Befriending Loss With Jennifer Jue-Steuck

[00:00:00] Ready! Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptees podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Jennifer, Jennifer Jue-Steuck, right? So Stuck is a German name. Yes, for a piece. It means it's a German word that means a piece, so a piece of something.

[00:00:20] Which I think is really interesting as an adoptee for adopted people because we have lots of pieces of ourselves. Yeah, we do. We have lots of pieces. And I was just, Jennifer thought I was joking but it's true, right?

[00:00:37] So if you put, take any German object and if you put CHEN on the end of it, it means like a small version, a small version of it. So you can have a Stuck or you can have a Stuck-schön.

[00:00:53] I don't know if I'm pronouncing that quite right. My German is like 40 years since I spoke any German. It sounds good. Yeah, it sounds good. A Stuck-schön. Stuck-schön. Stuck-schön. But I was telling Jennifer that I went to language school for three months in Cologne

[00:01:09] and had a fantastic time. And then I worked in a coffee factory in Berlin. And Jennifer was, yeah, that must have been great. And I said, no, it was really boring. But because it was about watching the machines and waiting for them to break down and then

[00:01:27] I had something to do other than that, I was just twiddling my thumbs as we say on this side of the pond. But so one day the guy gave me a broom and he said a brush and he said, okay, sweep the factory floor.

[00:01:44] So I had, this is in the 80s, so I had a little walk and you know, disc tape player go in and I was listening to some music and an hour and a half later I'd finished sweeping the floor.

[00:01:57] And the guy said to me, I said, oh, I went back to him and said, I finished. I finished and he said, nah, you haven't finished. And he took the broom off me, right? And the broom was about say two foot wide the head, the brush bit.

[00:02:15] He took it off me and he gave me one with a much smaller head, with a much smaller broom. And say, your job is today is to sweep the factory floor. That's all you're doing.

[00:02:31] So yeah, that kind of sums up the, that sums up the working in the coffee factory. Oh my goodness. Wow. It's not as interesting as talking to fellow adopters, right? Right. Wow. Okay. I'm just imagining that. Did he say all this to you in German?

[00:02:48] Yeah, I spoke, I spoke German. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. Wow. I'm just imagining it. It sounds intense. It was intense. And this was before the, the world came down, the Berlin world came down, like a few years before. So Berlin was quite, it was quite an intense place.

[00:03:09] Oh wow. Yeah. But yeah, not as good as Kaleb. You must have learned a lot. That sounds fascinating. I've only been after the Berlin wall came down so. Yeah. Well, we went back, sorry listeners, you've probably hung up by now. You probably hit, hit stop on the podcast.

[00:03:27] Now, I went back four years ago. So just before lockdown, my niece was at a language school in Berlin. So we went back. I went back with my mum and my sister and my niece who was in Berlin.

[00:03:45] And we've, we managed to find the same pub that I used to go to back in 1986. So that was the highlight of me was finding the pub. Oh my goodness. How fun. That's great. How did it change a lot? Sorry. Have you changed? Have you changed? Yeah.

[00:04:03] Well, it's a bit interesting because it's in the bottom of a shopping, what you would call a shopping mall or we would call a shopping centre, I guess. And it was in the, it was in the cellar basically. And it was called, and it was an Irish pub.

[00:04:17] And there was nothing Irish about it at all, apart from the fact that it sold Guinness. But that was what it was like in 1986. By 2020 or whatever, they'd actually retrofitted it to make it look like an Irish pub so that stock loads of wood on the wall.

[00:04:35] And it looked quite authentic. Oh, wow. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. So to business, the business today, we're in the healing business. So, so Jennifer, what does healing mean to you? Yes. So I, you know, I've been thinking about your theme for 2024, this theme of healing.

[00:05:01] And I think it's so salient on many levels, not only as adopted individuals, but also, you know, just thinking about all the things that are going on in the world in general, that have been going on in the world, various conflicts. There's a lot of need for healing.

[00:05:21] And one thing that came to mind when we're speaking about adoptees is just I remember when we were speaking earlier about the primal wound, which we both read and really, really enjoyed. I have to say, I thought about it and in all transparency, to be honest,

[00:05:43] I actually never thought of myself as wounded. So I am answering your question about healing in a circular way because I guess it's if the way that we think about our beginnings and the way that we contextualize it, the way that we ground ourselves and our understanding

[00:06:07] of who we are and how we started off in this world. I think it really affects our healing journey. So our points of origin are, I think, especially salient when we think about how to heal.

