Four months after Megan ended a long relationship and came home from Mexico, her former partner fell unexpectedly ill and slipped into a coma. He was 43. She flew back down to be with him and his family, and he didn't make it. In the days after, she would be sitting in a restaurant, eating, when a wave of grief hit and she started to cry. The waiter didn't back away. He sat down with her, talked with her, and asked her questions.
My guest, Dr. Megan Rhoads, is a clinical psychologist with all the training, and she says that loss taught her things her training didn't. In this episode we widen the definition of grief, talk about what our culture keeps getting wrong, why grief comes out sideways when we push it down, and small, human ways to move through it without pretending we're fine. It's tender, it's real, and it's a lot warmer than a grief conversation has any right to be.
Grief isn't only about death
Megan said the biggest thing people get wrong is thinking grief only counts if it's sadness after a death. To her, grief is a whole-person response to losing someone or something that helped organize your life, your identity, your safety, or the future you imagined. That can be a job, a move, an empty nest, a breakup (friend breakups later in life are hard ones), or cutting off a family member, even when it's your decision. It can be letting go of an old version of yourself.
I thought about moving across town. Suddenly you're not saying hi to your neighbor every morning or having coffee over the fence, and you don't realize how big a part of your life that was until it's gone. Megan moved every year for a stretch during grad school, and she caught herself missing a little studio in Chico. That's a loss too: of community, of a feeling, sometimes of safety.
Why grief comes out sideways
Many people don't recognize a loss until it comes out sideways, as Megan puts it. That can look like irritability, waves of crying, or a change in eating. For me, it's irritability. Something has me on edge, and I have to get really quiet to figure out what it is.
People often decide this means they're broken. Megan helps them turn that around: their internal world no longer matches the world around them. It doesn't mean you're defective. Your mind and body are trying to adapt to a new reality nobody asked for. Our culture doesn't help. You get three days of bereavement leave, and then someone asks if you're over it yet.
Megan said grief does whatever it wants. We don't get to dictate how it moves through us or for how long, and it's a marathon, not a sprint. I've learned that grief is sneaky (I used a saltier word on the show). You're at the movies eating popcorn, and boom, the wave hits. I'm a sailor, so I think of it like the ocean. My job is to navigate it the best I can.
What Megan learned grieving in community
Megan had lived in Mexico with her partner and his family since the beginning of the pandemic, four years in a culture she fell in love with. When he died, the family understandably had mixed feelings about her after the breakup, and the large medical group she worked for told her she couldn't take family leave because they weren't married. She came away with four lessons.
First, know death and talk about it often, so people know what you want. Her former partner was a metal guy with skull tattoos who talked about death all the time: when I die, I want this; don't you dare do that. Because he said it out loud, Megan could gently advocate for his wishes when his family was choosing an urn, and his sister backed her up. At the cremation, they played his favorite song, "Don't Fear the Reaper," because she knew that's what he wanted.
Second, our culture stinks at grieving, and in Mexico nobody stepped away. They stepped in. His sister's best friend had just met Megan and held her like she'd known her forever. Grief is a group activity. Third, you can hang up on people. When she suddenly needed to rest in the middle of a phone call, she said she was done talking, and her friend later told her she didn't even need to acknowledge it. Fourth, thank your grief. (I folded my arms at that one.) Megan sees it as a way to honor who or what you lost, and she is closer to his mother, niece, and nephew now than she could have been before.
Coping strategies that backfire
Megan asks people to notice their go-to move when things get hard. Some of us overwork. Some of us intellectualize, as if understanding it will make it go away. Some of us caretake everyone else, try to control what's happening outside because we can't control what's happening inside, or numb out. (For Megan, it's a stack of cookies. It has to be a stack.)
She calls these adaptive behaviors. Her framework draws on transactional analysis and Gestalt theory: as children, we develop strategies that keep us safe, like a kid in a chaotic home who learns to control every detail. Those strategies help when we're little and get limiting when we're adults. Grief turns the dial up to ten. When I see myself doing it, the risk is that I layer shame on top of the grief. Megan's answer is to look at that part of yourself like a little kid who is just trying to feel okay, and to talk to her gently.
