Episode 8: Where the F*ck Were the Adults? Grief and Recovering from Childhood—with guest Tamara Hanna, LPC
We talk with Tamara Hanna of Love and Loss Counseling who is a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist through The Grief Recovery Institute. We talk about the alternative dolls kids get instead of Barbies when they grow up in a Christian household, toys, and clothes on layaway at Kmart (are you feeling nostalgic?), all the things large and small we need to grieve in our lives, recovering from childhood emotional neglect and childhood trauma, and like...where the f*ck were the adults?
00:00 Introduction: Alison & Anne catch up
Cults (again!), watching Lord of the Rings Extended Edition while high, who should and should not do drugs, avoidant attachment, which Enneagram type is most susceptible to joining a cult? and more.
20:00 Interview with Tamara Hanna, Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC)
Theme music is "One Cloud is Lonely" by Proxima Parada.
Audio mastering is by Josh Collins.
Show notes:
Intro:
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
Episode 5 is the episode we talk about gurus and buttholes
Interview:
The Heart Family Dolls (Tamara)
The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting by Alice Miller (Alison)
The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self by Alice Miller (Alison)
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk (Anne and Alison)
The Grief Recovery Handbook by John W. James and Russell Friedman (Tamara)
Nadia Bolz-Weber's video: Forgive Assholes
The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller (Tamara)
To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings by John O'Donohue (Tamara)
Tear Soup: A Recipe for Healing After Loss by Pat Schweibert, Chuck DeKleyen and Taylor Bills (Tamara)
Mr. Rogers (Anne)
Mary Oliver poems (Anne)
Guest Bio:
Tamara Hanna is a Licensed Professional Counselor, and a Certified Facilitator of P.I.C.K relationship attachment curriculum. She holds a BA in Clinical Psychology and Creative Writing and an MS in Clinical Psychology.
"I am a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist through the Grief Recovery Institute, and this is my passion--to help people through grief, loss, change, transitions: LIFE. Whether it’s trauma, difficult and disappointing parents or family, or miserable relationships, I’m not afraid of going deep because I believe you can come out better on the other side. Society does not help us very much. In fact, we often get unhelpful messages--sometimes from our family or our communities of faith and cultures of religion. We need to unlearn some things and replace them with tools that really resonate for us."
Read more about Tamara: https://www.loveandlosscounseling.com/
Transcript
Alison Cebulla 0:06
All right, welcome to another episode of latchkey urchins.
Anne Sherry 0:13
That's my that's my scary Halloween friends
I'm nervous. My body just got nervous for some reason right now is that yeah, just a tiny little bit, I think because we're, we're actually doing this. I think the palm LLS? Yeah, I'm afraid we might become a cult. Could we would we?
Alison Cebulla 0:38
We can't ever want. Really?
Anne Sherry 0:42
No one No call. No.
Alison Cebulla 0:45
Yeah, last week's episode. Well, like I call it the call, but it was a joke. That was a joke. And then I was kind of like, ooh, but like I also like don't want to be making fun of anyone who may have been hurt, you know, very badly in a cult. So I kind of was like, Ooh, like, to us it was a joke and well, like my favorite murder. They call their fan base the fan cult. Okay, I really like but it's like, I'm like, Who knows what you can and can't joke about but anyway, yeah, being like being in a cult being hurt by Colt is a real thing. Because
Anne Sherry 1:18
I would really real thing and there's what's that podcast? My little bit culty a little bit called T Yeah, they kind of sort of go all about, talk all about their experiences of how they got roped in and some
Alison Cebulla 1:33
of you I've been adjacent to quite a number of coals have you know culty almost being
Anne Sherry 1:39
girl bellicose anything to people gathering and looking into each other's eyes Lovering Lee, I was fucking gone. No, that is one of the benefits growing up with the type of neglect I got. I think, I don't know maybe that could make I don't know if I got logic close look like love in people's eyes. I would be like, That's disgusting. So, yeah, or hero worshipping or any any sort of worshipping of anything. It was like Pippi Longstocking was probably the cult that I would have joined. I would have gone live at Pitt Pippi Longstocking house for sure she was badass. She was my girl,
Alison Cebulla 2:24
for sure. So because okay, like on a little bit culty, which is a great podcast from the survivors of the Nexium, colds. They talk about how like to make sure not to sort of like typecast certain types of people, like anyone could be susceptible to joining a colds and yeah, yeah, yes, that's true. Yeah, um, but they do identify. And so Matthew Rimsky they have on their podcast in season one, and he's the host, one of the CO hosts of can spirituality. And he's amazing. Yeah, I hear that one of the cults that he escaped was with Gesha, Michael Roach, which is actually a cult that i To me, it never felt culty like, I wasn't like in the inner circle, but I taught meditation at his at the Three Jewels in New York City, which is his yoga studio.
Anne Sherry 3:09
So I'm not saying that like my, you know, obviously, it's my experience, but I feel like anything that felt like community to me, and that is, as we've discussed, that's very detrimental. Because to be out there on your own, figuring out life not having not seeking any wisdom or any input that that's not a great way to live either. So I don't know.
Alison Cebulla 3:35
Well, there was some part of you that was interested because you are a religious studies major. You Yeah,
Anne Sherry 3:41
that was what was that? I don't know. I'd been off school for a year because I had to get in state tuition after I quit ROTC. I was full scholarship ROTC. What's Army ROTC Oh, that's how I got to Colorado.
Alison Cebulla 3:55
Oh, no that about you?
Anne Sherry 3:58
I know it's a little known fact there's a little shame around it because I just used it to get I was like I don't give a shit how I get I gotta get out of the south of fucking hate it here got it. I gotta get out of this whatever mentality of the where I didn't feel like I fit Yep. I used my hero status which was trying to erase my older brothers memory because he was so off the rails nuts so I all that fit into a full scholarship to go to university Colorado when you could get into a college with like barely breaking 1000 on the LSAT claim to fame. I'm not a good test taker. I might have add I don't know. Um, so yeah. So where was I going with that? Yeah.
Alison Cebulla 4:49
studies really.
Anne Sherry 4:50
I don't know. I just hit I I landed in a really was spirituality. What I was interested in just something fit about this. Intro to Buddhism.
Alison Cebulla 5:01
But this is what draws a lot of people to cults is the search for meaning like for the Three Jewels, it was about the community and the community was awesome. It really was. Yeah, but it was also like Buddhists like claimed to have like, you know, 10 Step eight Step 12 Step like you'll be, and that really fits into my one, my personal questing for perfection is like, Oh, if I just meditate enough and do and study enough, you know, at the end of the road, I'll be perfect. And I'll never do a wrong thing again.
Anne Sherry 5:37
That may Ooh, how that would be. So you know, how we're talking about, like, how does this this subject fit in with this subject? Like the any, which Enneagram number is most susceptible to being cool?
Alison Cebulla 5:49
Probably different. Yeah. Different things. So for me, it really was the, the myth that I didn't realize was a myth. I really, really, I was like, Oh, the Buddha was a real person. You know, some people are actually doing this. But as we talked about, in whatever episode that was about buttholes if you're pretending that you don't have a butthole,
Anne Sherry 6:12
your shit. You're full of shit, your fellowship.
Alison Cebulla 6:16
So our guest today is Tamra Anna, a therapist and grief, love and loss expert, man, she's amazing. She
Anne Sherry 6:25
is amazing. I that is another therapist. Now if she started a call, I'd be in it for you just wouldn't start a call. That's what makes it so that's why you want to be in her coat? Because if it won't, it would be so special. If she did. We were chosen. She's god. Oh my god. Yeah. So um,
Alison Cebulla 6:48
but um,
Anne Sherry 6:51
what else is going on? Yeah.
