griefsense 101 | E1

Welcome to "Grief Sense," a weekly podcast for creatives, activists, and anyone navigating loss. I'm your host, Mimi Gonzalez, guiding you through discussions about life, death, and 'grief sense,' a unique perspective born from my personal loss and confrontation with mortality.

We'll invite guests to share their stories of loss and healing and how they've tapped into this thought exploration of their #GriefSense. Together, we'll explore the intersection of grief, creativity, and mortality, striving to normalize these critical conversations.

Grief Sense is more than a podcast - it's a community where grievers are invited to explore, heal, and grow together, redefining the conversation around grief and life itself.

Are you a creative & have a #GriefSense story? Email info@griefsense.com to be featured!

Don't forget to like, subscribe, & turn on notifications. This is a space created by us, for us, and with us.

In solidarity y con mucho amor, Mimi ✊🏽✨

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Transcript

Hi everybody. Welcome to the first episode of Grief Sense. This has been a lifelong dream of mine, so you can imagine how excited I am for all of you out there to listen to what I have in store for you. So, I would just like  to give you a quick rundown about what to expect on the show, how this came about, as well as insight into topics that we'll cover in the future with some guests that will be on the show, and also I.

Just, talking about life and, and healing through conversations. 'cause I think that's a very important part about healing about this life is, is storytelling, but not only storytelling, but sharing those stories. Ugh. There's so much power in that.  In this life I have lost so many people that were close to me.

I really had to confront my mortality in so many ways that I never would've thought I would have, hadn't I, lose anybody. And with having to confront my mortality so many times, , I've  had to envision what life would be like  in different ways.

Every time someone else passed away, it's like, oh, okay, life's gonna look a little different now. And then having to do that over and over again. I mean, you tend to learn a thing or two about life and life lessons and. , this thing that I learned, this major takeaway that I'm quite frankly still learning.

 I gave a word to this feeling  that I've had to navigate my whole adult life, and I call it grief sense. And grief sense to me,  is this inner knowing. This intuition, this sixth sense to appreciate everything you have before it is gone.  It's also being so present in life because you know that life is a privilege and it can be taken away at any.

Moment, it can end at any moment. And whether that's for you or your loved ones, right, their journey can end at any moment. And so in knowing that and unpacking that and  realizing what  Drake said, just because you live doesn't mean that you're alive.

 And it's, it's so true. This grief sense, it's this sense that's not common sense,  because unless you really lose people  near and dear to your heart, you might not  ever know.

What that feeling is like, but you don't have to lose a lot to appreciate what you have.  So my whole message is really encouraging people to, yes, , confront their mortality before they have to, but also  realize that life is worth living and helping other people unpack how they're going to make sure.

They make that happen, like, what are the things in life that make us so excited, so connected to a bigger purpose, or connected with other people in that, , we're inspiring others, we're connecting with others,  and some of us don't need to have a grand,, purpose in life.

That's totally okay, right? But we all like to feel good and we all deserve to feel good. And so my whole message is really., in this process of finding alignment in the things that make us feel good,  whatever our mission, whatever our purpose is in this life,  let's confront our mortality like at the end of the day.

As much as death is inevitable, life is too, and so you have this life or death, I think it's, it's a spectrum. We lose things along the way. We might lose ourselves along the way. And death teaches us that. But it's not only death that happens whether that's, you know, losing a loved one.

Losing a job, , losing a part of ourselves, whether that's through, some health concerns that we're navigating. Any loss that we've navigated or will have to navigate in this life. It's, it's taking that, but also learning how to live in the process

 and normalizing conversations around death because it's such a taboo , in life and, family as as many as you know, other topics as well. But death is something that, for others, seems so final  and that's hard. I, I admit, yeah. Death is, man, death is hard to talk about. But the more we avoid it, the harder it will be.

And the more it takes away from us living presently, the more it takes away from having that grief sense because you never really take the time to appreciate your people. Or yourself while you have life, while you have other people in your life. And it might seem far reaching, but deep down, I know, I know it to be true.

And you'll hear it from guests on the show as well, that the more you. Talk about death, the more you normalize death planning and just having conversations around your wishes, right? Like, do you wanna be cremated? Like what songs do you want played at your, at your service? Like, who do you want there? , what do you want people to wear?

What's the culture? What's the vibe? Where do you wanna be buried?  All of these questions don't have to be, yeah, they're difficult to start the conversation and. All of the things that come with that, but it's necessary. And the more we do that, it's my theory. If I were writing a Master's thesis right now, or a dissertation, it would be my theory that the more we plan for our death, the more we get to live and be alive and live presently.

And the more we can heal, the more we can. Create community with our loved ones. And guess what I've learned throughout this journey That even though talking about death is very normal for me , and not so normal for others, , I've had to  learn how to navigate certain spaces where people aren't as comfortable talking about death.

But since it is so ever present for me in my reality, it's just really taught me how to embrace. No matter what struggle I'm going through, it's temporary. Everything is temporary, but death is inevitable and so is life. So, hey, until I die, listen here, listen here, y'all, I am going to live my life. If that's one thing I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna live my life and I hope that you join me in this and really seizing the moment, teaching others how to do the same and talking about and normalizing really hard topics along the way. And that's, that's what it's all about.  I am a true believer in community care, and you'll hear me talk about that throughout the show.

