Deborah Grassman - 30 year VA Hospice Nurse and Author

Deborah Grassman is recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts in caring for Veterans nearing the end of life. Deborah is most well known for being the first to identify the unique needs of Veterans at the end of life. Her clinical work played a key role in establishing the national Hospice-Veteran Partnership and the We Honor Veterans programs. She shares some of her techniques and strategies on identifying Soul Injury and her journey through 30+ years of working as a VA Hospice Nurse. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBLOMB05wfI

Brian Harbin: Well, hello, my name is Brian Harbin. Welcome to today's episode of the Grit.org podcast! 

Super excited we have Deborah Grassman here with us today. Deborah, welcome!

Deborah Grassman: Thank you, Brian, for having me!

Brian Harbin: Excited to catch up with you. So Deborah is a psychiatric nurse practitioner and the founder of Opus Peace, which is a nonprofit based in St. Petersburg, Florida, right down the road from us here in Jacksonville. She's the author of 3 books, Peace at Last, The Hero Within, A Soul Injury, and a contributing author for 4 textbooks and has 25 published articles. There are 4 documentary films and a TED Talk that feature her work. Although none of these achievements have taught her as much as the 10,000 dying veterans she took care of as a VA hospice nurse practitioner for 30 years. If anyone wants to learn how to achieve inner peace, ask a veteran who has successfully struggled to find it for the rest of their lives after they returned from war. 

The lessons she's learned culminated into a concept known as soul injury, a wound that separates a person from their own sense of self. Debra now provides presentations and workshops that can help anyone recover their loss of self-worth by healing the relationship they have with themselves. 

So a little bit on Debra, and I wanted to give a quick shout out to our sponsor for today's episode, escrow.com, which is the world's most secure payment method for online transactions. So whether your transaction is $100 or $100 million, escrow.com makes buying and selling online safe, secure, and trusted. So you can rest assured that your transaction for a motor vehicle, electronic equipment, business domain name, or anything significant to you is protected. Visit escrow.com today to learn more about how you can transact with confidence. 

So, Deborah, we always like to start in the beginning with our interviews just to hear more about early life for you, upbringing, any early experiences, you know, people or principles that were impressionable for you at a young age?

Deborah Grassman: Well, I grew up in the Midwest in Southern Indiana, and I became interested, I think, because of my father, who was a chemist. And so I did study chemistry, and he was also an outdoorsman. And so that, so nature, just the outdoors, science, I did go on to college to major in chemistry and physics. So that was definitely an important influence. I think that has impacted me to this day. I love the outdoors and nature and science to this day, decades later.

Brian Harbin: And so growing up in the Midwest, did you stay there for high school and college, or how long were you in Indiana?

Deborah Grassman: I stayed there through high school, graduated, got married a year later, moved to Florida. And a few years after that, I had two children. And a few years after that, went to the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Brian Harbin: Okay. So that's where you got your college degree was in—

Deborah Grassman: That is where I got my college degree.

Brian Harbin: At USF?

Deborah Grassman: Yes. Yeah. I got my bachelor's and master's there. And my nursing career or with education was… at basic education was at St. Petersburg College. Hmm.

Brian Harbin: And where do you feel like kind of your early passion for that? I know you mentioned your, your dad was, you know, into the sciences, but where do you feel like your kind of your passion for, you know, working as a nurse came from?

Deborah Grassman: Well, you know, actually, it started out just in a very practical way, to tell you the truth. I didn't really realize— I didn't have this overdriving desire to be a nurse or anything. But after I had, you know, 2 children and I was looking for a career of sorts and to finish my education, I, in my neighborhood, there were a lot of nurses and they encouraged me to become a nurse because with children, you could work a lot of different shifts. You could, there's a lot of different opportunities and ways. And I knew I love to learn. 

And I thought, man, no matter where I work, I'm going to get bored after a couple of years and want to take on something more. And so I thought, well, gee, with nursing, I can just transfer to a different area of the hospital whenever. So actually, it started out just being a very practical vocation, so to speak. And I didn't really realize how much it would grow on me and draw on me and what it would bring out in me. 

I think the psychological aspect that really took over after a while— I became an oncology nurse, and it was fascinating to me how when people came, this was a medical unit where we were giving chemotherapy. And it was fascinating to me how people faced their chemotherapy, their cancer very differently. 

Some people came in on a trajectory of, I'm going to fight this and I'm going to win this. Other people came in and, you know, what's the point? I'm going to die anyway. And then some people were kind of in a midline trajectory where they were kind of trying to navigate it through, and, you know, where grit and grace both were kind of playing. 

So that intrigued me, and I kind of started studying that. And then when I decided to get my master's degree, I kind of went along that track of psychiatry to try to just figure that— that just, as I said, it fascinated me. And so that led down another different road yet. I ended up going into hospice practice. 

Back then, most of our oncology patients that we got for medical treatment had failed other treatments. And so most of our patients did in fact die. I didn't anticipate going into an exclusive hospice practice, but that's what ended up happening. We opened up a hospice unit that I provided the care for. And boy, you can learn lessons from the dying, Brian, that you can learn nowhere else. 

