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Summary
This Carelab Episode features Deborah Grassman, NP, discussing her expertise in hospice and palliative care, particularly for veterans. She highlights the emotional and psychological needs of aging veterans, the impact of unresolved trauma, and how caregivers can provide compassionate, holistic support at the end of life.
Key Takeaway
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Veteran-Specific Needs: Veterans, especially those with combat experience, may have unique end-of-life challenges, such as PTSD resurfacing or unprocessed guilt.
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Healing and Reconciliation: End-of-life care can serve as an opportunity for veterans to process past trauma, seek forgiveness, and find peace.
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Role of Caregivers: Family members and healthcare professionals should be trained to recognize the emotional and psychological needs of veterans.
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Spiritual and Emotional Impact: Many veterans face existential questions about their service, requiring sensitive, non-judgmental support.
Transcript
Emilia Bourland
Hi everyone, welcome to Care Lab.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Welcome to Care Lab. It's Friday. We're so excited to be here together and also excited to have Deborah Grassman with us today. So Deborah is the author of three books, Peace at Last, The Hero Within, and Soul Injury, a contributing offer for four textbooks, 25 published articles. So she is a writer and has a lot to share with us today. There are four documentary films and a TED Talk that feature her work.
But none of these achievements have taught her as much as the 10,000 dying veterans that she took care of as a VA hospice nurse practitioner for 30 years. So if anyone wants to learn how to achieve inner peace, ask a veteran who has successfully struggled to find it for the rest of their lives after they returned from war." a quote. And the lessons.
She learned culminated into this concept known as soul injury, which we are definitely going to get into. And it's a wound that separates a person from their own sense of self. So Deborah now provides presentations and workshops that can help anyone recover their loss of self-worth by healing the relationship that they have with themselves. So Deborah, thank you so much for joining us.
Deborah Grassman NP
Well, thank you, Brandy. I appreciate you having me today.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
However, we got to start with something a lot less dignified. So Amelia, do we have an icebreaker?
Emilia Bourland
Yes, yes, we have an icebreaker question. Yeah, I'll tell you, I almost changed it after we were having a brief discussion about cats and animals coming into the shot of recordings right before we started recording. And I almost changed it based on that, but I'm going to stick to my original question. Actually, before I do, can I just say a little
Deborah Grassman NP
Undignified, undignified, okay.
Emilia Bourland
Deborah, I just want to thank you for your 30 years of service at the VA serving veterans. It is a really, I think a lot of folks don't realize what a unique and challenging job that can often be. Also, of course, what a privilege it is to serve our veterans. So thank you. Thank you for your service to our service members.
Deborah Grassman NP
Absolutely.
Deborah Grassman NP
Well, indeed, you're right, Amelia. It was an honor and a privilege that is forever with me and the lessons that I learned about how to attain personal peace after being traumatized. I mean, they are forever with me. And I hope that I have been a...
responsible steward of those stories that I have born witness to with those 10,000 dying veterans and that the lessons that I learned can be propelled into the world because certainly we need more inner peace, inner or outer peace, but the really, honestly, the only way we can get outer peace in the world, right, is to have it first within ourselves. We can't give what we don't have ourselves. So therein lies
My personal mission is that those 10,000 dying veterans did not die in vain, but in fact, the wisdom that they gained in navigating post-trauma will benefit the whole world.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Mm.
Emilia Bourland
incredibly well said. And that's the end of the podcast, everybody. No, just kidding. mic drop. Yeah. And we're done. No. OK. So shifting back to our undignified gear here, quick little icebreaker for everyone. Deborah, you've got to go first. If you could be a character, character, character.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
My job.
Deborah Grassman NP
You
you
Deborah Grassman NP
Okay.
Deborah Grassman NP
Mmm.
Emilia Bourland
or live in any kind of different literary world, what would it be? Like a favorite book world or even like a favorite movie world or something like that. Like what other kind of world or universe would you live in?
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Oof.
