. You, you lose stuff. And, and that, so honestly, it’s not pre grieving. I’m, I’m changing my view with that as we speak. It’s grieving the event of finding out this terrible news. You’ll also then grieve when presumably if she dies. Those are just two different grieving events. That’s all it is.
Kyle King: No, I would agree.
Honestly, I think that’s a good perspective because, I [00:24:00] mean, honestly, after my brother, my focus was on my parents and to get them through things to help them not get into that real bad state of depression. Mm-hmm. And it was probably two weeks before I actually sat down and everything just came flooding in.
Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It took, yeah, it took that long.
Chris Gazdik: And flooding is a, the absolute. Total word. Yeah. So let’s, let’s move a little bit with you know, do, do you remember the handout Neil, that we talked about with you know, the different process, the tasks of grieving rather than everyone talks about?
You know, have you ever heard of the, the five stages of grief? I’m sure Kyle, right? Oh, sure. Sure. Right. Yeah. Do you remember much that was on the handout? I’m curious what you think about the tasks rather than the five stages.
Neil Robinson: I don’t think I saw the handout.
Chris Gazdik: I didn’t bring it out. That’s a reminder to me.
So
Neil Robinson: then how, how would I have seen if you out, ’cause we talked about
Chris Gazdik: it. I think, I’m hoping we didn’t fail to do that, to be honest
Neil Robinson: with you. You probably did. I probably got distracted when you guys were talking about it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:25:00] That’s possible. I don’t, I don’t know. Do you remember the tasks? I guess I’m wondering, I can’t remember off the top of my head.
I didn’t, I’m seriously wondering if I totally failed. I, I really hope I didn’t because this was transformational in a conference that I went to years ago. It was actually a conference for, chronic relapsing addicts, and they specialized in this, and their training was about this. And basically the whole training was a different process of grieving.
So I don’t even think about Elizabeth Goler Ross’s five stages anymore. To me that’s so inadequate because these guys listed down tasks that you do when you’re going through the process of dealing with all the things that you feel post a loss. And so I’m not gonna go all the way through it. But you, you do tasks like one, you identify the loss, but you know, it’s not just that, you know, Magnum, my dog died, it’s Magnum, my dog died and he’s not gonna be around here in the future when, you know, my second son is born.
My, [00:26:00] my young son’s not gonna meet the all the dog. All the different things that are also associated to that right? Need to be identified. And then you identify the meaning of the law. Different things mean different things to you. And if you don’t identify that, so that’s a task that you have to do, right?
Celebrate the beauty of the bond before the loss, they highlighted. That’s a task. You’re, you know, we did, we now call it celebration of life, right? So you’re, you’re, and this was way before we did celebrations of life, honestly, you’re, you’re really celebrating the relationship that you had. You know, I celebrate the relationship with, with West Virginia.
I’m a big mountaineer fan and a guy, I love the state, right? And so, and then you have rituals carry it out with people, right? Present. Those are the big highlights of the tasks that you’re due, grieving. And in therapy, I will take each one of those tasks and walk through the process where I give, you know, give a piece of paper to each one of those tasks, and you just jot your work and you work through, and it’s like, it’s so much better than like, oh yes, you get [00:27:00] angry and then you get depressed, and then you go bargaining, and then you, you know, you go through the stages.
There’s things that we need to actually do. So I just think that’s a really different way of looking at. The grieving process.
Kyle King: No, it’s good. It’s almost like journaling kind of.
Chris Gazdik: Oh,
Kyle King: yeah. Yeah.
Neil Robinson: But, and I think the, the important part is you’re helping people, you’re guiding people through this thing. ’cause it, you know, I think the, my biggest role journal journaling is you just gimme a blank piece of paper.
I don’t, I’m not a journaler. So that’s one of things that just takes time. And I wanna, I think I’m gonna try to start doing that over the next little bit. I’m gonna try to challenge myself to journal some, but I think the fact that you can guide your patients through like, okay, what, like I said, I’m thinking about what you said, you know, I’m thinking about an addict who has their triggers to get them back to addiction.
Well, what are the triggers that help that? Sponge your emotional episodes when you’re grieving, right? We think about our dog, you know, we still, my wife will be like, expect the dog by the couch. ’cause that’s where he laid and you kind of forget about it, right?
Chris Gazdik: Oh yeah. And so
Neil Robinson: you think about those triggers and so helping people understand those things and then help them work through and [00:28:00] process it.
Because we’ve talked about many times, if you want to, if you want to go through something, you have to retell it. You have to live it again. So it becomes less of a stress going back to fantasy football. Perfect. The more you do fantasy football, the less anxiety you have. Right. The more you go through your grieving, you process it over and over again.
And if you can help guide them through that, we’re in a safe space where they can write it down and kind of see what they’re doing. It’s really, really powerful. And I think once again, as you write down, it allows you to feel those emotions in a controlled state. Right. That’s a And is that not
Chris Gazdik: okay?
Kyle King: Absolutely. But I mean, going back to your people don’t do it. They don’t want, your example is leaving West Virginia. You know, think about all the things, the good things, and you had to grieve because you lose losing some of those things. Right. But now you remember the, how happy you were doing those things.
Mm-hmm. And that’s what I think, that’s part of it. How
Chris Gazdik: these folks down here have a little bit of a different culture. I’ll tell you that. It’s a, it’s a very different cultural reality and it’s beautiful. It’s cool. Right. You know, but but I definitely miss that. I mean, when I get into the state, man.[00:29:00]
It’s, it’s my people, you know? It’s that, it’s, it’s home. It’s, it’s, it’s very well, they’re mostly your family, so, ah, sorry. Alright. At least, at least the old co-host, Craig Graves isn’t here to tell the toothbrush joke. Oh. He would tell a West Virginia joke was the same dag of joke every time. It’s the only one the kid knew.
