Episode 31: Zooming In on Grief and Loss with Dr. Paul Coleman
Dr. Paul Coleman’s Websites:
Transcript:
(transcribed by kayla.r.fainer@gmail.com)
Melissa Milner 00:09
Hi, this is Melissa Milner. Welcome to The Teacher As... podcast. The goal of this weekly podcast is to help you explore your passions and learn from others in education and beyond to better your teaching. The Teacher As... podcast will highlight innovative practices and uncommon parallels in education.
It's really good to be back talking to you. A lot has happened since Episode 30 aired. My husband, Josh Milner, passed away suddenly early in the morning of February 22nd. And my world obviously changed. I'm taking it one day at a time. And I feel blessed with the amount of support I received and continue to receive from my family, friends, the colleagues that I work with, students, students' parents, as well as all the support on social media.
Obviously, this is hard to do. It's much easier to come on and talk about a topic. It's pretty hard to actually be saying something like this. So thank you for your patience in this chunk of time that new episodes have not been coming out. For those of you who do listen religiously every week, I do apologize for that. But I know that you understand why it had to happen.
As far as returning to podcasting after this obviously significant loss in my life, I just need a little time. So I'm not sure how this is going to go. I have some interviews already done that all I would need to do is edit. And I think I'm going to stick with those for most of April and May instead of me doing ones that's just me talking.
And there's a lot of research and planning that go into those episodes. Or doing a co-teaching, Adventures in Co-Teaching, or doing a Top 10 episode, I think I'm just going to stick with interviews probably until at least June so that I just have time. Because I'm teaching full time, and grieving, and taking care of all different kinds of things that no one ever thinks about until this happens.
So one thing that helped me early on in the grieving process was a book my mom actually sent to me called Finding Peace When Your Heart Is In Pieces by Dr. Paul Coleman. So I read the book in about a day. I've re-read certain sections multiple times. It really helped me. And I decided to reach out to Dr. Paul Coleman to see if I could interview him for my first podcast episode back. Luckily, he happily agreed to being interviewed.
So this episode is in memory of my husband, Joshua Milner. I hope this helps people who have gone through grief and loss of any kind. But as the episode goes on, we also talk about how teachers can help students who have had trauma, loss, and grief. So I hope it helps on multiple levels.
I want to welcome Dr. Paul Coleman to The Teacher As... Dr. Paul, what would you like The Teacher As... listeners to know about you?
Dr. Paul Coleman 03:20
Well, I'm a student of humanity, I guess. I've been a psychologist all my adult life. Even as a kid, I was very-- I was the kid that other kids came to for some other reason to discuss their problems. And I didn't-- what did I know at age eight? But somehow that was always the way.
So I've been a psychologist. And I've always loved writing and creative pursuits. So I've written a number of books. My most recent book is called Finding Peace When Your Heart Is In Pieces. And I also do a lot of acting and stage work, mostly community theatre. I have done a couple of professional things, but mostly local community theatre for the last 25 years or so. I've been in dozens of local productions.
And I think it's all the same. Being an actor on stage is trying to figure out your character, what really makes them tick. It's the same thing with being a psychologist and even the same thing in writing. If I'm writing fiction, I have to have characters. And if I'm writing nonfiction, there's usually examples that I give of human nature. So all of those things are the things that I do. And I've been married 38 years. I have three grown kids, a few grandkids, all that.
Melissa Milner 04:36
Wow. So first of all, I knew that we were of the same tribe when I read your book, Finding Peace When Your Heart Is In Pieces, when my husband just recently passed. So I knew we were of the same tribe when I read the book. But I had no idea you were a theatre person. So we have that in common, too.
Dr. Paul Coleman 04:55
Oh!
Melissa Milner 04:56
So I want to jump right into the book, because it-- I mean, it's only been a little bit over a month since my husband passed.
Dr. Paul Coleman 05:01
Oh my goodness.