Alison Cebulla 6:53
Well, okay, so we just finished watching the Oh, I know what I wanted to say about cults really quick before I before I transition, which is that? Well, I think what made me personally susceptible and New York City was the fact that it was a new city. So it was very, and they say that is that anyone could join a cult. But if you if you're going through a major transition, like you've just moved or a loss of a loved one or a divorce or something like that, you're more susceptible. So all those factors, like I lost the job that I had moved out there for pretty right away. I did. Oh, like broke. I was like, you know, just all it was man. So there were a couple coats I got adjacent to that was my on that. But transition. So if you're in a
Anne Sherry 7:43
I do, I'm having this moment here. Like, I want to thank you, Mom and Dad for raising me with no emotion. And making me not susceptible to being in a cold. So I have a huge vestibule just like Tom right. So you think you know you'll talk? I'm like, Yeah, your program. Sounds awesome. And I'll fucking ghost you in one second as like, you know, yeah, I'll be there at three to go to that, whatever. And it's just I just don't show up. So
Alison Cebulla 8:12
I did that with some Mormon missionaries in college. But we my Laura and I, Laura, we have an interview with her in a couple of weeks. So we were working at this clothing store, one of our co workers was Mormon. And she was like, hey, like, what did they call brother or elder Elder? Elder so and so and so and so are here in town? Like, do you guys want to come over for dinner? And I really was so curious. Like, I wanted to know what the pitch was. So yeah, we went for dinner. And we heard the whole Mormon pitch like we heard the whole thing. And the whole time, I was like, ah, oh, that sounds great. Absolutely. Uh huh. And we laughed, and Laura was like, You're not gonna drink their Kool Aid or you know,
Anne Sherry 8:57
this is not that long ago, I two did the light warm and interesting. And like, they were like, well, we'll come back on Friday at three. I was like, sounds great. I was like, we won't be here. I'll be here, but and then I did. I felt terrible about waste. I was like, well, that's fucked up that I wasted their time. So I found them the local chapter. And I emailed them and said, Hey, severe. Yeah, yep. Don't come at three. Don't they're not interested. Yeah. So email and text has been a great way to not have to actually say, I don't like to have that hard conversation of I don't want to be in your orbit. I don't want you in my orbit or whatever. You know. Yeah. I can just you can do it that way. So that's how
Alison Cebulla 9:48
did you I can't get off the cool thing. Did you read her of heaven? Did you read that the Jon Krakauer wrote into the wild so he wrote the man heaven about how how the Mormon religion started Oh,
Anne Sherry 10:01
no, just basically like 7000 books in Kindle. Yeah.
Alison Cebulla 10:05
Yeah. Like a sociopathic you know, Guru cult leader basically, who kept getting kicked out everywhere he went, you know, he would go like Ohio, Illinois, you know what I mean? And everyone's like, Get out of here, dude. And so then finally he got to Utah. Like, you know, he was like, Okay, here we are.
Anne Sherry 10:21
I found the books. Are there some books they found? Yeah, that got put there by some buddy as a religion Tom laughs at me because I, as a religious studies major. I know nothing. Like when I joined the Christian church. liberal church, I will say, Yeah, Palm Sunday, and all that stuff. All that Easter stuff. I was like, Tom, what are the palms? What were the ashes? Like? Did you not fucking get a degree in this? I was like, I don't know. I don't really remember all that. Did you study? I don't know. Like the human experience. I was all into play stuff and the human dimensions of human just the human. I don't know, you said to pick something. It was like probably. That class was good. They're like, You got to pick something. I'm like, Okay, I'll do that. I mean, literally, there was no, I never saw a guidance counselor or whatever you're surprised to I just fell out of college in 93. With four credits, just sort of, you know, this just I didn't even know how many credits you're supposed to have. I was like, I think that's enough. I think that's probably good. And then I was like, Okay, I guess I'm graduated. They're like, No, no, no. Like, oh, I should have taken math. So anyways, yeah. Okay. Okay. But
Alison Cebulla 11:42
okay, so we finished watching. We watched the extended version of Lord of the Rings. Have you ever done that the
Anne Sherry 11:48
extent done extended?
Alison Cebulla 11:51
I don't know what that means. Oh, yeah.
Anne Sherry 11:54
Well, you live in one of those states, I of course, would not be partaking in anything like that. Because I don't live in a state
Alison Cebulla 12:03
that has that stuff. You do a state to a state that did I highly recommend watching Lord of the Rings extended version
Anne Sherry 12:11
that's in the extended it's already like 7 billion hours long. Yeah. Like pandemic life. Still,
Alison Cebulla 12:17
you don't I mean, like, we're still not quite so it's like, Look, we're not doing anything else. I'm just gonna, so we, we watched a half an episode at a time. So each of the full extended is for
Anne Sherry 12:29
how many gummies worth 10 milligrams for what
Alison Cebulla 12:34
way I only learned our like, two three milligrams at a time. You know? Yeah, I'm real lightweight. I just feel kind of warm and happy. Yeah. Okay, but I'm again not advocating that anyone use drugs like not advocating not suggesting
Anne Sherry 12:51
I am? Fucking use some drugs if you can have a healthy relationship with substances do it. Okay, sorry. If you see a healthy relationships well, your relationship your soul your physician, or just fucking do it. Like, I don't I don't want to play out. I'm Yeah, it's, I'm getting a little. I think it's my good girl part because my brother didn't have a healthy relationship. But I was like, oh, no, I you know, I went to like, maybe 12 Dead shows. And I was like, this is way too much. I must stop this and get serious. And I'm like, Why? Why it was fun. Right? Right. Right. Right. Fucking fun. So this thing of like, I think, is I don't know. I'm getting really curious about some of the mind expanding stuff. I don't think you should do. I will say adolescents and teenagers. Don't fucking do it. I agree. Oh, need messing with your developing brain. Yeah, wait until your 20s to do that. Because there's a lot of development, there's a lot of steps you'll miss. If you start managing hard, hard experiences with substances just be be just surprise your friends and don't fucking use drugs. And you just know that like, I don't know, 2120 to start trying some shit, or it's fun. But I do have
Alison Cebulla 14:13
to say I mean, just as a public health person, I have a master's degree in public health. And that there are certain if you have certain mental illnesses, like schizophrenia or bipolar and you take a hallucinogenic drug, including marijuana, it can increase your symptoms, your negative symptoms.
Anne Sherry 14:30
So that would not be a healthy relationship. I'm being really clear. If you can have a healthy relationship, have some fun. Yeah. Okay. Doctor. Okay, yeah.
Alison Cebulla 14:47
I mean, that series came out like 20 years ago, so I really didn't remember, you know, much of what was happening. So it was actually really nice to see it. A really nice escape for reality and the whole the whole thing, right the whole 12 hours is about the importance of friendship. And I and I just so beautiful. Like, you know, there's so many times when some a character will be like, I just I have to do it alone. I need to do it alone. I'm gonna go off alone. And the friends come in and they're like, Nope, we're here right here with you and we're not leaving. Time after time. Like every character. It's so beautiful. Yes,
Anne Sherry 15:23
that's true. That's true. Even even. Okay, Frodo trying to get up that hill, the whatever and then Damn, Sam gangee. It's just too much. What what does he do? He carries it for him, or does it carry Frodo up with Frodo carries Frodo up so Frodo can throw who throws the ring in ultimately, is this a spoiler alert?
Alison Cebulla 15:46
Spoiler look, if you want to skip ahead, you know, but I didn't. I hadn't remembered this spoiler. Actually, I hadn't remembered it at all, but Gollum at the last. So at the last minute, Frodo F's up, and he's like, I'm going to put the ring on and no one adds right. So then Gollum comes and accidentally saves the day by you know, Trump being greedy. Because that because everything would have been lost if Frodo had just gotten away with it. But then Gollum comes and tries to steal it jumps on the Frodo and then Gollum falls in the lava pit with the ring.
Anne Sherry 16:17
Excellent. So greed has a place to ultimately destroy itself. That's a mess. I did not take a gummy before this podcast. sounds it sounds like I'm heading in that direction. But I did not. Because I don't live in a state that has that material. So legally,
Alison Cebulla 16:36
is it about because the the ring is just like a symbol for power? And like the fact that our is like addicting, you know,
Anne Sherry 16:44
and there's your cold people?
