Hi, thank you for joining today’s podcast episode. Today’s episode is 236, “How to deal with uncertainty and ambiguous grief”, an interview with Michael McNulty. Before we get started, I wanna take a moment and just center with you… And as I invite you to perhaps take a moment of pause and checking in with you, perhaps feeling your bodily sensations, perhaps noticing whatever emotion is up for you, and perhaps whatever thoughts you’re having, particularly as it relates to relationship.
Oftentimes we can take a temperature read of our relation, and also how we’re feeling in our relationship; perhaps our happiness level, our satisfaction level, perhaps our intimacy, sexual fulfillment – all of these things; and even conflict… If we’re noticing there’s some unresolved, unspoken things that we are considering how to negotiate and resolve – all of these topics and more are discussed here on the Empowered Relationship Podcast.
And the intention for this show is for you to feel better-equipped, more supported, as you navigate the terrain of long-lasting intimacy. And as we talk about on this show, we will experience challenges at times, and it’s how we deal with that that really determines our experience, and ultimately our success. I don’t typically like to think in terms of good or bad, or success or failure, but we all typically want to cultivate a relationship that’s lasting, that we feel alive in, we feel authentic in, and also feel passion and vitality, and intimacy, and security within. And as we grow ourselves individually, we also grow our relationship; so this is a great opportunity, if we so choose to look at it in that way.
If you would like access to today’s show notes, you can visit DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast there in that top navigation bar, and there you’ll find all of the episodes; today’s episode is 236, “How to deal with uncertainty and ambiguous grief”, an interview with Michael McNulty. And there on the website you’ll also find courses; if you’re interested in self-study and getting more direct support in the way of research, and exercise, practices for you to develop and up-leveling your relationship and the way you approach some of the things within relationship… And there’s more to come on that page too, so look forward to that.
If you’re interested in getting more support, direct support in the way of coaching, you can find the Work With Me tab and learn more about couples coaching, individual coaching, and soon group coaching. Again, that’s all at the website DrJessicaHiggins.com.
Again, today’s interview with Michael McNulty – I really appreciate his perspective in being able to offer important tips to consider as we navigate this time with Covid-19.
Mike McNulty, PhD is a psychotherapist specializing in couples therapy, and the founder of The Chicago Relationship Center, and he practices in Evanston and Highland Park, IL. Dr. McNulty is a senior certified Gottman relationship therapist and master trainer for The Gottman Institute, who leads workshops for couples, professionals in the United States, Ireland, and Sri Lanka. He has traveled to Sri Lanka 22 times since the 2004 tsunami to provide training to paraprofessional counselors.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Michael, thank you for joining us today.
Dr. Paul McNulty: I’m really honored to be here. Thank you, Jessica.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes… And I love that you’re an expert in couples; I came across your article on the Gottman Institute, talking about ambiguous loss, and particularly what we’re facing with the pandemic, and Covid-19; I feel like you have some really important things for us to consider as we navigate this terrain… But before we go there, I would love for people to get to know you a little bit. What got you interested in working with couples?
Dr. Paul McNulty: Well, I started out actually working in the ’80s with more seriously mentally ill folks, and eventually I went on to do a — I led a daytime group therapy program for people who had been traumatized, and worked with them in groups… And sometimes they would bring up pretty intense things with one another. So when I also started to go back to get my PhD, I went into private practice and started to work with couples… And I think my group experience really prepared me to be able to sit with couples, to sit with two people and to empathize very deeply with where they were both coming from… And that led me to be encouraged to get more training in couples therapy.
My consultants from my school were saying “You’re really good at this. You need to pursue it more.” Then I began to work with the Gottman Institute. I saw John Gottman talking here in Chicago, and he is just an amazing person to listen to… And got me very interested in couples therapy. I finished all the Gottman training and got certified in that method, and have just been working more and more in this area of specialty for quite some time now.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And so you wrote an article about ambiguous loss, and the theory and how that might relate to what we’re experiencing with the pandemic… What is ambiguous loss, for people who are new to that term?
