Living Lucky® Podcast with Jason and Jana Banana

GRIEF: Finding Light in Loss

• Jana and Jason Shelfer • Season 8 • Episode 38

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Transmuting Grief: Turning Love into Legacy (Living Lucky® Podcast)

What happens when grief crashes into our lives, leaving us reeling? In this raw and deeply personal episode of the Living Lucky® Podcast with Jason & Jana Banana, we navigate the complex terrain of loss, sparked by the unexpected passing of a dear friend's father.

Through tears and cherished memories, we uncover a powerful truth: grief is love with nowhere to go. But within that profound sadness lies an opportunity to transform that love into a legacy of gratitude and forward impact. We explore how seemingly small moments, like a college friend's passion for show skiing, can plant seeds that shape our lives in ways we never imagined.

Discover:

  • Grief as Love: Finding Purpose in Pain: Understand the profound connection between love and loss, and how to transmute grief into positive action.
  • The Ripple Effect: How Lives Touch Lives: Recognize the far-reaching impact of every life, and the legacies we build in our daily interactions.
  • Gratitude in Grief: Honoring Memories: Learn to celebrate the lives of those we've lost by focusing on the beauty they brought to our world.
  • Planting Seeds: Inspiring Future Generations: Discover how seemingly insignificant moments can shape our paths and inspire others.
  • The Power of Connection: Expressing Appreciation: Understand the importance of telling people how they've impacted you while they're still here.
  • Empathy and Compassion: Building a Connected Society: Learn how to view the world through a lens of love and understanding, fostering a more compassionate community.
  • Forward Impact: Continuing the Legacy: Explore how to honor the memory of those we've lost by living a life that reflects their positive influence.

Nuggets:

  • How to understand and process grief as love.
  • The importance of expressing gratitude for those who have impacted your life.
  • How seemingly small moments can have a lasting impact.
  • Ways to transmute grief into positive action.
  • The power of empathy and compassion in building a connected society.

Ready to transform your grief into a legacy of love and impact? Tune in to the Living Lucky® Podcast and discover how to find light in loss.

How to deal with grief and loss, How to turn grief into gratitude, How to find purpose after lo

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The 4 pillars of Living Lucky
Believe in yourself
Believe in the people around you
Believe in your circumstances and
Believe that God is working through you, for you, and always conspiring in your favor.

*Previously Recorded

Jana Shelfer:

Are you ready to create a life you crave? Let's spin that doom loop of negativity into an upward success cycle and start Living Lucky®.

Jason Shelfer:

Good morning. I'm Jana, I'm Jason.

Jana Shelfer:

And we are Living Lucky®.

Jason Shelfer:

You are too.

Jana Shelfer:

I am a blubbering mess this morning.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes, you are, and it's okay.

Jana Shelfer:

I just found out that my really dear friend from college, her father, passed away and it was very unexpected. He was on a hike and he was missing.

Jason Shelfer:

For. Days.

Jana Shelfer:

They had helicopters and sniffing dogs. They found him. He has snake bites on him. He's deceased and it's from a rattlesnake bite.

Jason Shelfer:

That's the theory. Yeah, until the toxicology reports come back.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes, so they're still waiting for the actual cause of death. However, for days there's just been worry and anxiety and anyway I found out about this last night and as of this morning, we've been going through photos of when I first met her father, and he was a pilot. Met her father and he was a pilot and so he was the one that got us plane

Jason Shelfer:

tickets so that we could take a spring break down to mexico. We went to arizona, arizona.

Jana Shelfer:

okay, and our, we both nominated our fathers for this university contest called king dad and both, and both of us, both of us got into the finals.

Jason Shelfer:

So her dad and your dad.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes, Got to be on the. It was almost like a homecoming court.

Jason Shelfer:

Oh fun.

Jana Shelfer:

It was called King Dad Court, where you know they had our dads. They had, like this, reception for our fathers and and I remember, actually at the football game they named the king dad and it was neither of our fathers. And when they named the king dad, they brought the king dad out on the field and put, like this, this crown on him and this big cape and they carried him on this big throne and and my dad leaned over and said I'm so glad I didn't win.