Deborah Grassman NP
yeah, that's easy. That would be Alice in Wonderland. Because Alice in Wonderland, that's the story of how to heal the relationship you have with yourself. That's what that mythological story truly is. And of course, the book that I just wrote, the subtitle, it's soul injury, but the subtitle is...
Emilia Bourland
I love that.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
healing the relationship you have with yourself. And Alice in Wonderland does a better job than I can in really showing how to do that. And of course, the beauty of mythological stories is they touch the unconscious mind and it's truly the unconscious mind, not so much the conscious mind, it's the unconscious mind that houses our motivations and initiatives and intuitions that allow us to truly manifest into the world.
what we want to be within. So yeah, Alice in Wonderland would be mine.
Emilia Bourland
That's incredible. And can I share a connection with you, Deborah? So my husband is a veteran and he was in the Navy. And when he was in the Navy and off on long deployments, one of his favorite books is also Alice in Wonderland. And something that he would take to doing is he would choose a quote from Alice in Wonderland and he would, and different quotes all the time, and he would put it under the signature of all of his emails.
as they were going out, sort of as like they applied to different situations that they were going through. So anyway, I thought like, what a wonderful answer and sort of there's a personal connection there. So.
Deborah Grassman NP
wow.
Deborah Grassman NP
I love that kind of the incongruity of a Navy man on his signature having Alison Wonderland. What a great incongruity that caught people's attention. He's a smart man.
Emilia Bourland
yes!
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
I dare.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah. I mean, I think he's pretty special. I'm a little biased,
Deborah Grassman NP
My tagline under my signature is don't waste your suffering. And you can see where that comes from. It comes from what I just said in the introduction, which is I don't want those 10,000 veterans to have died in vain, but to be able to carry their wisdom forward. I've seen, obviously witnessed a lot of suffering. And I'm not talking about suffering that comes...
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
quietly.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Yeah.
Deborah Grassman NP
in the dying process. mean, that's obvious. Everybody knows about that. But what happens as people are on their deathbeds, they go back and kind of recollect their story from their whole lifetime. And that's where you really get to see suffering. But the but is you get to see the suffering from a different perspective, from their own retroactive perspective, which is very different and very reflective.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
Plus they're able to look at, six-year-old suffering from an 80-year-old perspective and see the lessons and see how those lessons, how their suffering was redeemed and how it was not redeemed. So, you I got both of those perspectives at the end of life. Some very dignified, some not so dignified, you know, both, because we're all, in our human beingness, we all have both within us, right? Good, bad, ugly, beautiful.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
You know, it's all there.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
I think this is the exact reason why I'm having a hard time answering this icebreaker question because I read a lot.
Emilia Bourland
Because everything that Deborah says is so amazing and like profound and it seems.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Well, because like everything has both parts, right? You know, positive and negative. And so I think about the books that I read and the stories that I love and movies I love, they also come with their own problems, right? Like we don't often read or read things or watch movies that don't have an arc to a storyline where there's a problem and there's a hero.
Deborah Grassman NP
No, they to just tell the happy ending. here's the problem and we get all in there. there's the problem. There's a suffering. and look at how I redeemed it. And you know, that messy middle part of how to get through it and navigate through it is left out. So, I mean, that's really the stories, you know, in my books that I tell. I said, let's tell the messy. Let's try to untangle that and let's get entangled with it because it's not as simple and easy as...
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
Here was this and look at what I did to redeem it.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Mm-hmm because most of the most of the work is in the middle part and most of our lives in some part someone some way in that middle part So I don't I can't say I want to Automatically subject myself to any of those problems and any of those books or movies So I'm gonna opt out by saying I'm gonna join just very specifically Revelations in the Bible when it talks about heaven. That's what I'm trying to be so I'm not gonna take none of the rest of the Bible because there's lots of suffering there
Emilia Bourland
Hahaha
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
So I'm only picking.
Deborah Grassman NP
You don't want bring Job home with you? mean, Job talked about the suffering king. Okay. Job was very profound though in his perspective and his friends that came and told him all about how he shouldn't be thinking negatively and he's just bringing this all just needs to rise above it. mean, that kind of sentiment still does damage to this day.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
No, I'm not trying to jump into Jobe's life. I'm not.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
He was.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
I mean...
