EPISODE 5: The Space To Fall Apart with Sae Mickelson
In this episode, my friend Sae Mickelson and I delve deep into the raw and profound topics of grief, loss, and depression. Sae shares her personal experiences with the loss of several family members, including suicide, and how these experiences have shaped her outlook on life and death. We also discuss the epigenetics of death and how personal traumas can impact future generations. Join us for this fascinating conversation about finding compassion and understanding in the face of profound loss.
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Sarah: When I my friend Sae if she would come on my podcast to talk about death, she was an immediate holy fuck yes, absolutely. Sae has lost a number of family members and people important to her, including to suicide. So know that going into this conversation, even though you are listening to a podcast called About Death, so I'm not sure if a trigger warning is really appropriate or, or necessary.
There is some discussion about what right one has to stay alive or not stay alive and why somebody might choose that. It's a really compassionate, thoughtful discussion, and
we also get into how to live with the depression that comes along with grief, really that comes along with being human, how to navigate that. , and most uniquely, what we get into is the epigenetics of death, which is such a cool thing to think [00:01:00] about, how your death impacts your lineage.
I hope that you enjoy this conversation with Sae Mickelson.
Sarah: Hi friends, this is your host, master coach and teacher Sarah Yost. You are listening to the About Death podcast, the show about living life on your own terms. Stick around if you want way more of what you want with way less anxiety.
Hello. What's your name? My name is Sae Mickelson and I am very happy to be here. I'm very happy you're here. So tell us I don't know. Give us your death chops. Tell us, tell us what your experience is with the dead people in the dying. Wow. I love that. You just said it that way because I have to tell you, I do.
What's your body count say? Right. It is pretty high. And I gotta [00:02:00] say that does it feeds into my self concept. You're absolutely right. Like I feel. actually pretty badass because of all the knowing and that grew over the years. When I was one of the younger people that I knew to lose very important humans in their lives, First, you know, it's extraordinarily lonely and then it becomes kind of powerful because you're if this is your proclivity and it is mine, you appreciate being able to be the person that people call when they lose someone.
It feels really good to be able to turn it around from the once just extraordinary lonely, oh my gosh, all the loneliness and all the sadness and All the confusion when you're younger of what, just the surrealness to be able to turn it around. And then also it does build a sense of, shit can be going down in your life.
And you're like, nobody's dying. And you mean it. You're like, Listen, I know how bad it, [00:03:00] I, I used to cringe so hard when people would say, well, you know, I can't get any worse than this or something like that. And you're like, Oh honey, Oh, it can get so much worse. We will not say that.
Do not tempt the gods. And also that's ridiculous. Of course it can always, even death itself can get worse. Depends on how bad it's going to go for the person. I mean, I've seen suffering that is just, Ooh, that. You hope not to have happen to anyone, much less someone you love deeply. So it is, it's, it, there is a sense of, I know a lot of things that I could not know otherwise.
Yeah. It's a strange form of gratitude, but it's a, it's a wonderful one actually in so many ways. Feels like an honoring. My mother was a very long decline and then died when I was
um,
Sarah: 21, I believe. And she had been ill my whole life. And by the time she died, she couldn't even move. So her death was a relief in some ways, but extraordinarily surreal too, [00:04:00] because it had been such a big part of all of our lives taking care of this person.
Interesting. So that was a really, that was a really, really interesting layered loss and probably haunts me a lot in many, many ways because of just how awful it went down. the other losses around that time too, I had a wonderful aunt that had been very important to me. On my father's side that passed away only in like her 60s.
And I just was really close to this person and she felt like it was a compounding thing to happen around my mom dying because this person was also just a really good friend. So that was shocking. And also getting to have the juxtaposition of one that was so profound in my life and then one who was extraordinarily important.
I'm not trying to really measure them, but it is an interesting thing to have. Yeah. Yeah. different experiences. Right. So that was really amazing. And then, yeah, [00:05:00] and my dad and then my father, my grandfather, I mean, I could go on and on. You just, you just start realizing, oh, okay, life has unbelievable loss to it.
And honestly, I can't believe it. I'm 52. And I have a lot of friends, colleagues. I'm thinking about it. My, on my husband's side of the family who have never had anyone really die. Maybe their grandparent. Which is no easy thing. I mean, that could be extraordinary. Maybe they've had that and they're like in their 40s and 50s.
Yeah. So it's incredible. The different levels of experience and what that means to your life. I've noticed how much a part of their passing. Were you were you present? I was present for my father's when I was 32, 33, something like that. Yeah, right around there. He was on life support. I was the one that had to take him off life support. I had to fly to California because I'm the next of kin and do this unreal thing. In emergency level, we thought he was going to be [00:06:00] getting out of the hospital and suddenly he's on support.
So, That, oof, wow, is that something. My mom was one of those things where she wanted to die alone, I believe, because we were there so often, and then she was in a home at that point, and so it was by herself. But I would say probably about a couple of months I was there and then multiple people know I was there at the very end, but maybe not there for the death.
So it is a, it's a, an experience, right? Yes, it is. It really is.
At the deaths I've been present for, I feel like their spirit left at different times. Like one, I felt like it hovered,
and one I felt like it left when the body left, and one I think left well before the body left. I mean, it's wild how, you know, you can definitely feel when it's not there anymore. Yes. But until, until my mom died, and I really, you know, I just spent a lot of time reflecting, I hadn't realized how. How different just that that edge is it's [00:07:00] not a shut on shut off switch Exactly
more like a dimmer. It's like a dimmer. Wow. Yeah, You say that and I think how many times I've probably been around people who? Emotionally left their bodies before they physically did huh, but you could feel them still in there That there was yes, there was well that there was physical life, but the emotional You Self that happened for me with my dad for sure sitting there while he was being taken off life support and just sitting with him for the next few hours being with him.