Melissa Milner 05:02
I mean, considering everything, I feel like I'm doing great. And I'm gonna start crying, but it's mostly because of your book and the support that I've had with family and friends and colleagues. But your book, especially the first path, has been huge for me. So I would love for you to go through the path of acceptance, the path of inspiration, the path of release, which has also been huge, and the path of compassion for the listeners.
Dr. Paul Coleman 05:30
Yeah, sure. This is part of what's been called the hero's journey, which is what we all go through when there's a massive upheaval in our lives. Certainly the death of a loved one is pretty massive. But it could be something less tragic. It could be the loss of a job, which could be devastating, of a relationship breakup, a divorce, things like that, a major health crisis.
But when your world seems upside down, when the bottom seems to have fallen out, what happens? And what's interesting is there seems to be fairly prescribed stages that we tend to go through. Some people may go through them quicker than others. And frankly, speaking from theatre, that's what happens in any good play, in any good movie. You're going to notice there are similar stages of what happens in the beginning of any movie. The bottom falls out, kind of like The Wizard of Oz, the tornado happens, for example.
So I talk about four primary stages. And these are not the typical four. You've heard of the five stages of grief, which are actually not accurate in the way they've been brought up in culture. There's other problems with it. But the first stage I call the path of acceptance.
And by acceptance, I mean being able to emotionally accept what has happened. Because what happens usually in the beginning stages of trauma or a major upheaval is we can't quite believe it. We want to pretend that it isn't happening or we don't know how to function.
And we ask a lot of questions. Why did this happen? This shouldn't have happened. We might blame other people, for example. We might blame ourselves. Or we might have guilt. When some loved one passes away, we might have guilt about something we did or didn't do.
But until we can emotionally accept what I would call the givens of life, and that includes passing of somebody, we are going to struggle. We are going to resist that. And now we're in a fight stage. And if we're fighting it, we're not able to find any sort of inner peace. And the fight could be with somebody else. It could be with a situation. We could be fighting against drunk drivers, for example, which is a noble thing to do.
But on an inner scale and our emotional scale, we have to be able to be emotionally accepting that this is real. This is what happened. And if we can stay there, then we have a much better chance of going on to the next phases of recovery, if that's the right word, or adaptation maybe without extra complications that come from simply resisting what's happened.
Melissa Milner 08:26
Yes, could I just say, again, as I said, this piece was huge for me. And it doesn't mean you're not sad anymore. It doesn't mean you're not upset and that you don't miss that person. It just means you have accepted the present world, or you, the way it is. That was huge. That was huge for me. Thank you for that.
Dr. Paul Coleman 08:47
You're welcome. I'm really glad it helped. And it seems obvious when you are in it when you've accepted it. But so many people are unaware of that. They don't realize how they're resisting it, they're fighting it. And they get so depressed. My life will never be the same, which may be true.
But they're fighting it in their mind. They're resenting what happened. And they're never going to get through the other stages, which can be remarkably helpful if you can at least begin with some degree of emotional acceptance.
Melissa Milner 09:22
So the path of inspiration.
Dr. Paul Coleman 09:25
That's one of my favorites. Because in the path of inspiration, this is what has been called wandering through the desert or going through the forest. But you don't really know where the end is. You don't see the light at the tunnel.
This is when you're walking in circles. You just feel lost. And when we are lost, at some point, we have to surrender and say, I don't know where I'm going. I don't know how I want my life to be. I'm very confused. Part of me wants this. Part of me doesn't want this. Part of me wants to move on. Part of me doesn't think I can move on.
And it's only when we surrender that we are now open to being inspired by something greater. It could be a writer. It could be a guru. It could be a wise person. It could be something that you just come across. But it will give you a message that will make you go, oh, I never thought of it that way before. And now you can be inspired. And what we're talking about are things that you can't necessarily logically discover for yourself.
You can't make a plan to be inspired. You have to walk and say, I don't know where I'm going. I don't know if I'm ever going to get out of here. But I'm open to inspiration, to thoughts from elsewhere. I give an example in my book. And this doesn't have to do with passing or someone dying. It just has to do with being open to inspiration.
