Welcome to It's Your Loss podcast, where raw stories of resilience and healing are told,
all while uncovering and destigmatizing the diverse symptoms of loss.
Welcome back to the podcast.
If you missed last month's episode, well, it's your loss.
I am host Michael Blanc, and I am with the illustrious Edith Ivhay.
Rosenblat.
Yes, actually in person.
We're sitting inside her car, and we had the idea for the perfect Christmas episode after
two hours of drinking coffee and water and just kind of staring at each other.
The idea is Christmas, normally known for its sense of family, especially if you have
a nice steady, balanced, normal life.
It's about family.
None chaotic, none addicted.
And also togetherness and stuff like that.
But there are a lot of people out there, my ex included, who are experiencing a profound
sense of loss this holiday season.
I kind of wanted to shine light on that because a lot of people tend to kind of hold this
in their chest instead of talking about it.
And I'm a big proponent.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again.
Anxiety is always smaller when you get it out of your mouth.
And hopefully hearing somebody talk about what I'm about to talk about, what Edith is
going to join with me, maybe you want to talk about it as well.
So this episode, if you happen to be listening to it on Spotify, Spotify has comments now,
and I would love to hear from you.
If you would love to send an email, you could always do it with sitting with you.
No G. And it's all one word.
S-I-T-T-I-N-Y-O-U.
No, wait.
W-I-T-H-Y-O-U.
At gmail.com.
If you got anxieties this season and you don't feel like you got anybody to talk to.
Let's work it out.
Please.
I mean, like I said, my ex is, I got to sit down with her and have a good conversation.
We're still very much good friends.
And so we feel comfortable talking to each other about anything that's bothering us.
And the passing of her mother not only hit her pretty hard, but it hit me pretty hard
too.
I've never seen or heard somebody wail like that.
I've heard about it.
I've seen it in movies.
Marley?
No, my ex.
Oh, your ex.
Luckily my in-laws are still very much alive.
Actually, my father-in-law just recently had a very recent scrape with what could have been
a lot worse.
His boat exploded, but everybody's okay.
Everybody's okay.
But no, my ex-mother-in-law, she passed away this year.
And like I said, the sounds that she made, bone-chilling, she came up to me immediately
and she was like, hey, I want to be on your podcast.
I'm like, this pain is too new.
I can't have you on my podcast yet.
I'm, please, process.
I will help you process, but I'm not going to do it and record.
Immediately.
Yeah, because that's selfish.
Because there's a lot, yeah.
Yeah, that's sad to be selfish.
A lot to unpack and you can't even come to the realizations that you need because the
grief is so fresh, it's like a cut.
Yeah, exactly.
And this would be nothing but just lemon juice.
Right in the wound.
So we waited, we waited for a while.
There was an episode that's recorded, but I'm not going to release that just yet.
And I still want to make sure that it gets it to do its time.
You know, I know, and she said it before, this is going to be her first Christmas without
her mom being alive.
And she said Mother's Day was already rough or, I mean, it's been a hell of a year.
And I know that there are other people out there who are going through not only family
loss, uh, loss comes in all different forms.
So much loss.
Yeah.
Money loss.
Say you lost your job beforehand.
Friendships.
Uh, yeah.
Yeah, friendships.
Familial loss.
Uh, material loss.
Material loss.
Especially, oh my God, all the people who got affected by the, uh, the Milton.
Milton Hurricane Milton.
In Tennessee.
I heard they're still dealing with that.
Tennessee, North Carolina.
In fact, we've been driving around South Carolina, uh, over the last two days and I'm sure you've
seen all the trees in the side of the road.
And here's the thing and myself included.
Okay.
Myself and we are not taught how to deal with grief.
From the time we're very small, we're taught how to be a consumer and to consume and get
things.
But then there's all that middle ground.
All that middle ground.
A lot of emotional middle ground.
That's not, that's not told.
Like there are a lot of people who say that there should be things that we learn in school
taxes, uh, how to change attire.
And there are some schools that are doing better at teaching hands on stuff, but there's
still a very large gap because I feel like schools don't think that it, that they have
to, that they put all the emotional learning, all the, the growing up on the parents, like
the parents will teach them all this.
There are kids out there whose parents are not emotionally stalwart enough to actually
say, Hey, this is how you deal with loss.