Dr. Paul McNulty: Sure. Let me explain it by talking a little bit about how I’d learned about that theory… In 2004, just after the tsunami, I decided to go to Sri Lanka to help people there recover from the effect of the tsunami. I had a connection in there, where about 4,000 people were lost in 2004 within 30 minutes, when a couple of [unintelligible 00:07:25.23] came in… And what they were struggling with was the idea that the people that they had loved were all of a sudden taken from them… So it was really strange, because in many instances, no bodies were recovered… So it was like the people were there, but not there; they were psychologically still very present to survivors, but they were physically gone. And as I heard about that dilemma, I drew upon Dr. Pauline Boss’ theory of ambiguous loss. I even mailed Dr. Boss to ask her more about it… And she had used the same theory to intervene at the World Trade Center, again, with people who were taken suddenly and they were still psychologically present, but physically not there.
And she sent me all these materials, and stuff… So I used the theory with the people after the tsunami. Typically, when we’re not facing that — what we call dichotomy of physical presence and absence, and psychological absence, or it can work both ways; psychological presence and physical absence… That when we’re not facing that, grief is much more straightforward. We know what we’re losing, we know who we’re losing, we know that they’re gone, we can mourn and go on with our lives. And while that’s not an easy process by any means, it’s still a more straightforward process… But with something like Covid-19, when we think about it, there are so many losses that remain uncertain, that we’re left to try to make sense of, and we’re left to see how they’ll resolve… And so people really can’t grieve in the same way and move forward; it’s harder to do so, so it’s just a really challenging context.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: For sure. I like the quote in your article – which I’ll make sure to post in today’s show notes – you write “Grief becomes frozen. People don’t know what they’re grieving, and how to begin to move forward with life.”
So this is what you’re talking about, in that when we don’t have a clear sense of the loss or that the loss is congruent, the physical and the psychological, or even just the uncertainty, as what we’re facing with the Covid-19 – it really makes that grieving process more challenging or difficult.
Dr. Paul McNulty: Right, exactly. And there’s no templates in terms of how to really address that… So people are really left pretty confused about what do you do with this?
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And what are you seeing – I’m sure we can all conjure up ideas and examples of the uncertainty, but would it be helpful to just name some of what that uncertainty is, in this particular phase?
Dr. Paul McNulty: Right. Well, you know, initially with Covid-19, basically we began to deal with this experience where on a day-to-day basis life was changing, but we weren’t exactly sure how… And we’re all facing this threat of infection, loss of life and financial survival and other things… And so the impact on the economy was unknown, we didn’t have straightforward answers to ever-changing complex problems… So getting a sense of mastery, like “How do we cope with all of this?” was so much more difficult.
And I think it’s interesting with Covid-19, because even with all the social distancing that we do, what we’re seeing now is that just because we social-distance and keep the numbers down, it doesn’t necessarily result in our ability to go back to life as usual, and life as we knew it. In fact, it doesn’t result in that; it might result in our being able to do certain thing, and have larger gatherings and whatnot, but for the most part we still have to really be careful about the spread of infection, when infections spread exponentially…
So I think people are still dealing with a lot of uncertainty, and it just continues on, and it’s more stressful, and people wish that it could be over, and they think that it should be over given how long it’s gone on, and now we’re looking at the idea that life might look more normal by this time next year. I think no one had imagined that it would go on this long… And even then, the threat of pandemics in the future – there are too, so life won’t quite be the same… So we still live in uncertain times, and knowing that and labeling that, and labeling that our losses are uncertain is really healthy and good, because it helps us to continue to recognize the context that we’re dealing with.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, I love that. So not only are you helping me, and just for our conversation, but you’re saying it’s really helpful in families and in relationship to name some of this uncertainty… Because as you said so often, part of the coping strategy is just to move forward, and sometimes pretend you can manage certain parts, or whatever you can control… But we might be underestimating the amount of stress or the amount of grief that we’re feeling.
