When navigating the profound landscape of grief or trauma, communication often feels like crossing a minefield. Your mind is foggy, your support system is silent or saying the wrong things, and misunderstandings are inevitable. Why do our best intentions get lost in translation, and how can we repair these crucial connections? In this essential discussion, psychotherapist Dr. Patricia Timerman introduces her revolutionary IAP (Intention, Action, Perception) model. Discover the simple, actionable pattern you can use to bridge the communication gap, stop making hurtful assumptions, and confidently use your voice—even in your foggiest moments. Learn specific tools like the power of the “pause” and the use of code words to ensure you are heard, understood, and supported during your darkest times. If you’re ready to fix communication misunderstandings and regain a sense of safety, this conversation is for you.

I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others.  

Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World.

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Watch the episode here

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The IAP Model: How To Fix Communication Misunderstandings In Grief And Trauma With Dr. Patricia Timerman

One of the things that we struggle with a lot during our grief is communication, whether or not our words are being understood, or understanding the people around us, because our minds are so foggy. What if you could obtain a model that gives you a pattern on how to improve your communication even in your foggiest moments? What if you learned how to pause?

What if you learn details that would help people around you understand if you want to continue being invited, if you want something else, and the ability to use your voice when you feel most traumatized and dealing with profound grief? If that’s something that you’ve wanted, then this conversation with Dr. Patricia is for you. Let’s get into the discussion.

Dr. Patricia, welcome to the Widowhood.

Thank you so much for having me.

When you hear “Welcome to the Widowhood,” what’s the backstory? Most people go, “Widow, dying, grief. Dr. Tina, what are you talking about why do I want to be here?”

I can appreciate that. Due to the world I live in, I think about resilience, redefinition, and new beginnings.

That’s what comes to mind for you. That’s fair. Tell me a little bit about your journey, the work you do, and how you got here.

Dr. Patricia’s Journey To Grief And Trauma Work

I’m a psychotherapist. It became easier. My husband says that I have a million letters behind my name. I’m a licensed mental health counselor, a marriage and family therapist, and so on and so forth. My journey has taken me to unexpected places. I never thought I would be a therapist. I went to NYU for pre-med. Pre-med is not a major. Although let me tell you, it should be because there’s so much. You need to have a major, which becomes secondary.

I did Intro to Psych and Intro to Political Science. I said no to psych, and my bachelor’s is in Political Science. Look who’s laughing now. It happens. I think this path was chosen for me. When I went into my Master’s, I was looking for something in education, but there was something about the curriculum in marriage and family therapy at Barry University that spoke to me. I don’t know another way of saying it other than it spoke to me. It’s going to go back to the question of widowhood from earlier.

In my Master’s, when we do our practicum and internship, there is a site where you go to practice all the theories you’ve learned. My site was the 1-800-SUICIDE. I got to learn so much. My mother-in-law says that there are people for everything. I love working in that space of grief and loss because there is so much pain. It’s like it bridges or breaks this wall of emotions that you didn’t know existed until you face that loss.

Once you’re able to process it, it also allows for deeper levels of every facet or every emotion. Those could be deeper levels of happiness, deeper levels of enjoyment, and deeper levels of sadness. It’s such an unknown space. It’s like the deep sea. We don’t know much about it. When I look at the losses, we unravel or recognize a different space that we didn’t know existed.

It’s a redefinition of who we are as widows or widowers. What does that mean? We’re given a different name than we had before. I worked at 1-800-SUICIDE, and I focused a lot on prevention and intervention. When I graduated, I facilitated the suicide loss group for about ten years with the Florida Initiative for Suicide Prevention and went to postvention. That’s what my dissertation was about. I have a big love for grief and trauma.

Thank you for that. A total side note, how is your husband like married to someone who does marriage counseling and therapy? Do you put that down? It’s like, “I’m in wife time,” or is that always in the back of your mind? How do you separate the two?

He lived in Gainesville. He was going to law school. I lived in Miami, so we’d go back and forth. I remember this one time I went up to Gainesville to visit him. The two of us sat in the car, and as we started talking, I became a therapist. I remember we were in the civic. I went this way, and he went this way in the car. It was such a weird dynamic. The two of us vowed never to be in that space again.