[00:06:24] So in other words, it leads to a question of do we need to heal, for example. Are I think with adopted people, I just came back from the MIT reality hack or the MIT reality hackathon in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

[00:06:45] And I had mentioned that I'm working on a VR AR XR project for adoptees and one of the participants literally said to me, the first thing he said to me was, I'm sorry. Everyone just looked at him.

[00:07:06] We all were just like we were in shock and he then he said again, I'm really sorry to hear that you're adopted. And I was just we were just all too shocked. Everyone who was with me, we were just staring at him.

[00:07:23] And he and then he said, that's really rough. And I really understand what it's like to be adopted because my mom and my sister stopped talking to each other. And I thought, hold on, this is so interesting.

[00:07:37] First of all, he he he says that he's sorry and he has this attitude of, I feel sorry for you that you were adopted. And I was kind of thinking, I sort of feel sorry for you that you weren't

[00:07:48] adopted and I didn't want to tell him that I didn't. You know, I was trying to be diplomatic. And then the second thing was then the surprised me was just how he then started to empathize with me and share that he was like an adopted person too

[00:08:09] because part of his family had stopped talking to one another and basically his parents had divorced and they were estranged. They're members of his family who were estranged from one another. So this that's that's an aside, but it comes back to the theme of healing.

[00:08:28] And again, the context, the perspective of do we need to heal and who needs to heal and why? Because if we think about ourselves as wounded, then how does that shift subtly profoundly maybe not so profoundly?

[00:08:46] But how might it shift our conception of healing versus if we are not thinking about ourselves as wounded at all, then how does our perception of what healing means perhaps transform? How might it shift? How might we think of ourselves differently? I feel like I'm talking a lot.

[00:09:06] So feel free to jump in at any moment and I can expand further. Can I jump in? Yes, of course, please do. OK, so you said that you enjoyed the Primal Wound. And yes, OK, I didn't enjoy the Primal Wound.

[00:09:22] I was really I was I was kind of relieved at a bit of a diagnosis. Right, so I had I had a thing to hang my stuff on. I had a I had a hook to hang my emotional baggage. Right. So there was a relief there. But right.

[00:09:49] Like you, I so I say to people, I didn't believe I was wounded until I read the Primal Wound. OK, interesting. And that makes sense because she really goes into great detail at describing the Primal Wound.

[00:10:05] I mean, I haven't read it for a really long time, but I remember she really makes of a very cogent case. And I guess one one thing let's come back to this in one second. What I wanted to say is a friend of mine,

[00:10:19] she recently she just lost her dad this week. And and I just think it's interesting, Simon, how when my nonadopted friends lose the parents or lose family members, I don't remember or even my adoptive mother who lost her father,

[00:10:39] her biological father to cancer when she was 16 years old. I don't remember anyone ever saying to my mom or to my friend this week. Well, you know, you're you you're wounded. I feel like there's that that what we've experienced.

[00:11:01] And so let me come back to let me validate an honor that you said that you felt relieved to have a diagnosis for the emotional baggage, I think that's what you said. And I completely understand that. And I think that you're right.

[00:11:18] There can be emotional baggage for any kind of loss, whether or not we're adopted. So I just think that there might be a bias, perhaps in society, because whenever eventually adopted or not, we all lose our parents if we out if we outlive them.

[00:11:38] We may end up being the last people in our families to be alive if we if we really have a lot of longevity. But I'm just trying to highlight just just a question just to think about. For me, I don't understand why we would call it.

[00:11:55] Why would why would we refer to ourselves as being wounded when loss is something that's universal? And yes, maybe we've had a bit more of it earlier on than other people might experience, but whether or not we're adopted, everyone will have emotional baggage with loss.

[00:12:12] So I'm curious what you think about that. Yes, I agree with you. And we we would say if somebody told, you know, like if we told somebody, if we heard that somebody had lost their dad this week, like your friend, we would say, I'm sorry. Yes, I'm sorry.

[00:12:35] You know, and I'm saying, I'm sorry. And Americans say, I'm sorry for your loss. British people don't tend to say that. But that's a British person would just say, I'm sorry to hear that. Yes. And they so that's one thing. And so it's the other the other thing.