Why is toothbrush? We know it wasn’t invented in West Virginia because otherwise it would be called tooth, whatever. Good Lord. Thanks for that, Neil. Appreciate it. All right. What do we do to cope? What do we do to maintain, I mean, you know, just spitballing it. How, how do you guys, you know, recall the many grieving experiences that you had?
I mean, answering the question, what loss are you still grieving? How does it affect your daily life? Like, you know, do, do we really realize that these things that we are grieving, like. Years later are still with us.
Kyle King: Oh yeah. I mean, you hear a song or something on the radio, right? It brings you, it takes you [00:30:00] back something that somebody says, or a memory or a picture or something that pops up on the screen on your, your laptop screen or whatever.
It takes you back. You, so you always remember. But I don’t know if it’s necessarily putting you back in the mindset of grieving, but maybe just remembering for me at least it can.
Chris Gazdik: And I wanna suggest that that is an opportunity that you want to take advantage of. You know, this phrase just popped in. I was listening to you and I was like, oh, that’s a cool phrase.
So I get to say it out loud where it, it, it act. What did you say? Un I, I created it unfreezes. Yeah. Instead of resurfaces, sometimes it’ll unfreeze what you’ve kind of frozen. Yeah. Compartmentalized. Suppressed or even repressed that, that’s a good, yeah, right. Good way to phrase it. To use fancy terms.
But it comes back with a fury and I think people oftentimes are very surprised and, and are fearful, terrified of that. Therefore, they’ll maybe see the, the trigger refreeze it real quick again,
Kyle King: like, you know, it’s just like how a [00:31:00] smell can take you back to Oh yeah. Can bring back, back a memory. Right. Oh yeah.
Those kinds of things.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. And people, I’m afraid will, will reconstitute their compartmentalization of it that just like that fast, like they don’t want to feel those things. But again, if you don’t, you’ll carry it for the rest of your life. Mm-hmm.
Neil Robinson: I think the important thing you mentioned in the last, this this show was you talk about the layers of grief and that if you don’t process.
If you don’t process the grief, the next thing you have another one. It just, it just compounds on itself. And so I think that’s what people don’t understand is when they go through those types of situations, when something happens traumatic to them, if you don’t at least partially address it or address it, then you have another thing And another thing, our, our lives are not, you know, are perfect.
We’re always gonna have something, we’re gonna be grieving. And if you don’t take the time to process each step, it’s gonna get so much harder every time because you have this buildup and this buildup. So like you said, the, our human nature is we freeze it, we shut it down and compartmentalize it. And then next thing that comes through, we’ve talked about like [00:32:00] the emotional closet, right?
You should keep shoving your stuff in there. If you don’t ever clean that closet out, it’s gonna become worse and worse. And so I think that was, that was so important. You mentioned on the show was that. The importance of dealing with previous grief. So the, the current grief or the next grief doesn’t overwhelm you and doesn’t freeze you, and it doesn’t put you in depression, it doesn’t lead you down.
Those major cons, major road problems.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. Bringing that back to the forefront. ‘Cause Kyle, I, I think it’s my term that I called it layering. You know, I think of it even as like numbers, you know? Mm-hmm. The very first grieving event you have, you might process it, deal with it, let go of it, accept it.
The whole month of review that we’re doing here, do all of those things. You know, you, you start out with a hundred percent and it first begins, you might do a lot and you get it down to like, I only have 20% of energy. So when I hear that smell, hear the smell. When I smell the smell or hear the sound that triggers me, I’m only feeling 20% of that energy.
’cause I’ve let go of the rest. Right. And that becomes 18. But the second loss, if you’ve kept it at, [00:33:00] like, I only touched base with it and I got 80% left, when now you’ve got a new grieving event plus that 80, when you do that 5, 7, 10 times. You got what, 80 plus, 70 plus 60 plus 40 plus 80 plus 60, like of all the previous things, and you just put your dog down
Kyle King: and at some point it’s gonna reach a breaking point.
Yes. That’s
Chris Gazdik: the
Kyle King: truth.
Chris Gazdik: And we see that. Mm-hmm. I mean, you know, that, that it, you know, I’ve, I’ve had people that are really, really distraught. Like, I got a couple people in therapy right now that like, you know, the divorce was, I, I, I, I want to say like 10 years ago, again, it’s, it’s even hard for me to fathom, but yeah, it was like it was yesterday and it’s, and it’s, it inconsolable experience with this pain mm-hmm.
Is, is what ultimately is, is happening. So we have a lot of grief to do grief work. So, yeah, Neil, good stuff. We need to wrap up and move to the other ones, I guess, but what, what do we do to cope? What do we do to manage you know, we got listed stuff, you know, [00:34:00] allowing yourself to feel, maintain the routines, kind of get back into you know, things that are, are normal even though they don’t feel normal.
I mean, there’s a lot that goes into that. It’s not time. Definitely check out three 22 to, to get that done. But there is one important thing that I wanna highlight that I’ve said for thousands of times. Enemy number one to depression is isolation. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, we’ve just said that grieving something is a kissing cousin part.
The West Virginia expression, Neil kissing cousin to depression is grieving. Right. So, might we really say, it’s kind of new for me. I’ve never really said it, but I’m gonna start saying enemy number one to grieving is also isolation. Mm-hmm. Right. Do not be wanna be alone when you’re going through this stuff?
No, it is, it, it’s exponentially harder, more painful lasts, longer takes. I mean, it’s just,
Kyle King: it’s vicious. And I’ve seen a [00:35:00] lot of people that will go through that grieving process and they have no one, and they go down that spiral of depression and it’s hard for them to get out and then they turn to other things.
