Lets Just Talk About It Podcast with Chuck

(Ep.93) When Life Hurts with Guest Randy Garcia

• Season 2 • Episode 93

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When grief counselor Randy Garcia sat down with me, he shared more than just his professional expertise; he opened the pages of his own life's story, revealing the raw and transformative journey through the loss of his mother. His personal battle with prolonged grief disorder illuminated the complexity embedded within Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief, offering solace and guidance to anyone navigating the murky waters of loss. Our conversation traversed the sensory triggers that can ambush the bereaved and the importance of a supportive network that holds space for the pain and the memories.

Grief doesn't come with a roadmap, but the heartfelt stories and reflections shared in this episode may shine a light for those feeling lost. Emotional support takes center stage as we discuss the unpredictable nature of loss. Your scent memories or sudden waves of emotion are not yours to face alone. We delve into the importance of having those who understand by your side, whether it's friends, family, or professionals like Randy, who can gently guide you through those moments where grief feels like an insurmountable Pandora's box.

Our journey doesn't end with acceptance; it continues with the understanding that grief can be revisited, like an old but familiar path, when new information or memories surface. We underscore the significance of having resources and a strong support system throughout the lifelong journey of healing. As we wrap up this conversation, we extend a heartfelt invitation for you to reach out, share your stories, and stay connected with our community as we all learn to navigate the continuous ebb and flow of grief and find strength in our shared human spirit.

Chuck:

Hey, welcome back to another episode of let's Just Talk About it podcast. I'm your host, chuck, and if you're here for the first time, this platform was created to give genuine people just like you an opportunity to share a portion of your life's journey. Like you, an opportunity to share a portion of your life's journey. So, with that being said, hey, I believe, as long as we're alive, everyone has to deal with the process of grieving, where we experience losing a loved one or friend, and that experience alone is definitely not easy. So today I decided to replay an episode that I did with grief counselor, Randy Garcia, to help us with the five stages of grief, to help us on our journey called life. So, hey, you don't want to miss this amazing conversation today. As a matter of fact, do me a favor Go and grab your husband, your wife, your children, or even call a friend and gather around to listen to this conversation with Randy on let's Just Talk About it podcast.

Chuck:

Hey, let's jump right in. How's it going, randy? I'm pretty good, shaq. How are you Doing? Well, man, first of all, I want to say thank you so much for being on let's Just Talk About it podcast, randy. My goal in having you on this episode is because I wanted to have a conversation with a professional counselor to help to better what I call the grieving process, and so, by way of Miss Laura Valentine, we were able to connect to have this conversation. So I want to start off with Randy where are you from?

Randy Garcia:

I'm from Puerto Rico and, as a matter of fact, I'm in Puerto Rico at the moment.

Chuck:

Wow, Thank you, man. So how did you get to a place where you wanted to be a counselor?

Randy Garcia:

Well, we had to roll back in time a few years back because I lost my mom when I was in my twenties.

Randy Garcia:

So I went through what is called complicated grief. So when I was going through that and then fast forward Now that is called prolonged grief disorder, which is included in the DSM-5 TR since March of this year, but going back before the DSM-5, I think the DSM-4 was current back in those days I was going through a complicated grief. What do you mean by complicated? What do you mean by complicated? Because I was not doing my best to overcome the different steps or the phases that the grief has, right, has been long been understood that some people go through five different stages. So I wasn't doing my part, trying to overcome the three stages of grief. So on my own way, by the little I knew back then, I was trying to overcome that, which now, as a certified counselor, licensed counselor, I meant I knew back then that I wasn't doing a good job. So anyhow, that woke up this thirst of knowledge. I need to know what's going on with me. So, moving forward, I decided to start in grad school with what is called marriage family therapist.

Randy Garcia:

OK so in that in when I was in grad school then I discovered that there is grief therapy, so that woke up my enthusiasm and started fiddling around, started to snoop around in between books and that asking a lot of questions tag along with a lot of professionals and psychiatrists. And then I came to discover the book of the five stages of grief of Kimberley Cobbler-Ross, which is what we talk will be based on.