And, you know, at first I kind of came with that new nurse type of, you know, Florence Nightingale, you know, I'm here to save the world type strategy, so to speak, that I thought I had to offer. I'm here to serve. And honestly, you know, for the first several years, I had that attitude. And then slowly I started, you know, letting that kind of arrogance kind of start receding and realizing what I needed to unlearn so that I could truly serve and not just try to fix and take care of, so to speak, but truly try to serve these veterans. 

And certainly on their deathbeds, you know, stuff surfaces a lot of times unbidden. And that surprises them because, you know, we go through life and we can kind of consciously tamp down stuff. But when you come to the end of your life, for all of us, our conscious mind gets weaker and our unconscious mind gets stronger. 

And that's when stuff starts rising to the surface, often unbidden. And, you know, for me with veterans, sometimes it was stuff that had occurred in the military, stuff that had been done in combat. That they had experienced, and it would sometimes surface on their deathbed and cause agitation. And now you don't have a peaceful death that you're taking care of, you have an agitated death. 

And so that's really, you know, I always, I get tearful just thinking about sometimes what some of them went through and trying to figure out how to truly be an instrument of peace for them. And, you know, listening to their stories, so many of them had difficult post-war lives, post-traumatic lives, and so many of them had suffered from that. And so many of them had successfully navigated it. And man, did I pay attention to both of those ends of the spectrum, you know. 

And of course, at death, you get family members, all sorts of family members coming to the bed. So I could collect those stories as well, get those perspectives as well. Because trauma doesn't just exist in a vacuum, you know, it impacts whole systems. And whole generations of family systems at that. So, and you know, [crosstalk] – pardon?

Brian Harbin: I'm really curious because I know being a nurse and especially seeing what you saw and especially working in hospice, you know, you see a lot, right? And to have the motivation and passion to keep moving forward, you know, when things get really hard, was there, is there a story that you know, kind of encapsulates your passion and why you continued on even though you, you know, were continually seeing and having to help people deal with trauma over and over again?

Deborah Grassman: Well, I think what happens at the end of life is wisdom starts emerging, and wisdom is different than knowledge. You know, wisdom is different than experience, and you really only gain wisdom from making that internal trek into the soul, as I always say. 

And so the patient that comes to my mind is a patient, I still remember his name, it was Mr. Myers. And what we did, you know, we were, you know, by this time, my practice had very much matured. And when I would see unsettlement, or, you know, I started these veterans, when I really started sleuthing down the veterans who had successfully come to peace with what they had been through, I started being able to see what the problems were. And it was basically 3 things. They had unmourned loss and hurt, unforgiven guilt and shame, and fear of helplessness and loss of control because of what they had been through. 

So these—, so from that, once I was able to discern the causes, then how to intervene became more apparent. And so the task at hand was to help people learn how to move from numbing their pain to mourning and releasing their pain. To learn how to stop hiding their guilt, to using their guilt to learn how to forgive themselves and others, and to move from being ashamed of not being good enough to releasing the fear of who they were and who they were not. And to move from controlling things that they have no control over to letting themselves feel their helplessness over things that in fact were uncontrollable. 

So with Mr. Myers, I'll never forget sitting around his bedside with his family. And, you know, it all looked so— this was a man who had been estranged from his family much of his later years. And yet here they all were. And they had been estranged because of his alcoholism. And so when he got the terminal diagnosis, you know, he sobered up. 

And, you know, then as he, as I said, he came to our hospice unit, and he, we helped him do those things I just told you about moving into forgiveness and mourning and feeling his helplessness is out instead of trying to control it and numb it out. And so at any rate, I commented on Mr. Myers's courage. His family's there as well, and I said, you know, it's taken a lot of courage for you to become sober and face your life with the mess that had been created around you and to come to terms with it. I said, that has taken a lot of courage. And I'll never forget, he turned and looked at me dead in the eyes, and he said, why did I have to be dying in order to learn how to do this? Why did I have to be dying in order to learn how to do this? 

And I could tell you hundreds of stories very similar. What I will tell you is, now I had an inpatient hospice unit, and I will tell you that dying people are fertile ground for healing. I'm telling you, there is more healing going on on that inpatient hospice unit than there was going on in my own home, or in anybody else's home. Because people become very motivated. They're, you know, if I told you today that you had a terminal diagnosis, you know, you would wake up, you would wake up to how your life matters, you know, the day before you're given a terminal diagnosis, you sort of take your life for granted, you know, but the day after, whoa, different story. 

So I had the benefit of 100% of my patient population that I served were awakened, you know, and they're willing to learn and they're, and they know, you know, I'm the hospice lady. They just by my title, the hospice nurse practitioner, they know that I've seen stuff that they, you know, that may benefit them. So we were always able, you know, for the most part, able to really enter into that kind of relationship. And, you know, I just took note of it. And then other people started noticing some of my observations. And then I was starting to be asked to speak at public events and then professional organizations and then films and TED Talk, all those kinds of things about what I had learned. 

And I guess the surprising thing was, especially to the PTSD world and the hospice world and the moral injury world, because, you know, there's thousands of hospice professionals, there's thousands of PTSD and trauma specialists, but there's only a handful of people who've specialized in both dying and trauma. 

And I do believe it's the convergence. It's the confluence of those two different patient populations that has yielded some of these lessons. And so that is kind of how that the term soul injury started surfacing with patients. You know, I wouldn't hear it with every patient, but, you know, as I would be— as I said, I was— I saw a lot of PTSD get magnified at the end of life. I saw certainly moral injuries surface, and I would be dealing with that. 