I felt and heard his voice of I'm not, I'm not actually here. And honestly, back then I didn't know about disassociation or any of the wonderful mechanisms that our brains can do, but it didn't feel in any way. Like I was trying to separate from the experience. It felt like I was having a conversation with him.
Which was really beautiful when I look back now. I [00:08:00] wasn't really analyzing it like I am now. And then my aunt, who adopted me officially the day that she suicided, I spoke to her that morning and Could never have imagined anything that was going to occur. Could not have fathomed in a million years. My family has gone through a lot of physical and emotional things.
But we just really don't kill ourselves. We just don't, that's just not been something that has been Not part of the No, not Not part of the family behavior patterns. No, no, not, not part of our shenanigans. You know what I mean? Where you're just like, what the, really? Not even in family lore. We just don't.
So it never in a million years occurred to me. This is a person that wouldn't even take a prescription drug. You know what I mean? Like she was no harm could be done to her. And from my mind, from any source that she could manage to say no to. Well, so I looked back and talking to her, she was, she was [00:09:00] leaving her emotional body.
Oh, interesting. Mm hmm. So you think she knew what was coming or she was on the way? I do. Yeah. She was thinking about it in this place that she probably had not been very often in her life, but that she, so when, cause looking now I can see a whole host of things that I wouldn't have been able to see. The emotional self seemingly left because it was very, she was flat in a way that I had never heard her.
And not easily, we, we, we connected very well. So I noticed that she was just a little bit removed in a way that I just had no words for or understanding. Sure. Sure. And I thought, this is okay. We're going to talk again tomorrow. And then I will go out there if I need to. So you knew she was in some sort of state.
Yes. But yes, but I always thought as always before, Oh, we, cause a lot of things were occurring that were actually really good, which is so fascinating. Right. She was going to be moving [00:10:00] to this exact place she wanted to go to. She had all these things lined up and it was almost like it was too much for her.
Yeah, that's why my mind couldn't have fathomed that we wouldn't be able to buoy back up a bit. And, her emotional body was absolutely leaving when I look back.
What do you make of her making that choice? Does that piss you off? You know, that is such a fascinating thing. I, I only went to a trauma therapist after this two times. She was wonderful. It's just that I had a lot of other really great resources, but I went to her because it was, The whole thing was so complex and it was so unsettling for me to know how to manage it for my own kids, for my kids.
Not, not to mention myself, but my kids. I was really, really worried about what in the world, this is a grandmother they were very close to. And she asked me that question. She said, are you angry? And I said, I don't know how to explain this at all to let you know how far I am from anger. I am the farthest thing from [00:11:00] anger.
I don't know what I am. So it made my mind at the time think, well, maybe I'm angry and I will be eventually, and it'll come out. No, it's been five years. I'm not angry. I'm not, I never was. She, she had to go. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what it's like to suffer that hard. So what would I have any business in?
condemning any of that because I still can't imagine. I mean, I can because I know her, but if I'm in my own space, I can't imagine that she left like that. So it must have been so unbelievably painful that she had to go. And that sounds so, I know, just stunning. Like, what do you mean? How could you? No. I think humans go through a lot of things in their own mind, in their own looping thought processes that are more painful than there are words for.
I've always felt like, I mean, it's your body and your choice, like you get [00:12:00] to do with your body what you want. You get to treat your illness, you get to keep a fetus, you get to stay alive or not. I know that there are times when You know, maybe we want to intervene because maybe you're not in your right mind and we want you to come out the other side, like, are you sure you really want, you know, like, I know that there's a time where maybe we want to step in.
I'm just not as alarmed as people are when somebody is suicidal. I'm like, okay, like, if you want to go, you can go. I mean, really, I think that care is so important actually for people to hear because there is this unnatural process of squelching things like that. The truth is, obviously something does need to die because you're feeling it.
Something's gotta die. Right. Some way of thinking, perhaps some way of living that is not working for you, maybe the whole shebang of it, but also maybe just a massive chunk of it. Something does need to die. 100%. I absolutely wish that she had [00:13:00] had a view of what could die off instead of the whole, the whole thing.
Yeah. Yes. Oh my God. I would do anything to create that. But the reality is Yeah, I mean, suicide is not crazy. It's called there is something that is so not working here that it has to go. And of course, certain personalities are going to take that on fully themselves as if they are the whole of it. That's interesting.
You're not able to separate from. Yeah, right. And how painful is that if you think literally the whole of all the problem. Huh. You know, not even just the problems, like if you really internalize and grow that thinking process, my God,
boy, it's a lot. I mean, even just, you know, I'm very skilled at, at separating from, from my emotions and my experience and my thoughts and stuff. I'm very skilled at that. And when I [00:14:00] am not able to find my way to the outside. It is so overwhelming. I, then I don't know how to get out. I don't know how to, everything is real.
You know, you just caught up in that, in that tumult. And if you live like that. Full on prison with no end. Right. I once heard that the Maasai in Africa do not perceive of their life going forward if they're in prison. So they, can die. They don't kill themselves. They just can die. They can literally shut down.
I have no idea if this is lore or not. But, or some, some mythical thing, I'm going to guess though, that there is probably some history to this where, no, I will not be imprisoned. And I think about how so many modern human beings if you are imprisoned in your mind, you have all the ability to move anywhere you want in our culture, really for the most part.