Alison Cebulla 16:45
Like, yeah,
Anne Sherry 16:47
I really think I'm gonna call this bottle bottle ology. Like every cult leader, anybody that you start to look up to regularly ask them about their toileting habits. And if they're not willing to talk about Yeah, this, you know, there was this shit. And then this thing happened. And I shit my pants on a little. That was embarrassing if people can't talk in that realm. Don't follow them. Exactly. Yeah, just do a butthole check. Not like literally don't look at their buttholes but like, like, ask people a bath. Like, how are you messy and fucked up in the world? is really what we're saying here. So I want to hear about that.
Alison Cebulla 17:28
Yeah, exactly. So this this week's can spirituality, which all our listeners know I'm addicted is about Elena Brower. It's an amazing, amazing episode about Elena Brower, who is a Yoga Instructor in New York. And this she was coming to be very big at the same time that I was in New York. And I followed her on Instagram. And I was like, trying to be a health coach. And I'm following her and looking up to her and thinking like, oh, wow, like, you know, she seems this is what I really looked up to her about. She seems so peaceful. She seems so peaceful. I stopped following her a couple years ago when I snapped out of my you know, like, yes, my Gazette. We're sure you hit
Anne Sherry 18:12
where you hitchhiking around that time, huh? That's right. Oh, right.
Alison Cebulla 18:17
So but I kind of woke up of like, watching people pretend to be perfect on social media is not the way for a healthy life. So I unfollowed like everyone that I was like idolizing. But then in the podcast episode, they play some some recordings of her, like private recordings of her speaking to her employees and she's a fucking bitch.
Anne Sherry 18:36
Yeah. And that all that pretend niceness has to get balanced out somewhere. So it's like this is the part stuff right like this, this affected manager that's like, Oh my God. And so she's getting some need met of like, I am amazing. You know, because I guarantee you somewhere deep down in there. None of us have answers especially gurus don't have answers, especially gurus that especially
Alison Cebulla 18:58
you and I and yes, we don't have any of them. That's why we're just exploring them. Yeah. So
Anne Sherry 19:03
if you're still listening, please tune in. She's amazing. Skip. i If you get at any point as Allison, I play and do do a podcast like no one's listening. Because no one was listening. always skip ahead, just go to the interview. This
Alison Cebulla 19:24
is amazing. Tamra
Anne Sherry 19:27
do not do not she's I've had my eye on her for a while at church and I was like, I don't want to be friends with her. I wonder if she'd be friends? Friends by now. I really love her energy. God, I'd like to be friends with her and I was just too afraid to ask to be I don't know how we totally became friends but I adore her. So she's against
Alison Cebulla 19:48
So yep, here's the Okay.
Hi, okay. So welcome Tamra, thank you so much for joining us on latchkey urchins and friends today.
Tamara Hanna 20:05
Thanks for having me. So,
Alison Cebulla 20:09
he, um, so Okay. Um, I'm just want to introduce our guest Tamra, which I'm super, super excited to talk to her. Tamra is a Grief Recovery certified Grief Recovery specialist through the Grief Recovery Institute. And so you're probably okay, let's see, here we go. Master masters of clinical psychology, amazing bachelors of psychology. A licensed professional counselor based in Asheville area in North Carolina. And yeah, any anything else i i missed? That's really important. Just doing amazing work around love and loss.
Tamara Hanna 20:59
And I have two great puppies at home. Oh,
Alison Cebulla 21:03
what kind of what kind of dogs
Tamara Hanna 21:05
a miniature poodle who is 15 years old. So he's my senior grumpy old man now, but he's been with me since he was six months old. So he is my little companion. And his name is snickerdoodle. And then I have a little bit who came into our lives as a stray. And that's how I got his name because we said we're just gonna keep him for a little bit until we could find his home. And it's been 10 years now. So he's a beagle. Doxon. Chihuahua.
Anne Sherry 21:32
Oh, all the all the dogs? Yeah. Yeah.
Alison Cebulla 21:38
So um, so Tamra Anna and you two know each other? How do you know each other?
Anne Sherry 21:46
So many ways. Yes. We even spent yesterday today doing soul collage, which I can't stop talking about that. Maybe? Everything we say that's new. We're like, oh, yeah, well do an episode on that.
Tamara Hanna 21:58
Okay. We might, okay, John, you it's powerful.
Anne Sherry 22:04
It is very, very powerful, very creative to for those of us that were kicked out of art and creativity classes early because we didn't make it into the gifted art program at second grade. Why the fuck does the school have a gifted art program and second grade, go fuck yourself public school. Like I was
Tamara Hanna 22:23
telling Matt about to do art, but I didn't have anybody to nurture that like around me. So like, I would just accumulate like I just would ask for like, I just want construction paper for my birthday. And then they get construction paper and I'm like, I don't know what to do with it. I just like all the colors. And I don't know
Anne Sherry 22:42
how many ever years later, we now know you are collecting for soul collage. So there we go. Oh
Alison Cebulla 22:48
my gosh, that sounds amazing. So um, today's Sunday, so Friday night, we hosted a little pumpkin painting party for adults and our friends because we're all in our 30s Oh, it looks like tamaraws Frozen. Oh, there we go. That's okay. And that. Everyone's like, this is so wholesome. You know all of us in our 30s the ones that we don't have kids and we just painted. We just painted pumpkins and it really felt so nurturing was so fun.
Anne Sherry 23:17
And then did you drop acid or something?
Alison Cebulla 23:20
We talked about it? Yeah, we did talk about Yeah. We're like next party. Yeah.
Anne Sherry 23:29
I think I threw some shade your way. I was like fucking painting pumpkins, where the knives. Where is the digging out the blood? Guts. Slime of the pumpkin and stitches. And
Alison Cebulla 23:42
we'll do that too. Yeah, Friday was,
Anne Sherry 23:44
it did look like a real simple magazine article, actually. Home Decor things. So I don't know. Anytime somebody does some good, my little. My little urgent parts come forward and like that's fun. What are you doing? That's not dirty enough? You know?
Alison Cebulla 24:01
You're so that's a great, okay, that's a great segue to kind of our first question for Tamra. Which is like, the, you know, do you relate to being a latchkey kid or like an urgent need kid? Or, you know, did you spend a lot of time at home alone? Or like even like emotionally alone and sort of how do you relate to that energy?
Tamara Hanna 24:26
Yeah, I was thinking about this in I think, while there may have always been someone around, it was very, like, didn't mean somebody was present. And it certainly didn't mean that the adults were in the room. You know, like sometimes oftentimes, oh, my god is a child very early on. I was the most adult one maybe in the room.
Alison Cebulla 24:45
Yes, it's relatable.
Tamara Hanna 24:48
So like I think of it, you know, just examples of maybe paint a picture of what it was like, like my dad worked nights at the post office. And so, for anyone that's maybe lived with someone who works nights it affects everybody's, you know, schedule Fill in the environment. And so certainly there was a lot of times like he was home for, like safety if there was a fire or something, but it was also very clear, like not available. And it created it was almost like for me, I'm the oldest of three. And my sister is six years younger my brother's 10 years younger than I am. So pretty big spread. And so it kind of was like my job to make sure he got sleep because that didn't get sleep it or affect mood, and you know, all of that whole thing. And so I was thinking of this the other day is almost like living with like, a grenade. You know, like, don't let my daughter and my other siblings get so upset that they wait, dad, it was also a threat. You know, like, I'm gonna tell dad, you know, wake dad up. And you know, we all know we're not supposed to do that. Yeah, so that's kind of what was happening with my dad. during all those years when he's working very hard and work overtime and just very hard working working class. And my mom, I mean, she had me at like, 2021. And one of my very early memories was this is just one of those. It puts it in a picture I think stories of I have it on a cassette recording somewhere that she set me up to record reading to myself, and she's there. I mean, I can kind of remember visually to like she was just laying on the floor. I think she was depressed. I don't know, like, depressed, anxious, just checked out, which is overwhelmed. Who knows? I don't know exactly, but you can hear it on this cassette tape. My little voice you know, like, say, Mommy, you know, what's this word? Or can you read this to me and her just like eking out like honey, just do your best or just try it and like me trying to read Fox and socks and box and rocks? Oh, no, like Dr. Seuss.