[00:12:59] It would be acknowledged, the loss of the acknowledge. The loss of the acknowledge, right? Publicly, yes. But I agree with you. We wouldn't think of that person as being wounded. So the big thing. So what happened to me? So my first reaction was one of

[00:13:18] a one of relief and the diagnosis. And then that quickly became a kind of a nagging doubt that I couldn't overcome that I couldn't heal, basically. That's I thought I'm stuck with this. Oh, wow. So we're back with but not stuck, stuck with this. I'm stuck with this.

[00:13:46] Yes. That was a little bit. Right. So you know, I got it. So I and then. And then I. Then I kind of and then I went on my learning journey and and I realized that we're not stuck with it.

[00:14:08] And it's deeper than it's more profound than that. It's about the fact that who we truly are at our essence is unwoundable. Uh huh. So and but that sounds nuts to a lot of adoptees.

[00:14:26] And and it sounds like when I say that I'm I'm accused of I'm accused of what toxic positivity or wow, or I could be called, you know, like I'm doing it. I'm spiritually bypassing

[00:14:50] or also a spiritual science there was a word that I heard yesterday for the first time. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Where where I've got to on this is that it is that we can look at healing on many levels, but make it to make it simple.

[00:15:14] We can look at it on two levels. OK. On one level. And we the emotional baggage that we have with us. And the psychological stuff will be with us. Forever, it may it may get smaller, but it's yes. And it's kind of with us forever. Well, it's right.

[00:15:43] We live with it. So yeah, it comes and goes, but it's going to be there in the background. Exactly. Or ever. But the other side, the essence of who we are doesn't need to heal because it was never wounded. Right. I completely agree.

[00:16:04] And I think then to answer your question for me, healing in general, whether one is adopted or not is about transformation because I think that the loss of any kind, it's like a two sided coin. So you have lost on one side.

[00:16:27] And then if you want to call it healing or transformation on the other side, it makes it can make you stronger and richer. And it helps to shape who we become. And I think I think that that's a really beautiful thing, actually.

[00:16:44] A lot of people seem to think that loss is something to be fearful of, maybe or maybe in some societies, we don't feel comfortable talking about it directly. And others perhaps when we're comfortable discussing it.

[00:17:02] But to me, loss has become and this is my healing journey for me. And everyone's different with loss. It lost is so unique to everyone. And in the timeline for how we experience loss, it can also be utterly unique to each individual.

[00:17:18] But for me, loss is like an old friend who sits with me on the porch when I feel sad and I see my friend lost maybe in a rocking chair on the porch with me. And we just sit together and we've become friends. I've befriended the loss.

[00:17:41] And for me, that is how I transform and that is my healing journey. Because that loss becomes a guide. It informs me, it grounds me, it gives me direction for the rest of my life.

[00:17:58] It is it is something that empowers me now to understand, to have empathy for others and to understand myself in terms of which direction feels right to go. It's almost become a part of my intuition.

[00:18:18] Or I sometimes I call it like a sixth sense of just understanding how to perceive the world, how I understand the world. And it's all, you know, I think that all of this is part of a healing journey.

[00:18:35] I'm going to pause there and please jump in with any thoughts that you have. This is such a beautiful conversation. Oh, I'm so glad. This is what this is what I do the podcast for. Oh, wow. OK. Wow, I'm really humbled that you say that.

[00:18:55] So so let me kind of put my spin on your spin. OK, go for it. So you sit on your porch with with loss. Yes. Most people try and kick loss off the porch. Yes. Yes, yes, because they're afraid of it. It's scary. It can be scary.

[00:19:30] It can look like a big, huge, you know, green-headed monster. Maybe with several heads. Have you heard of a song? This is really before your time, because you're just like I don't ten years, at least 10, 15 years younger than me.

[00:19:45] Right. Have you heard of a song called Don't Fear the Reaper? I've heard of it. I can't actually think of the melody off the top of my head, but yes, I've definitely heard of it. So I'm not going to try and do that melody. Right.

[00:19:59] The band, the band is called Blue Oyster Colt. It's a 70s song. Blue Oyster Colt. OK. Don't Fear the Reaper. Right. OK. But we do fear the Reaper. Right. We fear. We fear loss. We fear. Yes. Until we don't. Right. Right.

[00:20:23] Um, one of my most important mentors a few years ago, what long time ago? And 16 years ago. He he he said that he worked in a hospice. Right. So hospice is in the UK. Sorry, in the US, don't you? Yes, we do. My mom was in one once.

