He Lost His Son at 23. Then Grief Became a Doorway. | Steve Ferrara

Welcome To Grieving Awake

Joya · 0:00Welcome to Grieving Awake. I'm your host Joya. This is a space for conversations about loss, love, consciousness, and the mysteries that change us. Together we'll explore what grief asks of us, what it reveals, and how even in the breaking we can find a deeper way of being alive.

Speaker · 0:20Well, hello everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of Grieving Awake. And this week I am so honored and thrilled to get to talk to Steve Ferrara, who has a lot to say about grief and the power of grief and the spiritual connection that can happen through grief.

Steve’s Life And Spiritual Roots

Speaker · 0:40So with that, Steve, why don't you introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us about yourself and what led you on this path?

Guest · 0:48Yeah, thank you so much, Joy. And it's it's great to be here and uh and thank you for the invite. Uh well, as you can see from my white hair, I've been here a long time on this uh earth uh in my human experience, so to speak. Uh I um uh previous to writing a book, which I kind of uh you know fell into, which I'll tell you about, but uh most of my life was spent in finance. I was the CEO of a fairly large uh financial firm uh for over 30 years. And uh, you know, started, you know, when I was uh 20 years old uh selling life insurance and it just evolved over time into a large uh you know uh financial services firm. I sold it about six years ago and uh enjoyed every bit of it. Um I was uh my my personal life, I got married very young at 21. We had three children, uh, and my life was about as uh wonderful as I could have ever asked. Uh certainly um, you know, in terms of all that we were able to enjoy. Uh and I also was always on a spiritual path. I was fortunate to have a dad who uh was a spiritual seeker. And since I'm about 10 years old, I've always been surrounded by uh by books and people and organizations that were truly and genuinely uh looking to understand life in a deeper way. And that's always been uh you know one of my uh most important uh parts of life. I gain a lot of enjoyment in trying to understand the deeper aspects of life. So uh I taught, in fact, for uh um an institution out in uh San Antonio, Texas for almost 20 years. Uh and it was based on the principles of both the uh the body, the mind, and the spirit. So uh, you know, I've been very much uh entrenched in in that aspect of life and you know, and and brought it into all of the aspects of my both family and business life.

The Loss That Broke Everything

Guest · 2:42Uh about 21 years ago, uh, when my son, who was literally my best friend, uh he was like, you know, we were connected at the hip. He could end my sentences, we had the same weird sense of humor and everything else. Uh, but very unfortunately, at the age of 23, he had a car accident and died in the accident. Um I uh, with my spiritual background, uh, I can tell you, I uh threw all of it, and throw it out the door, but I just could not understand how a universe that I do believe is is perfect and unfolds the way it's supposed to. Uh, I knew in some way it had to have made a mistake. There's no way that this beautiful, perfect, athletic uh at the top of his game, getting ready to be married. There was just no way that Christopher should have been taken out of his human experience. And that resulted in such deep grief. Uh, a lot of it uh was expressed through anger. I would run. He died in December, and we lived up north and I on country roads, and I would run. I was a runner, and I would just scream at the top of my lungs, usually at God. I didn't know who else to blame, the universe, as to why should this and could this have happened? Uh, you know, and and and just through my tears, and I would just scream. It was one of the ways that I did express some of that intense emotion. I I'd also just cry into a pillow hysterically at times if I had to. I, you know, I had still two daughters and a wife. So, you know, I was not gonna show them sometimes, although my wife and I did express pretty openly in front of each other, but my daughters were at somewhat younger, tender ages, and didn't want to show them what you know the level of grief I felt.