In so many ways. Obviously, there's lots of different aspects of that, but it's the choices [00:15:00] we have and then at the same time, no, you don't. If your mind does not register that or there are very real circumstances that have gotten you to a place where you cannot see what is actually possible, it feels the same as hearing about those Maasai who, if you imprison them, They die.
I think that our culture, because we have such a anti suicidality complex, that it creates tons of shame around that desire. And because I am a therapist of sorts, right, my role is that, but I'm not a mandatory reporter, I have people who are much more candid with me, that will come to me because they don't want to be imprisoned.
for their thought. They don't want to be sent to the emergency room because they're having a thought. Now, I assess the best I can, like, how serious are you? Is this going to happen? Or are we talking about what, are you telling me what you're experiencing? And so are you telling me that you have a plan, which I don't think anybody's going to tell me if they have a plan, frankly, usually.
But [00:16:00] for people to have the ability to it. To say, I'm thinking like this, I want to unalive myself. I have somebody right now who's really suffering. She's a good friend of mine and, and she regularly wants to unalive herself. And I love that, that she could just tell me I'm so pissed. I made this stupid fucking promise that I wasn't going to do it.
So I just have to stay. And I'm like, I know fucking sucks. I'm really sorry. Like I love that we can. I'm sorry that you're not allowed to unalive yourself. I get it. Living sometimes it's hard. It is hard. I know this isn't going to last, but I don't blame you for wanting to go, man. I'm glad you're staying.
But, but there's just so much shame around that concept, but, but it is what you're saying. You know, that, that voice that says I want to die, that is a real voice. Something wants to die. The misery wants to die. I had a mushroom trip this summer and it was, I'm not gonna say bad, but I'm gonna say it was a fucking lot and [00:17:00] I heard Something say I want to die and I was afraid that it was me I I wasn't sure who it was and then I got really afraid that I was gonna unalive myself on accident because I was having trouble maintaining any sort of separation because I was, you know, so mushroomy.
And so that was scary because I knew that I wasn't allowed to go. I knew it wasn't time, but I was afraid that some aspect of me would, would get my body without me realizing it. And I, and I heard this voice so strongly. And then I heard it the next day, I went back into that state and I heard it again.
And at that point I had some separation and I, I thought at the time that it was my relationship saying like, I ha like, let me go, I have to go. and now I wonder if it was my mom saying, You know, if it was my mom's spirit saying I need to go, I don't know, but it was such a real voice and I, I didn't know whose it was and I wasn't sure it was mine, but I wasn't, I wasn't able to navigate around it.
Oh, and that's so amazing to even think about because our shutdown [00:18:00] around. The very real sensations that a good chunk of human beings are going to experience one time or another. And then you said then the shame that is strangely, you know, talk about fixing something into place. Yeah. You know, because you think I'm going to stay there.
Yeah, I better fix these thoughts and now you're fixed into place in this. Something's wrong with me. You, you, we squelch any self understanding or self exploration when we think the voice of, you know, I want to die or I want something to die is so scary. It's just like that. My, my son always when he was little, he would get so mad and he was definitely probably born in an interesting generation for him because he said, parents are so safety safe is what he used to call it.
And he's just like, we basically police the heck out of little kids and make them feel stupid. Right. And it just really bothered him. He's, I [00:19:00] mean, and he was not ultra impulsive even. So he's like, I know that there are people, you know, if the kid's on top of the roof, I get it. Like, that's a problem. You got to talk about, Oh, how are we going to do this when you get from place?
But he's like this constant, we can't even play dodge ball, mom, everybody's so safety safe, you know? And I think about that with our, our talking around people's capacity day to day to manage the very real struggles. We get to explore that. We don't have to be afraid of our feelings that we strongly experience, which can be yes, something here needs to die.
And we can't even explore that because we're so busy going, Oh my God, you can't say that. Oh shit. Right. Like, had I not been able to know that that was somewhere when I could have easily But it's like, Oh shit, I didn't know I was suicidal. I guess I'm suicidal. Let me treat my suicidality now. Pathologize the heck out of it when it's.
Yeah. Exploration of being a human. Right. Something wants to die. Okay. Let's make sure that it's not me tonight. But other than [00:20:00] that, let's, let's yeah. Let's explore. Yeah. What does it feel like to take a deep breath and say, Oh, I'm not sure what that is yet, but I get to look at it and see what kind of self understanding is possible here.
Did you ever want to unalive yourself?
I think I've had a few times where I thought this sort of stress is untenable. Yeah. This sort of feeling is untenable. I'm not sure I would have said it, you know, that eloquently at the moment or whatever, but I, I definitely thought, Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You know, that sensation of I, I know. And what would it be like to just not have that?
I don't think I've ever been in the space of, Boy, I, I'm going to think about how that could be. How would I do it? Which I, I mean, I know that, right. And it's a release valve for a lot of people where they're, where they have this story of how they can get out of things and they can create a lot of release and [00:21:00] relaxation for themselves knowing that's an option.
And that's why so much of my coaching, I'm like, let's look at what options are truly there because most of us can't see our own options. And even if it comes to the simplest things, we think, Nope. It must be X or Y or maybe Z, but that's it. I don't think I've ever had that, but I have felt, Ooh, I don't, I can't, this long term not an option.
Yeah. So I do understand that small sliver of it. I don't know though. And that's what my heart always thinks when I want to ever think about de shaming the hell out of that. I think, I don't know what it would feel like to walk around really believing there's no other option than feeling this way and that it was coming at any moment to heighten and heighten.
Yeah. When that's your only option.