Mm. And now you compound
Chris Gazdik: it, right? Sure. Drink, you know? Right. All the negative coping skills, you know, go get promiscuous buy stuff you can’t afford. Right. You know, just to cope. Yeah. Being alone with this stuff is very ill-advised. Now it’s okay to be solitude. It’s okay to be alone. I’m not saying avoid that at all costs.
’cause you need, you know, my brother, when my grandma died, he went off by himself. I wasn’t very happy about that. I was like, well, I want to be together. Like, where did you go? But. I also recognized, well, that’s what he needed to do. Mm-hmm. For his process. There’s no wrong or right. Be alone for sure, but be very aware, isolation’s different than being alone.
If we have two words for a reason. Right. So we don’t wanna isolate. We can be in solitude, but be very careful about that. Closing thoughts, comments, [00:36:00] episode 22, grief Sucks. Or we move on?
Neil Robinson: Move on.
Chris Gazdik: Two episode 3 23. How to Handle Life Transitions. Yeah. That was just Victoria and I and we were right in the middle of our own little thing.
So that was, I don’t know. That was that was a bit strange without John that day, Neil. It was, it was like, dude. So the three questions. What recent change, big or small, has left you feeling unsettled or uncertain? When faced with change? Do you tend to resist, adapt, or embrace it? Ugh. Well, how about that?
Then questions of why, and then thirdly, what support systems or coping strategies have you found most helpful during the transitions? Notice enemy number one to grieving is isolation. So what? Support systems, plural. Right? Right. How about transitions in life? How do we handle them? What do we do? How’d that show go?
Neil Robinson: Not that it went really well. And I think, I think the timing of it, not only with your show, but as we talked about in the thing, but like [00:37:00] it’s school time, right? There’s a lot of transitions in school times. You know, we had the issue last year because Mason went to college, first year at Western Carolina.
Mm-hmm. Last year. Mm-hmm. This year is a little bit different because we’ve been, oh, it’s, my wife went there for a year. She loved it. It’s, we’re going back. So I loved it
Kyle King: so much. I left it, I had to leave it because I partied too much. Yeah. Well that’s, I’ve never even beaten West Virginia in a football game.
Oh, wait, they don’t play football
Chris Gazdik: game from, anyway, sorry.
Neil Robinson: Yeah, but they have the best, best band in the mountains. They do.
Chris Gazdik: Only today because your kid’s in it. That’s, it’s, I’ll give you that one. I’m not going too far.
Neil Robinson: But no, that, that was a big thing. Right? So when we did the, when we did the show, that’s a big transition for a lot of families, right.
Whether it’s. Your first kid, your kid going into kindergarten, middle school, high school, moving out to college. You know, those are a lot of changes that happens because you get that person in your life. You’re not losing them, but you’re losing them. Right? So it’s a very hard transition that you have that a lot of families go through and it’s yeah, it was very good.[00:38:00]
It was very fitting, like I said, for the show with John leaving, which once again, it was weird having you two on the show. Knowing that John really wasn’t coming back. I know. As opposed to he’s just busy this week.
Chris Gazdik: I know, yes. It was so strange. But you know what’s interesting? I, I think you’re, you’re right.
I’m glad you said it that way because I, I’m, I’m sitting here trying to calculate out the timing of things and, you know, I honestly feel like I had this month lined up before I even knew about John. Like, ’cause I knew that it was, it was, it was school starting, kids going to college. And I usually try to think about like, what are, what’s good for us to be thinking about in the world?
Oh my gosh. And I forgot to do the current event. You know, what’s going on in the world is a lot of people are going through life transitions. Yeah. Yeah. Ugh. I don’t know much about it. I, I, I’ll just kind of. You know, we were well in and, and time’s always an issue for us. So I’ll just kind of give a mention.
You know what a horrible [00:39:00] set of events that we had up in was it Minneapolis, Minnesota? I forget the town. I don’t feel like it was Minneapolis.
Neil Robinson: I think it was up in Minnesota somewhere. It was definitely Minnesota.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. I, I feel like it was close to the big city. But anyway, yeah, another school shooting.
Another horrifying reality. You know, little kids praying in church, pews getting shot. It just, I don’t know. Wow. Oh, those parents just can’t imagine horrifying. Mm-hmm. You know, and talk about grieving and talking about loss. I mean, you know hopefully these shows in a small way can be helpful to people.
So please do share, please, if you know anybody in that area are affected, that I would love for them to be with us, that we could kind of walk through it together. Thus, the name of the show, right? The Human Emotional Experience, which we endeavor to figure out together. We, we need to come together. I mean, we say these after all these shoe school shootings or whatever, but this just seems like a little elevated by the nature of the events.
Just, you know what? We actually break new ground here. [00:40:00] Like, what are we doing? Right? So maybe just a mention to, to that, now that I’ve depressed us, Neil, what do we do? How do we proceed? Save me, the three phases of transition were kind of interesting that we talked about in episode 3 23. I, I hadn’t really come across it, but it was almost kind of akin to like the grief handout that I I use now.
He identified like these, this process of literally when you’re going through any of these types of life changes you, you start with ending, losing and letting go. This is, this thing is really, you know, it’s the grieving process. Mm-hmm. We just talked about that a little bit at length. So, you know, you have to deal with this transition by letting go.
And then secondly, you move into a whole different phase and they, he calls that the neutral zone. And it’s a period of ambiguity and confusion where you, the old has ended and, but the new hasn’t [00:41:00] really yet begun. I mean, you almost can think of that as per the pre grieving that we were talking about.
Mm-hmm. Is it, it’s a different phase. It’s a different stage. And I think that’s. You know in some ways I’m living that. And then three, the new beginning, right? The, the embracing new opportunities and ident identities, the, the new transition, you know, actually fully concludes. Yeah. So you got the end.