Jason Shelfer:

Like that's the first contest my dad has ever said you won for me, dad, but I'm glad he's glad he's not on the football field right now.

Jana Shelfer:

Yeah, so we always had that in common and anyway. So we've been looking at photos this morning of King Dad and I just got so teary eyed because I just was overcome with gratitude Like how lucky are we to have such wonderful dads to even nominate, and such wonderful friends to where we both felt safe enough and we both were rooting for each other, and to have the memories to look back and laugh about that.

Jason Shelfer:

Right, I just got goosebumps because it's one of those things where we get to look back and realize how beautiful and wonderful life is and then also a reflection point of saying what's something I can do today that lends me to that great feeling and something that I can create as a legacy for my future. So her dad has created that legacy and it lives on in her and the family because of how wonderful he was and how loving, caring his zest for life. And where are we not caring, loving and having a zest for life? So how can we lean towards that on a daily basis? Because it's such a beautiful story Just listening to you and watching you recollect this legacy that he left.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes.

Jason Shelfer:

It's powerful.

Jana Shelfer:

And it's so crazy because in this moment I grieve. I grieve for her, I grieve for her sister and her sister's kids and her mom. I grieve for them and everything they've been through in the last 10 days of looking for him and just worrying. He went for a hike. He literally went out for a hike. He's 75 years old, very healthy. He was a captain, a pilot, and they've just been overcome with. Is he? Where is he?

Jana Shelfer:

yeah and then now they have this resolution and now, of course, the the grief sets in and there is this overwhelming loss, but there's also this overwhelming celebration of life and all that he has poured into not only them, but, like I was, I am so far removed. I am so far removed and he has touched my life.

Jana Shelfer:

Here's the other thing he he was really into show skiing yes and so it's so crazy because Wendy was my first friend that that was her hobby during the summers. Her summer job was to go down to Florida to Cypress Gardens and she skied at Cypress Gardens.

Jason Shelfer:

And she's still show skiing 30 years later.

Jana Shelfer:

And she is still a show skier and I always thought, wow, that that's such a fun summer job. And she would always talk about oh my gosh, it's so great because all the skiers are in shape and they have such camaraderie.

Jason Shelfer:

This year we're setting a new world record, or Guinness Book of World Records.

Jana Shelfer:

Yeah, it's like summer camp, but they're getting paid for it. Do you know what I'm saying?

Jason Shelfer:

What a horrible position to be in.

Jana Shelfer:

Right, and there's something I believe in my subconscious that led me to coming here, without me even realizing it. I believe that Wendy had a. She planted a seed in me in college.

Jason Shelfer:

Of sunshine possibilities in Florida.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes, and as soon as I got to Florida.

Jason Shelfer:

So let's go to Disney and oh, it's beautiful, it's sunny, it's warm. I'm not leaving.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes, yeah, that's exactly what happened.

Jason Shelfer:

I can only imagine losing a father like that, or losing anyone like that. A lot of the times the worry is that they were alone. A lot of the times the worry is that they were alone and I can I actually just talking to you and feeling how you felt about her dad. He wasn't alone. He was with his family, he was. He was alone. His energy and presence was more about how loving and connected he was to his family the whole time. I mean, it's very sad, Like I feel deep sadness, but I also feel like there has to be just the knowing of the love that was carried through all of it.

Jana Shelfer:

And I guess that's what I want to talk about today, and that's what I'm trying to say without really saying it is that I'm over. I feel this sympathy for them and their family, and yet I'm overwhelmed with this gratitude that I had. I was one of the blessed ones that crossed his path.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes.

Jana Shelfer:

Do you know what I'm saying?

Jason Shelfer:

Absolutely 100%.

Jana Shelfer:

And I feel like so many times in life. We have a choice as to how we want to perceive things, and many times people get stuck in because they don't know how to process it. Grief hurts right, yes. It's one of those feelings.

Jason Shelfer:

It's a feeling of deep loss and someone explained to me as grief is an overwhelming sense of love that has nowhere to go. So when you focus it towards the gratitude, towards the memories, then you have a place to actually put it. But it's also there's that shadow side of it where it's like is that gone, or can I now embody that energy, I think, to impact people the way I was impacted, so can I can.