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Sarah: And knowing my, my birth mom suffered so, so much with no option to remove herself from that situation. I mean, she became fully paralyzed by the last year and something, living in a home and died from bedsore sepsis. Oh, gosh. It's ridiculous. I mean, I look back now and I'm thinking, No fucking way did that actually happen, but it did.
And let me tell you, it did a lot of demolishing to the whole of the family. Nobody ever got over that. That's why my aunt was like, I got to go like older. I'm not going to ever be in that situation. And I don't, I never learned how to manage myself since then. She didn't, this was her sister that [00:23:00] she took care of.
It was a holy mess. And yeah. So I think to myself, Do I have an understanding more than probably quite a few people do in this world about what that would be to feel? I gotta go. Yes, but I always think oh to truly Be in that level of pain or misery. No, I Still never even begun to experience something like that and I have so much tenderness and empathy around it so much compassion for it because
It's pretty unfathomable. I'm imagining from what I could see. It was, there's this book called My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Have you read that? Or do you know about? Oh, well, it's not that much fun to read, but it really stuck with me. And it was this woman had, I don't care what the situation was, but some sort of internal shit show.
And so she just anesthetized herself for a year. And that I have had that fantasy when I was younger, especially where it was like, Okay, I don't want to die, but I don't mind checking out for about five years. And then I'll check [00:24:00] back in with y'all like that, like you like, this is untenable. Yeah, I don't know how to get out.
And I'm fucking done. And a nap is not long enough. Yeah. So not longer. Not long enough. So I'll just come back in five years. So so this book really struck me that now I get it. She just like put herself out for as long as she could possibly put herself out and then like woke up and checked back in. I mean, well, that's what, I mean, most addiction is, right?
I mean, it's brilliant, really. It's really a mechanism. It's like, oh, I'm probably a shaman and I don't know how to manage not having my shaman nature fully allowed for, so I'm going to flip and dumb myself out of this, you know, as much as I can, or. Float as much as I can or shut down as well as I can. I mean, it's understandable.
Makes a lot of sense. It sure does. We have to take the edge off one way or another, whether it's with breath or community or alcohol [00:25:00] or Instagram, you got to take the edge off that impulse. Again, de shaming that impulse. Of course you do. We all do. It's part of the human projects. That's why we have rest mechanisms.
That's why it's all built in. Yes. So what we're craving makes a lot of sense. It's just, you know, is it going to cause us more problems down the road? One of the things we choose Do they have a lot of fallout? Yeah. Checking out for five years would probably wake you up in a whole,
you'd be like, Oh, maybe I need another five. Whoops. Shit. Oh, no. Yeah. And your haircut's terrible. And I wasn't here to tell you. And so is mine. And nobody plucked these chin hairs. They are very wiry after five years. Oh, my God. Exactly. So how do you, so one of the things that we talked about before we are talking now is, is like how to hold space like, like, how do you [00:26:00] hold, you hold it and how do you, how do you hold space for other people's grief and how do you hold space for your own when other people are.
bad at it around you? Oh,
that's like 12 questions. So this is so good answer, whatever when you want. My mind, my mind was so happy with all of that though, because these conversations are so important that it's just like, Oh, first and foremost, what comes to me after you said that is that exact sensation of being around.
Humans who have not had a lot of loss and watching the layers of suffering that they go through, it can really be igniting to yourself. Like, Oh, I remember feeling that this was completely surreal too. Ooh, I remember being horrified. Like you and I were talking about a little earlier, like about the banking situation being worse than anyone could ever imagine.
You know, I mean, and just watching the layers of suffering that occur where they're gobsmacked how many humans in their life have no idea how to help them or be with [00:27:00] them. Yeah. It's painful stuff. And that can be very igniting. And so one of the things, I think a lot about how can we give ourselves, I have this joke I always say in my mind, insty space, like where you give yourself an instant amount of just.
Space around yourself that it's not about pushing anyone else away. We're all connected. Always. We really are. It's like you look out on the horizon and my chair that I'm sitting in, it's connected to that horizon through all the other connections that are in between the two. It is what it is. But we do get to have mental breathing room, you know, emotional breathing space.
And so being conscious of that has helped me so many times just say to myself, okay, everyone's having their own experience in this moment and I'm going to get real clear on how my own expansion and breathing and my own contraction. In the exhale is my own and then whatever else, I'm just going to be here the best I can [00:28:00] just be here.
And that seems to be extraordinarily relieving to others. It sure as hell feels relieving to me. So that might be why a lot of it pours forward as relief. And there's no solutionizing. There's no fixing. There's no running around. There's no saying the right thing. I love the humans who show up and really try to help and do, but honestly, that's such a default mechanism for so many people that it's such a relief.
To my own system to not be one of those people running around for the human that's experiencing this loss. And then it's also a relief to be able to remind myself that being and breathing with my own breathing space is instant breathing room for everyone. It gives permission galore. I mean, it's such a generous, gentle thing.
Because then you're not putting out there, you know, in the human field, your own anxieties about whether or not what you're doing is right, or what does this person need, or what do I need, right? It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's just go into a suspension of a softer space for, for a bit and be, and that can feel [00:29:00] really powerful, really empowering and powerful, paradoxically in its softness.
Yeah, that's the, that's what came to me, just thinking about how. For the most part, there's nothing to do. Nothing to do. It will keep unfolding and keep shifting quickly anyway. Have you ever noticed when someone dies everything speeds up? For so many people, it just speeds up. They're all like, Oh, what are we going to do?
Okay, we do things with the things they had and the things that we, you know, celebrate about them or whatever. It just speeds the hell up and everybody gets highly activated and what they're going to do. Get done, and it just feels ridiculous by the time you've done multiple deaths that matter and any kind of self care for, for your own experience, you start to feel the ridiculousness of that and.