They're, they're flushing.
Uh, this is a very small example of it, but they're flushing their goldfish down the toilet
and then getting another one before the kid comes home.
Um, there's a lot of that.
My parents did that.
Or, you know, checking in every once in a while, like say after a grandparent dies or
something like that.
And then when the kid starts acting out, it's like, Oh man, you must have ADHD.
You must have something wrong.
Maybe we need to medicate you.
This doesn't happen to every child.
Happened to me though.
But we, exactly.
We hear about it.
We've seen examples of it.
And so when it comes to be later, when you're an adult and say that you're, you're, you
are now the parent, you have learned what you can through the school of whatever hard
knocks you've been through to learn with your emotional stuff.
And then all of a sudden a hurricane wipes it, wipes out your like entire house and you
and you, your kid, your family, you know, are now faced coming into the holidays, having
to probably like lean on somebody else or just tried to face it yourself because you
don't have anybody else.
Exactly.
And that's, that's the reason you have, uh, it's your lost podcast and bisexual.
Coffee.
We do that together.
And then I have naked onion mystery tours podcast and beyond normal podcast for women
because there's so much grief out there and we're not discussing it enough.
I don't think a lot of people feel like, again, they don't feel like they have somebody to
talk to about that.
They feel like they have to go, they have to go it alone.
Um, that this, it's their lot to, to my cross to bear.
Yeah.
For some people, let's be honest, is this voice right here?
Is this podcast going to reach them if they don't have anything to listen to it on?
No, but I hope it reaches out to somebody who knows, who's been affected, who is being
quiet, who feels like they just have to keep moving forward because that's the only thing
that they can do.
They can't show the weakness.
They can't break down.
This podcast has been from the get go.
The one thing that I want, I'm rambling here.
It's manifesting.
That's what's happening.
This podcast has always been about de-stigmatizing and yeah, and showing that it is okay that
you are feeling the symptoms or that the symptoms that someone that you're seeing, it's going
to be different.
It's going to be hard to see and it's going to be even harder for them to feel.
Can I, can I, you can, okay.
As a child, I would get screamed at a lot so that to the point when I became an adult,
if someone screamed at me, I'd be reactionary to their screaming.
Well the thing is, the yelling, the screaming, the behaviors all come from the same place,
grief.
Some kind of grief is happening and I've learned from the people that I love when they're going
through grief.
Mr. LeBlanc over here had to remind me that my partner was grieving something before I
left.
But that was, I don't know.
But I have the ability to turn it around and create something different from it.
A better story.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to be a better listener.
Just a better listener.
And I won't mirror back the pain, but I'll be a better listener.
Because sometimes listening is one of the good first steps because it's not about what
you can do for them.
Which is why there are a couple of things that I try not to say when I hear that somebody's
lost something, whether it be property or family or anything.
There are two big things that I don't say.
I don't say I'm sorry immediately because Lord knows they've heard that enough by people
who don't know what else to say.
And then the next thing I don't ask, I don't ask like, what can I get you?
Because that implies that there's like something physical that they need.
It's what the best thing is, what can I do for you?
Just an action and figure out whatever that action is.
Going into this holiday season for Christmas, I mean we've already been through Thanksgiving
and I know that there are a lot of people out there who invite people who aren't their
family into a Thanksgiving scenario.
Actually I just got back from Todd A. Davis' Thanksgiving.
There's a whole backstory about that, but he invites friends who don't have other family
to hang out with over to his house.
Oh, that's fun.
It is.
And it's amazing.
And it's one of those things where he just invites, he doesn't say, hey, I know you're
in this situation, but he invites that to the people he knows first and he's like, hey,
come on out.
And then if they want to talk about it while they're there, cool.
If they don't want to talk about their situation, they still had a moment to share with somebody
even because food's healing.
Let's be honest, you know.
So that entire event is just great.
Some second time I've been there, I'm really honored to be a part of that tradition.
He's really brought me into his fold.
I really like that.
But around Christmas time, there are people out there who feel guilty that they can't
afford something right now.
There are people out there who don't have a family member to lean on that they used to,
a house to go to that they once had, a job that was once bringing the food and the presents
that they thought they were going to bring this year.
