Pain, Loss, & Grief Recovery - I Lost My Son Was it My Fault? Ed Owens - VP, Grief Recovery Method

But I always seem to figure out how to get through it. Right. How to how to manage it, how to survive it, whatever it was. And that all worked for me until it didn't work anymore.

And for most of my life, emotions were painful and I didn't want to deal with them. So I got really good at compartmentalization. I got really good at separating my feelings from what I had to do, be mission focused or whatever those types of things. It's a very in degrees, you know, that worked.

I wasn't I wasn't thriving, but you know, I could navigate it, right, until the death of my three and a half year old son had he ride. And I found myself in that moment, everything crumbled away like nothing. I it was like trying to reach for something things that had always worked. You know, and none of it worked.

Right. I always tell people like it's I found myself in this really dark place. All I could feel is like I was drowning in a sea of paint. Would you kind of give us a little bit of picture of when you lost him?

Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, what you were what you were doing for work? Where were you at like in your part of your life? Like would you mind just tell us a little bit more about that? Sure.

So at the time, I was a law enforcement officer. I wore a shield for 23 years. And at that point in my career, I was an intelligence detective. So I did a lot of investigations and you know, kind of worked that world that week.

I was working in case we were working super long days, like 14, 15 hour days. Yeah. Yeah. type of a situation. You know, if you want me to talk about like the events of that night or like some of the things that it would contribute to that night, but you know, that night would forever change my life.

Because there was I was up late and I was exhausted. There was a whole lot of things that were going on. Like most of us when those events happen, there's a lot of details in those nights you're never going to forget. Right.

A lot of things happen in those nights that you see that are traumatized or are impacting. But what I can tell you from that night is I was up late. My son had been up. He was spoiled.

He's still slept in our bed. Right. And he was my firstborn son. Yeah.

We're up late. And he's up. Right. Yeah.

For whatever reason that night, normally when he would get up, I'd call him down to me. Right. I'd lift him over the gate for the stairs. And then I'd finish up whatever we were doing.

We go to bed and we take him with us. You know, that night I didn't. That night I just told Ryan, Ryan go back to bed. And he said, just daddy and he went into the room.

And a few minutes later, there was this really loud pop. And I didn't know what it was at first. And I soon would find out what it was. And at first, I didn't realize why this was going on.

I was trying to turn on lights. There was a whole lot of things going on again. All those details are not as important as what it felt like in that moment. And I was gripped to a sheer panic and terror.

And I couldn't understand what was going on because, you know, I know from my train, I got tunnel vision. And I was super focused on trying to figure out what's going on. And why is my son hurt? And when the lights came on, I saw that the door to the gun box was wide open.

And then I knew what the pop was. And then I saw my backup gun laying next to my son. I couldn't see it before. You know.

And then I kind of kicked into automatic mode. Thankfully, my training kicked in. I was on the phone with 911. I was coordinating everything.

And then it became a blur. And for four hours, he fought for his life. And then the surgeon came in and I'm sorry, but your son, he died, was like someone's center punched my chest and ripped my heart out. And I was in this space where like I had all the feelings, right?

I was devastated. I was crushed. I was internalizing feelings like this is my fault. Like I as a man, right?

We're supposed to protect our kids. And I'm like, I'm the worst dad in the world. I failed to keep my son safe. My job is to protect him.

My job was involved in this whole deal. And so I had these misplace feelings of guilt and responsibility. And that really, you know, magnified that experience for me. Yeah, I can't even imagine, you know, and you know that I love you very much.

And you know, for those of you that are watching this, you're going to hear about this later in the story. But this is a story I know. And we've hugged each other a lot over this story. For most of you watching this, this are listening to this.

This might be the first time that you've heard this story. And it is tragic. And I wish we could have met under any other circumstances than we did. I'm glad we did.

Me for right now. Thank you for telling the truth about that. I can't imagine. Like you said, there are so many layers to this story.

Your profession, you being a father, you being a protector. This accident happening. You know, and all those things. So if you don't mind, Ed, if you can kind of walk us through a little bit of the aftermath.

I know just from what we do and what I've been through in my life. And again, not comparing any of my losses to your losses, because we don't do that any of that kind of stuff in this work. But I'd imagine that there was a time where probably you were just absolutely out of the moment quite a bit. And there was not there.

You know, we're not starting our journey of healing right away. Right. We're just surviving. And, you know, so if you want to start there and then kind of walk us through, you know, what you're healing and where that took you.