Journaling Through The Worst Days

Guest · 4:29Um, but one thing that I found uh that was so constructive, literally the next morning after my son's death, I had a uh a journal, and I had journaled somewhat infrequently, but I just knew that this was going to become an important part of me being able to express uh what I felt I couldn't necessarily express uh to others. Um I just needed a way to allow a stream of consciousness. And so I started journaling, and I literally journaled every single day, sometimes twice a day for almost 20 years. And um, when I sold my business six years ago, it was the first time I really took a look at the amount of journals I had, which was probably about 30 of them filled uh with all my handwriting. And I never read them back, but decided that, you know, I've got some time on my hands. Let me take a read through them and see. And it's pretty amazing uh that journaling does document your life in many ways. Uh, I saw the intense, raw emotion I had gone through in those early months, days, weeks, even years. Uh, but I also saw through the journaling some uh turning points that I had, some revelations, I might even say, that I had. Uh, you know, I was living my life at this point in a very healthy way. Uh and a very, you know, I found peace and joy again in my life, but uh I didn't realize that there were actual turning points that occurred that made me begin to see both death and life in a very different way. And that's where the book emerged from. Uh, I call it Grief to Gratitude, because that's truly was the journey. It was from this deep, dark place of grief to truly finding gratitude, uh, not that my son died, uh, and then also my wife died a few years later, uh, two tremendously traumatic experiences, but I found gratitude for the experience and all that that life experience had taught me and continues to teach me till this day. And it's made me someone I might not ever have been able to become had it not been for those experiences. So uh a long answer to a short question, but that kind of brings us up to where we are now.

Speaker · 6:54Well, and I appreciate your answer. And I'm like, oh my gosh, we have so much in common in that way. And like I am an avid journaler myself, and I found that that stream of consciousness journaling was so healing. And when you go back and visit it, it's exactly right. Like when you're in the mechanisms of the grief, you don't really realize what you're going through or see those turning points or experience those turning points.

A Turning Point In Perspective

Speaker · 7:19What were some of the major turning points that you talk about in your life and in your book that came through grief?

Guest · 7:28Yeah, uh, you know, I had so many, and I would say probably the earliest one that made uh a mind shift for me to be able to begin to see uh this otherwise unimaginable experience in a bit of a different way, was I was journaling one day, and uh it just came to me, and I can still remember that day, uh, that it just came to me that, you know, I love Christopher so much. Uh, I've always supported him in all that he wanted to do in his life. And it occurred to me that, you know, I accept that life unfolded the way it was supposed to. And I wasn't gonna fight with life anymore by this point. But what I did realize is that I can look at this experience from Christopher's side of this experience or journey. I didn't have to just be focused on myself and being focused on ourselves, in my opinion, is the whole reason why our society has such a tough time with death. Because for those of us left behind, there's no question it is sad. You miss the person, it's lonesome, you go through a lot of emotion. But when I shifted it and said, let me look at this from Christopher's side. This is Christopher's experience. You know, he was destined to only live 23 years and then move on in his journey. Now, I don't pretend to ever think I know where you go on your journey. I mean, I read books voraciously, including uh books about near-death experiences. And it sounded like it was a great experience for all those people, and they didn't even want to come back, but they had to for whatever the reason. Christopher didn't. But I knew that it had to have been a good experience for him. Christopher had a wonderful 23-year human life. Why would he not continue in whatever way he continues to have a good journey? So, as a father who loved him maybe as close to unconditionally as I could have ever loved anyone, I started to realize that I can support him and love him on this ongoing journey. And what then occurred, and the shift that, you know, began to evolve is that instead of thinking about what could have been, which is a self-centered way of thinking, it could have been a grandfather who would have been in business with me. I could have, I should have, I would have, I began to think in terms of what can be in our ongoing and growing relationship. And most of that relationship was occurring through my ongoing journaling. It was a real shift in my journaling when I realized this because now I started to think of him in more of a present fur fur uh form. Instead of it being Christopher, my son, who died, it became Christopher my son and spiritual partner, which put him into a present moment. So when I would meditate, and I've been a meditator since I'm 17. I was, you know, brought up in the 60s, and that's when TM came into this country. And so, you know, naturally being curious, I took TM. So that's always been a part of my life, thank the Lord, that I was able to always find this peaceful place within myself. And during meditation, I could feel Christopher's presence as my spiritual partner. During journaling, I could feel it. Anytime I quieted my mind, if I took a walk on the beach or whatever the case may be, I could feel him. So I knew there was a presence and there was an ongoing love. And what I learned about love, also, and I thank Christopher for this, is love is not about getting anything. You know, sometimes we think, well, you know, I need my wife to love me, my husband, my son, my daughter. You know, love is only about giving, has nothing to do about getting. And it I recognize that this love that I have for my son that I've always had is something I share, and that's how I feel it. So by sharing my love, that's how I feel how much I love him. So I'm able to continue to share my love with Christopher. It's just that he's not here inform. Now it's very different. I can't hug him. I can't have a cup of coffee with him across the table. I get that, and I do miss him, but I'm looking at it from his side, understanding he's on his ongoing journey that I love and support him on. I have this spiritual connection with him. He's my spiritual partner. Another tremendous gift that I feel he gave to me, that was all part of this learning, is that it got me closer to my spiritual essence. The only place I can have this relationship with Christopher anymore is at that level. So it got me so much more in touch with what I'll call my truth or my or my essence of being a spiritual being, having this human experience. So uh, you know, that was a major shift that continued to evolve. And and there was just so many uh that, you know, I I can continue to talk about, but I'll I'll let you ask another question.

