How immigration changes the way we love and grieve

Grief does not wait for the “right” time and it definitely does not pause just because we move to a new country. We start with a gentle content warning and an important reminder: we’re both mental health professionals, but this is education, not therapy. From there, we follow the thread that so many immigrants know too well, the moment you realize you have to become your own parent, make your own plans, and learn a whole new set of unspoken rules that no sitcom ever prepared you for. 

We talk about culture shock in everyday life, why long distance friendships can start to feel strained, and how the time zone gap turns small check-ins into complicated emotional decisions. Then the conversation shifts into something heavier: what happens when people back home die, traditions continue, and you cannot be there for funerals or communal rituals. We explore the unique pain of grieving from abroad, the “vacuum” that can follow, and why the lack of shared mourning can leave your mind and body stuck searching for closure. 

We also get practical. We unpack avoidance as a normal grief response, how it can quietly morph into “I don’t like it anymore,” and what helps instead: naming the feeling, sharing in small doses, finding even one person who gets the nuances, and creating personal rituals that honor the person you lost. If any part of this resonates, listen, share it with someone living far from home, and subscribe, leave a review, or send the episode to a friend who needs language for what they’re carrying.

Thanks for listening! we would love to hear from you, write to us, 

Your hosts, 

Malika & Gitika 

Malika is the Founder of Ik Aas Counseling, know more at https://malikabains.com/ 

Gitika is the Founder of Pranh Healing & Wellness, know more at https://www.pranhwellness.com/

Transcript

Content Warning And Therapist Disclaimer

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Gentle disclaimer today's podcast episode is about grief and the experience of losing people. So if that could be a very heavy topic, we just wanted you to know at the outset. And the other disclaimer is that Malika and Kitika are both mental health professionals. But this podcast is designed for educational purposes. It's not meant to be therapeutic advice. So if there's anything that we share, please don't take that as therapy advice because we are therapists, but we are not your therapist. So please share with a therapist you know and actually discuss this and see what applies to you and what doesn't. Just wanted to share that.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

And let's go ahead and listen to the rest of the episode. Hi Marika Hi Getika.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

How's it going? Good, good. It's sunny today in Seattle, which is always a relief.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

It feels nice. Hope for summer.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

I've noticed over here, uh, people, you know, in India I remember summer is when temples fly because it's so hot. Road rage, or you know, just generally people's temples seem short. And I'm like, actually, mami, it's the winter. Like cold is really hard to bear.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

It's like it doesn't matter how many layers you put on, and then just never you don't feel comfortable enough.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

You know, speaking about the weather actually reminds me of this one very specific experience I had when I first moved to the US. But I had moved to Baltimore, and one morning I woke up and got ready to go outside, and it had snowed overnight. And I remembered suddenly having

Weather, Moving, And Self-Parenting

SPEAKER_02 2:57

that moment of wait, what am I supposed to do? And then I remembered, okay, what would my mom tell me to do? And I'm like, mom would tell me to wear a jacket and she'd tell me to make sure you're warm. So I did that, and I remember just feeling like, oh wow, I be I mothered myself today. I was I had no idea what to do because it had snowed overnight, and I was like, okay, I'm supposed to wear a jacket. And I remember for a long time thinking, I wonder whether that is what immigration sometimes is about. It's about learning to become your own parent. How do you parent yourself? You know, we do that as adults, but there's a new way we do that. When we move to a foreign country and you find ways to learn everything on your own. Because your parents are not necessarily always there to know or tell you.

SPEAKER_03 3:49

But I'm on that view with you. No, the same thing. I mean, it was just so funny because there were so many things that even my mom wouldn't know. So when I moved, me and mom actually we did live together. So I used to go to the university and we moved to this like really small town in spoken. So when it's me and my mom, and sometimes we both were just flawless to what are we supposed to do? Because there were so many things that we both didn't know. We actually bonded together in exploring American culture. When I started my job, like that's where I started doing more of the parenting parts of it. Because I learned that there are so many things that I didn't know how to do as an adult because I've been so dependent on my mom to help me do that for me. And I really wanted her to get some fake killing. Yeah, it's it's okay. Like, let me just do some of these things and learn, be it cooking or cleaning or just focusing on how to take care of myself, like even those little things, right? Like, what do I need to put in the car so that I don't get stuck somewhere in the snow? You could get stuck because it was so much snow, and it was my first time driving in the snow. But that's so true. The parenting part of it. Wow. Okay, what are we wanting to talk about today? And I know.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Yeah, no, we were talking about yeah, just uh making it work when you actually started working on your own, and that's when you actually had to parent yourself, figure things out on your own for yourself.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Yes, yes, there were so many different things. Like even while I was studying it, I would do a part-time job in addition to my master's, and just the kind of exposure that I was getting at my school and then at the job, like the kind of influx of American culture that I was getting exposed to in so many different areas of my life. That was just overwhelming. That was so overwhelming.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Yeah, in fact, you know, I remember for me, culture shock was waking up one morning and realizing that my roommate had not been home all night, and I had not known. I was renting from another college student who was a little older than me, and he was American and a guy. But the fact that I woke up in the morning and I realized there was this light I used to leave on in the living room that the last person should switch off the light. It was, I think I just thought it was an unspoken thing. I wake up in the morning and the light is still on, and then my roommate comes home and he's like, Did you leave the night on all night? I said, I left it on because you weren't home yet. I didn't know you weren't coming home all night. He was like, Oh yeah. I was out with friends or something like that. And I remember having that moment of, oh, wait, you're roommates, but I don't know anything about you. If you're out or something, that's okay. Yeah. And it wasn't, you don't have permission to do that. I think it was like one of those things that I think I was just so accustomed to living at home. It's a home, it's a habit that you kind of tell someone, hey, you know, I'll be late, or I won't be home tonight, or something. And I remember thinking, oh, maybe this is individualism. You do your own thing, I shouldn't have to tell you anything. I don't know. But I remember really in this exactly and that moment.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