You can never take the therapist out of the person. That’s the way that I speak, the way that I look at things, and how we process. I am a therapist, but I’m not always a therapist. I’m a person, too. I do think I look at things differently, and I have a much greater level of understanding sometimes, even to my own detriment. You’re always understanding at one point, like, “Let me think about how I feel in this space as opposed to always making sure I understand how the other person feels in that space,” if that makes any sense. I think he appreciates it.

What are some of the communication patterns that you find in married couples?

The Intentionality Action Perception (IAP) Communication Model

We’re getting into my area, into this little thing right here. In my relationship with my husband, when we look at patterns, I start looking at the pattern between behaviors, getting lost in translations. That’s how I came up with or developed this communication model called the IAP, Intention Action Perception. I started noticing that sometimes, his intentions were perceived by me in a very different way, and vice versa.

One example was when we went on a family vacation with my family. We’ve done a lot more stuff with his family than we’ve done with mine. His family is super close together, even though mine is very close together as well. We’re more times in space with his family, or we were at the beginning. When we went out with my family, I was so excited. As we are all in the pool, he gets up. There was a set of chairs, another row of chairs, and then another row of chairs. He goes to the third row of chairs and sits with his book. In my head, all those intrusive thoughts are coming in. I’m like, “I can’t believe that you are going away, I’m always with your family.”

By the time I walked and got to him, that’s where the therapist came in. I shut that down and asked him, “How come you’re so far away?” He looked at me and was like, “I’m far away?” I said, “Yes. You’re three rows of chairs aware.” He turned to me and said, “This is the only place that has shade. When I look up, you guys are right there. I didn’t recognize that I was so excluded or far away. I can go up further, but there’s no shade there.”

My understanding of his intentionality was like, “It got lost in translation. Had I not spoken to you, my assumption is that you were purposefully not partaking with my family.” We always think about the worst-case scenarios. The biggest pattern that I see of things getting lost in translation is assumptions, either assuming that you understand exactly what I mean by my actions or assuming that I understood your actions exactly as you meant them.

Misinterpretation Of Silence And Consolatory Words In Grief

Let’s take that perspective to someone who was grieving, someone trying to support them, and having no clues of the words to say. When this person is grieving, your lack of words conveys, “You do not care about me.”

Our silence speaks volumes. We don’t know what it’s saying. When it comes to grief, it’s so interesting. At one point, it seems like the person who’s grieving is having to console the other person and teach them how to console them in return. I wrote an article after Anthony Bourdain took his life and Kate Spade took her life. I was saying the dos and don’ts in grief. I said, “One of them is don’t not say the name of the person who passed. You are not reminding me that they died. You are letting me talk about them.”

Sometimes, when people don’t talk about my person, it feels like they don’t matter. They didn’t matter. That’s the message that you may be sending, whether you aren’t or you may be sending. Speaking about them allows me to talk about them. I’m thinking about them all the time. Sometimes, we think about them more when they are dead than when they were alive.

It’s so consuming at first, and then it normalizes as we go through. One is to talk about them. Sometimes, it’s asking, like, “I don’t know how to be here with you or for you. I want to. I don’t necessarily know how.” I can say, “I don’t know how either, but be here.” There are so many expressions. One of them is that if you have nothing to say, don’t say anything at all.

If you don’t have something good to say, don’t say anything at all.

That’s the thing. Not saying anything at all can be interpreted as something else. You and I talked about this when we did the pre-call. I remember growing up, when my grandma passed away in 2001, what I would hear a lot in consoling was, “Don’t cry.” Growing up, I didn’t pay attention to what the words were saying. I knew that that’s what you say to somebody when they are crying or feeling to console them, until I started paying attention to the words.

I’m like, “Why am I telling you not to cry? Do you understand that this is a consoling thing, or are you receiving it as ‘I’m uncomfortable with you crying? Please don’t cry right now.’” It’s like, “Let me be here for you. If you want to cry, cry. If you don’t want to cry, that’s fine.” If I don’t know how to support someone in a time of loss, do you know Maslow’s Pyramid of Hierarchy? When we lose someone, our entire existence shifts.

Explain that for the people who are reading, because they may not be familiar. I don’t want to make that assumption. Before you go and add to that, let’s pause there.

Maslow’s Hierarchy And The Dual Process Model In Grief Support

I appreciate you. Maslow’s Pyramid of Hierarchy speaks about what are the things that we need in order to go to the next level. At first, we needed to have shelter. Without shelter, food, and water, I can’t think about whether I’m sick or if I have a job. At that moment, I cannot care because I do not have shelter, food, or water. After that, let me talk about my health. After that, let me talk about having my relationships and having my job.