Yeah, those initial days and weeks were a blur. There's no doubt about that. It was a complete, overwhelmed in every way. Yeah.

And again, we're not going to get into all of the things that were transpiring. But it was, you know, it was chaos. Most painful experience in my life. Right.

And starting to come out of that fog, starting to come and deal with this after the just flooding of emotions and the flooding of events. I got bombarded with a lot of things. People were well meaning loving people. We're saying a lot of things to me to try to be helpful.

And it wasn't very helpful at all. Yeah. What so ever. So I found myself like isolating from people.

And at the same time, I'm also like trying to take care of, you know, my wife. I'm trying to take care of my other kids. And I felt like I couldn't be fully present for them, which that just added to the problems that I was feeling like I wasn't able to do that. And people started coming to me, whether it was the departments offering counseling or, you know, they offered me medications.

I started antidepressants and stuff. I took them. I didn't like them. I stopped after about a week.

They didn't feel good on them. I went to counseling. I went three times a week. I mean, I was doing like, hey, you need to do this.

Okay. None of it was really helping me to deal with it. And then there's all the aftermath of all of that. I'm sorry to interrupt.

In this, in this time frame, when things were bubbling up for you, you know, when memories were happening, when this pain was happening, was it? If you don't mind, just because I think a lot of people listening this will be able to relate, you know, and one of our biggest things that we do, the work we do is we just want everyone to know that none of us are alone in this stuff. But when we're in it, we feel like that. So, you know, part of our goal is just to identify, hey, we're all in this together.

All to be right. And I don't know how you feel and you don't know how I feel, but like we can, we can, we can at least connect on some of these pain points and hurt. So did the hurt come at night when you were alone? Did it come throughout the day?

Was it constant? In those initial weeks, it was constant. You know, I didn't sleep for three days or more until I was so physically exhausted, I passed out. You know, I couldn't eat anything without becoming physically ill.

You know, it was, it was all of that. Yes. That was going on, not being able to focus, you know, drifting off into space. Like I'm constantly reviewing that relationship.

I was constantly reviewing every aspect of what happened. You know, all the things I wish were better different. Trust me, that was a huge list of what I wish I could change. Right.

And that's, I got stuck in like this loop and it did affect my sleep, it did affect my eating, it affected my, how I could interact. You become super laser focused, I like on that loss, like I was focused on Ryan. And like I mentioned, like with my wife and other kids, like I couldn't even be there for them. I wouldn't be there for myself.

And that just added to it as well. It's, you mentioned a couple of things there that I just want to keep in on for a second, which is you felt like you were in a loop, right? And that's something that we, we talk about all the time is for those of you that are younger, there used to be these things called records, right? And there, there is a record player and it would spin around and around, right?

And one of the ways that the pioneers of this work put it way back in the day in the 70s and 80s when we were doing this work, you know? And pretty much the only people helping grivers at that time, quite honestly, specifically around grief and loss. You know, they would use this reference around a record player and the needle falls off, but we're still spinning. And we're just in a loop and we don't know what to do with these reoccurring memories and these reoccurring feelings just over and over and over.

So I just wanted to touch on that because that's a very common thing for a lot of us when we do have grief and loss in our lives, unresolved grief, a big, big indicator of that is just the constant replay, right? So anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt, but you're all good. And, and that is, that's what it felt like. And even if I, you know, sometimes I described as like drowning and we've fight your way back to we can get an air, you're getting sucked back under again.

And that was like, that's what it felt like. It was this constant cycle of pain, regret, feelings of guilt, you know, misplaced feelings of guilt, all these other things. And it was just, it was intense. The whole my life, I never felt that level of intensity.

You know, and then there's all types of other stuff that was going on at the same time. I also, through the mix of this, we get flooded with other things in my life that were in the moment, like, why is this popping up in this? And so I was everything like, it felt like I was getting crushed a lot of times. And it didn't feel good.

Right? It hurt. I felt that was must've been something wrong with me. Like, why can't I, you know, be strong for my kids or why can't I feel like how to man up on this?

And I couldn't. And I literally, people are talking to me and I'm trying to figure stuff out. And I started hearing this message really early on. And I just, it never felt right to me.

People would tell me, my God, to lose a child is the worst thing in the world. And absolutely, there's a lot of truth that, you know, as a parent, we should outlive our children or children should outlive us. And, you know, it's this life sentence of pain. I mean, they even talked about that at the memorial, figuring out what you're new normal.