Speaker · 12:43Wow. And I love that so much. My question is, how long was that time period for you from going from the running, screaming? I mean, all of those are such healthy ways to express grief, and into the journaling process where you started to have that turn when you asked that question and that simple perceptions with simple perception shift like really transformed your relationship. What was that time span like for you?

Guest · 13:09Yeah, um, you know, uh, I would say, I'm trying to think, it was probably my third journal, which probably took me about a year or more uh into uh into the experience. Um, I was in very deep grief. And I just thanked God that I had two daughters and a wife and a business and a lot of people I was responsible for because that's made me know I have to move forward. But the grief was so intense, excuse me, early on. I remember one day I was uh in my kitchen and literally bent over the counter in physical pain. It was emotional and literally physical pain. I mean, it felt like I got punched in the belly at times. It just hurt so bad. And and that particular day, uh, my dad was at my house. And my dad, as I mentioned, he's always been my mentor, uh that spiritual seeker that uh helped me so much in life. He's the wisest man I've probably ever known. And he happened to be at the house, and I just looked up at my father and I said, Dad, it hurts so bad. And even as I say that, I can remember that something at that point, because I was at the absolute rock bottom, opened up in my mind, and it was a very dim light, wasn't a bright light, but there was something that said, There's another way that I can look at this. I don't have to continue on this road. It's not sustainable, it's not going to be good for anyone. And I just knew there had to be a better way. I didn't know what it was gonna be, but I knew there had to be a better way. And my my journaling, as I say, began to shift. And I would say it was only a few months after that, the time frame, I'd say maybe a year in, that this revelation came to me that I can look at this from Christopher's side. And and it and it changed so much, just that mind shift. Um, and I also knew from my spiritual studies that life can't be here to torture us. Life has got to be here for a bigger reason. It makes no sense that, you know, whatever the source is, and I don't know what the source, God, whatever we want to call it, uh, has created this uncomprehensible universe of planets and suns and galaxies. I mean, I was just reading the other day, there's they sent up this telescope. They expect that there's over two trillion galaxies in our observable universe. And and our galaxy alone is uncomprehensible, incomprehensible. We uh there's supposedly, you know, trillions of planets within our own little Milky Way galaxy, and there's two billion or three billion suns, and and and then there's two trillion galaxies. So, my point being, it just blows my mind, and I I do like that aspect. I see read science and astronomy and all that. Uh, but you know, how could all of this have been created to just torture me? There cannot be a reason that life is here to torture me. And the bigger purpose that I've always concluded that we're here for is to learn. Life is here to teach us, and it teaches us through life's experience. And sometimes those experiences are not easy. And in fact, the most challenging ones I find are the ones that have the most potential pact in them for us to learn and grow from, if we look at it with curiosity as opposed to fear, where we suppress or deny it. But to look at it and say, What is this for? and truly be open to wanting to understand. It's just a much more healthy, opened way for us to be able to uh live our lives.

Feeling Presence Without Words

Speaker · 17:04Oh gosh, I love so many things about what you just said. Would you consider when you started um reframing that question in your mind and journaling about it and kind and feeling the essence of his spirit and feeling his presence near you, would you consider that to be after death communication? And did he communicate anything to you through your journaling process or any other way?