Dr. Paul McNulty: Right. I think that’s exactly right, and I think we’re underestimating the amount of stress and grief that we’re feeling and what we’re dealing with… And then simultaneously, with people sheltering at home, the problems that come up between them around all of this, around coping with Covid-19 and the different perspectives that people have is challenging for people to sit with, and it becomes challenging to deal with our closest relationships… And also, there’s this sort of forced togetherness… So when people distance from each other to kind of manage their differences, and not to have to deal with each other as much, they don’t have that option anymore… So it’s the stress of Covid-19, it’s the stress of it being uncertain, and it’s the stress of forced togetherness with people who may have different perspectives and opinions about Covid-19 and about other things too that are more long-standing.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: For sure. I’ve seen it in my own work, that one person is being mindful, but maybe not as strict as their significant other, and their significant other is much more diligent on the spectrum. And the conflict that happens – one partner is like “Did you wash your hands?” and they are feeling micro-managed… Can you help us with some of the other conflicts that you’re seeing? Even the one you’ve just said, about forced togetherness and how people are negotiating that.
Dr. Paul McNulty: I think the “Wash your hands” one is wonderful, and I’ve had partners come in where one has practically learned online to wash their hands like a surgeon, and wants the other to do so… And the other is just not taking the threat as seriously, and that results in a certain kind of tension between people… But I think there are other problems, like “Do we socialize?” for couples. “Do we get together with our friends? When we get together with our friends, what does that look like? Do our friends have to also be as careful about social distancing as we are? Or do we not need to worry about that?”
And when you have partners with different perspectives, that can be really challenging to resolve. One can be much more extroverted and really want to get out there and see people, and is less concerned about social distancing, while the other is totally scared about the threat of the virus and needs to do more social distancing. Those differences are there… And I think there’s so many different repercussions in situations where one or both partners lose a job, and trying to figure out how things will move forward for the couple financially, trying to determine what each should be doing in terms of trying to position themselves to find work – that’s another set of concerns that people deal with. There’s so many that come to mind, but you get the general idea.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah. I have a gentleman that I’ve worked with for a really long time, and he’s a scientist and has done a lot of the research and is being very cautious… And just hearing how he is feeling pressured, and the negative interactions when people are perhaps intruding on his safety boundaries, and then what it feels like with people and his friends that are really honoring and respectful around whatever helps you feel comfortable… And there’s this ability to feel okay; I think he feels alone sometimes, that people don’t take it as seriously as he does… And like you said, there’s so many ways that this can ignite differences and potentially conflict…
So how are you helping people with this difference of perspective, and potential conflict?
Dr. Paul McNulty: Well, the first idea is to label the loss as uncertain or ambiguous, meaning that we’re in this strange context we don’t really know what’s gonna happen or where it’s gonna go. We don’t really know for sure exactly how this virus spreads. We kind of know, but there’s much more to learn about that. There’s debates going on around how much social distancing is needed, there’s debates going on around how long this will last, there are debates going on around what will be the repercussions financially, and what people should be doing socially, and all that kind of stuff… And it is uncertain. So if we recognize it as uncertain, it sort of helps us to grow comfortable with the idea that we’re in this unique context, where lots of people believe different things about what’s going on… And we try to normalize our ambivalence about dealing with that. A lot of times we don’t want to face that reality. We wish it wasn’t there. So I think people do better when we say it’s normal to be ambivalent; who would wanna face this? But there is a reality that’s there, that we need to be talking about and thinking about, especially as we confront these differences that we have with each other around the related issues.
So the general idea is that people should try to share their perspectives and be okay with diverse perspectives. When things are uncertain or ambiguous, people kind of make predictions on what they think will happen, and everyone has a different viewpoint on that. And it has to be acceptable in a relationship or in the family for everyone to be able to say what their perspective is, what their prediction is, what they think will happen… And to be heard by the other family members or by the other partner. That’s one of the first things that helps with coping – if there’s just an agreement that our perspectives might be different, but we’re just gonna try to hear and understand and support each other with our different perspectives; then the differences are less likely to divide everyone, which creates so many more problems.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Michael, as you’re talking, I’m even thinking about if the anxiety with the ambiguous loss and the uncertainty, then unconsciously it might be common for people to feel the pressure of getting on the same page… So if we can control how we’re approaching this, it’s less threatening. They’re trying to control, like “We need to be on the same page” or “We need to be in this together”, and there’s an attachment to that… And what you’re saying is so helpful, because 1) I wonder if when we can name the ambiguous loss and the uncertainty and the anxiety around that, that there’s some compassion and gentleness that that invites for what we’re up against right now… Would you agree with that?