I'm not saying that we have to go out there and save everyone, but I'm saying if you got
somebody who's close to you, now's the time to, again, not ask them what you can.
Don't ask them if they need anything because if that's easy to say no, don't give them
a yes or no answer.
Ask them what can I do for you.
And I'm telling you.
And one question right there is huge just between human beings in general.
I say to my girlfriends, how can I serve you?
Because honestly, they don't get that.
No one says that to them.
My partner, I don't say that to you because that might turn into something else.
But I do.
I'm a better listener.
And when they need something, I make sure that I have it shut off my ears.
I used to be very prone to, oh, you want this?
Really?
Okay, let me not give you that.
I don't know why I would like that.
I think my mom would like that or something.
I don't know that.
I'm going to say that sounds, I use this term as the internet has introduced it here recently.
That sounds like some straight up rat behavior.
I'm not going to lie.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
Well, now I'm not going to do it.
Look, look.
I haven't done that a lot.
My whole life was people-pleasy.
Little toxic people-pleasy.
So then I had to go to the other direction and be like, no.
Well, now I got to find the middle ground.
Setting boundaries for yourself is helping, right?
But you also can get addicting.
It's almost like getting a little taste of power.
And then you're like, oh, oh, I am the master of my own destiny.
Hey.
So what plans, if anything, you have this holiday season?
So I'm going in November.
There is a podcast that I was a part of.
It was called Dinner with Schmucks.
And they were out of Brandon.
You ever seen that movie?
In Florida, absolutely.
Like a hundred million times.
It's ridiculous.
So funny.
But what we would do, Dinner with Schmucks, is we would just find the funniest.
You were talking about people and humans.
We would find the funniest human stories.
Like Black Man wears white socks into pool.
Karen actually was complaining at the man for wearing his socks.
Oh, yeah.
That sounds like some good old red at rage bait right there.
Oh, my God.
To me, as an empath with having compassion and things, I'm like, yeah.
Like, well, maybe you wanted to cover up his feet.
Yeah.
Definitely.
Maybe that was all he wanted to do was just cover up his feet.
Maybe they weren't as pretty as he wanted them to be.
So he's in the pool.
Or just walking on that concrete is so.
A tactile experience that they can't handle.
So we would do stories like that.
Super funny.
A Karen in New York City, a little boy, a little Black boy, had a backpack on.
He was passing by her and he turned and then his backpack hit her.
Oh, I think I heard about that.
Yeah.
And she called the police.
So we would do those stories.
The police are so easy to call these.
Oh, my God.
No, they.
I feel like for some people it should be like an extra couple of buttons on the phone.
Like a little thing that warrants is like, hey, are you experiencing this?
Maybe you shouldn't call the police right now.
Exactly.
They have some moments.
We've done all the stories.
So with dinner and with schmucks, we would cook these recipes that we would get online.
Oh, my God.
One time we did a schnickle.
A schnickle.
Which is a snickers and a pickle.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
And it's you cut the dill pickle and then you cut the candy bar in half and you put
the dill pickle in the middle and then you eat it.
I've seen this.
Oh, my God.
You've tasted it.
I've never tasted it.
It is the perfect amount of disgusting and sweet.
I mean.
You're selling it for me.
Let me tell you.
Oh, my God.
It was so bad.
So we would do that.
And that's what you're doing this year.
So yeah, we're going to do an episode.
I'm flying up the Thanksgiving week, the beginning of Thanksgiving week.
I'm going to help them cook.
And then whether we podcast or not is completely fine.
They have a son named Raymond.
Now I think they've slowed down a little bit.
But for those of you listening and you're wondering, was there a continuity error?
No.
Thanksgiving hasn't happened by the time we recorded this.
But just in case that it happened to get a little later or anything before I released
it, I just went ahead and told people that I did the things.
I've already been invited to the thanks Gary thing.
So I am still doing that this year and she's going to dinner for schmucks.
Yes.
What about Christmas?
No plans.
I think my roommate and I are going to go to the Muta triangle.
No, it's a place that everyone goes and it's literally beautifully decorated.
And I can't remember the name of it, but it's not Amelia Island.
Anastasia?
St. Augustine.
I've been there as well.
The city's annual night of lights festival is a three world class display of three
million lights that transform the city from late November to January.