But different patients intermittently would say, you know, when I talked to them about their trauma and the PTSD that they had been living with and experiencing, and they'd say, yeah, it's my PTSD has been a problem in my life, but I'm talking about something different. It's what the PTSD did to me. It squeezed me out of me. I became missing in action in my own life. 

And, you know, that's what we need to be talking about. You know, I would talk about the moral injuries that they sometimes had experienced. And those especially surface at the end of life as someone's getting ready to meet their maker, so to speak. You know, the next day, the next week, you know, these moral injuries surface. And we would deal with that. And that was great. But again, sometimes patients would say, yeah, you know, the violation, that of my morals and values and beliefs that happen, you know, have impacted me. But, you know, what we need to be talking about is how it squeezed me out of me. You know, I had a soul injury. I lost my soul. Where did my soul go? Who am I? I've struggled my whole life with, with who am I really? I've got this stoic facade on to try to, to try to be someone, but it's a facade. And now that facade is crumbling. And that's what happens at the end of life. 

See, that's the benefit I often had people say, oh, you should work in psychiatry. And I said, I'm far too impatient to work in psychiatry because you have this facade that you have to work through. I said, but you know, when people come to the end of their life, the facade automatically crumbles. It does for all of us, you know, no matter who you are, that facade starts crumbling. And then that person becomes open and honest. And, you know, then there's that courage that comes forward and the wisdom comes forward. The bravado recedes.

Brian Harbin: Deborah, let me ask you this. When you, you know, are talking with someone about PTSD and they're going through it, did you find that there was trauma before that that was undealt with that you had to unpack and help them deal through before you could even get to the actual event of being at war and the post aftermath? Did you have to go way back in a lot of these instances?

Deborah Grassman: Oh, absolutely. And that's true for anybody, childhood wounds. You know, like I call the soul— soul injury is a wound of suffering. And as I said, people who have been hurt often hurt other people, right? Hurting people hurt other people. And so you have this shroud of hurt, and it often originates in childhood. 

So, oh yeah, I've heard incredible stories of childhood abuse and what have you. But a lot of times the wound is simply insidious. Insidious, you know, if you've been traumatized as a child or in the military, you know, that's kind of obvious. And, you know, there's a lot of obvious conclusions you can draw from it. But if you're insidiously injured, so to speak, and it impacts how you see yourself, your self-worth, your self-image. I'll give you my own example from my own. And this, you know, I'm embarrassed, sort of, Brian, to even tell you this because you're going to see it pales in comparison to what I've heard on the deathbed of veterans. But I'll tell you how insidiously most soul injuries how we lose our sense of self, occur insidiously. 

So when I'm 5 years old, I'm watching Lassie on TV. She's about— I'm sure she's about to die. She's in a dangerous situation, and I start crying. And right at that moment, my father walks through the room. He sees my tears, and he starts laughing. Well, I made a 5-year-old decision that day. To never cry again. And I didn't for 30 years. 

Brian Harbin: Wow! 

Deborah Grassman: I became ashamed of the Debbie that felt sad. And so shoved her down. Well, anyway, I'm 35 now dealing with a painful situation. And suddenly it dawns on me. What if my fear of pain is worse than if I just let myself feel it. And that's when I cried for the first time. That's when my unfreezing began. That's when I had the— my brave self came forward to meet my sad self.

Brian Harbin: So it can be something even as seemingly small as that in terms of overlooking a child, you know, expressing emotion.

Deborah Grassman: You know, I told you about my father. I mean, he didn't do— he didn't mean, you know, maybe what he said was a bit insensitive, but he has never— he never did anything to me to harm me. So, you know, as children, it's not surprising because children, you know, we think we're the center of the universe. We think if something goes wrong, we think we must have caused it. If it goes right, you know, you know, children don't have— our brain is not fully developed until mid-20s. 

So, you know, we just don't have— so childhood wounds commonly. So, but what happens, people say, oh, yeah, that was a long time ago, that was decades ago, you know, those kinds of things do come, they haunt us, because when we exile the part of self that's holding the pain, when we exile it into unconsciousness, it's subtly and not so subtly sabotaging our lives. But because it's unconscious, we don't even know it. 

So a lot of the work that we do at Opus Peace with soul injury is about recognizing, identifying these scattered pieces of self that our fear of emotional pain is housing and saying, hey, it's okay. Come forth, let's meet, let's have a conversation. Let's get rid of the fear and just feel whatever is there. And when you feel whatever's there, I mean, it— you realize that pain and peace can coexist.

Brian Harbin: Yeah. And do you feel like, okay, and so if you're, you know, spending, let's say, an hour with a VA, you know, are you going to be able to, through questions, be able to pinpoint that exact moment? Or are you more about taking a moment that does resonate with them to help them learn how to cope with it so that way they can go back on their own and revisit those and start to reframe them? How do you do that when you work? Because it seems like you'd have to have a lot of time to pinpoint that exact story to be able to know, what caused it all?