Anne Sherry 26:47
We're not supposed to cry this early in the
Alison Cebulla 26:52
crow. Although it's yeah, I experienced the same same exact thing. So
Tamara Hanna 27:01
like she was there, right? She was there, but she wasn't. And anyways, it already starts to kick up. All these things were like to deal with that, like, for so long. I didn't know how that was not normal or not what other people were just what I knew. And then there's this part, these parts that say like, well, she was trying and she was suffering and struggling. But then like, there's that little last me like what was that like for? Like so those first six years of growing up, I was very clear the world's a dangerous place. And so I wasn't allowed to like play with kids. So I didn't have like that freedom. Maybe that maybe some people think of like latchkey kids, because it was very clear. Like don't go anywhere. Don't meet the neighbor kids. And but then there was like, not a lot happening in that. Like I was just kind of left to my own. And, you know, I might have had some really great toys or this or that, you know, because my mom worked harder. And books.
Alison Cebulla 27:55
Oh yeah. But my mom she worked at Kmart and so she if you remember Kmart would have layaway. My dad went to KMart. Yeah, yeah, my dad was so I could get toys. Oh yeah. My dad like Kmart the entire 80s He was a he was a they recruited him right out of college. He was an a manager of Kmart stores. So we have all these Kmart pictures from you know like they had the photo booths. Do you remember that? Oh, yeah. Tons and tons of Kmart baby pictures. Yeah.
Anne Sherry 28:32
All love layaway. Yeah, I remember as a teenager, you know, we'd put our clothes on layaway, and then you go to the mall every week with your like, $2 to put down on layaway. And like can I try all my layaway clothes for my friends. And by the time you got them off layaway, you're like this sucks. I'm done. Because yeah. salespeople were like what
Alison Cebulla 28:53
was on layaway? Tamra like what did you
Tamara Hanna 28:57
always like? Because I remember like, wow, I had some pretty good you know, like I had like, My Little Pony and Rainbow Brite like things that would have been kind of status things right? Like not, you know, didn't match the rest of our kind of socio economic status kind of thing. I still envied the Barbie Dreamhouse that was way beyond I also wasn't allowed Barbies for religious reasons. I had the spirit there. The heart The heart family was a special line of more wholesome adults looking at that the Hart family if I remember right, which means like they had like stitched on underwear so they weren't they have never naked.
Anne Sherry 29:35
Oh, little Right.
Tamara Hanna 29:38
Right. And then it was
Anne Sherry 29:41
like you didn't have blankets
Alison Cebulla 29:46
going in the show notes. These creepy frickin heart families.
Tamara Hanna 29:51
Mom and Dad boy and girl blonde hair. Yeah, grandparents were the exact mom and dad but they put gray streaks like the exact mom and dad without These streets and they're here. Unless you like regal lines.
Alison Cebulla 30:04
Looking at them right now it's so creepy
Anne Sherry 30:13
merchandising
Alison Cebulla 30:14
girl looks like JonBenet Ramsey. She has like a blonde.
Tamara Hanna 30:22
Yeah. Well this is like another part of their picture, right? Like, we were very steeped in church culture because I think that's what my parents went to to find some stability in their lives like they came from really?
Alison Cebulla 30:37
Where are your parents? Um, Indiana, Indiana, okay, okay. Yeah. Okay.
Tamara Hanna 30:44
But pretty impoverished, pretty, you know, just like not not stable, you know, household like alcohol abuse, abuse, sexual abuse.
Alison Cebulla 30:54
Same in my lineage. Yeah. Yeah.
Tamara Hanna 30:57
So I think they thrust themselves like church was a way to try and find some stability and everything, which meant, like, we kind of had this picture of like, we do these things together, we go to church together, we, you know, so there's that. But then there was also like, we never talked about it was like, disjointed and just connected. It's just like, these are the things we do together. I also remember like another little snippet, it was like, done another job my mom had, but she was a title researcher. So that meant she had to go around to all the different county courthouses to do like, research, like pull out these really big books have plots and you know, that smell of the old wood and, and all of that, because I would go along with her like, this was probably before I was in school, she would have to tote me along. And again, just kind of this experience of like, I'm just along for the ride. Yeah, I have my little case of strawberry shortcake toys. Yeah. Again, probably on layaway, but good toys. And like I would have to like crawl under these big quiet, you know, office, you know, tables that seemed like they were gigantic and just packed, you know, amuse myself. That was like my childhood was like, okay, very last
Alison Cebulla 32:01
very last key, the kind of the working tagalong? Yeah,
Anne Sherry 32:07
the lack of emotion or anything? Tamra, do you? Do you consider yourself? Do you see, like the link to Bing? Or do you feel like sort of a quiet, quieter adult? Or like, do you? Is that something that all those experiences?
Tamara Hanna 32:24
Well, it's kind of interesting that especially with COVID, this last year, like I know, it's was hard for a lot of people. But for me in a way it felt like I came back to like a more natural state. Like there's been a lot of these learned ways of being out outward. And with and like, and especially like, as my energies are really depleted. It feels I've just feels maybe the most familiar I don't know want to say comfortable, but it just feels like the most familiar to just be like, yeah,
Anne Sherry 32:56
yeah, yeah. Yeah, there were a lot of
Tamara Hanna 33:01
everybody else's energies. Right. Like, that's what it was, is like, yeah, what's going on? I can't show up, you know, with this, or, you know, it's a lot of that. I yeah, I
Anne Sherry 33:11
was I was, you know, I've perused books on attachment. Constantly. And I, you know, I was just reading something today, whatever, one of the many attachment books, but just like, you know, a securely attached kid will go into the world and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, that sounds like a lot of fucking work to be securely touched. Do you know? I mean, obviously, I longed for it. But I'm like, How do you do that? You know, without this sort of like, all the voice is like, Am I doing this? Right? Is this okay? Is this too much? Is this too little? Do people like, I don't know if anybody here lay attached is gonna listen to this. I hope we have some friends in that department.
Alison Cebulla 33:51
But like, does
Anne Sherry 33:53
it feel like we asked our kid that all the time? To feel like to be loved. He's like, shut up.
Alison Cebulla 34:00
Yeah. And he's gonna be therapy for
Anne Sherry 34:05
no. Time. I mean, he was right. That he can what a gift.
Alison Cebulla 34:11
Yeah. That's the biggest gift. Yeah, you you've mentioned that before. And that you? Yeah, he is welcome to have a conflict with you, too. It's safe to have a conflict. That's like the biggest gift that you could give him? Yes. Yeah.
Tamara Hanna 34:26
Yeah. Like I will say this just happened recently for me, like noticing like, what are all these feelings? Like, I was just feeling in like a I think it was an old place, and I finally put names on it. So we're trying to develop some of our yard into a glamping business. Okay, so all my privilege stuff and everything starts coming up, like who am I to, you know, be doing this thing, and we're hiring landscapers and never hired landscapers. And you know, I never even knew people that hired landscapers or
Alison Cebulla 34:52
anything. Got
Tamara Hanna 34:53
it. Like, if they think you know, I was a house cleaner. I was, you know, doing these things. And like I I realized it brought me back to these old feelings of like what was like to go to college, nobody had gone to college in my family. And while they were encouraging of education, like there was no one who could like the way there was no one to go to. And I knew that, like, I knew there was no one to look back to for help. You know, when it very, I mean, early on, when I started getting into academics as my outlet as my thing. Yeah, and, and so just that really deep sense of like, I've got to figure this out, like, I've got to figure this out. And then, and so that was coming back and just trying to do even some of this landscape work. Because it's like, all this stuff, all of a sudden comes to like, I don't know, this world. I don't belong here. So I don't know what I don't know. I don't know what I might make one mistake I might make or like, let you know, I'll get I won't know the right right thing to ask. And I'll get taken advantage of, or, you know, all of my other parts have developed to be like, so controlling. I'll be micromanaging. Because I'm asking too many questions. These aren't the questions people ask, because I don't know what the questions are, you know, I don't know. You know, like trying to all of a sudden figure out like, it's like, I'm in this. I'm in like this land that I feel like nobody's gone before me. Like this pioneer. know, kind of thing. Like,
Anne Sherry 36:14
yes, no, sign yourself. No look, quote unquote, normal in the world, you know, but
Tamara Hanna 36:20
the other part? Yeah. Because when I was in college, right, the nobody in college. I mean, heaven forbid if I told him what was really going on back home, right? Because like that, not that everybody's life was perfect. But there was enough stability. Even in the divorce families, there was more stability, it felt like then, like, what's going on? My family is contentious and you know, suicidal
Alison Cebulla 36:41
gestures, or not? Did you not self select? Because that's what I found. Like, when I was 30, I suddenly looked back on all the friends that I had self selected in high school, college, and I realized that I called them all up. I called them all up. I was like, were you sexually molested? Were you sexually molested? Were you sexually molested? And everyone's like, yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It was just a yes. It was it was yes. For all of us. You know, so like, I didn't, I wasn't like, oh, like, how did I find all these normal friends? It was like, oh, like, I picked the exact wounded friends that we could just be wounded together. Yeah.
