Hi, thank you for joining today’s podcast episode. Today’s episode is 209, “How unresolved grief affects you and your relationship”, an interview with Donna Lancaster.
Before we get started, I wanna invite you to just take a moment and center, perhaps taking a deep breath in, and a deep breath out… And as you continue to breathe, perhaps checking in on an intention that you have as you’re tuning into today’s episode.
As you’re doing this, I just wanna reiterate the intention of the Empowered Relationship podcast, which is to help you feel better equipped, more prepared in navigating the terrain of long-lasting intimacy, with the intention of improving the quality of that connection. And as we are on this journey and this pursuit, we recognize that we are also growing ourselves. The topics, and interviews, and tips and tools that are shared on this show are all in service of that.
If you would like access to today’s show notes, you can visit DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast, and you can find all the episodes listed there. The most recent ones are at the top. Again, today’s episode is 209, “How unresolved grief affects you and your relationship”, an interview with Donna Lancaster.
It was such a fluke how I even came across Donna. I’ve found her by a simple Google search. I was actually looking for the Bridge Retreat, which a client had recommended, or basically had mentioned, based on his mother’s recommendation… And he was asking me did I think it was a good fit for him.
I was working with him and his significant other, doing couples work, and he was interested in pursuing more individual… And when I work with a couple, I don’t work with the individual unless I work with both of them, because I really want that couple space to be as clean and clear as possible. There’s so much going on in the couple dynamic and for each individual, that having more of a relationship with one person I don’t believe is best practice. Even as skilled as I can be, and being objective, and neutral, and supportive of both partners’ position, again, I just think that therapeutic space is best served by just having it be the couple’s work.
So anyway, I was googling the Bridge Retreat and I came across this video that Donna Lancaster and her team had put together; they’re actually in the U.K. They do a lot of retreats, and one of their main areas of focus is grief. And as I was learning more about her, I found myself getting excited, and learning about some of what she’s done professionally, and her training. Magnotherapy, family constellation work, the teachings of David Richo…
And on a sidenote, I interviewed him recently, which will probably go live in a couple months… But I was grateful to have him on the show as well. And just her real value and experiential group facilitation, and her advanced training in that, and the Hoffman teacher supervision training that she has… So if you’re interested in learning more about her, you can check her About page. I will have the link to the video that I mentioned, as well as her website on today’s show notes.
A little bit more about Donna… Donna is one of the Co-founders and facilitators of The Bridge Retreat and has been working with individuals, couples and groups for almost 30 years. Donna is passionate about the subject of grief and the grieving process which she believes offers the missing link for many in their search for wholeness. Let’s get started in today’s interview.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Donna, thank you so much for joining us today.
Donna Lancaster: Thank you so much for having me, Jessica. I’m really delighted.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes. I am, too. Just as I mentioned to you just a moment ago, I found you by searching the Bridge Retreat on Google. I was searching for a client who had mentioned a retreat center, and I found your video. I was just so moved by the work you’re doing and some of your background, particularly as it relates to unresolved grief. I will make sure to put that video link on today’s show notes, so people can access that video. I would love for you to talk a little bit about what got you interested in this topic.
Donna Lancaster: Sure. Like most things, the classic of “We teach what we need to learn”, and I really got particularly interested in grief when — I mean, when I look back now, Jessica, honestly, I think I was probably experiencing what in inverted commas would be called “depression” in my late teens, and then right the way through into my thirties… So a good twenty years where I had what I called “functioning depression.” I had a career, and I had a family, and a relationship, and I functioned every day, but I felt like I had what I always described as like a terminal sadness inside me… And I really wrestled with what was labeled as depression.
To do a fast-track of this, I was kind of on and off anti-depressants, and my doctor always said to me “Somebody whose brain doesn’t make enough serotonin, you’re just gonna be long-term on and off meds” kind of thing. And I didn’t buy it. In my gut I was just like “I’m not sure this is true for me. It may be for some people, but it doesn’t resonate for me”, and I’ve ended up doing a piece of work which was really about accessing and releasing emotional blocks through the body.
