Chris patternson interview july 2020_Martika-Wh.m4a
Chris patternson interview july 2020_Martika-Wh.m4a: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
Chris patternson interview july 2020_Martika-Wh.m4a: this m4a audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Martika Whylly:
So thank you, Chris Patterson, for joining me and in our podcast Grieve, with ease, so what when you're helping you counsel, you've been counseling people for how long?
Chris Patterson:
Trying to think it's just over a year, but I don't call it counseling, it's I educate people, right. So it's I don't there's no trying to think of the right words here. There's no commiseration. There's it's more of trying to correct the things that we have been incorrectly taught. Because if you think of grieving, the only people who grieve, correctly are probably infants and small children, and at some point we stop them from letting their emotions flow through them, we teach them to bottle them up and hold them back. And so what I do is try and unteach people so we can get back to a natural, healthy way of dealing with loss.
Martika Whylly:
Right. And so how do you teach people them how to properly grieve?
Chris Patterson:
Well, the way I do it is I actually will take a step back.So it was December, twenty third of twenty seventeen that my family was in a horrid car accident and it affected the entire family. My wife was driving. I was asleep in the passenger seat behind me was my son. Next to him was our foster son. And behind my son was our youngest boy. And my wife a year later remembered that she actually did doze off behind the wheel of the car and she crossed four lanes of traffic. We went through a sign and hit a big giant cement sound barrier in Salt Lake City, Utah, and when we hit the sign, that impact broke my clavicle and put my wife's knee into the dashboard.
Chris Patterson:
When we hit the sound barrier, it took the entire passenger side of the car and pushed it in. And for me, it broke seven my ribs and punctured my lung. My oldest son, it took his pelvis, which is normally shaped like a heart, and it pushed it in a little bit and fractured pelvis, and my youngest son was asleep on the back window with his head on the window.And so that impact went directly into his head and he was gone. And I as.
Chris Patterson:
Anyone going through something like this didn't know how to deal with it. And so I did everything I could, as most people do, you look for groups, you start reading books, you go online and find everything you can, you listen to podcasts, you do everything. And as most of us do, I started. Putting all the bits together, that made sense to me and this, you know, here's a bit here, here's a bit there. How can I do this to make sense of what I'm going through. And I wanted to start sharing my own version of what I had come up to, but I didn't want to do it without the right way to put it here. I didn't want to do it without coming from a place of authority, just other than just being you know, I'm I'm a person who grieves. Well, we all are people that grieve. And so what where could I come from that says this is why I know. And so I went online and looked at all these different places where I could get certifications and in schooling and what I could do. And I found it excuse me, I found a group called the Grief Recovery Institute based out of Bend, Oregon. And so I went through a series of courses with them, which is very similar to what I take people through so that I could become what they call the grief recovery specialist. And so the way I do it is we actually do seven to eight classes, and in those seven or eight classes, we spend the first four weeks doing those things. What did you learn that doesn't actually work when dealing with loss? You know, what are the what are the ways that we do things to try and deal with the loss?
Chris Patterson:
What have we you know, all the little coping mechanisms we learned before then we get into?
Chris Patterson:
Well, here's a method that we use that we go through so that we can deal with all the unfinished business, which is really where the debilitating grief comes from, because grief is normal, it's natural. Everybody goes through it. But it's the all those unmet hopes, dreams, expectations, the things we wished we had said. It's we use a process so that we can emotionally feel that we're heard and work through those things so that we can move forward and not have to. The way I put it is I don't have to feel bad about having good days and I don't have to feel bad about having bad days anymore, which luckily I don't.
Martika Whylly:
Right.And do you mind sharing with us a little bit of the techniques?
Chris Patterson:
Well, it really I mean, that it's very simple, but that's in a nutshell is, you know, like there are the things that we we learned that don't work, you know, grieve alone.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, that doesn't work, that does not work.
Chris Patterson:
Time heals all wounds now, nope, doesn't heal anything. We use an example of, you know, if you got a flat tire and you just pull up a chair and stare at it, is it going to fix itself?
Chris Patterson:
What are some of the other ones? Yeah, there's a degree of alone time heals all wounds. Be strong for others. Yeah, it doesn't do much. It's a great example is it's like a teapot, you get that teapot ready, you get the water in it, you put it on the fire, and then you shove a cork in the end of it. It's going to explode.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, well, yeah, but that's so important, too, and this is one of the things that I say to my family and friends when they had lost somebody just to feel whatever you're feeling. Mm hmm. Not because anger is a big one for some people, because we've been taught not to, you know, express our anger, like to somehow bottle it because it's it's a negative emotion so it can only breed more of that. And so I say to people, find a constructive way to release that anger, whether it's punching a pillow or writing or anything, that that will help release some of those emotions.Yeah,
Chris Patterson:
Well, I'll say I agree to a point for me when I tell people is whatever you feel, that's perfectly fine. And I found that for myself. So if you feel anger right now, feel angry, tell me that you feel angry, because you know what? The next moment, you might feel happy. You might feel sad. It's it's nobody feels anything 50 percent or 20 percent or 10. We feel everything 100 percent at the time that we're feeling it. And so if I'm angry right now, I'm angry right now. Now. Yeah, I think whatever I can do to get it out. But there's also one of the things that we do in the program is we talk about we call it 'Sterbs' short term energy relieving behaviors and we are all guilty of it where we do something to not have to deal with the thing that we're trying not to deal with. So some people take up exercise. Some of us, you know, eat a little bit more, watch TV, sleep, whatever it is. And it's not to say these are unhealthy things. I mean, we can do unhealthy things. Some people take to alcohol or drugs or or, you know, very unhealthy things, but. If we're doing it not to deal with what we have in front of us, then we need to deal with what we have in front of us. And the beautiful thing about, you know, like when we're angry, why are you angry? Was and and how do I deal with the underlying issues. So it's it's interesting as a world where we've gone from one type of medicine to another type of medicine, back to let's embrace all types of medicine. You know, we had the and we've become more of a holistic world in the way we try and look at things.