Randy Garcia:

So after that then I tried to wow, this is this is this is deep, this is like a rabbit hole, so it's endless. So that's why I decided to put all my effort, after I graduated from counseling, to learn more and to obviously be involved more into grief therapy, If you don't mind.

Chuck:

before you learn those five steps, how was it for you? What do you think you messed up in terms of the process of that grief moment with your mom?

Randy Garcia:

up at in terms of the process of that, that grief moment with your mom. Yeah, I think that I was between the first three stages, which is denial, anger and bargaining, because I I wasn't. I did accept the fact that she passed away because she was battling a long-term illness and I knew for a fact that she's going to pass away anytime, but I didn't know when.

Randy Garcia:

So you can imagine I was like 12 Dealing with that situation as a teenager and I remember my mom told me you have to keep this secret. So you can imagine that everybody around me Didn't know what I knew back then and I had to hold it. I had to at some point try to hold my emotions because I knew my mom eventually will die sooner than usually, what everybody's mom eventually will die. So I was dealing with that fact and I remember vividly that conversation with her doctor and then with her, and I was in the fact of putting charge of everything. Well, I learned to drive at 12, I learned to do shopping, uh, groceries, I learned to cook. So my my teenager years, I was fast forwarding to adulthood wow so you can imagine that all this information, this shock.

Randy Garcia:

Of course I was in a denial, but not because I didn't believe that my mom will die. It's because I was like this isn't happening. This is not what I thought. That teenager years, uh we um, maybe a rebel, or going on a bike and pedal to the metal. Remember, this is the 80s, so there was no motorcycle for teenagers. Yeah, I know for a fact that my teenage years were cut short because of that.

Chuck:

Because of that.

Randy Garcia:

So you can imagine that I transitioned very, very easily to anger had to grow fast.

Randy Garcia:

Anger to life, anger to to the lie to life, anger to myself, anger to everything. I was even angry to god because he was taking away my most important person in my life. And then this situation got my life upside down. Because I wanted to go to the movies, no, I had to stay there home taking care of my mom, going to a lot of driving her to a lot of medical appointments. The doctors were coming in and out. I had to learn the lingo and remember keep up with school. Wow. So you can imagine that I was doing okay for a 12 year old kid yeah. Then you can imagine that I was doing OK for a 12 year old kid yeah. And you can imagine that I went to bargaining very fast, which is the third stage.

Chuck:

OK, let me. Let me ask you this Could you go back to stage one?

Randy Garcia:

The first one. This is not a numerical order, but I have a personal opinion that only the denial and the acceptance. Uh, it should be in the same place because, uh, everybody that received this type of news. The person will be in a shock. But it's not a shock, it's like the, the, the mind is preparing the body to deal with the situation, the physiological and psychological aftermath of, well, a breakup, or or a person that just died, or getting fired from a job that you love, get into, the, walk into the parking place and then find out that your car has been stolen. So loss is a loss. This is not only about that.

Chuck:

Right, this is loss is loss.

Randy Garcia:

So there is five stages. The first one is denial, then we go to anger. Bargaining will be the third, depression, and then the goal of this process is acceptance, which is the fifth. So I was transitioning between denial, which is the first, anger, which is the following, and bargaining, which is in the middle, and I was fast transitioning from one to another, and we can call it rapid cycling.

Chuck:

Right.

Randy Garcia:

So there was a lot of emotions, not only because of the news or the situation I was trying to overcome. It's because the lack of maturity I was only 12. Wow, overcome is because the lack of maturity I was only 12. My sister only had about nine and my father was absent all the way up to the end.

