Managing Grief: Cry That Shit Out!

Zach: [00:00:00] If you've ever lost a loved one, a pet, A relationship, a

situation you've more than likely experienced grief. 

Jeremy: today. I'll share with you why I'm grieving right, now and the tools I'm using to manage it.

 we come to you each week on this show, hoping to share some cool things we're trying in order to live better

lives. Sometimes we come to you with the struggles we're facing

and the

tools we're using to manage them. This is one

of those episodes. Today I wanna talk about grief, and I'm going to probably fight back tears through this,

which feels ridiculous. But just yesterday, , my family made the difficult decision to euthanize our 15 year old [00:01:00] cat who had been battling kidney failure.

Zach: I'm sorry. 

Jeremy: man. So at no point did I ever think in my life that I would be talking to, to you, Zach, to a friend, to a family member. Certainly not doing a show about the loss of my cat. Right. It feels silly in a lot of ways, but it feels especially silly because I found this cat annoying.

It was difficult to have it in my life. It was messy. , it was so self-involved. It only came around when it needed food. It would howl and bitch for

food, but it wouldn't sit on your lap. It wouldn't let you pet on. Like,

I was just like 

Zach: You, you are describing all cats though, 

Jeremy: but 

Zach: not, not special. 

Jeremy: sometimes they're cuddly. But, you know, and honestly I had a lot of resentment because it was, it was a cat that we got for my daughter, for her sixth birthday. She's now 12. , and it was after we had 

lost, the last of our preki pets. And I was like, I'm never getting a cat again.

Hate litter boxes. It's a whole, like, I

didn't wanna do it. So most of the last six years, [00:02:00] if you had told me the cat was going away, I would've gone awesome. One less thing to worry about, but dude, something happened. In the last couple of weeks when she got really sick, like la we thought we lost her last year.

She got out in the woods and was there for three days, had no idea. Like I figured she was gone, like eaten by a bobcat or something. , but luckily we found her and spent the last year, , just having a cat and her health declined. She had eye issues, ear issues, different things were coming up, but it was in the last couple weeks when she was like kind of getting more picky about food, not really eating much, losing a lot of weight.

And that's when we discovered the kidney failure, uh, diagnosis. And all of a sudden, here I am putting an IV in this cat every other day, giving her medicine twice a day, waking up, wondering if she's alive, like getting out of bed to go find her, make sure she's okay. All of a sudden, like I care. All of a sudden I'm invested. And it was kind of heartbreaking because I realized like so much of my annoyance with her was how. She [00:03:00] needed something from me right there. There was nothing in it for me. It, it was too selfish of a, of a arrangement we had where there was nothing in it for me. But ironically, in service of keeping her alive and fighting alongside her, trying to keep her healthy, comfortable, alive, whatever, like being purely selfless, that's when I found a connection with her. , and so for the last. Three days I've been a mess. Just like I'm crying about this cat that like a month ago, I wouldn't have cared if she disappeared. 'cause like I had no connection to her. But I found it really profound to let go of my ego and act purely in service of her to form a real bond and, and to find love for an animal that I don't think really existed for the last 

six years.

So with that love of course comes fucking grief, which I did not expect to be experiencing right now. I did not expect to be riding the emotional wave of like, oh shit, she's not here. [00:04:00] Looking and seeing where she would normally be and not being there and having to lean on tools, lean on ways to manage it.

, from getting in the car, driving to the vet to have her put down and doing the thing. I don't know if you've ever done this, but like when you wrap your hand around your thumb enough to sort of feel the pulse like a, a firm grip, how that calms your anxiety, doing it on both sort of opens up those energy channels.

And it was, it was amazing how much it was helping me manage the grief writing, just writing all of this, writing my relationship with her, writing the story. The, literally the vet, , as we were preparing for the euthanasia, uh, they gave us pen and paper and said, if you wanna write anything to her that will go with her into the crematorium, you can do that.

And I found that incredibly useful. So just writing these feelings and getting them out. And I thought of you a lot because you went through a grieving process recently where what you did, I, I have been trying to do and encouraging my kids to do, just cry that shit out. It's all just this energy in your body that wants to be expressed.

Like [00:05:00] I've heard grief described as love, like, uh, unexpressed love, right? Like that's the reason it exists is 'cause it was love that wasn't given a chance to be expressed. And so just anytime you do feel that emotion, just being like, yes, just go. It's okay, scream, cry, hit the pillow, like move that shit.

, it's just, you know, again, this feels weird to be saying about a cat, particularly this cat. But, but once again, I'm, I'm reminded of the tools I have in place to manage my mental health, to manage my emotions in these tough times. 

[00:06:00] 

Zach: No one is more surprised to hear this conversation because for the last six years I've heard you complain about that cat. uh,

Jeremy: there's been many times when I've had to edit out in the background. Wow, wow. Just howling from downstairs, like, God fucking cat.

