David Kessler

When someone dies, there's a divorce, a tragedy.

Your psyche couldn't take the pain in, and one day you would be down and never get up again.

There's a grace in denial.

Denial helps us pace the feelings over time.

When someone says, my loved one's in denial, I go, thank goodness.

Thank goodness, wow, your psyche's working.

When someone says, I'm numb, I'm stuck, I go, oh, what an amazing wise mind you have that your psyche is titrating these feelings.

It knows not to give you too much.

It's brilliant.

Denial's amazing.

Is there too long of a period to be in denial?

I think your psyche knows that.

And I'll tell you, sometimes people show up with a lot of shame.

We even have a group just for older losses.

People will show up at the 5, 10, 20-year point ready to deal with something with shame and regret that they didn't deal with it.

And I will say to them,

You're ready now.

It's perfect.

Because sometimes we can shame those people and go, that's what happened when you go into denial.

No, you're ready now.