Tamara Hanna 37:20
You know, like, actually, like, I like I really struggled with friendships for decades, I feel like, I don't have a single friend from college. Yeah, you know, the people I was surrounded with back then I really don't think they could relate, you know, I did such a good job keeping like, those lives separate. Because I could show up, I could function like a top of my class, you know, all of those things. And like, nobody knows this whole other story that's going on. And I really don't feel like it was until, like, 10 years ago that I started becoming friends with therapists. And I'm like, Okay, I will just be friends with therapists, because there's kind of a, you know, set of skills or understanding or trauma or whatever that comes with
Alison Cebulla 37:57
that, that these are my people. Yeah,
Tamara Hanna 38:00
like, yeah, you know, yeah, that whole self
Anne Sherry 38:03
selecting thing is so interesting. I have a, you know, I, I was so shut down when I went to college or so, managerial lead, I can remember one friend that just openly said, God, I gotta take a shit. And I was like,
Alison Cebulla 38:20
wow, you can just say that and I say all podcasts
Tamara Hanna 38:30
my professors, my teachers. Yeah, it's always close. I was that, that seeker, you know, for the good professors that went see me know me esteem me like, oh, to live for, like, the extra handwritten notes on the 100% paper. But if it didn't have the handwritten notes, you know, just needed. So
Anne Sherry 38:55
why think Allison and I a little segue here, we have all both of us have said, I probably got this phrase from you, Tamra. But like, all of this is grief work. Like it's not just somebody dying, but it's like, all these experiences, you know, I didn't know when and it's not to blame. Anyone, we still, you know, I'm very clear that my parents are just the next iteration of a long line of relational trauma that's coming from, I don't know, the first fucking elites that that started us on the path of being against each other or not having enough. Yeah, so many
Alison Cebulla 39:31
layers, so many layers. I feel like sometimes I throw like my childhood under the bus or my parents. So I just want to say that it was actually my mom, who introduced me to the various levels of grief. She sent me a blog, you know, whatever. 1015 years ago, that was like, you know, 10 small things that that people need to grieve, you know, and it was just like little, just little things
Tamara Hanna 39:54
that so an unnamed Yeah, yeah.
Alison Cebulla 39:57
And I Allah, you know, that was my first introduction to like, oh, grief work. There's little, there's little things. And actually, this this was a big moment for me in grief when I was trying to decide where to go to grad school. And I also felt late to the game because I was like, 34 When I started grad school, and I felt I just felt behind which now I kind of looking back, I'm like, There's no, you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. It's not there's no, you're not behind. You could just do whatever you want. But I called her. She was my former singing teacher, and like, voice lesson, teacher, whatever, piano teacher. And she lived, it was living in Boston. And I called her and I was like, I just don't know if I should move to Boston for grad school. And I don't know what I'm doing with my life. And I was like, bla bla, bla, bla, bla bla bla. And she goes, you know, and I feel like I ruined everything. And I thought I was going to do this, this and this and this. And she was like, it sounds like you really need to grieve for the life that you thought you were going to have. Yes. Right. And that hit me so hard. That all my anxiety, my anxiety was just grief that I wasn't letting myself feel.
Tamara Hanna 41:06
Yeah. Well, that's why when I discovered Grief Recovery, like it wasn't drawn to it because of bereavement and death. I mean, it's odd, because I did have a lot of early introduction to deaths that were weird and unsupported. And, you know, messed up. But, but, but that was just like, we'll just let that sit over here. But when I discovered Grief Recovery, it was because this light bulb went off their definition of grief is that grief is anytime we might experience conflicting feelings, when there's the end or change of something familiar. Okay, so it's like, even a good choice, like, going to graduate school moving, and my, the choice I'm making for something good in my life, but then what to do with all these other feelings that come up with it, you know, that are conflicting with that. And that starts to bring things into question and all of that, you know, and, and they also say, you know, it could be the things that were familiar that were negative, even when those start to end, you know, like choosing a different path than our families. There's like that, am I betraying things? Am I you know, am I betraying them? Or how do I protect them? And they also name it, it can you can have grief for the things you didn't have, like the hopes and the dreams of expectations that you had. So, yeah, but the ideal parents are bringing in once you start to realize, Oh, I didn't have that, or that was different. That's an opening for grief that is there. You know, that goes on name so often, much less supported. What do we do with
Alison Cebulla 42:36
it? Did you have a moment? Tamra when you realize that there was other parenting that could have been available in the world? Gosh, I'm so sorry. To make you go
Tamara Hanna 42:48
there. Well, you know, one thing that was like, really, for me was I had my Nana. And my Nana was an adult presence in my whole childhood that when I spent time with her, she spent time with me, you know, like, I know that
Anne Sherry 43:03
pirates are really good. Yeah, really
Tamara Hanna 43:04
important. Yeah. And she's kind of scapegoated, even to this day by the rest of the family because like, she's too much like she's too free with her love or free. You know, like, she doesn't have such bullshit, but it's like, you know, she was the one that was there. And so I knew something different from a very early age and that way, like, why don't feel so different here? Yes. You know, then I feel over here.
Alison Cebulla 43:28
Yeah. Got it.
Anne Sherry 43:29
Got it. Yeah. Yeah, that's a super protective factor. You know, usually kind of working with somebody, you know, if the if folks are having it's not, not broken forever. No one's broken forever. We're already perfect as we are, as we know. But if you really do want to look for those, like, Well, where did it feel okay, or that that question is perfect. Alison, around, sort of, like identifying that resource. So there is a picture because I think that's what like starts to, like, open up the chasm of like, oh, it's not love over here in the way that it's quote unquote, supposed to be? Yeah, right. And my Nana,
Tamara Hanna 44:05
that they feel it's important to say she's not my biological grandmother. So she putting them in as part of the whole family system story is, she took my mom and my dad under their her wing when they were teenagers. Like she was kind of seeing stuff going on in their families, and she was just in proximity to them. And eventually that became of taking my mom under their guardianship. And my mom, see, I grew up knowing like, there was an adoption and everything. I didn't know the whole story. But later I found out the adoption became like my Nana adopted my mom, officially to protect me. Like so that is something my parents realized once they had me. They didn't want there to be any risk of me going to their biological families. So protective thing. So like, like, really? Yeah, it's like, really, I mean, but for the grace of God, like where would I've gone? If that didn't open up a whole nother channel of like, not perfect, you know, they didn't have a perfect family either. But something that was so different.
Anne Sherry 45:08
Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
Alison Cebulla 45:11
Well, maybe let's, um, I think let's shift gears just a slight amount because I do want to ask you, since we're still very, very much in this pandemic, I wanted to make sure we asked kind of what, what, what's important right now, or what are you seeing right now, in terms of grief and COVID? And pandemic? What is this bringing out in people? What are you seeing maybe in yourself or others? What's going on with grief?
Tamara Hanna 45:45
Well, this may be a strange way, because I can always be the strange one in the room when it comes to grief. And I get excited, right?