Randy Garcia:

Then, when my mother died, he took the reins and then be the father that he used to be from day one. But I was by myself because this situation was even kept from my father. So nobody knew but me that she has a terminal illness and she will die soon and soon. It took about nine years, eight years more, for this situation coming to an end. Um, but those years were I. I have some recollection, some memories. I think there were just too painful for me to process, so I erased those memories or blocked them, you name it. But others were still. Very wibbly, I can even sense the temperature of the room, the smell of a hospital. Up to this point I'm not able to go to a formal home unless it's absolutely necessary. Wow, so you can imagine that I'm still dealing with grief, because grief is a long-term affair with life. You will feel like, yes, I didn't overcome grief, I just learned to live with the pain.

Chuck:

Randy, is it true that a person can get to a place during the grieving process where they feel like they can smell the individual that has passed away?

Randy Garcia:

Yes, I had a gentleman back when I was either an intern or just recently graduated, that we were dealing with a complicated grief and this gentleman, all of a sudden, he was very calm, he was very collected and all of a sudden he just break down. And when I say break down, I mean like he fall to his knees and start screaming and crying vividly. He was even, uh, fist close, uh, trying to punch the floor, uh, taking the hands to the to the face, try to squeeze the face he's. He was in a very deep pain. So I asked him and then he just mentioned that he just smelled his wife perfumes, his late wife perfume, and he can sense that she was there. Then I was like, well, let me just see if there's an intern outside, a person outside with the perfume, so I can ask the person to just, um, be distant. So I went to the hall Nobody there, I cannot smell the perfume as well. Then I went to the receiving area and there was now nobody there. Then I went back to the office and the person was a little bit more calm and, by the way, the person was being observed, just in case that there is a council around. Oh, he left the person. No, the person was being observed. Just in case that there is a counselor around. Oh, he left the person. No, the person was being observed.

Randy Garcia:

We had a double side mirror where my supervisor back in those days were supervising the intervention. Wow so, and we sanitize. When we work, we grieve, we have to sanitize the premises. Wow, so, if there is a counselor or a psychiatrist around, that person knows what I meant. So we had to be very careful of what we have, because you don't know when this person will resource to any desperate measures just to ease up the pain.

Randy Garcia:

So I went outside and then, when I came back, the person was a little more calm and asking, sighed. And then, when I came back, the person was a little more calm and asking what happened. Then the person just told me that for a moment he can sense his wife's perfume. Wow, and he has been well, very emotional about that. And even he sensed his wife's presence. I think one thing triggered the other. Why presence? I think one thing triggered the other. So, um, we just sat down and let him calm himself and then we recent therapy.

Randy Garcia:

But definitely when a person had this, this type of sensory effect, it's very strong because, um, like I mentioned, I can even roll back to 20, almost 30 years ago about the hospital where my mom was. I cannot even smell, up to this day, her perfume. I know, I know her perfume, I can. I can see the box in whenever I go to, for instance, a Walgreens or a CVS, which now is widely available in those places, and I can see the box and I can even share to my wife. That was my mom perfume. But I will not even dare to smell that because I don't know the repercussions or how I will trigger about that.

Randy Garcia:

So I treat my grief process with with a very gentle hands, because we don't know this is a Pandora box. With a very gentle hands because we don't know this is a Pandora box. So we always try to, yeah, tiptoe our way through the grieving process, but we don't try to feed it around too much Because, remember, this is like murky water. If you let it still, yeah, you can see clearly, but if you start to stir up, things will go south in a minute. Wow.

Chuck:

So when you talk about being angry at God and you said, you felt that way, what was that like for you?

Randy Garcia:

Well, it was a very painful situation because, remember, when we are in denial, we start blaming everything but us. We start blaming the doctors, we start blaming the doctors, we start blaming the weather, we start blaming the medicine, the prescription, maybe start blaming ourselves because we think that, oh, that was because I just skipped a dose, oh, that was me, because I make her feel angry and remember again, even though that this is a grief process, we can transcribe this to whenever you go through a bad breakup that you have your share of all of this situation, and then you try to be in denial because you say, no, it wasn't me.