Chris Patterson:
I mean, there are still people that fit in most things, but it's how do we deal with the entire thing? Eastern medicine used to always be about let's cure the problem, Western medicine. Let's let's try and deal with the symptoms rather than with. The underlying problem is we get rid of the symptoms. We don't have the it doesn't bother us anymore. We can move forward. And this is sort of that Eastern attitude towards it while trying to also deal with the symptoms the same time of why. So you're angry. Why are you angry? Was it something you should have said that you didn't say or something that should have been heard that wasn't heard? Well, you know, share with me what was it? I was listening to somebody talk because we have a program that I. I do that helping children with loss. We're actually teach parents how to talk to their kids so that their kids don't have all these issues. So that and I heard somebody talking about when they moved, they actually took the kids to each room of the house that they were leaving and shared their family favorite memories of that room. So they were basically walking through the entire house saying goodbye to the house. So when they moved in the next house, they didn't have all these. Oh, I really miss I wish that I could be back doing that. They had worked through and moved forward.
Martika Whylly:
And that's an awesome example. And so is that where you kind of do with the parents and the kids? Yeah.
Chris Patterson:
Yeah. And well, it's I do it with the parents and then teach the parents how to do that with the kids. So that then because I'm not certified to do with children and in all honesty, I don't want all the the liability of it because just like anybody else, I'm human and I'm going to say the wrong thing. I've told people if they want me to teach their kids, they better prepare for their kids to learn new words.Because I'm human and I'm going to make mistakes and I don't want to make mistakes with somebody else's child. I made enough mistakes with my own kids. And so it's but I teach the parents and here's ways that you can communicate so that you don't create those blocks that you have so that you can basically you can become a better parent and become a better person, because as I learned to do this and I teach my kid, as I've found in anything I've ever taught, I learned so much while I'm teaching that then the parents are learning these behaviors for themselves and then they're learning to deal with loss and grief before it becomes a problem.
Martika Whylly:
Right. That's great. That's great.So what what kinds of things, as far as helping others grieve, has that helped you and your in your grieving process?
Chris Patterson:
I actually had this conversation with somebody the other day and they said it must help a lot to do what you do and then help other people. It must help you through your own problems. And my response was no, because I already worked through that one. So losing my son was the most devastating thing I had done with my life up to that point, you know, we always have here's this one and then there is that one. You know, like as a child where I lost my dog as a teenager, I lost my sister.
Chris Patterson:
As an adult, I lost my son in each one of these things was another huge thing and it was, you know, how to move forward, how to get through it. And after going through the grief recovery method for myself and saying those things I wished I had said and being able to to work through. I have worked through that, so when I'm sad, I'm sad, when I'm happy, I'm happy when I have thoughts of my son. I let the emotions flow through me instead of stopping them from from going.
Chris Patterson:
And so my work with other people is 100 percent about them, because one of the things that I learned as I did as I went through this.Every loss is different.
Chris Patterson:
It doesn't matter who you are. My wife and myself lost our son, but we both lost a different person, even though he was the same person. We each had our own unique relationships. And so every loss is unique. So there's no comparison.
Chris Patterson:
It's I'm there one hundred percent for them. I'm there 100 percent to hear what they have to say and and listen to what they have to say. So I'm not doing the they're telling me about something and it's making me think about my own example for my life. My own example means nothing because it's not about my pain. It's about their pain in that time. And so for me, I work on my issues and then I have people I turn to that I can share those messages that need to be shared, that are willing to do what I do and just listen one hundred percent for them. You know, they'll do it for me as I do for other people. So it's a weird one because I know a lot that it does help. And for me it doesn't because I don't need it to.
Martika Whylly:
All right. Right.Well, that's great, that's great, because, you know, for me, I'm still. You know, learning how to help other people grieve with ease and this is one platform where I'm hoping to grow with with it and, you know, meeting people like you to help me help others is really, you know, it's a blessing. And this and it's a blessing.
Chris Patterson:
Well, it's it's the only way we actually know things. You know, it's like when I did reading the book, it's it's with each other that we learn things now.
Chris Patterson:
And it's the reason why we can't go through it alone, because none of us are truly alone in this world as much as even right now where some people have to fear social distancing purposes. They're alone in an apartment and not go out and physically interact. We're still interacting with one another. No one is truly alone. And it's I think the you know, well, the world is going through massive grief loss process right now, which is why there's so much anger and and frustration and everything going out there. But it's when we come to the realization that none of us is in this alone and that we have one another to rely on and learning to be reliable. I think that's the biggest part of it is us and which is the beauty of what you're what you're doing. What you're trying to do here is where you're learning to be reliable for others so that they have that person to lean on, but also making sure that you have the strength so that when they lean on you, it's not overpowering.
Martika Whylly:
Right.Yeah, exactly, well, for me, it's just it's one one day at a time trying to help as much as I can while still working full time in a nursing home. And I'd like to kind of bridge into this full time. But they're so desperately needing people in the nursing home, I kind of almost feel guilty for wanting to leave there of course I don't say too much of this. Next thing you know, people are making me cakes and cookies so to butter me up, don't leave. But yeah, but yeah, in the nursing home, I mean, I get a lot of I feel like I'm learning a lot about grief and how to deal with it in the nursing home as far as the people that work with the elderly, because, you know, a lot we you know, we have deaths every year, a lot around. In the fall and in the spring, so and you get attached to these people, and so I'm learning to. Not get to not say, not to to attach, but to the point where. I don't know where I'm constantly grieving when somebody when somebody passes that's, you know, you've known them, you know you know, everybody there is going to pass eventually and just kind of.I don't know.
Chris Patterson:
Well, it's it's.It's the interesting one, and it's the people like, I'll give you another one that we I learned, like, what is that book? The. Or this study by the.So you my brain just froze on me there. Where it's the stages of grief, but people misqoute that because it's the stages of grief and dying, it's it's something specifically created for people who are going through a clinical diagnosis that death is the end of it. And so a lot of people go, whoa, wait a second. You know, I didn't feel the anger side or I didn't feel the.