I was leaving the gymnasium on a very rainy Sunday afternoon. And I wanted to drive up the road to get my favorite iced coffee. And there was no traffic. It was so, so heavy, the rain. And I was about to have to go in the left hand lane to take a turn into the coffee shop. And I put my signal on, but I don't go. There was this very gentle, no. And I didn't know where it was from. And it was-- I felt it was me. And I'm thinking, well, maybe I don't want my iced coffee. And I know I really do.
So I still had a chance to turn left. There's no traffic coming. And again, I just don't do it. So I passed the coffee shop. But up ahead was a large bookstore on the other side of the road. And I knew they had coffee there. So I said, alright, I guess I'll go there even though it wasn't my first choice. And I get into the parking lot, and the rain is coming down torrential.
Fortunately - never happens, but this day it did - I had an umbrella in my car. I said, okay, time to get out. And I didn't get out. I just stared at the windshield, through the windshield, saying, why aren't I getting out of this car? I wasn't feeling stuck there. I had perfect choice. It was a very gentle no. And then suddenly, I said, okay, I'm going. And I felt released. And I got out of the car, I put the umbrella up.
And I said, what did I just see? And I looked a couple places down behind me. And there was this man wearing a red shirt, and the red shirt had caught my attention. He was getting out of his car. He looked to be in his 90s. And he was starting to get soaked. So I ran over to him and I said, would you like to share my umbrella? And he said, oh, thank you. And he took my arm. And we walked very, very slowly into the store. It took him a long time to get there. He would have been drenched.
And we got inside. And I said, I'd be happy to stick around. And he said, no, I'm going to be here a while, thank you much. And then I had a gentle feeling of, okay, you can go get your coffee now. What's important about that is that I paid attention to this very, very subtle message. And I really think that I was being guided to help this guy.
And if I was with my wife or a friend and I drove-- I would have gone to the coffee shop. Because they would have said, why aren't you turning? And I would have gone, yeah, this is crazy. I don't know why I'm not turning. And I would have gone there.
But because I was alone and there was the thrumming of the rain on the car, it was very meditative. It was very quiet. I just said, something's up. That's what happens in the path of inspiration. There will be signs. There will be subtle messages. But what happens is you have to be surrendered.
You can't be freaking out, which is what happens in the beginning part of the path of inspiration. You're scared. Where am I going? How am I going to get there? Then you realize, I'm going in circles. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what I want to do with my life. You start to calm down a little bit, still confused.
Now you are open to inspiration. And it could be a passage from a book. It could be an inspiration from within. And that will lead you somewhere. And that's what I call mystical wisdom is when you start to gain insights about what this world is really like, what's really going on behind the scenes in our lives. That it's not all just logic, and facts, and rational choices or irrational choices. There's something else going on behind the scenes. And you can tap into that, whether it's intuition, whatever you want to call it. And that's the path of inspiration.
Melissa Milner 14:39
Again, I can't thank you enough for this book. If we're ready, it's time for the path of release.
Dr. Paul Coleman 14:46
What are we releasing? We're releasing attitudes or beliefs that are no longer working. They might have worked for us before. Or maybe they're really irrational to begin with.
I was with a client yesterday, a very lovely woman. And her husband and a child passed away, an adult child. But nevertheless, she was elderly. And now her husband and adult daughter had passed away. And she said to me, I must be being punished to have two passings so quickly. Now that belief system is going to complicate her grief process.
And that was a belief system that we're working on to release for her. And many people don't realize that some of their thoughts and beliefs might actually be dysfunctional. Or it might have outlived their usefulness. Because as we grow and transform, we see the world from a different perspective. It's like going up the elevator in the apartment building, and being on a higher floor, and looking out the window, and seeing the city below. But you're seeing it from a bigger perspective.
And that's what we do when we transform, which is what this book is about, Finding Peace When Your Heart Is In Pieces. It's transformation. It's not just a change. It's being a different person by virtue of what's happened to you and by having a different perspective on your meaning of life. And that means we have to let go of some things that simply are no longer working for us.
