Parables of Grief
The Parables of Grief podcast is for anyone who has lost a spouse. We discuss the common everyday lessons learned in this journey of suffering when your best friend and confidant is dead. We address the loneliness, the secondary losses, and the hope that lies ahead on this path. We look to the Savior as the master healer in every episode, and we focus on the light he brings to our darkest hours. We cling to His promises, especially his promise that, “I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you,” which is found in John 14:18.
Parables of Grief
Grief vs. Mourning: Understanding the Difference Changes Everything
Drawing the line between grief and mourning changes everything about how we navigate loss. Grief—the natural, uncontrollable emotional response—floods us with sadness, anger, anxiety, and even manifests as physical pain migrating through the body. Mourning, however, encompasses the actions we take: attending funerals, sharing memories, and creating space to express our pain.
When we covenant to "mourn with those that mourn," we're not promising to feel another's grief—an impossible task that belongs solely to the Savior. Instead, we commit to witness their pain without judgment or comparison. The greatest gift we can offer is our presence and the simple question, "Tell me about the person you lost," acknowledging that the bereaved are always aware of their loss—"a big man-sized hole" in every moment of daily life.
The journey through grief requires meeting eight fundamental needs: acknowledging the death, telling your story repeatedly, facing rather than avoiding the pain, remembering the deceased, developing a new identity, searching for meaning, building ongoing support systems, and being encouraged to mourn long after others have moved on. For those walking this path, seemingly strange comforts emerge—like my cemetery "stakeouts" with takeout food, creating a socially acceptable space to express grief that might seem inappropriate elsewhere. Whether you're grieving or supporting someone who is, understanding these distinctions creates space for authentic healing and connection on this difficult journey we never walk alone.
If you would like more grief support please see my website at Mamabearwendy.com for upcoming grief groups and 1:1 opportunities.
Although your experience and path will be unique, there is hope ahead in this path and you are not alone. I can see your pain and we will walk this road together. Here is a big bear hug from Mama Bear Wendy, your fierce support in the journey of grief, until next time.
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"Wendy has a beautiful way of sitting in the deep end of the ocean with you. Her presence alone is healing. She meets you where you’re at and doesn’t push you any further than where you want to go. She gently nudges you into new places with new perspectives. She is highly intuitive, sensitive and compassionate. She brings a depth to the table you rarely see. Her experiences have given her an extraordinary level of understanding and a safe place to walk to as she is a safe harbor fill of strength and integrity. She is raw and real and beautifully vulnerable and she is exceptional at conveying the words that are hard to find. She is a rare one." Christi D.
Hello friends, this is the Parables of Grief podcast and this is your host, Mama Bear Wendy, I'm here to share some love and light with you on your journey through grief and loss. I hope, as our healing paths connect for the next few minutes, we can walk together and find strength for the road ahead. One scientist suggests that what the grieving need most is to have others witness our pain and help us not feel so alone. I hope in our time together you will find the companionship and understanding that you need. The intention of this podcast is to use parables of grief to find the Savior and His promised healing in the daily and commonplace, to see how we are truly never alone and to find, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the Savior by our side, even if we didn't recognize him at first, because he showed up in unexpected and common ways. Also, there is much coming soon to help with your journey. The Parables of Grief book will be coming out by Christmas of 2025, and there are opportunities to join me in online grief groups and one-on-one companion sessions. Please check out my website at momadbearwendycom for more information.
Speaker 1:Hello, my friends, this morning we are going to have a podcast about Mourn, with those that Mourn. I realize that we've already done that, but I found some new information and I think this will be helpful to those who are mourning and to those who would like to support them. So we're going to start out with a quote from President Camille Johnson, the General Relief Society president, that she gave in April of 2023 General Conference. She says so how does the Savior relieve us of the burdens of living in a fallen world, with mortal bodies subject to grief and pain? Often, he performs that kind of relief through us, as covenant members of His church. We promise to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those that stand in need of comfort. Because we are come into the fold of God and are called His people, we are willing to bear one another's burdens that they may be light. Our covenantal blessing is to partner with Jesus Christ in providing relief, both temporal and spiritual, to all of God's children. We are a conduit through which he provides relief.
Speaker 1:So today we're going to talk about the difference between grief and mourning, and the first part is what is grief? Grief is a natural response to loss. It is something that is an emotion that we neither control nor choose. It is something that is part of the loss of someone we love, loss of plans, loss of dreams and hopes. Maybe all kinds of things can create this feeling of grief. It's not linear or predictable and I think there's a lot of messages about how there are five stages of grief and then you know we use those maybe to label the way that we're behaving or others are behaving, and although those things can be helpful in defining, maybe, what we're feeling or experiencing, they are not linear or predictable. I had one friend who described it as sometimes she can go through all the stages in five minutes. Sometimes she can be stuck in one stage.