Chris Patterson:
You know, whichever aspect of those five degrees, it's somebody might not have gotten one of them because we don't always go through all of them, but the people who do, I have a friend whose whose son went through it and the person who was at the end of it was not the person he was at the beginning of it. After he had he had come to terms with it, but he was also trying to finish things.
Chris Patterson:
And I think that's what you see in in the in the nursing home situation, is you see, when you're dealing with elder care, you see people trying to finish their work. Have another guy I know whose dad was given a cancer diagnosis and he spent that last year just trying to fix all the mistakes he had made in his son's life. So that when he passed, his son wouldn't for him, it was so he would have peace, but I also think it was so that his son wouldn't wish dad had said or done these things with me. And I really think that's like there at the elder care, it's you've got people and. What better ways to learn on how to deal with this than seeing some of these people in the way they they've learned to deal and then going, OK, how can I? It's interesting when we don't even though every loss is unique. Everything can teach us something. I've been a. I've told my kids that they need to look at the the parables of life, the way I put it. They need to look at everything around them. And every day they can find something that they can learn from, that they can take into themselves and help themselves to become a better man because.All I want them to be is to be. People that.
Chris Patterson:
I don't care about that, I'm proud of that are they're proud of themselves? I think that's a better way to put it. So, like, that was lucky for me not to regret, I had when I lost my son, he left the world being the man I wanted him to be, because when he saw someone struggling, he reached out and he did what he could to help.
Chris Patterson:
So for that, I am I am forever going to be proud of of the man he was. No matter how much I may have wanted to have him around. He left the world being the man I want him to be so I can be nothing but proud of that.And you know what you're doing, it's. It's really interesting because I both what you want to do and what you do are stuck so close together. I mean, they're right next to each other. You're working with these people every day and.For me, I think it's what is it the only regrets you have is the love you didn't give.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, oh, that's so true, that is so true, and I try to give it all the time because I feel like I'm a very affectionate, loving person and and this covid, we we can't hug, you know, like, you know, I'd hug once in a while.
Martika Whylly:
A resident that needs a hug or a psw or nurse that needs a hug because, you know, sometimes they get frustrated with whatever is happening and and usually, you know, some people will take me up on the offer and others won't because sometimes I'll break down even more and they don't want to do that work. But I want to get shirts made up says free hugs because of because I love the hugs so much. But yeah. So now I just give virtual hugs or angelical hugs. But yeah, I find even watching two people hug. Makes me feel better, like my heart is smiling, it's like, oh, that that was nice.I feel better now, you know, just from witnessing.
Chris Patterson:
There's there's it's that connection that's really what it is.It's just that human connection that we all want. And it's just an example of it. But I find the interesting one is and it's interesting that you say that they think the hug might make them actually do it more, because one of the things I was taught is when somebody is in the middle of being emotional, not to hug them, which goes against everything I've done my entire life.
Chris Patterson:
But it's the thought of the flow of traffic if cars are driving down the road and one posts in the way, that traffic may still be going straight, but it's slowed down for a moment. And so I always ask to hug, because if I reach out, I had the weirdest experience. My oldest son and I were watching The Avengers end game movie. So sci fi movie just nothing but action. But there was a scene where one of the characters, they thought he's been dead for five years.
Chris Patterson:
He comes home, his daughter sees him, runs out, gives him a hug. I, I lost it in the movie theater.
Chris Patterson:
I'm sitting in the movie theater, everybody else is watching. We're excited, Retter and I'm back there, just the tears there's snot running down the face. My oldest son is sitting next to me and he started to reach over to me like, don't touch me.
Chris Patterson:
I'm crying here because I didn't want to let I needed to feel that because it was that was the in-between period between losing my son and before I went through my own process for him, that I needed to get that out.
Chris Patterson:
And luckily I recognized it. And just like, don't touch me, I need to get this out. Don't make me stop. And I cried bawled my head off in the middle of a movie theater while, you know, aliens are attacking each other. But it's yeah,
Martika Whylly:
You don't know when grief the wave will hit it. Yeah, you have no yeah. But at least you and you have the consciousness now to allow that instead of thinking and which most people would do would to stop crying or go to the bathroom and continue crying.
Chris Patterson:
I have an individual that I'm working with right now that has said, you know, she's and it's I think it's a lot of us she's terrified to cry because she's packed it all her emotions up so much that if she starts crying, she's afraid she's not going to stop.That's just that's heartbreaking.
Martika Whylly:
And it is because it can't be too healthy for her to keep that all in.
Chris Patterson:
No.And it's I can remember I sort of did that the first time when I lost my sister and I bottled it up and I bottled it up and it took me at a pizza parlor on a high school trip, that one person I was like, I'm hungry, when are we getting some pizza? And one person said, You don't get any pizza. That was the last that was that last straw on the camel's back.That was it. And I lost it and I just. Yeah, like it's not healthy.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is, it isn't healthy. So how are you helping with this one lady that has a hard time crying?
Chris Patterson:
We're just going through the process. And I just let her know every time, you know, if you if you want to. Just cry, I mean, I had one lady that apologized for crying, and I couldn't help myself because the way I am now and I'm like, don't you ever apologize for crying? Yeah. You just cry. Let it come out. If anybody makes fun of you, I'll stand behind you.I got your back.
Chris Patterson:
Because I recognize now it's not healthy, it's it's so interesting the way we are now, the way we used to act and treat things, you know, the old world with a John Wayne and that that time period where it was really keep your emotions in where my mom actually made the comment once that she'd rather raise boys than girls because she didn't have put all that emotional stuff in it.