Guest · 17:27Yeah, and you know, uh I I wish I could say that uh, you know, most of the time it was a uh a monologue. I I wish it was a dialogue, but uh in feeling I could feel him, but in terms of actual uh feeling that he was saying specific uh words or anything to me, uh what I have kind of moved toward realizing is that it's a different language. You know, us human beings communicate with words, and frankly, words are a bit inferior for us to sometimes communicate how we truly feel. Uh so that was not the language anymore. Christopher didn't talk to me, but there were feelings when I'd be journaling, I could just feel him. I just knew uh his presence was here till this day. I mean, his presence is is always here. Uh I I, you know, um when I meditate, I just know his his presence is here. My you know, the relationship. This is another thing that I learned is uh relationships are within us. Uh if we love our spouse, love our children, uh that's a relationship that's within us and it never ends. It's always there. You know, my son would go away at times, you know, for a couple months to college. Didn't mean I didn't love him as much as I always did. I mean, the difference was I could pick up the phone and call him, which you can't do anymore. But he was still not here physically. Uh, he was still not here at all. He was wherever he was. He went to school in Florida. And I was up in New Jersey at the time. Didn't make my love any less for him because I couldn't see him. So I began to realize that it's a bit of a different language. He's not here physically, he's not here to be able to verbalize, but uh I feel him. And, you know, and just one other point about that is even communicating amongst even you and I or with anyone in your life, much of what we are hearing is not really the words, it's the feeling behind it, it's the intonations, it's the, you know, if you're in front of someone, which I that's the way I like to communicate, you know, this is this is fine too, but uh, you know, being with someone, you truly get the feeling. And I, you know, in my business, uh being a leader of many people, I learned that listening was so important. And listening was so much more than just hearing the words, it was being opened, quieting your mind and truly being opened to what someone was saying. And you could feel where they were coming from more than their words were communicating. There was a um some kind of a study done by psychiatrists, psychologists that it was a very small percent, I think it was less than 10% uh of how we listen to someone and hear what they're saying. Less than 10% is actually through the spoken word. The rest of it, like I say, is through the intonations, the the way that things are being said. You can say something in all different ways, and it comes across completely different. And our minds are so fast it's picking up on all that, we don't even realize it. And that's why sometimes you look at somebody and say, oh, I don't want to be near that person, or other times it's like, yay, I love that person, you know? So it's just feelings that we have. And that's how I express, or uh that's how I communicate with Christopher at this point.

Speaker · 20:57And I think it's so important to talk about these different ways because you know, when my son first came, started coming through to me, and I could feel his energy. And when I would fall into that deep place of grief, I know what you're talking about, that stabbing, just oh, that feeling. And I one day asked him to hug my heart. I said, if I'm really feeling your energy, then give my heart a hug. And I felt this peace just descend upon my heart that instantly took my grief away. And I was like, wow. And so that became like a way that we have a relationship with one another. And I can still, anytime I'll say, Hey, hug my heart, I'll still get that little feeling of like the energy there, right? So it's that experience of continuing the bond. There's so much research behind that too, and that the continuing our relationship, this give and take, and learning how their new language is, right? Because it's not words. And it's funny, at first I was using a pendulum to talk to him. And he said, he said to me, by the time you're finished with one sentence, I've done a lap around the universe. And I just started laughing so hard about my own inability to trust those feelings, right? Like you're saying, to trust those sensations, to trust that inner experience when you're in grief. And you said that grief has been one of your most profound teachers in this lifetime, as it has been mine, and probably for a lot of people listening, or even though, even if they're not in the place where it's become a teacher yet.

Grief As Teacher And Choice

Speaker · 22:26What has it taught you?