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Totally. So, so yes, I'm going to pick heaven. Thank you. What's your answer?
Deborah Grassman NP
you
Emilia Bourland
That's okay. I mean, listen, you both had like actually like pretty good, thoughtful, like exceptionally thoughtful and profound answers. I just want to live in the world of Harry Potter, y'all. I just want to be a witch in the world of Harry Potter. I want a wand and I want to do magic. And I think that that would be, I want to fly on a broomstick.
It sounds awesome. So like if I could for a day like go live in a different world.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
That's where I'd be.
Emilia Bourland
Wizarding world of Harry Potter. Yep. Not profound at all, but a lot of fun. Okay, so.
Deborah Grassman NP
Yep. It's a great escape.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
It is.
Deborah Grassman NP
We need both, You don't want to live in my world and Brandy's world all the time of profound dignity and what have you. It's both.
Emilia Bourland
And trust me, I don't. OK, so let's jump into this real conversation here, though. I am really interested in how you got to this idea of the soul injury and the term of soul injury. Tell us about your journey in getting there and kind of getting to that place.
Deborah Grassman NP
Well, it was definitely not as easy as I'm going to make it sound. And it's nothing that was kind of, you know, an aha moment and then developing it. It was actually, as you can appreciate, sitting at dying veterans' bedsides, collecting their stories. Their families would usually be there hearing these stories. Of course, I heard a lot of
traumatic stories, especially if they were combat veterans or really even if they weren't combat veterans and they served in a dangerous duty military assignment, I mean, there is a lot of danger there. There's a lot of trauma there. So I would be hearing those stories. Well, of course, I would also hear the aftermath of how they healed that or didn't heal that. So absolutely both of those and listen to those stories.
I heard a lot of about PTSD and that type of thing, obviously. But then when we would engage in those conversations and I would validate and acknowledge what they had experienced with their trauma, with their PTSD, then sometimes intermittently from different veterans, but I heard it over from enough over time where they would say, yeah, but what I'm talking about is more than just.
PTSD. PTSD has caused me problems, but there's something more. And really what it sort of boiled down to, they would say something to the effect of, you know, I lost me. I lost my sense of self. I'm missing in action in my own life. You know, I felt, you know, I've got this whole, those types of things. And sometimes they would describe it, you know, like it's sort of like a soul injury.
Emilia Bourland
Hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Mm.
Deborah Grassman NP
You know, so I would hear that term intermittently, but periodically enough that it started capturing my attention. So then when I would hear stories, I would kind of start, I started offering that term back to them. So they would be telling me about how they had lost a sense of self. got detoured off into numbing agents, trying to numb out the pain or whatever. And I would say, well, it sounds like you had a, maybe you had a soul injury and they would, you just.
Yeah, yeah, that's it. So as I said, I had that experience enough times and I started talking with our hospice team about it. started using that term and I mean people just, it captured something that was kind of beyond words. So when you think about it, well, anyway, so then the next thing that we did, we started saying, well, what causes a...
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
soul injury. we're going to define soul injury as becoming separated from your real self, if that's going to be the definition, what causes it? So I spent several years really just listening carefully to when people would glom onto that soul injury and then I'd ask them, you know, how do think that happened? How did you lose yourself? It ultimately came down to three things. One is
unmoored, lost and hurt.
Deborah Grassman NP
Number two, unforgiven guilt and shame.
Deborah Grassman NP
or fear of helplessness and loss of control.
Deborah Grassman NP
That's how they would lose themselves in one way or the other. So we started really looking at that carefully. Took me years to be able to articulate it. And then, you know, then we, after I retired from the BA, we started taking the concept of soul injury and its three causes to see if it applied to non-military. And it applies to non-military absolutely the same and even more so. mean,
Almost everybody, if you talk to them, have acquired a soul injury in one way or the other. I always tell, I tell the story and sometimes I'm hesitant to tell the story because it seemed so trivial compared to what you know that I have witnessed at Veterans Bedsides. But when I was five years old, I was watching the scene.