Chris Patterson:
A completely different generation, And now we're going cry.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, well, when when my mom passed was 15 years old, I was still high school, first year of high school, our vice principal would cry with me. She would encourage me to cry and, you know, I cried a little bit because I didn't want to cry too much and she would cry with me. And any time, you know, I wanted to just go into her office and cry or talk to her. The door was always open. And I thought that was interesting because no one's ever said it's OK to cry and cry along with me. So that crying does help.It helps.
Chris Patterson:
That that is amazing that you had somebody that was willing to do that because, I mean, that's. We need more people, you know, it's. What's that stupid saying? Laugh, they laugh with you, cry, you cry alone.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, and don't make you cry alone. I think everybody's crying together and laughing together.
Chris Patterson:
But that's I mean, what is it like? Robin Williams? I think he laughed. So he didn't cry.
Martika Whylly:
Well, yeah, because he had his depression issues, but yeah, sometimes laugh just so they don't. It's either you laugh, you cry in a situation, so you choose.
Chris Patterson:
That's been my attitude my entire life. I've told my kids that a million times. I think you have a choice. Either laugh or cry so why not laugh.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah. Laugh. Laugh it out. Yeah. I try to laugh 20 minutes a day. 20 minutes a day is supposed to really make, you know, cure you from whatever disease you have. And I've been failing miserably at that. But I've been trying when I'm not doing this, I got it. I got a laugh, a lot.
Chris Patterson:
I see. It's funny you say that. So maybe that's why. Because one of my things that I do is I am hooked on British panel shows. So straight out of Great Britain, they got a bunch of them where it's game shows with comedians.But it's I just love it and it gets wrong and it gets very blue comedy and and it's they say some things that I laugh and I shouldn't have laughed at.And it's beautiful. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, my wife is like, you really shouldn't be watching that. But I'm thinking, yeah, but it made me laugh so.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah. Anything that makes you laugh. I love comedies. I try to watch as much movies, although sometimes those are far in between, you know, the you should be more comedies on TV.
Martika Whylly:
But I think a funny things or I think of things I could do while I'm at work that will bring me joy, make me laugh. The other day it was so hot in the nursing home, they finally put AC units in all the nursing homes. Our premier has a mother in law that's in a nursing home or nursing homes got hit with a pandemic when we first when it first came through. So nursing homes were really kind of high alert everywhere across the country.
Martika Whylly:
And so long story short, I brought in a water gun because it was that hot in there. So and I work in the service area. So it's a it's a hallway.
Martika Whylly:
And, you know, when somebody would walk by and kind of squirt them when they walk by and at first they're all standing there. All must be the sprinklers. They're all standing, looking up at the ceiling. And I'm squirting them all. I felt the two and I'm laughing so hard there, Chris, that I'm not making a sound. I'm just vibrating. And they can see me in clear. I they could see me, but they have no clue where this water is coming from. And I just had so much fun with that.
Chris Patterson:
Yeah. Yeah. So whatever.
Chris Patterson:
My gosh, there's so many things that. It's interesting, one, the world that we live in today and that and everything except one little thing at a time, and I think that laughter, defining moments that we can laugh and, you know, like for me, what was it? I can think of when my grandpa died the next day, we were golfing and goofing off because it was the only way that we could celebrate his memory and it just didn't seem right. It's always interesting when I talk to people about the. When we do our stuff, you know, you might laugh sometimes you might cry, sometimes that's the way it is.
Martika Whylly:
And it's it's like a roller coaster of emotions, isn't it? Yeah. When I had to tell friends and family about my cousin that passed, every conversation was different. My my emotions was different. Sometimes I was serious. Sometimes I was crying, sometimes laughing, you know, guess what happened. Somebody died and. Are you OK? No, not not really. But I'm just laughing anyhow, you know.
Chris Patterson:
Yeah, but it's just what I love, like the stories. I can remember my uncles passing away and listening to his kids, all the stories they had about their dad and the weird. He was a different person, the way I heard it, what's the term my family always uses a different duck. Just something odd about this guy. But the stories were such you were just laughing the entire time.
Chris Patterson:
It's that Robin Williams did a movie called Toys, I think is what it was. It was with him as a as a an adult that couldn't be responsible. And he is dad passed away, but his dad had a joke company and so they actually had one of those. If you remember when we were kids, they used to have like the bag that was the laugh box in it, and it would just laugh. And so he said in his dad's casket went down. It was just laughing the entire time. And then when they went back to it later, apparently it had a great battery because the grave was still laughing months later because he enjoyed the laughter. And it was it was dealing with emotions and laughter and in the the beauty of it, because, you know, it's it's the weird one. Life is loss life from the moment we're born.
Chris Patterson:
Past the moment that we that we leave this world, it's it's nothing but loss, we gain something, but whenever we gain something, we lost something before. That's that's all it is. Grief is the natural feeling to a change of circumstances. You know, it's it's things change that's loss. We all go through it now. It's it's interesting. Some people go through it easier. Some people go through it more difficult and it's the beautiful thing is to know, I think the greatest thing I learned is it's OK. That made me happy right off the bat to come to the understanding it's OK. To feel this way. OK, good. And there's not something wrong with me, it's OK to feel this way, OK? Now it's. Here's how you can. What's the one that I was told, always told that we choose the way that we feel?
Chris Patterson:
Now, as someone who is dealing with clinical depression, not always, but most times we can choose how we feel and we can always choose how we react to any given situation.
Chris Patterson:
I can choose to be it's the same as the laugh or cry that we said I can choose to be the victim, I can choose to be a passenger along for the ride. I can choose to take control. I can choose to be the victor. I choose what I'm going to be within the situation and my life may have. Taught me how I might react to those, but it's still up to me to change the way that I've done things. And I read something somebody wrote that I yesterday that I was reading that really got into that, that I love, that it was basically that's the beauty of this life is.
