Nov. 1-2 is Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, in Mexico. It’s a time to honor, celebrate and remember loved ones who’ve died. Many people visit cemeteries or build shrines, called "ofrendas" in honor of those who’ve passed away.
And Lyn Prashant says that’s a healthier way to grieve than what many people in this country do, which is to say, not that much.
Prashant is a psychologist who works with death, dying and bereavement. She’s originally from the U.S. but now lives in the Mexican town of San Miguel Allende, where she runs a company called Degriefing.
She spoke with The Show about the different ways in which people on the two sides of the border deal with grief and mourning. The conversation started with how she’d describe, very broadly, how American culture deals with death and grief.
Full conversation
LYN PRASHANT: Well, I think a perfect way to respond is that the Americana culture does not deal with death or loss. We’re from a culture that is always looking to maximize youth health, all of the superlatives that eliminate the truth of our everyday life and that is that loss is part of the physical experience or the emotional experience for human beings.
What I have found in the American culture is people are very hesitant to express their feelings around loss. There seems to be shame involved with people that are in bereavement in comparison the Mexican culture is very prepared to embrace people in the midst of their heartbreak.
MARK BRODIE: Do you find that also applies to illness be at terminal or otherwise that as somebody who is maybe getting close to death that we in this country tend to shy away from having conversations about maybe what that person wants for when they’re gone or what life will be like when they’re gone?
PRASHANT: I think you’re absolutely accurate. We are not a culture that was given permission to talk about things that are painful and when we’re dealing with illness, we’re dealing with aging, we need to go into a very deep place in our hearts to embrace what we cannot change. We cannot fix, rescue or save another.
And so we feel a sense of futility, embracing the dying. We haven’t learned as a culture how to embrace the truth of the transition of being in a human body. And especially if the body is sick, and we don’t really focus on the vocabulary to express such as I work with language, I ask people to consider using the word wonder instead of worry or using the word and instead of but. I think that language really impacts how we handle things.
BRODIE: Well I wonder also I mean there’s such a sense of trying to fix something like a friend or a family member comes to you and they have a problem or they are feeling sad or frustrated and the natural inclination it seems to me and a lot of cases is to try to make it better, to try to fix it as opposed to just listening and being there and you know maybe giving a hug if that’s what they need.
PRASHANT: I think you’re so right. Two of the premises that I work with is that number one grieving people need to be heard. Whatever it is that they’ve lost, according to their own sense of what’s important in their life just meeting them where they are the other part of this principle meeting people exactly where they are. Not attempting to change them, fix them, or correct them. Hearing them, knowing that the service we provide is reflection is the willingness to be with another in their discomfort.
People actually don’t want to be fixed, they want to be heard. Now that’s a blanket statement. Of course there are some people that want a magic wand to make them feel better or something that somebody says.
For the most part what I find is people are so appreciative being able to talk about what they’ve lost. Being able to recognize that the other person is not sitting in judgment. Just meeting them exactly where they are we would call that quality and the other empathy. America is a place where doing and doing seems to be the standard. We’re so busy, we’re so active that we often don’t take time for reflection or just be there metaphorically to give a hug whether it’s on the phone or in person give a hug or hold a hand again in person or the cyber world.
I think it’s a skill we need to learn and I’ve recognized in the Mexican culture there’s much more of a willingness to acknowledge what’s lost, to be with it and there’s lots of ritual in their cultural expansion of how to honor that which we’ve lost.
My work Degriefing, which is an oxymoron because there’s grief on the planet at all times. It’s using the grief as fuel. It’s the most available but yet untapped human resource for personal transformation.
BRODIE: So I’m curious what kind of impacts you see and the differences you see between mourners and the people who are dealing with grief in for example Mexico and the U.S. and how you’ve talked about you know the differences in which we approach death and grieving and loss but how does that manifest itself I guess in the people who are going through that in those two cultures do you think?
PRASHANT: The grieving process in the Mexican culture is acknowledged it’s so vert , it’s seeing whether it is having a gathering where people show up and sit and talk or pray together. The American culture experiences loss quite often alone and behind closed doors. If we do honor the fact that we’re all here for a period of time, then we recognize we aren’t victimized per say by loss and by change, it’s part of the human condition.
The Mexican culture teaches that, the American culture avoids that.
BRODIE: Well so how do you think that Americans can maybe take some of what happens on Dia de Los Muertos on the Day of the Dead some of the honoring family members and really celebrating their life. Is there a way to take that and maybe incorporate it into our lives to maybe make the grieving process and the getting over it to the extent you can process a little bit easier?
PRASHANT: Yes I think that’s a fabulous question. There’s lots of time talking, showing pictures, telling stories. There’s not a superstition that we can’t talk about somebody because they’ve died. There’s the intention to honor them with our love with our willingness to be together to actually acknowledge the gift that we’ve had in our lives from that individual. So what can we learn?
You know I walked into a cafe here and I knew a dear friend of mine who had just passed, used to love going to that cafe. And I walked in there and I looked at the owner and I said our friend has left us. And he looked at me and he nodded and he pointed to a bench right in the cafe and he said nope she’s still here.
And what was on the bench? A full skeleton was sitting on the bench with a hat on and he said see we’re all still together. Just the form is different. And of course I wept a bit because it touched my heart. He was willing to meet me, in my heart of hearts and mention her name and talk about no she’s still here in her own way.
I’m not saying people don’t cry and ache and miss. What I am saying is that there is a way to honor this level of pain in our hearts and maintain our well being. And not get ourselves emotionally sick from unresolved grief.
BRODIE: Sure, alright Lyn Prashant thank you so much for the conversation. I really appreciate it.
PRASHANT: You’re so very welcome, I wish you well and I said from my heart to yours all the best.
