Mary Heim

This can be found in fiction too, of course, but I think that having it spelled out in a way that is really providing you almost like a foundation on which to build your own reflection and

to make your own meaning.

I think that this is going to be a nice and gentle way.

You're already being forced to go through something really hard.

And I think that we can either lean into that and like really stay present.

I'm not saying there's a right or a wrong way to grieve or move through things, but that it can be really nice to say, hey, let me try and make some meaning of this

Let me try and find some grounding in this or even just to like spark some insight into what is happening for me right now that I think that poetry is more often than so many other genres going to kind of serve to you on a silver platter, which is what you need done for you when you are supporting a loved one through hospice or when you are going through really terrible grief.

And so that's kind of the first direction I took this in.

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, and I think I could probably make this blanket statement for any past and potential future reading therapy episodes we do, Meredith, is that like, first of all, let us give you full permission to set down a book and not.

pick it back up again until you feel so moved like your books and reading will be there for you I know we say this all the time but I have caused additional suffering for myself in the past when I have been like and on top of it I can't even read right now and it's like that's okay like it is okay can we just meet it with this radical acceptance of like it is not working for me now it will come back I can even be annoyed and frustrated by that and like you said there's

beautiful other things we can consume in the world, like the podcast, like a reread or a re-listen of a novel that we are already familiar with.

So we are given the beautiful certainty when so much is in upheaval and uncertain.

When everything is uncharted territory, a reread is beautiful, soothing, regulating, charted territory.

You know where it's going to go.

You know that it is going to lead you someplace and you can choose your level of

Of right, like lean in or lean out, because you nothing is going to surprise you necessarily about that book.

And so a reread or not reading at all is always on the table.

And it's interesting because as I was not that I'm in a particularly hard season, but I am coming out of an interesting season.