Welcome intro

[0:00] Lisa: Welcome back to another episode of Giving Grief Grace. I hope you’ve had a wonderful day, or you’re enjoying some time outside, or maybe you’re out for a walk or a drive. It’s always nice to tune in while you’re getting some exercise or have some downtime, so thank you so much for listening. I am thinking of you this week. As we head into the fall and into the holidays, I fully understand that this season can be a challenge. And as we’re coming off the summer and transitioning into fall, that in itself is a death and rebirth. It’s a time of change, and change can be really difficult to process and to move through. So know that I’m thinking of you.

[0:50] Lisa: Today’s guest is such a gift to chat with. This one hit close to home because, as I’ve shared earlier, my dad has some illnesses that he’s working through, and we’re working through as a family. He’s always been curious about death with dignity, and I was so delighted to be connected with Tia Ma. She is a resilience coach and Shaolin Qigong instructor, and she blends nervous system education with somatic practices that help people move through life’s transitions. She’s a long-time advocate of Death with Dignity, and she teaches people how to grieve, how to hold space for others in grief, and to see grief as a sacred doorway to meaning and transformation.

[2:33] Lisa: She chats all about her personal experience with grief and the passing of her dad. He opted for death with dignity, so I just want to let people know, trigger warning: we do talk about Tia’s dad, Richard Powers, as he took his last breath. It’s such a moving conversation, and if you are curious about Death with Dignity, this is one you will want to listen to. Tia is so gracious in how she shares her own experience, gives support for people who may be thinking about it, and also holds space for us. And at the end, we do some healing Qigong movements. It was just such a gift to chat with Tia Ma. So without further ado, please enjoy our interview.

Interview

[3:30] Lisa: Welcome back to another episode of Giving Grief Grace. I’m super excited to introduce to you Tia Ma. She is such a light in this world, and I am grateful for you being here today, Tia. Welcome to the show. Maybe you could say a little hello to everyone and share a little bit about yourself.

[3:52] Tia: Hello, absolutely. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation. I’m a resilience coach and a grief coach, and I teach Shaolin Qigong. I have been a massage therapist for 40 years, and I came to a point where I really wanted people to have the ability to enter their body and ground all throughout the day. More than a once-a-week or once-a-month massage, I wanted people to find ways to come into their body all through the day, as life is happening very fast. That’s where my resilience work manifested: how do we breathe, how do we walk, how do we navigate anxiety and stress in this modern world?

[4:41] Lisa: Isn’t that needed? The work that you do is so vitally important to our well-being. Before we hit record, we did this beautiful Qigong movement and breathwork, and I think it just centers you. In yoga teacher training, we talk about knocking on the pipes of the nervous system and the chakras, and how yoga is the movement and the breathwork, the pranayama, of getting your body aligned and allowing the energy and whatever emotions are in there to flow out. I feel that with Qigong as well, the grounding and healing.

[5:33] Lisa: You have a very unique story. Your father was diagnosed with a terminal illness. I would love for you to share what transpired. As children, we know that our parents will pass at some point. That’s life, the circle of life. It doesn’t make it easy. As your dad received this diagnosis, he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, which is a big diagnosis. I would love for you to talk about your journey with him, because you turned something that could be so dark into a joyous, celebratory occasion, and really shone light into life. I would love for you to share that with our listeners.

[7:03] Tia: Absolutely. My dad was diagnosed with ALS, and the doctor said, “Look, you’ve got three to five years left to live, but you’ll probably be paralyzed any day now.” My dad was 82, and he had always been a tennis player and a walker, very active. He said, “I’ve had a great life. I don’t want to spend the last five years paralyzed.” Luckily, he lived in Oregon, where it is legal to do death with dignity. We had not really talked about this before. He said, “You should come home.” I flew out, and he said, “Look, I want to do death with dignity. How do you feel about this?” That was surprising for me, because I absolutely support it. Love it. I think this is how we can evolve as a society, where we don’t have to let our people suffer at the end when they’re already terminal.