Yeah, you know when. When my mom died, I was so sensitive to other people's experience. I wasn't interested in it at all. And I felt a [00:30:00] real like, like she was mine more than she was anyone's. And, you know, I'm an only child and she didn't have a partner and my kids were close to her, but. But she was mine, and so the grief was mine, and I didn't have any question about my ownership over it. And I understood that other people had their own grief and their own relationship with her.
But what people would do is, and I understood then and I understand now that they were agreeing on their grief experience, like, Oh, this is awful or whatever, and I never thought it was. I never thought it was and I remember that when my, my youngest was in the ICU when they were five weeks old and people would say, Oh my God, it's so scary.
It wasn't actually. And I didn't appreciate it. I remember even then I was just so clear and so present that I, I wasn't interested. I don't want your fear. I don't want your your imposed emotion and, At one part of one day, somebody could send me a picture of her and I appreciated it.
And another part of another day, it was like, fuck you. I didn't want to see that right now. You know, there, there was nothing that anybody could do right. And [00:31:00] so I also knew not to hold it against anybody for the most part. And then the, the morning that we walked her to the OR for them to take her organs, I was, I was crying a lot and the chaplain told me that she was worried about me and I have sort of never forgiven her for that.
Fuck you. There's nothing to be worried about. I am crying and I can handle my tears just fine. And and also I'm aware that other people don't. Don't cry as much or as freely or as easily as I and so when I cry in public I always feel like I'm fine with it. Just leave me alone. It'll pass Anyway, that's just so sensitive to other people's experience and how they they impose them On me.
I do. I hear you. The management of other people's emotions is that sensation of I have to somehow manage this. That was the one thing that that trauma therapist in that I think the second session that I [00:32:00] went to said that just completely relieved me. I didn't realize I was absolutely trying to manage what I felt my kids must be feeling because I could.
Yeah, you could have. I mean, I really had no understanding of what in the world to do for myself at that moment. I was just, and so the idea of trying to care for anybody else that I assumed was feeling the same level that I was, she said very simply to me, just know, which I so appreciate because I hear what you're saying.
This is your own experience. They are not experiencing it the same as you are. Did they love their grandmother? Oh, I, she said, I, I, I'm not. Speaking of death, but this, you were the next to her, right? This is yours in a way that you get to have and you do not have to manage it as if it's happening to them in the same way to them and you're relieving that.
And I thought, Oh my God, what? What a [00:33:00] relief and what truth it was, it was relieving because it was so obviously true as soon as I heard it. Right. Oh, and so I think about that all the time too is like don't have anyone else managing my emotionality about what they're closest to, but that's a really beautiful thought to for us to even be able to.
Describe when we're talking about it here, giving people the permission to not manage other people's emotions. Now, that doesn't mean that people aren't going to not get the memo and still have you, I don't even know, managing things that are just silly almost to, to the very well meaning profound, but it's, you truly get to have the permission to fully experience your own experience and not manage anyone else's.
way of going through it.
I love that you were like, Oh no, this is mine.
I'm not, I'm not unclear here. And she's mine. And I appreciate that you loved her. And I, and I loved hearing, you know, that people loved her and, and I loved [00:34:00] that, but Nobody has the cellular experience of losing their mom. Nope. And this death, the way that I did. So it is yours. Yeah. there's so much, so much that I believe that I find comforting around her death and around where she is now and, and all of that.
And I'm comfortable with feeling sad and missing her and stuff, but somebody explained that even if you're spiritually whole, even if you're psychologically whole, like even if you really, really are okay with it, that cellularly, that on a cellular level you've never lived. Without your parent and that has been such a comfort to me.
It's a very big deal because it's the truth That's why I always call it surreal. I mean that word is used, you know, yeah lightly and well, it's just fine I mean, I'm all for bastardizing the English language, but the truth is
It is. Sure. Big fan. Truly surreal. [00:35:00] Big fan. Big fan. Completely destroying language. But, especially for the point of humor, but I mean really surreal describes it if you go into the true meaning of that word. Yeah. Because it is not in your reality. No, it can't be. Yeah. You came from this human and they have known you all of your life through all the iterations and you have this, no doubt, some form of soul contract that you're here to do an awful lot of important mortal things with.
there's so many, Oh my goodness, spiritual traditions talking about how many times have we been in this person's life? I mean, you know, there's a lot of different thinking out there depending on your, background or your view. They're a big deal. And so, yeah, it is a cellular level. And also what I think is that there is, you know, the epigenetics of [00:36:00] loss.
When you lose someone that is so cellularly you know, intrinsically linked to you, that is an igniting thing for the epigenetics of it. if we want to look at it from many other traditions, it's like they're now joining all ancestors. Go ahead. Okay. Describe epigenetics. So, I mean, this is something that multiple old medicines have been talking about forever in Western science, quantified that your cellular knowing.
So in many ways, instinct, but in many ways, just plain old experience goes back seven generations. Right. And it means if we're going to look at it from a Western science point of view, that if your great grandparent went through a famine, You are cellularly different and respond to food in a very different way.
You actually, interestingly enough, because of their very real struggle, you have less chance Of coming down with different metabolic diseases. [00:37:00] It's almost like their strife created a certain resiliency in you. It's very fascinating. Yeah. That was so cool. The, the, you know, the Irish famine the potato famine and all, I mean, there's some, because people went ahead and did that research and it, what do you know, look at that, it actually is extraordinarily quantifiable.