[00:20:45] She had cancer. Yes, when I was 19. Yeah. Um, so he worked in a he worked in a as a volunteer. This guy called Richard, he worked as a volunteer. Yes hospice. And he said that the people in the

[00:21:05] hospice, in the people in the hospice, generally speaking, that the the the ones who were waiting, you know, the patients, the people in the hospice who were who were. Not just, you know, the people that were going to die imminently.

[00:21:22] He said, yeah, most of them were happier, happier than most of the people in the supermarket. Mm hmm. I can believe that. Yeah, definitely. And I remember when my mom was in hospice. Um, yes, there are many volunteers in hospice and. Yeah, exactly. That that's just when you

[00:21:46] there's sort of a calmness when you can be friends, your loss. It's not as you say, it's not scary anymore. It can be terrifying to reach the point to face loss and to look lost squarely and, you know, in the face.

[00:22:02] And and but the minute we do that, if we can have the courage to do that, that huge green headed monster, you know, with maybe 12 heads suddenly transforms into a beautiful angel and guide. And, um, you know, they just instantly, I think, can transform.

[00:22:25] And so I that to me is what is as an adopted person. And also even if I wasn't adopted, you know, losing a parent to cancer and being a young person would be painful for anyone, regardless of whether or not

[00:22:43] they were adopted, you would one would still have to be friends or come to terms with or however you want to phrase it. One would still have lost. So however we we want to respond to that loss is our choice. But I agree with you.

[00:23:02] I don't feel that I was ever wounded. I feel that I am a human and that as a human, when we lose members of our family, whether or not we're an adopted human or we've remained with our biological family, we're going to experience loss. It's just inevitable.

[00:23:18] So I don't personally feel it's helpful to think about myself as wounded. But at the same time, I want to be respectful of fellow adopted friends who maybe it is helpful for them to think about their loss that way.

[00:23:35] If it's helpful to someone, then obviously, as I said, lost is such a personal journey. Yeah. So my dad, I lost my dad, my adopted dad to cancer like you lost your adoptive mum, right? And and he became a happier, a less grumpy person.

[00:24:04] He had got the diagnosis. Wow. OK. So this was the truth of this was the truth of what this was me experiencing firsthand, not what not first time. This was me seeing firsthand what a guy had told me 14 years ago. So it landed for me.

[00:24:29] And wow, 14 years later. OK. Yeah. Well, yeah. So what what I'm going to I'm going to go back to something that you said about this, you know, you're at this this hackathon, right? And the guy says, I'm sorry. Yes. About you being adopted, right?

[00:24:55] So there's a lot of a lot of times we as adoptees are complaining about people not recognizing our trauma. Yes. Yeah. Whereas in this instance, we're saying. This guy was off kilter, you know, he was feeding the room. He wasn't he wasn't.

[00:25:23] It was a strange it was a strange thing to say. Right. It's a strange thing. But it's the opposite. It's the opposite of what we would normally be concerned about. We're we would normally be concerned that our our trauma has been invalidated. Right. You're so right.

[00:25:50] He just and maybe that's why, you know, and well, well, in a way. OK, this is interesting. In a way, he was honoring and recognizing the loss. Right. And in a way, he was also the way that he said it, the tone in which he said it.

[00:26:07] It was also abundantly clear that he felt very sorry for me. Yeah. That I had been adopted by other parents and I was thinking that's the part where I was sort of like, well, I'm sorry that you didn't get to have other parents too.

[00:26:23] So, but, you know, but everyone's different because for me, my my adoptive mother, Janet, she was from Los Angeles and she was a writer and a poet. And she she was my best friend. And so I know that I've adopted or not.

[00:26:43] We can just as humans, we can have complicated feelings about parents in general and about our parents in particular. But for me, I I was so close to my mom. And it was actually losing my adoptive mother, Janet, when I was 19,

[00:27:04] that triggered the double loss of my biological mother. And that coming back full circle to the beginning of our conversation. When we discussed when is lost even recognized publicly and when is it not? No one had ever warned me or even

[00:27:26] talked about the fact that I might be on two tracks of grieving simultaneously when my adoptive mother passed away from cancer, because I found myself grieving my adoptive mother, Janet. And then I would simultaneously have a parallel lost journey that had been

[00:27:44] triggered about my biological mother for the first time in my life. And again, this is when I was 19. And I had never consciously really mourned my biological mother before. So that's the part that really came out of the blue is that just really not

[00:28:03] knocked me down hard, was just wait a second. I'm not surprised that I'm grieving about my adoptive mother because she I literally she literally died beside me underneath our Christmas tree. And but why didn't anyone ever mention or talk about or warn me or even

[00:28:24] acknowledge right now that I might also be grieving my other mother, my biological mother, the mother I have no name for. And I don't even know what she looks like. Sorry, go ahead. So what year did you did your adoptive mom pass? Janet. She she passed away in 1999. 1999.