Chris Patterson:
We can all become better every single day. It's our choice.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, that's the most powerful asset we have, is the power to choose every moment it is. And it's funny because it's it's really like a superpower could choose to love or hate, give or not give. But, yeah, there's a whole I read that in the book. Og Mandino, I think is the greatest salesman in the world. I'm not sure he's one of my favorite authors, but yeah, every moment and and I like to reread some of that material just to refresh myself, that I do have a choice every day to choose to be happy, regardless of what's happening, regardless of where I am, just, you know, to be happy. It's a state of mind just because people look me at work and like you're doing laundry all day, it stinks in there. Why are you happy?
Martika Whylly:
If I had a co-worker, like, how do you deal with it? You know, I said, well, just, you know, turn the fan on real good and turn the music up. You know, that's how I with it.So, you know, again, choosing how you look at something.
Chris Patterson:
Yeah. The interaction, I can remember that all the looks I would get I worked in graphic design for twenty five years before I got into helping with loss.
Chris Patterson:
And I can remember working prepress at a newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee. And so I was getting everything ready before it actually got printed. And I would one o'clock in the morning. You're a little bit loopy anyways because you've been up all night. And so all of a sudden I'm doing a radio interview show with myself and nobody else is. I'm getting ads ready on a page and people are looking at me like, is this guy OK? Because I'm carrying on three different voices, having a conversation with myself. We'll make the best of the situation you're in. Yeah, I could I could have been grumpy and try to fall asleep like half my coworkers or. I love the I'm going to have to remember the squirt gun thing, it fits my foster son gave me a Nerf gun that he said I had his permission to shoot him any time he he bothered me while I was working. I have not taken them up on it because I'm not sure I want to start a precedent here, but it was really interesting that he's like, here's a Nerf gun, go for it.
Martika Whylly:
Mm hmm. Well, my thing is it's just life is too short. We don't know just because and it's funny because I said this to a co-worker first thing in the morning, we're both half asleep, you know, coffee in hand, ready to start our shift. And we're having this conversation about life. And I said, well, you know, Linda, just because we work in a nursing home doesn't mean we're going to live forever. And she just looked at me like, well, and but later on, she got it. I guess that's my humor in the morning, because we don't we just don't think of it.We don't think we're going to go next. It's going to be somebody who's older, who is obviously he's, you know, deteriorating or they have some kind of illness, a disease that is slowly taking them. So you don't think about your own death.
Chris Patterson:
Well, you just said that, and it made me my mind just went, but. We do sort of live forever in. The things that we pass on, whether it's that memory, I mean, like like my grandma will always be with me and my kids hear stories about my grandma and grandpa that they don't remember.
Chris Patterson:
I hear stories about my grandfather that died when my dad was eight years old that we do live on forever. But is it the good memories or is it the bad memories? So it comes back to that laugh or cry. What are we leaving for others? Because there is what others leave for us and that's where we go through our own grief and loss for those relationships. But what relationships are we building to make sure that we live on in happy memories? I remember sitting on an airplane with a from Brazil to Los Angeles with an old gentleman who started telling me about somebody that he knew. And I have no idea who this person is. But by the way, this gentleman talked about him and the way he felt about him, all he had to do is share his first name. And he assumed I knew exactly who he was talking about because that person had made such a permanent mark on his life. And so it's we deal with the loss of others and are dealing with them, but it's the interesting thing as we learn how to deal with that loss, I think we become those we will live forever in the rest of our family's lives and the rest of our friends lives, which for me personally, I consider them family, too, and that I'm going to live on. And those memories and the stories that they may be passing on that could last forever. I mean, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about William Shakespeare still.
Martika Whylly:
Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. The spirit of the the one. Yeah, we we do live forever in that sense. Yes.
Chris Patterson:
Physically I mean live forever.But I hope to leave an impression.
Martika Whylly:
I'm sure you, Well I'm sure you will. Yes. I had a thought while you were talking and I try not to do that, try to be fully present when people are saying something. But you said something that kind of triggered something about remembering remembering our loved ones that had passed. And and so they do live in spirit. And of course, my mom is still with me in spirit. I had a dream about her, I guess, about a year and a half ago. I walked into my living room and there she was sitting on the couch in the dream and looking at me. And I'm looking at her thinking, have you been there the whole time? And she's like, Yeah, you just noticing me? And I'm like, oh, my God, I am so sorry. And the dream ended.
Martika Whylly:
I woke up and I felt like it was real. It felt real. And I'm like, OK, so she is with me. And of course, things that happened in the past started to make sense, like looking for a receipt. I was looking for this receipt, and I'm pretty sure it had it on the kitchen counter and checked all over the kitchen counter and I looked in the living room when the coffee table and other places that I would keep, you know, small pieces of paper. And they went back into the kitchen to look on the kitchen counter. And there it was. Plain sight wasn't there before. And that's just one of a few examples, but it now makes sense.
Chris Patterson:
But it's the it's a fun one. So it's like the interesting one where I'm trying to think because that's such a beautiful thing and and I love it. And it's it's the interesting one where, like, I completely agree with you and I don't know how many times my kid has visited me in my dreams personally, but it's usually because I'm screwing up and it's usually judgmental of hey dad straighten out your life. But I'm like, OK, I'm sorry, let me fix that. But there are the other interesting little things that each of us do to try and keep them with us. So when when we lost him, for whatever reasons we end up cremating him which we had not even thought about decisions on that, and since then, well, there were a few things that he loved. He loved animals. So we have too many animals around the house we live in. We have more animals than the space that we're in. But it doesn't matter. It's part of our keeping him alive and our memories type of a thing. It's it's one of my 'Sterbs' that I'm not going to get rid of. Another, though, is the cremation. We actually I've got a little bottle that I will take with me when we'll go on trips because he loved national parks and camping and doing all of those things.
Chris Patterson:
And so when we go places, I take some of those ashes and I leave a little bit of them wherever we go. So that he went with us and I actually have a necklace that has cremation jewelry, so he literally is with me everywhere I go so that it's it's my own little memory thing. But it's it's a fun little things that we do.
Chris Patterson:
And for us, it's lucky thing because it's not an unhealthy thing where we're not wallowing in it. I mean, we were in where were we? We went to Hawaii last year and saw they were talking about the movie Moana.