Guest · 22:29Yeah, you know, grief, and you said it so well, is you know, grief is not a destination, it's absolutely something that we need to allow ourselves to go through. And everyone goes through grief in their own way. Uh, and many people uh go through grief for much longer periods of time than others. Uh, but grief ultimately is a doorway, and that's the best way I can explain it to uh understanding uh life in a different way. Uh grief uh to me uh opened a door that uh has allowed me to understand that uh you know life is so much uh deeper, you know, uh understanding that that uh you know death occurs. I mean, you know, human being has been here for a few hundred thousand years on earth. I think the earth's been here four and a half billion. So really the human being is so new to this earth. And uh, you know, we're just bringing such a new dimension to life. Uh everything before us really had no ability to be aware of itself. And here we are actually aware of ourselves. I mean, that's a pretty amazing thing that's occurred. And part of that awareness is uh that it gives us the ability to choose how we want to experience this life. And this is what I learned so clearly from grief is that I can choose how I'm going to respond. And uh I can respond with fear, I can respond in the way that unfortunately society in general responds to death, where it's very self-centric and we only feel or allow ourselves to feel those very sorrowful and and sad feelings, which are part of life, there's no question. But I can also choose to look at this in a much more bigger context, a much bigger way where I can use this painful experience to open my mind to understanding things in a bigger, better way. And this idea of choosing, uh, I've found it so helpful for every aspect of my life. Uh, you know, I could even be in traffic and you know, getting annoyed with the guy in front of me going 10 miles an hour slower than he should. And I just remind myself, that's just an old pattern. I can choose to respond in a different way. And it shifts everything. I'm gonna look at the trees for a while. I'm gonna, I'll pretend it's my grandpa in front of me so I won't get mad at him, or whatever the case may be. You we can choose to respond in whatever way we want. And just one other thing that I would bring out, because I've heard this from many people that I do coaching with or talking, speaking, uh, is that well, unless I feel sad, or unless I feel even in some cases guilty, doesn't if I move on from that, doesn't that mean I don't love them anymore? I've forgotten them. And there is some twisted rationale in society that that is uh something people feel. But what I've learned is that love is what is the ongoing, continuing feeling that you can have. Uh, you know, this idea of feeling sad because I love them. I mean, sadness is a part of it. You know, people will say, well, when you look at it from their side, does the sadness go away? No, I can feel sad right now, frankly. If I were to talk about my wife, talk about my son enough. I mean, of course, I'm sad. It's a part of the human experience. But there's such a much bigger aspect to it all. And the biggest aspect of it is to allow this love that you have for that person to continue on, to support them, and to allow yourself to continue to move forward in a much more healthy and peaceful way. That only occurs, uh, you know, subtitle of my book is uh Embracing the Inner Pathway to Healing and Peace. And that was about as concise a way as I could express what I felt I found is this inner pathway. It's not the outside. There's no answers on the outside. Thinking provides no answers. Uh, emotions provide no answer, but there is this inner pathway that once we quiet all that stuff down, you know, cool our jets, kind of quiet all that chatter and the loops that go on and on and on, and just quiet it to the best of our ability, there is this inner pathway that we begin to discover. And that's where I learned so many things that I I try to share uh, you know, in the book. Uh, but um yeah, it was it's it's been quite a journey. It continues to be. Uh, and and ultimately, as I say, uh finding gratitude for the experience, choosing to find gratitude for the experience is what uh makes me feel uh at peace. I'll never agree that my son should have been taken out of this life at 23. That still makes no sense to me, but I don't understand the plan enough. So what I did was accept that, you know, life's been unfolding for billions of years. Uh never asked me my opinion, never ask me if I agree. You know, I'm here for this little, little tiny 80 or 100 years out of billions that life has been unfolding. So who am I to question how life is unfolding? My son's destiny must have been 23 years. And, you know, in some ways, I can rationalize that he was here to be able to help me learn and get in touch with myself at a level that I may never have been able to had I not had that experience. So, how could I be anything but grateful for the experience? And um, so yeah, I uh I don't know if that answers your question again, but I'm just throwing that out.

Speaker · 28:59Well, it does, and it's such a beautiful reframe. And I know for people who are early in grief, they can hear that and be like, this guy's crazy. What's he talking about? But even I, I'm only a year and a half out since my son passed. And just driving here today, I was thinking about this podcast and the book that I wrote, and you know, the experiences and what I've learned and how it's changed me as a person to care so deeply about um not only my spiritual path, but also giving people this window, right? Like get like opening the door, like you said, grief opens that door to that inner path. And once you step somebody onto that path or you open the door for somebody to go on that path, it's you know, they're on the journey then, like they're taking the journey because it's such an individual experience and what we learn through grief and the experience of grief. Yes.

