Episode 224: Why Don't We Talk About Death, with guest Michelle Kolling

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 Welcome to part two of my interview with Michelle Kolling

Charlotte Bayala: I love it. I love that. Like you said, your husband, you're connected to him,  through this in a way that you were able to give this part of yourself to people over and over again, which I can appreciate the amount of energy and love that you have to be able to, to provide to people who are in these places where they're experiencing so much emotional and mental stress and pain let them see that there's still happiness and beauty that can come out of it even though they're losing a loved one that they would rather not lose.

So I love that. I love that you're able to do that to provide that for people is I mean, that's just a gift,   to be able to have, to be able to experience that moment in those moments with someone that you just don't want to say goodbye to. So I love that. 

Michelle Kolling: Yeah. I'm really grateful. I'm really grateful to be in a position to help, and I learned so much too.

I'm still learning. I learned so much from everyone, that I come in contact with and  I'm really, really grateful to be invited into somebody's most intimate moments in their life.   And I don't take that lightly. It's something I carry with me and I honor. I love it. 

Charlotte Bayala: So let's, let's just address the elephant in the room or in our ears right now or in the brains of people who are listening to this is talking about death.

We like to pretend or act as if it's not going to happen. And we'd like to not, come to a place of accepting when it's definitely in front of us happening, and grasp onto things that we can't hold on to. So, I feel like if we can have more conversations about death and make it, bring it back, like you said, to that time period where it was, It was just part of life that people were going to die so that people could be able to help a person through that process and be able to go through it with them and not try to disconnect from that inevitability, right?

 What would you say? Is, is that you find is the hardest part about people being able to talk about death,  or to address it in a way where it's not this medical, failure or this is just something that's not ever going to happen and I'm just going to pretend it's, it's not. 

Michelle Kolling: I think just saying it out loud, to be honest, people are so afraid of it that, and, and I'm always curious about where that fear came from.

 , you know, what, what was where it, cause it comes from somewhere. And of course our will to live is, you know, that's what, that's being h an too. Right. But I, I think just giving voice to that fear and having someone in the room that is comfortable with it, and isn't afraid to talk about scary things, and to kind of.

You know, let's get the demon out from under the bed, you know, I'm, I'm perfectly happy to lift up the, the bed skirt and see what's under there. I think just, just, and I find to that once, once it's opened up and people get curious.

I'm always surprised that sometimes the person who is most afraid in the room is the one doing most of the talking at the end. You know, so that's, that's kind of where I like to go with it. Like, can you be afraid and talk anyway, talk about it anyway. And can you just take a breath and get curious?

Right. And maybe even understand where that fear is coming from. And then, and then it usually ends up being a pretty interesting conversation. And lots of times we end up talking about childhood experiences or those first experiences with death or,  Oftentimes, it was, you know, Maybe a parent who didn't handle a death very well.

So it's just we can't talk about it, you know, and then emotions, you know, those deep emotions were never understood, and, or never allowed, And so, you're afraid of it, you know, 

Charlotte Bayala: so, and I think that if it's the person who's being cared for. Oftentimes, they want to distract from the reality of them having a disease or a disability or something that's maybe going to cut their life shorter than they expected to live.

And so, if you don't talk about it in their mind. Then it's just not going to happen. They don't have to, they don't have to accept a hundred percent what's happening to them. They don't have to go through the emotions that they. They really could benefit from going through because I think that as soon as you find out that you're ill, whether the prognosis is good or bad, if you, I think grieving in general is not acceptable, because if someone were to find out that they have a cancer, that they're Lives are going to change, but they're able to live with it long term, and then they have a loved one who's finding out at the same time that they're to be a caregiver for this person long term.

If you aren't allowed or given a way to grieve the loss of the day of the person you were the day before. Right. Exactly. Yeah. You're not able to fully accept where you're moving forward into. And I think you being able to help people accept what is happening and show that this is, this is not a question of how well you've lived your life.

This is not a judgment on who you are or who you've been. This is simply this is life. This is what's happening and let's talk about it. And so, a lot of what you do then is to have these conversations with people to help them get to that place. 

Michelle Kolling: Yeah, exactly. And kind of going back to our pregnancy,  analogy earlier, I always say you're Talking about death isn't, you're not going to die from talking about death any more than you're going to get pregnant from talking about babies.

 Yeah, it's kind of turning that just to have those deeper conversations and let all of those fears be voiced. That's always, when I first sit down,  That's always on the list of my first questions. What do you want to save your energy for? What are you afraid of? And just give voice to those fears and then maybe help reframe, you know, there's a lot of in the early days, there's a lot of why is this happening to me, to me, to me?