[7:58] Tia: So I was a green light, my brother was a green light, and my mother was in a different category. She was frustrated, in grief, in shock, and she’d always been on the angry spectrum. She wasn’t really talking about it. She didn’t want to talk about it. And so, over the next 3 weeks, my dad and I picked the date he was going to die. We planned this huge party where he was going to be the MC. He wanted his mime troupe to show up. He wanted his writers group to come and read. He wanted costumes. He wanted a feast. He said, “We’re not having no damn potluck.” And he said, “We’ve got to put the fun back in the funeral.” He just really wanted to celebrate with people.

[8:55] Tia: He had about 10 or 12 people fly in from around the country, and he invited 60 of his dearest friends to come to this performance.

[9:09] Lisa: The final performance. And what was your dad’s name?

[9:12] Tia: Richard Powers. He was a psychologist, a performer, a game inventor, very big into educational games.

[9:14] Lisa: So cool.

[9:26] Tia: And he was a jokester. He definitely loved poking at the rules, and he was like, what are these rules about dying? Why does it have to be so serious? He said, “I’m actually having fun.” And I was kind of getting excited. He really wanted people to look at why we do death in a certain way in the Western world, when in other cultures and other countries there’s some sacredness around death, more celebration, and a lot more talking about it. So what my dad started doing was planning this huge party and going through his life and his elaborate end-of-life wishes.

[10:13] Lisa: So when he got the news from the doctor, was he sick before that? And then it was, “Okay, this is what you have, here’s the prognosis”?

[10:26] Tia: He had a year of bizarre symptoms that his local doctors could not figure out. He flew to the Mayo Clinic, and they did elaborate panels and they determined his diagnosis. He was 6 feet 2 inches, and by the time I saw him a year later, he had shrunk. He was 5’5”. He was eye to eye with me. That’s part of what ALS does. It contracts everything. So that was very bizarre to watch and to experience.

[10:56] Lisa: Gosh. Especially for him being so tall all of his life, and then experiencing that, and saying, “Okay, if I’m going to be paralyzed any day now, how do I want to go out with a bang?” So you and your brother were on board. And there was a time when you weren’t sure if your brother would be, because he’s very regimented.

[11:28] Tia: I knew he would be, but he’s a paramedic and a fireman. My dad just really had ideas about us that we had never talked about. We didn’t have the conversation.

[11:39] Tia: And that’s why now, as a grief coach and as someone who’s an advocate for death with dignity, I say: have the conversations early. Have them today. Have them next week. Do not wait until someone is dying or even when things are pressing. People don’t think clearly then. There’s so much that could have been opened up and set up if we had talked about it years in advance. The fact that my dad even wondered if my brother and I were into it was unnecessary. We were both totally supportive.

[12:13] Lisa: And you were thinking, “Why is this even a question, Dad?” But opening it up and having that conversation as a family is so important. And with your mom, after your dad’s passing, have you had that conversation with her? What are your wishes?

[12:40] Tia: My mom is a very different sort of parent. My dad is the jester, fun and lighthearted and communicative. She’s much more on the shut-down, angry, we-don’t-talk spectrum. Having both of them as parents is where I got my CPTSD, many years of complex trauma. And she still refuses to talk about it. You can’t force people.

[13:10] Lisa: Hopefully she’ll write it down somewhere. Everyone has a different idea of grief and death and dying, and it sounds like your dad was full on, “Let’s make this a celebration.” So you flew out, you had the conversation with him, you and your brother were on board, you started planning. Did you hit any road bumps? I’m thinking of people who might be considering this, either for themselves or for family members. What’s the first step?

