Annalouiza
Today we are here with Dr. Janice Linde, who is a grief support specialist and a grief educator. She is the founder of the Metta Center, which offers specialized training in spiritual direction, also known as spiritual companionship, including one-of-a-kind grief companionship training. Having experienced a great deal of loss in her own life, she knows firsthand the transformative power of healing through grief.
Wakil
Jan is a celebrated author and lifelong educator who currently serves as the Gerald May Professor of Spiritual Direction and Counseling at the Graduate Theological Foundation. For the past 20 years, she has hosted a vibrant private client practice as well, specializing in spiritual direction, pastoral counseling, and grief companionship. She holds a Doctor of Psychology degree in Pastoral Logotherapy, which she incorporates into all her work.
Logotherapy is the therapy of meaning established by Dr. Viktor Frankl, author of Man's Search for Meaning. Jan believes that navigating grief, loss, and life's many challenges with the support of a non-judgmental, compassionate companion can help us connect with greater meaning and purpose in life. Beautiful. Welcome.
Annalouiza
Welcome, Jan.
Jan Lundy
Oh, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with both of you.
Annalouiza
Thank you so much for taking time to be with us. So let us begin. Our first question is always, how does death impact your story?
Jan Lundy
Well, if you had asked me five years ago if I would be serving as a grief educator, grief companion, I would have thought no way, no way in the world. This journey is a fairly new journey. I've been teaching people to companion others for 20 years, as I said, but not in the area of grief. Though the work with my private clients has naturally sort of organically come around grief once in a while.
But it was the passing of my mother, my dear mother, two years ago. And journeying with her though, for the last 10 years of her life, intimately, being her confidant, her friend, her medical coordinator, her care coordinator, housing coordinator, and to watch in such an intimate way someone age and then to let go.
And then the process of being with her, especially those last five days, which were so incredibly difficult and yet so life-changing and so full of beauty and so full of love, it was a completely transformative journey. And so the work that I'd been starting to do a few years before with my doctor of psychology work, I was drawn to, geriatric psychotherapy. I was drawn to grief and bereavement, death and dying and loss, and also near death experiences and bedside experiences as written about by Raymond Moody. And it all just started to come together. I realized what a healing path grief can be if we allow ourselves to go through it. A journey with it as a teacher, let it guide us, to not be afraid of it, not to run away from it, because grief and love are two sides of the same coin. And so I found as grief emerged, love emerged in just a boundless, magnanimous, unbelievable way. So this is where it's brought me, because this is very life -giving, and it's become a real passion in terms of companioning people who are in grief and in mourning and also helping train others to companion and support people as well.
Wakil
Mmm, beautiful.
Annalouiza
So beautiful and so needed.
Wakil
Yeah. And we were just talking about the word companioning in our last talk, and it's such an important way of looking at it, that we can walk each other home, we can be there for each other as companions, and kind of breaking down that hierarchy of director or teacher or whatever. So thank you for using that term. It really resonates with us as well. Can you tell us a little bit more about your current role or the work you're doing?
Jan Lundy
Yes, as I said, as a spiritual director, which I prefer the word companion so much, so much better. It is about walking with people as they are with no agenda, with no purpose, except to deliver unconditional loving presence. And it's such a gift to be able to be with people in this way.
Because I work in the spiritual direction companionship field, to help spiritual guides, companions, directors gain insight and knowledge about grief, because I was not trained in grief as a spiritual companion. And I've been doing it for 20 years. And then even just a few years ago to realize how off the mark I could be, that there are people I probably should apologize to. In that, I maybe had a bit of an agenda. I wanted to move them along a little bit. Impatience would grow even sometimes, and sometimes judgment about how someone might be grieving. And I realized that those are all culturally bound things. There are ways that we've all been taught by our culture to address grief.
So there are many misconceptions to bring to the light of day. So we have a more accurate and really contemporary model for grief and bereavement. There's so much information that needs to be let go and so much more new that needs to be embraced. And once someone does embrace what is the deep truth of grief, it changes everything. It changes how we companion people, how we are with people in our families, our friends, our loved ones, our colleagues.
But there's a lot of grief education that has to happen because we're still currently living in a death avoidant culture and in a grief avoidant culture because the misperceptions are just so profound. So one of my passions is really giving voice to those so people can have a different experience of grief and companioning their loved ones through grief.
Annalouiza
Wow, Jan. Yeah.