Emilia Bourland
Mm.
Deborah Grassman NP
And she's on TV. She's a dog. She's about to be in this dangerous situation, and I'm sure she's going to die. And I'm sitting there crying when my dad walks through the room. He sees my tears, and he starts laughing. Yeah. Yeah. So I made a five-year-old decision that day to never cry again. Right? And I didn't.
for 30 years.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Whoa.
Deborah Grassman NP
Yeah, when I was 35 and I was dealing with something painful and I was sitting there and I thought to myself, why am I so afraid of my tears? am I? And that's when, and then I also thought, what if my fear of crying is worse than if I just let myself feel my pain?
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
And that's when I cried for the first time.
Emilia Bourland
Wow.
Deborah Grassman NP
And you know, that's the day I became real. That's the day I shed the fear of emotional pain that I let go of my shame. See, you know, I was ashamed of my tears. I was ashamed of sad Deborah.
And so, and I got a lot of reinforcement for always being calm and even keeled in my family. You know, I got a lot of reinforcement for them. I my sister cried at the drop of a hat and, you know, she got, but, you know, I always got praise for how even keeled I was. So yeah, that's really the day my unfreezing began. So when I look back, that was a soul injury. You know, there was this.
hole in me that only, you know, and I always pretended to be much like my stoic veterans, always to be on the up and up and even killed and what have you. And, you may be sad and crying, but I don't do that. You know, there's a lot of ways to acquire a soul injury. And certainly, you know, most people have, if they look back, we'll see different ways.
that their fear of emotional pain has caused them to hide from themselves, to become separated from themselves. And then kind of going back to what we talked about in the opening, or maybe Brandy, about you just, let's just think about heaven, that type of thing. Let's just be there, or a magic wand, Amelia, you know, let's just keep it all happy.
Of course, that's our yearning for all of us. I think one of the things that's very different about soul injury and part of the appeal, and Brandy, this is sort of what you were talking about, about the missing middle part of the arc. And that is that, you know, there's a term in the literature called artificial optimism. Victor Frankl talks about artificial optimism. Others call it toxic positivity. that in other words,
Emilia Bourland
Mm.
Deborah Grassman NP
no matter what problem you have, well, we're going to put a positive spin on it. You just need to be more resilient. You just need to keep a positive attitude. And I'm not saying that those things aren't important. Don't get me wrong at all. But when we tell people, you just have to be the best version of yourself, you know, well, yeah. And you got to get real with the worst version of yourself. Also, it's all there. It's a full spectrum. And if you only look on one end of that spectrum,
and you only desire to get real with that end, then that's in my mind, part of the trouble that we have in the world, because what we end up doing is suppressing those hostile parts. That's really part of the core of violence in our world, is that if you peel back those layers of violence, you're going to find hurt. You are going to find unborn loss and hurt.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
So we are looking in the wrong places to heal the hostility in our world. We need to be looking inside for hurt because anger and violence pushes the hurt out. So anyway, I digress a little bit, but you can see how it's all intertwined. you know, it's sort of paradoxical that I learned these lessons about how to acquire inner peace from people who had been trained for war.
Emilia Bourland
Mm.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
And yet, if you really think about it, those warriors who came back and had to, you know, as hard as they fought in war and the courage that that takes, I'm going to tell you the aftermath of war takes even more courage and coming to peace with that. And by the time people would come to the end of their lives and be in a bed with, you know, as I'm sitting there at their bedside and I would kind of
interview them in a way, but my point was really just to bear witness to their suffering and to bear witness to the lessons they had learned. You know, it's a tremendous, it's a unique perspective that I've been able to gain, I think, as any hospice professional would, but also for me, you know, there's thousands of hospice professionals, there's thousands of PTSD and trauma experts.
but there's only a handful of people who have really specialized in both. And I sort of feel like it's the confluence of both of those patient populations that has yielded this rather unique lesson about soul injury. And if you think about it, if most people have acquired in one way or another a soul injury and having scattered pieces of self and not being fully connected to all those pieces,
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
You would think we'd have a name for it, a word for it, so we can have a conversation like you and I are having right now. It's crazy. It's crazy that we have not yet had a term that identifies something that we can all then know what it means, soul injury. Well, what does that mean? Well, it means you get kind of lost and separated from, disconnected from your own sense of self. You're kind of missing in action in your own life, got squeezed out of your own life for one way or the other. Well, how did that happen?