[13:44] Tia: The first thing we had to do was get everything legal. Because he was in a legal state, we contacted Compassion & Choices, a fabulous organization. It’s multi-state in the United States, and they help people with death with dignity. They help with the right to die, so they know the laws, they know the rules, they have a formula. The formula was: my dad had to contact a doctor who determined he was terminal, and we immediately had to contact a lawyer. Then there was a 15-day waiting period, and we had to do both of those appointments again, the doctor and the lawyer. The lawyer was to say you were mentally clear enough to make this decision, and the doctor had to say you were actually terminal. After 15 days, they want to see if you’ve changed your mind.

[14:35] Tia: With my father there was a race, because he had ALS. If he was paralyzed and couldn’t sit up or take the medicine himself, we couldn’t help. I couldn’t hold the glass, I couldn’t give him a shot, or then we’re talking murder. So there was added angst about the race against his paralysis. Compassion & Choices couldn’t help, hospice couldn’t help. My father had to be able to drink it. It was barbiturates ground up in a shot of water. I just want to put this out right away: he died with a smile on his face. He took the shot, and four minutes later he was dead. It was so simple and beautiful. I want to put that out there because I think a lot of people have horrible imaginations of what it looks like.

[15:46] Lisa: I’m thinking of him surrounded by family and friends.

[15:54] Tia: So that was the first part. We had to do the legalities with the doctor and the lawyer, and Compassion & Choices was amazing. They sent out a representative who was our escort through the process, very skilled and talented, similar to hospice training. We also had a hospice person, which was separate. So we had two representatives who helped us prepare for the day that my father picked.

[16:28] Lisa: What does each person do? Hospice helps with end of life and the paperwork. Does Compassion & Choices do that as well? Do they do any counseling with the family members or preparing for what this next stage looks like?

[16:50] Tia: Compassion & Choices laid everything out for us, and then talked to the family about what it was going to look like. They are the only ones who can deliver the medicine, as they call it. They’re the only ones who can mix it in the glass, and the only ones who can hand it to the patient. Nobody else. That’s their main job.

[17:10] Lisa: That keeps it regulated.

[17:13] Tia: They are. (Pause for a pet.) So they’re the only ones who can handle the medicine. Hospice was much more about, “Okay, you’re dying, here’s what this is going to look like,” and counseling for the family. But they were friends. They were in communication. They knew each other was there.

[17:38] Lisa: To have advocates to shepherd you in is so helpful. Was there ever a time your mom said, “I’m not on board with this, we’re not going to do it”?

[17:54] Tia: For three weeks, we had a countdown. And I’ve got to say, that is such a gift.

[18:01] Lisa: So you had 15 days.

[18:04] Tia: And my dad, being a jokester, would say, “Well, I only have 2 weeks left! We’ve got to do this and this and this! I only have 9 days left!” It became this running joke. We were counting down. “I only have 3 days left!” And there was something very sane about that. It let our nervous systems prepare. It gave me compassion for the other way: when someone suddenly dies, or when someone is dying and you don’t know when, and it could be weeks or months or years, that’s really hard, too. So I realized what a gift it is to be able to say what my dad said: “Should I die on Wednesday or should I die on Saturday? I think more people could come on Saturday. I’m going to die on Saturday.” It was such a bizarre conversation, and he felt so empowered.

[19:06] Tia: He really did feel dignified. When they say death with dignity, it is not a joke.

[19:15] Lisa: To have that empowerment… I remember at the end of my mom’s life, she had stage 4 pancreatic cancer. It had been a year. She was mentally ready to go, but her body wasn’t, and it was such a challenge. To be able to say, “Okay, I’m going to tap out today,” and do it with grace and dignity is such a gift. To say, “I’m going to go before it gets bad.” Quality of life is important. My dad always says that he doesn’t want to live to be 97 if his quality of life isn’t there. My grandpa is 97, and his quality of life is so good. He’s driving, he lives by himself.

[20:12] Tia: Go Grandpa!