Wakil
Well done. Well said. Yeah, that's exactly our goal here. So thank you so much for supporting and doing the work you're doing.
Annalouiza
Yes, and related to what you just shared, I was going to ask you, what is a grief companion and what do they do?
Jan Lundy
Well, as you said, Wakil, companioning is the word, such a beautiful word when you realize that we are all here to be with one another, to support one another as best we can. It's not about leading and directing. It is walking side by side with someone unconditionally, having deep listening, deep presence skills, non-judgment, no coercion, no agenda, no trying to get somebody where they're not ready to go. You know, trust in that grief is the teacher itself and it is their teacher. Everyone's grief is different. And so how can you be with someone and listen deeply enough to know how their soul, their spirit, their deepest being is guiding them through this?
And to encourage them and to companion them as this journey unfolds so uniquely. My journey in my own bereavement journey right now with my mother is very different from anyone else's. And so we each have to honor our own journeys and in doing that, we can bring support and companionship, loving presence to others, companion them the way we would want to be companioned as well.
Annalouiza
I love the loving presence component because I think that that's also something that is maybe misunderstood in our culture and people are not sure... what does it mean to be a loving companion? I find myself kind of thinking about that at times when you're in a room where people are struggling and I don't have to do something. I could just stand there and just like softly gaze with my purest of love that is being given by the divine, right? Because, and so I love that you say loving presence. That is, it's also a skill that we need to encourage each other to practice.
Wakil
Exactly. And to be able to be there just in that presence with no expectations and no agenda, that's a really, really good point. Thank you for making that point. So who could become a grief counselor? How do they do that if they're interested in? And of course, we'll have links in our podcast notes to you and all your work so they can be in touch and see what you're doing. But do you have any thoughts you'd like to share with our audience?
Jan Lundy
Well, anyone can be a grief companion, I believe. And there is a distinction between grief companioning and grief counseling. And so we might want to touch on that also. But let me step back to say, like my current cohort of students, when they were considering becoming grief training to be grief companions, each one of them said, somehow I know I have a heart for this work.
There is a deep knowing that you can be with people in times of difficulty, times when people are in pain and just to be with them in the pain and not have to rescue them necessarily. I was having a, what Dr. Ellen Wolfelt calls a grief burst this morning. It was just all of a sudden, it just, the grief wells up in you. You know, it just rises and you just have to allow it to be there, right?
And he looked over at me. We were having our morning tea together and he said, are you okay? And I said, yes. He said, is it grief? And I said, yes. And he said, is there anything I can do? And I said, you're doing it just by sitting here, being with me, being supportive and understanding. It's all I need. I didn't, I didn't need someone to fix me or take me away from my experience. Annalouiza, you said something before about you don't have to, as a grief companion, you would not feel responsible for someone's grief or getting them out of grief. It's being with them, bearing witness where they are. And so if you are someone who knows that you had the capacity for deep listening and presence, and you do care deeply about people's journeys, you can see that they're on a soul journey. Grief is a very spiritual journey. And I think this is one of the things that grief companioning brings into focus, that there's a deeper part of us that is going through this process and it needs to be attended in a very sacred way. So we're not talking about a psychological model, we're not talking about a therapeutic model.
It is a model of presence and deep care. So anyone who has a penchant for that, I think, some people are really good listeners too. I came from a family of really good listeners. My dad was an HR person and he had great listening skills. And I think so some, I inherited some of that, but then I had to learn how to be better. I had to learn how to listen more deeply, listen into the silence, listen between the words, also to be comfortable with silence. Because when people are in grief, sometimes there is no talking. There's just presence and sitting still or holding someone's hand and being with them exactly where they are and following their lead. So I think if you're a person that can naturally do that, you might be inclined towards this work. And then there would be deeper skills that you would need to learn and also grief education as well.
Wakil
Yeah, exactly. Beautiful.
Annalouiza
Yeah, exactly. I just want to go back to you said sacred presence. And I know our listeners are going to come from a lot of faith, no faith, religious, non -religious, secular, you know, the whole gamut will lie in the ether of these listeners. And I really want to hold a little tiny bit of conversation about what does it mean to be sacred?
Because people assume it's a religious term. People want to cast it into the Christian light and it's not. And I kind of just want you to, like, could you just tell me, what is your belief around sacred presence?
