Episode 11
The Hidden Faces of Grief: When Loss Isn’t Just About Death -11
Grief isn’t only about death—and this episode shines a light on all the other losses we rarely talk about. Join therapist Sarah Peterson and physicians Dr. Marlis Beier and Dr. Dean Sharpe as they unpack the grief tied to transitions—ending relationships, the loss of health or identity, kids leaving home, or simply life not turning out as planned. Through real stories and reflections, they discuss concepts like vulnerability, impermanence, and the “death of dreams,” inviting you to rethink what is considered a “legitimate” loss. If you’re navigating change, feeling stuck, or searching for a way to cope with letting go, this conversation offers comfort and deep insight. Tune in for encouragement, practical guidance, and a reminder that acknowledging grief in all its forms is both necessary and healing.
Dean Sharpe trained as a general surgeon and worked in private practice from 1980 to2002. His interests expanded and in 1994 he earned a master’s degree in health administration, becoming the first Vice President of Medical Affairs at St. Charles Medical Center. He shared this position with his surgical practice until 2002 when he became a full-time administrator. Informatics and computerized medical records arrived, and he facilitated that change at St. Charles from 2004 to 2006 as VP Clinical Informatics. In his two administrative jobs, relationship and change facilitation were his major roles.
His passion as facilitator and educator led to helping design and facilitate “People Centered Teams”, an organizational and personal seminar beginning 1992. The program grew from St. Charles to national, impacting the lives of over 5000 participants. He helped design and teach Death and Dying workshops at St. Charles in the 90’s with the goal that caregivers would become more comfortable with their own mortality as well as their patients. He believes the physician’s role is to facilitate the relationship between patients and their illness, which allows healing, regardless of physical cure. Teaching the Sacred Art of Living Community seminars are a natural extension of Dean’s interests because of the wedding of psychological and spiritual aspects of the inward journey. He has facilitated Healing the Healers seminars since 2008. Starting in 2017 he has facilitated with his wife the 10-month track (part of a program called Anamcara second year) Soul of Wellness: The course focuses on the lifelong questions “Who are you and what do you want? He is married to Marlis Beier, has two daughters and three grandsons. He lives in Bend, Oregon and enjoys cooking, skiing, hiking, gardening, traveling and being with his family.
Marlis Beier started her professional career in Obstetrics and Gynecology in Bend, Oregon. She found gratification accompanying patients facing life transitions. She learned about grief when her best friend, brother and beloved patients died. Her chronically ill daughter asked her to help her die at age 5. Grief comes not with just the loss of someone but also loss of identity and ability. The diagnosis of MS meant repeated grieving loss of ability and with time, her identity as practicing physician. She found similar gratification volunteering in hospice being with the dying. That’s where she met Sarah. Their deep friendship held space for Sarah as she grieves the tragic loss of her daughter Marley at age 2 from a drunk driver on a Sunday morning.
Marlis has been a spiritual seeker from an early age, learning from many traditions and teachers. She has become a mentor to many through teaching at hospice and the Sacred Art of Living Center. Although she teaches many diverse subjects, her intention is transformation of suffering. Her greatest love is her family, including husband Dean Sharpe, M.D., two daughters, Marissa and Anneliese, and grandsons Thielsen, Sawyer and Kepler. The saga of Anneliese’s health challenges since age one inspired her to become a better doctor, mother and companion to anyone facing illness or challenge.
Sarah Peterson is a licensed clinical social worker with over 13 years of experience in medical social work, hospice care and in private practice. As the founder of Clear Mourning, a nonprofit organization dedicated to shifting the culture of grief through innovation, support, and awareness, Sarah brings a deep understanding of grief and loss to her work. Her personal experiences, including the tragic loss of her two-year-old daughter and father, have profoundly shaped her mission to provide compassionate support to others navigating grief.
Sarah holds a Master of Social Work from Portland State University and has extensive experience in both private practice and nonprofit leadership. She also serves as an adjunct instructor at Portland State, runs her own private practice, and provides supervision for licensure candidates.