[20:13] Lisa: Go Grandpa! He’s one of the few who still does that. For your dad to be able to make light of it and say, “Hey, it’s D-Day,” and to have you there… Was your brother present as well, or was it really just you and your dad?

[20:36] Tia: I flew out three weeks beforehand, and I was his secretary and his stage producer. We went through the music, because he wanted a dance party right after he died. My brother has three kids (I don’t have any) and he’s a fireman, so he was really locked in. He came out three days before.

[21:00] Lisa: And you stayed through, to celebrate him in his final days.

[21:08] Tia: Yeah. My dad and I went on this journey of saying goodbye. He couldn’t really type, so I was typing email after email to his coworkers and his friends and his siblings. He just wanted to say, “Hey, I’m dying. I want to tell you what you mean to me, and thank you, and goodbye.” He said it over and over: “I love you, and this is why, and this is what you meant to me, and goodbye.” And it freaked people out. They’re not used to a real goodbye, a real “hey, this is what you meant to me in my life.” My dad must have written like 45 letters over those three weeks. It was so rich and so telling. I learned so much about my dad during those letters.

[22:02] Tia: Some people would say, “Whoa, I’ve never gotten an email like this before,” and then, “Richard, this is what you mean to me, and thank you so much. I’m sad you’re going, but I’m kind of feeling your excitement, so hey, good luck and bye.” I think the empowerment of actually saying goodbye was really healing for people.

[22:32] Lisa: And to do it in such a meaningful way, to receive his love. Did you get responses from people? Were you able to read them to him?

[22:40] Tia: Oh, yeah. I started a CaringBridge site. You know CaringBridge?

[22:49] Lisa: Yes. For people who don’t know, you can post online and people can write in.

[22:58] Tia: And share pictures. It’s like a private little website, and people from all over his community were connecting and sharing stories. My dad would stumble over to the computer, look at the pictures, write, and just cry. He was so present. He really wanted to connect with his people at the end, and he was able to. Again, what a gift to have the deadline of when he decided to go, instead of being paralyzed and not able to communicate for years.

[23:34] Lisa: I’m thinking of you and him, the dynamic duo, preparing. You’re the producer, helping him get his show up and running. Death is something that’s viscerally present in all aspects, and when you’re in that momentum of “we’re on a deadline, we’ve got this,” everything is almost magnified. As you were counting down the days, what was going through your mind? Was it, “I’m hoping Dad is going to be able to lift the cup himself,” or “I want to make sure Aunt Nancy gets to bring him his favorite bread”? What a gift to receive such lovely, heartfelt emails from someone. But as a daughter, what was your perspective on all this?

[25:00] Tia: Well, I was in the middle of my parents, like I’ve always been. My dad would say, “Hey, I’m doing this thing, I’m so excited,” and I’d say, “Yay, let’s do it.” And my mother was glaring at me, furious and mad at me. She said, “Why are you two talking about this? I don’t want a party. I don’t want this to happen. And I don’t think you’re going to die.” She was in full-on denial, but also she’s very big on control. She was joking around, “I’m not going to let you die,” but I think that’s where her brain goes. She determines things.

[25:27] Tia: That was very harsh. I was trying to psychically block it, because she throws daggers, she’s not nice, she screams and yells. And then my dad is having so much fun: “Let’s listen to the Rolling Stones first, and then Aretha, and then Stevie Wonder…”

[25:46] Lisa: It’s a lot to navigate. The greats! He had his whole playlist!

[26:10] Tia: That’s quite the encapsulation of my whole life. He and I always had so much fun together, but the second she walked into the room, I was supposed to stop laughing, not show how happy I was, because it was very threatening to her. At the end, because he and I were on the computer all the time, she started feeling really left out, because she doesn’t do intimacy. She doesn’t really do connection.

[26:40] Lisa: That’s so hard.