There’s finances or money in that pyramid, too.

When I thought of work, it was the money, finances, and our relationship. Self-actualization is when you’re able to think about your manicure or a party. One builds upon the other. When I lose one, I can’t function in that self-actualized space when the rug is pulled from under one of them. When I lose someone and the rug is pulled, it’s difficult for me to think about going to work, for example.

I can’t function at that level or attend a party with somebody because there was a part of me that was taken away. My normal is different now than it was maybe yesterday. When we lose somebody suddenly versus when we lose somebody over time, like losing somebody to a diagnosis, for example. As they are sick, I am going through the process of loss while they are alive.

Anticipatory grief.

Since I am able to process it, it’s not that the grief is more or less, but I am already putting together the pieces of what life is going to be without you. It’s not like the rug is pulled from under me. I know that it’s going to come. Theory and practice are different. When it hits, the pain is still there versus a certain death. I was not preparing myself within Maslow’s pyramid to be in a self-actualized space. I fall a couple of steps, and I need to rebuild from that moment onward. I wasn’t doing it gradually.

When you’re thinking, “How can I assist?” Especially at the beginning when you’ve lost someone, think about Maslow’s pyramid. The bear. Does the person have shelter? Do they have food? Do they have water? Is their house clean? Do they have a pickup and drop-off? It’s like, “What are the things that I’m able to do to show support in giving you space to grieve?”

There are two types of grief, which are the emotional part of grief and the administrative part. If I lose my partner, who is a breadwinner or half the breadwinner of the house, and now I’m the full breadwinner, I have to think about that. The funerals are costly and are quite a process. I can’t function in that space if I’m feeling. It’s either or. Sometimes, I will choose or have it be chosen for me, the numbness, so I can function, or the shock that allows me to function while everybody else is grieving.

When I don’t need to be in the functioning space, I can feel. There’s an oscillation from one to the other. If I’m able to get you in the, “Don’t worry. I got your kids. You don’t have to worry about pickup and drop off. I got food for you. You’re good,” those can be very helpful because you give the other person space to feel, but sometimes, they need to not feel to be able to survive.

Thank you. When you speak of a home, the correlation is also safety, that you feel secure. When your partner has died, oftentimes, your security and safety are wrapped up in that relationship. When that is disbanded, trying to find safety is hard.

I remember when I was facilitating the group that I told you about. There was this survivor who lost her brother. She came to me and said, “My sister-in-law isn’t coming to the group.” I ended up seeing the sister-in-law separately. She said, “He was my brother. I lived my entire life with him. I can’t believe that he’s gone. I can’t fathom her experience because I go home and sleep on my bed with my husband. She goes home to an empty bed.”

It could be an empty couch because she cannot sleep in that bed.

There are little things like, “I would take care of this, but hubby would take care of that. The key broke in the lock. That’s something that hubby would take care of.” It triggered that flood of emotion. It’s like, “Do you not want to sleep alone? Do you want me to stay there with you?” Don’t dislocate them. It’s like, “Do you want to come to sleep with me?” They’re like, “No,” unless they want to. “Would you like me to be there with you? I do agree with you in talking about safety. How do I let you know that I’m a safe space for you?”

I do that by not picking up my phone as soon as you start talking about something that’s going to make me uncomfortable. I don’t promise to do something and then not show up to do it. What is the comparison here? It’s also when I don’t want to talk about my dead husband. I just want to watch TV, eat popcorn, and laugh. Allow me to do that because I may have finished crying. I want to laugh with you, and I may cry when you leave. I don’t always want to be in that space. Do not judge this scenario, especially if you’ve never found yourself in that space.

I can very much appreciate it when they’re like, “Let me get her out of this space. Let me get her to some level of normalcy.” The intentionality can be beautiful. When I am not asking. Instead, I’m imposing what I think would be good for you. That’s when what can cause a response that is different from what you expected. Going back to the IAP, all of our intentions, or the majority of our intentions, have an expectation as to how the other person will respond.

Let’s go back. What does IAP stand for in your model? You’ve mentioned it, but we have not given it the respect to talk about that.

I appreciate you. IAP is for Intention, Action, and Perception. Our intentions are internal to us. Only I can know what my intention is unless I let other people know it’s in my head. Perception is also internal, but to the receiver or the observer of said action. The only external thing is the action itself. For example, silence. Silence is an action.