Deborah Grassman: Well, that's a little bit of a complex question. First of all, I'll again say dying people are fertile ground for healing and they're much more open. So I had the advantage of being able— they're much more pliable. So, you know, what I'm going to say is not as fast as if it were earlier in their life cycle. So number one is that obviously my training helps to know. And, you know, the other thing is, to me, I know true healing, true wisdom lies within the unconscious. So I'm looking for the unconscious and not just the, you know, what's being shown on, on the outside. 

And then, of course, I had the advantage of, as I said, I took care of more than 10,000 dying veterans. So I had that experience in my background that I'm bringing to the bedside. So to answer your question, sometimes I, you know, that was the fascinating part. When I would walk in, I would always be— when the doctor would write hospice, you know, consult, I'm the one that's going to go respond, you know, in, in ICU or, you know, the surgery, wherever it was. 

So I'm the first one on the scene. And, you know, what I would do is, you know, you learn how to ask provocative questions in a non-threatening way. And yet there's nothing more threatening than death. You're going to die. You know, the hospice lady's here. One of the questions I would always ask that would always open the door is I would say, pretend like you died today. What would be left unsaid or undone? And then I'd listen carefully. And sometimes, you know, about half the time they could answer that pretty quickly. About half the time. …..

Brian Harbin: So pretend you died today. What would be said?

Deborah Grassman: Unsaid.

Brian Harbin: Unsaid.

Deborah Grassman: What did you not get? What have you not said? Said that you— and in other words, I'm searching for their unfinished business.

Brian Harbin: Exactly.

Deborah Grassman: I'm searching for their unfinished because I know that's what's going to help bring peace. So sometimes they would be able to say, identify it pretty quickly. And about half the time, they would say, oh gosh, I never thought about that. That's a good question. And then I tell them, I'll say, well, You know, I want you to think about— I had a little card that had, you know, the question on it, and I had the steps for how to resolve unfinished business on the back of the card. 

But anyway, I'd leave it with them and then say, I'm going to come back tomorrow. And you might want to talk with some family members maybe also and see what— just see what— become curious. You know, don't judge yourself about what it is, or I'm not going to— just become curious about what's there and let's have a conversation. Then I'd come back. The next day and see what was opened up. So I…. 

Brian Harbin: To answer your question, out of curiosity, I wanted to ask you this. You take a full day because you don't necessarily want their knee-jerk response. You want them to really put a lot of thought into it. So that way you're not getting a surface answer. You're getting one they've really had a chance to marinate on.

Deborah Grassman: You are exactly right. The other thing I would say is whatever answer they give you off the top, is more than likely a superficial answer. So my second question is, what else?

Brian Harbin: Oh, wow!

Deborah Grassman: They give me something. Then after they answer that, I say, okay, what else? I do the what else at least 3 times, not more than 3 times, you know, 3 times I will do it. And then when you get the third answer, that's more than likely. And, you know, I can be pretty relentless. You have to watch to dance, you know, you don't want to push or you'll, you know, it'll backfire on you. They know, I always trust them to know how far they can go or should not go. They know that. I don't. 

But, you know, if they wouldn't, couldn't answer the third, what else? I'll say, you know, that's okay. You think about it overnight. Marinate on it, and I'll come back tomorrow, and I bet you'll have something, even if it's just a little tidbit. That's okay. Just a little glimpse, just a little hint. What's your best guess? 

A lot of times I would say that when they would say, I don't know, I'd say, well, what's your best guess? Or if I asked your wife, what do you think she would say it is for you? You know, I had all sorts of different ways to let them know that, you know, really, this is an okay thing to talk about. We want to get you. We want to get you ready. I always think in terms of my job was to help people become at peace with their past. Because the past, you know, life review, you know, Brian, when you get on your deathbed, what you will be doing is looking back over your life. I mean, it's automatic, it happens, it just automatic, it's a life review, the past comes into the present. So my job is to help them make peace with their past. 

Now they have to make peace with their present and what's going on. They've just been given a terminal diagnosis. They've just been told, you know, you're going to get— we're going to get hospice here. Dealing with all that creates a new turmoil and chaos and making peace with that and then making peace with their future, their nonexistence on this physical plane. How do you make peace with what is coming to you? 

So, you know, I would say you want to seek peace, find peace, and master peace, you know. And I'm the agent that has some experience. I have no idea how it has to be done with you because you're a unique person with unique issues. But I am a safe place for safe suffering and where this stuff can come forward. And I have— I'm not afraid of it. I'm not going to try to fix it. I'm not going to try to numb it out or make things better. We're just going to cultivate the honesty, courage, and humility to be with it. And that will bring you peace. And I will tell you that most people, almost all people do achieve a modicum of peace. 

Sometimes, well, many times they came to our hospice unit bringing that. Many times, you know, it happened while they were there, and sometimes it doesn't happen till, I mean, it's like, you know, they're getting, they're going to be going unconscious within, you know, a day or two. But at some point, usually they finally surrender and there's a modicum of peace that is there. So that they can let go of this world.

Brian Harbin: So let me ask you this. So once you've asked the what else 3 times and you feel like you've peeled back the onion and really gotten down to the root cause, is that where you've come up with the 3 of the unborn loss, the unforgiven guilt and shame, and the fear of helplessness and loss of control? Is that what you're trying to get to? Probably. And you've narrowed it down to pretty much everybody for the most part is going to have one of those 3.