[26:44] Tia: I have a very complex story about that, and it’s in the book I wrote. I believe in telling the story to heal the story. That’s why I talk about death and dying, and about resilience and healing from CPTSD. My mom’s not a horrible person. I think she has a lot of trauma that she never learned how to deal with, and it turned into severe alcoholism and severe rage, and what would look like narcissism, if I were going to diagnose her, but I’m not going to. She has all those symptoms. She just never had the tools to do life the way my dad and I do, which is much more emotional and articulate and… having fun!

[27:40] Lisa: Right, being okay with celebrating. I’m with you, Tia. I can imagine that would be a really hard time. You’re preparing to say goodbye to your dad, and it’s this joyous event because he’s putting on the show and has selected you as his right-hand person, and she would feel threatened by that. Like, “Why didn’t he pick me?” And then after his passing, every family has its own dynamics, and death really changes things.

[28:30] Tia: Well, that will bring all of the dynamics onto the table. Anything that you haven’t been dealing with, there it is. It’s really an amplifier.

[28:40] Lisa: So you’ve got three weeks, you’re counting down the days. On the day itself, were you thinking, “Okay, the show starts at 9 a.m. and ends at 5”?

[28:51] Tia: Well, there was a monkey wrench. We had the deadline: Saturday’s the day. People are flying in. We have the party. My dad wanted the film crew and the microphone. He wanted me to record it. He said, “I didn’t tell you this part yet,” but he wanted to take his medicine in front of all of his friends. He wanted to die with 60 people. He didn’t want to do it in secret. That’s a very aboriginal concept: you share births with people, you share deaths with people. There are quite a few cultures where you die in community. It’s not some private thing you hide in the back room.

[29:30] Tia: So my dad wanted to take his medicine with the 60 people he invited to this party. But three days beforehand, my mother said, “Nope, today’s the day.” At four in the morning, she called everybody with plane tickets and had them cancel. She canceled the whole party. And then she called my brother and me. My brother was there the first day. She said, “It’s happening today in a few hours. Get down here right now.” And I said, “What?” She didn’t let him have his last wishes, and the party did not happen. That was the encapsulation of my whole childhood: we build something, and then, nope, it gets punctured, and it doesn’t happen.

[30:25] Tia: What did happen is my father still got to do death with dignity with eight people. He had me and my brother and my mom. My mother allowed three friends to come. Then we had the Compassion & Choices representative and the hospice person. So we were a circle of eight, and he didn’t die alone in a room. Bless his heart, he tried so hard. He said, “Okay, let’s do the reading,” and there was the joke period, and then the music period. “Okay, time for jokes.” I told my joke, and everybody laughed except my mother. And then my dad said, “I’m telling the last joke, damn it.” He told a joke, and the whole room cracked up, even my brother, who wasn’t that humored with the whole thing. He was belly laughing.

[31:17] Tia: We did a miniature version of what was a three-hour performance with an intermission that my father wanted.

[31:31] Lisa: Oh my God, I’ve got to put the intermission in there.

[31:36] Tia: He knows people need a break and snacks and drinks. So we did a miniature version, and at one point we all held hands, about eight of us witnesses and my father. The Compassion & Choices guy said, “Should we take a picture?” I thought that was ridiculous, and my dad said, “Yeah, good idea, let’s do it.” I thought, oh my God, a death selfie? What? Now I cherish this picture. At this point my father had his medicine. Half the room had Jameson and half had pineapple juice, and we did a toast. Mike, the Compassion & Choices guy, took a photo, and my dad was gone about 10 minutes after that. It’s a very special photo.

[32:32] Tia: We did the jokes, we did the song. My dad had a very specific song he wanted to die to, a Pablo Casals cello piece, and he wanted that on while he was dying. That was beautiful. We got to do that. Then he took his medicine. He got himself all comfortable, pulled up the covers, smiled one last time, put his hand on his heart, and went to sleep. Mike checked his pulse and said, “Yep, he’s gone.” It took about 4 minutes. We waited 9 minutes before we did anything else. It was just a beautiful, calm, empowered death.