Anne Sherry 45:51
To say like, I was like, I was stopping rocking, and I was like, Oh, my poor clients are like, Oh, goody. You have attachment trauma, and you know it, you know, like, it's gonna be so fun. So I have to get some hearts to
Tamara Hanna 46:06
step back. Like rewind time, two years ago, I felt like all the time, I was kind of up against trying to give an I had to get like, over this threshold of educating to gain people to get people to see the grief and stuff that's like, oh, no, my mom died 10 years ago, or Oh, no, nobody's really died, or, you know, like, it was only so focused on like, no grief shows up. And like, all the probably living relationships that are there, and like, that's really my passion is to help people when family estrangement, especially, you know, are just like, not having the relationships they wish they had with the people that are here. And but that is like it's like a big, I mean, once people get it, they get it. It's intuitive, and they can see it. But because that's not the way we've been conditioned societally to recognize what grief is, there's always been this big hump. And what I feel like COVID does, it has done is stripped all that away. Like once people start experiencing, they like couldn't it started getting named, like culturally, it started getting named everywhere, that there's grief because we didn't get to have the graduation or there's grief because we aren't getting to see Paul. So in a ways, I feel like I mean, it's been tragic and terrible, because it's such so much grief has come into people's lives and touching in the collective way we experience the grief, you know, so much loss, tangible loss, but all the intangible losses, I feel like are all finally getting named as grief in a way that the language wasn't there culturally, that I feel like, is there. And once in you, and you can't start addressing something until you can name it. I mean, I think that's true specifically for these kinds of childhoods, too. Right? But that's yeah,
Anne Sherry 47:42
those those likely, ideally, ultimately, bringing more compassion because there were plenty of times where people would, you know, kind of, it's not insensitive, but people would be like, I can't wait to go home to my family, and so and so's coming, and so and so's coming. And they're telling somebody who, like, cannot either can't go home, or it's very complicated, or, you know, it's it drops you into a trauma response to be around your family. And so now people know, having hard experiences like that. Yeah.
Tamara Hanna 48:13
Yeah. And, and to be able to name me it's kind of a little bit of a another other experiences that I've had during the COVID, you know, to say, you know, to find the right people to be able to say, actually, like, COVID really gave me a break from my family, that gave me a break from having to know those boundaries and hold those boundaries. Like, it took it off the table holidays, right. So I felt like kind of the and it fell as things were, you know, vaccines and making things possible. I'm like, Ah, I'm gonna have to like navigate that again and figure that out again, you know, and that's a hard thing to name in the midst of people's grief is so different, you know, but being able to recognize like, my grief is still mine in whatever way it's showing.
Anne Sherry 48:56
Yeah, yeah. We get into grief at Olympics you know, or it's a competitive sport like who's got the most or yours isn't real or which feels like another protector so that you don't have to maybe deal with your grief or deal with that people are in so much pain. Yeah, I guess I want to share too because I took when a tamaraws living relationship grief Well, it was a grief workshop and I worked on a living relationship and and how I mean it doesn't quote unquote solve it but it just opened up so many more tools and so much more got to be felt. That other parts are like no, it's a it's an on off switch. I think for a lot of our parts like no, we don't do this will do anger and hate anger and hate are safe. There's a lot of energy. You can you know, get her on the top with that. But to actually go into the complexity of it, you know, getting I love that the grief recovery process model because it takes you through a very like me manageable steps, a series of the next right steps are. And it was able to address those parts that are like, Okay, if I open this up, I'll either die or, like, I'll never stop crying or stop feeling, you know. And it was like it was I got this nice way of like, kind of, I think at the pool, not just diving in the deep end. It's one of those like, you walk in the little, I don't know what you call those things. We didn't have those at the pool. I went to their new sort of gradual
Alison Cebulla 50:31
slow eating. Yeah, kind of just
Anne Sherry 50:35
these days. Yeah. Can't this jump in? Yeah.
Alison Cebulla 50:39
Sorry. That's my
Tamara Hanna 50:39
mind. I can't help my mind goes to like, oh, yeah, there's those two times I saved my sister from drowning. Because we're the soccer we're the adults. Like, Okay, anyways. But I don't think you know, I think if the grief recovery process is like really the first half and maybe if that's even all people did, you read the five chapters of the Grief Recovery handbook, because it's about unlearning. It's about all this constriction that has come in from what we have learned about like, don't have those feelings. Don't express those feelings. Or just, you know, like, we've even been naming here today. I think you came up came up for you, Allison, this part that comes up, you're like, Oh, I gotta protect my parents. I don't want it to sound like they weren't trying, or I don't see where they were coming play. Absolutely. Like, like, as a kid. Oh, that's almost all I had was like, Oh, I shout grateful. I didn't go as much the anger route. And as like, the, be grateful, be happy, you know, be good. And what Grief Recovery gave me was like, be honest, like, we can actually be honest about all of it. And there's so much like, I mean, again, it doesn't make it go away. But it makes it less like I don't have to hold it all right here. If I can just be honest about all of it. I can be honest about like, the ways I saw my parents trying so hard, in some ways to show up for me. But can I also be really honest about how emotionally barren it was? Or where even roles got mixed up? Where like, my dad confided in me about what was going on with my mom, you know, like, although, yeah, can go?
Anne Sherry 52:09
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like,
Tamara Hanna 52:11
can we just be honest, and that, I think, is one of the main kind of tenants of the Grief Recovery approach is this commitment honesty? And I think that's because both a permission that we haven't been given to be able to be honest in the safe kind of supportive way, because so much is like, Oh, I can't say that, that will hurt their feelings, they'll feel bad, you know, and but also a responsibility to be honest, you know, to ourselves, to be able to say little that really impacted me I really needed something more indifferent or better than what I got
Alison Cebulla 52:45
what do you think keeps people from doing this work or doing healing work or getting honest or doing grief work? What what keeps people from doing it?
Tamara Hanna 52:55
Well, I think it's a lot of those those messages that get on so early that start to say, like, you know, be grateful or you know, gotta respect your parents honor your honor your parents that they got, especially the religious layer
Alison Cebulla 53:08
has a whole book on that commandment. That honor honor your mother. Yeah, she has a whole book. I love it. It's the most rage filled childhood feeling book I've ever listened to. It's amazing. I love it.
Tamara Hanna 53:25
Because I can remember if I were upset with my mom or expressed anger, like literally what would be said to me probably a slap across the mouth. And and like and your your, your, what was it? You're like, rebelling against the Holy Spirit? That was like, oh, yeah, you're not just disrespecting me. You're like disrespecting God, you know? And so it's like, where's what there room to be honest then about anything. And so I think that both it can, it can make it hard for some people to enter into the healing work because it's like, what we don't do that. I've been practicing not doing that my whole life. I was it was not safe to do that. But if you can create the safety for that, I think that's why it's so powerful. Because it's like it wherever you end up with that work. Like if you need more boundaries, great if you still want to love your parent, great, you know, but at least it's like it's all honest. That's right.
Anne Sherry 54:19
And I when I remember and appreciated about it camera was that it was it really was within me there isn't this because I think there's there's some like right, well, let's let's help you craft a letter and you can read it to your whoever you know, and it's like, Who would want to do that and it's really kind of violent to the other party if you do soul searching, and then you're like, and then you fucked up this and then you fucked up that but it's like,
Tamara Hanna 54:45
yeah, like Yeah, like, one they can feel it is because they died. Well, here's just another tidbit. I think the stuff we do get about grief, or find have found about grief is so like, sentimental you know, so it's about your grieving your have loved one, you know, like you're missing them. And it's like, where does that leave people with the honesty of like, actually, now they're gone. I never I didn't get what I needed. And now I don't get to get a chance for it to ever be better. So I lost the hope of that, you know, but none of that complexity gets named and so just shuts shuts down. And you know, to be able to say like, this is this is about you and for you so the people that couldn't show up for you back then don't expect them to show up for you now with this, but it doesn't mean you have to carry it. Right. Oh, continue carrying it in the same way. Right? Yeah. So it's always with me, but I feel like that's what's different is it doesn't have its claws in me in the same way when I'm able to unpack some of the grief Yeah.