That really is what got me interested in this whole subject of unresolved grief. It was really recognizing when I did my own work sitting opposite my therapist in the chair when I really stood up and worked through the body, that what I’d found just through a course of one week residential program working through the body and clearing the emotional blocks, was that I was no longer depressed, and I’ve never been depressed since. So that made me really question the diagnosis and think “Actually, as I know now, that wasn’t depression. That was unprocessed pain, unprocessed grief.” And that’s really what started to get me curious in terms of learning more about that.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wow… I’m a big fan and integrate somatic work into my individuals’ sessions with people, and I just also agree how powerful it is that we hold emotion and store trauma in our tissues… If you’re open to sharing, what was it? Was there any monumental, or was it an event that had happened that you hadn’t processed, or was it just accumulation of maybe these small injuries that had a bigger impact in total?
Donna Lancaster: No, I mean — I have no problem sharing, because for me, my childhood was really traumatic. I grew up in a — I always say my home was like a warzone. I grew up in a very challenging environment, with a violent, alcoholic father, and a mother that was a love addict. My dad was addicted to alcohol, my mom was addicted to my dad… So as you can imagine, it was really lots of drama, and chaos. And all of that stuff was so explosive in my childhood, and there was no space, let alone understanding that that caused trauma in myself and my sister and my brother… So we just had all this trauma trapped inside us.
Like many children that grow up in those environments, we are survival machines, so we learn very quickly to survive… And essentially, I was able to function. But that’s the wonder, as you know, Jessica, of the body – your body will only take you so far before it says “Nope. You’ve gotta look at this.” In my case, I think it was in my late twenties when my body really started to show me that I wasn’t able to function like that anymore, and the trauma was really starting to leak out of me, if you like.
So for me it was more significant trauma that was really coming to the surface and playing out in my life, rather than just sort of small events. My childhood was pretty interesting… [laughs]
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah, and I am sure so many of us can relate to aspects… And as I’m listening to you, Donna, I’m just even feeling inside myself how often with these survival strategies, while it does get us through, we also have to leave certain parts behind perhaps. The part that needed to feel safe, the part that needed to feel loved, and seen, and supported, and attuned to… Sometimes I even think in adulthood when we are in a somewhat stable, functioning place, that parts of our psyche are like “Well, let’s go back and get the parts that we’ve left behind”, where it’s stable enough that I have space to now perhaps do some of that deeper work to access parts that have been ignored or denied.
Donna Lancaster: Absolutely. What you say really resonates, Jessica, because for a long time I wore my worrier woman costume [unintelligible 00:10:50.17] And I wore it really well, and it kept me alive. Very quickly, even as a child, when I was something like seven, or something like this, when I was crying, my mom said “Grow up.” Bless her… So I did, because I honored my parents’ wishes, as we do. We’re desperate love machines, and we do what we need to do to gain love or attention.
So I became a needless worrier, and it served me really well for many years. That means I didn’t have to feel pain, I had a strong intellect, I operated on what I call neck-up living… So the body was a machine that took me around, and then everything else was about relating it through the cognitive… And absolutely, as you describe, what it meant was that all these frozen, wounded child parts of me that were left behind. The child parts of us that have been so badly betrayed and hurt and abandoned and neglected – they don’t go away until we honor them, this is what I believe… So I had to, in my own time, go back for those parts of myself.
That’s really the work that I do now, and this is really what I believe – so many people are tripping themselves up with the worrier, because it’s a wonderful defense… But it is a defense. And as my therapist said back at the time, you don’t need to strengthen; that defense is there, you will have it, and always bring out the worrier woman when you need her, but don’t let her define you… Because all of those childlike parts of you are quietly (or not so quietly) begging you to come back for them.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, absolutely… And I just wonder too that when we’re in that survival strategy – I can just think for myself, or imagining the clients that I work with, how at some point there’s some part of the psyche that’s like “If I do this well enough, then I can be more integrated, or I can have the things that I missed or didn’t get”, it’s a little seductive to think that if we try harder, or we get smarter, or we work harder, that we’re gonna get the things that really long for. It often isn’t that way.
Donna Lancaster: Exactly. The sad outcome of this is that we also — yes, we try all these different ways, the masks we wear, and the compensating behaviors that we use, and all of the time there are, as I say, key parts of us that are frozen in time, and that’s where relationships come in… Because relationships will trigger those frozen, child parts of us better than anyone, basically.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more, because that’s something that I see over and over again. People are so surprised that the relationship evokes certain threats, or emotions. They’re like “I’ve been fine, I’ve been stable. I haven’t had any of this emotion come up”, and yet that deep love and the bonding with another person can evoke a lot of those old, frozen injuries and wounds.