[00:28:51] Yes, Christmas. Oh. Wow. And the other thing is that I didn't even I guess the thing that was really surprising was just I thought am I going crazy? Because it really kind of felt like I was going crazy because I was thinking, how could I mourn a mother?

[00:29:15] I don't even know what she looks like. I can't remember her. I have no conscious memory of her. And yet the the grief and the loss that I feel for her, this person who has no

[00:29:28] name, who has no face is as real, as profound as the grief that I feel for my adoptive mother, the person I grew up with. Yeah. Well, the reason that nobody told you is because nobody had put the two things together. Right. I would say. Mm hmm.

[00:29:50] And actually they were actively trying to not talk about her because when my mom was ill, yeah, yes. Sorry for laughing. When my no, no, but when my mother was when she was kind of on her death

[00:30:04] bed, you know, my two mothers actually met one another because in Taiwan. Because I was adopted privately. So my biological mother and my biological grandfather actually spent a lot of time, you know, a few weeks in Taiwan. My adopted mother went to their house.

[00:30:24] They were interviewing different parents. I almost ended up being adopted by an Australian couple and going to Australia to grow up when they met my mom at the last minute and they really preferred

[00:30:36] her, I guess. So so my mom was the link between my American mother from Los Angeles was the link to my biological mother, but she was so afraid of her. She was so afraid of she was so fearful

[00:30:52] of of my biological mother that she actually did not share a lot about her with me. And so when it became apparent that I was running out of time to ask my mom very gently, just a couple of questions about my biological mother.

[00:31:11] My mom and all of her friends, they they really tried to set down the conversation and, you know, move the topic onto something else. No one wanted to talk about my biological mother. No, well, the scat. Yes, very scared, very scared. And that always perplexed me. Terrified. Yes.

[00:31:34] Terrified. And that always perplexed me because I wish that I could have said now I could say as an older person, but at that age, I didn't have the words. I couldn't articulate it as well, probably.

[00:31:48] But I wish that my mom was still alive now because now that I'm older, I would be able to tell my mom, you know, there's nothing to be afraid of. The love that I have for you as my mother and the love that I have for

[00:32:02] my biological mother, there are two very different relationships and you're not in competition with one another. You're not even in the same category in my mind of, you know, relationship. So it's like comparing apples and oranges. They're so completely different.

[00:32:19] It saddens me that my adopted mother was so scared and threatened by my palate, biological mother. Yeah. You see, we don't we don't like those emotions and we feel sorry for people but are having those emotions, don't we? Right.

[00:32:37] Well, and and also I just could tell growing up that just observing my mom, the one or two times when I very gently tried to ask about my biological mother, I could just see the pain in my adoptive mother's body language and her face.

[00:32:58] And I just knew implicitly, you know, don't go there. That's just don't even don't even go in that direction. So so I saw a documentary by one of my adopted friends about a Korean adoptee and and in the documentary, her name is also Jennifer.

[00:33:22] She she she says, you know, asking about my adoption or talking about my adoption is one of the scariest things that I can do with my family. And I really understood that it's called adopted, that the movie, the documentary might have seen it.

[00:33:39] Yeah, I haven't seen it actually. I need to really good. Yeah, it's really, really good. I highly recommend it. I went to the premiere. It was made several years ago now. I can't remember which year it came out. But I remember going to one of the

[00:33:55] premieres, I think in New York City and I was so moved. I had to stand up and make a comment. And I just felt so validated watching that film. I thought she did a really excellent job of highlighting the nuances and

[00:34:14] rendering visible some of the invisible aspects of adoption, adoption, identity development, loss, healing, all these things as well as rice. Because her mean, she was following a Korean adoptee in Oregon. So there were a lot of expressions around race and adoption as well. Yeah.

[00:34:36] And so what did your. How sorry, I always just think I was actually just thinking about the fact. My best friend died about. Four months after your mum died. Oh, wow. And I'm getting goosebumps now. It still and that hit me. Like a train. Wow.

[00:35:10] And I remember when I was seven, my my grandfather died of a heart attack. And that hit me like a train as well. OK, wow. So I'm and I remember the telling. So I've told you about the teddy bear, right? My teddy bear. Yes. Yes.