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Transcript
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Sarah Peterson [:Welcome to enduring grief, healing practices and true stories of living after loss, where we dive into real, honest conversations about the journey through grief and the support that makes it possible. I'm Sarah Peterson, an LCSW, and in this space, I bring my experience as someone who has walked this path, as well as my work with my nonprofit Clear Morning. I'm often joined by two incredible guests, Doctor. Marlis Beier and Doctor. Dean Sharpe, both incredible people and physicians who've spent their lives caring for people and have supported me personally on my journey through grief. In our first episode, I'll share my personal story and how I've come to this work, why it matters so deeply to me and how it might resonate with you. Whether you're navigating your own loss or standing by someone who is, this space is for you. Join me as we uncover the stories, the struggles, and the hope that lead to healing.
Sarah Peterson [:Let's walk through this journey together. Welcome back to our podcast, enduring grief, healing practices and true stories of living after loss. We are very excited to be in your ears again, and I'm here with two of my favorites, Dean and Marlis, who you now hopefully know. And if you don't, go back and listen to season one to get to know us all a little bit better. Welcome, guys.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Oh, I'm so happy to be here.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yes. Thank you.
Sarah Peterson [:Good. Good. Well, we wanted to talk about all the other types of grief today because one thing that comes up a lot, I think, for humans in general is a sense of loss or, hey. This isn't what I had planned for my life or my career or my family, and now I'm living in the trenches of what that means for me. And grief isn't just about death. It's about the lives we expected to live and the dreams that we had to let go of, the relationships that unraveled, and the identities we had to shed. So, yeah, today, we're gonna dive into all the other all the other we aren't gonna leave one behind. Just kidding.
Sarah Peterson [:That's not possible. We're gonna go into the quiet ones, the hidden ones, and the ones we rarely talk about but feel just as deeply. And I think one of the reasons why we wanted to do this episode is because this podcast really is for everyone, and I know I don't want anybody to feel like, oh, well, that's not for me because I haven't suffered some enormous loss or death of a loved one. Because the bottom line is, yeah, you will someday, probably. And also, we know that you're out there experiencing grief in all sorts of ways all the time. And our culture just doesn't do a great job of preparing us for that. And at our nonprofit, Clear Morning, our mission is to shift the culture of grief through support innovation and awareness, and here's one way we're gonna do that today. How's that sound, guys? Great.
Sarah Peterson [:Inspirational. Oh, good. I love being inspirational. It's my favorite thing. And I was kinda worried today because I was like, do I feel inspired? I don't know. Do you feel inspired today?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yeah. Oh, good. I do. Okay.
Sarah Peterson [:I might need a little bit of that inspiration.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Oh, I'm ready.
Sarah Peterson [:She's ready. How about you, Dean?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Oh, this is such a huge topic. We could talk about this for hours and hours, so I'm looking forward to it.
Sarah Peterson [:Alright. So we're telling our listeners to buckle up, get comfortable, because this is gonna be a seven hour podcast episode. Just kidding. We'll keep it at the forty five minute mark. So when you guys hear all the other grief, what are the first ones that come to mind?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Well, for me, the really kind of big one that's related to what we've already talked about, which is where someone dies, is where we lose a relationship that's important to us in a way that's separate from dying. We lose relationships because we outgrow them. We lose relationships because they outgrow us or because we get mad at each other or because we move to opposite sides of the world and lose touch or because our life trajectories separated in some sort of a way. And I think because we're a culture that doesn't honor grieving and kind of allows us to slide by these incidences, we have a tendency to miss a lot of them except for the ones that might be really huge and dramatic. I mean, the fracture of a relationship through some unforgivable slight or comment or betrayal is complicated then by the forgiveness issues that go along with it. But I think there are times when a relationship sort of slides away over a period of time where we wake up or we think of that person and we say, oh, yeah. What about them? And we have this little glitch inside of sadness. We have a tendency to ignore that.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. I agree. Because if we pay attention to it, it might mean we have to do something about it.
Marlis Beier, MD [:No. No. You'd there's nothing we need to do. I mean, the best answer to grief, really I mean, the answer to grief is grief. Yeah. Just simply the willingness to feel the sadness.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, that's doing something.
Marlis Beier, MD [:To feel the sadness.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. I mean, like, if I let that in, then I have to do some action. Well, I have to do something about it even if it means, like, letting my guard down. That's doing something about it. Right?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Grief is ultimately vulnerability. Because if you want to stay in denial and delusion, then you protect your heart. And you protect your heart all the time, and you don't let the emotions of life in. And our favorites are probably grief and fear, but, I mean, grief is at the top. Our culture is don't worry, be happy, and yet grief is the doorway to gratitude for what you've had.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay, guys. If that made you mad, just take a breath. Like, that's hard to hear sometimes.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Right.