So what do you see, whether or not it was in your own story, or the clients that you work with – how do you start to begin to recognize “Oh, I possibly do have some unresolved grief here”?
Donna Lancaster: I think the first thing is sometimes people get really distracted by what I call “the red herring.” And it’s not the red herring, because it’s necessary, but it sometimes points them in the wrong direction. You know the expression red herring, yeah?
Dr. Jessica Higgins: No. Can you please share it?
Donna Lancaster: I do now feel it’s a British expression… A red herring is a bit like an inaccurate direction, or going the wrong way; it’s like a distraction from the real issue. We call it a red herring. So I think what happens in relationships, as an example – when I was working with couples and individuals in a one-to-one practice in London, and people would come and they’d say, for example, “Oh, I met this guy six weeks ago, and he’s the love of my life etc.” and he’s ended the relationship, and then they would fall into this pit of despair, and be hardly able to function…
And then they wanted to focus on the person, the guy that they’d know six weeks, the red herring, and I’m saying “You need to follow the trail back to the original source of the wound, which is childhood, when for example your mother died when you were four.” And that’s how relationship can, if you have the guidance and the support – and that’s the wonder of therapy – they can help us follow the trail. Because that grief will one way or another come to the surface.
I’m a great believer that if we don’t address it when we have the opportunities – the red herrings, the life experiences offered to us – if we don’t have the awareness or we don’t have someone to give us that kind of guidance or feedback, that’s when it just leaks out of us. That’s some real price that we pay in society, as so many people are walking around carrying so much unprocessed grief that they are so in pain… And when we are so in pain, when our pain clashes with somebody else’s pain, as I always say in my work, it’s that it’s the stuff of wars. And whether that’s an internal war or a war in the wider world, it’s a stuff of wars. It’s a clashing of unmet needs and a clashing of unresolved grief.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, and I’m just so struck by when you were saying a moment ago, the messages that we might get in our upbringing around “Grow up”, or “Don’t cry”, or whatever it is. And then I’m also thinking about so often culturally what we’re getting messages around, whether or not it’s through any major media, or even our friends, or what we see in our role models… And I just don’t always see a great space for grief. Can you speak about that at all?
Donna Lancaster: Well, I always joke with people that if I’m at a party, I can clear the room when people ask what I do for a living… [laughter] “I help people process their grief.” Yeah, suddenly I’m the only one in the kitchen.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: That’s hysterical…
Donna Lancaster: Yeah… I mean, if you think about the messages we receive – not just “Don’t cry”, but also that it’s seen as a weakness, it’s seen as something you do by yourself, it’s shameful, it’s “Go to your room”… It’s very hard to meet, especially a woman, that when she cries in front of someone, she doesn’t immediately apologize. So we have all these messages ingrained in us, and we’re indoctrinated to believe that these so-called darker emotions that grief offers to us, that they’re somehow seen as — you know, that we don’t wanna look at those.
We live in this society where it’s all about feeling good, and all the messages we receive is “You’ve gotta be happy” and it’s all about striving to be happy… And here we are, more miserable than the generations before us. I think a big part of that is we don’t embrace all that we are, and that includes the whole range of emotions. Tears are there for a reason, and our anger is there for a reason, and it’s only learning how to release these emotions healthily and safely. That is so important, and I think so many people will just not go there, especially men.
Anger is one of the few emotions that men dare to openly express, because it’s powerful. But they get stuck in the anger phase of grief because they don’t dare touch into the sadness and the fear that really lies beneath that… Because they’re indoctrinated to believe that it’s weakness, that they’re not allowed to feel those softer emotions. It’s so sad. I’m working more and more with men that are really struggling because of this toxic masculinity, and I’m so happy that more and more men are actually doing their inner work now.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I can’t agree more. Even with couples, when there’s space to hold in the inquiry process, and helping them unpack… Their significant other is like “I had no idea that he was hurting” or “I didn’t know the tenderness and the vulnerability here.”