Deborah Grassman: It's true. And the impact of any one, any one of those three occurs, the soul injury occurs when it robs them of their sense of self. It's caused them to be ashamed. You know, shame is one of the quickest ways to acquire a soul injury, just like in my little Lassie story. I became ashamed of the Deborah holding my paint. So what happened? 

The Deborah holding my pain was banished into unconsciousness. And, you know, that caused me to have this veneer that got reinforced by a lot of people, including my family, because nothing ever bothered me. Nothing ever bothers Deborah. Yeah, well, that's, that's because any pain and hurt that I had just got stuffed over here because I was ashamed of her. I was— I thought, well, gosh, there must be something wrong with me that, you know, that this hurts me, you know. So, yeah, that's the soul injury. 

And what's crazy, Brian, like, what's absolutely crazy is that insidious soul injuries and traumatic, acutely acquired soul injuries are so prevalent in our whole society. Almost everybody has a soul injury of some sort, of some kind. And yet we do not have a name for it. Think about it. We have all these mental illness types of labels that we put for these other things. We have all sorts of— but we don't have a name for just the common dynamic, not a mental illness, not in any way, but just a language that we can talk about soul injury and its three causes, and how to release those causes. That's missing. 

And it's in a way, it's just crazy, because it's the elephant that's in the middle of the room staring, you know, everybody sees it. You know, when I teach about soul injury, people resonate. I mean, they— I'm not telling them anything new. The dots are already there. All I'm doing is connecting the dots. And then we have tools. We at Opus Peace, we have a lot of self-help tools. And so we have tools where they can, without judgment, just get curious about what's inside. Let's look at those scattered, meet these scattered pieces of yourself. Fear has been encasing them and separating them out into uncut. But let's just, let's just meet them and get curious about them. 

So, you know, that can happen really in a pretty straightforward way. So to me, it's just crazy that we do not have a name for something that's so common, so prevalent, and we do know how to respond to it and bring— be able to integrate these scattered pieces of self. When I talk about the definition of soul injury, you know, soul injury is a wound that causes you to become separated from your real self. 

Now, what is your real self? Right now, it's very popular in the popular psych culture, you know, we say, oh, just be the best version. Your real self is the best version of yourself. Yeah, that's true. And you know what else is true? The worst version of yourself is also real. That's also a part of yourself. And you know what else? The good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, that's all in between, the best version, the worst version— those pieces are also real. 

So, you know, one of the problems that I see is when we idealize this perfect image and we just say, oh, you just got to be stronger, you just have to be more resilient, you can just do it, that grit, which is very important. Don't mishear me, grit is so important. But when we only reinforce that, then what happens is people look around and say, well, what's wrong with me that I can't be strong like everybody else? Why can't I be more resilient the way everybody else seems to be? That causes a soul injury. 

So I love your organization's title of grit.org because we teach a lot about grit and grace, that it's like pain and peace, grit and grace, both are needed. Now I can tell you by my personality, and even the stuff I've already— the little bits that I told you, I can tell you that grit has been a probably the primary reason that I've been successful, right? 

And so, you know, and it wasn't until later years that I started kind of thinking about the grace in it. And as I— in my book, Soul Injury, I actually have a whole chapter of what that discovery was like, was to discover grace. Well, not surprisingly, the way I am, I started overemphasizing grace and forgot about grit. 

And now, you know, as I have matured more into the final chapter of my life, you know, I teach a lot about grit and grace. They are both— they're partners. They are partners. You're not going to get the grace if you don't create the container to hold it. Grace is always there, but you've got to have the grit. That's my job, is to create the container for grit. That means on bad days, you know, I march forward anyway and learn how to trust that grace will come to fuel me.

Brian Harbin: Absolutely. I wanted to get back to you to talking about, so what you've kind of uncovered, let's say an unborn loss, and maybe an example would be like a loss of a child or loss of a spouse, right? That I imagine would be something that would maybe still be sticking with someone on their deathbed. I don't know if that's the case or not, but like, can you walk us through like, okay, what would maybe be an example of something and then how— I know you mentioned there's some tools, but how do you get them to start the process of starting to deal with that once you've identified it?

Deborah Grassman: Yeah, typically when you say the word loss, you do think of a death, but that's really not— I mean, and that obviously is one on the spectrum, you know, that's a severe loss that does stay with people. But if you think about really any change, any transition involves a loss, you have to let go of something in order to open up, you know, for even, even personally, you know, if I asked you, do you want to grow? I mean, your whole organization is about helping people grow. 

We all say, yeah, I want to grow. Well, you know what, you have to let go of who you are in order to open up to who you're capable of becoming. That's a loss. And most of us don't want to do that. We don't want to change. We say we want to grow, but, okay, well, that means you have to change. Oh, well, I don't want to change, you know, don't take away my comfort level. 

So when I'm talking about loss, you know, if I take my little lassie example, you know, what did I lose? You know, it wasn't the death of anybody. But, you know, it can be, you know, the loss of, again, my sad self. It can be the loss of self-esteem, feeling like, gee, I guess I'm not strong enough to, you know, to never be hurt. So it's loss and hurt. 