Speaker 1:One of the things that was very surprising to me when my husband died was the desirability of denial. I found great comfort and peace in denying that he was dead and I would choose to live in denial just because there was peace and there was protection there. So not linear or predictable. There are behavioral changes that come with grief. Some of them are social withdrawal and avoidance. Maybe you feel increased irritability. Certainly a lot of volatile emotions come with grief. It affects your thoughts, feelings, behaviors and physical health, and feelings of grief can look like sadness, they can look like anger, they can look like anxiety and fear. All kinds of feelings go with grief Maybe apathy, maybe feelings of despair.
Speaker 1:The prophet, president Hinckley, described it as devastating. Devastating was one of the words that he used to describe the pain of grief, this feeling of losing that person that you loved so much, and you can have physical changes. That was a surprise to me. I didn't realize how much my body would carry the grief and I would have pain in my knee, or then it would move to my back and then it would move to my shoulder, and it was random where it would show up, but it was not based on anything physical. I hadn't fallen, I didn't have bruising. It was also very like I said it would move, and that would make me aware that it was an emotional pain, not a physical pain. So we've described grief.
Speaker 1:Now we're going to talk about mourning. In the quote she says this is from the Book of Mormon, where one of our baptismal covenants is to mourn with those that mourn, and initially, before I lost my husband, I thought that mourn with those that mourn meant to grieve with them. Defining that we're doing here is to establish that we are not asked to feel what other people are feeling. Our job is not to come in and feel with them their grief. Our job is to mourn with them. So what is mourning and how is it different than grieving? So one description of mourning is the journey.
Speaker 1:A lot of people will say you have to process your grief, and there's this idea in my mind of processing being like in a factory where they're making beans or they're making ice cream or they're making something, and processing is the process of making it sellable, right? So you get a can and you get salt and you get water and you get beans and you've processed the beans to make them cooked and digestible, and then you put them in the can and you put the lid on and you heat it up so that it's safe, right? So, in thinking about that, how do we process grief, right? What is the steps? Perhaps which again brings us back to this whole idea of the five stages and is that how you process grief?
Speaker 1:But one of the things that the grieving need is someone to witness their pain, and so this mourning with those that mourn means we come and we sit with them. We don't feel what they're feeling, we don't understand what they're feeling. We are there just to make light, whatever presence we have and share with them this ability to listen. Our job in mourning with those that mourn is not to process them. We are not there to make them move through any kind of stages or anything. That's not our job. Our job is to meet them where they are and bring light and hope and presence, our presence. So the journey of mourning is to help them adapt, help them to feel less alone.
Speaker 1:Mourning is actions. Mourning is showing up for a funeral. Mourning is helping someone talk about their loved one and listen to them. These are actions you can take, like going to the cemetery. There is a lot of peace for me in going to the cemetery and talking to my husband Not that I think he's there, but it is a place that I can feel closer to him, feel less alone.
Speaker 1:Mourning is a way others can help. This is something you can do to be with them. Asking questions like tell me about the person you lost is a great way to give them permission to mourn and a reminder that their loved one is not forgotten by you. There is great comfort in knowing you're not the only one that misses them. You're not the only one that thinks about them. You're not the only one who loved them. What a comfort it is to feel that support that shared missing. It can be a place for you to process your grief.
Speaker 1:I feel like a lot of times there is nowhere that I can grieve without being embarrassed or falling to pieces, especially at first, and so having a time set aside, like going to the cemetery, then I know that it's time and we can let grief out. Mourning can be a way to connect to the people that love you, and another way to mourn for those who are grieving is to write letters or imagine what your spouse would say to you in this time. Even though you're separated, it's still possible to have conversations with them and to feel close to them. So I hope that that was helpful. I hope that you can see now that mourning is more of an action. I hope that you can see now that mourning is more of an action. It's something we do to express our grief.
Speaker 1:Grief is more of an emotion, and especially for those who desire to help and to mourn with those that mourn, as we covenant to do. You are not asked to come and feel what the person is feeling. You are asked to come and witness with them, share with them, be present with them and give them space, hold space for them to feel what they're feeling, without judgment, without comparison, without saying I know exactly what you feel, because this happened to me. That's not helpful, that's very painful, actually, because no one knows what you feel except the Savior. And so making a space for someone to feel whatever it is they're feeling, without judgment, without comparison, and just opening your heart to be with them in that, in that time, is such a gift.