 If we can just change that to why is this happening for me? And what can I, what can I change in my life?  How can I accept what's happening? Live more in the moment which is what everybody's always talking about anyway, right? Live in the moment. Right. That really comes more in your face when you can't maybe see what's going, what.

What your life is going to be a year from now. So just slow down, slow down, slow down, and feel, feel what you're feeling. I think that's another thing people are so afraid to feel, and, and, you know, feelings and emotions are, are states. They don't last, but you do need to feel it and it's okay to feel it.

That's okay. We're emotional beings. Right. We're here to experience. 

Charlotte Bayala: Helping someone be able to feel their emotions also, it, because so many times people will not show their emotions out of what they think is the best interest of the, their other person, their loved one, the person that's caring for them.

But I, I feel that. If you're, if you find out that hospice is the next thing and you're sitting next to your, let's say your spouse or your partner, and you're just filled with sadness all of a sudden, and you just want to cry, but you don't because you don't want them to feel sad. I don't know. That's, that's like a lost moment to communicate and to let the other person know that their fear and their sadness is, is valid.

Invalidating it by sharing your own, right?  So if we, if we try to hide how we feel in any moment, no matter where our person is that we're caring for, not sharing because it, it is a disservice to the relationship that you're in because in sharing how you're feeling, especially if it's an emotion that.

Shows how much you love a person, let's say, or care for them. As you share an emotion, you create a stronger bond, I feel, with the person that you're with. Continually and habitually acting like things are just not going to happen, or that it's just not the crappiest day in the world. Is is hard on the relationship because then you get into like stuck in this hole of not never showing emotion then because that's how you sound.

 So it's, it's good for someone to have a person like you saying, you know what, it's okay to 

Michelle Kolling: feel. Yeah. And I think, I think you're right. You're doing a disservice to the relationship. You're in those moments are when you can connect on a deeper level, and you know, oftentimes we all have, you know, do less.

We have these stories too, where like, say, an adult child will say, well, don't tell mom. She's in hospice. And the mom will say, don't tell my daughter I'm dying. So nobody wants to talk about it. But, you really are missing those opportunities to connect on a deeper level. And I think, I think too, as caregivers, there's that.

That pressure to be the cheerleader, that pressure to always be positive. Being sad doesn't have to be a negative being, being. Having grief doesn't have to be negative. Right. It's an opportunity to connect deeper, let that emotion move through you. Mm-hmm. and just, you know, be able to say, honey, you don't have to fix this right now.

Right. I just need you to hold me while I cry. Right. But that you're not broken. You don't need to be fixed. but you, you do. You really do need to let yourself feel it and honestly, you know, that grieving process leading up to the actual death is really important and can really help a person on the other side in the grieving process.

You know, I, I'm so, so, so, so grateful that I was given the gift of my husband telling me, honey, I have no regrets and I could say me either, because he, he was able to lead in some of those really hard conversations and he was able to help me say to him, Hey, I'm having a really hard time right now.

And we got to grieve together. Right, which of course I wanted to grieve with, my best friend. Right.  , And so, so yeah, I think it's, it's just, it takes some bravery,  but I think the other thing is people think if I start crying, I'm never going to stop and 

Charlotte Bayala: break apart. No one can. 

Michelle Kolling: Yeah. And then I'm going to be a mess.

And it's like, it always stops. Sometimes it takes a while. And the longer, the more that's pent up, I'm telling you, the longer it takes to come out. But, and I'm happy to do that too with people and I, I do do that sometimes. Sometimes one whole session will just be one person crying and me holding space.

Charlotte Bayala: And it's so, it's so beautiful to have someone hold space for you to cry because crying by yourself is lonely because you don't have. If there's a fear that if I start to cry, I don't think I'll ever get to stop or I'll fall apart and there won't be anyone to put help me put myself back together again, or someone will walk in and catch me, you know, we try to cry, like in a place where no one's gonna catch you.

Like, it's something that we feel that needs to be hidden, that it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be communicated to anybody. And that I feel gives the emotion behind the crying more power than it deserves. 

Michelle Kolling: Yeah, and I, I think sometimes too, there's, there's, it feels like there's expectation with it. Like, like if I'm crying and breaking down, then my person or whoever else is there, there's some expectation that they have to make me feel better, or there's an expectation that I can't cry now because then that other person will feel bad.

Right. And so to have, you know, a doula or somebody else in your life who can, like you said, just hold space and let that emotion flow through who isn't afraid of that and has no expectations of you in that moment other than to cry, that's a gift you can give somebody that you love. Yeah. Something that I can bring to my clients.