Movement, hypnotherapy, and the dimmer switch
Megan believes we hold grief in the body, and that writing and movement help release it. Even a walk you don't want to take. When I'm with families in the final days, I text the care partner: have you gone on a walk today? I don't care if it's just to the mailbox. Megan's monthly Lunar Grief Release class in the Sacramento area uses visualization, breath work from her yoga teacher training, and side-to-side movement. She got the idea from ancient wailing circles, because in her own grief she needed a place to scream.
As a hypnotherapist, Megan says hypnotherapy can help people get past the inner critic, the protective part that shuts down tears or memories in an ordinary conversation. She also teaches a dimmer switch: not shutting emotions off, but bringing them back into a window where you can function, whether you're flooded or frozen. Later, you make time to feel what you need to feel. She pairs that with the wise adult, the part of you that asks what the grieving part needs for just the next hour. I describe it as putting the feeling in a clear box on a shelf, clear so you remember to take it down and deal with it later.
What pushing grief aside costs
Pushing grief aside may keep you functioning for a while, but Megan said postponed grief is just postponed. It shows up as exhaustion, irritability, anxiety, stomachaches, headaches, constant tension, or numbness that keeps you from being emotionally available to the people you love. I've seen it come out as people snapping at baristas. It's a signal that something deeper needs attention.
Megan often sees high-achieving people who have gone and gone without making space for their losses. They come in with panic attacks and say they need to get back to work. They've seen doctors and nothing is medically wrong. Over and over, she said, they get down to unprocessed grief, sometimes held for decades.
What to say to someone grieving, and what to hear if it's you
If you're grieving, Megan wants you to hear this: you don't have to perform wellness for anyone else's comfort. If you're not ready to thank your grief, don't. Your grief is evidence that something mattered, and needing support means you're moving through it. One step: tell one safe person the truth, even in a single sentence or a text, like "I'm having a harder time than I've been showing." Megan and her best friend have a code. One texts, "Do you have eight minutes?" and the other knows to make the time.
If you're supporting someone, don't say "everything happens for a reason" or "at least they didn't suffer." Don't push them toward a silver lining they may not be ready for. A friend of Megan's told her she couldn't pull Megan out of the pit, but she could jump down in there and be with her. And if the people around you aren't skilled at this, that isn't your problem. You don't have the usual psychological resources right now, so don't spend them caretaking anyone else's feelings.
Megan's last word was the one I keep coming back to. Grief changes shape when it's witnessed, by a friend, a group, a therapist, a higher power, or your own inner little girl. We might not be able to repair what happened, but we can learn to carry it with less shame, less isolation, and more love.
About Dr. Megan Rhoads, PsyD
Dr. Megan Rhoads is a psychologist and hypnotherapist whose work centers on grief as a whole-person response to losing anything that organized your life, identity, or future. After the loss that undid everything she thought she knew about grief, she created the Lunar Grief Release and other grief offerings. Through her practice, people can take a grief-and-depression questionnaire, work with Dr. Megan or her associates, or join a grief group.
In this episode
- 03:21 What people get wrong about grief
- 07:16 "It doesn't mean you're broken"
- 09:05 Grief has no timeline
- 11:59 Megan's story: Mexico, a breakup, and a loss
- 18:13 Four takeaways from grieving in community
- 30:02 Inside the Lunar Grief Release
- 34:20 Coping strategies that don't work
- 45:12 How hypnotherapy helps with grief
- 48:31 The dimmer switch and the wise adult
- 52:30 What happens when we push grief aside
- 56:07 What to hear if you're grieving right now
- 1:00:21 What to say, and what not to say
- 1:04:34 What Megan knows for sure about grief
Caring for someone near the end? You don't have to figure out the last days alone. Book a Guided Care Planning Call and we'll talk through what's ahead.
Feeling the pull to do this work? Pay attention to that. I teach it at Compass Doula Academy.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts · 69 minutes
If there's anything else you're dying to ask, let me know: christy@christybraun.com