Like, you know, the example of a veteran coming home who's lost his leg, has to learn how to move through life without that. And none of this stuff, I mean, it pissed me off. Gotcha. So intuitively inside, right?

You are feeling crushed. You are devastated beyond belief. Right? But still inside of you, when you have other people saying, this is a life sentence of misery.

There's never kind of, you know, what I'm hearing, what I'm hearing and correct me if I'm wrong. But what I'm hearing you say is even through all of this pain and being crushed, there's still something inside of you that's like, I can't live this way forever. Right? This can't be my life sentence.

Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Exactly.

Okay. You know, and I wasn't willing to accept that explanation. Right? What I didn't feel right, you know, and two is like, that can't be true.

Mm-hmm. Gotcha. Right? There has to be a way to deal with this pain.

I can't, you know, what I desperately wanted back, I knew intellectually, I can't have back my heart wanted it back. But there had to be a way to reconcile those two things. Right? And the more I kept hearing these things, the more I'm like, that's not true.

It can't be true. I don't believe it's true. And I kind of stumbled around for like five years, right? I literally tried everything.

I mean, I went to seminars, I, you know, talked to counselors, I talked to religious leaders, I think I mean, I'm not proud of the fact that I got really heavy into drinking. Right? I got really heavy into doing things to try and numb the pain. I mean, there was a long period of time where the only way I was getting to sleep is if I had a few drinks.

Sure, sure. Because in the, in the darkness, in those quiet moments, those images came rushing back. And I just needed to get some sleep. I needed to, I couldn't live with some of those images.

And they, and they drove so many of my decisions in life, but they also drove my desire to try and deal with it. So I suggested this I tried. No, not getting to the heart of the matter. Someone would suggest this.

No, that was nice. And then what I found over time, over those five years, even when I found myself having a moment where I started to feel normal, then I beat the shit out of myself, excuse my language. Why should I feel anything? Like I don't deserve, like I was beating myself up and holding myself accountable for all this whole thing.

Like why do I prevent this? Fast forward over those five years, it was just this cycle where my life was spinning out of control. Relationships were spinning out of control. Friends, family, everything it changed the dynamics.

Sure, right? Because it's like you're, you're grieving massively. You're bleeding to death emotionally. And so is your wife at the time.

And so is your family. And all your, your folks and her folks and, and we're all grieving. Right. And again, one of the major issues in this scenario is none of us had any tools or were taught any tools growing up around this.

Right. And you know, add to the fact, you know, it got into this a little bit, but it's like long term combat veteran long term law enforcement guy problem solver guy. Right. Right.

Probably not skewing as much on the emotion emotionally available at that time in your life guy. And again, if anyone endures this loss, it doesn't matter how emotionally in touch you are we're all going to just be absolutely devastated. Right. But, but you hadn't picked these tools up emotional tools, probably along the way yet.

No. And you know, whether it's at the academy or in the like when they talked about how to deal with these things, it really was learn how to compartmentalize it, learn how to do other things to try and replace it like you just need to exercise more. You need, I mean, and not I'm not saying these aren't good things like a healthy exercise routine eating healthy. All those things are great.

But none of the things they taught you at the academy or that they taught you in the service had any type of a significant impact on it. Right. So I didn't have any training or information or people around me who that's what they all knew to give me something solid. Yeah.

Right. And then so again, I'm trying to find that piece is like, you know, what's that missing puzzle piece. Yeah. Yeah.

And we're going to get into this more. I think in later later in our talk, right. But compartmentalizing. Yeah.

Right. It's like, again, in a lot of people's roles, we work with the military lot. We work in law enforcement and look, if you're on a mission, if you're on target or if you're serving serving a warrant or something, you have to compartmentalize. Right.

That is not the place to do anything other than then. Then you do in the moment, for sure. The problem is though, right. We can only compartmentalize for so long.

Then we then we have to go to the to the alcohol or to something else. Right. Exactly. And that's that's a roadmap for a lot of us.

Right. It is. And especially you guys in in the first responder category in the law enforcement category, like you guys are an extreme of that. Right.

And for good reason. You know, the thing that is I know breaks your heart and breaks my heart too. And is the suicide rate. And the, you know, what we would say is that's compartmentalizing.

And life gets in the way more and more and more in the fire builds and your tea kettle can't, you know, cannot hold anymore. And the pressure doesn't stop. Right. Life keeps going and and loss and pain keeps coming.

Absolutely. And the alcohol doesn't work. Like it did before. You know, whatever the case is for me or you and that truth.