Randy Garcia:

So you try to blame everybody else, but in the end and this is sort of a transition in between denial and bargaining you start thinking about yeah, maybe I'm the one to blame when there's no one else to blame, because if you start blaming everybody else, you're going to run off of excuses or people to blame and in the end the only person left is you. So you start blaming yourself, people to blame and in the end the only person left is you. So you start blaming yourself. And that's when you can transition to either anger, which is the next stage, or bargaining. If you go to anger, you will have some sort of aggressiveness or be very negative about everything, even about yourself. You can start feeling the void with drugs or alcohol or be hypersexual, or or just do risky behavior right in a destructive path so anger is is is very it's a self-destruction uh phase.

Randy Garcia:

So we have to be very careful with this stage. There's a lot of red plaques and you can tell because in anger the person started feeling frustrated, impatient, maybe embarrassed, have been visually enraged and the person will feel out of control. So definitely, to navigate anger, this person should have help. Once the person reaches anger, the person needs help right away because you can be in denial and some sort of shock. You may feel like, well, I'm powerless of this situation so I will let it be. But once you get into anger you start shifting gears rapidly and things can get out of control in an instant.

Randy Garcia:

Bargaining is some sort between anger and depression because you start bargaining with your feelings and this bargaining stage is because you don't want to feel the one to blame. You want to some sort of make peace with the situation. Maybe a lot of sorries are said in bargaining because you want to ease off the pain. Some people will resource to religion even though previous months were anger toward their God. So definitely, yes, bargaining is the sweet spot between anger and depression. Bargaining can see clearly when you are going through a bad breakup and the person will say well, if she comes back, I will be the best boyfriend ever, for instance. Or if she comes back, I be the best boyfriend ever, yeah, for instance. Or if she comes back, I will quit gambling or I will treat her better.

Randy Garcia:

So the person started bargaining with life because the other person is not there to hear that. But even if the other person is there, but it's not called bargaining, it's bleed. But uh, bargaining is between you and yourself and uh and the person. Try to make, try to mend the fence, try to make peace with the situation. Then we can transition to depression because, remember, if your bargaining is never answer, what is left is depression. Right, because now you feel like everything is weighing down on you. There is nobody else to blame. Yes, you cannot be in denial, because you accepted the fact that whatever happened just happened. You cannot bargain anymore because there is nothing else to bargain for. Then what is left is depression and depression. I can summarize by saying that you feel sorry about yourself and this is Very gentle, because you don't feel that you're in depression until somebody else compare you to what you used to be before, or when you start looking pictures, and Facebook is an expert on reminding you what you used to be before OK, OK.

Randy Garcia:

So, when you start looking at pictures, or maybe going to places, or maybe you are confronted with a hobby that you used to love and all of a sudden you don't feel like going out, and I can share this with you I went to the depression stage. I'm a cyclist, I love to to be on my bike. I was not able to ride my bike for years, so I can tell you that, yes, the, the depression which is can be called adjustment depression, is the same effect. They had this. They had different uh origins, they had different reasons behind, but it feels the same, as a major depressive disorder can be severe, can be moderate, can be, uh, mild, but it feels the same. It's the same.

Randy Garcia:

The same symptoms is treating the same, but at the same time, it's not the same because you're grieving right, you lose somebody. Instead of being depressed because you don't know, because of medical, uh, uh, clinical depression, you don't know why you're depressed, you just feel like crying. You don't know why you're depressed, you just feel like crying. You don't feel like going out because you don't know, because it's a chemical imbalance. But when you are in a depression, in the depression stage, because you're going through the grief process, you know what's going on, which I think it makes things harder, because you know how to get out. You know, you just don't have the strength to get out of there.

Chuck:

So if I know somebody, if I have a friend who's lost a loved one, how? Do I deal with that situation, because sometimes we don't know what to say to the individual. Is it good to just listen or offer some type of words of encouragement?