I may interpret your silence as you not caring, as you being scared to talk to me about my grief, or as you distancing yourself. I can also interpret your silence as you respecting the fact that I don’t want to talk. I don’t know the intention behind your silence unless we know each other so well or unless you express to me what your silence means.

Something silly is that I have four blood nieces and nephews. I say that because I have another niece who is part of what I call my hub. They’re my chosen family. My niece and nephews from my brother’s side are younger. My niece and nephews from my sister’s side are older. We’re super close. I would often invite them like, “Sleep over at my house.” My niece and nephews from my sister’s side do it a lot.

My brother is more secure with his kids. They are always with them. It’s a different dynamic. At one point, what I said to my brother was, “I am going to stop asking. Not because I don’t want them to come, but because I want to give you the option of letting me know, ‘Whenever you want to ask now, we are comfortable with them going.’ Versus if I simply stop asking because the answer is often no.” We hear that a lot. We’re like, “You always say no, so I’ve stopped asking.” It’s like, “You stopped asking.” It meant something.

I want to jump in and say for the griever, when they are struggling with connection with other people, it’s overstimulating. They do oftentimes want to be asked because they let someone know they’re not forgotten about. When the person who finds themselves supporting a griever goes, “I’m tired of asking them.” Think about the person that they were before the loss. Think about something you said about how well you know them. This is as difficult for them to be in that head space often as it is for the people who are supporting them.

Using Code Words To Communicate Needs And Boundaries

I have a ruling therapy, which is that what comes to my mind and comes out through my mouth. I’m holding the same rules in my show experiences. One of the strategies from the IAP model is code words. There’s a science behind code words. A code word must have a meaning or instructions attached to it, and can only be used when warranted.

A silly example that I can give is that my husband and I have this code word that we’ve been using for a decade, which is amazing. It’s, “I’m not home.” Pre-COVID, when we would go to our offices before the hybrid or total virtual thing, when he would get home, I wanted to talk about the things that we needed to do, and how his day was, and how my day was. He was mentally pooped. He’s like, “I can’t,” but he wouldn’t say that. Instead, his responses would be curt. I was interpreting that as, “You don’t care. You don’t want to talk.” When we had a conversation, he expressed, “I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to.”

The meaning behind “I’m not home” is “My energy tank is empty. I need to refill before I’m able to be present for you.” The instruction is that I am acting as if he is not home. We only use it when warranted. It has to be true. For reciprocity, you can only use something for that trust that it’s used when it’s warranted. The reciprocity of it is that if it’s an emergency, I’ll call upon him, and he knows that it is an emergency because otherwise, I don’t. Whereas for me, if I say, “I’m not home,” I need spatial distance. I’ll go somewhere and tell him to be away until we’re back home.

In grief, when I was with the group, I remember somebody taking that. I’m trying to remember the cultural background. I don’t remember the cultural background, but it was one of those where we don’t talk about emotions, and especially suicide. There’s a taboo nature to suicide in different cultures. She delineated that they had a group text on WhatsApp. She got a heart, and each color of the heart meant something else.

A red heart was like, “I loved what you said.” A black heart was, “I’m down. I need some loving.” A blue heart was, “Call me.” Each one had its instruction. Whenever one is used, I don’t need to tell you what it means. We all know what it means. In the utilization of an emoji, if there was the discomfort of having to tell you, we all know the meaning associated with this code word.

Going back to what you were saying, if you often ask me to go out with you, I’m going to say no, but that doesn’t mean I want you to stop asking. Maybe you and I can create a code word. When I tell you, “I’m open now. Ask or please stop asking at this moment in time.” The other person can have an emoji or a code word that the instruction behind it is, “Is my asking bothersome, or is my asking good?” The other person doesn’t know. They’re like, “Am I bothering you? With every no, is it bothersome? Let me interpret as opposed to asking.”

The person who’s grieving, their brain is foggy. They thought grief was about being sad. They’re trying to struggle with reality. There’s some mental fogginess going on. This IAP and all this other stuff are way too much for me to try to grasp in this moment of profound grief. What is a simple way for me, the griever, to latch on to this model and make it helpful for me?

What I like about the IAP is the fact that it is actionable. It’s, “What do I need right now? Let me communicate my needs. I don’t need to go around with words.” I love the question, “What do I need from you to give you what you need?”