That's like such a big part of it. You're leaving everything behind that you ever knew. You know, you're leaving the language, you're leaving your friends, you're leaving your home, you're leaving the country, the familiarity, yeah, the noise. And coming from Punjab, hustle, bustle, and moving down to Chini was like, oh my god, this is so isolated. And there was no Indian. My Indian friend used to live 45 minutes away, so I would go see her.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Did you notice how your friendships changed over time, your relationship with people who were still in India, and and then the process of building new friendships in the US? Yeah. Like what did you notice?

SPEAKER_03 8:17

Shifted. There was just a lot because you know, we we all kind of grew up watching American movies, American sitcoms. So Kabika be like we had it in our mind that we know, we know how America works, and we know the language. You know, that was the biggest general, like both body wake up. But then when you move in, it's like, yeah, you watched American sitcoms, but then living an American life is so much more than knowing English. But there were so many examples, I was like, okay, I know English, but I do not know American. I don't know what the hell you just make I I know you said words, English words, but I don't know what you mean by that. And so all of this to explain to my friends and family in India, like, say explain, there's only so much that I can translate into words to help them envision what I'm going through. It was, I just remember feeling I I don't know how to share what I'm going through. Uh at least the friend circle that I had, they also didn't have to walk through the kind of experiences I was going through

Culture Shock And Unspoken Rules

SPEAKER_03 9:37

and I was getting disconnected from the kind of experiences they were going through. So there was that vacuum that started building up because there's just so much to catch up on. The same with family members and relatives and cousins, you know, you just get so lost in this, the whole process of learning a new country that you really won, you don't have time to be on the phone all the time. 13 and a half hours difference is also not helpful to maintain your connection to people in your country of origin. So I think all of that, just how to even describe a time kitna kuchpa taught and how to help that person in vision. Because there are some things that you just feel. Yeah. What do you think?

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Yeah, yeah. No, I think that point you're making also about you are needing a very full life over here as well. So there are 24 hours in a day for you over here, and there are 24 hours in a day for people over there, and so much is happening in those 24 hours that it's hard to catch someone up on the details of everyday life, and you end up having such different contexts. So you can perhaps imagine a little bit of their life because it was once upon a time your life too. But when you've come to a new country, people can't imagine the number of new things you're dealing with all the time. I really appreciated it when I had family come visit me in the US when they would actually stay with me for a few days or more than a few days or something. They said, now we get it. Now we get the details of your life. Everything, and also, you know, like everything happens in one after the other. Like there's nothing happening in parallel. Like you're not living with family, and you're not living in a place where you just get out of the house and the market is right there, and you go pick up something. Instead, give over here is planned. You know, you give your groceries on this particular day, and you need to cook on this particular day, and you need to do this, and you need to do that. It doesn't just happen in parallel because there are like five people living in one house and they are all doing their own tasks. Like, no. You do it so it has if you don't do it, it won't happen. So your days are filled with a series of tasks that you're doing one after the other. And of course, like in the middle of all of that, there is like my mom was always struck by how quiet it was, and sometimes it felt peaceful, sometimes it felt lonely. But I think I lost my capacity to uh tolerate sound because now whenever I go to MPI, like I get really overstimulated. I'm like, there's so much sound, I can't hear people talk while I'm walking on the street, and there's just traffic sounds. I'm like, okay, I mean let's talk when I when we get home because this is too much for me.

SPEAKER_03 12:52

I know. But we'll get into that too. You know, our experiences when we return home after putting so much effort into assimilating, or what's a better word, Kitika? I know you have a better word.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

What's a better word than? Culturating. Culturating and the process of adapting to a culture and assimilating, of course, you know, I I always associate assimilating with becoming more mostly like American culture, which is not necessarily true, but uh yeah, okay, yeah, any culture.