Randy Garcia:

yeah, no, definitely, and that's a very good question. My uh best advice is to let the other people talk, the other person, just the person talk, and when the person is done talking, talk a little bit more. And when the person is done talking, again, let the person talk more. The person will repeat the same story all over again. And don't get me wrong, this is a feeling, this is an emotion. So grief is full of a full range of emotions. So as an emotion, we can compare sadness with happiness and shock. If I tell you a joke, a great, a great job joke one time, you're gonna laugh right. Yes, that's the main purpose of a joke. If I tell you twice the same joke, maybe you can smirk or maybe smile right. By the third or fourth time you're gonna start looking me randy. What's going on with you? What's the deal?

Randy Garcia:

I already know about that. The same goes with grief. As much as you can share your story, the easier or the less complicated the stages will be for you, because you have to share. And as a counselor, for us therapists, when we deal with grief, this is client-centered. You have to let the client guide the effort. You cannot go in with an agenda and pretend to check all the boxes because, oh, I fulfill all my five tasks that I have for this session. No, it's pointless. You can have an agenda to guide you through, but in the end it's the client that needs to vent.

Randy Garcia:

I have a lot of situations where I have oh, I read this, it's going to be great for the next session. So I prepare myself. I spend two, three hours reading about how to deal with the grieving process. I identify the grieving process stage where the client is, I present it to the session, I cross my leg, I open my notebook and when I was trying to say the first words, the client turned the tables and explained me a situation that now the person is in denial once more. Back again. So I'm back to square one, because the person now find out that his dear one didn't die. That person was killed. So now the person is dealing with a complicated grief inside of a complicated grief.

Randy Garcia:

So this is a complication that we, as therapists, we have to handle, because I've seen a lot of good therapists that went in with a step-by-step guide how to overcome grief. And let me just tell you and maybe now we're going to be in hot water because, but there is no such thing as overcoming grief you have to live with the pain. You have to live with the pain, you have to live with the consequences. You have to push through life with that inside of your head, inside of your heart, but be functional enough so you can keep on living.

Randy Garcia:

You can be better. That experience make you better, yes, but you will not feeling that, yeah, I overcome this, I, you. You will never seen a person that just lost a dear one and say, hey, I'm glad that I lost that one. No, that's overcoming, right. So you have to learn to live with the process, with the grieving process. For me it's a long-term, lifelong affair with pain. You don't feel pain 24 7, but I can assure you when a person struck that nerve, he will feel the pain like it was day one it is the same, so you talked off air about that.

Chuck:

You can relapse with grief yes, yes, and and and.

Randy Garcia:

This is great because, um, and we're going to talk about more about how to talk to a person, but let's just finish with the fifth uh, which is acceptance. And then we can discuss the relapse, because, even though that you can even reach the goal of acceptance, which is this is an enlightening moment. This is what you have been pushing through to reach up to a point that, yes, you can go on with your life through courageous self-validation and be compassionate about what you just try to endure, or what people call you try to overcome. So you will feel pride about that and you gain wisdom. But be mindful, you just pass through five stages. Mindful, you just passed through five stages. You can relapse in an instant. Like I mentioned before, you can be in acceptance. You have been in acceptance for two months, just to name one and all of a sudden, you discover that your girlfriend or your wife didn't left you because you have a situation. She left you because she wanted to be with somebody else. Then you can imagine that you can even make peace with the situation through a back breakup or a divorce. Then, all of a sudden, what will happen to you? You will go to denial or anger or switching back and forth between denial and anger, but you can go straight to depression or bargaining. So the person can relapse to depression or bargaining. So the person can relapse when the person just dealt with a process.