So think about just different things that hurt you. There's a loss involved of some kind. It can be a loss of reputation. You know, living here in Florida, and I know you're on the other coast, but you know that last year, we suffered severe hurricanes. And, you know, a lot in my family lost their homes, lost their cars, lost everything, still to this day, a year later. 

So one of the things I did, we have a loss chart. And now this is— nobody lost their life, you know, We all survived. And of course, everybody was telling us, oh, you should just feel so lucky that you survived, you know. But what people didn't realize was, you know, when I went through the losses that we— that had occurred, not just with houses and cars and landscaping and what have you, I had 32 losses that occurred within that 24 hours. And really more chronically over the year. That's what has kind of insidiously occurred. 

So those are really more what, what I try to deal with. Bereavement is what you're talking about, the loss and death, and that's kind of a specialized thing, obviously part of my practice. But more typically, we have people complete this loss chart, and they think they've only had 4 or 5 losses, and then they do this loss chart and find out, oh my gosh, I've suffered 25, 30, 40 significant losses in my life. Well, there's— see, because you're not recognizing that that's a loss. Our society doesn't recognize that. Then you don't let yourself feel the hurt of that. Let yourself feel the hurt of that. We'll show you how to then release it because now it's conscious.

Brian Harbin: So then you're basically, once you identify a loss, you want them to feel it, experience it, and then be able to let it go.

Deborah Grassman: Yes, absolutely.

Brian Harbin: And is that something that would happen in a session, or like, is that something they're continually doing each day, or like, how do they kind of….

Deborah Grassman: Well, let me, let me give out, let me just give you a good, easy example. We have a self-help tool. We actually do a huge a global-wide event every February 2nd, and it's called National Anchor Your Heart Day. So I'm going to show you just— actually, I'm going to ask you to do it. You up for that?

Brian Harbin: Sure. 

Deborah Grassman: All right. So this is just a simple way to ground yourself, to get real with yourself. So just what I want you to do is just place your hand over your heart. Either one hand or both hands, whatever feels most comfortable. Now I want you to press hard enough that you can kind of feel a sensation there. It's— this isn't just put your hand over your heart like you would for the Pledge of Allegiance. And the reason I'm saying this is because the research shows you have this central corridor of brain structures that registers the sensations in your body. And the sensations in your body help to give you a sense of self. 

So once you just simply press hard enough that you can feel that sensation in your body, and then lower your eyes, or if you feel comfortable, go ahead and close them, whichever feels most comfortable to you. And now I want you just to take 3 deep breaths. And you know, your listening audience can be doing this with us. Right now as well. Just take 3 deep breaths. And now relax the breath. Let your body breathe however it wants to. But notice what's going on in your heart. What you might be feeling, your emotional heart. What's there? Not what you're supposed to feel, just noticing.

Brian Harbin: You want me to share anything, or…. 

Deborah Grassman: No, not yet. There's 3 steps. So this was step 2, just noticing, but, but notice it within yourself. And now just kind of close the door of your heart. You don't want to keep it all the way open all the time. Just knowing what's there is what's important. And now step 3, let yourself become curious about this part of you that is open, able, and willing to hold these feelings, whatever they are— good, bad, ugly, beautiful, whatever it is. Just notice this part of you that's able to be with whatever is there. 

And now take a deep breath and bring this brave part of yourself with you as we go on with whatever is coming in these next moments, slowly opening your eyes allowing yourself to be fully present to whatever is. So in my view, it's not about being 100% fully present. Every minute of every day. No one can do that. It's about being fully present to whatever percentage you are right now. 

So right now, if you're struggling with something else, you're doing the best you can to be, to be here right now. You want to be 100% present to the, say, 70% of you that is here. That's very different than feeling like you have to be 100% present all the time. And if you're not, Oh gosh, you're not being mindful. You're not being fully, you know, who you're supposed to be, all that kind. But learn how to be fully present to whatever is there. 

So yeah, if you feel comfortable sharing what you discovered right then, I'm putting you on the spot. And again, if not, of course, you don't ever want to share what you're not comfortable.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, no, I mean, I think You know, what kind of bubbled up is, you know, we're at a phase of life right now where we've got 3 boys and our oldest son is a senior in high school. And, you know, it brings fear, right? Of, you know, that there's, I feel like there's kind of a constant pull of, you know, you want to spend time with them at the same time as a dad. I want him to be independent and be able to, you know, go out and do, you know, what he's gonna do. 

And then just knowing that, you know, in a year, you know, you're not gonna see him every single day and have those conversations. So I think there's kind of that fear of future loss in a way, but at the same time, it makes me super happy because I know for me, like, that's where I really started to figure out myself.

So it's kind of like as his dad and, you know, father and love him and being around him and the conversations, at the same time knowing it's going to evolve and change is scary. At the same time, I am excited, you know, because I want that for him. And, you know, and it will, you know, give me more time with the other two boys that are at home and create more opportunities. So it's, yeah, that's probably the, you know, what bubbled up on me.

Deborah Grassman: And now I want you to think about that. That bubbled up. I love you saying that it bubbled up. Say it just, that comes from just getting real. And that whole thing only took about 2 minutes. So you were saying how fast and how long does it take to build trust with someone and get this stuff to bubble up? Well, when you have tools to do that, if you think about what you did, just taking, it probably only took 30 seconds. And what came up was you being able to be with fear. You used the word fear and letting yourself feel that tug of war. You know, it's kind of being pulled. You said a constant pull of excitement and fear and feeling that. Most people don't like that. So what do they do? They numb it out. 