[00:35:35] So my memory from my memory from being seven and finding out that my grandfather had died isn't actually about finding out that my grandfather died. It's me crying my eyes out, telling my teddy bear that grandfather has died. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. That's a visual image.

[00:36:04] So I think, you know, this this whole thing. So if you come across Pam, Pamela Caranova, you come across her in the adoptee space. It sounds familiar, but I haven't met her in person yet. So I've not met her in person either, but she's she's a great.

[00:36:29] Yeah, she's a great lady for for helping other other adoptees and she's set up adoptees connect and she she's tireless in her. In her work and and. She she is actually very some of the most healing stuff for her has actually been around seeing.

[00:36:58] Seeing a doctor seeing the grief and seeing loss in adoption. Yeah, equating the emotional equation and the emotional loss of of our biological family with the physical loss of our parents or our loved ones. You know, she she thinks that

[00:37:21] the adoptee, what other people might call the wound is very is very light grief. So the grief, you know, you talked about two tracks, two tracks, two tracks to grief. You know, I think I would see it as two tracks or also or a multiplication. Right? Yes.

[00:37:45] So if the grief score is in pain is nine out of ten, right? Then nine nine plus nine is 18. But times nine is eighty one. Yes. So the pain multiplies and grief squared. It's like grief squared. Grief squared. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Grief squared. Yes. Absolutely.

[00:38:17] And and you know, some people write about grief through well, that's why I said I feel like it's just a human process. And as adopted people, we just experience that loss a lot earlier. And then then a lot of other people might experience parent loss a lot earlier.

[00:38:39] But so it is to me just literally a grief process. And but some people when I read about grief and just general, I read a lot of loss of parents, you know, loss of parent books intended for a general audience.

[00:38:57] And some writers spoke about grief on the cellular level. And this is this is sort of reminding what you're saying is reminding me of that. Have you come across that literature? No, I've never read any about grief. But I'm say I know what you mean by cellular.

[00:39:18] So, you know, like we feel it in our in our the memory, the pre pre memory loss. Yes. It is we say it's enough. We say that it's enough. You know, the bloke says didn't you know, trauma that that's a vanishing. He says the body keeps the score.

[00:39:42] What it what he means by that is it's it's in our bones, not our brains. Because if our brains, we would be able to we would be able to remember it. You know, he's he's looking at brain as in I'm simplifying this.

[00:40:03] So you've got brain, you've got implicit memory and explicit memory. So, you know, right? The brain people think about mind and who we are and tend to relate it to our brain. Right. You know, the brain is the commander. Right.

[00:40:20] And then other people say, well, actually, the brain is, you know, that the brain is the mind is an organ. The size of our body, you know, it's not just it's not just in our it's not just

[00:40:35] in our brain, so you get exactly I'm already getting into tricky stuff. But let me ask you another question. Let me ask you. So what did your grief process look like after? The death of Janet after the death of your mom in. Oh, wow. OK, OK.

[00:40:58] So I would call my grief process my healing process as well. It's both and this is a huge topic because, as I mentioned before, my adoptive mother had lost her biological father to cancer in when she was 16 years old as a teenager in

[00:41:20] Los Angeles. So right before she died, my mom sort of tried to warn me about a few topics, but he said, first of all, you might have trouble finishing your university studies. And I was sort of like, what are you talking about?

[00:41:38] But then when I look back, I realized that when her dad had passed away, it took her maybe about six years to finish her undergraduate studies because he had to take breaks because she was really processing his loss.

[00:41:52] And then she also said, it might take you six or seven years to really sort of feel normal again. And I and also similarly, I was a little bit befuddled and I was sort of thinking, well, I don't really understand what you're talking about.

[00:42:09] But but then after she passed away, I understood because actually she was right, it did take about six, seven years of going through various stages of grief. And bear in mind this, you know, this was my adoptive mother.

[00:42:28] So I, you know, whether or not I had been adopted, I don't I think I would have gone through these stages of grief anyway. So but yeah. So at first I definitely went through the shock stage. I went through every single, you know, the five stages of grief.

[00:42:46] I went through every single one. So and they and as you said, it wasn't always linear. Sometimes it was circular. Sometimes, you know, I think many people who've lost a loved one who's very close to them can attest to just sometimes, you know, feeling fine.