Yeah, you got the neutral and then you got like the beginning. And those are very distinctly different.
Kyle King: They are, and I think of, you know, to Neil’s point, all these parents are their kids who are at least my age, the parents are going losing their kids to college. And How old are your kids, if I may ask?
They’re way out, they’re way outside. So we got yeah, so they’re one getting ready to be 35, one’s 33. And then we got a 21-year-old. So Yeah, they’re outta the house. Yeah. The spread. But now I will tell you here, here’s what, you know, we found is now we’re empty nesters and a lot of our friends are going through that phase right now.
Oh yeah. And it’s, it’s kind of funny, get the new people that are in that phase,
Chris Gazdik: they’re
Kyle King: [00:42:00] devastated. They’re, you know, their routine’s messed up. They’re, they’re not gonna see ’em every day. They’re not at home, they’re not helping ’em with their homework, et cetera, et cetera. Right. They’re not going to football games.
But then, you know, so they’re crying, they’re upset. Yeah. They’re not gonna be there.
Chris Gazdik: And what are you
Kyle King: doing while
Chris Gazdik: they’re crying, Kyle?
Kyle King: And then it is, but then you start to see the transition. I got one friend. You know, miss the kids to death. Happy when they come home, but after so long of being at home, they’re like, okay, when’s school?
Start back?
Chris Gazdik: This is a good thing, buddy Ru.
Kyle King: But they also get into the point, like, what we’ve done is we started to travel a little bit more. Yeah. And oh yeah, you know, it, it works out for us. You know, so it was the drama level dropped way down. You one. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And but, and then our relationship obviously blossomed and then, you know, obviously we get to do a little bit more transitions.
Chris Gazdik: It does, it does. There’s many, many, it’s an echoing example of transitions. Yeah. I, I’m empty nested big time now [00:43:00] as well. And I mean, you know, my little kiddo is in the Navy. I’m very proud he’s serving us. Oh, oh, thank you. In YOKA in Japan. He’s on base there. Thankfully he’s not on a boat, man. I’ll tell you what, Neil, when he came home, I’m like, this is a different way of living.
Yeah, wow. ’cause he came home for like, yeah. A month. And he was really at my house, not his mom’s house most of the time. ’cause he needed to be unfamiliar. I mean, he was really, you know, he needed to do that. I mean, the towels were on the floor again. I mean, I was just amazed. Two gallons of milk in like three days y’all grown.
Boy, how is that possible? Yes,
Neil Robinson: yes. Oh, so, well, we did the same thing with Mason this year, right? He was office last year. He comes back all summer, right? And it’s like, yeah, all summer he comes back. Of course he was working, most of it try to replenish his bank account. But it’s still, you don’t realize when that person’s gone.
You’re like, oh, we gotta, we, we built a new norm, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And it’s like, wait, now our norm’s no longer normal. And [00:44:00] absolutely. Now this year is weird because Helene happened this last summer, this last fall. So he was only gone for like a month or so when he came back for like three weeks. Oh.
Which was weird,
Chris Gazdik: right? Wait a minute. What?
Neil Robinson: Because of Helene being up in Western Carolina, they shut classes down for like a month. Oh, smoke. That’s right. So he, so he came home. Luckily the campus was fine. There was no problems. He didn’t
Chris Gazdik: really talk about that a lot.
Neil Robinson: But once again, he wasn’t really affected by it because Western was outside of losing a cell phone, there was.
They have their own like generators, food, like they had everything. But yeah. So yeah, it was weird this summer when he came back and it’s like, oh wait, you don’t realize what it’s like when that other person’s back in the house. Yeah. And once again, it’s really, I know. You notice that
Chris Gazdik: grocery bill
Neil Robinson: not for him.
He’s not that bad. Really? Yeah. He really, he really isn’t. He’s not horrible A college
Chris Gazdik: kid getting his freshman 15. Come on. He’s talking about
Neil Robinson: this kid. He doesn’t, he Nah, he’s not your typical kid. He still weighs like one 20. I don’t know how he does it. Oh wow. Yeah, that’s what he wrestled in high school.
And he’s like, he just stays there. Like he has, they have both my kids have my wife’s metabolism, like me, Neil,
Chris Gazdik: [00:45:00] tell him he doesn’t have to cut weight anymore. We tell him, we tell him
Neil Robinson: all the time. And then our other, our six year old’s trying to bulk up. So he is like 1 22 now. You know,
Chris Gazdik: I’m rooting for him.
Hey, the younger brother beating down the bigger brother, I’m always for it. I, I, I lived that. He needs, he needs
Neil Robinson: the weight to, to combat that one. He’s not as mean.
Kyle King: But our oldest daughter, she worked for a cruise ship after she graduated high school or college, sorry. And she would be gone. Six, eight months.
Oh yeah. Maybe a year.
Chris Gazdik: And
Kyle King: then she’d come home and they’d have these contracts that where she’d be home for six months. And of course that was, to your point, that was a big change. Why are you here? Yeah. I mean, two hours in, everything’s on the floor. Why do
Chris Gazdik: they do that? Kyle?
Kyle King: I don’t Drinks everywhere.
Understand. Putting dishes in the dishwasher or not a thing. Yeah. These are the kinds
Chris Gazdik: of things, you know what, I’ll take it from the kitchen sink to the, to the, to the washing machine. Right. I I’ll take care of that. Just get it in here. Yeah. There’s so much [00:46:00] of that. And, and, and yeah. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting when you have these transitions transition in and then back and then in, and then back, you know, we can look at that as domestic violence for instance.