Randy Garcia:

As long as this grief and loss process is, any change of information can mean that the person can go back and experience the whole strength of the five stages again. Wow, because it's now a different grieving process, because you just made peace with yourself and life, because your life I'm sorry your wife left you because she discovered that she was not in love and all that, or even that well, we're not compatible anymore, and all the sorts you can name, all the excuses or the reasons, and then you find that she left you because she wanted to be with somebody else. So what you have is a new set of information and now you have to deal with that and how you deal with that through this five stages of grief all over again. The same goes when you lose somebody. You just learned that your loved one didn't die, the person was killed, or the person lost their lives in a car accident, but then, all of a sudden, when the autopsy came, it was found that the person was using drugs, or the person was in a in a traffic light, and it was a real end, rear end. So there is a full gamma of different situations that can put your life upside down, because now the information that you just learned defeated all the information that you previously had, so you had to stall all over.

Randy Garcia:

Maybe the person will be strong enough and the person will not relapse. That's a scenario that is possible, but the vast majority of humans with feelings and warm blood will say what I cannot believe that. I bet you have heard that before. It's not just an expression, it's the brain preparing the body of this physiological and psychological shock. So definitely, yes, yes, once the person reached the, the five stages. This is a long-term evolution, a long-term affair with pain, because you don't know what will happen if somebody, with the knowing that we would prove, knock on my door and say hey, randy, your mom didn't die of an illness, your mom was killed in the hospital. We have to cover up. You can imagine all the denials, everything that is going through. I can relapse in an instant. So, definitely, when you have a new set of information, yes, the person can relapse. Yes, it's a long-term affair with pain. It's not. For me, it's a lifelong affair with pain. So you, you can, and I'm and I'm talking about my personal experience- right and the clients that I had in in.

Randy Garcia:

either they finished their the the process or are starting the new ones. And I've seen them. They don't know about my personal life because I don't usually disclose unless it's very essential for me to share so I can present more human to them, and and they have the same situations that I was going through when I was dealing with the process. Because that person is dealing with, wow, still, mother's Day struck me, for instance, her birthday was last week when we first spoke, for instance, as an example, there is no coincidence in psychology, right? So when we first spoke, it was my mom's birthday and I have him. I have him in my calendar, and now I can look at the calendar and say a prayer to her and and be good on my own way and just be reminded by yes, I was raped by a queen, so I had to behave like a king, but, uh, it is a personal, uh, latitude, it's a personal moral compass that I just developed, uh, developed and devoted to my mom yeah but everybody has different needs.

Randy Garcia:

Everybody approached the grieving process in different ways, but, um, the experience are very personal. But the five stages, you can ask and you will see that, yes, the person went through maybe all, maybe they went through four or even three, but the stages are very clear. Could you name those? Sure, the first one is denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. There's different models. There are models that they have only two steps, three steps, five, which is this one, and there is another one that is a little bit more comprehensive at its seven steps, but this is the one that almost every peer that I know use. This is the one that I was formed when I was a counselor. Every peer that I know use. Right, this is the one that I was formed when I was a counselor. This is the one that I think is the most easy to explain to the client and for us, as therapists, to implement when we're talking. The others encompass different aspects of life. This is more vast, but I think this is more condensed and right to the point.

Chuck:

Right.

Randy Garcia:

And especially when you describe the person. For instance I can go to when a person is dealing with a shock. Oh, I feel shocked, I feel numb or confused, I feel like shutting down everybody. For me that's denial. The person has frustration, growing patient, has some resentment, rage, feeling out of control. The person is negative. For me that's anger. Bargaining, for instance, guilt, guilt, trip are the pinnacle of bargaining. Because people, when they reach bargaining I know for a fact when a person starts feeling, oh, I feel guilty about myself, about letting the other person down. This happened because of me. So, yes, that's bargaining. The person is trying to ease off the pain. But when the person sees that bargaining doesn't work, the person then starts going into depression. Because the person has despair. He feels helpless, helpless, hopeless, disappointed, disappointed to himself until all to life. So this overwhelming, uh, an overload of the senses, the body will shut down, the mind will shut down. So when you shut down, you go to depression.