So here we are. We have many generations that Western science is saying seven. I'm quite certain it's way beyond that, but that's what we can quantify. isn't that in the Bible too? Isn't it seven generations or whatever? It's always the two, like all the native cultures. It's like every decision you make should be considered.
What will this. Do for at least seven generations. Okay. First of all, it can't be every decision for the overthinkers in the room. Let's talk about the big ones. Why? Bye. I really get it. I'm just gonna. Insert myself, right? Is it the Sherman toilet paper today? Or is it the Scotts? Well, what does it mean? Oh my God.
Just the [00:38:00] big ones. Oh, right. Oh, yeah. Well, right. They mean like, I think, tribal council. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, you know, that's, oh, geez. See, we got, our ancestors got the memo wrong and we're like trying to, Oh, shit. Now we got to decide which cereal and that's seven generations worth of responsibility.
You know what? Okay, I'm going to answer it real quick and I want you to finish because it's about this. So I just listened to, so I just got obsessed with this woman. I don't know how to say her first name. It's Alua, I think, A L U A, Arthur, and she is a deaf doula. She's fucking rad, and her book is called Briefly Perfectly Human.
Anyway, and she talked about the way that she makes decisions is she likes to say, when I am dying, how will I feel about this decision? And if it is one for which she will have an opinion when she's dying, then she considers it. And everything else, she's like, it just doesn't matter. And I feel like that's fair.
No, it's true. It is the absolute truth. That's great. I love that. That's a good filter. I always think of, I always think of as deathbed, like, thought processes. I think of that [00:39:00] so often, especially when I have been through the slow decline in suffering. Let me tell you that'll hammer that home. I mean, I'm very fortunate from a young age, I was like, Oh, you gonna worry about that?
Let me tell you, that is not something you're gonna be worrying about. Well, it's not. Right. It's no, it's just not that big of a deal. Right, no, and that's, Hopefully I pass that down, cellularly, to my offspring, and theirs, and theirs. Because that is a, an instinct that would be extraordinarily helpful.
And, yeah, that's the beauty of the epigenetics studies, and, and the, and the science out there, because our western brain loves that kind of, oh, I gotta understand how that's actually possible. Yeah. But it is. Absolutely. Not just possible. It's how it is. And of course, because human systems are brilliant and of course, our bodies know how to take in information from the past.
How else would we survive as well as we have? So, but, but something like death of your [00:40:00] closest, right, is going to be, Igniting to all that cellular knowing. And I happen to think that it's an incredible opportunity because there is so much knowing there. I think that's why we can have such profound experiences.
You know, people say the veil is thin because you have all this ability to access emotions that otherwise, or, or notice things or connect with others in ways that are not possible until you have, I feel like those lit up cellular responses. To the absolute surreal thing you are experiencing of this profound loss, you know, I think you're right about that but then also part of that the clarity is my experience is I just Do not give a shit about 90 percent of the things I gave a shit about I just cannot get myself to give a shit Some of its depression like some maybe I should I, I'm working on caring, but then a lot of it, like I just, like, like people, I am so accepting of people and I hope this one [00:41:00] lasts past my grief cloud, because I'm not working through so many filters of judgment and, and whatever, that makes the veil thin.
That makes the deal. it's not just okay. Nothing matters because we're at the end, but it's like, yeah, no, it's fine. You can actually notice what is probably always there. Yeah. But is so beaten down by the noise. Yeah. Because I'm not listening. Because I don't have the capacity to listen, I don't have the capacity to, to do extra or, or give a shit about a lot of things.
And so what that does is it, it hones my ability to hear what I, do care about, what is in my sphere. Truly. And I'm just thinking about even the thought process where you said, you know, some of that is probably depression. And I think It's such an important experience for us because it softens, see we, we, gosh, do we have this scary connotation of that, you know, cause it slows us down, oh no, we're slow now, [00:42:00] oh God, right?
What could go wrong when you slow down everything? You might not keep up, you might not, What does it mean about me? Right? I'm not, I'm not safe if I'm not able to, you know, run hard all the time. And it's just. Depression, you know, we nominalize things. Understandably, we like to be able to define, we dumb it down by naming it so often too.
Because it's an expansive experience to be depressed. When you depress something, you push it and it squishes out to the sides. It expands. And I just think that that is something that is so important when, when we pathologize anything, but like, you know, depression, oh, anxiety, what anxiety most of the time is like extraordinarily important.
To learn from and be with and depression, especially because in a culture that is so obsessed with fast and fixing and being, well, you know, your mom, she's gone now got to live your, [00:43:00] come on now. Wait a minute. Make her proud. I'd rather not. Oh, I'm here for the disappointing get in line as my dear friend says, she's just like people in her family are all like, Oh, there'll be so disappointed or, Oh, that's so disappointing.
It's like, get in line, get in line, disappoint away. Watch this. Plus, like if people want to talk about, or they want to, you know, anthropomorphize my dead mom or yours, it's like she would like, or she wouldn't like, and I'm like, this bitch is fine. She's great. She's the only one among us who is fine. She probably doesn't have preferences.
She's swirling around in the light. Truly. Doing the things that are completely Unfathomable to our little earthly, silly brains. So stuck in the muckety muck, you know, I mean, exactly. Who knows? And also guess what? Just like with our kids, my wants, desires, and worries [00:44:00] do not get to rule your experience.
That is not okay because you are here to have your own experience. So same with my. Dearly departed all of them. I'm not here to say, Oh, well, I hope you're not or who I better or put anything on them. Yeah, they're having some other very important. Next soul experience or whatever that I don't even know.