I, the griever, am in uncharted territory. What I need today may be different from what I need tomorrow. I don’t even know what I need. My real need is for my dead person to come back. If I say that out loud, that’s going to be weird, but that’s as far as my mind can go.

That is your need. Not knowing what I need is my need. I have this client who, in the loss, the family members believe that the best thing is not to talk about the person who died. She’s expressing, like, “Am I the only one feeling this way?” When we were talking about the IAP, we said the assumptions that people make in wanting to make you comfortable are backlashing. It’s making you feel more and more distant from them.

We can grieve individually, and we can grieve collectively. Each one will grieve differently. Not everybody grieves the same way. For some people, there’s a delay in their grief between what happened and when it has sunk in what happened. By the time that they begin to experience it, everybody else is in a different space.

One of the things that she was able to express was, “I want to know what you are feeling because it makes me feel normalized. Not always, not all the time, but I want to know. If you’re sad, be sad with me. I want to not feel alone.” When asked what the response was, she expressed, “I saw him crying or He’s been more open with me.” I said, “What does that do for you?” It’s like, “It makes me feel normalized, like we’re going through it together. That I’m not alone.”

It’s not knowing what I need, but it’s being able to curb assumptions because everybody else around us is assuming what we need based on whatever responses we give. Sometimes, we don’t notice some of the responses that we’re giving. Even being able to say, “I don’t know how my tone of voice is coming across. I’m scattered-minded. I’m foggy. I’m forgetting things all the time. I live in between this is what life is, and this is what life was. What is my reality now? I’m in so many different spheres at the same time, so bear with me.”

For me, as a griever, what is a wave, a modality, or a concept, when I’m in that flux of all of that, to pause and say, “All this is happening. This is expected. This is normal.” What is something I can do as a griever to pause so that I can engage the IAP?

Grounding Exercises And Memory In The Pocket To Pause Intrusive Thoughts

I love the concept of pausing. Different types of grief experiences will elicit different things. We talked about anticipated versus certain death.

Let’s add in job loss, relationship breakup, and health challenges. You and I both know grief may often be related to the death of a loved one, but there are a lot of other things that we grieve. Those patterns are what we’re bringing to this profound loss that we learned earlier in life.

There are different places that my mind is going. One is grounding exercises when my mind is scattered and going everywhere. It’s yelling so many different things in my head. A pause button, a grounding exercise is a five, four, three, two, one. Five, four, three, two, one is related to our senses. I say 5 things that I see, 4 things that I can touch, 3 things that I can hear, 2 things that I can smell, and 1 thing that I can taste. I’ll name five things that I can see. I can see the curtain, the frame, you, my phone, and the closet doors.

What are four things that I can touch? I touch my shirt. It feels soft. I touch my hair. It also feels soft. I touch the table. It’s hard. I touch the seat. It’s crunchy and leathery. What are three things that I can hear? I can hear the AC, the fan, and myself talking. What are two things that I can smell? My shirt is fresh from the laundry. It smells good. My water bottle doesn’t smell like much. One thing I can taste is water. What does this do? Since I’m having to involve myself in the environment around me, it puts all of those thoughts in the background. That’s the purpose behind this. That’s why we call it grounding. It’s bringing you back to the here and now.

I had a client who chose one sense, which was a sense of smell. I told her, “Have some coffee beans. Do you know how you use those between perfumes? Whenever you’re feeling that panic come in, smell that to bring you back to the here and now.” That is one way of pausing the chatter or the nervous system. I’m going to go somewhere else for a second. I was talking with my grief client. She said, “I’m on edge all the time. My nervous system is shot because my safety has been taken away.”

We talked about the importance of a routine because in a routine, knowing what’s to come and knowing what’s to expect, brings that reliability. Which then brings about a sense of safety that decreases that constant edge. It is knowing what’s to come. If I’m going to go out with you, where are we going? Who’s going to be there? Prepare me for it. Don’t do a surprise. For the love of goodness, do not surprise me at this moment in time.

The other part of the pause is let’s say that you are in a type of grief where you are in the could have, should have, would have, or what ifs. It’s like, “If I had done this or if I had done that?” The outcome would be different. The lingering thoughts and lingering questions are in our heads. Whenever we notice that we’re creating a parallel universe of all the different things that could have happened differently had we done one thing differently, which we do not know if that’s the case or not. The cognitive balance of thinking about the things that we did do can be very helpful because that’s data that happened.