Anne Sherry 55:45
What What about a forgiveness like Yeah, but
Alison Cebulla 55:53
Miller book and there's a great the so it's called the body never lies an examination of childhood trauma and its surreptitious, debilitating effects, like on the body, but this there's this great line in the description where it says, Never one to shy away from controversy, Miller urges society as a whole to jettison its belief in the fourth commandment and not to extend forgiveness to parents whose tyrannical child rearing methods have resulted in unhappy and often ruined adult lives.
Anne Sherry 56:28
What year is that book because Bessel Vander Kolk is getting all the press with the Body Keeps the Score as before,
Alison Cebulla 56:35
this was before so this um, this is only giving me the the I mean, her her seminal work the drama of the gifted child is from 1981 81.
Anne Sherry 56:49
Doing an ad and
Alison Cebulla 56:52
growing up being one Yep. Okay.
Anne Sherry 56:57
I don't know that I was in junior high probably.
Alison Cebulla 57:00
I know. Your Body Keeps the Score was the one that really did it for people. I mean, it's been on the best sellers list for like since it came out. It's still in the top 10 best sellers list today. And I have worked with vessel professionally. He's He's He's lovely. But I just wonder what it is about his book. Why did that do it? What about the other ones because like his colleague, Judith Herman wrote my favorite.
Anne Sherry 57:25
Okay, I've got a thing going with the patriarchy right now. And I'm sure I'm gonna piss everybody off because he's like a white man. Probably. Why he got he got Jack, thanks for saying, Sorry. Send your comments and go fuck yourself if you disagree with me.
Alison Cebulla 57:39
Okay, I agree with you. 100% not
Tamara Hanna 57:43
the people out there. I also think there's some does seem to be like, I think I kind of see the lens through like there is this still our evolution is continuing, like in our evolution of understanding and some people like are getting it and seeing it sooner. And then that's sometimes like everybody else catching up to it or ready to hear it. And then like somebody speaking the same thing at that time. It's like, oh, we're ready to hear this now. Yeah, yeah,
Anne Sherry 58:07
he's also an MD or whatever. And I love the book. I mean, I send it to tell people to read and stuff but I'm getting really a little sick of the lens. You know, this I was there's a psychedelic and IFS workshop, but it's got four white men that are delivering it. I'm like, what
Alison Cebulla 58:26
No, I can't right now. Every to every test. They're all the experts. But I'm like, can we just average ticket is Bessel Vander Kolk gabber monta fucking Steven Porges with his wack shit, that's like not science. And oh, who's another who's another big probably like your ifs dude, you ticket? Yeah, yeah, free trauma ticket. Yeah, yeah. Five traumatized. Ah, patriarchy. Like
Tamara Hanna 59:00
take us through grief. Like, I'm getting. So we can link this back into the forgiveness question because it is like when, like to move into that work with grief work. Like, I sometimes just call it it's like, gonna feel like it's like the other F word. You know? Yeah. Like,
Anne Sherry 59:21
like, Oh, my no one.
Alison Cebulla 59:28
Forgive business, right, right. Yes. Oh, let's bring it back. Let's try can't Okay.
Tamara Hanna 59:35
Forgiveness is like, the other F word. You know, like it can bring such a charge of like, hell no, like, why would I do that and for good reason. And so I really liked the way in grief. We work with forgiveness in a different way. Because again, you have to untangle the messages we got that were not true and helpful to begin with, like, forgive and forget. Not true. Not helpful. Not possible. Thank you. Thank you. And so I love that what Grief Recovery gave me was a lot language that can work for people. That's not the forgiveness may not be even the word that works, but it's a release. And it's not necessarily having to release them from the responsibility or the karma or the whatever for what they did or didn't do. It's about releasing me. Right so I also love not able to Weber has like this like two minute video on forgiving assholes. And we love to say that
Alison Cebulla 1:00:25
we have writing on our entire
Tamara Hanna 1:00:29
great, but but spoiler alert, watch the video anyways, because her expressions so great, but basically she talks about forgiveness is about cutting the chain with this person so that I'm not tied to you. Okay, yeah, it's not about freeing them. It's about letting them off the hook. It's not about saying it's okay. Or it's no problem, or any of that stuff in Grief Recovery. Because the honesty piece, it's actually in actually this is the hardest part for people doing the work is saying I have to often bring them back to like, wait a second, you cannot release that until you've been honest about that. You have to say why did that matter?
Anne Sherry 1:01:07
To Allison? Yeah. Yeah, I'm Tamra.
Tamara Hanna 1:01:11
Whether whatever language and sync all the things you couldn't say that all the things you never could have said to them. I still couldn't say to them. Yeah. Because we can't release it until it's been named. And given
Alison Cebulla 1:01:23
that okay, in court, I'm going to take this to a dark place if that's okay.
Anne Sherry 1:01:28
I had a flashlight I got a flashlight. Dynamite obviously always so. Yeah, for
Alison Cebulla 1:01:37
me when I started to get honest about my rage against sexual perpetrators and my throughout my life, both from childhood and in my teens and 20s. And I'm, as I'm saying it, I'm feeling the rage coming up. And what happens when I dip into that energy is that my body is on fire. It heats, it heats up. And it stays hot for a long time. And I and when I first started to be like, let me be honest, because I was just like this wall of numbness actually, I had imagined it as like a curtain of numbness. And so I peeled the curtain back because I was like, I want to get in there and see what's behind the numbness and like making me not able to show up in my life and my relationships. And behind it was what I call like murderous rage, I started to have these really intense visualizations of actually attacking violently my previous attackers, and I was really worried about that. I was like, oh my god, like there's something wrong with me. I have murderous rage. I'm a terrible person, lock me up. And so luckily, I called crisis hotline and just share it. I was like, I'm so scared of this energy. I was like, Is it okay to have this? She's like, well, you're not gonna actually do it, are you? I was like, No, she's like, you can, you can feel and think whatever you want. Like, it's totally fine with me. Like, that's the kind of stuff that's, that's super scary when we're when, like, when we're honest with the dark stuff is like, I want there's a part of me that really wants these men to suffer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah,
Tamara Hanna 1:03:13
I find myself sometimes because of like, either. That's really scary, you know, because people feel like, ah, that's not the kind of person I want to be that energy. I want to be mean. Like, I feel it's very powerful in a scary power. And so I find myself often saying that people like we need to go there. Yeah, but we are we don't have to make a home there. You know, I love the gym. We go there. And you don't have to go there alone. Like, can we go there together? That's it.
Anne Sherry 1:03:38
I mean, this whole thing about childhood emotional neglect. I think one of the cruxes of it, whether people were like you said, Tamra people were there, but they weren't there. Right. And then in my case, it really did. I don't think the people were there. So I think anything hard, some part of us thinks, Well, I gotta go there alone and do it. And that is just really traumatizing. And ifs, of course, addresses this, but you know, the self and the part do the work and in the non burdening but the big thing is, don't go alone. You know, so if you don't have people save for you not, you know, clear in the work or, or however, but don't just head in there, you will get re traumatized and it'll be harder to go into it and heal in the future. So does that make sense? Allison? Have you found good therapy where have you read the book and found somebody to do this with you?
Alison Cebulla 1:04:34
I know it's so funny. The Grief Recovery handbook. It really says like 12 times don't do it alone. Do not do this alone. You can do it alone, but please don't do this alone. You know, and I'm like, I'm just gonna do it alone.