But community care is really, Important to me and it, everything for me stems down to my trauma with all the loss and, and grief I've had to navigate. And after losing so many people, I felt that I've lost many pieces of myself and lost myself many times , in the process.

But in this journey I have connected with other grievers,  people who have lost, , loved ones in their life as well. And so I've built this chosen family, if you will, of grievers and I have found in my life to just be in community, in healing with people who have gone through something similar.

 I know that to have been really healing for me and I wanna pass on that gift to my listeners that, we're stronger together, and that there's people who have experienced something similar to you, and there's power in connecting. There's power in sharing our stories because you really never know who you're going to impact or how you're going to impact them.

And so I hope that by listening to this experience , that you will. Receive this gift that I want to share with you all and take it and pass it forward. Pay it forward. Have other people tune into the podcast, find other grief like podcasts, and just normalize the conversation.  With that, I wanted to talk about why I always wanted to do this .

I've always identified as an arts organizer, a creative social justice activist, and really with being a social justice activist, connecting the power of storytelling, of community, of justice, of equity, of liberation with the arts and , there have been many outlets that have been super helpful for me.

It's definitely music, definitely film, and I've dibbled and dabbled in doing, producing in both . But my very favorite has been creating soul filling events. I have created events where, we talk about all of the things we, we  talk about racism, we  talk about oppression.

We talk about death, we talk about how music and art and food and culture can really help us, , if we leverage those things as mediums to creatively express ourselves and to talk about how these difficult things impact us as people. How these things have impacted our ancestors, how these things will impact  future generations.

 There is power in community and holding space for that,  so I want you all to really consider this podcast as a living, breathing museum,  that's what I consider podcasts to be are these living, breathing museums,  I feel that you can tune into at any time at your convenience.

But when you decide to go into the museum,  when you open the door, when you click the button to listen, that you'll be there because you're choosing to be there. And everything you listen to will hopefully have an impact on you and your life experience. And maybe. Potentially impact the people around you.

'cause you might be so moved that you wanna, , share it with your loved ones and your community. But another way I have always thought about podcasts and another way I've always wanted to do this was I. Just touching more on  loss, right? One day I will pass away, , it's inevitable.

And so if no one listens to this podcast, y'all, I ain't gonna sit here and hold you. I am so real with you when I say. That is fine with me because I know that when I pass away, I have created something that has outlived me and it'll be something that my family members, my loved ones, , my chosen family out there, my, my grievers that I've connected with in the world,  people who have just supported me along the way, but most importantly, my family and my loved ones.

Will have something of me when I transition, and that to me is the most soul filling thing I could ever do in my life. Getting a little emotional here, but that's really what it's all about because there have been so many people that have passed in my life that I don't have anything of them. You know, maybe I have little remnants like pictures and you know, voicemails here and there if that.

I just want my family to have full access to something that I worked really hard on creating just for them. And so that, that brings me peace.  As I have guests on the show and, , ask them, Carefully curated prompts that I've created over the years on how I've had to, you know, unpack my grief and unpack my mortality and my creative expression, 

I  want this to be a space for us to honor our loved ones who have passed away. I want this to be a space for us to honor our ancestors,  because they passed. We are here. If you really think about it that way,  and because the people who have passed in our lives,  it's helped shape us into who we are at this present moment.

And so with that, I want this to be one big community vigil of us honoring our loved ones who have transitioned. Also honoring ourselves in this present moment for future generations who might hear this when we pass away as well. I want to just also share some insight as, as to, , What  future podcast guests will talk about.

Like I said earlier, am first and foremost a creative and a social justice activist. So you will most likely hear from guests who. Are in a creative space in some way, shape or form, whether that's in film media, entertainment, comedy who are their own podcasts, hosts, authors writers just many creators and different types of creators and creatives that will be on the show.

As well as people who  work in the liberation space or the anti-racism space, or really fighting for justice and equity for different, , oppressed peoples .

And guess what? A lot of that has to do with a lot of loss and a lot of people who are not seeing the light of day because of our justice system, because of our founding institutions  You might also hear from guests who might not identify in any of that space, but are just grievers and really hearing how their experience with a loss has impacted them into maybe creating a space where they are offering healing in their own way to their people, their community, or simply how they have found healing or healthy habits through some of this loss.

All of that to say, you will hear from guests who have tapped into their grief sense just how I have tapped into mine. And we are going to be on this journey where we explore how to unpack and confront our mortality through creative expression, and also learn to embrace what it means that life is a privilege, and how you can tap into your grief sense too.

 I hope that you join this journey with me and with our future guests. I'd love to hear your feedback. I'd love for you to connect with me on all of the socials. I'm really LinkedIn. I will be biased as one of my favorite platforms to be on. So please connect with me on LinkedIn. If not, I'm also on Instagram as well as TikTok.

I'm really excited to see how this journey will continue to unfold and continue to grow and evolve as I continue to grow and evolve. This is something that I've been wanting to do for a really long time, but it's something I found by accident.

Had I not  lost all the loved ones that I did , I would not be speaking to you or creating a podcast called Grief Sense, I  wanna leave you with that there are certain things that happen in your life that may become your life's mission, and my life's mission is to help educate people about death, death planning, but also as much as death is inevitable, so is life.

 I'm so excited for you all to come on this journey with me. . Talk soon.