Speaker 1:There are eight needs that grievers have, eight needs for their journey and their mourning. One is to acknowledge and talk about the death. One is to tell their story, and maybe over and over again. Maybe you are sick of hearing it, but they need to tell it. That's part of their processing. These are the eight things that really benefit them in this processing their grief. They need to not avoid, because avoidance makes it increase, makes the feelings, like I said, increase, makes the feelings, like I said, go into their body and maybe show up in disease and do all kinds of things. So avoiding the pain, avoiding the emotion, doesn't serve us, but making time, making a place for this pain and loss to be felt fully, especially with someone who loves them, that will sit with them and give them that witness that they desperately need, is a need Remembering the person who died and, like I said, asking.
Speaker 1:I know most people, especially me. When I was initially experienced this loss, I felt like people avoided the topic because they were afraid I would remember, which is just silly. There's not a point in my day when I don't remember my husband is gone. When I make dinner and he's not there to eat it, I remember, and when I wake up in the morning and he's not beside me, I remember. So it's not like you can bring it up and suddenly they're going to be so surprised. Actually, there is relief in knowing that they have permission to share and to be supported in their missing.
Speaker 1:There is a need to develop a new self-identity and this may be surprising to those who haven't lost someone that was integral to their lives. But there is a lot of personal loss, especially in the loss of a spouse. You've lost your label as a wife. You've lost your best friend and partner and confidant. All those things require a new definition of who you are. You receive all kinds of weird labels, like widow and widower, and things are shocking, especially like when you file taxes and when you check your church records and all kinds of things where you're suddenly single.
Speaker 1:One of the next needs is to search for meaning. It is a surprise to me how much I lost the desire and the passion for life when my husband died. It felt like there was no meaning anymore, and I've talked to a lot of widows and widowers and a lot of us felt that way that the meaning and purpose and all the plans were gone, and so we have to start over and rebuild and create something that's never been before, which is really hard when you've built a life with someone and you have all kinds of plans that are now ruined. It requires a lot of effort and, of course, at first there is no space for that. You're so and so overwhelmed, but as you heal, you start to need this new meaning, new purpose, and the next one is to have ongoing support from others and to make new friendships, new connections, new places to people that need you and love you. The last one is you need to be encouraged to mourn long after the death and, like we've talked about, that is about feeling, but it's also about actions.
Speaker 1:Some actions that people take are to go to cemeteries and before my husband died I didn't really understand that. I thought that was morbid and weird. But going to the cemetery has been a great comfort to me. My husband and I would do something fun. We would go get takeout and sit in the car and visit and he called it a stakeout, like we were policemen in this neighborhood, whatever, anyway. So sometimes I'll go get takeout and sit at the cemetery and have a stakeout with him just to be near him, recognizing that he's not in the cemetery. I realized that.
Speaker 1:But the cemetery is a place where it's acceptable to cry. It's a place where nobody wonders what might be the problem or something. As you know, if I'm in Costco balling, then that is not socially appropriate. So then there's people that would be fearful of that. But at the cemetery I am allowed and expected even to cry and to mourn, and so there is a need for those who wish to mourn with those that mourn to be able to be given permission to do so and even encouraged.
Speaker 1:It is a great blessing when someone asks me tell me about your spouse, especially those who don't know him. It is a great gift to me to be able to share what I loved about him and some people might be afraid oh, does that mean that I remind you that he's dead? That's just silly. We are always aware, hyper aware even, of his loss. In every step of my life, every day, there is a place where he's desperately missing A big man-sized hole in my waking up and in my going to bed. There's a big man-sized hole in my waking up and in my going to bed. There's a big man-sized hole in every meal that he's not there. So it's not that you can remind me of this and it is a great gift to be given permission to share that missing, that loss.
Speaker 1:This is our podcast for today. I'm so grateful you've come and I hope this is helpful, especially as you desire to fulfill your baptismal covenant to mourn with those that mourn and for those who are grieving. I hope these two lists of things that are grieving and mourning, and then also the needs on your journey can be a blessing to you. Have a wonderful day, and also the needs on your journey can be a blessing to you. Have a wonderful day. If you would like more grief support, please see my website at mamabearwendycom for my upcoming five pillars of resilience group and one-on-one opportunities. Although your experience and path will be unique. There is hope ahead in this path and you are not alone. I can see your pain and we will walk this road together. Let's take a deep breath together and here is a big bear hug from Mama Bear Wendy. Until next time, thank you.