There are two things that I can think of, but I call it memory in the pocket. Sometimes, depending on the type of loss, our immediate thought when it comes to our head is not pretty. It comes very negative in a negative space. It can be the image of what we last saw if it is somebody that we lost in either way, whether it be a breakup or death. The first thought that can come is involuntary. I didn’t voluntarily start thinking about this. Oftentimes, it’s an involuntary thought.

When you are downloading something, there’s that little circle thing. The loop opens involuntarily, but I want to voluntarily close it. I do that by using a memory in the pocket. I want you to think about a memory, 1 or 2, with that person or in that scenario that brings you the emotion you want to associate with that individual.

When I lost my uncle, which was a few years ago, it was a sudden death. The description of how it went about, I created this crazy imagery in my head. For my memory in the pocket, there were two. One was when I was young. He was a bachelor with slick black hair and a black glass frame in a buttoned-up royal blue shirt and black pants. I remember him in my grandma’s house so much in that.

The last time I physically saw him was at my wedding. He caught me eating a bunch of the sweets. We did a quick little dance, which a friend of mine happened to catch on video. That was beautiful. Whenever a sad or negative imagery or whatever memory comes into my head and that downloading loop starts. I make sure that I close it how I want, and I go back to my memory in the pocket.

How does grief impact our ability to communicate?

Remember when we were talking earlier about how we go into a deep sea of emotion that we didn’t even know existed? Since we didn’t know this existed, we don’t even have words to explain what it is that we’re feeling or thinking to begin with. We start to comprehend as we are more into it. We’re contemplating life. Does it have purpose anymore without this person here? For some people, contemplating life and suicidal ideation is a big no. Other people who are choosing to live and know, “I can die or take my own life,” is helpful to them. Not everybody can condone it or is open to hearing those things. They’re like, “How can I express something that I don’t know if it’s safe to express?”

You’ve said that in grief, there’s this fog. There are so many thoughts and emotions happening at the same time that I don’t know how to verbalize them. It is knowing that you don’t have to. It’s okay to feel sad, happy, joy, and sorrow all at once. It’s overwhelming. I will give you that. Having all those emotions at the same time is overwhelming. It is figuring out what helps me navigate that overwhelming space. I am a data-oriented person. I promise I am not being rude as I go onto my phone, so you understand how the mind of the person that you’re talking to works.

That’s okay. When you are talking about being overwhelmed, you do anxiety management. Those are some of the things that you work with, understand, and do with people. Are you saying those same grounding tools you’re feeling are the same thing if I’m feeling a lot of anxiety and a lot of those other things, and I don’t know what to say next? The pause can still be relevant in those scenarios, too.

This is one of my mantras that I created with Denise, which I told you about, who is not my blood niece, but my niece. As a kid, when she was frustrated with something, you throw tantrums. I told her a continuous bad mood is a choice, which became a mantra of mine. I said, “A bad mood is not a choice. I have the right to my reaction to being in a bad mood toward something. How long I hold on to it can be a choice.”

It helps me differentiate between anxiety and not anxiety. For example, I came downstairs one day, and my husband and a friend were here. We were going to do some jiu-jitsu. They said, “Are you done with work?” I said, “I have one phone call, but I’m done.” I was not clear. To me, that meant, “Let’s start because when the phone call happens, I’ll start doing it.”

To them, they continued playing whatever they were playing for another 30 minutes as I was waiting for them. They understood that, first, I needed to do the phone call, and then we could go to jiu-jitsu. I started getting mad. I’m like, “I’m here. I’m waiting. I’m huffing and puffing.” When I told them, “Are we going to go?” I got into that bad mood space, they said, “I thought that you were waiting for the phone call.” If I interpret something one way and you interpret it another way, the two of us are right and wrong. If two people interpret something one way and I interpret it another way, I need to check myself.

Clarifying The ‘Bad Mood Is A Choice’ Context In Grief

I want to unpack this. For the person tuning in who is grieving, they heard you say, “I choose to be in a bad mood about the death of my spouse.” If they’re interpreting that way, what would you say to them?

Not at all. I was starting with that, so go somewhere else.

I want them to hear clearly from you.

I love you for that because what you are telling me is, as my audience, who I know, that’s the interpretation that will likely be received, which was one I did not intend. I appreciate that so much. For me, when I was talking, it was because I wanted to go somewhere else with it. When I was saying continuous bad mood is a choice, it was interesting. I started noticing when I’m in a bad mood, and I say that to myself, I then ask myself, “What do I want to choose?”