Donna Lancaster: And yet it’s so beautiful, isn’t it? When we see a guy standing in front of a room full of people in a Bridge Retreat, and he’s a big whatever labels you wanna put on a big high-flier, and very successful etc. And then you see this man, and he really beautifully melts into his heart, and the pain of being, say, seven years old, when his father left… And it is exquisitely beautiful. And what power – I mean, that’s true power, when that man dares to go there into their broken heart and really grieve what happened to him… And then to go out into the world with that much more open heart. It’s beautiful. And it doesn’t mean that you can’t still be a successful businessman, it just means that you have much more range of access to all of your emotions. It sort of generates more feelings around things like compassion, and empathy, kindness – all those things that we need more of in the world.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes… And conversely, it seems as though we think we’re – you know, talking about the red herring, but I think we think that our masks are really convincing. We might think we’re doing a brilliant job at pretending, or even kidding ourselves… But in relationship we’re talking about these signs of unresolved grief – I think they can be felt when somebody’s living from the head up; maybe not even consciously, but we do seem to see each other, and the microfacial expressions, and their energy, and their range emotionally… I think it can be felt, on some level. What do you think?
Donna Lancaster: Absolutely, yeah. It’s so tricky, because first off, we all wear masks to some degree, but if you’re really — I always say, be careful about not recognizing that mask, because it will meld with your face, and then you really have this sense that you have no idea who am I without my mask… And that, again, is part of the work I do. But I think we are really great at reading what people don’t say, and reading their body language, and reading the gaps between what they do say, and all of that stuff… But what can really hinder relationships, as you know, so greatly, is because we have unresolved grief, unresolved past issues; we can often see our partners or our loved ones through the lens of that unresolved pain…
So we’re looking at somebody sitting opposite us who’s our partner, as an example, and they may be just busy making a phone call, and then that triggers that wound around us not being seen, or heard, or understood, from childhood… But we don’t know it’s from childhood, so then we transfer all of that onto our poor partner, who’s just making a business call. [laughs]
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Exactly. Well said.
Donna Lancaster: It’s a heavy burden for partners to wear, I think, because so many people are looking at their loved ones through the lens of the past.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes… And Donna, as you’re talking, and just remembering the video that I got to see, it just feels like unresolved grief can be such a big part of so much of our suffering and our sense of feeling alone, and disconnected, and frightened, and frozen… And I’m just curious, how much of a role do you feel like grief is playing?
Donna Lancaster: I think it’s massive. I think it’s massive on an individual level, it’s massive on a community level, a collective level, and it’s massive on a global level. As I said, it’s the stuff of wars, and people really get so stuck into the defending their ego, when really underneath, when you take the time and the space, it’s all about unprocessed pain. I mean, it’s just so huge… And there’s things on a societal level…
Recently, sadly, in the U.K. a well-known young woman has just committed suicide; she was a TV presenter, she was very well-known, and it affected so many people… Because on one level it’s also so desperately tragic and sad, and also I think it taps into people’s unprocessed grief. And I always say in my work “My grief is your grief is our grief. My love is your love is our love”, and when we’re together as a community, you really feel that. You really feel this collective pain. And grief is, in my view, the missing link for so many people in their healing journey. It really is.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Thank you for speaking to that, because I just was feeling how many places it touches. I know we’re talking about intimate relationship and what shows up, but also just what a big impact it is on someone in their life, and their sense of happiness, or sense of satisfaction, their sense of being present, and feeling connected… It’s just so immense. And like you’re saying, these tragic, awful stories of people, and their suffering, and their pain, and looking for sources of relief, and just how perhaps surprised we might be that they were in such pain because of what we perhaps perceived or projected on them was so different…
So for me, that speaks to just how hiding this often is for us, or how much we feel like we have to — there’s either shame, or unconsciousness around it, like we’re not aware, or we don’t lean into it… But then also, like you’re saying, the communal, collective space doesn’t always invite — like, as much as I believe in our own individual journey, I do believe we are wired up for connection, and when there’s not a mirror or there’s not a safe space, or there’s not a place that we can feel attuned to, it can be really hard to confront. Like you said, having support is really helpful, but it’s hard to confront these terrifying feelings when we feel like we’re the only one that has them, or don’t have really any holding for it.
