#396: Permission to Grieve with J.S. Park

The Mark Groves Podcast

Mark Groves

Relationships, Society & Culture

4.9 • 5K Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2024

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this moving episode, I welcome hospital chaplain, author, and online educator, J.S. Park. J.S. takes us on a poignant journey through the intricate layers of grief and the profound realm of emotions that accompany loss. Drawing from his experiences in a trauma center, J.S. Park shares the non-linear nature of grief, stressing the importance of embracing pain and validating all emotions that surface. Together, we explore societal norms surrounding grief, empathetic responses, and the delicate balance between fixing and sitting with discomfort. Listen in to reflect on the subject of mortality and discover a deeper understanding of grief as a natural response to loss and the compassion found in grief’s turmoil. For eight years J.S. has been an interfaith chaplain at a thousand-plus-bed hospital that is designated a Level 1 Trauma Center. His role includes grief counseling, attending every death, every trauma and Code Blue, staff care, and supporting end-of-life care. He also served for three years as a chaplain at one of the largest nonprofit charities for the homeless on the east coast. J.S. has a MDiv completed in 2010 and a BA in Psychology. He also has a sixth-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. J.S. currently lives in Tampa, Florida with his wife, a nurse practitioner, and his three-year-old daughter, newborn son, and their adopted dog. —J.S.’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jspark3000/?hl=en —J.S.’s Book - As Long As You Need: Permission to Grieve: https://jsparkblog.com/2024/02/08/preorder-my-new-book-as-long-as-you-need-permission-to-grieve/ —J.S.’s X: https://twitter.com/jsparkblog?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor —J.S.’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNc6TwqBwxM —J.S.’s Quiz: https://www.markgroves.com/kwik-quiz If you want to dive deeper into Mark’s content, search through every episode, find specific topics we’ve covered, and ask him questions, go to his Dexa page: https://dexa.ai/markgroves Themes: Grief, Loss, J.S. Park, As Long As You Need, Permission to Grieve, Trauma, Death, Emotions, Empathy, Discomfort, Mortality, Life Death Cycle, Hospital, Chaplin, Emotional Health, Compassion, Relationships, Spirituality, Transformation, Mental Health, Purpose This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth: Use code MARK for 40% off sitewide at http://www.cozyearth.com Contact us at podcast@markgroves.com for sponsor product support, questions, comments, or just to say hello!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Transcript

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0:00.0	You know, I've seen several thoracotomies now, which is when they, it's a last ditch effort, when they do an incision and they open up the rib cage and the physician places his hand inside and begins to do a cardiac massage on the heart. Can anything prepare you for seeing that? And this physician, I mean, he's reaching into the chest cavity like he's getting the last chip in a bag of potato chips. You know, this is kind of another day at
0:22.2	work. Patient makes it or doesn't make it. I speak to these nurses and physicians because we offer
0:26.0	staff care too. It gets to them too. No one can truly compartmentalize themselves to numb themselves
0:31.5	to the things that they do. And these physicians and nurses, even if they don't feel it on this
0:35.5	conscious level, at the heart and gut level,
0:43.4	it's accumulating. When we read violent headlines, when we see the hurt in the world, that's all accumulating, you know. We're all carrying grief from something. The best that I can say is I'm very
0:49.0	lucky to have a good and safe community that I'm not afraid to talk about these things with.
0:55.1	And I think that's what we need, you know, safe landing to be able to talk about our grief and the things we accumulate.
1:00.2	Hello and welcome to another episode of the podcast. Today I am so excited to be chatting with
1:06.4	J.S. Park. He's the author of the recent book as long as you need. And J.S. June, I'm so pumped that I get to
1:15.3	have this conversation with you. I know that's paradoxical. It's like, I'm so excited to talk
1:19.6	about grief. But I am. I think there's, I've learned through my own experience and through
1:25.2	learning from people like you, that grief is actually
1:28.3	a really magical place. It can be, not to minimize it, of course. So thanks for coming on the
1:35.4	podcast and sharing your work. Yeah, Mark, thank you for having me. And I got to say up front,
1:40.8	I know that we rescheduled. You were so kind and caring to look out for my mental health.
1:45.6	I had a thing going on that week.
1:47.7	So I appreciate your graciousness, stretching yourself, and inviting me into your space.
1:53.7	So I'm thankful for you and I'm glad to be here.
1:55.7	Well, I'm, you know, of course.
1:58.0	And, you know, I think what's interesting about your experience of why you needed to reschedule is just like how much you're in the humanness of it, you know, that you're not like a, you know, often I'll say a Pope on a pulpit, you know, expressing that. But you're actually like in the weeds with people. Yeah. My job isn't just the job.
2:20.0	And I, I, I'm not able to leave work at work.
	...

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