Why Resisting Life Creates Suffering

Speaker · 29:51Do you feel like your spiritual foundation? And so, like looking back, right? Because we're at this age of wisdom, I say, where I can look back and see how it seems like life was doing me while I was doing life, and I had no idea. And so I'm curious if you have that experience too, looking back and how things have come together for you.

Guest · 30:13Yeah, you know, there's a there's an old adage out there, uh, you know, that, you know, rather than us living life, we allow life to live us. And and that's probably more true than we'd even realize. Uh, life, as I was just saying a moment ago, has been evolving, you know, from what they say. If there was a big bang, 14 billion years, this gala, this universe has been evolving. We're this tiny little relative piece of dust in the universe called Earth that 8 billion of us are on, and it's spinning and it's revolving and it's rocketing through space. We can't even imagine. And this is a tiny little piece of dust compared to the whole universe. And you know, we don't even know where we fit in the universe. And here we are, literally revolving, uh, you know, spinning uh it's like a thousand miles per hour, and it's even faster around the sun, and then rocketing through space that's expanding. It's like my little brain can't even comprehend all of that. Who am I to question life? You know, but yet here we are, uh like a little flea fighting, you know, thinking we're you know, resisting, pushing back on life. That's what causes suffering. If there's one thing I learned is resisting life is an absolute losing battle. There's no way to win that battle because life is going to just keep unfolding. The only ability we have is what I said before, is how we respond to life. And most of us react to life, meaning that all of our old patterns, which we picked up uh through just being a product of the human race over eons of time, and our own experiences and however many years we've been here, we have old habit patterns, old things built into us. Some of them have no factual basis to them at all, but it's just what we believe. It's our opinions, it's our uh our judgments. And those are all are all our old patterns that we're born with. And then we learn some more along the way, whether it's through religion, whether it's through our education or upbringing. Uh, and and you know, all good people trying to help us, I guess, to the best of their ability, but everybody's flawed. Every human being is flawed, and here we are trying to learn something from flawed human beings. Uh, you know, so uh all we can do is uh be opened to seeing how life is flowing through us, and in in this case, what we're talking about is something as traumatic as losing a son. And in addition, in my life, my wife passed away, almost unimaginable, but that's how life unfolded. And I have to respect life, and I have to know that life is here and it loves us, and my wife was only destined to live the amount of years she did, and my son the amount of years he lived. So rather than push back against life, I need to allow it to flow. I need to accept it, I need to respect and revere life, be in reverence to life. And the only control, which is a huge control, I could call it a superpower, is our ability to choose how we're gonna respond to life. Am I gonna push back against it and truly suffer? Or will I allow it to flow and understand to the best of my ability and respond with love and compassion and understanding and see life in as big a way as I possibly can.

Speaker · 34:02I love that. And it makes me think of the Viktor Frankel quote, of course, that between the stimulus and response, there's that moment of choice. And through, I know for me it's been through meditation that created that space between the trigger and the reaction. And I observed one day in writing that word reaction, I was like, oh, creation and reaction have the exact same letters, it's an anagram, right? It's yeah, yeah. It's the creator is a reactor who's all mixed up. So I always keep that in my mind of um, you know, that space between reaction and that is our superpower.

Coaching On Triggers And Awareness

Speaker · 34:35Is this predominantly what you are coaching people on? Tell me about your coaching and how you work with people.