What you did was you got real and said, ooh, I realize they're both pain and peace. Both are here. I'm excited and I'm fearful. This is a crucial time in his life as he's forming his young adult identity. I'm showing up, being fully present to both instead of having to exile that part of Brian out into unconsciousness and either get, you know, forceful with him, you're going to do it this way, or whatever, he's an adult, just do whatever you, you know, instead of that, you're aware of the tension of both poles of that spectrum. So that's huge in my mind. That's huge, because that's where then that third step where you're being curious about your being, not your humanness, but your beingness, can kind of bring the grace to that dilemma, to that pull. 

And your son will recognize that tension between, and recognize that you're kind of walking a tightrope. Plus, this is your first one. Yeah, you're releasing. So that's, that's a little— he's pioneering some territory for his brothers as well. And, you know, you also, you haven't ever fathered a child yet. That's getting ready to launch.

Brian Harbin: So, and additionally to just being able to support my wife and her own journey through all of that, and it totally separate from my own journey. So I know, you know, being there for her in that way as well and for her, his two brothers. And so.

Deborah Grassman: Yeah. And now, so when we talked about losses, you're anticipating the loss of your son in some way. I mean, if you successfully launch him, hopefully it will be a loss. I mean, his room's going to be empty. The things you— the hobbies you two do together, those are going to be gone to you. Those are losses, and they are significant losses. 

And it's important to anchor, to feel the loss, because if you don't feel it, again, that part of yourself becomes unmourned, and you'll try to numb it out. And there's lots of different ways to numb it out. We're not just talking alcohol and drugs. We're talking, you know, internet shopping, you know, perfectionism, overachieving, you know, whatever you can try to replace instead of mourning the loss of that son, the change of that. 

And, you know, the loss of your third son is real. You know, we have a name for that, right? Empty nest syndrome. Exactly. What's that saying? It's saying there's a— that was a huge loss. The last one out is a huge loss. Learn how to be with the pain of that. The hurt of that. And then you won't have to overachieve or, you know, do whatever, you know, be on the internet all the time, whatever it might be, what your, whatever your favorite numbing. We do a lot about how to recognize numbing agents and to bring consciousness, be mindful of those.

Brian Harbin: Let me ask you this, because I know we only have a few more questions, but, and I love that you did that with me and for our audience to be able to kind of understand and get a peek behind you know, some of the tools that you use to just be present and aware and understand it. And, but I wanted to ask because a lot of what, you know, you do, you're kind of doing it retroactively, right? These are things that have already happened that you're having to help them process. 

So for, you know, what's your advice for people that want to proactively, you know, let's say like in my situation where you have kids and you're raising a family or to even teenagers, like, what are some tools and ways that you can help them unpack those in real time versus having to wait till the end of life to be able to do it? Is it, how often do you check in with yourself or what advice do you give on that front to be kind of more proactive throughout your life and handling those?

Deborah Grassman: Well, we've got an array of about 16 different tools that can be used in different ways. But if we just go with the one that we just used, and you said to be fully present, you know, practicing anchoring your heart, it's not a magic bullet. Oh, I do this and I automatically come to peace with whatever's going on. But, you're right. 

If you practice it, you know, just do it. It only takes, you know, really 30, anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes, so to speak, depending on where you're at with it. Before you get up in the morning, do it when you're waiting at an elevator, at a red light, do it before you're going to bed. Certainly do it. I mean, we teach it all the time, you know, when someone's in the middle of a panic attack, when they're in the middle of being triggered by something from past trauma, you know, using it as a grounding tool for that. 

So at any rate, when you're talking about anticipatory loss or how do you do this in the future, you know, if I were going to do that with your situation where you're facing your son getting ready to go off to college or start a new job, anywhere, leaving the nest, so to speak, you know, it is getting, you know, really what you did right then a few minutes ago was getting real with anticipatory loss. He hasn't left yet, but you're already anticipating it. 

And so that's good, kind of practicing, okay, this is coming. I'm going to breathe this. I'm going to breathe this. This hurts. I'm going to acknowledge that it hurts. And I'm going to let that breath go. And I'm going to anticipate how I'm, how this might play out in the future and how I'm going to do it. And just let yourself anticipate that. And practice it. How do you want to be? And always recognize, always being conscious of the hurt. And there will come a point where the hurt is just, you're fully present to it and you don't need to run from it or numb it out.

Brian Harbin: And do you feel like if you have that same mentality and focus it on something that you want to achieve or that you want to see happening, do you find that as another way instead of focusing on a loss or something painful, focusing on something that you want to see happen?

Deborah Grassman: Oh, absolutely. Intention is huge. Setting intention. I guess one of the things— what we do a lot of what we call integrative or therapeutic letter writing to reunite the scattered pieces of self. But you can do this for future self too. So I'll give you an example. You know, I was just this little nurse practitioner at the VA doing all this stuff. People started noticing. I started getting calls, you know, and then published a couple of things. And suddenly I became this national figure, you know, sought after for public speaking and TED Talks and all this. And I'm like, one day I'm getting ready to go on some trip somewhere. 