Chris Patterson:
There's interesting things. So Grandma turns into a and to a manta ray And the reason they she actually turned into a manta ray is there are certain animals that the Polynesian cultures consider as ancestral animals. And the manta ray as one of them, another one of them is the an owl that lives in Hawaii. And it's an interesting owl because it's Dienel, which means it's out during the day, not out at night. And they told us about this one morning as we were in Maui. So they actually on the island of Maui and they have a volcano there. Haleakala goes from sea level up to ten thousand feet above sea level.
Chris Patterson:
And they told us we were there doing that volcano that day. And on the drive back home, we saw an owl. And so for us, that was that's our son who loved animals, saying hi to us.After we had just left some of those ashes.
Martika Whylly:
Nice, yes, and that's the thing, the signs I've heard so many amazing stories of the signs that loved ones will leave behind, whether it's animals or money sometimes or pictures, flowers, butterflies.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah. Yeah, I just it makes me feel so good because I know it makes that person feel good, especially when they're grieving, that it's kind of like knowing that the other person is OK, because that's one of the things that kind of really churns people is is my loved one, OK? because they have no clue where, you know, where they go, are they OK? And when they see a sign.
Chris Patterson:
It's the tough one. And that's why, like for the work that I do, everybody believes differently. Even people within the same religion or faith sometimes still believe differently than one another. And so it's it makes it kind of difficult. And so, like the work that I do, we actually keep it as secular as possible. We keep religion out of it. So we do nothing spiritual about it, which is really interesting because every time I seem to be working with somebody, it's a person of some type of faith that can see how what I'm doing works within their faith. Which is very interesting because, you know, trying to keep it so it's not doesn't go within a belief system, but it's the amazing thing of what I like to call eternal truths, things that are true no matter what.You can't you can't explain them one way or another. And and I think.The the.
Chris Patterson:
Process of grief when we when we do it. In a positive way. Just seems to fit along with so many faiths in the way that they teach about this life to the next or even with when we when we do wrong and we have to make it better, all of that just seems to fit within that same pattern, a process.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, well, because it's it's the same everywhere. It's the same, you know, it's whether you believe. And of course, that's usually based on experience and or other people's experience and what has happened after, you know. So for me, I'm I'm a lot more I'm open minded when it comes to that. Like, I'd like to hear how other people have experienced their loved ones that have passed on if they've come back to let them know they're OK.
Chris Patterson:
It's such an interesting one, because, like I have, I sit on a high school board for a charter school in Oregon where I live, and there's a lady that's on the board with me that we were having a conversation. Funny enough, just before we had our accident at a Christmas party, just before our accident. And her and her husband are atheists. They don't they believe that this life is it and there's nothing after it. But they devote. A lot of their time to working for hospices to be the the last person that's holding a hand for someone that passes away that doesn't have family nearby. So we had a nice little conversation where I was like, you know, for me personally and it's me personally, it's it's nothing against.Any one of their things, I personally go, I don't see how you can do that and that and go I if this life is it, how but it doesn't matter. It's it's their their system and their belief, whatever it is.And and the fact that they're.
Chris Patterson:
That they still love their their fellow human beings enough that they will be willing to be the last person and put that much more loss and grief on themselves to be that last person again and again and again to me speaks volumes to the character of who they are that they're willing to do it. While for me. At my son's second service, because we had to have one in Utah where we had the accident, was because I wasn't authorized to go home and then we had another one once we were home. So all of his friends, who could be part of it at the second service, actually had a kid that told us about his experience of actually seeing my son standing on the side of the road two states away the morning of the accident within minutes of the accident. Which to me in my faith says that was my son.
Chris Patterson:
Somebody else might go, that's a coincidence, and the beautiful thing is it doesn't matter whichever one it is, because if it brings me a little bit of hope in the middle of my loss, I will take that hope.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah.Yeah, most definitely in this and this is why when when I know somebody personally has lost somebody, that's one of the first questions they ask after a period of time, of course. Have you seen or heard the presence of the one that you know, that just lost so. And usually it does bring about some comfort.It doesn't, of course, you know, they still have the whole grieving process to go through, but it does bring about a little bit of comfort knowing that that the person is OK and has contacted them. Be able to see to be able to see them.
Chris Patterson:
Yeah, for me, it's it's like the one I find interesting because like when I work with people or even not working with people, it's the. The hard part is when you're ready.
Chris Patterson:
So for me, I'm a very open person, I'm honest, I will just wear my heart on my sleeve and I will. Share it, I don't care. While I had one lady I was talking to, I think she said it was we were talking I was sharing about my son and then she opened up and it was the first time in twenty three years that she was actually willing to speak about her child that she had lost because it was so it was still so raw and so painful to deal with. And for me, I think. And that's. That's the most difficult one, because there's one thing I read right after the as I was doing my study before and everything, it was that. When we sit in that grief, when we allow nothing other than that grief to overwhelm us. Two people died. Because if we are not living and we are not moving forward, we're pretty much dead too. It was heard about Dean Martin, the actor did with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin and part of the Rat Pack when he was in his older years, he lost his son.
Chris Patterson:
And it was such a devastating thing that there's a reason why when he did when when was it? The 70s and 80s, he did the Dean Martin celebrity roasts. And they always made fun of him being drunk all the time. And it was because he was drunk all the time, because he was Dean Martin, the actor on the stage doing things. But if he wasn't on the stage, he wasn't living, he was not moving forward. He was just drinking himself and missing his son and not having any movement.