But it's like the suicide rate. Like all of these things have a huge there's a huge component around unresolved trauma and pain and grief and loss. Whatever. You want to call it whatever the word is your is of this, you know, decade.

Right. Cause last year, last decade or something else. It's trauma now. You know, at some point we hope that that grief.

That term is also in there because it is, it is massively what a lot of us are dealing with. You know, absolutely. But I just wanted to clarify that for the audience a little bit. Just again, your background and kind of your skill set from before.

But we can't just solve this. We can't just fix this through from the skill set you had for before. Right. Exactly.

I never got to that point. I mean, there were times I like, I don't know how I'm going to get through the rest of my life with this. Like this. I can't live my life this way, which for me, I didn't go to if I can't figure out a fix this.

I'm going to end my life. I never got to that point. Because I believe somewhere there had to be a different answer and a different option. And I'd lost friends to suicide, whether it was the military, you know, I'd seen how that can devastate families, how that can devastate.

So like for me, that was not an option on the table. And I know that's an option for a lot of people. And they choose that option because everything else they tried doesn't work. They feel like I have no choice left.

And my heart breaks for those folks because there is another choice. Again, that's what we'll talk about all that stuff later on. Like what we do. And if anyone's watching this, I mean, I hope you realize there are other options.

If you find yourself in that position, realize there is no choice. Right. And whether you're a bereaved parent or you're in the military or in law enforcement, you're just feeling like I'm at that point, there are other options to lose a child is not a life sense of pain to deal with the things you see in the military career, a law enforcement career doesn't have to be your life sense of it. It doesn't have to become your identity.

And on that also bothered me because I got referred to as, you know, that's the daddy lost his son. And that was part of my experience, but I didn't want that to be my identity. And that and there's a lot of that in in the grief community too. Yeah.

And especially in for those that have lost a child, right. There is a push and we don't agree with this, but there is a push for people to really have that be the identity. Yeah. And again, when we're unfinished, when we're on that record player loop and we don't know what else and people come together with us and we're all sharing in this pain of the same type of a loss, I can see where people have that be their new identity.

Right. But it's interesting because we do. There's, I don't know what the percentage is, right. But we work with a lot hundreds thousands now of people who have lost a child in our work.

And and a lot of them have kind of going on what you're talking about right now, right, which is this push pull of I can't live this way forever. It doesn't feel right for people to propose that I'm going to live this way forever. And then if I forget about it or I forget about the pain for a little bit, I beat my shit, the shit out of myself for a little bit, right. So there's this push pull between those two things.

Oh, yeah. And you hold on, you know, when you're in that circumstance, and it's not just being a brief parent, I mean, any, for many of my other losses have been true for me, working with people, this is true. Like we hold on to every little piece, right. Like there's a feeling of desperation.

I've lost so much that meant so much to me. And I'm on hold on to every little thing, whether that's every little toy, whether that's every little memory. And we keep replaying them also in part because I can't forget. I can't get the only thing I left is my memory.

The only thing I got left is is these physical things attached to that person. And you know, I can get why some people might move down that road of like they can't get rid of anything in their life. And that's a separate discussion. But that was true for me too.

Like I, I don't have him. So I have to hold on to every little thing I can, every memory, every, every toy, every piece of clothing. I mean, yeah. And then you also can't look at it.

Right. So it's this weird thing going on, right. Like I can't let go of this because I don't want to forget him. And there's that sphere of forgetting like that's not possible.

I'll tell you that it's not possible. Yeah. But that's, that's where I was. Yeah.

I'd offer you hug right now, but we got cameras going and Mike's gone and we've, we've hugged a lot about this. But I just want to number one. I just admire you so much. And I appreciate your courage to do this.

And I know a big piece of this is to help others, you know, and because none of us like to go here. I mean, me and you fly around the country regularly talking about our deepest darkest pains and heartaches and stuff like that. And we do it so that other people can see that there's a way. Right.

Our job is to provide hope. So I want to just appreciate you being here and telling the truth like you are. If you don't mind, let's, let's pivot to. Okay.

So we're five years in. We've tried everything. And if you don't mind just walking us through, you know, that how you, how you kind of got led to, to this work, how we met, you know, that kind of stuff. Sure.

Trying to figure out what life was like. Right. All of this is a constant struggle. It's an ever present like elephant in the room that that's another thing.

Nobody wants to talk about. Right. I want to talk about Ryan. And he was nobody else want to talk about it.