Donna Lancaster: Absolutely. And it’s also that thing of when people dare – this is the whole Brené Brown stuff about daring greatly. The first time I dared to say in a room full of people “Yeah, I had depression for 20 years”, and then all these “Me too”, “Oh my goodness, yes”… It’s that thing, that we have to dare, have the courage to speak truth… And truth is love. That’s as simple as that.
So I think we also have to be very mindful on a social and political level that society, our consumerist and capitalist society is invested in us not dealing with our grief. Because if we deal with our grief, we might remember that we are whole, and if we remember we are whole, we won’t buy stuff, and eat stuff that we shouldn’t, and continue to generate and perpetuate the whole capitalist/consumerist machine. So it’s like “Don’t you dare feel good about yourself”. We have to just make sure you don’t look in the “darker feelings”, as they’re called. “Only feel these things, because these feelings are good, and anything else is not good. Don’t show your sadness. Here, buy these shoes.”
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I know… It’s such a tactic to sell people on the sensations or wanting to feel, but through means that are — you know, you don’t have an inadequacy, so when we’re not aware, it can be really this machine that really have a destructive impact.
You were also saying just a little while ago about the man that was able to touch in on his seven-year-old self, and how beautiful it was to witness… You know, when I’m remembering, or even imagining your description, like you were saying, it can be healing to witness. That’s not even my story, but perhaps it’s healing watching someone else heal, and it’s integrating… Can you speak to that more?
Donna Lancaster: Yeah, that’s partly why I don’t do one-to-one work anymore. I work in community, because I really do believe, as the wonderful West African tribal leader Sobonfu Somé says, “We were wounded in community, and we must heal in community.” I really believe that, like you said, we’re hardwired for connection, and we really belong in community. We’ve just forgotten.
I always call all the kind of masks, and the compensating behaviors, and the distractions – it’s all a process of forgetting. And really, what I’m interested in is working with people to process their grief so that they can remember their true selves, remember that they are love, that they’re whole, they’re not broken; they may be wounded, but they’re not broken. There’s something so magical, Jessica, as I’m sure you’ve experienced – when you come together in community and you create a safe space for people…
As I said “My grief is your grief is our grief.” The details of our story may differ, but the essence of them is the same. It’s a shared part of humanity; it’s our humanity, and that’s what Richard Rohr calls “necessary suffering.” We all go through loss, our heart breaks again and again and again in life; it’s part of the human condition. But what we’re not shown as part of that human condition, generally speaking, is how to allow and to embrace all those emotions, and let them flow through us, which is what they’re meant to do (energy and motion, emotion), so that we can then really return to our wholeness. And not even return, just remember, because we always were whole.
That is the power of community… It’s like a fast-track if you do this healing work in community. Some people are concerned that the grief that they’re carrying — then they’ve gotta carry other people’s grieves… It actually doesn’t work like that. It really becomes like one collective — you can’t see me, but I’m doing this kind of circular motion, because it becomes a real collective processing and healing experience. We can basically transmute pain as a collective. It’s magic, really. It’s magic.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I couldn’t agree with you more… And I guess I’m wondering – you also speak about the ritual of community, and ancestor — like, the lineage of where we come from, and that more collective… Is there anything else you wanna say about referencing that support? Because I think we often – at least in America, in this Western culture, and probably in U.K. as well, just this very individual mindset. There’s something there that I think you resource… Is that right?
Donna Lancaster: Absolutely. And you know, it’s this thing where people quite easily will say something like “Oh, Jessica, you have your grandfather’s eyes” or “Your aunt used to speak like that”, but we don’t also consider that we also through our lineage have taken not just physical attributes, but also we’ve taken on beliefs, we’ve taken on ways of being in the world… That stuff gets passed down. It’s proven, it’s in the DNA, and that can come with burdens, and also many, many blessings. And if we learn to grieve the burden aspects and become aware of it and grieve it, then you can really work with your ancestors, your lineage, as a team.
I always say it’s like an invisible team of support. It depends what you believe, but I’m a really great believer in really once you grieve what you didn’t get and what happened in your lineage, all the men and women that came before you – they’re like a team, cheering you on; they’re an invisible team of support.