Sarah Peterson [:That is really hard to hear because if you're looking at your life and you're facing divorce, financial ruin, loss of a job, being told that this grief is the door to gratitude might be hard to hear, don't you think?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yeah. No. It is. I mean, and that is the transformation of the suffering. Yeah. Because until you've felt the grief to the point where you've gone through all the anger and grief I mean, depression and get to acceptance, then probably you're able to notice the gratitude.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And if we think about it for a second, if we go back to the the fact that underlying all of this is a sense of helplessness or sadness or being afraid, oftentimes what happens is we cover those over with sort of pseudo powerful emotions, which convince us that really we're in control of all of this. We get angry or we write that person off. We say, well, the reason I'm not in relationship anymore is because that jerk moved away or that idiot has moved on or all of the ways that we disempower what might have been a very sweet and important thing in our lives, and we protect ourselves from truly feeling the power of that loss by covering it over with some fake pseudo powerful emotion, which leads us to think we're really in control of all this.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. I can definitely understand. I mean, I had a very important person in my life just sort of peace out for about six years, and it was such a different type of grief because when they're dead, there's really not a whole lot of negotiation that can go on or, like, you know, you're kind of at a dead end when you question what's going on and what's happened because you know on some realistic level, you're not gonna get those answers. And when somebody cuts themselves off from you, it's like, oh, but they're here, and I want the answers. And there's a certain amount of anger. Well, we know that I get angry, but, like, it was very well, I was seeking the power through my anger for sure. Like, oh, now what's going on here? You're a terrible person. So that's much easier than sitting in the mystery of it all.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Right? Right.
Sarah Peterson [:Which was the grief. And I was scared to grieve it because then it kind of also felt more real in some way. And vulnerable. Well, yeah. I hate that. So just saying.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Just saying.
Sarah Peterson [:And I think too, like, yes, death happens to us as grievers where we are experiencing a loss and that's happening to us. But in the instance of a conflict or a fractured relationship that we're grieving, I think there's a different sense of, like, victimness to it.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Oh, I think there can be, but I don't wanna deny the fact that oftentimes, even in those those situations where someone has died, oftentimes, there'll be a victim component to that or a blaming component of the person who's died as if it's their fault. Yeah. And yet, as human beings, we'll even disempower the grief of the death of someone by replacing it with those more powerful emotions of, well, I'm just gonna be angry with that person for dying. I mean, who do they think they are to up and die on me?
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. You're right. I can see that for sure. We can do it with all the things. Be the victim.
Marlis Beier, MD [:I would love to add a different variety of grief, and that is a loss of a job or loss of an identity. I loved being an obstetrician gynecologist for twenty years. And in the way I described the loss, it felt like I got fired from my job because I had MS and the lack of compassion and flexibility on the part of my partners. But that was probably the deepest grief I have felt in my life. I mean, I I really felt like I lost who I was, what my life's meaning was. I felt betrayed by my body, my profession, my colleagues. And in the depth of that grief, I mean, I read Job. I listened to classical music.
Marlis Beier, MD [:But I also I was pissed. I mean, I really thought God should have done this to somebody who didn't like being up at night. Or I thought that I was really angry at my partners. And I've only had contact with one of them since then.