Guest · 34:42Yeah, you know, uh I um coach people uh, you know, in in all different ways. Some are still in business uh because that was such a big part of my life. But I, you know, I've realized that most of these people I talk to in the business world, uh, things have changed so much. There's nothing I can really teach them about business. But what I do is try to raise it to uh an understanding of human nature. Uh in my business, uh, you know, we had about 100 advisors in my firm. And so they're all dealing with clients all the time. So understanding human nature, truly knowing how to listen, and then really being reflective of yourself and being aware when you get triggered in certain ways, because those are uh kind of like, you know, wake up call that, oh wow, I really get triggered when this happens. It doesn't have to be that way all the time. I can allow that and let that go, surrender it, and I can I can look at this in a different way. So my coaching is very much that trying to really embrace uh this superpower that we have that most people don't, for whatever reason, want to take responsibility for. Most people, and I I hate to say this, but most people are more of a victim mindset. They'd rather blame, they'd rather complain, they'd rather judge. Those are all victim positions. The truly responsible position is to say, okay, I see how this is occurring. I'm bigger than all of that, and I can respond in any way that I want rather than be judgmental of that person that you know said something that really pissed me off. Maybe look at it in a bigger context and have compassion. They might be suffering. They who knows what their life is. Everybody's got a big story in their life. You start to become more open-minded, more loving, and more compassionate as you look at life and people in a bigger way and realize that my opinions and my judgments mean nothing. Everybody's got an opinion, and they're probably all wrong. You know, mine's wrong, yours is wrong. Who knows? Or mine's right, yours is wrong. Who knows? It doesn't almost matter. It's an opinion. What I find, and and this was an important uh recognition for me as well, is and this occurred in meditation and occurs in meditation often with me, is that I realized I'm so far bigger than these emotions and these thoughts that go through me. Uh, you know, they don't have to be something I engage with. You know, I had one day, just as an example, um, this was years ago, but uh it helped me so much to understand. I was just feeling really sad one day, uh, and looking out the window, and I just felt this tremendous sadness. And as I'm feeling it, I realized that I'm feeling this sadness, and it's in my gut, and it doesn't feel good. But if I just allow it to be there and I don't let it go up into my head, which is where you really get in trouble because then it mixes with thought, and all of a sudden it becomes a story of, you know, I lost my son, poor me, and you get into that whole storyline, which those are all dead ends. I realize that sadness is not who I am. You know, it's just a passing feeling. I'm not a sad person, so to speak. I don't identify that way, but can I feel sad? Absolutely. And can I live with feeling sad at times? Sure. I can still live my life. I can still keep doing whatever, but that sadness is there, but eventually it just evaporates, sometimes within minutes, sometimes a day, but it almost doesn't matter. It's just a feeling, and I don't allow it to travel up into my thoughts and become a whole big storyline. So I've realized that I don't identify myself with my thoughts and emotions because I'm far greater than them. And it just made sense to me in meditation that if I can observe and witness, so to speak, my thoughts and emotions, well, then I must be bigger than them. I have to be. Otherwise, I otherwise I'd be them, but I'm not them. So it really that became a powerful thing. That, okay, I don't have to, even anger, whatever it might be, none of that's me. Just passing through. I don't have to engage with it. I don't have to identify with it. Does it feel good? No, but some things feel really good when I'm happy and I'm joyful, uh, but I'm bigger than that too, you know? So I don't know if I'm explaining myself well enough with that, but that was a big revelation to know that I am bigger than all of this that's going through me.

Speaker · 39:32It's a powerful awareness to have. And if people are listening to that and wanting that, it's you know, it really is as simple as observing that you're noticing it and then asking who's noticing it. If you're not in it, if you're not in the experience of it, then who or what is witnessing it, right?

Guest · 39:49Exactly.

Speaker · 39:50And that is very powerful. If you had one lesson to teach the world, what do you want that lesson to be?

The Inner Pathway And Stillness

Guest · 39:59Yeah, um, you know, I would say to anyone that if we could get to a point where we realize that this outside world that we live in, this world of overstimulation, uh, with all of our devices, with computers, with internet, with TV, with people, with opinions, if we can understand that all of that exists and I get it, but that's the outside world. There's an inside world, and the inside world is what we need to get more in touch with. If people would just give themselves five minutes in the morning and maybe five minutes at night just to start, to just sit and be at that whatever place they can be, when they uh, you know, close their eyes and and you know, if you're thinking, just realize you're observing it, don't engage with it. Uh, you know, sometimes, almost all the time, when I wake up in the morning, before, you know, everything, all the crazy starts to occur, whatever that may be. I don't have a lot of crazy in my life anymore, thank God. But uh, you know, there's that little kind of gray area place where you're still at peace. Everything hasn't started to overstimulate in your mind. It's just a beautiful place to enjoy. And uh there's this inner pathway, and as we discover it more and more, the inner pathway will give us guidance as how to do things, how to even, you know, I find when I don't get too involved, if I stay out of the way, uh, try not to control anything and just kind of go along. Uh, you know, I find myself saying the right thing at the right time, or I'm in the right place at the right time. I don't even know how. All I can do is be grateful. I'm not sure. It might even just be, you know, I go to Starbucks and I, you know, whatever, and and and then there's no line, or whatever the case may be. I I don't even know what it would be. There's so many things that occur in my life that it's like I'm just grateful for. Somehow it all worked out because I'm trying not to think so much and control things, but go by way of the inner pathway. And again, that's in my book, what I try to share. That's the only place that you can go uh to find real answers. Thinking, while it's a good thing and it's a good tool, it's a tool. It's not gonna give you answers to major life challenges. But if we use it as a tool, that's great. But thinking, you know, either takes us into the future or the past, it doesn't keep us in the present moment. That's where all the power is, and that's where you get in touch with your inner self.