The historic district is a great place to stay and visitors can enjoy horse drawn carriages,
seasonal shopping and outdoor dining.
Well, that sounds downright magical.
Yeah.
We need some magic.
We do.
We just need friendship, magic and the holidays.
So Christmas as I've grown up over the years, I almost got to a point and this is kind of
bringing us a little bit back into the lost thing, but I'll dive in and come right back
out.
I got to the point where Christmas just wasn't important to me.
I got it.
Like at all.
Yeah.
I fell out of Christianity, found Buddhism for a while there, thought that well, since
I'm a Buddhist, I don't have to really care about that.
Turns out it really doesn't matter who you are.
You were probably part of some organization of people that celebrates something at the
end of the year and it's normally around family or togetherness or something like that.
And so like I really don't have to, no, I don't have to say, you know, yeah, Christmas.
Christmas is what I know.
It's now the, it's the event that everybody kind of gathers around and it's called, you
know, different things, different places, different holidays happen at the same time.
You know, I'm looking at a Hanukkah, looking at Kwanzaa.
There's also some other ones, but those are the big three that we normally think about
when that this time of year starts to befall upon us.
I got to the point where I really didn't like hanging out with a family that I was married
into because there was always drama.
And it, it was just kind of like a drawn off thing that we would just have like a small
celebration between me and my ex.
We didn't really have a lot of money, so we'd celebrate what we could.
Christmas wasn't huge.
We didn't decorate nothing.
And, you know, if we did go to other events for families or something, it was just really
quick.
It was like a, like a banquet dinner or something like that.
And then the year would continue.
Like we would probably have better time in the new year than we would actually during
Christmas time.
And then I married into the family that I married into now.
Oh, they're all about Christmas, I bet.
Definitely.
It's, it's the end of the year.
We never get all the way to Christmas before we have our family get together because we
like, my wife, she has to work on Christmas normally every year just because of the nature
of her job.
What does she do?
She works in a care facility for people with mental illnesses.
Okay.
And so that's a year-round thing.
Like they need staff.
Oh, it's non-stop.
I understand.
And since her family always has this earlier in the month celebration where we go up to
the mountains and all the uncles, the cousins, everybody, you know, we're all, we're all getting
together, the parents.
And it's just, it's great.
And they make this giant pot of like a spiced wine and have great conversations.
There are always giant stockings that are passed around that everybody chips into.
It's a great thing.
So since we have that earlier in the month, Marley goes, well, I'm clear.
I've already done my thing in my family.
So if you want off for Christmas, I'll be that person.
And so she goes in there and that way the other staff normally, she takes a 12 hour,
12 hour stand, and like that leaves like three of the other staff to just stay home for the
rest of them.
And she's glad to take that step.
But that thing in earlier in the month, like around the 15th or the 16th or whenever it
is, that revived my love for the holiday.
And it brought the magic home a little bit for me.
It was, it was a resurgence.
Women are creators.
Yeah.
And first and foremost, and you are lucky to have that centeredness to where you're
being is also a creator.
I mean, there's lots of creators, but women, it's a comfort.
It's a comfort to be a creator.
It, for me, if I'm not creating, then anxiety and stress come in.
During the holidays, I know, I just want to share this story one Christmas.
I spent with a friend of mine, you know, my family and I were not getting along.
And this friend of mine and I went to Walgreens, got a canned ham, a can of green beans, and
the French onions and the French onion soup mix, and a box of macaroni and cheese.
None of this was fresh.
Yeah, yeah.
It probably screams sodium to somebody, but I mean, I was in my 20s and we put that dinner
together and we had a blast.
We got in our pajamas.
We watched this movie with this little kid who licks a pole and gets his tongue.
A Christmas story.
Yes.
Yeah.
We watched that.
We watched family vacation.
It's a movie where a kid licks a pole.
Licks the pole.
And then family vacation or Christmas vacation, and lampoos, Christmas vacation.
We just watched all these movies and popped popcorn and laughed and fell asleep in like
a complete sugar coma on the floor.
Yeah.
There's definitely a magic in creating small moments out of cheap events.
Right.
And because those for me like last the longest, like one time moved into a place with my ex
after living with roommates for the longest time, we finally got to a place where we could
live by our own.
And we got the last big furniture in there and we sat down.
She sat down in a chair.