You know, people will, will get outta that then back in and they get sucked back in and then they get out and it’s like, you know, so you can honestly do repetitive transitions too. That’s a thing. Yeah. Occurs to me. So where did we land the, you know, the things that we talk about, you know, I mean, you, you hear on the show too, like, things that build on each other.
You know, how do you deal with grieving? Well, you know, get the routines together, like, you know, do some journaling. You mentioned earlier, Kyle you know, with this, it kind of listed some other things that, but they’re all interchangeably working together to help you cope. Mm-hmm. So when you’re dealing with life transitions though, maybe a little bit of a highlight is small goals.
Like, just do little things. ’cause it, ’cause when you go through a transition, everything feels new, everything feels off, [00:47:00] nothing’s right, everything’s wrong. Like just stop slow down and figure one real small thing that I need to do. When I’m moving from one house to another, I always like, I don’t think of like all of the boxes, all of the items, all of the things.
I just literally get into an enjoyment on. I’m taking this one box, just, I want this box done. Let’s put it in drawers, let’s do find homes. Like, you know, and then I’ll be up till two o’clock in the morning like, ’cause I’m excited to get things right. You accomplish something. I’m accomplishing many things.
Right? One after the other. After the other, after the other. ’cause it’s a small goal. If it’s just one box, I could do that in 10 minutes. I’m not even that tired. But now I’ve celebrated that success and I got into another box and then I did a whole room. Like it just builds. Yeah. So transitions can be very overwhelming and the anecdote really is breaking things down.
But those are other things. Focusing on past transitions. [00:48:00] Highlighting your positive self-talk. Cultivating flexibility.
Neil Robinson: I, I think the high, I think the focusing on past transitions is super important because I think a lot of people are afraid of transition. ’cause they don’t, they don’t know what to expect going like, what’s next?
And I think if you look back, say, oh, well I’ve changed jobs before, or I’ve moved before I’ve done this. Like, sometimes you see them like, oh, I made it through fine. Like, okay, well what did I do to help me with that time? Right. I think focusing on past transitions helps you with your current transition because you, you get to.
Experience it again, or you can learn from what you did the previous time. And I think that’s super important because I think just a lot of people, once again, anxiety can make transitions a lot harder. Well if you go back and say, oh, I’ve done this before. Okay, well how do I do that? You know, I moved before and this is how I impact and it worked better for me.
So versus having all the boxer and do ’em all, all the time, right. That’s a huge thing I think of people. I think it really helps ’em understand that if you just focus, oh, past good or bad transitions, you can learn a lot from,
Chris Gazdik: there’s [00:49:00] a friend of the show, Casey, an old panelist that used to be on the show.
Hey Casey, how you’re doing? Well she loves to talk about internal resiliency and you just described the process of de developing internal resiliency, which Victoria has taken up the mantle on. That’s her big, that’s her big deal. She loves, loves, you know, that concept. Yeah, confidence. I, if I handle this, I can handle that.
Or if I handled that, I can handle this
Kyle King: Well, I think support system too. Go, go back to that support system. Okay. Thank you. Love that. Because talking about transition from one job to another, something as simple as that. Well, you had no, no body over there at that new job. So how do you gain confidence in your role at that new job?
You wanna make acquaintances. You wanna start building that relationship at, with somebody there. Mm-hmm. Gain that trust
Neil Robinson: that that first day of lunch at that new place is probably the most scary thinking for an adult. Right. Almost like old school you got. Yeah. Who do I go to? Where do I sit? Which table do I sit at?
Is this allowed it like, yeah, it’s crazy. You would
Chris Gazdik: think that’s a teenage thought, but no man. [00:50:00] Absolutely. So that.
Neil Robinson: You know, some of ’em might go to lunch by themselves for the first few days just to kind of get used to it. And then finally they get, you know, someone breaks serious, Hey, we’re gonna go eat at this place.
You wanna come with us? Like, I’m part of it. Right. You’re part of the group.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. I mean, listen, if you’re sitting there at home, listen, thinking, oh, I don’t feel that way. That doesn’t affect me. No, you’re not paying attention. That is pretty universal and, and very true. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. No, good, good stuff.
Good, good, good points. We need to move to episode 3 24, where we talked about the challenge of acceptance. Yeah, I really feel like it’s an awesome little capstone to the things that we were talking about all month, because this is huge one. I mean, this is really a big deal, I feel like, and it’s, it’s, you’ll know that you’ve accomplished this by, by really paying attention to the way that you feel like, I don’t know, can we say like, acceptance just equals peace.
Like when you get into a [00:51:00] place where you’re really like, okay, you know, I’m not fighting this. I’m going with it. You find serenity, I think in that space.
Neil Robinson: Sounds like stoicism.
Chris Gazdik: True
Kyle King: indeed. I watched that episode last night. Did you? That was a weird
Neil Robinson: one, man. You didn’t know anything. We’re like, but well, it, it goes back, God, what does this mean?
It goes back to like the, like if you’re at the beach and you get caught in a riptide, what do they tell you to do?
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely.
Neil Robinson: You let it pull you out. Just accept your fate.
Chris Gazdik: Yep.
Neil Robinson: And then eventually you get deep enough that the riptide goes, and then you can come around and swim Fine. Swim away from it.
Right. You cannot sit there and fight it. Same idea. Right. That’s, that’s the same thing with these wr grieving and transitions. A lot of times you don’t control when you grieve and you don’t control when transitions happen. Yeah. You just have to learn to accept it and then push through it. Right. You have to learn, not really push it, but like let it happen.
And then what do you do once you reassess and figure out where you’re going with it? Right. That’s, that’s the goal. And
Chris Gazdik: when you don’t allow it to happen and you fight it, you will fight it. Mm-hmm. Forever. [00:52:00] ’cause you can’t control it. You’re right.
