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Why is grieving not like experiencing or working with other major emotions? Which fresh, new perspective can you take towards the people who are working and living within your community to build a global one? How can resources be reallocated to bring big dreams to fruition?
In this podcast episode, Joe Sanok speaks about grief in politics and society with journalist Sarah Jaffe.
Podcast Sponsor: Headway
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Meet Sarah Jaffe
Sarah Jaffe is a journalist, author, and social commentator whose work interrogates power, labor, and justice in everyday life. Her writings have appeared in The Nation, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The New Republic, and more. She is the author of Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone and Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt, with From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire forthcoming.
Visit Sarah’s website and connect on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
In This Podcast
- “You can’t get an A in grieving”
- Building community
- Sarah’s advice to private practitioners
“You can’t get an A in grieving”
It turns out you can’t get an A in grief [or grieving], and you can’t make it happen on a faster timeline, and you can’t sort of work at it, at all. That is the through-line between [my] two books … I was fascinated by how this thing isn’t work. (Sarah Jaffe)
With grief, there is no ‘work’ per se that needs to be done, and in this way grief is a painfully unique feeling. It cannot be approached in the same deconstructive, proactive way that other emotions sometimes can be approached.
“Doing the work” does not lessen the intenstity of the pain like “doing the work” can do with other human experiences in therapy, such as anger. Grief has its own timeline, its own methods, and it is immoved by your attempts to control it.
I found that [doing the work] was a completely useless framework when dealing with grief. It would come when it felt like it – it still does, seven years later. You can’t experience it on your timeline, but also if you don’t make space for it to arrive when it does, it’ll kick your ass in all sorts of really intensely physical ways. (Sarah Jaffe)
Building community
Over the last 20 years, Somalia in Africa is one of the countries that has been bombed, droned, and intentionally infiltrated.
Sarah interviewed many people who came to America seeking support after having fled their countries who had been destabilized by international socio-economic meddling politics.
There is a sense of loss which is not acknowledged for people who, you know, in these countries that we see as net-receivers of migrants [like the UK and US], where people think, “Oh, these migrants love to be here because it’s so great here”, but no, a lot of people are fleeing things that they had no control over, and they would have preferred to stay put if they could. (Sarah Jaffe)
Many of the people that come out of different African countries orientate themselves around their community. No matter where they come from, when they find someone who relates to them and their home, a community is automatically created.
In the United States of America, this is not always the case, and people tend to err towards living in isolation, without strong community networks.
On a global scale, building a community that envelopes humanity is also possible – if and when the resources are being properly utilized.
What would it look like to have a world that invested more in making sure that everybody, and not just the people who could afford it, could get good mental healthcare, it would be a different universe … That’s something that we could do, we have the resources to do that … We’re not doing it. Why? (Sarah Jaffe)
Sarah’s advice to private practitioners
What more can we do to not isolate the people who need care, and the caregivers themselves? How can we build communities around taking care of people’s loss that can also simultaneously support the needs of the providers?
Books mentioned in this episode:
Sarah Jaffe – From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire
Sarah Jaffe – Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone
Sarah Jaffe – Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt
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Useful links mentioned in this episode:
- Check out our Practice Academy!
- Sign Up to the Group Practice Boss Conference!
- Visit Sarah’s website and connect on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Check out these additional resources:
How to Use Your Energy More Wisely with Dr. Diana Hill | POP 1270
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Meet Joe Sanok
Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners who are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.
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