Chris Patterson:
And the hard part is, is realizing. When we're in the grief for grief sake. Or when we're allowing ourselves to go through the process of grief. And it's. It fits in with the laugh or cry. Am I going to sit and cry or am I going to try and take it in a direction rather than sit still? And that's that's my biggest one, like for myself, my wife. I've worked through our son's passing, she has not yet, because it's it's still too painful and raw, it doesn't mean she stopped living and she stopped doing things, but it means that she has not allowed herself to fully grieve. She gives herself little snippets, but she doesn't let herself go through it because every time she starts to, it becomes debilitating and she goes, nope, not yet. That's that's a beautiful one, is recognizing when we're going through loss of when we're ready to deal with it or not. And sometimes we need somebody else to tell us we're ready, which is that's the fun one that I do, because when I do my work, we don't go. OK, well, you may have showed up for one type of grief, but that doesn't mean that we're dealing with that loss, whether it be moved. You moved, you got divorce, that somebody died in your life. You lost your pet.
Chris Patterson:
You changed jobs. Just because you showed up to talk to me about that doesn't mean that's what we're working on. We actually recognize all of our loss in our lives and then we choose a relationship to work on. And what I when we do it, I try and pay attention and then I go. OK, that one is going to be difficult for him, that one is going to be really easy. I always push for the difficult one. Because they may not think they're ready to deal with it, but sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't, and I actually worked with somebody where we were got partway through and realized this is not where we need to be right now. And we backtracked and we started a different path because we realized. That wasn't the time for that one yet. They needed to take care of some other things so that they could deal with it, just like I'll never deal help somebody through loss. If they're going through an AA program of any type, if you're dealing with an addiction, take care of the addiction first, then we can deal with the grief. You know, if you've got this, that's overwhelming. We don't want to push you towards more overwhelming. Let's do things in the proper increments so that we can be healthy about it.
Martika Whylly:
Great. Yeah.
Chris Patterson:
Yeah, yeah, it's it's the interesting one, there's a few things to get me on graphic design.I had some lady we were talking about printing yesterday because we ran into each other up in the middle of the mountains.Get me on this. It is definitely become the passion of my life. And if all I do for the rest of my life is help people with lost, I will have lived a great life.
Martika Whylly:
Well, yeah, I when we first when we first met and we spoke, you said this wasn't your calling. You were supposed to be. What was it again. I can't remember it. Oh you're both. We both had other dreams and ambitions.
Chris Patterson:
For me it was graphic design or was a big one. I always wanted to be an actor. That was a big one. Didn't didn't pursue that.Yeah, loss is yeah, it's.
Chris Patterson:
It's an interesting one, and it's the times that I've been had the most felt, the most fulfillment of my own life is when I helped other people to find joy within their own lives. So it's not so much teaching as is helping people to. Find themselves, that's where I've found fulfillment. And so this. Yes, there's nothing better.
Martika Whylly:
For me it's the same, but my angle, I guess, is that sometimes the grief can become so. What's the word? It just overcoming that you don't want to live anymore.And I've been there and and I have spoken with some people that have felt the same way when they've lost a son or they've lost a parent. They just and I've heard stories of, you know, a son dying and then the father a year later or not even. Yeah, you know, the grief has just been so overwhelming that they just they gave up.
Martika Whylly:
And sometimes it's it's just it's weird, like not that they took their own life, but it was just like the body just started to break down, like it just the mindset. Oh, we're going to take a break. We're not going to do anything. And the grief just took over. And next thing you know, they're gone as well. And then the family are now dealing with two deaths.
Chris Patterson:
It's the I have a really good friend. He calls himself the mental health comedian. And I think I mentioned to it when we had chatted before. Yes. Frank King is his name and he talks nothing about but about suicide. And it's. Because for him and it's interesting one in the way he took it, because it's a laugh or cry thing where it's turned into a positive or negative, it's for him. His mind always goes, well, what's the worst that could happen? Well, I could die. Well, that's my second option. And it's a sad thing that that's a second option, but at least he goes, well, if this doesn't work out well, at least I've got that to fall back on. So he still tries to take it towards a positive thing. And I Completely understand. Where that can be a possibility, I'm not going to say I understand that because we're all different, but I know how I felt and going through my own loss and those points where it was, you know, maybe it would just be better, it wouldn't hurt so much. And for me, and it's it's the hard part, because really we there are no comparisons of losses out there, but for me what it was is what would he think of me if I did that? And that's the one thing that really kept me from making those decisions. Is still I didn't want to disappoint him.I think that's why, you know, in the dreams where he's he's been wrong.Yeah, he's I don't want to disappoint him because that, unfortunately, is a very real and valid way of feeling. I know too many people that and it's it's such a hard one when.You just want to reach out to people, and that's I think that's where it's the hard one right now, you can't hug anybody.
Martika Whylly:
Well, look, this is my way of trying to do it, you know, and it's it wasn't up until recently decided to do my own podcast, whereas before I was kind of discouraged from it, because, oh, it's a lot of work, it's a big commitment and I'm like, well, how much is that? Because I was already working full time and trying to get my book out there and a website out there. And there was all kinds of online courses I was taking. So I'm like, I don't know if I wanted to take that on, but the more I started to think about it, you know what what I would enjoy doing if I didn't have to worry about money, how would I spend my day?
Martika Whylly:
What do I what have I experienced that I have overcome, that I can help others. And it's all always came back to the death and loss. Death and loss, so I thought, OK, so I'm going to give that a whirl, see and see if I can help people, which I'm I know that I have even before this, friends, family and the odd stranger, if you will, in the brief encounter of somebody in that. And that's what started to open my eyes, whereas, wow, I'm helping people do this, like helping people a little bit more, I guess, grieve with ease or with grace.So I thought, OK, well, this is this is what I'm going to do.
Chris Patterson:
Oh, good.
Martika Whylly:
And and that's what these signs were happening before I worked in the nursing home.So the universe was kind of guiding me and I was kicking and screaming, didn't want to.
Chris Patterson:
Well, yes, it interesting where it's like, no, you need to do this. No, I don't know. You need to know. I don't want to know. This is where you need to. Yeah, fine. Oh, it's another one I tell my kid is you know, we're when we're asking questions, are we asking questions to ask questions, are we asking questions so that we can get the answers that we want? Are we asking questions, actually, to find out the truth? And it's.