Jason Shelfer:

I forward impact people the way I was impacted, so can I ricochet that love to someone else close by or a community close by, and then that allows kind of that transition through the stages of grief, because it's like I want to focus it towards this one thing, but now how do I focus it towards all the gratitude, the love, the connection that was there and then also take that and push it forward to the next people in my sphere or the next community that I'm engaged with?

Jana Shelfer:

So I guess what we're really saying is transmuting that energy.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, recognizing it Into a higher vibration. Appreciating the energy and appreciating yourself for feeling it and then saying what's a great next step that I can move towards in allowing this to transmute? Yeah, Transmuting is the perfect word for that.

Jana Shelfer:

Which is so much easier said when we're so far removed from the situation.

Jason Shelfer:

It's much easier when you're objective and you're outside of the the circumstance because I know how deeply I felt it and again, I was just.

Jana Shelfer:

I mean, this was a friend from 20 something years ago yeah and it was her father. Do you know what I'm? Saying like 100 like so, when it the closer it is to your heart and the closer it is in your inner circle, the deeper you feel it and the harder it is to yeah, it's easier to be an armchair quarterback right.

Jason Shelfer:

It's easier when you're watching the game to talk about the game. Then, when you're on the field, you have limited vision, limited perspective and you're part of the process and so we get like it's easy to sit back and just talk about it, but it's a but I've had tears.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes, I mean, I know we're talking about it, but I still.

Jason Shelfer:

You're deeply emotional because but it's also lending itself to the beauty and the experience of having known.

Jana Shelfer:

I mean, I also woke up at one o'clock in the morning thinking about these things.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer:

And thinking, oh my gosh, you know, and putting myself in that situation and really empathizing and feeling the feelings and thinking about my own dad.

Jason Shelfer:

That's what I was going to say is, I think, because there was that closeness, that your dad and her dad were both on the king court right, so it's like it could have been my dad. And I think that lends itself to compassion in other areas of life too, because you can look at anyone's circumstances and say there but for the grace of God, go I, you're right. So let's not judge, let's not lean into finding differences, because we could all be in any given situation at any time, at any time, yes.

Jason Shelfer:

And I think, when we look through a lens of love, when we look through a lens of compassion, when we look through a lens of progress, it lends itself to a more progressive and connected society.

Jana Shelfer:

Yeah, I know, anderson Cooper does an entire podcast and he only talks about grief.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer:

He only talks about grief. Yeah, he only talks about grief. So I know that this is an emotion that has layers and layers to it, and there's so much more to it.

Jason Shelfer:

I think the big thing for today is just looking back and recognizing the love and gratitude and just the availability of the experience, because it it. I can hear it in your voice. I never met him, but I hear it in your voice and it brings connection to me and which I feel gratitude for.

Jana Shelfer:

Well, once again, you know how you know, sometimes I think well, action, you know. Action, the way he impacted me, how can I now impact others? Because that's the legacy right. That you can now pay it forward in a way. And he was really into show skiing and in fact when I went to his obituary it said in lieu of flowers, make a donation to his show ski team yeah.

Jana Shelfer:

And so I'm like I'm going to do that, I'm definitely going to do that. And not only am I going to do that, I want to start.

Jason Shelfer:

Show skiing, show skiing yeah.

Jana Shelfer:

I really do. I want to start show skiing. You've been inspired.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes, and this is a continuation of the inspiration from 30 years ago.

Jana Shelfer:

Right.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, which is beautiful and huge. Sometimes we have no idea how we impact people. The other part of that is sometimes we wait until someone dies to recognize it.

Jana Shelfer:

That is true.

Jason Shelfer:

So what if today, we called someone who has influenced us, inspired us, created a drive in us that we've been able to lean into and found power, joy, excitement in life.

Jana Shelfer:

And told them, yes, and tell them. I think it's important to tell them.

Jason Shelfer:

So the gratitude and the showing of appreciation for that gratitude.

Jana Shelfer:

Okay, and I need a Kleenex.

Jason Shelfer:

Let's wrap it up.

Jana Shelfer:

I need to blow my nose, thanks for joining us and keep Living Lucky®. Bye-bye. If the idea of Living Lucky® appeals to you, visit us at www. LivingLucky. com.