Not long ago, I wrote this. “Is a continuous sad mood a choice? I don’t know. Let me try it out.” I was not sad because of the loss to the death of someone. I was sad because of a loss, if that makes sense. I asked myself, “Is a continuous sad mood a choice? Let me try.” The distraction was watching Project Runway Superstars. I started writing this, which is also serving as a distraction. At 7:03, I wrote, “It helped.” I started writing this at 6:00 something.

I want to go back to the concept that grief is not a choice. My emotions are not voluntary. They are involuntarily flooding. I don’t choose to be in it. I try different things. The reason I was bringing this up is that when I asked myself, “Is a continuous sad mood a choice?” I used a distraction and it made me very aware that sometimes in our grief. We want to distract ourselves. It is difficult to always process emotions. Distractions do serve a purpose.

When we are so focused on always being distracted, the pain, sadness, or emotion accumulates. Although I used distraction as a tool to stop feeling in that moment, I know that I need to process what was bringing about my sadness. Without processing it, it’s a continuous distraction, and it becomes a maladaptive coping strategy through which my intentionality comes through.

Explain maladaptive to the people who are tuning in.

It becomes a crutch as opposed to something that helps. There is a technique in cognitive behavioral therapy. I promise you, I’m going somewhere. My head goes into so many spaces, and to me, it makes sense. Go with me on this ride.

We are on this ride, buckled in.

Using Tic And Toc (Task Interference And Oriented Cognition) For Navigating Grief

I love it. Let’s go. In cognitive behavioral therapy, there is this one technique called the TIC-TOC. TIC stands for Task Interference Cognition. What are the thoughts that stop me from doing things? TOC is Task-Oriented Cognition. What are the things that orient me towards doing things? I’m going to use a silly example. Working out. A TIC is, “It’s so late. It’s already 7:52. I worked all day. I think it’s okay if I don’t work out.” TOC is, “Put your clothes on and go. Don’t even think about it.” We start to identify what helps and what doesn’t.

When I was facilitating the group, I remember this one person who lost her brother. Due to the overwhelming experience, it was affecting her ability to work, so she stopped working. What she started doing was volunteering because she felt good about it. With suicide grief, there’s a lot of guilt. Volunteering and serving others sometimes helped to soothe some of the guilt.

The guilt comes from trying to understand what happened. With suicide, there’s always a piece of the puzzle that’s missing. As rational beings, when trying to rationalize it, if I don’t know what caused it, I’ll either blame something or somebody, or I’ll blame myself. That’s where the guilt comes from with suicide grief.

She started volunteering a lot and working out a lot. What was supposed to be a TOC, Task-Oriented Cognition, towards her grief became a TIC. She ended up messing up her knee and needing surgery. She was volunteering so much that at one point, she said, “I don’t have time to think or feel my emotions.” Distractions are important.

The Power Of Normalization And Human Connection In Healing

When you get an injury or a cut, you need Neosporin and a Band-Aid. If you’re only putting the Band-Aid and not opening up to see what’s going on, it could have gotten infected. You have no idea, and things can get worse. If you put Neosporin without protecting it, the Neosporin comes out. You need a little bit of both. Sometimes, you put in Neosporin and let it breathe.

People sometimes ask me, “Why talk? Why go to groups? What do groups do for me? Why do I need to hear about the sorrows of other people? I’ve already said enough.” There’s a power to normalization in knowing, “I am not the only one feeling this.” Adler talked so much about socialization and how it’s important for us to feel like we are a productive part of society.

For everybody to know, when we experience grief, depression happens. It’s part of the grieving experience because you’ve experienced a loss. If we think about mood as energy, anxiety is a lot of energy. You feel it in your body. Depression is the loss of energy. You feel like you don’t have anything left to give. When we lose someone, we experience, within bereavement, depression, which can be very foreign to some individuals and not so foreign to others.

One of the hallmarks of depression is loneliness. We sometimes isolate ourselves. If I am not sharing, I am creating the narrative of “No one understands what I’m going through or I’m a burden to other people.” That isolation further feeds the depression. In normalization, we feel connected, which is the biggest kryptonite. When I facilitate a group, I remember that I would describe it as when we go through certain types of grief, it feels like we’re naked in a world where everybody is fully clothed. When we attend groups, we are all naked together, figuring out how to sew the clothing we need to use.