Now I'm traveling all the time. I'm away from my practice and what have you. And I found I'm packing my bags on gritting my teeth, you know, like, oh, and I just stopped. I brought consciousness to that. And what was I experiencing? The loss of my normal routine that I love. I was resenting the interruption in my life to go do this. 

So anyway, I thought, ah, I don't have time now, but I've got to come to peace with this. Otherwise, this, my future is going to be resentful if I keep on going like this at this impact. So as I said, we have a very specific way to do this kind of letter writing, and I became the Deborah that stayed in my current routine and said no to all these speaking trips, you know, and what that meant and how that was. I became the Deborah that traveled all the time and doing all this other stuff, interruptions in my life. And, you know, did— brought that. 

And then I responded back to, but we have a model for how to do this, the scattered piece of self and the CEO self that makes the decisions. And obviously what I ended up doing was I decided, you know, my CEO self said, yeah, no travel, travel's the best way to go. 

And so then the next thing I did was figure out how can I make travel better and easier and more fulfilling? How can I let go of my life at the VA? How can I let that part of me go that I love and say goodbye? Well, I had to grieve that and release that. And once I did that, and the hurt of leaving that allowed a whole another world, including you, to enter my life.

Brian Harbin: And yes, so on that note, how do people find out more about what you guys do? I mean, what's the best way to get more information and kind of you know, learn more about some of the different tools and resources you guys have available at Opus Peace?

Deborah Grassman: Well, we have a website that's probably the quickest and easiest that can be accessed immediately. It's opuspeace.org, [O-P-U-S-P-E-A-C-E.org], or soulinjury.org. Either way will get you to our website. I mentioned February 2nd where we have a global worldwide event. We'll put on a 1-hour webinar that this is all free, followed by a global international Anchor Your Heart activity that only takes about 15 minutes total, but about 3 minutes, if you can imagine the whole world busy and what have you just stopping to become fully present to themselves for 3 minutes. I mean, it's really a compelling thing that we don't see much of in our world right now. 

So anyway, we do institute training. It's 4 days of institute we call our Opus Peace Soul Injury Institute. That's available. We have it coming up in October and November, the last 2 weeks of October and the first 2 weeks of November, 1 day each week, where people can be fully trained so that they can become a facilitator. We— they end up with a jump drive that has 16 different programs on it that they can take out and teach. 

Obviously the Soul Injury book, which was just released just a few months ago, Soul Injury: Healing the Relationship You Have with Yourself, that's available on our website. And we have a book community that takes that book, and we do a nationwide virtual book community. I think there in like the 7th week right now. It's an 8-week opportunity to build community, common unity. They'll be— we'll be starting another one probably in January, would be my guess. So that's another great way to find out. 

And we are also on November 4th, we are putting on a 1-day soul injury workshop where we will really get into in an intense way The things we have talked about, yes, there'll be some talking, but it'll also be application of it as well. It's a true workshop experience. 

Our goal is to give people an experience of themselves, not just concepts, not just teaching you stuff for your head, although that's important. There'll be lots of stories. You know, stories are important for your heart. Yeah, to feel that. But it's truly giving people an experience of themselves.

Brian Harbin: Well, and I love that too, because I mean, we could have talked for 10 hours, but then you going through and role-playing with me, you know, and helping me see it and understand it gives me a tool to be able to continue to do it. So I definitely see, and I'm excited to get your book Soul Injury. So, and the last question too, I'm curious with the Grit Creed, those are 12 principles that we try and bake into the next generation of the 12 principles, which one do you think resonates most with you and why?

Deborah Grassman: Well, I, you know, I have to say, maybe it's because I'm already familiar with it. But the 'I will accept the things I cannot change, have the courage to change the things I can, and seek the wisdom to know the difference.' I love that word 'seek' too that you put in there. You know, obviously, you know, that's, that is the crux of the Serenity Prayer. I mean, Serenity Prayer is a huge prayer. But this is the the popular one. 

And I love it because it helps people come to grips, to develop the grit to be able to feel their helplessness. That's really what those two lines to me say. And in our society, it's all about don't feel helpless, control everything, instead of, hey, there are limits, you can't control everything. Let yourself get real with the helplessness.

So to me, I love those two lines. That you have included there. We actually at Opus Peace, one of our founders that I worked with, she always said, you know, the Serenity Prayer is so famous for everybody because it tells you what you need to do. 

At Opus Peace, we also have a creed. And let me just, it'll be a good way, it kind of summarizes. So I'll close with that. One of the other founders says, one day this creed will become famous because it takes the Serenity Prayer, which tells you what to do, and it tells you how to do it. So here's, here's our Opus Peace Creed. Cultivate in me the willingness to reown, rehome, and revitalize scattered pieces of myself so wholeness can be restored. Grow in me the honesty, courage, and humility to release my fear of who I am and who I am not. Fuel me with your grace.

Brian Harbin: I love that! It's fantastic!

Well, Deborah, this has been an absolute pleasure just getting to know you, understand your passion and what you've gone on to help so many people and learn and continue to share that information with more people and give them tools to be able to, to deal and cope with these things that have happened. 

So thank you so much for being on! I really enjoyed this!

Deborah Grassman: And I hope what I've said, Brian, has honored those 10 Baxandani veterans that I had the privilege of taking care of.