Sarah Peterson [:And, Marliss, my goodness, there's so many layers of loss.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Oh my god. It was
Sarah Peterson [:The relationships with all those people. Yep. And I worked The role identity Yep. As a physician. Yep. Yep. Yep. Physical health.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Well, I mean, it's the death of dreams, the death of plans, the death of identity, the death of Relationships. And I hope that you can hear how that same experience is true when we do lose a job or a marriage or a role. I mean, even, you know, your kid going off to college. I have accompanied so many women in such depths of grief with the loss of active parenting and feeling like they don't know who they are Yeah. Anymore. I mean, huge grief. Just your kid goes to college.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, you know, my son, he's about to head to Europe for two weeks without me, and I'm very excited for him. And I'm so sad that he will survive well two weeks without his mama. There's a loss there for sure. It's a transition.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And we go through transitions all the time like that. I mean, it's not just your child going off to college. It's your child going off to kindergarten, your child going off to grade school, your child becoming a teenager, handing my daughter off at her marriage. In every one of those situations, a part of us dies to who we have been and how we have conformed our lives and the place where we have operated comfortably for some period of time, and then suddenly, there's a change. Our child no longer needs us in the same way, will no longer relate to us in the same way. When my daughter's married, they didn't need a man to do those kinds of man things, like fix this or bring a tool over for that. You know, they now had a husband who took care of all that, and my relationship to them shifted in many profound ways, which I wasn't even able to articulate at the time that it occurred, but played out over a period of time. And it's a sadness and a requirement to die to who we were, to how we were, and how the relationship was, and then reinvent it in some kind of a new way.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And it's important that we actively move into the new room and reinvent it.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. I often talk about grief like where, you know, an event occurs, a loss occurs, whatever level you wanna see that at, and it's like everything's on the table. Who I am, what feels safe, where my dreams lie, all those things. And one by one, we have to take them off the table in a period of redefinition. This now means this to me. Getting up in the morning and having my first cup of coffee means something different if I am not also rushing to get kids to school, etcetera. Agree?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yep. Totally agree.
Sarah Peterson [:And, you know, one of the things I love about our podcast is that I think we are very good at saying and now what to people. You know, like, yeah, we can all talk about how these things occur in our lives. We can experience them as part of the human experience. And what do we want people to know? Like, now what? Something has transformed in your life. Something has changed. Everything's on the table. What do we want folks to know? Now what?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Well, the way I think about it is that when something like that occurs, like my daughter got married, what happens is that all the old ways in which we related to one another, kind of the guideposts that we organized our life around, get pulled out of the ground, and we're standing in territory that's unknown. And there's a sense of wobbliness and the sense of being lost. And for me, one of the most powerful things that I found that's important to do is, first of all, feel the feelings that are there in a real way, to acknowledge the reality of the situation. The second thing is that is to get clear about what it is that I most want moving forward. So I've lost the relationship as it was, but I can be really clear that I want to continue a relationship in the situation that I'm sort of using as an example. And so what might that relationship look like now, and how might I work towards it? You know, it's the same thing. We lose a job. We move to a new city.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:All of the changes that occur in anyone's life. And the reality is most of us navigate those changes pretty well, But I think we do it kinda numbed, and we do it binge watching Netflix and maybe having a little bit more wine every night, and we try to be as unconscious as as we might be and then hope we'll stumble over the new reality by luck. And I think it's a time to get some clarity about what you really want and how that might manifest and to set new intention or at least reiterate an old intention which might look a a new way.
Sarah Peterson [:That's what I was gonna say. It's like, if we can find the goal, that's step one. But then to question whether or not the goal is achievable is step two. Because if it's to return to the way things were and have it be the same, then that's not achievable. Right. How can we adjust?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yep. Thoughts, Marlis? Oh, and I would recommend the universal practice of journaling because as you journal, it's like you connect your right and left brain, the linear sequential, and the imaginative and creative sides of your brain, and both are able to write down, you know, what's happened, the emotions, what's really your experience. And it it is actually to keep a grief journal is one of the most powerful things you can do because you'll notice how grief changes as you write over a year and or you have some ritual that you do every day. And then with time, that writing can become like the creativity of what's next. When I lost doing obstetrics and I really considered what was it that I wanted, I recognized that being a charm school dropout, I wanted to have the same intensity of relationship with people in transition that I had in a OBGYN. And so I started volunteering in hospice, and I shifted my focus from birth to death. And so I think in truth, in a lot of that came through journaling and seeing counselor.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, and this is where Marlis and I first crossed paths way back when in 02/2005. Yeah. Never to return to the same. Amen. Right? Right. Well, I'm glad you mentioned the journal for a variety of reasons, but I love that idea of going back and being able to see how things have progressed or shifted for you over time. And that's one of the exercises I do with people a lot is, you know, even here today, you know, Marlis, what do you wish looking back on those first few days, months, post practice? What do you wish you knew? What would you whisper in your own ear?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Boy, I was like you. I was just puking and rave I was in an altered space. I don't know that anything would have mattered to me. I just had to weep and rage and I mean, you know, I think you'd have to give me about three months in. You coulda said something to me. And then I think it's all about love because when I remembered my highest values are love and learning, and if I use those as my focal points as I continued on in what you you know, it really was several years of really dark, difficult grief time. I'm wiser, more loving, and I learned so much.