What mystics throughout the ages have said is that transformation, in this case they were talking about spiritual transformation, but it works regardless, is a process of subtraction, not addition. We're not tacking on another belief so much as we're releasing a belief that's getting in the way of our being able to hold on to something bigger.
So that's what this phase is about, releasing dysfunctional attitudes. And it has to be something-- this phase is all about hope, not despair. It's about the idea that things can happen for us down the road, not necessarily to us. Even when it seems tragic, if I believe that this is happening for me on some spiritual level, I can have a little easier time handling it than I think if it's happening to me.
But in the early stages of loss and grief, it's very hard to think that. It just feels like you've been sucker punched, a gut punch and a major loss. You can't possibly think that this is anything that can be helpful to you. But it can be. Even when you learn something and even when you grow from it, you still may wish, I wish this never happened. I'd rather go back and have that person in my life. I'd rather have not learned that lesson or learn this new perception.
And that may be the case, and that's extremely understandable. But when we are left with having to function in our lives and move forward and find purpose and meaning, we want to be able to believe that some things can be happening for our benefit. And our benefit might not be a personal thing. It might be that we can give something. We can do something for others. We will help others.
The woman who started Mothers Against Drunk Driving started that after her daughter was killed by a drunk driver. So that became purposeful in that phase. So it's being that something good can come from something not good or something painful.
Melissa Milner 18:25
Right, which then leads to the path of compassion.
Dr. Paul Coleman 18:28
Path of compassion. Everything else, the path of acceptance, and the path of inspiration, the path of release is all about what's going on within you. Now we have to act on it. And then the hero's journey, and we're talking about iconic stories, I'll stick with The Wizard of Oz, since everyone knows that. There's a lot of compassion in there, right?
She wants to protect her friends, for example. But in the hero's journey, you have to go back to where you came from with this new insight that you learn from your tragedy or your challenge. And in Dorothy's case from The Wizard of Oz, she learned that there's no place like home. She ran away from home. They didn't understand her.
Now she says, wait a minute. They're actually pretty good there. And I need to appreciate that. That was the lesson she learned. And she would go back. We didn't see that in the movie, but she would live her life beyond that, dealing with her family in a new way based on her experiences. And that's the path of compassion. There's nothing useful or meaningful about tragedy and loss if it ends there. We have to transform it.
I say in the book, the meanest form of suffering is suffering with no meaning. And some things certainly do seem senseless. So especially when they're senseless, you want to say, how can I make this meaningful? What good can come from this that I can produce or try to produce? Or can I be part of a ripple effect so that something happens, so that the tragedy or the loss isn't senseless or totally meaningless. But there was something from it that grew.
Melissa Milner 20:11
Yes. Can you be inspired and still not be accepting? Is there one that has to happen in order to move on and have peace? Or it's all four in the exact order?
Dr. Paul Coleman 20:23
No, it's not-- it isn't really necessarily in the exact order. I do think acceptance is somewhat foundational, because the opposite of that is resistance. We're fighting it in our mind and in our hearts. And it doesn't mean we're fighting against injustice, because that might be a good thing. But if we're not accepting the reality of life, the givens of life, there are people that say, why me. And I understand that.
But when we step back, we say, why this other person then. We all are going to, if we live long enough, if we love hard enough, we're going to suffer. So we want to be able to accept the givens of life, that which is that life is unfair, for example. We can't get fairness necessarily. We can try to.
But things just happen that just seemed totally unfair. People close to us will die, or might leave us, or betray us, or just move on. Friends may move to the other part of the country when you need them the most. We have to be accepting of these things rather than being so angry. Our anger rarely doesn't get us anywhere unless we can use it for the good. And we're not doing that if we're not accepting it on an emotional level.
So I would say that's more foundational. I think for teachers, they want to be very good listeners and observers of children who might be going through a parent's divorce, or the passing of a parent, or a difficult home life. And that's where they might want to look at the path of inspiration and the path of release.
