WEBVTT
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This program is designed to provide general information with regards
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to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
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the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
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are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial,
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legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek
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the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any
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suggested ideas.
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Hello, and thank you for tuning in to a Sharp
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Outlook on pay for HD radio and Talk or TV.
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I am Angela Sharp. Your host our arm chair discussions
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with industry experts will give you the steps, tools and
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information to be successful in business and to prepare you
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to be your best self. Hello, I'm Angela Sharp and
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welcome to a Sharp Outlook. Our topic to day is difficult,
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but it's something that we really need to talk about
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openly and honestly. When a family member dies of natural causes,
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there is a time period of grieving that takes place.
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When someone dies of suicide, their loved ones are grieving
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and are left with questions like how could this have happened?
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Processing the grief, loss and guilt is necessary. Showing up
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and supporting those who are grieving is important and very
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valuable for their healing. If you are feeling overwhelmed by
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thoughts of not wanting to live or having urges to
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attempt to end your life, please get help now. The
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services are free and confidential. During the upcoming holidays, we
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should be aware that suicides increase. Checking in on others
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that might not have family relationships is important. Globally, there
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are over seven hundred and twenty thousand people who die
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of suicide every year. It is the second leading cause
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of death among people ages ten to fourteen and twenty
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to thirty four. That was amazing information when I researched this.
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The majority of suicides are males, and poisoning is among
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the most common means worldwide. What's happening with our children?
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Why are they wanting to die? What is the source
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of so much unhappiness? This is a difficult subject to discuss,
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but we must remove the stigma and start talking and
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find solutions to this silent epidemic. My guest today is
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going to be able to clear up some of those
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questions and also talk about the experience. Doctor Anne Pendell, MD,
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FACP is an internal medicine physician and geriatrician who's spent
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more than thirty years caring for patients and supporting colleagues
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and finding joy and meaning in their work. She also
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is a certified coach with Passion, where her passion lies
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in helping healthcare teams thrive with purpose, clarity, and heart.
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Anne's commitment to fostering connection and belonging deepened after the
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death of her son by suicide. While she does not
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claim expertise in suicide prevention, she openly shares her personal
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experience a profound loss to reduce stigma, invite conversation, and
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encourage compassionate support for individuals and families navigating mental health challenges.
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Throughout her career, including her most recent role as Senior
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Medical Director for Physician and app Experience at inter Mountain Health,
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Anne has focused on creating an environment where people feel seeing, supported,
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and valued. Her advocacy today centers on the belief that
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naming suicide, honoring our stories, and creating space for hard
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conversations can help cultivate compassion, connection, and hope. Outside of medicine,
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and and her husband Duncan, raised five children and now
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delight in five grandchildren. Her therapy dogs Olive and Alie,
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help bring comfort and connection to healthcare workers and extend
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of Anne's lifelong commitment to caring for others. And I'd
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like to ask you to join me today so we
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can begin this discussion. Thank you for being willing to
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share your personal journal journey happy to be here. Yes,
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you've shared that connection and belonging have played a meaningful
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role in your personal and professional life. Caring about why
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checking in on others and creating supportive, caring and environments
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matters so much, especially during tender times. Why do you
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feel this way?
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Well, I think primarily my clinical experience as an internest
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and geriatrician, caring for patients often who have chronic illness
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where we can't fix but can manage or have conversations
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about what's important. Really building those connections with patients build
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trust and confidence and care, and that really has been
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central to my clinical practice. And then as I stepped
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into leadership roles, it's just seemed to, you know, a
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natural transition to apply those same the same importance of
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connection in that setting. And as people who know me
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know that I'm a relationship focused leader and that has
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served me well, I also recognize, especially following the death
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of my son, is well maybe I should take a
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step back. What I realized in my clinical practice is
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many people are struggling with really hard things and struggling
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alone and don't have someone to talk with or feel supported.
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And so that was really one of my first takeaways
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about the importance of connection and having that community. And
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then when Robbie died, I was in both a leadership
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role and I still was in my clinical practice role,
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and I then became so much more acutely aware of
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the power of those people that weren't afraid to check in,
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who weren't afraid to reach out and connect. It was powerful.
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And of course, you know at the beginning you've got
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a lot of people checking in on you, but ass
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time passes, it is less and less. And those that
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would send a quick text to say, oh, I was
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doing this and thought of you, or I was doing
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this and it reminded me of you was so important
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for me and healing in so many ways. And not
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that I ever believed I didn't matter, but those small
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little connections really reinforce the belief that I was seen.
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Yeah, and I realize how important that is. I know,
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probably a lot of people think, oh, she's so busy
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or she's doing this, or she's got great things going on,
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or things like that. They don't realize that, regardless of
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how important your job is, or how successful you are
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in your career or whatever they're thinking, because they're viewing
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from the outside. We have moments of sadness. We have
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moments where we need to tell somebody that we're not
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quite all right. But those people think everything's so good
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with you or cool with you. They don't check in.
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They don't say are you okay?
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You know, are you all right?
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And so I'm here to say everybody needs that connection.
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Check in, send a text, post something, just say I'm
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thinking about you and I'm sending a hug. That means
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so much. Believe me, really, you know so much for
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people to just do that, if you know someone, check
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in on them, if you just faintly know them, you know.