Kyle King: I read a book a long time ago and I, I still love this book.
It’s, it relates to the business world more than anything. So called Who Moved My Cheese.
Chris Gazdik: Oh yes. Love that. Book conferences on that. And the
Kyle King: reason why is just because it teaches you how to accept and deal with things a hundred percent. And it’s. You can hem and haw all day long because you don’t like change.
Or you can embrace it and you can grow with it. And that’s when I think that book teaches you a lot. And because, you know, at that time the company I was working for was going through a big transition, getting bought out by, you know, we were getting bought out by another company.
Chris Gazdik: Mm-hmm.
Kyle King: So there’s a lot of like uncertainty what’s going to happen and it’s okay, we can either like fight against this or we can go with it and we can grow with it and you know, so I think a lot of people, people took the perspective as like, okay, we’re gonna grow with it.
If we fight it, we’re not gonna end up in a good spot. [00:53:00] So that’s one. I think, you know, to your point with the riptide, if you fight it, you’re not going to end up in a good spot. But if you embrace it and learn how to deal with it, then you can, then you can grow as a person and you get the benefits. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: I mean, you know, and the benefits are new.
You know what, what do we say with this? This guy, you know William Bridges came up with the idea of phases, right? You end, you have a loss and you let go. Then you go into a neutral phase, but then you get a new beginning. Mm-hmm. You do not get to have a new beginning. Mm-hmm. If you do not get to a place acceptance, because if you don’t have acceptance, then you can’t do what I demonstrate in therapy sessions.
I will get one of these big books, see the big dictionary over there? Yep. And I will, I will put it in somebody’s hand and I’ll say, pretend it’s heavy. And you, you’ve got, you know, your, your grip on it. And then I’ll get something really cool, like my Steelers cup over there. That’s a cool cup. After there’s a cool cup.
And I like pretend now if it’s not cool to you, but pretend that this is something really, really valuable and I will hold the handle in front of them. And inherently they [00:54:00] look at me like, what do I do? Right. And what do they have to do? But they have to put the book down. Right. And you can’t have the cup.
The book because your hands are occupied and it’s a really visual way to really demonstrate exactly what you’re, you’re talking about if you moved my cheese Yeah. Could, because one thing constant, right?
Kyle King: We all know the one constant is changes happening, it’s inevitable. It’s like how are you gonna deal with it?
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. So when in my life have I resist? I didn’t do the three questions yet, did I? No. So the questions we were asking is, when in my life have I resisted reality instead of accepting it? And what impact did it have? I can tell you it ain’t a good one. Do I equate acceptance with giving up? Or do I see it as a form of strength?
Can acceptance be strength? I wanna hammer that point home to be honest with you. And then three, how might practicing acceptance improve my mental health and relationships? I hope you figure that out already a lot. But let’s, let’s hone in on, on what this means. But it [00:55:00] is a wonderful therapy question.
Generally speaking, if you’re thinking about something, struggling with something, have emotional energy on something, ask yourself this question. ’cause I’ve been asked in my own therapy before this, once with this topic, and I was like, well, I have no idea. That’s a good question. What does X mean to you?
Right? Yeah. If, if you’re not aware of that, and usually people aren’t, you know, and then you’re dealing with a loss or with it, or it’s gone away, or, you know, like, what does this really mean to me is a really, really good question to, to, to ask. What does my kids not living at the house? What does that mean to me?
Well, you’ll come up with some stuff. Mm-hmm. The person who’s crying probably means, well, it means I’m not important. It means I have no process. Task. I have no role. Now. My role has ended. I’m no longer mom. Yeah. It’s not the reality, but it might be what is being meant in your, in your mind. Right. So that’s an awesome question.
What does acceptance mean? People have weird thoughts [00:56:00] about that. Right.
Kyle King: I think everybody thinks of it differently, for sure.
Chris Gazdik: Mm-hmm. ‘
Kyle King: cause some people can grow. They look at it as an opportunity to grow stronger. You know, glass half full kind of person. Yep. Or glass half empty kind of person. It’s
Neil Robinson: crushing.
Kyle King: Yeah.
Neil Robinson: I mean, I, I think, I think either if it’s positive seed as acceptance, if it’s not positive, even like reluctance kind of thing. ’cause there people will go through this re reluctantly, right? They’ll just kinda let it do whatever. Like it changes the whole aspect, right? That mental health, you know, when I worked corporate, they had this whole thing where it was, one of the things they talked about for team building was assume positive intent.
Like when you have someone you’re working with, and that changed the whole dynamic of like when, you know, your coworker sends an email to your boss instead of thinking, oh, this guy’s trying to backs stab me. You know, think, oh, well he’s just, he forgot to CC me, or he’s really trying to help the team, blah, blah, blah.
Right? So the idea with this is acceptance. It’s, it’s looking at transition and you’re looking at it from a positive light versus a negative light, right? That acceptance to me is a positive [00:57:00] reaction to what’s happening.
Chris Gazdik: It’s wild to me that people would see such a thing as, Hey, I’m not fighting it. I’m just going with it.
I’m passive. Weak. Not standing up for myself. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are things that we don’t want to just passively accept. You know, if you’re being hit at home, it’s domestic violence. We don’t accept that. We, you know, we protect, we move, we get, we take actions. But you know, it definitely, when you’re in a place of acceptance doesn’t mean you’re anywhere passive.
Or let, let’s talk about Mothers Against Drunk Driving, for instance, right? Mad. Is that an acronym? Mothers Against Drunk Driving? I don’t know if they’re still in operation. They are, I think. Are they? Yeah. Okay. Because that was an eighties thing.