What has your work taught you about human connection?

The Biological Restorative Power Of Human Connection

It’s undescribable. Feeling connected and being vulnerable increases this level of intimacy. I’m going to go into science for a second. There are studies on epigenetics that have shown that when we feel love and affection, there is a temporary genetic expression that is restorative. We have energy. We feel better. Versus when we feel neglect or isolation, there is a temporary genetic expression. It’s more injurious. It makes us more vulnerable to getting sick and thinking intrusive thoughts. Biologically speaking, being connected makes us feel in every way, such as feeling loved, feeling safe, and feeling better.

Our body works better. It’s invisible to the eye. The human bond is invisible to the eye, but it’s so important. I don’t know why my mind is going this way, but I’m going to go with it. My cultural background is Jewish. I believe in God. I believe in energy. Different people believe in different things. For some reason, the way that I saw this is that it is invisible to the eye. It’s the human connection. For me, that is that energy. When I think of the higher power, that’s it. It’s invisible to the eye, but we feel it. There’s no way to describe it, but it’s there.

For someone reading this, what are three things that you want to make sure they take away from this discussion?

Key Takeaways For Listeners

The first one is knowing that you are not alone. The second one that’s coming is that it’s okay to ask for help. Sometimes, we want to soldier on. We’re like, “We got this.” We’re not an island. The same way that we are often there for others, allowing others to be there for us is so important. I’m going to go into a quick anecdote, and then I’ll get out of it to give you my third one.

We have this great community here of dog owners. We take care of each other’s dogs. I have this couple that we’ve often babysat for their dog. When they babysat our dog, one of them came to say, “You’ve done it for us so many times that it felt so good to be able to reciprocate.” Sometimes, others do want to help. We just don’t always want to accept it. Three, I’m going to use what you said, which is to pause and be kind to yourself. Whenever you pause, be kind to yourself.

I try to give my guests an opportunity to be the host. If you’re the host, do you have any questions for me?

What have you taken away from this interview?

The ability to communicate is two-way. It’s not what I think I’m saying, but what the hearer is perceiving. Before we, in this grief, need to pause, we need to make sure we’re not projecting. We need to take time to ask the person we’re communicating with their interpretation of what’s going on.

I love that. I appreciate you so much. You’ve been such an amazing host or interviewer.

You’re welcome.

I love this space. I appreciate you creating this platform for everybody.

I thank you for the work that you are doing to help people communicate why we are fighting and identify the words that are not being said or the words that should be said. There’s a lot of miscommunications. Sometimes, we need models to help us create a repetitive pattern to draw us into better communication.

Thank you for the work you are doing, helping people communicate, helping people understand, and, more likely, having better relationships and friendships because we’re doing better communication. Thank you for that work. I would like you to close out this conversation. Let the people who have been with us on this conversation know how they can connect with you, obtain your book, or maybe work with you.

The name of my firm is called Advocate2Create. I have a quick anecdote. The person who created my logo, whom we call Scott the Artist, took his life in 2014. That logo represents so much because he was with me when I created the name for my firm and when we did our first website. It is Advocate2Create. You can connect with me by going there. We have psychoeducational training. For my book, you can find it on Amazon. Hopefully, there will also be an audiobook soon. We have Audible, eBook, and print. For those who don’t know the name of my book, it is Why Are We Fighting?: Actionable Strategies for Effective Communication.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Important Links

• Patricia Timerman on LinkedIn
• Patricia Timerman on Instagram
• Advocate2Create
• Why Are We Fighting?: Actionable Strategies for Effective Communication

About Dr. Patricia Timerman

Dr. Patricia Timerman is a psychotherapist and the author of the book “Why Are We Fighting? Actionable Strategies for Effective Communication,” where she talks about her IAP Model – Intention Action Perception – which she calls the “Google Translate” of communication. You can find more information on Dr. Timerman at the links below: 

• www.Advocate2Create.com
• www.Advocate2Create.Teachable.com

You can have free access to one of Dr. Timerman’s actionable strategies for effective communication from her IAP Model by clicking on the following link: Advocate2create Teachable

You can find my media kit at the following link: (https://www.advocate2create.com/media-kit.php)

Social media: 

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• https://www.facebook.com/people/Dr-Timerman/61575513854071/
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