So there's a lot of different dynamics. But during that whole thing, I'm trying to figure out life and I'm trying to figure out to what this looks like now. Right. Because everything changed.

And I trust me. Everything changed. I went to a seminar. And it wasn't, it wasn't us.

It wasn't a Greek crevary method. It was a different seminar because again, I'm like trying. I'm really trying to deal with this. And to, to figure out life.

And so I went to this one seminar. And it was called integrated. It was great. There's five days.

It was intense. And anyway, I met someone there. Right. And, you know, I, my marriage fell apart.

We separated. You know, that relationship broke as an outcome of side effect of losing. And so I met this person. We became friends.

We're getting to know each other. And she's like, have you ever heard of this thing called the grief. And I'm like, no, she was, well, I'd like to introduce you to my mom. She is a grief recovery specialist and funny story.

She would be trained by Russell like 15 years earlier. Wow. And stuff. Like that was the whole concept of this.

And so I went to this lunch and we talked about stuff. And I really liked what she had to say. And actually what she was talking about, like really resonated with me, like just some of our basic things. We know are true.

And we try to educate other people on. But it was the first time I'd ever heard some of this to phrase. And I was like, there's something here. You know, and it wasn't like intellectually.

I thought there was something here. I felt it. And then I got super hopeful. Right.

Like, maybe this is my puzzle piece I'm missing. I literally went home from that lunch, gone on the internet, found the website. Solid was a class coming up. Didn't read a single thing about anything.

And I signed up. And not only did I sign up, I actually called. So don't it's my partner. I were together now.

We've been together for years. And it was her mom. And so I called Don. I'm like, hey, this looks really interesting.

I signed as both up. And she's like, well, that's for you. I don't have anything to deal with. That's for you.

And I went, well, if I'm going and you had introduced me to this, you're going to. So we went and low and behold, I walk into this, this class. I have no idea what I'm getting into. And let me, let me real brief paint the picture hotel conference room.

Kind of a semi circle of chairs and a bunch of boxes of clean X on the ground. Right. And I can only imagine Ed, you know, with with, yeah. With your background and the warrior culture you come from, right.

I can only imagine what went through your head when you walked in and that, that's what you saw. Right. And yeah, I'm like, so again, I guess that hopeful piece, right? Like this all feels right.

I don't know why. And I skeptical. Sure. I was super skeptical.

I mean, that's the cop side of me. That's the military side of me. And everything else and worked. So I'm willing to try this out of a place of I don't want to live that way anymore.

Right. I can't live my life that way. Yeah. That's not my identity living with that pain.

Like, I'm going to step into this. And it's not like, wasn't like I lacked the courage to step into it. I'd stepped into a lot of things in my life. Right.

But it was from that place of hope mixed with intense skepticism. Sure. You know, and for all you that are listening to this, you know, like when I walked in that room, he was there. Yep.

Unknown. Unbeknownst to me, we have 10 kind of trainers that do what I do all across the world where we do these four day, you know, weekend certifications is what we call them. But really the big bulk of that weekend is deep personal work. Right.

Cause we won't train someone to help someone else unless they're willing to go and learn the method and do the work fear, you know, on on their heart fearlessly. And so anyway, I just happen to be the trainer that weekend in Portland. And you were you were in a tandy and Don was in a tandy on in the class. And I don't know how many people had 12 maybe 10 or 12.

It's like 14 or 15 class. It's a good size class. You know, and here's the thing like I had no intention of ever being special. Right.

Right. Yeah. You were you were there for the personal work. Right.

And that's another dynamic real quick. You know, just in case you've never heard about us or what we do. Right. Some people come to that four day.

And they're more on the personal work side and really the goal and priorities to do their own personal work. And then we got to, you know, encourage them and train them how to help others. Because that's maybe a little piece of it for people or there's no intention at all. And then on the other side, there's people there that are the professionals.

And we have to convince them. They're also grievers. And they also have massive significant losses from their past. And we want to help them with those two.

Because then they're going to be more effective as a professional, you know, helping other people. So there's kind of a really cool mixture of people there for different reasons or different priorities. And that all kind of goes away pretty quickly once we get into the work. But anyway, go ahead.

So I was I mean hindsight. I'm using personal workup. I created my own private investigations company. I had a job.

Yeah. I wasn't looking for a job. I had you pegged for a cop. The minute I walked in my life.

You asked me once on a break. I'm pretty good with with profiling. And I just I've worked with a lot of people. And you know, so I have that kind of skill set.