Right. But I imagine it's probably something that they don't need anybody kind of trying to fish him or lasso him back into this one. What we do with their memorial is not making or breaking their death experience. We're so self important. Send a thank you note to. We're like, well, you know, I might ruin my mom's death by or dead time by being I know that's so ridiculous, you know, about this depression thing.
You know, I think it's a mechanism, you know, back to that mechanism of taking the edge off and doling it. [00:45:00] And, you know, I, I think I really see, you know, every time I've been depressed, it's sort of like my systems like simmer down, stop, stop, stop, stop moving, stop talking, stop. Stop it. And then something renews.
But the problem is, and, and I, I have a lot of understanding about that and when I'm in it, it's more difficult, but you know, what's more difficult about it is, and I wonder what you think about this, but the, the thing that's hard is, is I have personally gotten to the point where I'm like, okay, I'm not trying to produce.
I mean, I would like to be able to go pee without using all of my spoons to just talk my ass out of bed. But if that's what it takes, I'm here for it. You know, it's like, like, I do have a semblance of acceptance around it. But what comes with depression inevitably for me, Pretty much everybody I talk to is the critical, nasty, nasty that comes with it.
It's like, can I just be depressed and not talk shit to myself the whole time? Like that's the project. And I think, okay, so on one hand, I would like to philosophically and spiritually say that it is an important [00:46:00] mechanism. And because I have probably almost never been able to experience it without inner criticism.
I, I really think it's a nervous system response. I mean, obviously it's a nervous system response, but I, but the, critical voice goes with it. And I, I don't know if there's a way, I don't know how to peacefully be depressed. I, this is such an important conversation. Oh my gosh. Okay, cool. I'm not, I'm not contributing to the site.
That's fine. But you just shut up and not like kill me. See, that's the thing, right, is the interwoven defense mechanism, of get your ass up because otherwise you are not safe. Right. When, when are you gonna, when are you, it's the, it's the inability to, to get yourself to do something that's so terrifying.
Right. And what's so, what's so interesting about that though, is that that is such a smart mechanism and how brilliant is the body because that's a brain mechanism. The body's like, no, it's, I need to squish [00:47:00] out, really expand in a different direction that is heavy and quiet and slow. I am messaging this and the brain is going into hyperdrive that we are, right.
We are in danger. We are in danger. We might not be able to move quickly enough should something need to, right. And it's create such a distrust because then the body's like, no, no, seriously, I'm not joking. I need this slow right now to process. to do integration in a way you brain have no idea how much work this is.
This is talk about unbelievable amounts of efforting. Yeah. We are doing something when we're feeling depression. And yeah, that's, what's going to be really cool. You and I will have to do some Serious talking about how we could utilize the unconscious work, you know, subconscious work [00:48:00] that we've been doing to really help the entanglement of those two things.
Yes. And right. The voice and the criticism. It's like, it's like, I don't believe it itself. I don't really believe anything you're saying and it still fucking hurts my feelings every time you say it. Sure. That's my level of enlightenment. I don't really believe you but it's still fucking hurts. Well, and I can't get you to stop, right?
Cause your body's going to be like, I'm not here for that. I mean, the body is very wise, right? And to be like, how dare you just as if you were standing next to somebody on the train and someone was getting berated, you would have a visceral react. How dare you speak to that person like that? I don't care what they've done.
That's not effective or, or, or connection connection in any way. Okay. Same thing. The body is like, I am very wise. And I happen to know. But that's a bunch of bullshit. And the brain gets louder and louder because it really is just trying to be sure we are in. It's like slapping. I always feel it's like, it's like, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, because it gets my attention.
For sure. I hear, okay. Right here. I hear you. And it [00:49:00] probably works to an extent, do you know what I mean? Like, eventually, the brain looks for evidence and it's like, Oh, well, she did finally get up and start going. We must have yelled loud enough, you know? Yeah, it's a feedback loop of, Oh, it worked. Well, that's interesting.
I wonder if you just, I wonder if you, if you go into a depression, if you just refuse to listen, if you just, Do the exact opposite of whatever your head says. I wonder what that would do to the feedback loops in the neural networks. Like set a freaking timer for another six hours or whatever it is and be like, Oh, I'm going to listen to my body, which says you are in an expansion in a different direction than the up and out right now.
I keep thinking of a mammogram. Every time you talk about squashing, I see a boob.
Well, but that is a depression! I know! It is a squashing so that we can really see what's there and see it in a new way. That's it! Same, same self, but we are now from the new angle. I think our [00:50:00] bodies are so fully brilliant. Oh, it is almost too much for us to not, not almost. It's too much for us to take in, in our little simple brains.
We nominalize it. We like pathologize it. Oh, that's a problem. Yeah. Because if we are that incredible where we have brilliant mechanisms that have us spread out and go into deep, deep, space that is just not the norm. Oh, what else is possible? And of course that got demonized in culture. Oh my God. If people listen to themselves that powerfully, Oh, I'm depressed.
And it's actually not only not a problem, it's an incredible opportunity for my body to be exploring itself in a different shape. Even what culture would collapse in two seconds. Yeah, I have this dance where I take a citalopram, which is just a, like a pretty benign [00:51:00] antidepressant and I take it a few days a month.
It works with my hormones just as needed. And I'm a big fan of, I'm not a fan of like living on Advil, but I'm a fan of if something hurts you take Advil and then you can, it like supports your system to, to nourish itself. So like, that's how I think about it. citalopram. And so I do this. dance where I start to feel myself go down and I know there's something there for me and I want to feel it and I want to be with it and I want to honor it and I'd be with it.