Dr. Paul McNulty: I would totally agree with that. That idea that we should all be on the same page, and that’s the best way of getting control of the situation is so understandable, because people wanna grab control of what feels like such a stressful situation… But the reality is that every human being has their own perspective, and everyone’s perspective is legitimate for them. And if we’re going to work with our partners, if we’re going to understand and support our partners, we have to be open to diverse perspectives and we have to be okay with them.
And we have to also then — as we think about trying to be flexible and creative with one another, we have to be open to the idea that two or three or four ideas could all be true, or there could be some merit to all of them. And that helps us to cope better. If we’re flexible, instead of wedded to one exact perspective, then we’re able to work more creatively to face the threat, and then that ultimately helps everyone to cope… So there’s just some — rather than trying to control, as you were talking about, and through promoting one’s own perspective, it’s important for people to share why they think their perspective is valid, and to have that understood… But also then as they’re doing that, if they’re open to other people’s perspectives and other people are open to them, it kind of sets a tone that helps people to be flexible and creative… Because we really don’t know where all of this is going exactly. That’s probably the best way to be.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: It’s like, we can make each other better, right? We can bring our strengths that — you might see something I don’t see… And I really do feel too, oftentimes when people get stuck in this power struggle, or they’re arguing their perspective and not really creating a lot of space and openness to hear each other, it is for that goal of feeling heard… So I love your invitation to, on the onset, really be clear about the intention. It’s not like we’re gonna try to convince or persuade each other, but the goal here is “How do we feel heard?” and “What is meaningful to us? What has a lot of value in our perspective?” And then from there, if people are feeling heard, then we tend to relax, and we tend to be more collaborative and cooperative, and it sounds like what you’re saying, from that kind of alliance, we can put our heads together, we can learn from each other, we can be flexible, but there’s a tremendous amount of creativity that can come from that dialogue. Is that right?
Dr. Paul McNulty: That’s exactly right. I’m thinking of an example of two parents talking about how much to let their child socialize and how to let their high-schoolers socialize in this pandemic… And one person is saying “We have to be absolutely safe. We have to follow social distancing, the child should be at home… They can see their friends through Zoom… But we’ve got to be really careful about this.” And the other may be much more relaxed about it, and might be “Well, if there’s a party or something – they’re still kids, they have to get out every once in a while.” But if both parents are listening to each other, they can come up with something, some sort of compromise where the child’s needs are met better. And if they don’t, the child’s likely to rebel, and maybe do something that’s very risky. But if both parents really hear with depth they’re coming from and why they believe what they believe, why their stand is so important to them, with respect, then they’re much more likely to be creative and to come up with something that covers the bases of taking care of the child, and the child being safe, but then also meeting the child’s needs in a realistic manner.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And everybody is feeling like their value or their need is being heard, is that right?
Dr. Paul McNulty: That’s right. And here I’m talking about the parents… And I’m talking about the parents because I do mostly couples therapy… But if we think about the family, the child should be part of that process, of sort of sharing their perspective on it. And then when we understand everyone’s perspectives, the reasoning behind them, where they’re coming from, their needs, the places where they can’t be flexible, and then their places where they can, usually something can get worked out that’s sort of good enough for all around… And that just promotes healthier relationships.
I think what we try to do when people understand each other more deeply, with respect, I think what happens is each person is usually willing to shrink the ways in which they are inflexible, kind of decrease and increase the ways they can be flexible. So everyone still holds on to what’s most important to them. Maybe let’s go a little bit more stuff that they can be flexible around… And with the increased flexibility involved, they’re much more likely able to work something out that works for everyone.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: It creates some space, without abandoning their position?
Dr. Paul McNulty: Right. So that parent who is so concerned about the spread of the virus might look at their position and say “Okay, my child is seeing someone on Zoom. Isn’t that good enough socialization? My child is seeing someone on Zoom. It’s good. It’s better than not. It’s still socializing that way. It’s a good way.” But if we send our child to someone’s house where we know they’re social distancing, so that they can have more in-person contact with their friends in a way that they’re going to be safe, that might work, too. But it’s kind of through a dialogue that people become more flexible. When they feel understood, when they feel people are respecting what they’re most concerned about, usually they’re then able to think “Okay, how can we be creative about what’s so important to the others, and the others’ needs?”