I don’t know who it was, but that wonderful quote when someone says it’s not that the dead aren’t speaking, it’s just that we’ve forgotten to listen… I really believe that that’s such a support for people, a resource – those men and women that came before you. It’s just learning how to lean into that. And again, that’s part of the work I do – we really encourage people as part of the ritual experiences to really recognize the gifts of their ancestors, to recognize all the many gifts that were passed down… And doing simple things like creating an altar in your home, where you have photos of your parents, your grandparents, your siblings, all your family, as much as you can… Or mementos. It’s really a beautiful honoring. I have one in my bedroom that’s like “Yeah, that’s my tribe right there.”
Tribes are so, so important. Our family is our tribe, and sometimes that’s helpful, and for some people not so helpful… But always, always, you can find the gifts in it. You’re alive. That’s a gift. And also, create other tribes, like working in community, serving in community, healing in community… These are tribes.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, yes. I feel like we could do a whole interview on that in and of itself. I also wanna pivot back to — if somebody’s listening and they’re recognizing places that perhaps… I mean, I would bargain to say that we all have unresolved grief.
Donna Lancaster: Absolutely. [unintelligible 00:33:33.08] This is part of the human condition. Of course. We wouldn’t be the wonderful, wonderful human beings we are if we didn’t experience loss. It’s like that famous saying, “Grief is the price that you pay for love.” I will say “Grief isn’t the price you pay for love, grief IS love.” It is love, Jessica, and we all have loss. It’s part of being human. You cannot go through life and never experience heartbreak, and never experience someone you love to leave, or go away, including a part of yourself… Parts of ourselves – we leave parts of ourselves behind all the time; parts of ourselves we lose as we age, as we change identities… All of these things are experienced losses. Missed opportunities, not being a mother, whatever might be true. These are losses, so… Heartbreak is absolutely inevitable and an essential part of being a wonderful human.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes… And with that, I would imagine that there’s some intention and awareness that we can bring to the grieving process, or the loss, and letting go… That that could be something that we could start to begin to turn towards a little… But as I’m saying that, I’m also recognizing “Okay, so I have unresolved grief perhaps from the past, but I also have opportunity as I move forward in my life and be more aware of my grief and my loss, to be able to process it as it’s happening…” Would you frame it that way, or would you say it differently?
Donna Lancaster: No, I mean — like I said at the beginning, life offers us many opportunities, many people as teachers, many different losses and experiences that will really allow us to kind of wake up, basically… And again, a wonderful teacher of mine is Richard Rohr, and he wrote an incredible book called Falling Upwards. He really describes it as kind of what he calls the first and second stages of life, and it’s nothing to do with chronology, how old you are… And he says in the first stage of life it’s all about an ego-led living, and very much necessary as well, because we need an ego to build a house, to get a job, to make money and create a family; we need an ego.
But then he says if you’re lucky enough to live that long, at some point you will have a personal crisis; someone you love will die, or leave you, you will get ill, or face some job loss, whatever… A significant life crisis, and that is the death of that first phase of life. That’s when you have an opportunity, as I say, to go into the wound, grieve your losses, what you’re experiencing, and you’ll find if you look really closely at that wound there’s a portal… And you go through that portal, and then like Richard Rohr says, you come into the second stage of life, which is spirit-led living, which is really living from your heart, which is really about love and service.
Sorry if I’ve gone off the track, but I really believe that people, once they start to — awareness is the first step, and then it’s really getting conscious of “Okay, I need to do my inner work.” And I’m a big believer that — you know, we don’t go to the gym and get a toned body and then think that we can stop going now, and it’s all gonna stay the same. It doesn’t work like that. And it’s the same with your inner world, or as I call it, inner activism. It’s really keeping your side of the street clean. And it doesn’t mean you have to see it as work. I don’t see it as work, I see it as part of being a conscious human being. It’s like, this is my contribution to the world. I wanna be the most authentic, most loving, most kind and compassionate version of myself I can, and that involves grief.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I know, I know. It’s so beautiful. I love the inspiration and the encouragement that you’re offering. You’re doing it from a place of integration, and yes, I’m sure you would say “I’m always continuing, as we all are, at work”, but there’s a level of having been through enough experiences and having done this work, to be able to speak from a place of experience… And I feel that in what you’re describing.