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah.
Deborah Grassman NP
Well, unmoored, lost and hurt, or unforgiven guilt and shame, or fear of helplessness and loss of control. Okay, let's talk about, you see how then all that unconscious stuff that gets stuffed behind a wall and stifles us and comes out unconsciously as anger or violence or just shutting down and withdrawal, it can go either way. It is released so we can have meaningful conversations. I can tell you on people's deathbeds, you have meaningful conversations.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Yeah, we don't got time for meaningless time stuff. know, I feel like it's such a important thing that you just said that I want to highlight about like having a word for it. Because I feel like in our society, we've talked a lot in the past, you know, 10 years or so to come a long ways in like understanding and recognizing that mental health is physical health and that we should be considering that as part of what we do. But it feels to me like the way you initiate
Deborah Grassman NP
I actually
Emilia Bourland
Yeah.
Deborah Grassman NP
Exactly.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
maybe going to see therapy is, but, I'm struggling and you identify a struggle or you get diagnosed with depression or something, right? And like, sure, that's definitely an entry point that it could be, but it seems more applicable that you recognize that you have a soul injury because those are the root causes of most of the problems that would go to therapy to talk to somebody about. And then now that I know that, and I can say that, now I know that, my next step is going to be this, right?
Like instead of it being so, I don't know, ethereal or wishy washy or feels like, oh, you know, if you're not in touch with it or you are very in touch with your feelings, but you need somebody to talk about it, then you go to therapy. No, it's really kind of the other way around. It should be in that, you know, you're not actually in touch with your feelings as well as you should be or haven't explored it or got unborned loss. And now I'm wanting to try to deal with that, you know, tell me how you feel about what happens next after somebody has identified.
or recognized like, yeah, that is me.
Deborah Grassman NP
Yeah, well, one thing before I do that, I think one of the things you're saying that's important about mental, mental, quote unquote mental illness is, know, we don't consider.
Emilia Bourland
Can I just say I love that because like mental, it's all one in the same. It's all part of us. Like why do we separate these things out? Okay, sorry, go ahead.
Deborah Grassman NP
Well, the other thing is, I'm careful. I don't want to pathologize soul injury. Now we've made soul injury into that category of mental illness and put it in the DSM. No. It just is. It's part of the human condition. so talking about it like that is very, very helpful.
Emilia Bourland
Mmm.
Emilia Bourland
Mmm.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
Your question, Brandy, about, okay, so now I realize I have a soul injury. Well, first of all, one of the first things I would do, we've had scientists research the soul injury concept and the tools that we use, so it's all validated, that's all published in refereed journals. So the first thing, one of the things we have is inventory. So it's just eight questions that you ask yourself.
All eight questions really have to do with those three causes. So, you know, it's right on our website. It's easy to, it's very easy to take five minutes. so, so that is the, I think kind of the first step is to kind of do a self-awareness, like, okay, I'm kind of stuck here. yeah, I can.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
I've kind of had this hole here that's kind of deadened. What's that about? You know, what could be causing that? Well, when you take the inventory, you can see if it slots into one, two, or all three of those causes. And then, you know, I think the beautiful thing really underline anything is going to be a loss of some kind. again, it's learning. There's a famous saying that says those who grieve well.
heal well. And when we're talking about grief and loss, that can be, you know, we typically think about, yeah, when someone dies, you know, that's well, sure. Well, that's the obvious, you know, that's, but every day at any time you're disappointed, think about a disappointment. Why is that disappointing? Because you suffered a loss of some kind. Now on a scale of zero to 100, it may only be a one, but it's still a loss.