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah, they don’t have to be so defensive, and promote, because it’s already valid, and that perhaps that shifts the focus. Is this related to the both/and technique?
Dr. Paul McNulty: Yeah, the both/and technique is a technique to help people break through binary thinking, and to be more flexible in their thinking… One example that Dr. Boss sent to me in an email was “I’m petrified that I no longer have a job, and I’m so fortunate that I have a place where I can stay for the next four months as I look for a job.” So it’s a little bit more of helping people not to get stuck in the hopeless/helpless place; looking at the reality in the moment in terms of what feels challenging for them, but also including what they have to work with… It might be a good way to say it.
You don’t wanna get stuck in this place where we’re all doomed. And it does sort of apply to the example that we just talked about, because when people aren’t doing both/and, that’s when they become more inflexible. But in that particular instance, if the parent who’s worried about the spread of the infection or their family member getting the infection, or their family getting it, they can say “We’re facing this virus/We have to be very careful about social distancing in order to remain safe… And there are some ways for people to socialize in a safe manner.” So the more we can see that both are true, the more likely we’ll be able to get traction with our coping, and the more likely we’ll be able to be flexible with one another.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes. And I know in your article, as well as the Gottman Institute website there’s many techniques… But in your article you really list how some of these techniques can be specifically helpful in navigating some of these different perspectives – and I’ll make sure, again, to put that on today’s show notes.
Michael, when we’re talking, I’m recognizing that being able to work together with this flexibility and creativity perhaps has a very different effect on the family or the couple as they cope with this uncertain time, versus perhaps a family or a couple that are perhaps ignoring or just forging ahead without acknowledging a lot of this. Is that true?
Dr. Paul McNulty: I believe so. I think that when people are dealing with each other and talking through their differences, that that causes them to be more distant in relationship, and that’s really a concern. I think what John Gottman found in his research on divorce – what he found was that really where people got into trouble is when they were unable to talk about those ongoing conflicts with one another, and so then they shut down and they don’t talk about them at all.
Marriage under normal circumstances, every couples faces 69% of the problems that every couples faced – they’re what we call perpetual problems; that means that they’ll never come up with the exact same solution, that both partners will never come up with the exact same solution; they’ll probably always have some differences in terms of how to work with the problem, because they have different personalities and different needs. And some of those problems can get stuck in this really intense way, that Gottman calls gridlocked. When people are able to get into a comfortable dialogue about those kinds of problems, they do fine. It’s not a big issue. But when people are unable to deal with their gridlock problems and they mount, then what happens is they stop dialoguing with each other, and they grow more distant, and they live more like roommates, unlike a couple, and ultimately that leads to divorce.
Dialoguing, being able to talk about things in a respectful way, that recognizes each partner’s differences and respects them leads to much healthier relationships. [unintelligible 00:32:35.22] and not dealing with one another usually leads to more and more negativity between partners or between family members, and things break down.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, I agree. And in addition to John Gottman and the research through the Gottman Institute, I’m also a big fan of Dr. Susan Johnson, and I know she talks about when people feel close and feel connected and feel heard, that I think she cited a research study that if a couple were to look at a mountain and they were feeling close and connected and were holding each other’s hand, they would anticipate that mountain more doable; they would overestimate their ability and underestimate the difficulty of the mountain, versus if they felt really alone, or disconnected, they would probably rate that mountain more difficult and underestimate their strength… So we do feel insulated by connection.
As we’re facing these uncertain times, what you’re promoting in being able to have these dialogues, and really before each other, and have that creativity where we can collaborate just feels like such a real critical important thing to consider in families, in couplehood.
Dr. Paul McNulty: That’s absolutely right. When people feel like they have secure connections and secure attachments with those closest to them, even when those people have different perspectives, but they still feel more securely connected with one another, that’s what helps us to survive, that’s what helps us to cope. And all the things that I mentioned, Gottman kind of build up to that; they promote that kind of secure attachment.
I love Susan Johnson. She has another quote, and I don’t remember it word for word. “It’s not trauma that’s traumatic, it’s facing trauma alone that is traumatic.”
Dr. Jessica Higgins: You also talk about how to support people in fostering perhaps more of this connection through the way of ritual and routine… can you speak a little bit about that?