Charlotte Bayala: And sometimes it's hard for a loved one to not communicate either verbally or with body language in a way to make a person who's crying feel like they need to stop crying, right? Right, right. I've learned in yoga circles and in my own experience and, and helping lead them. There's, there's no real, answer to when do I Bring out the tissue box because you can hand someone a tissue and they can take that as support in their crying that you're helping them clear away the tears so they can make room for more or you can hand someone a tissue and they take that as their cue 

Michelle Kolling: to say, I need to clean up.

Yeah. It's enough. You're 

Charlotte Bayala: right. You're right. Making people uncomfortable. And so it's really good to have someone who can be there to allow you to express the sadness in your own way and know that you don't have to worry about how they feel about you crying. Right. Because that's the problem. So many times you're told, even, you know, maybe as you're growing up, you cry about something and someone tells you, well, you need to stop crying.

And then especially, right. That isn't something that you should be doing socially and so I think that in some of the societies that we live in and the circles of people that we live with. How you express your emotion is directly based on what you think other people will accept, which then you have someone like you come in and say, screw what everyone else thinks.

What do you need right now? So I think that's. That's a really, I mean, there are times I might want to just have you call in and be like, I'm happy to do that. 

Michelle Kolling: Well, and it's a release to sometimes I know I have found myself. Sometimes crying just because there's some release that needs to happen, right? I mean, grief is a physical process, and emotion is a physical process.

And sometimes there's just a release that needs to happen.  , there's a quote that I love that I'm not going to remember right now, but it talks about, a baptism of tears. And it's just a beautiful visualization of, being made clean and being made whole and, renewing a renewal with, with this baptism of tears with this release, and constantly being rearranged into this new person that we are always growing into being right.

Charlotte Bayala: And I think it's good to know that there is someone that can help a group of people grieve and go through that grieving process. Because oftentimes I feel people want to or feel they need to wait until a person has passed in order to begin to grieve. And it just doesn't, for me, it doesn't make sense because that process I feel no matter if you acknowledge it or not happens as soon as you know a person is towards the end of their life. 

Michelle Kolling: exactly. Your life is never going to be the same, and you know, there's, there's no judgment. There's always like, you know, there's that tendency to label good, bad, you know, on this. There, there doesn't need to be that label that judgment, your life is never going to be the same. It's just going to be something different.

And perhaps. It's going to be richer, perhaps it's going to be more meaningful, perhaps there's going to be more love, perhaps there's going to be more connection to self. What's wrong with that? Right? 

Charlotte Bayala: Do you continue to provide any support after the loved one has already passed or is the passing of a person the end of what you provide?

Michelle Kolling: No, there is a continuum of care. I talk about the phases, of, of my doula services and most doulas operate under this as well. Although many do specialize in certain areas, but there's the planning phase, and that's kind of leading up to the, active dying, which we call the visual phase, and then the bereavement, which is the grief.

For those who, the survivors, those who are left, left here, so there is that continuity  of care and I think it can be helpful because Sometimes when you go to a grief counselor, that person wasn't around during the dying part, the illness and the dying. Being a doula, I have been around through the whole thing, so I see a larger spectrum of the events.

And I have, you know, more objectivity of those events too. And so sometimes I can help people reframe things, in a different way or, offer things that I saw that they maybe didn't in a different way.  , and can help soften some of those really hard edges just because I went through some of that experience with them.

Charlotte Bayala: Yeah. I love that because I think that. Especially if someone doesn't understand, what someone like you does, then the probably the expectation is, and then this person's going to leave me at the same time as my person. Yeah. So knowing that there's someone who's been part of that experience to stick around and help process what happened and to go into that new, the new period of grief for them.

Is just a good amount of support that I don't think a lot of people may think or know that they need until they actually are in that place. So I love that the process continues with the people once their loved one has died. 

Michelle Kolling: Yeah, and I think that's another thing that might be a little bit of a misconception that like, Oh, everyone who was there who was there will be supportive for each other.

And that's just not the case because the relationship relationships are different. You know, a sibling relationship is different than a parental relationship or a child relationship or a friend. or a spouse. They're all very different relationships. And, you know, I think sometimes, people think, well, you can lean, you can lean on your, your mom cause she was there too.

And she has her own grief process. Everyone has their own grief process cause they, they're coming to it with their own lens of their life experience. And sometimes that. Sometimes, I see pain in that, where it's like, why can't this person be there for me? Exactly.  , and they can't because their grief process is different and what you need, they can't provide.