[00:43:09] And then maybe you walk. I was living in New York City in the West Village when my mom passed away. And I would walk by a bookstore, maybe on Fifth Avenue. I felt fine. There would be something in the bookstore that would suddenly remind me

[00:43:24] about my mom and all of a sudden I would just be, you know, in tears out of the blue and this this sort of unexpected moments of of sadness, you know, different various feelings, sometimes anger, you know,

[00:43:44] they they can just come out of the blue when you're when you're really not expecting it. Yeah. So what about you? Well, that sounds like being triggered, doesn't it? It sounds like sorry. It sounds like being triggered. Oh, yes, triggered.

[00:44:03] Yes, it absolutely is being it felt like a trigger. So I went through a lot of stages and several years where I was triggered and actually, and I don't tell a lot of people this, but I. No one listens to me. Don't worry about it. Oh, my God.

[00:44:23] So but it triggered a a plain phobia after my mom died. I couldn't fly for about six years. And that is I literally took our Amtrak, which is our train in the United States back and forth between LA and New York City.

[00:44:43] I could not get on a plane. I developed this crippling plain phobia. And the strange thing about that is I had always wanted to be a pilot by hobby. I have a lot of my aunt and uncle were hobby pilot, you know, hobby pilots.

[00:45:04] And they took me flying when I was young. And I always was fascinated by flight. I was never afraid to fly. But somehow losing my mom it triggered a plain phobia that took me six years to overcome. And I knew I was talking about healing.

[00:45:21] I knew I was healed from that phobia. When finally at about the age of 26, I was able to take my first transatlantic flight again for the first time since my mom had died and I flew to London to England.

[00:45:35] And that was a huge, oh, my goodness, that was a huge, huge, huge accomplishment that I made it across the pond. Yeah. Well, you should have given me a call. I wish I had known you. So that would have been great. That would have been great.

[00:45:54] When, when was the first moment when you realized or when you saw loss as a friend on your porch? OK, I have to think back because by now, even now, I'm just smiling when you when you say, you know, your friend lost, I'm smiling, I'm beaming.

[00:46:19] I am trying to I felt this way for such a long time now. I'm trying to remember exactly when that happened. I don't think it was a single moment. I think it was I think it was more of a gradual process of learning slowly,

[00:46:36] not to be so afraid of my loss of learning slowly, maybe. OK, so let's imagine if loss is a person. Yeah, maybe I might sort of spy on loss around the corner briefly when I thought she might not be looking and

[00:46:57] you know, just take a little peek and then and then maybe it would lead to we might be in the same room together for a few moments. This is all metaphorically speaking. Yes. And then and then it might lead to one.

[00:47:11] I don't remember exactly how it happened, but it must have been in my mid 20s. Probably about five years after my mom passed away when I was just like, you know what? I am just going, you know, I'm just going to have to sit with this feeling

[00:47:26] with these feelings. I'm just going to have to sit with this and let's explore this. Let's get curious. Let's let's be open to being curious about these very uncomfortable, often cripplingly painful feelings. And and actually when my mom passed away, I I couldn't cry for the longest time.

[00:47:50] I feel like it took me years to cry. And I remember at the at the memorial for my mom when all the family and friends were gathering, people kept looking at me strangely because I other people were crying at my mom's funeral and memorial gathering, but I wasn't.

[00:48:08] I was just soldering on. I did not, you know, I did not cry at all. I looked almost like I could have been at a business meeting. I was just going around. I could not cry maybe for at least four or five, six years.

[00:48:27] I don't know. And I I just remember feeling like if I start to cry, if I start to even acknowledge all of the feelings that I'm feeling inside, I will never be able to stop crying. I it will be uncontrollable. And I was terrified of that.

[00:48:47] I was I was terrified of what if I even open that door? What if I even allow myself to feel the tiniest bit of what I'm feeling? The door, the floodgates are just going to burst open.

[00:49:01] And I it sounds crazy, but I literally felt like I will never be able to stop crying. And then what? Then what? It was terrifying. And so at some point I had to just I had to just face it and I had to just I still couldn't cry.

[00:49:22] I still couldn't openly cry. And and people looked at me like, wow, I almost felt like I'm wondering that they might be thinking, wow, she's so cold. You know, her mom just died and she's not even crying. She doesn't even look particularly sad.

[00:49:40] But it was just because I was so sad and I was so scared of of that sadness and what would happen if I actually acknowledged that sadness? And so at some point, though, I while I still couldn't cry,

[00:49:57] I started to slowly take the loss out of out of the box, so to speak, out of the closet and I started to say, OK, you're here. I'm here. I don't know how I feel about you, but we are both here.