[33:24] Lisa: Oh my gosh, it’s so moving, Tia. Thinking of your dad surrounded by the people he loved most, his three close friends. How was it for you as his daughter, being present in that special moment as he took his last breath?

[34:02] Tia: My father had always been an atheist, and I’ve always been extremely spiritual. I consider myself a mystic. I’ve seen and talked to nature and the trees, and I have a very elaborate spirituality and connection with the divine. My father kind of grew one, and had a spiritual awakening those last three weeks. He started getting so excited to die. He said, “Why am I excited? I feel like I’m going on a trip and I’m really looking forward to this.” And he said, “You know, when I’m a spirit, I think I’m still going to be an environmentalist.” I said, “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

[34:41] Tia: He said, “I don’t think I’m going that far," and I said, “Oh my God.” Then he said, “Will you tell me everything you’ve been talking about, reincarnation and death? I never really listened to you.” I said, “Yeah, I know.” But now he was into it, and he loved what I talked to him about. I believe we’re here many, many times, and I believe in the quantum field, that energy just shifts. He said, “I think I agree with you.” That was fun. I was very happy when he died. I was just so happy for him and excited. To me, death is like a celebration. It’s going to happen, and if it happens to come with some peace or grace, what a gift.

[35:30] Tia: What I was dealing with was a volcano of rage toward my mother, and how this was the grand finale of how she’s been controlling me and my family my whole entire life. I couldn’t quite believe she couldn’t let him have his last wishes. It was shocking to me. She said he was getting too paralyzed and had to do it, so she was using the race as her reason. But I don’t think that was the reason. I think he would have been fine for two more days, and he really wanted to see the mime troupe. He was a mime, and they were going to do a mime performance on his deathbed. My father is such an artist, and that’s why he wanted the whole thing filmed and put on YouTube, because he wanted to make death art.

[36:34] Lisa: I love that concept. It breaks my heart that he got part of his final wish, but it was a scaled-down version.

[36:50] Tia: It was very scaled down, and he’s not mad about it anymore. I’ve talked with him since he died, and he says, “Whatever, details, doesn’t matter.” But he loves that I wrote a book about this. The first half is all about the three weeks and what we went through in planning. In Oregon, they call death with dignity a hastening. You’re just turning up the speed of death. So he’s so happy that I’m writing a book about his hastening, to further the Right to Die movement and add to the death with dignity conversation. The second half of the book is: how do we deal with narcissistic bullies who think they can control the world? Are we going to stay resentful and bitter and filled with rage? I had to really question, do I forgive my mother? How do I forgive my mother? How do I move past this fury I had for a lifetime of her telling me, “No, you can’t have what you really want”?

[37:54] Tia: There is a journey through that, because I have forgiven my mother, and I am not rageful anymore. I have moved through the process. I have almost six decades of resentments, and they’re not drowning me anymore. I do forgive my mother. She has trauma, and she doesn’t know how to deal with this. Luckily, I have polyvagal theory. I have Qigong. We now talk about narcissism. We talk about alcoholism. I finally quit drinking myself, because alcoholism is in my family. I had to go through a lot of trials and tribulations to let go of my resentment. It’s a big part of what turns up the preciousness of life.

[38:59] Lisa: It turns up the preciousness of life. It’s so true. It makes you think, “If I have three weeks, how do I want to spend them?” It puts things into perspective: is this really worth my time and energy? I commend you for working through those emotions after having lost your dad. The joy of the race has ended. Dad got part of his final wish, and now it’s the aftermath. Did you have to do paperwork after? How do the specialists close out the case after his passing? And how was that for you?

[40:04] Tia: The Compassion & Choices guy was awesome. He took care of all the details and all the legalities. My brother, who flew in from Wisconsin, handled the rest. That was his forte. He took care of getting the fire crew up to remove his body and all of those details. I was pre-death and my brother was post-death. We really were a team.