And then at some point I'm like, why am I doing this? I could actually just take a citalopram and would feel a whole lot better. And so at some point I do, cause I'm like, actually that feels like the loving thing to do. And then I remember, you know, what's real and I come out of it or whatever. But it's interesting that I always go in.
Like, oh, something is here for me. And then it's, and then it becomes like, Oh, how long can I hold out? And then, and then at some point it stops feeling useful, right? It's not feeling useful. It stops feeling like there's something [00:52:00] here for me. And it just feels like unnecessary chatter or something. And, and I guess the way that I think of it, so I, and I always do this dance, I haven't, It's like I, it's like I haven't committed to one or the other, you know, so I just hold out and then, I don't know what I was just going to say, but anyway, it's just this interesting little thing I do.
It is. And, but I, when I hear the phrase and I, I, boy, do I understand how long can I hold out? It's such a, such a great early childhood mechanism, right? Because that's literally the skillset you have, which is, Oh, this is really painful. Can I hang with this tension, so to speak, right? Can I hold it? Like, it's like, how long can I hold it?
Hold it. And then it's like, but that can become where it becomes an either or where it's like, well, okay, now it's really, really heavy. Oh, it's heavy. Oh, this is really heavy. And I always think about how often so much of life can be quite heavy. And then the only thing we have the true power to set down weight wise is ourselves.
In many ways, in a lot of people's minds. In other [00:53:00] words, I can't put anything else down, which of course we both know that's a thought process that can be lovingly looked at, but, but I can't put myself down. And, and, and so it's almost like I'm going to hold myself together as long as I can. I'm going to hold out.
And then, I'm going to finally be kind to myself and that talk about a loop. It's a true loop and it's like, yeah, you're not being unkind from the beginning, knowing you have options and also just seeing what is there to learn and maybe just changing that full dialogue of how long can I hold out?
It's like, I think it's when it becomes that question. How long can I hold out that I'm like, I don't think this is necessary. I think, I think actually that is the turning point because I don't want to, Oh, I feel bad. Let me take a telepram. I don't want to do that. But I also want to support my system to find its way back home.
And if I'm busy using all of my resources, trying to navigate A chattery brain, I feel like it. So I feel like it frees up the resources to do the rest of the work that needs to do. And I guess, you know, this is, this is good. I think that when it becomes [00:54:00] that question, how much longer can I stand it? How much longer can I hold out where it's like, okay, and that's and we're done here.
And that's the answer. And we're done here.
That's so interesting though, the modern messaging, it seems to me about any sort of difficulty is, how do you get through? Right. How do you get through? How do you get through? And I try to go under, under, under all my thought processes to see what aspect of that is still in there.
How do I get through? How do I get through? When really every moment unfolding is just that. Everything kept shift. It just keeps shifting. It keeps moving. And the holdout had the most hilarious analogy happened the other day in my brain. I was taking care of some flowers in a vase and they were Some of them, oh yeah, they're looking old. Other ones, oh, perfectly opened.
And I just wanted to give a little more water and remove a few things. Well, the most beautifully opened flower, as soon as I tended it, [00:55:00] it fell apart. Wow. And I went, Oh my goodness, like that. Yeah. So how it can be. Yeah. I mean, if you looked at it closely, it was a little brown on one tiny, tiny edge, but really it was fine until you helped it in any way.
Right. Can I help you? Can I help you? Can I help you? Can I make it easier? All the things fell apart and I thought, but then we make a problem out of the fall apart and there's nothing wrong with the falling apart. Things fall apart. That's how we regrow. That's how we re invigorate. That's how we learn. I mean, otherwise we are just sitting there stiff.
Don't touch me. I'm fine. Don't I look fine? You know.
Yeah. Don't text me. Or that earlier question, that earlier, you know, conversation that we were having about holding space for other people's grief and people holding space for our grief and us holding space. Not, or whatever. if I, if I wanna fall apart, I'll fall apart. Exactly. It's not a problem.
That's the worst [00:56:00] thing that's ever happened. It's actually inevitable. Yeah. Let's, let's hope I do. 'cause then we can breathe again, right? For a minute. Until we have to get, yeah. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. It's, that's right. There's an edge to all of it. Each portion of it. Each moment. The unfolding. The unfolding.
Yeah. That little flower was the. Absolute embodiment of how long can I hold out? ? Yeah. . Yeah. And the answer is only until I get help . Yeah. Isn't that true? Yes.
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ABOUT SAE:
I am a Life Coach who is a longtime practicing Licensed Acupuncturist and Classic Chinese Herbalist. Being a healer is natural for me because of my innate understanding of physical and emotional suffering. Since a young age, I was managing family illness and looking for ways to heal myself. Over the many years of my work and life I have discovered specialties and techniques as well as new understandings about healing. This all created for me the learning that I feel most alive listening to humans then looking at the individual ways they can care for themselves and the world around them, gently.
Connect with me: www.saemickelson.com
Timestamps And Topics
00:00 Opening Thoughts on Death and Grief
01:13 Introducing the Host and the Podcast's Mission
02:02 Sae Mickelson Shares Her Experiences with Death
08:31 The Complexity of Grieving and Suicide
15:46 Understanding and Dealing with the Impulse to 'Unalive'
22:24 Navigating Personal and Shared Grief
29:54 Navigating Grief and Ownership of Emotions
30:22 The Personal Journey Through Loss
31:00 Challenging Societal Norms on Grieving
31:33 Embracing Individual Grief Experiences
36:47 Understanding Epigenetics and Ancestral Connections
42:08 The Power of Depression and Self-Reflection
49:41 Exploring the Depths of Personal Healing
57:05 Concluding Thoughts on Grief and Growth
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