Melissa Milner 21:59
I was thinking release. Because even they might feel, this is never going to get better. Or I can't learn, if they maybe have a learning disability.
Dr. Paul Coleman 22:10
Yeah. The children might feel stuck. Teachers are so amazing. And I can remember teachers that had a positive impact on me. In fact, one teacher-- I went to Catholic school. It was a nun in high school. She made all of us have knots in our stomach. She made our lives very, very challenging. It was scary to go in. And she taught all the math classes.
We dedicated the yearbook to her on senior year. We learned so much, because she insisted we could learn more than we thought we could, that we were smarter than we thought. And that if we applied ourselves, we could do better than we ever imagined ourselves. And that was such a profound thing. I'll tell you. One of my best friends in high school, he was brilliant off the charts. He's now a dean at MIT.
Melissa Milner 23:02
Wow.
Dr. Paul Coleman 23:04
You could not compare to him. He was off the charts. If everyone said, I can never be like him, why try, they wouldn't get very far. But we had teachers who said, we want you to be the best you can be. And they pushed us.
Melissa Milner 23:20
Yes. High expectations are very important.
Dr. Paul Coleman 23:23
Yes, and encouragement. So if you didn't meet the test, you didn't get a good grade, it wasn't a horrible thing. But they wanted to help you to say, let's see where you could have done better. And teachers can do that. So pick up on the cues of which kids feel more hopeless or have a why bother attitude. Especially if they're going through a real turmoil in their life, their parents may not be equipped to deal with them. They might be overwhelmed, themselves, with whatever is going on in their lives.
The nicest encouragement you can give, taking them aside, thinking, I'm on your team, I'm going to help you with this in whatever way I can, can mean a huge difference to a child. Noticing when other kids maybe are not always aware of what's going on and could be a little more supportive, to put themselves in a classmate's place sometime can be also helpful. Because we have to learn emotional intelligence. We have to learn compassion.
Sometimes it comes naturally. But certainly in school, we've all been there where kids can be teasing and they can be not very supportive of classmates and not really understanding what it's like to go in their shoes. And teachers can play an amazing role in helping children put themselves in other people's shoes if they can.
Melissa Milner 24:49
Absolutely. I'm wondering what intuition development is. I saw that on your website. And I'm assuming it's related to that inspiration intuition. So what's this intuition development? And is that something we maybe could do with students?
Dr. Paul Coleman 25:09
Yes, I think you could. But it comes from quieting the mind, first of all. I've read articles where some schools maybe in different countries and maybe in the US, they sometimes have meditation classes, quieting the mind. We have too much mind chatter. I give the analogy or the metaphor in the book, imagine you're looking at a calm lake. And I drop a leaf on the lake. And I say, I want you to notice the ripples. Got it? Okay, good.
Now it starts to rain heavily. And now I drop the leaf. And I say, did you notice the ripples of the leaf? And they said, no, how could I? There was too much rain. The rain is the mind chatter. That's the overthinking. It's the worry that comes from what if or the regret where we're having inner conflict, or we have to be perfect, or we got to get it right. We will totally miss subtle signs or guidance or thoughts that can help us.
How many times do we say we're trying to think of a famous actor or something? We can't. It's on the tip of our tongue, we can't. We say, well, it'll come to me. And when does it come to you? When you're not thinking about it. When it becomes, okay, I'm not in that moment. There can be so much guidance that can come that way. We have to be open to it. And we have to be willing to trust.
If I say, just randomly when your mind is quiet, let any image come through. It could be a material thing. It could be a song. It could be a word. What comes through? And don't question it, just notice. And sometimes people will have interesting things. Like I see an anchor. Oh, interesting. Are you feeling anchored down? Do you need to release something, a chain, so that you can move forward? Because sometimes things can come with imagery, for example.
One way to tell quickly, if you say out loud and people listening can just say out loud their name. Like I'll say, my name is Paul. And just notice how that feels. And now I'll say, my name is Edward. That's wrong. Now how does that feel? It's very subtle, but it doesn't feel right. It just doesn't feel right.