[40:31] Lisa: And emotionally, how was it with your mom, and how did you navigate that? I can imagine a listener thinking, “I don’t know how I’m going to get through this, or process or deal with grief with this person who has been such a trigger for me my entire life.” So how did you navigate that?

[40:59] Tia: I took a big break. I said, “I’ll talk to you in a few months, Mother.” And when we did talk, I said, “Actually, I need a few more months.” I started writing my book immediately after my dad died. I’m an artist, I’m a painter, and I had never written a book, but the second he died, I knew: I’m going to write a book! I put the beauty and the magic of my father’s process and death in my book, and that really helped ground it, because I wanted to remember every little detail, since it was so magical and transformative and empowering. It was his ultimate teaching. And it helped me process my rage and my fury and my anger and all the patterns I’ve had with my mother. Writing helped me start sorting and navigating through.

[42:06] Lisa: Yes, the scriptotherapy: writing it down, getting it out on paper, allowing those emotions to be recorded and then released.

[42:18] Tia: Yeah, it really is powerful work.

[42:22] Lisa: And Tia, you were writing throughout this time after your dad’s passing. Were you also doing Qigong? What did the first year look like?

[42:43] Tia: The beautiful thing about Qigong is that we’re moving energy through our meridians. There are actual forms for grief, for anxiety, for depression, and for rage. So I could do these different forms, and the rage had somewhere to go. I was mad, and I could let it come out of my body, and I could start sleeping and start healing. With grief, there are ways we pet the lung meridian and nourish it, so there’s movement, and there are also ways we lift the grief off of us so we have room to breathe. It doesn’t take away the grief, and it doesn’t evaporate the feelings. It just lets there be movement still, because emotions are about movement.

[43:23] Tia: I believe if we really honor our emotions, we get to a new place, and the more we honor them, the quicker we get there. In Western culture, we don’t honor our emotions a lot. We interrupt them. People say, “That’s enough grief,” “that’s too much anger,” “don’t be that sad.” All of that interrupts the full release, and then it settles down into our body. With Qigong, we move the feelings through. We invite the earth energy in and the cosmic chi in, so we’re connected to the bigger picture and we’re not just being human in our own little container that’s full of too much emotion. We’re letting the universe bathe us. We’re letting the earth hold the heaviness and the sadness.

[44:33] Lisa: What a journey. I think it’s so important that you recognized, “I need to release this anger,” and did the work to write and to move your body and change your mindset, and be at peace with how your mom is and heal from that. That’s such a game changer for people. They say change your mind, change your life, and it’s so powerful.

[45:26] Tia: I would say: change your mind, but also befriend your nervous system, and then you can change your life. If we start really listening to what our nervous system is telling us, that’s where all the answers are. It’s not necessarily the coach or the therapist or the therapy. It’s reconnecting with what’s happening inside of us, because there’s an inherent wisdom. It’s our divine inheritance. We have information inside of us, and a lot of people are very disconnected from what the body is saying. That’s why I love Qigong: it helps us notice what our body is saying.

[46:11] Lisa: So often in Western culture we’re moving so fast. We say, “Okay, I’ve got 30 minutes to grieve, so I’m just going to cry for 10 minutes and then I’ve got to hop on a call,” and we package our grief until later, and then we can be okay for the day. Let’s have the emotion and befriend our nervous system. What’s an easy takeaway for a listener who is grieving to befriend their nervous system today, Tia?

[46:57] Tia: That’s a great question. The first one that comes to mind is to take your thumb and hug it.

[47:07] Lisa: Hug your thumb.

[47:08] Tia: Just squeeze your thumb really tight and now relax it in your lap. Relax both your hands in your lap, hugging one thumb. And then take a breath through your nose. And then a slow exhale out your mouth. Then you can switch thumbs, hug your other one, and squeeze it real tight. Let it know that it’s being squeezed. And relax it in your lap so your shoulders relax. Good.