Kyle King: It was,
Chris Gazdik: you know, this was a bunch of pissed off mothers that got together did, because, you know, back in the day, you know, the police officer would be like, Hey, you know don’t be stupid.
Just drive back roads. You know, come on. You know? Right. What Drinking and [00:58:00] driving was literally kind of in the realm of acceptable, crazy. It’s funny to me to hear the kid’s perspective on it now. They’ll drive high on weed and not think anything of it, but they would never think about driving drunk. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s different.
But they weren’t passive, but they accepted their, their child’s death and they took action and they made an entire movement from it. That was absolutely a big part of why we now understand as a culture, you just don’t drink a drive. It’s not a thing. Don’t do that. Right. So acceptance can be amazing change.
Mm-hmm. Transformational change, honestly. But you can’t get that new until you stop and accept.
Neil Robinson: Yeah. And I, and I think that’s the part that. Going, going. Once again, acceptance is a positive way that you handle it, right? And I think that’s very, it’s, it gives you a lot more control when you accept something versus going with it, right?
When you really, really accept it, that puts the power back on you, [00:59:00] right? Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And so when you’re lost and you, and when you’re feeling like you have nothing to do, like you’re just complete outside of your control, the one thing you can control is. Whether you accept what’s happening or if you don’t.
Right. If you accept it, your life’s gonna be better because you’re looking at it from a positive, right? When, when our kid went to college, if he didn’t accept the change, he’s gonna sit in his dorm room and be a, a bump on a log. If we didn’t accept the change of him leaving, we, my wife and I would just be sad and just sit in our bedroom crying all the time.
Right? Yeah. We wouldn’t get to enjoy the new norms and the new pieces. Right? So, so that’s the part, acceptance is control. You are actually controlling the outcome of this transition, of this grief, accepting that you’ve lost someone and there’s a new life ahead of me, or new job, or a new this or new that.
That’s what you have to understand is with acceptance, it’s, it’s putting yourself back into control of what you have going forward.
Chris Gazdik: I love that a lot. And I think, honestly, I was just listening to you and I’m thinking like this, this was the favorite of my three shows for sure. Easily because. Of exactly that.
Like [01:00:00] I don’t suggest a lot of passive thoughts. I don’t look at like there, you know, you think like, oh, therapy, liberal mental health, like feel good, you know, whatever. No. What action can we take? Mm-hmm. You know, I love the Serenity Prayer. Mm-hmm. So I was just listening to you reciting the Serenity Prayer in my head over and over again.
Like, you know, serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, people don’t usually have that wisdom to know the difference between the two. That’s the real rub.
Neil Robinson: That Well, that’s where, that’s where you have to put the effort in. Right. Right. To understand that difference.
Right. Right. You know, knowledge versus wisdom. You know, that one, you know, knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, but wisdom is knowing not to put it in fruit salad.
Chris Gazdik: I, I think I have heard that before, but not for a long time. I, I think you’re, you’re right. Yeah. Yeah. It just doesn’t work real well with. Honeydew does it? No, but it is a fruit. It’s just not fair. He’s, it’s three off the red nose, reindeer of fruit. I never, wow. Okay. Save me, God. Sorry. A little weird. [01:01:00] The myth is that this means you’re giving up.
The myth is that you’re in resignation. The myth is that you’re avoiding things. Now you can do all of those words mm-hmm. When you’re dealing with something. But acceptance is not that acceptance. Very. I think acceptance is strength. A hundred percent. Yep. Very strong. How can you demonstrate your resiliency?
I mean you know, really healthy people get knocked to the floor and they’re really healthy people because they figure out how to, okay, I’m not gonna keep on fighting because it’s gonna be keep on knocking to the floor. I’m gonna get up and we’re gonna go in a, a different direction and, and accept this change.
Kyle King: Absolutely. Something as simple as eyeglasses. Oh, right. That hurts. Trust me, it hurt. Oh, that hurts. But I had to accept it. Really don’t like it.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. ’cause you know, honestly it is not really talked about a lot, but men and hormone changes are real. Yeah. It is all [01:02:00] over the place. When you really get into, it starts at about 40 y’all.
Yeah, it does. And women get thrown deeply into it quickly and Yeah. You can’t see anymore. You can’t have any freaking appetite. You’re having 500 less calories, your hair drops out. You can’t turns gray. See anymore I’m disturbed about the seeing part. Yeah. I, my reading glasses, I ate them.
Neil Robinson: Okay, so I have a question.
Do you guys both have really good vision normally? Yes,
Kyle King: I did. Yes. Okay. So my wife and I, my wife
Neil Robinson: and I going through that, ’cause she, well, she does art and she’s having her visions going. I’m like, but you don’t understand. I, I’ve been blind since third grade. If I, if I can’t see reading, okay, it’s just something else.
Like, ’cause I’m, I’m starting to notice it more a little bit, but it’s just, once again, perfect eyesight. You guys have been blessed and lucky to have that right,
Chris Gazdik: Kyle. He’s worse than my freaking ex brother. I gotta tell you, he’s worse than my freaking ex right now. But it, I get no sympathy whatsoever.
Neil Robinson: It’s just, it’s just more dramatic for you guys because I’m used to not being able to see.
So it’s like, okay, it’s different, but because of the, it’s more of a shock to you [01:03:00] guys, right? My wife’s the same way. It’s hundred percent. So it’s gonna be a harder transition for you guys and it’s hard for you guys to accept it because you’ve never had to wear glasses till you’re 45. I’ve been wearing ’em since I was like eight.
Chris Gazdik: I’m legit struggling with this one, man. I really am. I don’t want accept it either. I mean, I. Oh God, I but you,
Neil Robinson: you cannot accept it and struggle with reading and make your eyes hurt, give you headaches, or you can accept it. Go buy some stupid glasses. Make it stop and you’ll be better for it.