Sarah Peterson [:And I don't think that we could ever make those darker days less dark. Okay. And that's not my point in this exercise. But even if it's the next day after an experience to be able to say, you know, what did I need to hear yesterday? I needed to hear that I was still gonna wake up this morning, or I needed to hear that I was gonna keep food down eventually. Whatever level of intensity you want around that, but that's the wisdom you're gleaning throughout this whole process. If you can step back and go, yesterday, I I would have told myself, hey. This is what tomorrow's gonna look like. Like, there's wisdom there, which I think also then can look like comfort.
Marlis Beier, MD [:So I would take it back and say the thing that would have helped me is the same thing I said to you.
Sarah Peterson [:You are doing it? Yeah. No. It won't always be this hard?
Marlis Beier, MD [:No. It won't always be this hard, and you are doing it. And can you just take the next breath? I mean, it really was an incredible experience of focusing on my breath and really knowing that my breath is nourishing me and holding me no matter what.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. Dean, thoughts on this approach?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Not other than having accompanied Marlis through that period of time, and it was tough. From the standpoint of a support person, there is really nothing that I could do to fix it. I mean, the only way to fix it would have been to get our practice back at that point in time. And so it really is a matter of just journeying with being present for you know, in the best way that you can. And we all have different skills around how we do that, but it's kind of a a persistent, constant be in there and just accompanying journeying with.
Sarah Peterson [:And I suspect you had your own set of grief experiences related to this occurring in your family and all the things that that meant for your wife and beloved?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Oh, yeah. I mean and there's my grief for her, my anger over what happened, and all of that. So, yeah, the person who is accompanying in a situation like this where the impact is on both of you in a very real way, both of you are going through it at some level.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Well, and I can't help but compare this also to anyone who has chronic illness, anybody who's aging. And there is a trajectory here, And it is just progressive repetitive loss and grief with the loss each time of another ability, another appearance, another I mean, you know, anyone who's starting to get wrinkles.
Sarah Peterson [:As they look at me with my laser face right now. And I do have a laser face right now because I'm fighting I'm fighting against it. But, I mean, I even think of, like, my eyesight. You know, I'm 45, and I have a perfection for vision. And now it's very difficult to read without glasses what's in front of me. It's there's a loss there, which is in part vanity. In part, I'm just not used to wearing glasses. And even in this example, I could turn to myself and go, okay, what would I tell myself yesterday? Don't forget your glasses.
Sarah Peterson [:It's important. You will get used to wearing them. It's okay to need glasses because it is harder to live life without them than with them. But it's a reframe. It's a reframe. And there's like I can then go, oh, you're learning something along the way, Sarah. You're learning that classes are okay. Life is easier with them.
Sarah Peterson [:Try to remember them. Humility. Humility.
Marlis Beier, MD [:That's called humility. Yeah. But actually, you aren't your body. You aren't your thoughts. You aren't your emotion.
Marlis Beier, MD [:They come and go.
Sarah Peterson [:I have a really wonderful dear friend who's very resistant to the glasses, and I I can't help but think she's gotta need them. She's older than me. She's gotta need them, but she's not giving in yet. Okay. Right.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Nope. Everyone has their own journey. Yes. It's really remarkable how what you may think is important and how someone should approach this aspect of life is just freaking irrelevant. Totally.
Sarah Peterson [:Like, what if somebody's, say, getting divorced and they're like, but I'm not sad? Do you think there's still an exercise of grief that could occur? Oh, yeah. Because I don't think people believe that. I think they're like, no. No. No. I'm sick of the son of a gun. I'm free and clear. I'm not sad at all.
Sarah Peterson [:And yet, they're there.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yeah. I think often what happens in that situation is that it's very much like the person dying after a long protracted illness. And what happens is we grieve along the way in smaller increments. You know, somebody who loved somebody once deeply and then over a period of time falls out of love or a series of betrayals, large or small, finally resulting in a separation, which didn't occur as some giant explosion suddenly, but instead dribbled off the court, so to speak, that there's been grieving along the way. And a bunch of that got covered up with anger, and I think we don't do ourselves any favors by ignoring the dimension that is grief or sadness at the same time as we also recognize the dimension, which is a sense of freedom from something which wasn't any longer serving us.