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But there are work, you know, colleague or whatever, doesn't
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hurt to check in and just see how they're doing.
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It's really I like that thought there.
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Yeah, I do think what you said initially is that
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many people think that, oh, they're so busy, I don't
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want to bother them, and that's that's just not the case.
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And you know, a text message is nice because it
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doesn't really require a response. You can put a heart
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emoji or something on it. But just knowing that someone
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else out there is thinking of.
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You, yeah, yeah, and that you're just seen, you're seen,
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or you're even just maybe a brief thought in someone's mind.
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You know, it's important. You know, believe me, I'll make
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time just to be noticed. I'll make time just to
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take and receive your hello. It just means a lot.
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And so I I yeah, I wholeheartily agree that that
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is true for anyone listening who may be struggling or
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supporting a loved one. Resources such as nine eight eight
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suicide and Crisis Lifeline are available. Why isn't it important
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for us to know these resources exist even if we're
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not sure what to say or how to help people.
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Well, that's such a good question, and I think I
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learned this in my physician leadership work that men any
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leaders were unsure how to approach difficult conversations or were
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worried about maybe saying the wrong thing, or you know,
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not knowing what to do if they learned information from
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the person they were speaking to that required some immediate
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attention and knowing what the resources are that are available
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to you helps decrease some of the anxiety about having
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those conversations. Also, one of the other things that we
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learned is that by talking about those hard things, it
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became clear that knowing or asking for support or knowing
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that you might need support was really viewed as a
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sign of strength. And so being able to change that
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conversation to really speak of it's ok to raise your
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hand to ask for help, and if you do, here
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are the resources that can help you. That became really powerful,
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and I think it helped people also not be afraid
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to take that step into a difficult conversation. They were
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more confident and not as likely to avoid.
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It, right right, Yeah, it is you know, you think
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about people that are isolated. I used to counsel people
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at the alcohol drug treatment centers and also homeless people,
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and their biggest statement was I feel forgotten. I feel
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like no one cares. I feel like why should I
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wake up tomorrow? And I would probably didn't use the
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right tone because I wasn't trained, but I would say
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I don't want you to ever say that again, because
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you are important, you are valuable, you have gift inside
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of you that you haven't tapped into, and so we
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want to change his conversation and find out what really
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brings you joy and what really brings you happiness, because
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you there's something inside of you. We were all given
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something and now let's work on that one. But and
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a lot of that is we get so caught up
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in our daily lives. We don't notice anyone else but ourselves,
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and we have to reach out and touch, reach out
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and touch somebody's hands. Make this place a better place
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if you can. That was a good song, he was
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so yeah, and we probably need to start singing it more.
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We need to reach out, we need to touch. You know,
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social media is great way of doing it since people
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are scattered around the country and maybe not living in
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the same places. But just like we said, reaching out
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and touching them in some way is really helpful. Your
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mission is rooted in the belief that while you cannot
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change the past, you can use your experience to help
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reduce stigma and create space for conversation. How do you
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choose to raise your voice and create awareness in these days?
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Probably the most important thing that I've done is really
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share my story about my son and the impact of
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his death on me and my family and kind of
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my inability to fix the grief. You know, in healthcare
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we're fixers, and that is one of the things that
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I initially believed that I could fix this, and by
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this I mean the grief that goes with the death
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of a child. I think talking about suicide it kind
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of names the really uncomfortable thing that people don't like
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to talk about, which in some ways normalizes those conversations
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and decreases some of the stigma. I talked before about
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normalizing help seeking and making it be okay to raise
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your hand and say I need some help. The other
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thing that I found surprising is that as I shared
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my story and my family's story and Robbie's story, people
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would seek me out and share their stories. It may
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not have been of suicide, but of struggles, and every
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now and again someone would say, watching you navigate this
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has given me hope that I can navigate the hard
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things that I do as well. And I hadn't really
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realized that, you know, people are watching us, and you know,
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it wasn't pretty. There were days at work that I
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was pretty tearful and you know, didn't have it all together.
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And I think that that kind of created that safe
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space for people to gravitate towards me and share things
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that were hard.
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So, oh, go ahead, Yeah, I was going to say,
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so the loss of your son pretty much changed you,
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change your life forever?
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Yeah?
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How is that experience with grief influenced the way you
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show up as a physician or a leader, or a
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coach or a neighbor.
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How how all those things?
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Yeah?
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I think probably most important is with empathy and curiosity.
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I'm much more a two uned too, asking questions, wondering
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what's behind either a behavior or a comment. I'm also
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very aware that grief is this journey that kind of
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goes up and down. And sometimes I felt like I
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was actually maybe coming out of grief, and then COVID happened,
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so kind of a setback there, and my mom became
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ill and she passed away, another setback, and so being
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able to give myself some grace that I don't have
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it all figured out, and it was okay just to
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be where I was, wherever that was was where I
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needed to be at the time. Initially, I and some
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like grief writing workshops and some group work and thinking
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that I could work my way through this because that's
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how I approach everything, is figuring out how to make
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it better. And this was not one of those things
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that could be made better. It just needed to take
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its own time, its own journey. I suppose I'm kinder.
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I mean I felt like I was kind before, but