So if I just say, I want to change careers and quit my job. How does that feel? Does that feel more in line with what it feels like when you say your name? Or does it feel like, no, that doesn't feel quite right?
Melissa Milner 27:52
Oh, so it's like going with your gut.
Dr. Paul Coleman 27:54
But paying very subtle attention to your gut. Because our gut can be fear based, trauma based. It can be desire based. How many times-- I feel lucky, I'm gonna go buy a scratch off, lottery. I just know I'm gonna win. And we're not right. Because our desires can be so strong, we don't pay attention. When our fears can be strong, we may not pay attention to subtle cues that might correct some of those perceptions we think we're getting.
I always tell myself, especially when my kids were younger, learning how to drive a car, and it'd be winter time. And of course, as a parent, I'm going, oh my gosh. Or they're driving home from college, and they got several hours or something in this snow. Anytime I had a fearful thought, like I imagined them on the side of the road or something like that, I knew that that was my fear. And that wasn't intuition. Because anything I've ever had intuition with was usually out of the blue and didn't create anxiety, at least at first. If it kept coming back, I would pay attention to it. It was just a random thought, more of a curiosity.
Melissa Milner 28:37
Is there anything else you feel that should be said, either in relation to the four paths or something else in your book that we didn't cover before we finish up?
Dr. Paul Coleman 29:16
I would just say no matter how unhappy a person might be at any given time, we don't know where our path will lead. COVID is a good example. Who imagined COVID, for example? But there are people in your life that you haven't met yet who you could make a tremendous difference in their life. And I'm saying that to all the teachers out there, as well. And we have a ripple effect.
I do something, it helps you. You may do something, which you're doing now, trying to help others, who may in turn hear this and help other people. We have ripple effects. Sometimes the ripple is small. It's like dominoes, and you're only knocking two or three dominoes down. But sometimes it goes on and on and on and on. And we just never know.
So we want to be aware that we have that ability to be a positive ripple effect. And never underestimate it. You may think, oh, it's just a small thing. You never underestimate. I had a gentleman, I'll be really quick, he thought his life was over. His wife was passed away. He had no kids, he was lonely. He said, my life has no meaning.
He was at a major intersection waiting to cross the street. A mother with three little kids came by. And one of the little kids started to dart across the street when a car was turning the corner. He grabbed the kid and pulled him back. The mother was incredibly thankful. And he realized, my life had meaning for that family that day. And then he raised the question, could it have meaning for somebody else? I said, yeah, that's how it works. Never lose hope in that.
Melissa Milner 30:48
That's very powerful. So I'm going to do a ripple effect and say that I believe that you should, if you haven't already, create curriculum for intuition development and maybe some of this for trauma, like some of this release. I think you have an untapped market.
Dr. Paul Coleman 31:07
Okay. I'll definitely take that guidance and see where that leads me.
Melissa Milner 31:12
Awesome. So how can people reach you or learn more about your work?
Dr. Paul Coleman 31:16
You can go to my website, findingpeaceinyourheart.com. There's also talksbypaul.com. There's many videos, very short, two, three minutes that can be very interesting for people. findingpeaceinyourheart.com, talksbypaul.com.
Melissa Milner 31:34
Great. Well, I can't thank you enough, Dr. Paul, for coming on the podcast and really sharing the wisdom that you've shared in books and on TV shows and just sharing it with my listeners.
Dr. Paul Coleman 31:49
It was my pleasure, Melissa, and such courage so soon after your husband's passing. I'm really touched by that, and I truly wish you all the best.
Melissa Milner 32:00
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I am sending a special thanks to Linda and Lester Fleishman, my mom and dad, for being so supportive. They are the voices you hear in the Zooming In soundbite. And my dad composed and performed the background music you are listening to right now. My intro music was "Upbeat Party" by Scott Holmes.
So what are you zooming in on? I would love to hear from you. My hope is that we all share what we are doing in the classroom in order to teach, remind, affirm and inspire each other. Thanks for listening. And that's a wrap!