Zach: No, no one is more surprised, but, uh, yeah, you're you're absolutely right though with the, the grieving 

process. I mean, I, that is something that I've, I unfortunately I've gotten pretty good 

at is, is allowing 

those things to roll through. Like when my wife and I split, that was a big one. , There was another one that just hit me a couple of weeks ago that like sent me down the grief train [00:07:00] as well, and I just had to like, let myself feel those feelings. 

, as uncomfortable as they are, 

 Feeling those feelings really helps you process them quicker, 

healthier, you know, if you go , drink alcohol or something like that to cover it up, you're not processing those feelings. They're still there the next day. And now you've got like the depression, , wave of, of the 

alcohol through your body. So like, just, you know, take 

those moments and, and feel the feelings. Let them run through you. I know it's uncomfortable. I know nobody wants to feel those feelings, but it really is the healthiest, best way to kind of fight through them.

Jeremy: It's so funny that 

you bring that up because 

that, you know, there have been enough 

challenges over the last six years of not drinking that, you know, have come up 

and that, that my, my automatic mode 

is, oh, you should drink that pain away. That sucks. that came up big time last night, like, I, I couldn't get the image out of my head of the 

aftermath of, of the euthanasia.

The thought of just like leaving the [00:08:00] cat at the vet to then go through the process of cremation and all that. Like, I just, I just left my cat in some building, right? Like, she's, she's gone, but like, I, I couldn't let go. Like she's just sitting in some box somewhere. Like, it just felt horrible and I just kept playing it over and over and over in my head.

I so desperately was like, I just wanna drink this shit away. I, I don't want to feel this. Every time I did it was like, no, we feel this now. Now we live life on life's terms. Now we go through this shit so that it doesn't keep coming up, so that in 10 years this doesn't hit you outta nowhere, so that in five years this doesn't hit you outta nowhere, so you don't wake up tomorrow feeling super depressed and sad and deep in grief and hungover, right?

Like all of the work really kicked in. And I woke up this morning really proud of myself because. I felt it. I cried my way through it and I am able to be a better dad for my kids because of it. I'm able to be a better husband to my wife because of it. All like just [00:09:00] again, man, there. There are days when all this self-development stuff is just like, just fuck it God.

It's just exhausting to keep up with and man, it's hard. But then there's times like this when you're, you're in it and you reach for those tools and you're like, thank God I have those things. 'cause man, without them, I would be making a lot of the same stupid choices I was making before I started this path.

Zach: Yeah. Good for you. I mean, again, grief is one of the worst feelings, honestly. Like, again, I've experienced mult, like I've had to put a dog down, like, and people have died. Like I've, I, we've all experienced it in some way, shape, or form. I. , you know, like I said just recently, I experienced it for, for another reason and it's really uncomfortable.

It's really difficult. And tho, tho I mean, those are the moments where you can change your life though, is when you feel those feelings. We have developed to be able to feel those feelings. That grief hits us for a reason, [00:10:00] for us to feel it. , we develop. All of this in human beings long before alcohol.

I mean, alcohol is pretty old, but like long before that, it has been around a while. But like we developed all of these things long before we had those other coping mechanisms because we were made to feel it and get through it and be more resilient.

Jeremy: And, and so with that in mind, I mean, just to sort of sum up, you know, if, if you are struggling with grief right now, if you're, if you've lost someone first, I'm sorry, it sucks. It's, it's a horrible place to be. But there are tools, there are things you can do. And in my case so far, journaling about them, writing them out, just writing, again, , getting that stuff out of your body in one way or another.

So helpful. Being mindful of those feelings, not hiding from them, not drowning them in something, , just feeling them, being super aware of what they are and allowing that energy to get, again, getting out of your body. Grief is energy that just wants to get out of your body.

So I've been telling my kids like, let's go for a walk. Let's go for a run. Go hit a pillow, [00:11:00] scream, cry, like move that energy. That's, it's so important. That is the processing. That's when we say processing, that's what we're talking about. Get that shit out. And in that just find time to take care of yourself.

You know, if it is just for yourself, taking a walk, listening to music. You know, we came home and just watched a comedy after, after the procedure because we just were like, we just need something to distract us for a little bit. Right? Do what it takes to, to move that energy. Give yourself breaks when you need it, but one way or another, keeping it inside and drowning it in something is not gonna be the answer.

Feel it, process it, get it outta your body.

Zach: Couldn't say it any better.

Jeremy: well there you go. An episode I never thought I would record about the grief of losing my cat. That feels very silly , to say as a 46 year old man. But, It is what it is. I hope you have, , found this helpful. I, I hope you have enjoyed this episode.

You can find more like it and bonus clips from our show at our website. That's the fit mess.com and that's where I will be back in just a few days with a brand new [00:12:00] episode. Thanks for listening.

Zach: Zero.