But I was pretty sure you're your cop. And you know, and we've talked about this before. But you know, for the listeners, I was not easy on this man during the class. And again, it was that I'm hopeful and I'm skeptical.

You know, you need to prove this to me. And at one point in the weekend, you know, and it's one of the things I'm forever grateful for you in my life. At one point in the weekend, I got scared. Sure.

And I got up to leave. And I was like, I can't do this. And there's very few things in my life. I've ever walked away from or it was in that position.

But at that moment, I was scared to death. To have to sit there and take an honest look at the most painful thing in my life and choose. It's a choice. Right.

And in that moment, I was so scared. I didn't know if I could make the choice. You know, and you had a conversation with me in the hallway. You know, we we connected.

Right. In a way that I felt, you know, I can do this. This is safe enough. Cold safe enough for me to do this.

I'm going to trust him. I'm going to trust the process, even though I'm scared to death. Yeah. And I walk back into that room.

And I don't regret. It's one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. I am so grateful that that we got to meet and and I got to help kind of lead that group. You know, I'll be forever grateful that I, you know, and that's not taking anything away from the other instructors.

But I think it was meant to be that you and I were in that that room together. And, you know, one of the things that's so and pieces of this to have dawned on me, but, but we've been working together for years. And this kind of just dawned on me today in this in right here real time in this podcast. You know, one of the things I really, I'm drawn to you just as a friend and and kind of like a big brother to me or a mentor to me, you know, in a lot of ways.

And you have you and my dad have a lot, you've shared a lot in your in your life, like in terms of coming to this work, right. Both combat veterans, both very much men who have their priority to help their crew, their clan, their people, their family, whatever you want to call it. Integrity and really a desire to serve, you know, and the both the loss of a young child. Right.

And and and desperately in pain and also wanting tools to heal from that. Right. And I've never seen it so clearly as right now, just the the similar path you guys walk have walked, you know, in terms of taking this tragic thing that happened that you would have never wanted. Right.

And still continuing to help and serve people even after this tragedy. You know, so yeah, you're just an incredible guy. I appreciate that. And I feel the same about you.

And I feel the same about John. Yeah. I got to meet him that weekend. And that was not that was also not a coincidence in my book to meet you know, and was my belief system that that was God.

You know, and and he put you to there. So you could have further reassurance, you know, that this was the right place for you to be. Yeah. And that was like this.

I agree. I don't believe there's coincidences. I think things coincide when we are open to the experience. Yeah.

And let me just say this real quick little advertisement for this work because you'll get those periodically in this podcast. We're trying to go light on it and really just, you know, connect with people wherever you're at, you know, you may be in that first five years and you've tried everything. And and maybe this is something you should try. You may be in the first three months where literally just getting out of bed and getting something to eat is the goal.

Right. And we've got room. We've got space for you no matter what. The thing that I'll say that I love about this work.

And I think you'll vouch for this. If you're a yoga instructor in Santa Monica, California, this work is what you make of it. And this work can feel feel very right for you and fit very well with what you're doing. And if you're a military veteran male and you have come from a very kind of warrior culture, this work can also be very, very beneficial to you.

So, you know, because some programs are very kind of like spiritual or woo woo or hardcore and intense or, you know, whatever. And I have not seen someone who's who wants to be a willing participant and wants to take the actions to heal from their loss, not be able to benefit from this. Absolutely. And we don't really put in a bunch of like superfluous stuff that's like we'll get in the way of who you are at or who that yoga instructor is in Santa Monica or, you know, and I love that.

And again, male female, any religion, not religion, any culture, any color, any political bent. And it's like, if you come here to work on your pain and you're hurt, we're going to welcome you. We're going to have a seat right here for you. And then we're going to help you utilize these tools to help you.

Right. It's not me. I didn't do anything in that weekend for you other than hopefully articulate these tools. So you could apply them.

And again, my goal when you got scared was just for you to trust me that that I was going to just help you through it and be a safe place. But other than that, it was all you. And you know that. And yeah, now I know I'm the one that did all the heavy lifting.

And I want to piggyback on what you were seeing there too. I would give almost anything that if I'd have been introduced to this four years and 10 months earlier, seriously. I really do. I mean, I spent so much time in a dark, painful place and dark, painful experience in life.

I wouldn't have had to spend those years in that place. You know, and that's not a fault of anyone around me. That's not a fault of myself, not knowing or anything else. It's just we used we do the best we came with tools were taught until we learn new tools.