Sarah Peterson [:Is that called nondualistic?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:There's a nondual aspect Good
Sarah Peterson [:entry. Way to bring it in, Dean. Well, that is One of our favorite table dinner conversations here, folks. But you're right. Like, we don't have to pick a lane. I can grieve the loss of something that I'm also okay watching let go Right. Or watching go away.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Right. So I'm gonna go for the jugular hair.
Sarah Peterson [:Who's? Mine? Anyone. Anyone's. Okay. Get ready. Protect your neck.
Marlis Beier, MD [:It is the grief of the loss of an unmet need or the loss of a dream of how it could have been. And, you know, you can take something easy like the person who says they're not sad about losing their marriage. They had a dream, and it they ultimately, at some point, will grieve the loss of that dream. But I'm not done because you have to grieve who your parents weren't, all the unmet needs, and that they couldn't provide for you because that's who they were, and it's the way the system's designed. But if you are able to grieve what your parents couldn't or can't do, it frees you up to be in relationship with them in a way that's no longer victimized and no longer so hurt and so angry, but more in the moment. Okay.
Sarah Peterson [:I like everything you said, and I'm worried that we made a leap. So I need to tie this into how one who feels like they've been set free from their marriage might also grieve. Tie that back into the parents.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Oh, it's the loss of a dream.
Sarah Peterson [:Loss of a dream.
Marlis Beier, MD [:The loss of an unmet need. There we go.
Sarah Peterson [:And I love what you said, Dean, too, because we are practicing the grief along the way, especially in a relationship that's dissolving before your eyes, whether that's marriage or work or whatever. Like, there is this grief that's happening along the way. And I think the more that we can be conscious of that in the moment, obviously, great, even as we reflect, though, to acknowledge, like, hey. Wait. I was Seth for ten years or whatever the thing was that led to whatever this ending looks like to give credit where credit is due because there was likely work being done in some capacity along the way.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And sometimes I find myself wondering whether some of the times where we allow stuff to drag on so far beyond the time when we should have said, you know, this is just not okay anymore, is because we're afraid of actually engaging with the grief. It's like, I don't wanna let go of that dream. I don't wanna let go of the disappointment, and so I'm just not gonna feel those things, and I'm gonna numb out, and I'm just gonna keep on doing what I've always been doing. Yeah. And we end up in sort of a stalemate place, and the stalemate is just comfortably numb.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. Which in some ways, like, I understand people have to do that to survive. You know, you can't you not everybody has the luxury of leaving the job that absolutely is torturing their soul or leaving the relationship that's torturing their soul? And how can we continue to be conscious about that?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Right.
Sarah Peterson [:Like when to say uncle?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Oh, yeah. I mean, because I mean, there have been times in every relationship that I have felt tension. And there's a place where I trust the process enough that, you know, I always wonder and or hold faith that this person has showed up in my life at this time for me to learn something. And so I continue to stay in the relationship until somebody's either their behavior has crossed a boundary, and then it's a question of cash compassion and boundaries. Or it's clear that, you know, that was a relationship for that time in my life, and that time has now moved on.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. And what Dean's saying is don't let the fear of that No. Emotional response stop you from doing what's right for you.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Right. There's a place where all of these things we've been talking about, all of these places of change, transition, of loss really points to the reality of human existence, which is that it is actually all pretty impermanent, that everything that we love, we will ultimately say goodbye to. Either it will it or they will leave us or move on, or we ultimately will come to our dying time and need to say goodbye. And so to deny grief and to try to not have any in our lives is to stand against the flow of the entire universe
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Which is basically, it's all impermanent. And so there is an aspect of being more conscious of even the smaller changes and the smaller times when we have just a tad of sadness because we're letting go of something that was precious to us, but we also knew we were gonna need to leave go of some time. That the practice with impermanence over a lifetime, if we're able to be conscious of it, is ultimately gonna help us in the time when we're all gonna face into our own dying. Yeah. That in practicing at dying to who we were, to how we thought it should be, to how it's always been or configured, and moving to whatever the next room is helps us ultimately to do it at the end of our lives with maybe a bit more grace and a bit more consciousness and a bit more resolution than we might have.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. Well, in the example that keeps coming to my mind as you're talking about this is leaving the family home. Right? Like, you raised your kids there. You loved your house, and for some reason, you had to move. Now do you wanna be able to drive by the house and look at it and remember what a wonderful home it was to raise your children, or do you wanna say I can never go down that street again? Those are two very different long term experiences for the spirit, and I think it's a metaphor for the whole thing we're talking about. Do you wanna be the person that can go back and stand in the yard and say, my god. It was great living here. Or do you wanna be forever forbidden from ever driving down the street that meant so much to you?