Jan Lundy
It's such a wonderful and an important question and distinction. I'm so glad you raised it. It does not have anything to do with religion. It has to do with the deep essence, the deep truth, perhaps the eternal nature of who we are. And I'm thinking of Dr. Viktor Frankl. When you read the introduction, he was mentioned. He's a wonderful role model for me, someone who survived three concentration camps and lost his entire family and rose from the ashes of that to write a book that is still one of the best loved books in the world, "Man's Search for Meaning." And he talked about that even though he was a neurologist and a psychiatrist, he always talked about the essence of who we are is our spirit and that life itself is sacred.
And he was Jewish by upbringing and practice. And we hear the Dalai Lama use the word sacred. We hear Sufis talk about the sacred. And I would consider myself a spiritually independent person, what might in some circles be called spiritual, but not religious. More of a perennial wisdom focus in my life.
And so I journey with people of all traditions and none. But I think most people can identify not with the word holy, which has more religious ramifications, but sacred is the deep essence of who we are as human beings. That we have a consciousness that no other creature has that we know of yet because we can be self-aware in a way and communicate it that no other creature can.
And Dr. Frankl felt that this was the distinction. That's why we know that each person in their core is a spiritual being, a spiritual human being. So the sacred is the tending of that which is eternal and timeless and deep, that has knowledge and wisdom inside of us that's not rational, that often can't be explained. Just a deep knowing of who we are
in our selfs with one another with the cosmos and to honor how that shows up in each person's life because each person will have a different understanding of that.
Annalouiza
Thank you so much, Jen.
Wakil
Yeah, I love that sense of the sacred being what connects all of that, connects all of us to everything else, to the outside of time, but also outside of the human experience, even connects us to the plants and the mycelia and everything else.
Thank you. That's really beautiful. Let's see. Oh, you did mention this earlier, the difference between companioning and counseling. You want to say more about that?
Jan Lundy
Now I think it's a very important distinction because companioning is a fairly new term in terms of grief, but people have heard of grief counseling. And I would say most people are reluctant to seek grief counseling. I heard someone the other day say, you know, here I am in grief. Here I am, my entire life has been ripped apart. I barely know how to function.
And now you're telling me I also need therapy and have a mental illness too. And so the companion holds a great skillset but is not a therapeutic counselor. So grief counseling is someone who is therapeutically trained. I wouldn't hesitate sending anyone to a grief counselor, especially if I saw indications of deep unresolved trauma, of severe depression, of being deeply stuck or caught in complicated grief. Most people, 86 % of them are incredibly resilient according to George Bonanno. And he talks about how most of us, 86 % of us can navigate grief pretty okay but there's some people that need extra help and support and that's when maybe a grief counselor might come into play.
There is an agenda, there is a timeline, there can be a timeline. There is a healing protocol that is used. It's very specific. So that has its purpose and is absolutely wonderful. But companioning is something that with training any of us can do for one another to show that deepest support, as I said, that deep care and listening and presence. Being part of someone's healing team, being part of their bereavement support.
Wakil
I love that. Thank you for making that clear. I love the fact too that it's not, like we aren't demeaning or saying group counseling isn't important, but that there's just times when it makes sense and that there's a difference. And it's important for our companions to realize that they're not counselors and that at some point they may need to know what that line is that needs to be referred. That's something we talk about a lot in companionship training and I know you do too. Yeah.
Jan Lundy
Absolutely, people need to know that's one of the important parts of our curriculum is to make sure you know the signs of trauma, you know the signs of complicated grief, of disordered grief and when to refer and why it's important to refer. Yeah, we are not therapists, we are not grief counselors, we are grief companions who can serve in a multiplicity of environments and settings one-on-one like I do or with small groups, within organizations, spiritual and secular, in communities, and sometimes just being the kind of person you are, that you are an individual that people can come to during their difficult times and know that they can talk to you and you will hold space for them and honor their journey.
Annalouiza
Okay, so I was going to ask you about, can you share some examples of how your grief companioning practices has felt successful and meaningful to you?
Jan Lundy
Yeah, thank you. That's a good question too, because people often wonder, they say, does this mean if I take grief companion training that I have to have, I have to be a professional at it, I have to set up a practice of some kind or another? And no, of course, absolutely not. But it can allow you to, if you want to. So what they've found with focusing on this kind of training for the last five years is that...
I use it on the fly. So, you know, if you're the kind of person like you're sitting in an airport and someone sits down next to you and they just start a conversation. One of my students talked about this the other day. She said, I carry one of my textbooks with me when I when I go places because I'm trying to catch up on the reading. She said, I sit in a doctor's office waiting and somebody will always look at my book and say, what is that?
And she will tell them I'm studying to be a grief companion. And they will say, tell me more about that. But what they will mostly talk about is their own grief. Strangers, absolute strangers will open up about their grief journeys. So that happens a lot. The other thing is as a spiritual director companion, I felt so fortunate that now there is a level of entrustment.
The clients that I do have when grief comes into their life, they know they have a built -in place and person to talk to. So now just in the normal conversations that come in terms of spiritual direction work with people, grief is commonplace. And that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't had the training because I've been a spiritual director companion for 20 years, over 20 years.
And grief was there, but I think people might still have been hesitant to talk about it because they didn't know maybe if I had the capacity, should I bring this to this conversation where we're supposed to be talking about my spiritual life? Now they don't hesitate. The other very rewarding thing has been when people say to me, you know, I don't think I'm really experiencing any grief right now, but I know I'm going to at some point, I'm going to lose my mother, probably. I'm going to lose my great aunt. And now I know I have someone I can talk to. You'll be here when I'm ready. And I say, yes, of course, I'll be here when you're ready. It's meeting people where they are. And that's been such a gift. That is to me has been the success of when somebody comes, you're ready. You're ready to receive them as they are.
Wakil
What kind of challenges might grief companions face themselves as they're working in this service?
Jan Lundy
One of the things I think we need to be prepared for is their own grief will surface.
And what we know often is that one grief, one door that opens to one particular grief, many others might open. I know when I first started working through my own grief, was it not only the grief to my mother, but other losses tumbled forward because I'd opened the door. It's almost as if grief and loss are their own force. That if you open a door it will open another and another and another. And we have to be prepared for that because if we're tending faithfully to our own losses, we will begin to notice that throughout our entire life, we've had losses, little losses, big losses, and to be prepared that that will come forward and that you as a grief companion, it's necessary that you do your own ongoing grief work and to have support for that, to not isolate, to have a beloved community, you can do that in. And that's one of the things we do at the Metta Center that once training has been completed, that our alumni continue to meet. And we have a monthly care circle, a monthly care support team, so that we have community because things do continue to come up. So to be aware of isolation, to be aware of maybe a too muchness of grief at some point, and what do you do when that happens?
Now there's a wonderful concept in the grief education field called dosing. And people don't know about dosing. And it means that you can step toward your grief and spend a little time with it and step back. You don't have to be in it all the time. Unless you're in one of the early stages, of course, of acute grief, and then that's different. But once you've moved beyond the stage of acute grief and you're in disorganization or reorganization as a phase, a process, not a stage, that you can go in and out with conscious awareness, with mindfulness practices, with some of your spiritual practices, but to have an awareness that you, your grief is the teacher, but you can also sometimes be the leader and to dose your grief carefully and to find supportive individuals that, because you needed to, you know,
I need my own circle of care. I have my people, right, that I talk to when my grief comes forward. And there are others that I know I can't share it with because there's, not everyone has the same capacity to listen to the story again, one more time, or to relive something one more time.
And this is really the core of grief companioning work is being able to receive the story. The story of the loss, the story of the grief, the story of everything falling apart, reorganizing your life, integrating the loss into your life. It's one big narration. And to be able to have somebody who can hold space for you to hear that story again and again and again.
And as grief companions, we need those people too for ourselves.
Wakil
Right. Exactly. Great. Let's see. Where are we here?
We can get back on track here. I guess I could ask how has your work with grief and loss impacted your understanding of death?
Jan Lundy
This could be a whole other show, I have to tell you. I might want to enter in very, very carefully here.
Wakil
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Okay, yeah.
Jan Lundy
I will just say that I was able to companion my father through his dying 20 years ago. He was in hospice and had a seven -year journey with cancer and was with him at the end. And... after, I would say his spirit left his body, you know, and moved on to wherever else it decided it went. And the same with my mom, so that two things happened because I was bedside. I was able to have what are called bedside experiences, where they were experiencing things in their transition from life to life after life and that things could be expressed verbally about what they experienced, what they saw, what they heard, what they were experiencing. And to feel how light-filled that was. Sometimes the room would simply be filled with a beautiful kind of light and glow and I could also see it in their eyes.