Right. Yep. And I just wish I'd have the chance. And so part of the reason why we're doing this conversation, part of the things we do.

You know, is to get people at least plant the seed like, hey, there is something you can do. You know, you don't have to wait a year after loss before you can deal with something. In fact, you're clear as pictures right after it. So, you know, I just want to piggyback on that.

Well, and that's thank you for saying that. And with this story as powerful as yours, I'm glad you're saying it, right, because it needs to be said, what happens in society is that if you have the loss, right. And you want to go do work around it. People will say it's too soon.

Yeah. Right. And then you go, okay. And then the next thing they'll say is time's going to heal it, you know, and some other conversation.

So then, then you wait. Right. And then at some point, right, let's say five years or two years or four years, maybe we get really good at alcohol. Maybe maybe we just, you know, the memories fade a little bit, the intensity fades a little bit.

Oh, or we've just convinced ourselves this is our new normal. Right. And then the window is gone. Right.

Because because people told me it's too soon. Don't do any work. And then later they say, but don't worry, time will heal it. So we, but we don't know what to do within that timeline.

So then at some point, we just declare time is healed it. When, when really we're just a shell of our formulas ourselves, you know, and maybe we're just kind of now this is our new identity, which is just pain and hurt. And my new identity is the guy that that sundae, like you were saying, like some of the other people on the, on the force were, you know, that was your new identity. And yeah.

And I'm so glad that you cut through all of that and you kept searching. Yeah. You know, yeah, it was one of the best things. Making the decision to go through this was one of the best things I've ever done in my life, deciding to stay and finish it was one of those moments that is a seminal moment in my life.

Just as much as losing him, you know, going through this and, you know, we're no compare. Right. But one of the things like I learned coming out of that. And I know we've talked about this before and I've shared this before.

And it really speaks to how powerful this experience has been for me in my life. Why I want to help other people. I don't want to see people suffering for a year or five years or 10 years. Because it's not a life sentence of pain.

Right. What I realized coming out of that was Ryan taught me more about life and death. After going through this experience with the method that I would have ever taught him as a dad. And just that allows his presence in my life to be the gift that it's supposed to be our children are supposed to be a gift and they are a gift.

And the pain got in my way. And what I desperately wanted was to feel that love to feel that joy to feel that connection. And having to go through this. And it's not easy.

You know, it's not easy. I know it's not easy. If you're watching, this is not easy. We're not going to tell you it's easy.

But the outcome is worth it to be able to feel that connection to be able to cherish the gift that that person or other relationship in your life or it's a pet whatever that has value. And that's what gives life meaning. And when we're hurting and we can't access that. Right.

It diminishes our capacity to feel love and joy again. And I walked out of that weekend with a heart filled with joy. I wasn't sure how long it would last. Right.

I can feel this again. Like I, you know, it's crazy. It sounds I could feel the connection with my son that I desperately wanted to feel. But I was all this shit getting away.

And it doesn't doesn't sound crazy at all. You know, because we get that feedback a lot. Right. What this allows us to do is when we can say goodbye to the pain.

Not Ryan. We could say goodbye to the pain. Then we can open the door to our emotional relationship that we have. Right.

And we can find the happy stuff. Right. And the joy. We can also find this sadness.

But the sadness is different than the pain. Right. And that's really the goal of what we do is help people say goodbye to the pain so that we can have more room for the happiness for the joy. And if you're not there right now, if me even saying this makes you angry, that's okay too.

You know, we've done this for a long time. And we've worked with a lot of people. And so I'm comfortable with wherever people are. Right.

I think the takeaway is. And I know since becoming a trainer because you know what I did for you in that four days, which was lead you through it. You know, Ed became an and is an incredible trainer doing this. So I know you've helped people not leave the room.

I know you've seen people who were, you know, steam coming out of the ears because you proposed that they could live a very deep fulfilling life, even in spite of this, these things that happen to us. Right. Thank you for for sharing your truth and for sharing your story. You know, and and and again at the end also sharing.

You getting to the other side of this. Right. One of the things that that we haven't mentioned yet. And I hope you're okay with me mentioning it.

But like I met you at year five. And I saw you at year six and I saw you at year seven. And by that time we're working together in the office together. Right.

And so I watched you go through anniversaries. Yeah. I watched you. You shared with things that you didn't want to get rid of from Eddie Ryan and and and and share those things with me.

And I've watched this process. And you know, one of the gifts again just from for me as a friend and an outsider looking in is you have this tremendous amazing young man. That's your other son. Yeah.