[00:50:12] And you don't seem to be going away. You seem to be a little bit, you know, almost like a shadow that sometimes I can see and sometimes I can't see that sometimes it's triggered and sometimes it seems like you disappeared. Yeah, you're gone. I hope you stay away.

[00:50:31] And and then finally, slowly, yeah, over over maybe a period of two to three years of just following curiosity and becoming more and more open. We became friends and we've been holding hands ever since. And I know that she is actually my most reliable friend.

[00:50:54] I know that when I am feeling grief beyond words, when I am feeling sad, when I feel like my whole body is screaming at a cellular cellular level in in pain and sadness and things that are just beyond words, beyond memory.

[00:51:13] I know that loss will be there for me, that she has always been there for me, that she is my most steadfast guide in life and that if I. Remain friends with her and open with her, that she will always guide me to make the best decisions.

[00:51:36] If I listen and guide me on my life's journey, and that to me is the gift of loss. That to me is the healing and how I've transformed that loss. I'll give you some concrete examples.

[00:51:54] So when my my when my adopted mother passed away and then that triggered the double loss of my biological mother as well, the two tracks, the loss squared, I began to wonder, have other adopted people also felt this double loss? Is it only me?

[00:52:14] And I began to wonder, you know, or have other people felt this loss earlier? I didn't grow up with other adopted people really except for my brother who's adopted from Seoul, South Korea. And so the loss, this is how loss became my friend. Loss inspired me.

[00:52:33] The double loss, the loss squared of my two mothers inspired me to start Chinese Adopty Links International Global Generations, the first global group created by and for the one hundred fifty thousand Chinese adoptees growing up in 26 countries around the world. Loss transformed me into an adopted

[00:52:55] person who had never given much thought to my adoption at all. To someone who actively in my 20s wanted to reach out to the worldwide adoption community and create a new space to say, you know, hey, did you know that there were other Chinese adoptees?

[00:53:15] I asked the Chinese adoptees in Ireland. You know, did you know there are other Chinese adoptees like you say in California and Canada and the little girl said to me, no, we thought we were the only ones here in Ireland. And so and they were like, really?

[00:53:30] And I'm like, yes, there are there are younger adoptees like you all around the world. And so Chinese Adopty Links International Global Generations, it actually started off as a pentall program because when I was 19 years old,

[00:53:45] sorry, I need to rewind 10 years before that when I was a nine year old in Laguna Beach, California at a new school feeling very alone and very frightened at my brand new school because before I'd gone to School Newport

[00:53:59] Beach and we moved to Laguna Beach, which is a nearby community. I had a pen pal from Paris that our teacher set us up with. And I felt like she was my only friend that year, that first year at my new

[00:54:13] school. And so, yes, so 10 years later, we met each other in person when I was studying abroad in Paris and she took me all over Paris. And from that experience, I thought, I wonder how amazing would it be if

[00:54:28] younger Chinese adoptees or younger adoptees around the world had pen pals so that when they're young adults or older, that they will have guides and friends in other countries as well. So I think we're about time. Yeah. So it was there. Thank you.

[00:54:49] And do you want to link to that in the show notes of the you know, yes, the pen pal program is sadly it was very, very successful, but I'm not doing it anymore. But I can I can send you a link to what I am doing now afterwards.

[00:55:06] Great. Well, that's been fantastic, Jennifer. I really enjoyed it and the purpose, you know, as I said, this is this is why we're talking about healing. Yes. You know, we all think different. We'll have different thoughts about healing and and as you say, how helpful is it?

[00:55:31] And that's the purpose. You know, like we're so great at talking about our trauma. But, you know, we're not we're not great at talking about healing. And that's the purpose of the podcast to talk about. And, you know, that's the whole shebang really.

[00:55:48] Yeah. So my concluding thought for you and for all of your wonderful listeners is just to think about loss as a friend, as a guide, as maybe one of if you allow it to be, it can be one of your best friends.

[00:56:04] And let me leave you with a prompt. Once you befriend your loss, if you haven't already, how might it transform your life in the most wonderful ways, ways that you never, ever imagined and who might you become?

[00:56:20] And that's something that I think is truly exciting and is the gift of loss and the gift of healing. Me too. Fantastic, Jennifer. I loved it. Thank you listeners for listening and thank you, Jennifer, for being here. And thank you, Simon.

[00:56:37] We'll speak to you soon. Take care. Bye bye. OK.