Miscellaneous
About the showIf you love deep, honest, authentic conversations get ready to love Grief is a Sneaky Bitch. Lisa Keefauver, founder of Reimagining Grief, holds an extensive grief resume herself, as a social worker, narrative therapist, grief guide, and widow. She brings her deep curiosity, love of conversation, and knowledge of how language and culture shapes our experiences of ourselves and our world, including our grief, to each unscripted conversation. From CEO’s and social workers to authors, educators, filmmakers and stay-at-home moms, her guests open up about the complexity, confusion, and even confidence they have gained by navigating a grief journey of their own.About the episode In this episode, Lisa talks to British-Iranian poet Fad Jamal (Khorsandjamal) about the power of artistic expression in the process of grieving. Fad intertwines her love of nature, the losses she’s faced, both death and non-death, and the poetic notions and sensibilities of her Persian heritage and the Farsi language to explore love and loss in two volumes of poetry - Quixotic Nature and most recently, Reflections and Refractions. Our conversation was so rich and expansive as we explored what nature has taught her about loss in its various forms and the ways in which metaphor and poetry has allowed her to explore the dark shadows of pain and grief. Fad brings forth such light, wisdom and hope, and even shares a few of her poems with us. I just can’t wait for you to meet her.Episode ResourcesReflection and Refraction by F KhorsandjamalQuixotic Nature by F Khorsandjamal Reimagining Grief Newsletter Sign-UpJump straight into(03:29) - The cherry tree story: Pad’s first experience with grief - “I just remember being almost in shock that this thing that I had always really appreciated and loved and obviously got enjoyment out, was gone.”(16:39) - Numbness: False beliefs and assumptions about grief - “I remember it was pretty much a year later. Suddenly, I think I was in bed or something, I woke up and I just burst into tears.”(25:53) - Fad’s poetic Persian heritage and three of her beautiful poems: Numb, Carnival of Dark & Cabin - “I was brought up with a lot of reference to poetry because Persian poetry and poetry within Persian culture, as a broader sense, is huge.”(35:02) - Writing poetry as a way to cope with loss - “As the title suggests it's Reflection and Refraction, you kind of go through these things to come out the other side, like the creation of a rainbow.”(40:30) - Don’t Sweep it under the rug!: How to honor and give space to different types of grief - “Little people are given the opportunity to grieve things that aren't a death, a physical death.”(48:12) - Looking at darkness in the face and not letting it take over - “There is a point where you feel like you're bereft and there's nothing left, but it's actually an opportunity. There will come a time when you'll want to fill it again with love, light, laughter, and delight.”Thanks for listening! If you’re feeling social, don’t forget to follow Lisa on Instagram. Make sure to leave a rating and write a review today on Apple Podcasts so that more people can find us. Our host, Lisa Keefauver, offers a variety of services and products from individual grief sessions, to guided meditations, workshops, company culture consulting and even a line of beautiful and authentic Empathy Cards. To know more visit www.reimagininggrief.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.