Anne Sherry 1:04:49
Odd, oppositional defiant. That's like a fucking
Tamara Hanna 1:04:58
element that I appreciate like Unless I will just while also name I do not think Grief Recovery in the Grief Recovery handbook is the end all be all, it was written by two white male cisgender males and I take issue with some of the things that are in it. So all caveats there. Okay. Right. But, um, and and I think they're trying to work from where they came from, which is it's still very cognitive, you know, working people through these thoughts and these messages and things like that, and we need a lot more integration that it doesn't offer around the body. Yeah, but what it does do that is kind of risky in the therapy world because they're not therapists. They're just Grievers. You know, honesty is there. And, but is there's this encouraged practice of supportive, like an offer of a hug, or supportive touch, you know, like, of course, by consent and what feels good, right. And like, even in the therapy world, sometimes that's taboo or not done, you know, but it's like, I've seen the power of the like, to let grief come up and open. When Why would you do that? If it's just going to be on you? Yeah, versus feeling like somebody can hug you or hold you? Yeah, yeah, we teach you know, or to hug a pillow or to just take the time, we're not going to go right back up into our heads talking about this. Let's let this move and feel supported right here.
Alison Cebulla 1:06:18
Which is part of why the grief of COVID has been so intense. Physical Touch is gonna kill you. It's gonna kill you.
Anne Sherry 1:06:28
Right? Yeah, we have no idea we'll be working this if anybody you know, there was like a PhD thesis, you know, I have to have something, I think unique, there's going to be just a an entire huge amount of work around what's happening at all these developmental stages, like what you know, with the teenagers that missed out on Yeah, so grief. So I've been doing grief work with teen clients, you know, like being able to normalize and now they're back and they're like, in school and they're like, this isn't the senior year I thought I was going to have because it's still wacky or
Alison Cebulla 1:07:04
senior year was gonna suck no matter what you need to know you
Anne Sherry 1:07:10
want to go I have some killer holding hope for a good senior year. So
Tamara Hanna 1:07:16
here's the thing I was just thinking about. What COVID has done with grief though to want to name is because I think Grief Recovery does a good job of naming what besides messages that we've learned that constrict our grief, we learned a lot of great ways to bypass it. You know, like it comes up here's how I release it. Yeah, or for a little while. We call it Grief Recovery, because it's short term energy relieving behaviors, they work short term.
Alison Cebulla 1:07:39
But I love that term.
Tamara Hanna 1:07:41
The other thing that greet Nike, I think people started recognizing the grief because what COVID did was it took away all of our ways,
Alison Cebulla 1:07:50
right? That's right, right. Like
Tamara Hanna 1:07:52
something starts to happen it's just happening to me then I can go work more or volunteer more or be more social or whatever. And it took away all of those things that we normally would escape to skip to our from our grief you know? So it's like ah, I'm alright it's still it's right here. I have no nowhere else to go but to see it feel it you know? Yeah.
Alison Cebulla 1:08:16
So um yeah, we'll just kind of wind down
Anne Sherry 1:08:22
with God I could go home another hour with you so much fun. I wish you were all here and I hope you are right now.
Alison Cebulla 1:08:33
Yeah, well, I want to do like some sort of like fun in person. It seems like we can do for those of us who are vaccinated in person latchkey Urchins meet up and Asheville I just Yes. Oh,
Anne Sherry 1:08:45
we definitely yeah, yeah. When you get here
Alison Cebulla 1:08:50
um, yeah, any any final thoughts? Tamra anything we didn't get messages of hope
Anne Sherry 1:08:56
for people who are just be being like Oh God, this is grief. Are you kidding me? I just thought I had it together. Yeah, but just speak out or
Tamara Hanna 1:09:09
just Yeah, I think people think that a lot when they talk to me about like oh the work you do here with people's grief you know all the time but like the way I've truly feel about it is but it's not being in the grief it's getting the grief to move to feel like this doesn't have to live in me this doesn't have to live on me anymore there's a way through it. Now it sucks because there's no other ways but through it right like we want to think there's a way round under over it but yeah, we have
Anne Sherry 1:09:39
a brown has a good comment about that. Just walk down through the swamp. Yeah, just find somebody to walk through the swamp
Tamara Hanna 1:09:44
who don't do it. Don't go down. Yeah. And and like wherever we got the idea of like, we should already know like realize no, none of us know like the people like we use the word are ill equipped And I think especially maybe people who grew up as latchkey kids and street urchins, you know, like we're especially ill equipped so to realize we didn't get what we needed, but it is out there to be gotten and we don't have to go alone. And there is a some way through you know, there is light that we can find and love and and that's why I call my practice love and loss because they're so connected until we do go through like metabolize. I think it was digested like if you've been I mean, I get sometimes really graphic sometimes grief, it is like named go through thrown up and or diarrhea or whatever digestive thing is happening. Yeah, that you know, there's no real stopping that and your body if it's what it needs. Yes, yeah. And on the other side of that is relief and something else, you know, space for something else, at least to come
Alison Cebulla 1:10:50
through. Yeah. Gosh, thanks for for leaving us with that. I really appreciate this conversation. Tamra. And so thank you for your like your presence, your vulnerability, your honesty, your calls to action. Because this has been a tough, a tough almost almost two years. Like it's just been tough. So thank you for doing this work with your clients, as it probably has a ripple effect for all of us. And what do you recommend for folks who want to start doing this work? What should they do? What steps can to take? What do you offer?
Tamara Hanna 1:11:23
Yeah, well, I think for anybody out there, it's something that's really accessible is that Grief Recovery handbook, even if it's just okay, I'm just gonna read the first six chapters. Like don't even feel like you have to go through the process, like just the understanding the freedom it can give in the language of like, Oh, yes, that makes so much sense. And it can be all these things can be really relieving. And I yeah, I think finding the space and the support to be on you know, where can you be honest. And sometimes that means a paid therapist, because they're paid to give you the space, and a good therapist will be bringing their heart to it as well. And, you know, I think those are great places to start. And I and I also think to like, along the way, for some reason, it's what's coming to me is music. You know, like the the role music plays with grief. Because it serves as a container, like when it's not about our words, but it is a vehicle to let sometimes emotions and feelings like energies move. So whether that's the anger parts, or the sad needing to be held parts.
Anne Sherry 1:12:36
Yeah, yeah. I think that yeah, that acknowledgement that these are parts of us, we are not one being walking through. So we have angry parts, we have sad parts, we have very frightened parts of doing any of this work, that it's really just parts being afraid of other parts. So if you get kind of think in terms of leadership, self leadership. Yeah, and well, there's Alysa there's times quite a few bucks resources that we can put in the show notes to what's his name that the wild edge of sorrow,
Tamara Hanna 1:13:10
wild sorrow, Francis Miller. Yeah.
Anne Sherry 1:13:12
So just write poetry to? Oh, yeah. Mary Oliver is like the
Tamara Hanna 1:13:18
John O'Donoghue, because, like crazy blessings for all these kinds of broken places, but blessing them, like and he acknowledges in his poetry, the complexity of feelings, you know, in so many different things, his it's called the Book of blessings. You know, but it's like, there's a lot of grief that speaks to I think, in that and I really love the book, tear soup. There's this hair story?
Anne Sherry 1:13:44
No.
Tamara Hanna 1:13:46
It's a storybook style, but it's so well designed. That is about grief. And it's about undoing these things, you know, I'm doing these messages that are not helpful. And is about like a grandmother actually kind of talking to her grandkids child about trying to explain something that's going on for her and in their lives with grief. And it's so
Anne Sherry 1:14:08
Mr. Fucking Rogers is a good place. Had it watch early stuff that dude he was teaching kids about the Vietnam War and racism and hardship that was going on at at age appropriate levels and
Tamara Hanna 1:14:23
tenderness. Yeah.
Alison Cebulla 1:14:25
Yeah. So this is a great list of resources that we'll put in our show notes. But Tamra gosh, thank you so much. It's so It's so wonderful to meet you and get to know your work. And your play made.
Anne Sherry 1:14:40
So many waves together.
Alison Cebulla 1:14:44
You You are a cinnamon toaster. This was your last key meal set.
Anne Sherry 1:14:50
You're on the lower sounds like you did on the lower oven. Or the broom was under fire. Did you ever set it on fire? All right. Okay there's
Alison Cebulla 1:15:02
so many things on finalizes.
Anne Sherry 1:15:04
Oh I was early it was early Kimberly for sure. Like we're really early crumbling.
Alison Cebulla 1:15:16
Oh my gosh. Okay. All right.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai