 to Finding Happiness in Hard Times. I'm Ken Burtness and I'm coming to you from Haleva out at the North Shore. Now today we're gonna look at happiness from the other side. We're gonna look at unhappiness. And the title of the show is Dealing with Waffs and Greeth. But don't let that discourage you because the tagline for the show is moving back into the sunlight. And help us move back into the sunlight is my good friend, Daniel Love. Daniel, welcome to the program. Hi there. Daniel is a super therapist and his specialty is pain. And one of the first things that I know Daniel does with pain, and by the way, his moniker is the comfort doc, which I really love because he brings comfort to a lot of people. And I know that one of the first things he needs to do when dealing with pain is to try to reduce the stress that people are facing. And of course, loss is tremendously stressful and the resulting grief. So maybe that's a good place to start, Daniel, if you could tell us a little bit about the relationship between all those factors there. Well, certainly we're not just talking about pain, we're talking about a person's life and their lifestyle. And before the injury or disease or whatever brought on the pain before that came along, they had a relatively fine life. And they had things that they would expect to do. And then when the pain hits, they can't do a lot of those things. As you probably know, when you can't do things you really want, you start missing them, you feel their loss. And the grief process is part of adjusting, moving from what I see of as the old normal into something you can create, which is a new normal. But that process, there's a lot of grief and loss and sadness, which can also stress you out. So that's the connection that I've seen over the years. Well, one of the things that really gets to me is the fact that, you know, and maybe I'm just because I'm getting older, but the world seems much more stressful nowadays. And as this stress builds up, as catastrophe comes after catastrophe, as loss is inflicted on so many people, it just becomes very, very difficult. And it seems like everybody is dressed out. People are depressed, people are anxious, they're insecure about the future. Can you tell us a little bit about how you help them when things just, when the bottom falls out of things, like it is done recently with the Maui wildfires, the hurricanes that the East Coast has been facing, all the floods that the world has had to deal with in the last month or so. Maybe that's a good place to take a look at how we can do that. Yeah, I haven't seen anyone from there just yet. But it is very, very understandable. And some of the first things I do with someone is essentially listen and acknowledge they're going through hard times right now. You know, there's no way around it. They are experiencing loss on a lot of levels. They might have lost a loved one, they might have lost a house in Maui recently in Israel, the terror attacks there, people on both sides are losing lives and losing neighborhoods and it's really horrible. So when those things happen, as a therapist or as a person, just to be able to be present for the person, to listen to them and to acknowledge what they're going through is the beginning and really acknowledge where they are. Because then some relief may start happening and that's part of the grief process and be able to express your sadness and your loss. You know, when I was teaching psych 101 to college students, I talked about three areas that bring her along stress to a person's life and that is catastrophe. That is significant life change and that is daily hassles. And what we're seeing today seems to combine all of that. It's like we can just put that all in one category because a person who's been dealing with the Maui wildfires are dealing with hurricanes or whatever. There's loss of property, there's loss of their house, there's loss of financial stability, there's loss of loved ones. Oftentimes it's all combined and then from then on in things just seem to last forever. The hassles that you have to go through, despite the well-meaning of the government and individuals to come in to help, there's a lot of red tape that goes with that and there's a lot of misdirection that happens and it can be so discouraging. I mean, how do you help people from get discouraged? It is hard because you're talking about the catastrophe again with people in pain or people with certain medical conditions or who've gone through tragic catastrophes like Maui. It takes a while just to process it for our brains to say, what just happened? I was going like this just finding that everything's gone or everything's changed or many things changed. Similarly with someone who has a chronic pain problem. I could, I remember I used to hike up a hill like this every day with my buddies and after a number of years, my knees said no. My knees just hurt too much so I had to give that up. That wasn't necessarily a catastrophe but it was a significant life change. I could not do the exercise I used to and you're right about those daily hassles. Think you engage in new hassles like just the people in Maui imagine just trying to get water. Trying to interact with people when you are just so angry or so hurt, it takes a while to adjust to that. That's why I'm glad there are a number of therapists and others there helping people in all kinds of ways. Well, let's talk about that adjustment because I think when people are faced with something catastrophic, their response is very emotional. All of a sudden it's like a bomb has gone off in your soul and all these things that were there are gone and the emotions just run incredibly high and what we have to do as therapists is we have to sort of bring them to the other side to let their reason and their mind take over from their emotions so that we can get them looking for solutions and then finding solutions and maybe how to implement them and that's an incredibly hard task for the individual and for the person helping them. So how do we bring them from that emotional chaos that oftentimes accompanies these catastrophes into something where they can sort of roll back and start looking at how to deal with that? No, you're absolutely right that it's so important to help people. I was saying listen to them talk about the catastrophe and their loss, but not just to stay there. And so to help them move from that, but baby steps little by little, okay? Because it can be via overwhelming even with like I said, the people in chronic pain if their perspective sees the loss of the ability to do what they used to do as a catastrophe. So it's no less than someone going through an actual physical catastrophe. So how do you help them move one way certainly is to find out what they want. That could be realistic. What would be as first small little thing you would like to try to move forward toward, okay? And like this fellow I worked with, again, this is an example from chronic pain. He was stuck in a chair for a long time with a terrible back pain. And I said, what would you like to do? Now for him it was big. He said, I want to work eight hours a day sitting at the computer. And he used to do that. I said, okay, even that big goal what would be the first small little step toward that goal? For him it was five minutes. Sit there for five minutes and then take breaks. So somebody whose whole life is, they lost their place where they lived what might be a first little step often. And this isn't just a step out of the loss and grief but it's a step in general is to start to spend time with good people, people who are loving and supportive. If it's hard to find somebody immediately sometimes you can find a good therapist or a minister or a rabbi or someone from a mosque or a Buddhist temple. Some clergy person who can also be helpful but connect with good people who will be caring and supportive. That goes a long way in helping people. Then the challenging part on my part if I've gone through that and I have gone through my own personal catastrophes what do I do? Well, once I kind of my head comes up a little from the grief a little bit I start to consider what is my next step what would be another small step? As I said, but then to really write it out even or consider it or talk with someone about it this starts to make it a little more real so that what I call a new normal can start to happen. You can start moving toward that new normal even from the ashes of the old normal. Let's talk about that reconnection because that I have found is very hard for people especially coming out of the lockdown from coronavirus which isolated us from a lot of people that we knew and cared about and then getting back into relationships getting back into getting in touch with people and for a lot of people I think it's not as easy as it used to be. And when you're faced with a catastrophe and trying to find these supported people that can be very difficult. And the people who are out there helping who are coming in from elsewhere for instance which often happened they tend to be stressed out themselves because we're always having less help or less able to give help than we normally would. And so it makes it difficult for everybody involved. One of the things that I often sort of tried to move people to was not only getting in touch with people but also seeing if there was a way that you could step to the other side as well. And oftentimes when you're in a situation a geographic situation like Maui or my last guest was from Tampa and she just had Birkeine Idalia come through. And create lots of problems for her friends. And so one of the things I oftentimes talked to them about was not only to reach out to get support from people but also to give support to them. And I find that that is a way to sort of get people out of their own emotional angst when they start focusing on other people. And strangely enough oftentimes I think it's easier to look at other people's problems and help them deal with their problems than deal with your own problems which is an interesting process. For sure. So I dealt with things like this. There's just so much research on this that when you help other people it really empowers you. It's very healthy for a person to be generous in help and healing for sure. I was thinking another way also if it's hard to connect to an individual person sometimes just going to a gathering. I know there's a number of gatherings been happening on Maui people supporting each other whether it's a vigil or whatever or church or wherever you go being in the presence of people in a way that you feel safe regarding COVID but feeling being in that presence can also be inspiring and empowering and healing. Yeah, that's for sure. What if there's no group available and can we inspire people to start their own group and bring people in to, you know and if you can't find a group then you start your own. Oh heck yeah, you know, I didn't say this but I was in a flood in California once and we were all shoved into a YMCA and you better believe one thing I noticed and I was doing this too is people broke up into little groups. You know, some people from the same neighborhood or whatever, some knew each other, some were brand new. I was brand new and it's amazing how people open up. I don't mean like group therapy open up. I mean just talking story and how normalizing that is because you're in a difficult abnormal situation but being with people it's something about our brains we're wired for positive social contact and so doing that in some way is also very healing. You know, when you mentioned flood immediately I was in a flood too except well standing by as the flood happened I came to Hawaii in 1971 but four years before that I was in Alaska with the military and I was in Alaska just outside of Fairbanks on a mountain top and the big flood of Fairbanks happened in 1967 the year I was there and you could drive a boat down our paddle a boat down the main street of Fairbanks because it was so far underwater and it was a disaster of the most devastating kind and what we did as I was in the Air Force was we were sort of directing the aircraft from Ilson Air Force Base which is in Fairbanks and they were coming and rescuing people up in the wilderness after their houses had washed away and everything and they would bring them to the University of Hawaii which was up on the hill overlooking Fairbanks, so dry and I was one of the people who were meeting these families and individuals who were being flown in by helicopter with nothing but the clothes on their back and a number of the catastrophes that we've been having recently including Maui and the hurricanes and the floods and everything where people just wind up with that's it that's all they've got stuff on their back well, that's what we'll be faced in Fairbanks and that was one of the things that made me come to love Alaska so much because the people were so strong we have here in Hawaii the Aloha spirit which is a tremendous support for all of us a way to live life in Alaska it's the frontier spirit and they came with that frontier spirit and they were ready to get back in the next day and start rebuilding and it was truly amazing but one of the things I was thinking about when we were gonna do the show was if the things drag on forever which nowadays they seem to even the heartiest folks even the folks that come to you and already started adapting or they get some of your solutions and they start getting better all of a sudden after weeks, months, even years sometimes they just get exhausted and that successful effort that they've made and the successful patient that you've had is recidivist, has fallen back and how do you deal with that? How do you deal with that long-term thing to bring them from short-term adaption into long-term health and the way of our tagline, long-term sunshine how do we get them there after so long that they've been dealing with this? Well, we're pretty knowledgeable to know that grief doesn't stop after a year, it starts to slow down but there are moments that we may remember something or re-experience it and so we'll have a challenging moment and sort of an answer is to build that into your recovery know that at some point in the future I may feel still some of that loss and I'm gonna make it okay and if I need to kind of slow down a little in what I'm doing, I'm gonna slow down in what I'm doing, that's okay because I will get back up on the horse again. There's a great story, I won't tell it, it's too long but basically the end of it is this king wants to know I want something that makes me happy when I'm sad and sad when I'm happy and this little jeweler gave him a ring and the inside of the ring was written this too shall pass. Everything changes and you can be there in a way and to make sure they change relatively in a positive direction, okay but there's gonna be difficulties in life like anything else, you know I'll tell you everybody knows but if we acknowledge it and not say that means that everything I just did is worthless that's just the thought that is incorrect so if you let that go get through whatever down you have some of my clients will say you're moving in this direction that means you're improving but as you do that there's ups there's downs, there's ups, there's downs but you're still moving in that direction and to remind yourself I'm gonna have a new place to live I'm gonna reconnect with my surviving friends and family or whatever it is you need to do to get through that catastrophe even talking with a counselor or therapist, a clergy person to help you move through that in time it does get better. Let's carry that though there, you know things change like you're saying this too will pass but the new normal or the new environment that you're going to is not the same and when you lose something to me and to other people that I've dealt with and tried to help there is an emptiness when you lose a special home a special friend a special you know whatever you can replace it but the replacement is never the same it cannot be you can't replace that and there's an emptiness in there and you can fill some of that up with new wonderful experiences new friends new things that are beautiful as well but there's gonna be a part when you pick up your iPhone and you look at your iPhone and you dial in the pictures from before that catastrophe and you see that what was lost again and the people and everything that's still no matter how much we refill there's still a little thing in there that's that's empty. Well, now I'm going to talk like a rabbi for a second. Okay, at least in my tradition and of course there's many spiritual and cultural traditions and some may do this as well but when people pass away we have something called a York site that we the memory of that person is treasured that we have not lost the memories of that person the good things they brought into the world and in fact there's even another level of that not only will I spend once a year remembering I made recordings of my mother and so I'll play those recordings who remember her to talk with people some people have a party on the death day to remember that person and celebrate their life but another level comes from this great story this little boy's dog died and he was just really sad and the rabbi talked with him and he said well what is something you really love that your dog did? He says well every time someone came to the door he went and greeted them at bark I said well you can do that too you can take that thing that that animal or that person brought into the world you can carry it on and so the little boy would always run to the door whenever someone was at the door to greet them so we can extend their presence in the world by doing some of the good things they brought into the world true we can't bring them into the world but we can bring their essence into the world and that can also empower us and make it okay to remember those losses from time to time that makes sense absolutely you know that's a great way to look at it one of the ways that I sort of deal with that emptiness because I've lost a number of friends now is to write about it and I oftentimes will recommend that there's many ways to sort of bring back an honor and follow in the footsteps because everybody has wonderful things that you remember about them that of the people that you hold close whether it's friends or family and to bring that back and to like you say with that little kid take it and make it a greeting that transcends the generations and brings that past person back because you're doing what they did and you're doing what they gave to other people that's a wonderful way of doing it and that's certainly a wonderful story thank you for that Daniel oh my pleasure well we're getting sort of close to the end Daniel so let me go to you know where do we well I was going to say where do we go but let's make it more straight let me just ask you if there's someone who has recently gone through something like the Maui wildfires and the hurricanes and the floods they're happening all over because of climate change oh you know and all sorts of other factors what's one thing that you would like to give them are a thought to leave them with it are a suggestion they only have one you know are well maybe two but you know you want to give them something that can sort of be an immediate you know feel better it's just easy for me to say okay but I've noticed this is very helpful often when people go through a loss they stay home a lot stay in one place and and they just kind of focus on the loss and if you're ready to start moving on in your life just get out of the house and go have an adventure get in the car take a ride get outside take a walk go take a hike doesn't even have to be super physical go someplace and sit and look at something beautiful but going and doing things maybe some things you've never done but you thought you might want to do that can that can all kind of move into developing a new normal but it's not even so much that just get out and and go explore the world because it's a different world because of what you went through to see what you can discover in the world now and some people who I've suggested this to they actually are really appreciative I knew someone who broke their shoulder and they couldn't use it for a while okay big catastrophe for them finally they kind of rehab themselves but they discovered exercise and they lost a lot of pounds and they're they're in so much better shape not that I wish that they would have broken their arm early or whatever but but use that to strengthen them to move forward and they discovered new things from that and they also go out into the world and visit and have adventures so having adventures larger small can be very helpful well that's certainly a great suggestion and one that I followed during covid interestingly enough you know after about six months into covid and locked down I needed to get out exactly what you're saying yeah you need to get out and so I just got into my car and just started driving and later I wrote a story about it called driving without destination because there was no place I could go I mean the stores were all shut down the people were all locked up I couldn't go visit people because I was afraid of infecting them or being infected by them right but I could still go out and even though I was traveling in new directions it was an adventure because I was looking at things that I hadn't seen in a long time instead of looking at a destination thinking about where I was going I was looking around yeah and I was looking at the mountains and I was looking at trees and the flowers and it was just incredibly rewarding and just a feel good moment so thank you for suggesting that it certainly worked for me and I think it's a it's a great idea for for most people I've done the same thing so no I appreciate it yeah so we got well I guess we're just about there so it's about thank you Daniel for for coming and thank you for sharing your suggestions and ideas and just it's wonderful being with you again on think tech away thank you so much I appreciate it. Thank you for having me and thanks to all of you tuned in today much appreciated you being there thanks to all the people at think tech away Jay and Carol and Michael and Haley of course now the next show we got coming up is a delightful show that I think you're really going to enjoy in two weeks so please tune in it's called the joy of reading children's books with your family and to do that we have the library in the up here from from Boilua Library and it should be a very heartwarming show it's the heartwarming subject that's coming together which as Daniel and I were talking about is certainly a way to deal with loss and grief and catastrophes is to come together we'll be doing that in two weeks thank you all and aloha