[47:36] Tia: Here’s another one. Rub your hands together. Continue breathing through your nose. Open out your left arm, and with your right hand, pat down the inside of your arm, starting at your shoulder, down to your hand. Turn your palm over.

[48:10] Tia: And then slowly pet up the outside of your arm. Then you switch. Open up your right hand, pat down the inside of your right arm. Slowly turn your palm over and pet up. There you are. If you do that a few times, you’re tracing the lung meridian and the large intestine meridian, and that’s going to nourish your whole system. The lungs connect with grief. The large intestine deals with digesting life. When we’re petting down and then petting up, we’re telling our nervous system, “In this moment, we are safe.”

[49:01] Tia: In this moment, we can have a longer exhale than inhale, which tells our brain there’s no lion chasing us at this moment. With that simple patting, you can go slow. Slow, slow, slow, and really get into it and notice what comes up. Sometimes there are extra feelings, sometimes there’s a calmness.

[49:29] Lisa: And listen.

[49:31] Tia: And listen. Listen to what your belly is telling you. Listen to what your breath is telling you. Your nervous system is always talking.

[49:39] Lisa: When they say “trust your gut,” this is it. Oh my goodness. This has just been such an enlightening conversation, Tia.

[49:53] Tia: Aw, I’m glad.

[49:55] Lisa: I cannot wait to read your book and have you back on the show after it’s in the world. Your story of grief and light, and moving through the emotions, allowing them to come up, naming them, and being present with them; celebrating this life with your dad, and also working on the relationship with your mom. How long has it been since your dad…?

[50:36] Tia: It’ll be 13 years this March.

[50:41] Lisa: And you’re no longer angry with your mom. When we harbor that anger, it manifests into other things, so how freeing is it? And now you’re on this world journey, and the time is now to go and enjoy life.

[51:07] Tia: Yeah, I’m on a big mission to talk about death and dying and grief all around the world, and I’m noticing how other cultures deal with death and dying and grief. I’m free from an anchored spot, because I want to pay attention to where I’m supposed to go.

[51:33] Lisa: Thank you so much for your time today, Tia, and for the gifts you’re sharing with the world. We need more Tias. More Tia energy.

[51:43] Tia: Well, thank you for having a podcast about grief, and talking about it, and inviting all of the people you do to talk about it and listen to it. This is the work: bringing grief out of secrecy. It’s a spiritual practice, letting grief affect us the way it does. I noticed when my dad died, I got into an altered state. There’s something very awe-inspiring about death that we’ve been missing by keeping it hidden away.

[52:17] Lisa: It’s helpful, at least for me. I’m a verbal processor, so it’s helpful to chat with people who are in this space and have things to add that I can learn about, and make death and dying and grieving not so taboo. I grew up in a New England household where we didn’t really talk about it. We didn’t cry. It wasn’t a thing. So thank you for changing the conversation and bringing it to light. For listeners who would love to work with you or learn more about you, how can we find you?

[52:56] Tia: You can go to my website, which is tia-ma.com. You can find me on Insta or Facebook; all of my links are there. I do one-on-one coaching, I do speaking, and I have a book that I will hopefully be publishing soon. I’m working on that now.

[53:15] Lisa: I cannot wait. We will put links in the show notes. Tia Ma, it’s T-I-A-M-A dot com.

[53:24] Tia: Dot com, exactly.

[53:25] Lisa: And we can’t wait to have you back on the show once you’ve released your book, Tia. Thank you so much.

[53:29] Tia: Yay. Awesome. Thank you so much, Lisa. This was wonderful.

[53:34] Lisa: Have a great week ahead. Oh my gosh, what a joy. Thank you.

[53:44] Tia: Yay, you’re a great interviewer.

[53:44] Lisa: What a gift. What a gift, Tia. Thank you so much.