Now, you’re giving us just some practical tips as you’re talking, about just awareness being the first key, turning towards that, doing some inner work… Is there anything else you would offer listeners as they’re contemplating maybe even addressing some of their unresolved grief?
Donna Lancaster: Yeah, there’s so many things that people can do… Obviously, you and I are both at [unintelligible 00:38:28.14] of therapy, but there’s things like — even the power of silence. People are so terrified of silence, just like they are of grief… And they go hand-in-hand, because if you stop long enough, you will find that the wounded child parts of you, the unresolved past parts of you will start to bubble up, and that’s why people are addicted to busyness, and work, and gadgets.
I think if you really want to allow this grief to be able to have the space it deserves to be honored, a starting point is to get still, and also to go out in nature. I always say to people, my clients, there’s a beach that I used to walk upon, where I used to live in the Canary Islands, and I took a question into my walking meditation, and it was never not answered by the ocean. It was never not answered by walking for a mile and a half on that beach. By the end of it I always knew exactly what I needed to do next.
It’s things like not underestimating the power of nature. Nature is medicine, sleep is medicine… And we need silence. Silence is medicine. It’s those periods of connection and solitude that people need. We need to, of course, connect and be in community, but we also need to then bring our energy back to ourselves and go back into connecting in a different way, which is with the land that we walk upon.
So things like that – they seem so simple, and yet they’re actually quite profound. It’s going back to basics, moving away from gadgets, and getting your feet really literally on the earth.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes… Thank you so much for naming just a couple of those. I’m saying “a couple”, and how powerful — I feel moved by your description, and just the remembrance of that… And you offer such a beautiful space of group and community in your retreats. If people are looking for a space to feel supported in, can you talk a little bit about how people can get in contact with you, and what you’re up to with your retreats?
Donna Lancaster: Yeah, sure. So we offer a six-day residential program. It’s in the U.K, currently. We have delivered it in India as well, which was magical, but… People do fly in. We get a lot of people who come from the U.S. to experience the retreat, because yeah, it seems that there’s not enough of them about…
It’s called the Bridge Retreat, and it really is a program that is — I always say it’s kind of a blend of all the really robust tried and tested therapeutic modalities, merged beautifully with ancient wisdom and ancient ritual… And it’s that blend which I think makes our program pretty special.
So how you can find out about us, if interested, is you go to thebridgeretreat.com. We’re also on Instagram, @thebridgeretreat. I also have my own personal blog at Donnalancs.com. Those are ways you can find out a little bit about me and the work that we do.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wonderful. I would encourage anyone, and I will also be connecting and I would love to do one of your retreats at some point. I know my husband would, as well. It would be such a gift.
Donna Lancaster: Yes. I was just gonna say, you can also — if it feels right, not too codependent, you can also do it together, Jessica. Some couples do come and have the experience together, and we’ve had also mother and child, and father and son… It’s such a magical experience to share with loved ones, with family members… But you do have to have a level of independence, because obviously if you’re seeing your partner distressed, then you have to be able to let them be, without wanting to rescue, which some people find hard… But I’m sure with all your skills and training you wouldn’t. [laughter]
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah, thank you for saying that as just kind of a preface… Because this space is — it sounds like you’re facilitating something really important… And to allow people to have their process is really important.
Donna Lancaster: Totally, totally.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Well, thank you for being with us today and sharing your insight and wisdom on this topic. I look forward to staying in touch.
Donna Lancaster: Thank you so much for having me, Jessica. I really appreciate you reaching out, and I’m honored. Thank you very much.
I hope you have enjoyed today’s episode with Donna Lancaster, looking at how unresolved grief affects you and your relationship. This interview was actually recorded about a month-and-a-half maybe ago, and it is so timely for what so many of us are experiencing with the COVID pandemic… So I hope that you have found some value, and just hearing her encouragement in holding space for feeling and experiencing grief.
Again, if you’re interested in all the things that she’s up to, I encourage you to check out today’s show notes. Again, you can find that on DrJessicaHIggins.com, click on Podcast and you can find today’s episode. Again, 209.
Also, if you are finding yourself needing extra support on the topic of grief, I’m gonna put a couple other resources on today’s show notes for you to get more support. Until next time, I hope you take great care.
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