And I got to watch you show up as one of the best ads I've ever seen. And you have this and you know, incredible partner and dawn. And I've watched you guys. You know, just be so tight together and be so loyal to each other.

You know, and travel and do all of these things that you guys want to do together. And I'm so glad that you were present and had the capacity to be those things to those people and many others. I mean, your family and how you show up for your family and your parents. And it's nothing short of remarkable.

And for me, like the gift was you had the capacity to be all of that because of the work you did. And I know that the things the things that keep me and you up at night is the fact that a lot of people at year five or year two, a convinced themselves that time has healed it. And they just live the rest of their lives, a shell of themselves. Now that's tragic and an in and of itself, that's tragic.

But do you know what else is tragic is the countless sons and daughters of those people who have become adults. And when they come to do their trauma work, their grief work, their pain work around the past, their pain. And maybe still is them grieving the father that was never there for them in life. Although he was alive.

He was a shell of himself because one of their siblings had died. And that and that mom or that dad never recovered. And now this this living adult child, you know, who was a child now living adult is grieving their living parent who couldn't who could never have shown up for them after that loss. And I'm so glad that that was not you because you kept searching and you found something, you know, that helped.

It was and there's a lot of additional benefits to this experience, we call the method and how it can change your life, how changed my life. And what you bring up there is, you know, when I was talking about what it was like in those initial days, weeks, months, and I couldn't be there for my kids, I couldn't be there for my wife at the time, I couldn't be there for other people. I couldn't be there for myself. So I had to heal me first.

So I could experience that benefit of being there for others. I realized very quickly what's important in my life. How do I want to show up? And more importantly, I have to have the ability to show up and be fully in the present moment.

I'm not perfect. Right? None of us are. But I do try to show up in the lives of the people who matter to me, whether that's my kids, whether that's my parents, you anyone else or the people we get to work with, I am.

I'm a better partner than I ever was in either of my first two marriages. I'm a better dad than I ever was. Again, Ryan taught me more with his life and death than I would have ever taught him. And I try to show up every day for my kids that way.

Right? And I try and show up for the other people in my life that way. It's made me a better partner, partner, parent, friend, coworker, citizen of my community. And that feels good to show up fully, to be fully present for someone else and live life that way.

And I had a lot of regrets from that period of time after Ryan died. And I've gone back to both of my kids. And I sat there and had those conversations. So there's some of them were some were some of my deepest regrets with them.

And I've made sure we've dealt with that as a family and moving forward. And again, they're not going to have that experience of that dad or that mom who for no fault of their own just can't show up fully and presently because the pain is like an anchor weighing them down. It doesn't weigh me down. And I get to be there that way.

And it's a great feeling. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you live this stuff.

You're an example of this stuff. You know, I know your daughter's been through this work. She has. You know, I know, don's your partner has been through this work.

And you know, and for me, I'm grateful that Ashley, my wife has been through this work. And my sister's been through this work. My mom's been through this work. And it's a beauty to be on the same sheet of music, multiple people in a family.

Yeah. You have this shorthand communication emotionally with people that unfortunately most most families don't get an opportunity to have. Right. And we learn these really important skills on how to actually apply forgiveness and how to how to properly apologize for when we mess up.

And how to also just give significant emotional statements regularly. And that's key. Yeah. That one right there is key.

I make sure that every person who's in my life that has value to me knows how much I love them. What I appreciate about them, what I value about them. That, you know, that they're important. You know, and tomorrow's not promised.

You know, it isn't. But I don't want them to have a regret. Like they didn't have a chance to have those conversations with me or they never heard me say this. Like that is never a consideration.

Now, I'm sure I've missed a few things. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm human.

But I will tell you, at least in my close inner circle, I try not to try to live fully present in a way that, you know, I'm not building regrets on my side of their side. And I got two great kids. And I'll be more and happy to brag about Lindsey and Bradley all day long. And they're very heart-centered people and stuff.

In the large part, that's something else. Like being around this first long as I have is they've got to see how it impact me. And we've talked about that in the family. And they've got two experiences in their own lives.

And it's made their lives more robust. It's made our relationships so close. Well, Ed, you know, again, I just want to thank you for being here. We are going to wrap part one.

Please stay tuned. We're going to have part two coming. And again, it's another really important piece of your story. And we're going to really get into kind of one of Ed's really passion groups on who he wants to help with the grief recovery method.

So stay tuned for part two. We'll be bringing it here to you shortly. Thank you.