Marlis Beier, MD [:That's gratid grief. Gratid grief.
Sarah Peterson [:Mhmm.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Gratitude and the grief at the same time. I mean, there's so many things I miss about that house. And that I love that house, and I was so sad to go. And I'm so grateful.
Sarah Peterson [:Not to live there.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yeah. Oh, I'm so grateful not to live there.
Sarah Peterson [:Both things. I mean, you guys I was I was thinking of my own childhood home and what it feels like to drive by there or sit in front of the house whenever I go back to my hometown. But, I mean, you guys, your home was third what? Thirty five years. Thirty five years you lived there in your beautiful home, which I was just telling Marlis I dream about because it was it was also a very warm place for all the people in your life.
Marlis Beier, MD [:I wanna add a practical solution to times of intense grief and confusion and just go in nature.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Mhmm.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yeah. There's such a reflection of the change, the death and rebirth and everything in nature. Every morning I wake up and I look at our monument in our yard that is so elegant and beautiful and a memorial to our adopted son who took his life. And I look at the trees and the birds and the woodpeckers and just the sky. And, I mean, it's really that every morning is how I can hold both the grief of life and the beauty and gratitude and that moment. I mean, just take a walk in nature, and you will see reflected your own inner experience.
Sarah Peterson [:And it doesn't have to be a gorgeous mountain walk in a resort town or community. Like, wherever you are, there is something green to go look at. Wherever you are, there is something that you can notice about the natural world, and it can be a perspective. And sometimes, I'll be honest, like, that perspective really frustrate let me guess. I got angry because I was like, oh, all of this is also evidence that the world has continued to march on. I mean, it's the Mary Oliver poem. Right? The naps getting eaten and all the things it goes on. And also, I think if we can pause or return to it regularly, we can feel a shift that says there's comfort here in knowing that, oh, this is so impermanent and so we are so small.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Well, it's all belongs. Yeah. Right. And you belong. Even me? Yeah.
Sarah Peterson [:I don't know.
Marlis Beier, MD [:And all the emotions.
Sarah Peterson [:I don't know. Hey. Have you guys ever driven by your old house and just sat there?
Marlis Beier, MD [:No. Could you?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:It's Marlis has been back a couple of times.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Several times and met with the woman who bought it Uh-huh. And toured what they've done with the house. And
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, wow. Was it painful?
Marlis Beier, MD [:No. It was kind of exciting to see how they had you know, a new family has taken that gorgeous respite of a place and created a haven, and they love it. I mean, to have someone else love that house like we did, That's everything. My gosh.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah.When I drive by my family my childhood home, even the same it was like a cute little gingerbread house style, cedar shingles, lots of points, And the garage was a separate unit that looked like a little cottage almost, and my mom had these adorable curtains hanging. And, I mean, they're still hanging in there. It's the sweetest. So I don't know that my childhood house has changed much, but they must really love it the way it was, which is nice.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:It's wonderful.
Sarah Peterson [:Can you go back to the old house, Dean?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I have not. And there's a part of me that, you know, it's been five years.
Sarah Peterson [:That's crazy.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And so there's a part of me that's still actively grieving, and I love to hear when Marlis goes and that they're loving it, and that makes me feel really good. And there's a part of me that hesitates to go look at things that might have changed.
Sarah Peterson [:Mhmm.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And so that's one that I'm still working with, for sure.
Sarah Peterson [:And do I remember right that it was if we had to say harder for one of you than the other, it was harder for you to leave?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yeah. That was that was that was where Marlis finally said to me, I am moving to the other side of town. Are you coming along?
Sarah Peterson [:Okay. So that was a fair assessment.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:That was a fair assessment.