Yeah. People in deep grief don't have a lot to give. So expecting. That expectation that they, they should be able to give to me when I'm feeling this way,  and that's not realistic.It took me a long time to realize that too. There were people that I thought should have been around, that weren't.

And it's like, you know, at first it was hurtful. And then it was like, you know what? I can't deal with that right now. I'll deal with that later. Right now, this is bigger. And then I came to realize that. Oh, they were grieving too. 

Charlotte Bayala: Yeah. Yeah. And it's good to know. I mean, I have met a lot of people who, when they've lost a loved one and didn't have, anyone like you in their life.

You know, all of the medical support goes away. You're left with a house and you're, that you're trying to figure out what do I do with all their things?  Especially medical supplies, you know, if they're caring for a mother, well, what do I do with all of these diapers that I have left or the bed that I have in the middle of my living room?

And it just, when I hear about it and they relate it to me, it just feels so empty. To be left, literally feeling like you're just were dropped and left to yourself to try to figure things out. And then trying to keep yourself busy in the meantime, doing all these things and not attending to what you need in helping yourself go through this process of grief.

So having someone already by your side and, and that has your back in a way that's separated from your family and friends is. is really good to know that you have if you're able to have it. So I like that it continues. So if there is, if there's one thing. That you would want a caregiver to know, they've, they've just found out that hospice might be a possibility in the very near future and, they're in this, holy crap, what do I do next?

Other than calling you, what would be your one, the one suggestion, if, if it's emotional or if it's something, that they need to reach out for, what would your first suggestion be for them?

Michelle Kolling: You know, that's a really good question and also very individual, but just, just slow down. Yeah. Slow down.

Slow down. Slow down. Things can wait. There can be this frenetic energy around it, but it's okay. Just take a pause and ask for help and ask specifically. And I think that's one thing too that I help people do is ask for help and how to ask for help. And I also advise people on how to give help because that's people aren't necessarily that they want to help, but they don't necessarily know how.

But to ask for help in a very specific way, Hey, can you, I need these five things come from the grocery store. Could you go get them and then just leave them at the door?  You know, so I don't have to talk to you and have you come in and entertain you, you know, can you, can you do this for me with, you know, and then, and finding those people, that you can make that call to, Because not everybody can do that.

And there might only be one or two people, in your life, but finding those people as well. Yeah. So that's it. Just slow down and ask for help. 

Charlotte Bayala: That's advice for every caregiver everywhere in the world. 

Michelle Kolling: Yeah, it's, it's, and it's one of those things that's so simple and everybody says it, but it's, it's again, ask, ask specifically.

And sometimes you don't know what you need, right. Which is the hard part. Like, I don't know what I need. So can I just call you at 10 o'clock at night if I need to?  Yeah, just kind of, and that's part of the slowing down process to just slow down and sit and be, there's so much doing in caregiving, so much doing, And maybe now it's just time to be at wrap your head around this new thing and then you'll know what to ask for.

Charlotte Bayala: Yeah, I love it. I love it.  , let's have you share where people can find you and any new or exciting, projects or things that you're working on right now.

Michelle Kolling: Yeah, I can be found on my website, which is www.Heldula.com. H E L D O U L A. com. I am on Instagram and Facebook also as Held and as Michelle Koelling.

Trying to get better at the socials. I'll tell you that.  , but, but I am there as well.  , and I am working on a special project right now. I'm doing a grief project. So, I want to connect with people who whether they're six months out or maybe even 10 years out who are interested in letting me ask a few questions about their grief story and where they are in their grief and in exchange for that, I will give a complimentary grief coaching session.

So, I would love to hear from anyone out there with a grief story to share

Charlotte Bayala: Nice. I love it. And you know what? Maybe sharing a grief story is, a way to start to learn about how to be okay with having those 

Michelle Kolling: conversations. So, I like that. Exactly. And that's, that's kind of the biggest thing that grief needs as a witness.

Yeah. And I've had many of these conversations and even after the conversation, I'll say, is there anything specifically that you'd like more help with? And they're like, no, just being able to talk about it was really helpful. Thank you. Yeah. 

Charlotte Bayala: Oh, I love it. Oh, perfect. Well, I'm going to put all that information, on the website page for this episode and in the newsletter, if you get it.

So look out for that. And I'd love to hear. How,  this grief project ends up, for you.

Charlotte Bayala: Well, thank you, Michelle, for being here with me. I really 

Michelle Kolling: appreciate this. Thank you, Charlotte. This was a great conversation. Thank you so much. Thanks.

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You can find more information about Michelle and her services at https://heldoula.com