And if you can grieve the quicker you can recognize that as a loss, consciously grieve it, the quicker you can release it and move back into the present moment without resentment, without getting to the end of the day and going, well, I didn't get the stuff done. I had all these interruptions. I had all these, you know, took me away from, you know, that kind of baggage really is unborn loss. We just don't call it that. We don't recognize it.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
you
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
So the very first thing is to be able to name it, recognize it, grieve it, so it can then be released. Now obviously bigger losses, loss of a job, loss of a good friend, betrayal, those kinds of losses would require more than just a mere disappointment, obviously. One of the things I always...
cover too is being able to kind of ceremonially, ceremonies are wonderful ways that access the unconscious so that something can be released. So for big losses, you know, there are, there is that as well. So to answer your question, it really kind of depends on the context and what have you. In my book, it is filled with self-awareness exercises. You know, I'll give a concept and then a story.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Yeah.
Deborah Grassman NP
and then a box that has a self-awareness exercise. know, that basically asks you to look inside. Is it there? You don't have to share it with anybody, you know, just, you know, self-awareness and then what to do about it.
Emilia Bourland
And is your book, I know, well, you've written three books. Where are they all available right now? And like, what are their titles? Because I'm sure after folks have listened to you speaking, there's obviously huge value in reading your written works as well. Can you tell us a little bit about those?
Deborah Grassman NP
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
Sure, the first book is called Peace at Last, subtitled Stories of Hope and Healing for Veterans and Their Family. So it is very veteran-centric. So anybody who is a veteran, anybody who loves a veteran, anybody who takes care of veterans, hopefully would be interested in that. It definitely offers a different perspective because the perspective is from dying veterans. So even veterans.
Amelia, even like your husband is not within a community of dying veterans. And I'm going to tell you that your perspective shifts very dramatically when people are given a terminal diagnosis. You know, they suddenly wake up to how their life matters. You know, the day before you're given a terminal diagnosis, you pretty much take your life for granted. The day after you're given a diagnosis, everything changes. So, and that's...
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Thank you.
Deborah Grassman NP
That was the perspective that I was able to glean. So anyway, that's Peace at Last. The second book is called The Hero Within, Redeeming the Destiny We Were Born to Fulfill. So that is more about how to do that. It's really what I call a self-compassioning process. And The Hero Within describes that self.
compassioning process, which I divide into abiding, reckoning, and beholding. That's enough story. The third book is called Soul Injury, Healing the Relationship You Have with Yourself. That book is coming out in just about three weeks. It will be, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's at the printer right now, being printed, so we should have those shipped and ready to go within just a couple of weeks.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
you
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Mm.
Deborah Grassman NP
So it really outlines much of what we were talking about today. mean, ultimately it is about healing the relationship you have with yourself. And as I said, your real self is not only the best version of yourself. It is the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful. It is all of it. And the tools for how to do that.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Thank
Deborah Grassman NP
And I've got a workbook available, you know, again, to help people really work through that. And really my ultimate hope, what we really see that's so powerful is to be able to do it with someone else or to do it in a group, you know, to do it as a book community because that kind of shared vulnerability is really inspiring. You know, you hear each other's stories and it can, you know, that's how we learn and grow. Stories are powerful. mean,
Emilia Bourland
And I want to, so I have two more little questions. First is, but first I want to say, actually probably by the time, so listeners, you probably know that we pre-record here at Care Lab. So probably by the time you're listening to this, I'm going to guess that Deborah's book will actually already, that Soul Injury will already be out and available. So where can people actually go to purchase your books? And then my follow-up question, and my follow-up question kind of wrap things up here is,
Deborah Grassman NP
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
If you had one step that people who, as they're listening to this, are thinking, my gosh, that's me, like I have a soul injury, what is one step that those people can take?
Deborah Grassman NP
Okay, so the first question is, where can you get the books? So they are on our website, which is either soulinjury.org, O-R-G, or OPUS, O-P-U-S, PEACE, P-E-A-C-E, that's the name of our nonprofit organization. So you can get it opuspice.org or soulinjury.org, they both go to the same place.