Sarah Peterson [:And what do you wish you could if you could whisper in your ear on those harder days of departing that home, what would you tell yourself?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Well, I mean, the process of learning to love the place I currently live in required for me as a guy, and I think women and men grieve a little differently. Women grieve sort of face to face, and they talk about it a lot. Men sort of grieve shoulder to shoulder and do things, like they'll paint the side of the house or something. So for me, moving into this new house, a part of grieving the loss of the old one was building things here, adding things that were uniquely ours, planting new things to grow, and kind of putting my mark on it. And that took a full two years. And it was only after the first two years that I began to even think about this new house as, oh, this is the new home. And since that time, I've simply become more and more grateful for this new place. It's smaller, one story, less junk, less maintenance.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I mean, there's a billion reasons why this is a such a better place, and I actually love it as much as the old place.
Sarah Peterson [:What you would tell yourself?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:So I would tell myself I'm gonna come to a place where I where I love it. It really goes back to what I said before about I've lost the old place. So what is it that I want? Well, you know, I want that sense of having a a piece of land that or a piece of place that has my mark on it, that has things that I dug up, built, changed, made better, made more welcoming, like, people would wanna come here and spend time. Yeah. I mean, I look back at Marla's talking about her grief. You know, there are lots of times when we'll say that what like Marla said, I love being with people in transition. I'm kind of a transition junkie, and that's what I liked about OB and gynecology most of all. Now who would have imagined at the outset that the solution to her problem or the solution to her healing would have been finding hospice and being with dying people after spending a lifetime birthing people.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yeah. It's like it's not even on the radar screen. It's not even a consideration you would have had at the beginning. And so there's a place to be patient with yourself and your intention. I'm also remembering when I retired, and, I mean, I retired partially by my choice, but also hugely because the place I worked decided that the job I had, which I loved, was no longer gonna be existing, and they would put me in this other place, which would have been hell for me. And so I was sorta ushered out in a way that didn't require them actually firing me. You know? Yeah. And it took me two years before the part of me got clear that what I love the most about being a surgeon I mean, I enjoyed all aspects of surgery, but the pieces where I felt truly connected were when I was teaching patients, telling them about what was happening, telling them about what we're gonna do next, teaching them about their illness, teaching nurses, teaching medical students, teaching people at the hospital, teaching seminars.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:That was the part that truly fed my soul. But it took me almost two years then to move into doing stuff like this. Right. And I would never have said at any point in my life before my retirement that this is what I would be doing fifteen years after my retirement. It was, like, not even on the radar screen, and yet it matches perfectly the kind of thread that is woven through many disparate things that I've done that feeds what it is that's important to me.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, it's a full circle moment with what you started with too. It's like, what do I want to continue? Like, as everything goes on the table and we redefine it by taking one thing off at a time, what is still so aligned with my deep values, and how can I recreate it in the way that fits with this life? Yeah. Okay. So we're running out of time. I want you guys as listeners to remember that this podcast is for you. It's for the people in your life. It's for the people you know because we are all experiencing this human condition together, and nobody gets out without feeling loss and grief and change and transition. And there might be a path that's makes it a little easier.
Sarah Peterson [:We hope to have lit that path for you here today. So thinking about how can I capitalize on the wisdom of my experience? If I think about myself as far back as years ago or even just yesterday, what would I say to myself? Because that's what you've learned. How can I redefine this relationship with what is in the most meaningful way? What pieces of the thing I'm missing can I carry with me in a new way but still familiar? Is that fair? Yeah. What's one of the last takeaways, do you think? It's all about love. It's all about patience.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:It's all about self compassion.
Sarah Peterson [:Self compassion. Like, good stuff. Rake already. Would you just give yourself a break already? Entire I mean, not me, but you. Give yourself a rake.
Marlis Beier, MD [:No. It's really all about kindness to yourself.
Sarah Peterson [:To yourself. Kindness. Alright. Well, thanks for being here today, guys.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Thank you.
Sarah Peterson [:Thanks for listening. Thank you for joining us on enduring grief, healing practices and true stories of living after loss. We hope today's conversation brought you comfort, understanding, or simply the assurance that you're not alone in your grief. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who might need to hear it and subscribe as a way to stay connected. We'll be back next week with more personal stories and practical guidance for navigating the complexities of loss. Until then, take care of yourself and remember, there's no right or wrong way to grieve. You have the freedom to mourn in the way that feels true to you.