Dr. Paul McNulty: Right. The idea is that when we’re dealing with an ambiguous loss, which I’m also calling an uncertain loss, it sort of changes how we live life and what life looks like… So one practical thing that’s so important is to take all the changes into account and to reconstruct routines, so that people are still moving forward with life in a way that kind of makes sense and that works.
Examples of that are just trying to integrate “How will you cover your bases at work, and how will you help your kids if they’re having to do school from home, on Zoom or something?” And then if you’re doing social distancing, how will you have a balance of work and play, and cover all the bases in the home that need to get done, besides the ones I just mentioned, and the other things, like meals, and keeping the house clean, and organized, and all that sort of stuff?
So when people are facing uncertainty, one thing that can go by the wayside is how to do all of that, and what’s recommended is really the families/couples really look together at how they’re going to cover those bases and make home life more workable with all these different challenges that they’re facing from home.
But I think what’s even more fun than that – I was thinking about how do you develop rituals that help you to live life in a way that’s closer, more meaningful, and more in accord with how you want to be living life… So in this content, we still can have rituals that help people to live life well, to live well. It’s important to remember that. A lot of the things that we did outside of the home or with others that were rituals, that have gone by the wayside because we can’t do them in this context – a lot of those rituals are gone and are changed for now. People can create rituals right where they are, to live life well.
I am Facebook friends with someone I went to high school with, and I really smiled at this, but… I’m on Facebook, I’m looking and just seeing what everyone’s doing, with my increased downtime… And he and his family had decided that they were going to play these board games and dress up like all the characters…
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Oh, my God…
Dr. Paul McNulty: I’m looking at their pictures, and they’re playing Monopoly and they’re all dressed up like all these wealthy people, and it looked like they were having a blast with the whole thing. So thinking about things like game nights, or just having a weekly support group to check in with each other, “How are you doing? How are you coping? What’s your biggest challenge right now? What’s going better?” You know, things that just help people connect can feel so important and so good.
So rituals are really ways of formalizing connection, when we have weekly things that we do, or every other week, or once a month… And they make life more special, they formalize how we connect, and they give everyone a chance to be creative about [unintelligible 00:38:24.08] ways that the couple or the family could be connecting.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I love that. And do you have any encouragement for people that maybe this is a new concept, and they haven’t been super-explicit about creating rituals… How might they go about introducing this, or how might they generate some ideas for themselves?
Dr. Paul McNulty: Well, there’s a couple different resources. One is a book called The Intentional Family, written by Dr. Bill Doherty of the University of Minnesota. He had developed a ritual with his wife of having tea with her every afternoon when he got back from work, and the two of them being on-call to be able to support the children doing their homework… And after the children did their homework and graduated, they stopped the ritual, but they realized that they didn’t feel as close. So he kind of thought “Gosh, rituals do make us closer…” So they reinstated their ritual, and he wrote this book about creating rituals in family life.
Also, the Gottmans have card decks, and Android and Apple platforms; so people will go to the Apple Store, for instance, enter Gottman card decks… They have these free card decks, and one of them is building rituals of connection. So it gives you instructions on how to build rituals of connection… But it also gives a lot of suggestions of potential rituals of connection for couples. Things that they might want to add to their life together.
And then while some of them may not be appropriate during this Covid-19 time, I’m sure that many still are, and also it helps people who have never built rituals in their relationship life or in their family life, or have never consciously built rituals. Often people have built them and just don’t know that they have… But it helps them to see how t works, and how to do it more consciously.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wonderful. And I’m sure there’s ways to modify as well. And you mentioned the meaning that people feel when they’re engaging in connection and ritual and routines together… Can you speak — this is my last question, but can you speak about the importance of finding meaning, especially during a pandemic or very uncertain times?
Dr. Paul McNulty: One of the things I’m thinking about when I presented this information on meaning to people, primarily to counselors in Sri Lanka after the tsunami, when they’re all so devastated and don’t know what to make of everything… Many of the people, the counselors who I was training had lost their own family members in the tsunami… And I said, to call Dr. Boss’ quote, which is something like “Sometimes when we look for meaning, we find that there is no meaning, and that’s meaningful.” I think that’s kind of how bad it can be… And I think in some ways, when we think about the 200,000 people plus who have died from this, that sometimes helps people to say “Yeah, we’re looking at something that it’s really hard to turn to our faith and make sense of, or to our meaning system and make sense of, and that’s the breadth of what we’re facing.” So that’s a little bit more like “How do we manage the daunting aspects of trying to find meaning in this situation.