Kyle King: When I couldn’t read my watch and my arm can only go solo far.
Yeah. I’m like, you know, I’d
Neil Robinson: rather extend my arm out than get glasses. Right, right. Have a surgery with your arms longer. That’s right. Now,
Chris Gazdik: I’m literally in this right now, and now I will say I have a pair of reading glasses in my bag. Mm-hmm. I have a pair of reading glasses on my desk. I got four locations at the house, so I’m, I don’t know.
I’m on my way, Neil, but like, it sucks.
Kyle King: Then it gets to prescription sunglasses. You just wait.
Chris Gazdik: Oh God, we’re not going there. No, I’m not that bad. They call that [01:04:00] denial. I don’t see it. Get it. See, you done that. Anyway where did we land? We very much hey, we read the book, Neil, this is the one we read Chapter 11, accepting things as part of your emotional growth.
I didn’t mention that. I got a book, Neil, or what’s your name? Kyle. I wrote two. I got books. Go look ’em up. They’re cool. Through a therapist’s eyes, one’s on marriage, one’s on self. You know, I think it’s got a lot of good nuggets in there. We actually spent time on chapter 11 because, you know, that’s actually probably one of my favorite chapters.
But mindfulness journaling again, you know, breathing and grounding I think maybe is one to kind of highlight with the idea of, you know, acceptance. Because you’re, you’re in that last phase that he was talking about when you’re doing life transitions and, you know, sometimes you really just need to stop and breathe.
Kyle King: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You know, let this wash over you. By the way, the rip type thing. Love the metaphor. But they actually tell you to like swim to the left or the right, don’t they?
Neil Robinson: No, that’s in a river. I think if you’re getting SW where you swim to the bank versus fighting against it. But in riptide you just [01:05:00] let it take you out and then after you take it out, then you swim around it.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. I always thought that if you get caught in the riptide, your panic makes you fight against the curb. Right. So, and that’s what kills you. But if you literally go a foot to the right, you’re fine.
Neil Robinson: Maybe it depends on how big the riptide is, but Yeah. Yeah. The idea is you kind of, once again, you let it get carried away.
Right. And then like in a river, if you’re in a, a big river and you’re sweeping you like you’re not gonna swim up, you just start swimming towards one of the banks. Yeah. You go diagonal. Yeah. You just, you just go, you let the water take you, you just swim one direction. Right. You still have to go with the flow.
’cause you’re not gonna fight. You’re not gonna fight current.
Chris Gazdik: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And life current can be pretty powerful too. So stop and just breathe. Literally, if you’re in water like that, I mean, you know, if you just stop and you ever hear a dead man’s float. It’s actually a, a, a move. Mm-hmm. That, you know, I learned in lifeguard school.
Just float, literally just hold your breath, then you’ll be fine. But people are shallow, [01:06:00] breathing, panicking, you know, railing, you know, just causing more of a problem. It’s what we do. We just, cause, you know, you move my cheese and then I’m upset and now I’m just going to go back to the same cabinet every day come time where I be frustrated every time I go to the cabinet and there’s no cheese.
Kyle King: Well, sometimes just doing something different, taking your mind off of whatever okay. Is on your mind. Well like that. So like if you always do going through the same motions every single day, what if you did something different that takes your mind off of whatever you’re thinking about?
Chris Gazdik: Along those lines.
Actually I’m reminding ourselves, we talked about like literally how you phrase things in your head. If you sit there and say, okay, well this is what’s happening versus. This should not be the case. This should not happen, you know? Right. I told the, the story in the chapter there of like being in a car wreck with this girl after she told me I got the Friendship speech, man, 360 to Car Icy Road.
It was a [01:07:00] horrible thing and it was so surreal because I, I sat there, I remember this like yesterday and the same freaking song was on the radio and I’m like, okay, this did not happen. I literally just sat there for about what seems like forever denying that I am just wrecked my car, you know, like, my mom’s gonna kill me and this didn’t happen.
So I had to get outta the car. Yeah. Great. I had to get outta the car and move along. So, closing thoughts, comments. A fun group of shows. I think Neil and John, we miss you brother already, you know, little moment of that shout out to you. Super glad that we get to keep him though and, and continue on with the new formats closing thoughts, comments?
Yeah. Yeah. Let you start.
Neil Robinson: It’s a, if, if you’re going through changes right now, catch these last three shows are really, really powerful. Once again, it’s, it’s when you lose something, you’re gonna grieve, then you’re gonna [01:08:00] transition, and then you just have to accept it. And I think these are three great shows.
If you’re, if you’re going through something, go watch these three shows and just, it’ll really help you with a lot of different things. So yeah, it’s a good combo. Great, great month.
Kyle King: I, I think these topics are absolutely terrific ’cause everybody faces ’em, it doesn’t matter. It’s not, you don’t necessarily have to grieve a person.
You can grieve, you know, the loss of anything, loss of a job or whatever. It doesn’t really matter. But you have to understand how you need to do that in order to build back better. And that’s what I think a lot of people need to understand is just that we’ve gotta, we’ve gotta grow. We, if we don’t understand what is causing us to grieve and we don’t accept it, then we’re never gonna grow.
Love that.
Chris Gazdik: So by the way, we’re not doing the competition we think we do in show. So there’s no, there’s no winner here on this road. I fair. This is just a thing. But we have grieved, we have transitioned. I think we have accepted. And now the new cool thing is Mr. Kyle King is with us for months in review.[01:09:00] So, welcome, very appreciative of your time and effort, energy. Looking forward to see where this takes us. Loving this. I think it’s gonna be cool, right? Love it. Alright. Stay well, take care. We will see you guys next. Week.