I sat down on the floor.
The only food that we had brought in with us was a can of baked beans and hot dogs.
I love it.
And we were just sitting there and just tearing, no, no, ground beef too.
It was extra protein.
I love it.
And so it was the best meal ever.
And that's, it's, it's a good moment that solidifies inside my brain.
Fine.
I guess, you know, can be said to try to find those small moments in between as well.
So if you're out there and you listen to this thing and I know we kind of went on hard on
the people who have lost things.
Well, this is a podcast about loss.
We went hard on that because I want to, I want to let you know that if you are thinking
that you need to go help somebody or you know somebody who you can help or somebody comes
up to you and actually asks for help, know that again, it's the small moments that will
probably help them forever.
Even if it is just getting their kid like one toy during this holiday season where they
can't get it or giving them a place to stay for the night.
If that's available within, you know, your house, the small moments are going to help.
You can transform a person's perspective about a situation using the words.
I actually ran into a woman in a park and I was meditating and walking at the same time,
one of the habits I tell you that I have.
And this woman was feeling great angst and pain and just opens, just said hi to me and
just started opening up about her situation and how she felt.
Not only did she get the name of your podcast, but then the name of our podcast, I gave her
a card to my hormone doctor and she received so many gifts in that moment and she gave
me a big hug and expressed her gratitude and it just flipped a switch and it changed her
perspective of her entire day.
I have to ask because you know, giving people the name of our podcast is cool, you know,
I can't deny the chance for that.
But do you mind telling us what was going on with this individual that hormone doctor
and podcast help?
Yeah.
Well, well, she was experiencing loss, relationship loss.
She and her partner got together because he wanted to help her and she wanted to help
him and now she was like, now we're both codependent.
Okay.
They lost their identity somewhere.
Sure.
And I told her that in listening to these podcasts, it would give her some ideas on
how to expound on her perspective and not feel so closed in because when you're, I'm
listening to myself as I'm talking.
That's good.
That's a good thing to do.
And when you're sitting in the house with the same person over and over and over and
over, you guys come home together, you eat together, you watch TV together, you do all
these things together.
Yeah.
Well, then you start resenting one another like, hey, resentment is easy to build.
It is easy.
It's an easy house.
And I'm telling you now, I don't want it.
I don't want to resent anybody in my life.
That's good.
So I showed her listening to a podcast, even if it wasn't ours, would create new beliefs.
In creating new beliefs, you create new habits.
In creating new habits, you create a new perspective.
In creating a new perspective, you create a reality.
When you create a reality, then you're creating a universe and a community and all these different
things.
You're a creator.
So.
Okay.
Good.
So, you hear, oh man, times are rough for you.
Hey, I do a podcast.
Yeah, times are rough for you.
And then you just kind of walk away.
No, okay, that makes sense.
That's what I told her the whole thing.
Yeah.
Everything I just told you, I told her.
And depending, I don't want to dig too much in this person's life, but depending on where
she is in life, maybe seeking a hormone therapist would definitely kind of help.
That's what I thought.
I told her that too.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
That actually right there marks.
Circle.
Yeah.
So, that's the end of what I consider to be season one of the It's Your Loss podcast.
I'm glad, Edith, I got you in here twice this year.
I'm glad to be here.
I'm sure there's more room for us to experience more loss through the year and process it,
you know, on a microphone for other people to listen to.
Because it's important, you know?
Like I said, anxiety is a lot smaller when it's outside of your mouth.
So talking about it is huge.
That is the truth.
Stay tuned for season two.
Episode one should be coming out on the third Thursday of April 2005.
2025.
That's right.
Can you believe it?
That's how numbers work.
2005.
Wow.
I forgot how numbers work.
I was a hot mess in 2005.
I think we all were.
All works in progress.
But so yes, the third August, the third Thursday in August in 2025.
And like I said, I don't want to give away the guest because it was very special for
me and I think the conversation is nice, raw, and it's exactly what we need to hear, but
not until April.
Like share, follow.
Hey, thanks.
Appreciate that.
I don't do enough of that on my own podcast.
I really don't.
Once again, this has been Michael LeBlanc with Edith, Ivey, Rosenblatt, and if you miss
the next episode of the podcast, still it's your loss.
Thank you so much.
Bye bye.