Speaker · 42:48So beautiful and such a powerful, wise thing to share.

Where To Find Steve’s Work

Speaker · 42:52Stephen, where can people find your book and where can they find you?

Guest · 42:58Thank you. Well, uh, the easiest thing is on my website, which is uh my name, stephenferrara.com. So uh that will take you to where you can link into my Facebook and Instagram and Substack, and there's some interviews on there. Uh certainly the book is available on Amazon, just putting grief to gratitude. Uh, I was uh an Amazon bestseller for whatever that was worth. And uh, you know, so things are good, people are responding. I hear from people, it's amazing. Social media uh gets you around the world. I heard from people in Australia last week uh thanking me and telling me it really helped them tremendously just look at life and death in a different way. And uh so yeah, the easiest way is uh stephenfarara.com. You can email me from there, and people do, and I'm happy to answer questions. Um, and I'm and I'm also um I think there's um uh you can get uh I summarized the book into eight steps that I uh think are the biggest ones I learned. I'm pretty sure that's available, or you can email me and I can send you the eight-step summary. And there's also uh a chapter uh that I share uh that I think helps people uh if they're interested, they can get that also for free.

Speaker · 44:11So wonderful.

Gratitude As A Way Of Being

Speaker · 44:12Thank you for turning or being willing, I should say you didn't do it. Thank you for your willingness to be allowed to take that journey from grief to gratitude and writing about it and the beautiful work you're doing in the world. It's so needed. And having men like you out there who are doing it just touches my heart so much that it gives men other men permission to open up to this softer, more mysterious way of being rather than the forceful I know everything, you know, when it's like, no, we're just living in this big mystery swimming along.

Guest · 44:48So true, so true. Uh the worst words I always say the worst words we can ever say is I know, because we don't know anything. The older I get, I'm 70 years old, I realize I don't know anything. And it's a great way to live because you're open-minded then.

Speaker · 45:03Yeah, it's almost like return, it's beginner mind all the time, right? It's like, I don't know, I don't know anything. And what you said also, like circling back quickly to the Starbucks comment about you know, there's no line at Starbucks. And for me, it's always uh when I get on the freeway and there's this particular merge I always have to do. That's a pretty big merge. And I swear to you, 95% of the time there's a big old wide gap between cars. And I'm like, thank you, Spirit, every single time. Thank you, Spirit. So it's just those little things, and when we acknowledge them and pay attention to them, we start to call in more of those experiences into our life. So it gets, and it that is those little, those little gratitudes, I feel like add up to bigger ones.

Guest · 45:43They sure do, they sure do, and and living our lives with with gratitude. Uh, and I talk about this in the book, you know, people are grateful for you know, uh their family, the food on their table, and and that's a wonderful thing, but gratitude is so even much far deeper. It's literally a way of living, it's a way of being. And when you come from that place, it changes everything in life. You just love it more, you appreciate it more. There's joy, there's peace. And so, yeah, gratitude is uh is a healer.

Speaker · 46:16Beautiful. Thank you, Steve.

Guest · 46:18Thank you, Joya.

Speaker · 46:20Thank you for listening to Grieving Awake. Don't forget to like and subscribe and share this episode with anyone you think could benefit from this conversation. You can get the book Grieving Awake and your free practices at grievingawake.com.