And it happened with my father and it happened with my mother. And then what I can only call a gift from each of them, several gifts that came after they'd left their physical bodies, that there was no way I could explain them. And there were always gifts that took me into greater love. And so I do believe there is more. I'm certainly not an expert on it. I don't really even have a solid theology about what happens and where we go and what we experience. All I know is that there is more with a capital M and it's a great mystery, capital M, but that love transcends death as well.
Wakil
Beautifully said. Yeah, so true.
I've experienced that. I know Annalouiza has experienced that as well. So thank you for bringing that forward. Go ahead, Annalouiza.
Annalouiza
So what do you wish we had asked you?
Jan Lundy
Oh, you know, this is just because you are doing this kind of work also. Just the great blessing that it is. And as I started out talking with you about this, I never imagined I would be doing this kind of work in my life. You know, I've been a lifelong teacher and then a spiritual guide companion for so many years and a trainer of spiritual guides and companions. But until I'd had the big losses I'd had, and then could engage in a process where I acknowledged all the little losses too, to realize what a beautiful journey we have here. When people ask me, you know, how are you doing? Lots of times I'll say, you know, Lao Tzu said 10 ,000 joys, 10 ,000 sorrows. I see it so clearly.
Our life is so full and rich and blessed and there's so much goodness and yet there's also so much sorrow. There's so much suffering and there's so much pain. And the journey has been how do I hold all of this in loving awareness from my teacher Ram Dass, I'm borrowing that, to say, you know, how do I hold this in loving awareness, in equanimity and kindness and compassion? That this is such an amazing journey that we are on to be able to give voice to the loss as well as all of the love because they do go hand in hand. And that it has opened me to greater, the greatest love I could ever even imagine. And it's very humbling. It's very humbling and it makes you feel very small sometimes and that's okay because we're just, you know, a drop in the cosmos here. But that we get to do this together is what's exciting.
Wakil
Yeah, exactly. Thank you. Well, please let our audience know about upcoming offerings and we'll put all this in our podcast notes as well, but how they can reach you or learn more about your work.
Jan Lundy
Thank you. Yeah, there will be new trainings in the fall. griefcompaniontraining .com is the website. I look forward to hopefully being inspired by you both and starting a podcast myself this summer because there's so much to say, isn't there? There's so much to talk about this whole area. But yes, I'm happy to be in touch with anyone.
If you go to the website, griefcompaniontraining .com, contact box is there. People can reach out with questions. And I'm happy, I love being in touch with people as you do. And thank you for your generosity and allowing me to be in touch with you about these such important topics as well.
Wakil
Yeah, thank you. It's been a wonderful conversation. We really appreciate you. Appreciate the work you're doing. And when you get your podcast up, there's a couple of guests you can invite, you know. We'd be glad to get...
And if you have any, I mean, practical questions around that, I'd be glad to answer those as well, because we've had our fun setting this up. It's been really good. So, yeah, thank you so much. There's, you have a reading for us. Would you like to read that?
Jan Lundy
I do, I do. This is a quote by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD. Maybe you know her work. She's done a lot of work around presence and listening and life and loss.
She says, "Listening is the oldest and perhaps the most powerful tool of healing. It is often through the quality of our listening and not the wisdom of our words that we are able to affect the most profound changes in the people around us. When we listen, we offer with our attention an opportunity for wholeness. Our listening creates sanctuary for the homeless parts within the other person. That which has been denied, unloved, devalued by themselves and others, that which is hidden.
Wakil
Sanctuary for the homeless parts within the other. Yeah. And as you were saying earlier, just the comfort with silence to just be able to sit and be silent with each other. Thank you. Beautiful. Thank you so much. This has been a really great pleasure. And.
Annalouiza
Yes, thank you, Jen.
Jan Lundy
Thank you so much for having me. It's been wonderful to meet you both and share sacred space with you.
Annalouiza
Yes, thank you.
Wakil
Exactly, thank you.
Dear Friends, thank you so much for listening! This marks the end of our first season and our 20th episode. It has been an incredible gift to meet all these awesome people and hear their stories. We have many more conversations already recorded for our next season.
Annalouiza
Stay tuned for our next special episode, which will be a video conversation between Wakil and I discussing all that we have learned in this first season and where we plan to go from here.
We want to hear from you if you have a story or want to share your thoughts! You can email us at endoflifeconvo@gmail.com.