But I also like Viktor Frankl’s quote… He is the neurologist and psychiatrist who was a concentration camp survivor, for our listeners who don’t know. He said that the meaning of life is to give life meaning… So if we think about that, even in times of crisis, even in times when we’re facing adversity, how do we give life meaning?
And I think about my sister… My sister is a pastoral associate, and she has worked so hard during this time to be able to figure out how to connect businesses, like restaurants and bakeries where business is down, with homeless shelters and places where people need food, and to see if there’s a way to get funding for the restaurants and the bakeries to be able to still make items, and for them to be sent to the homeless shelters, or the soup kitchens, or things like that…
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I love that.
Dr. Paul McNulty: That’s a way to find meaning – to really figure out how can you help other people cope, how can you take care of other people. Other forms of meaning can be “What do all these changes mean for us and for our family, and how might we want to be living life in a different way to one another, in our individual lives? What might that look like?” That involves reevaluating priorities and goals… I’ve found it really an excellent time to try to connect more with people who I’ve lost touch with over the years, and having Zoom meetings and connecting with them and saying hi to them every once in a while.
So it’s sort of like looking at our circumstances and trying to figure out, within our circumstances, how can we live life to give life meaning, and to be doing the things that we really wanna do, that we’re really about… There’s a lot of opportunity there.
And I also believe that how we cope is really a statement about us. How we face adversity, how we face challenging, stressful times ultimately defines us. And if there’s ways to live life more in accord with the way we want to in those circumstances, more in accord with what we’re about as people, then that becomes very meaningful.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: No kidding… That’s beautifully said. Michael, thank you so much for all that you’ve offered in today’s episode. How might people get in touch with what you’re teaching, and your surfaces?
Dr. Paul McNulty: Well, I’m so glad you’re posting this blog, which summarizes a lot of what we’ve talked about today… So people can learn about my perspective on all of this through that blog.
I’ve also created different types of training sessions for people, for groups of both therapists and counselors working with these ideas… But also for just family members and people who wanna come out and just learn about this to take it back to their families and their relationships. So people can contact me at my email address; probably the best email address is [email protected] My website is the ChicagoRelationshipCenter.com, and I hold Gottman trainings there, both online, and I still do the couples workshop on a very limited basis, in a very large space. So I do a weekend couples workshop called The Art and Science of Love, in a 4,000 sqft. space where there’s plenty of room for distancing, because we only have eight couples at a time… So that gives people an opportunity to work on the skills that really help with marriage, and with relationship, and can also apply those skills to coping with Covid-19.
So those are some of the things that I do, and I also am available for consultation via TeleHealth.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wonderful. And you can find how to reach you on your website, or via email?
Dr. Paul McNulty: Right, exactly.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Good. It sounds like you have workshops around this particular topic, and I will make sure to put the link to the article so people can learn more, and then also get in touch with you about those workshops, and I’ll make sure to put your email on today’s show notes as well, in addition to your website, where they can learn about the larger retreat experience, as well as potentially getting in touch with you for consultation via TeleHealth… Is that right?
Dr. Paul McNulty: That’s correct, thank you.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah. Well, thank you again. It’s such a gift to have your insight, and being able to support people navigating this very uncertain and ambiguous time.
Dr. Paul McNulty: Thank you so much, Jessica, for giving me the opportunity to tell people about this. I really appreciate it.
I hope you have enjoyed today’s interview, again, with Dr. Michael McNulty… And hopefully, there are tips and recommendations that you can take from today’s conversation to apply to your life right now, and assisting you, again, in building more resilience and strengthening your bond in your relationship, as well as within your family, and perhaps even your friends in your larger network.
Again, you can find today’s show notes on DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast, and there you’ll find all the episodes. Today’s episode is 236, “How to deal with uncertainty and ambiguous grief”, an interview with Dr. Michael McNulty. And again, you’ll find the links mentioned there on today’s show notes.
Thank you for listening, and until next time, I hope you take great care.
0 Comments