Randy Garcia:

And when you shut down, you go to depression. And when you are depressed, this is when you hit rock bottom. This is where you see everything in tunnel vision. Everything is bad, everything is sad, everything is pointless, there is no hope. That's when I say, well, that's the depression stage. And when depression fell in line, I said, well, I know for a fact that my mom will have an illness. She didn't have a positive prognosis, so eventually I knew for a fact that she's going to pass away. But in the same time, that is of the pain because she's not suffering anymore. She was tired of fighting. That's acceptance. So you can imagine that it's very simple for us as therapists, and for the client or the patient to share their experience and for us to know, well, this is the person going through this stage. So we can realign our therapy efforts to help out to overcome this stage, not the process, this stage. So I can get you to a second.

Chuck:

What a conversation, man. I really appreciate you being on. Let's just talk about it. Man, somebody out there listening to this episode who's gaining strength just by listening to what you're saying, that they're realizing that they're not by themselves. So one last question what would you say to an individual right now who just recently lost a loved one? Don't give up.

Randy Garcia:

Never. There are going to be times when the person feels that he's on a dark spot, but the seeds need to be in a dark spot, very cold, so they can flourish. So life is the same. I don't want to bring over bad news, but things will not get better soon if you start rushing yourself to be better. Just navigate to the process and reach out to a professional mental health professional. Sorry for the redundance. You have to reach out, call to your pastor, to a professional, especially mental health. Ask if the person has a grief experience. So yes, make them part of your team because this is a team effort.

Randy Garcia:

If you are dealing with this situation, you are not by yourself. You don't have to be by yourself. Just reach out, talk and talk and talk and share your pain. People care about this. If you have people around you that you call friends, people around you that you call family, that's the ones that care. If you just lose a loved one or you're going through a bad breakup or a bad divorce, or you just got fired or just lost something, anything you're going through this process. You don't have to face this by yourself. You have to be open to let the other persons, all the people help you out, so you can just share your emotions, balance the load between pain and suffering and just let the windows open so the light can come in. So just talk and obviously don't isolate. In Spanish we have a saying that loneliness is a bad counselor Loneliness is a bad counselor.

Chuck:

Is a bad counselor. No, this is a bad counselor.

Randy Garcia:

So don't fall for that. It make all the sense you feel like you deserve the pain, that you deserve the punishment. No, you don't. You don't deserve that. Even if it's your fault that the situation didn't went through the way that you want it and I'm talking about divorce and breakup you don't deserve to be punished. You don't deserve the pain. You deserve to navigate, the pain. You deserve to navigate out of that situation so you can learn, but you don't deserve to be punished. Don't take it out on yourself. No, never Remember that you're fighting with somebody who knows every move before you do it.

Chuck:

That is yourself. Yeah, again, man, thank you so much for being on. Let's Just Talk About it podcast. Thank you for the invitation.

Chuck:

Appreciate you man Talk to you soon. You too. Wow, what an amazing conversation. Shout out to Randy for having this dialogue with me.

Chuck:

You know Randy shared some valuable information on the five stages of grief. However, as we all know that no amount of information can totally dissolve the memory and the pain of a loss, because, he's truthfully stated, it's a lifelong affair with pain, where we learn day by day how to navigate through grief. So, again, I just wanted to have an available resource on the topic of grief to help us with one of life's most painful experiences losing someone dear to you. But we must never forget that God is the true source of our strength. However, he's placed certified counselors in our path, such as Randy Garcia, talisa Randall and family and friends to help us navigate the process of grief.

Chuck:

Again, thank you so much for always tuning in to let's Just Talk About it podcast, and please check out my website Just Google let's Just Talk About it podcast dot com and then hit that subscribe button to receive the new episodes every Friday. You can also find me on Facebook. Just type in Chuck LJTAI, which means let's just talk about it so as always. Until next time, don't hold it in, but let's just talk about it. So, as always, until next time, don't hold it in, but let's just talk about it. Talk to you soon.