Emilia Bourland
Yes.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
And you will find not only books, but I do have online courses. All of this is on, we have online courses that you can take and those are great to do either privately or as a group or companies use it with their employees too. So all of that is available. So your second question is if there was one thing. Well, I will tell you, you know, I hopefully,
I'm giving you today some concepts for your head and information for your head that's important for you to say, ah, maybe I have a soul injury. That's about all we can truly accomplish today. In the books, you know, I tell lots of stories that will truly touch your heart because I tell the messy in between navigating the problems, the issues, stories. So hopefully that will touch your heart. And that's important.
But the real thing is to be able to move it from the head to the heart down to the gut, to this dwelling place that I call that is the seat of the soul, really, if you think about it. So if there's one thing that I would encourage people to do is to just start considering getting real with themselves. What's really going on? So I'm going to ask everybody right now, all your listeners as well, we're going to do what I call this is a tool that we call it, Opus Peace, we call it
Emilia Bourland
Mm.
Deborah Grassman NP
anchor your heart. So I want you just to place one or both hands, whatever feels comfortable on your heart and either lower your eyes or if you can close them completely, that's fine too, whatever feels most comfortable. And I want you just to take a deep breath.
Deborah Grassman NP
That was step one. without moving, keep your eyes closed, your hands where they are. And just become aware. Step two is just become aware of what you're really feeling, what's going on there. What do you find there?
Deborah Grassman NP
What are you feeling? Or try not to feel. Either way, just being aware.
Deborah Grassman NP
Alright, now step three, without changing anything, just be aware of this place inside you that is strong and capable of holding whatever it is you're feeling. Good, bad, ugly, beautiful, all there. There's a place inside you that holds it for you, whether you know it or not.
It's still there. So just take a moment to acknowledge this brave space inside you that is able and capable of holding your pain for you.
is able and capable of holding your joy for you. It's all there. Everything you need in order to be whole is already there.
Deborah Grassman NP
Already there. I'll take one more deep breath. Bring that brave space with you.
as you come back and prepare to go on about your day.
Emilia Bourland
That was lovely.
Deborah Grassman NP
Very simple. Just three steps. You can do it. No one even really needs to know you're doing it. You could be sitting at a meeting all panicked out and sit there and do this. Nobody's going to think anything about it. You can do it with your eyes open. Costs no money. Takes no extra time. It's really something. I can tell you we used it extensively with our dying patients. Dying's not easy.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
was.
Deborah Grassman NP
It's not easy to take that final leap. There's a lot of trepidation and being able to teach patients how to ground themselves. really, it's a simple grounding technique that helps you get in touch with your beingness, not just your humaneness, but your beingness and being able to unite those into one complete whole. We are all both wounded and whole. We're both.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Deborah, appreciate you.
Deborah Grassman NP
You know, I was going to say, it just dawned on me how I, the very first line of the book that's coming out next week, the very first line of the first page of the first paragraph is everything that I've learned that's really mattered. I learned from the dying.
Emilia Bourland
Mm.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Grassman NP
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
Well, Deborah, thank you so, so much for being on this episode of Care Lab. We would love to have you back again if you would ever like to return. Absolutely wonderful words of wisdom. I know that our listeners are deeply appreciative of everything that you've shared with us today. Listener, if you made it to the end, and I hope you did, and I hope that if you were driving while Deborah was giving that last lesson that you pulled over safely, so they can't you.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
or keep your eyes open.
Deborah Grassman NP
You can, I was gonna say, honestly, you can still do it at a stoplight with your eyes open.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, certainly, at least keep your... I hope you kept your eyes open. If you didn't, I hope you pulled over. And if you were driving, you didn't have a chance to do it, then take a moment to go download the episode, go back and re-listen to this later and do that exercise. It's absolutely worth doing. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Care Lab. Make sure that you like, subscribe, please leave a comment.
Deborah Grassman NP
Yeah.
Deborah Grassman NP
Sure.
Emilia Bourland
And we'll see you right back here next time on Care Lab. Bye.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L, CLIPP
Bye everybody.
Deborah Grassman NP
Thank you.
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