Chris Patterson:
Yeah, if you're if you're kicking and screaming and going no, then you're I have a friend that did some social media post the other day and my mind automatically went, you're asking questions to get the answers you want. You're not just asking questions.You're asking leading questions or you're trying to direct where you want it to be rather than saying, I'm here, let's let's go forward with it. Or what is it?
Chris Patterson:
The the the Zen, the Buddhist attitude of allowing yourself to go where the universe takes you.
Martika Whylly:
Yes.
Chris Patterson:
Rather than just I'm going to force the universe to take me where I want to go and. If you learn what the universe wants you to do or if you learn what your life is taking it through.
Chris Patterson:
This is the fun of my own personal attitude towards things you can. Help guide it so you can get there maybe a little bit faster than than you thought, or you can fight it and end up in a completely wrong space more and if the same place later than you could have done any good. So the fact that you're being led here now is a wonderful thing, because especially I said right now, the world as a whole, we are all going through grief and we're the more voices we have to help people through their grief, the better so that we can get to a place of joy and happiness, which is what we all want. Or as I heard somebody explain and I loved it, they said that they were. It was after they got through everything, it was that they were breathing for the first time without realizing that they were holding their breath. Now let's get the world back to breathing again and going, oh, well, I hope that's that's right.
Martika Whylly:
Well, I hope to to to continue listening to that inner voice, which I did, I would say, what could I do that that I have a lot of experience that will help others in death and loss kept coming up. And and this went on, I don't know, two or three months back and forth because I didn't want to hear that. And so I accepted what I'm hearing and, you know, the intuitions, the dreams, that sort of thing. And you know what? I'm enjoying it.
Chris Patterson:
Good.
Martika Whylly:
You know, you don't think you're going to, like, spinach until you try it or whatever.
Chris Patterson:
I just may not.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, well, finish is actually is kind iron and I have an iron deficiency, so I try to get as much spinach in me as possible.
Chris Patterson:
I just think of my step dad doesn't matter. He's not going to like spinach. Doesn't matter how many times you tell him, papa, I was strong because the spinach he he would never eat it. But he'll eat collard greens and beet greens but not spinach. I don't understand.
Martika Whylly:
But yeah, that is kind of strange. But, you know, we all have our little quirks like that, don't we?
Chris Patterson:
Yeah, yeah. That's the beautiful thing is none of us are the same.
Chris Patterson:
We all have our weirdness, our own little. Yeah, I got a lot of weirdness in my family.
Martika Whylly:
I think everybody does well. I consider I consider everybody my family like you're my brother. I the people I work with, they're my family too. And just like family, you have your days where you get along and it is when you're not so, you know, you butting heads. But at the end of the day and I told this to my boss, I said, I love everybody.
Martika Whylly:
I love all my coworkers, which I do. And that that makes a difference. And I think they could sense that because there are days when I just don't feel like talking to anybody.
Martika Whylly:
It just, you know, I'm in a quiet mode and, you know, I get five or six people coming up to me and asking questions that they really kind of know the answers to, like, why are you bothering me?
Chris Patterson:
They're asking if you're OK without asking if you're OK.
Martika Whylly:
And that's what it is.
Chris Patterson:
And I love I love that you said that. And I.
Chris Patterson:
It took me to a point so I could love everybody, which I do. It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done.I may get irritated by people and I may want to smack people, I you know, I may want to not talk to people, but it doesn't mean I don't love them.
Chris Patterson:
I remember I have the stepbrother that made my life a living hell for a while and I hated him. I would actually say I hated him till I changed my own thoughts on that. And I'd say I love him the least. So at least then I still loved him, which was a really interesting thing. And it's that same thing. Smile or frown, laugh or cry, love or hate. It's still a choice. And we can choose to either be in a positive universe or we can choose to be in a negative universe. And I hope more people choose to be in a positive one so that we can move in a more forward manner so that we choose to love the people around us. I mean, that's why the movements that we have going around the world are going around the world because we're looking for more positivity and more love. Unfortunately, a lot of us are doing in a negative way.
Chris Patterson:
But that's the beauty of this world anyways, is the fact that. We were all had something to explain to me the other day, you know, there's a difference between basically a goal. And then a plan. We all have the same goal, we all have different plans on how to get there. And it's this talking back and forth that we're figuring out how our plans can work with one another and how we can help each other fulfill our plans so we can get to that goal. And hopefully do that through that love and the laughter and the you know.
Chris Patterson:
Whatever we can to take it in the direction that we all shouldn't be, and there will be tears along the way, there's. There isn't a life without them, but it's really funny that when you laugh hard enough, you cry.
Martika Whylly:
oh yeah. Or you go the other way. Yeah, you laugh hard enough.
Chris Patterson:
You cry so hard you laugh, yep.Been there.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah. Yeah, I've done that, it hasn't been and has been a while, I like laughing so hard, I'm vibrating. There's no sound coming out. I look like I'm having a seizure.
Chris Patterson:
I snort.
Martika Whylly:
I've done that, too.
Chris Patterson:
I do that quite a bit and it's it's really great. Yeah. To start going at my wife and my kids were doing that the other night, playing uno playing the game, you know, with each other. And I was just sitting off reading my book and listening to them and they just all started going and it was just great. Is that infectious laughter and that infectious joy of just spending that time with one another and doing something. All of a sudden my wife is snorting and my foster son can't even breathe. He's laughing so hard he's going to pass out.
Martika Whylly:
That's the best kind, I hope you experience more of those moments with your family.
Chris Patterson:
We will and I. I truly hope that you can help. I can't even think of a number as many lives as possible to find more positivity and find that joy as their grief and through it.
Martika Whylly:
Thank you. It means a lot, and I do appreciate your time and you coming to speak with us on this topic and how to help people grieve with ease and all the work you've been doing. That's been awesome.
Chris Patterson:
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Martika Whylly:
I appreciate it, too.
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