SPEAKER_03 13:26

That's the word. So it's like once we have really put so much effort into getting a culture to the American society of living, and then then going back home, it we are once again kind of acculturating to Indian life that we knew, but then it's no longer the life that we knew, you know. Things have changed and things have moved on, and people have moved on, and there are new things that I need to figure out. I feel like okay, there's so much more for me to catch up on and learn because this is my chance. This is my chance to really understand what's going on in India so that I can stay connected with my home and then with my friends and people who are obviously moving on as India changes.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

Yeah, there are all the big ways in which, you know, so to speak, our country of origin is changing, and then there are all the ways in which our family and friends are also changing. Like I remembered when I was in the US for less than a year, and I got the news that my mentor back in India, Father Berkey, had passed away. And I remembered being really shocked, and there was something very disorienting about realizing that oh, this is going to happen. That there are many people I may have actually seen for the last time and not known it. And some part of me thought when I had moved abroad that I was actually leaving things on pause. You know, and I'm leaving India for a bit, I'm going to go abroad, study, then I'm going to come back. So everything is on pause, and then I come back and I just press play, and my life in India will just rebegin. And you realize that's not true. You won't be able to figure out how to pay for things the old way because so many other things need to be sorted out for you to be able to use like UPI payment system. On one hand, is things like that. And then on the other hand, is like things like who are the people I will never see again? Like everything is changing. So you're doing like this big and small adaptation all the time.

Friendship Drift And Time Zones

SPEAKER_02 15:47

As people who are living here and realizing, oh, some things will never be the same again, but you won't know what it is till you actually move go back, even for a visit. And there are things that are changing in your own life that people who once knew you might find you quite strange, or that they won't recognize things about you because you will seem to have really changed, because you've really become a new person. You've adapted to a new country. So, of course, you know, there are things about you that will change.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

This is making me so tearful. Just, you know, going back to what you mentioned regarding people that we may have met for the last time and we didn't know, and yeah. That's just heavy because yeah, I I did lose my grandfather and I couldn't go at that time when I lost him, and that was extremely hard. But even you know how you mentioned you leave your home and you feel like you chat this is something that I can just pause and I'm gonna come back to. Literally, my bedroom at my home flashed in front of my eyes. It's been the same since I left. So, how our home looked like, and the little little things, the photos that I had of my friends, of school friends, and who's still there, and my best friend and me, and our photos in the frame, and some sort of like postcard that all my friends signed or something that's hanging. It's like your life just kind of pauses. And now when I move when I went back for my wedding and all, that's where I really intentionally sat, and I really wanted to move this bedroom with me to what my life is becoming. My bedroom became a metaphor that okay, I do have a life in India moving along with me because there's such a big chapter of wedding happening in India. Yeah, that helped me grieve so much and like catch my emotions up so that I don't feel so conflicted and so the juxtaposition of me being a 30-something woman and coming back home with all the stuff that I couldn't take with me, you know. It's not that I'm just moving out for three years, it's been 10, 11 years, and you can't bring everything with you. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

And I think that's the complicated nature of grief, right? Sometimes we associate grief with, of course, people dying, that is the most prominent form of grief we talk about. And there is also grief about loss, every kind of loss. Any major change also evokes grief, whether it is the home you left or it's the people you left, or it's also memories of good times, but those memories are in the past, all of that is such a grief, such a process of grief, also. And I think especially when we are living abroad, I remembered when somebody, a close friend's grandparent, passed away, and I remembered like telling my other friends that hey, I don't know if he'll talk to us about it, but I got to know that his grandparent passed away, and I think we should just like look out for him. And then I remember a friend of mine told me, it's so funny, you know. You learn about death and grief while observing it around you in your family, and then you see funerals and everything. Death is around you, especially in India. Like, I think like I think all of us have had some memory of seeing the cremation process, like you know, that somebody is being carried, you know, on the shoulder and being scotted, their bodies being escorted. So, as children, also you've kind of seen that. So you know, like death is around you, and you know about funerals, you learn a lot about it. But when you actually witness funerals in your own family, you get a you get an experience of actually listening. And when you're abroad and you can't really make it back in time for funerals or something like that, and it creates this really strange vacuum. Because in your mind, your mind and body, you know, the funeral is supposed to help you kind of do that, but you don't get to experience the funeral, so in your mind, you're still trying to make sense of how is this person not here anymore? And I have never seen them again after that last moment that I had with them. And and I think that's the crazy thing about grieving from abroad. That how do you really grieve in a way that helps you truly get some closure? Yeah, get some sense of completeness to that experience. So, like how you were talking about that you went to that room and you figured out ways that you will change a few things. How will this room also grow to make room for this present-day version of you, not just the 16-year-old version of you that had sticked on the wall, you know.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

Right. And I think it's the the communal grieving is something that is an integral part of us, and it's always going to be. It doesn't matter for how long we have lived away from India. And I see that for my clients and myself, that when we don't get that, it's it's like you, it sort of becomes a trauma. You know how the trauma is that we get stuck in that moment. We felt abused and wounded, and something dramatic happened, our brain just replays that memories again and again and again. So when we lose someone through death in India, and you are alone here and abroad, everyone else, your family and friends, they are getting that communal healing, which is helping them go through the next chapter and move on, and you know, they're able to really move through the grief and let the grief move in their bodies. Whereas for us, we don't know how to move that grief, and we get stuck in it, and then it just continues to replay. And then the saddest part

Going Back Home Feels Different

SPEAKER_03 22:27

is that now your grief, your recovery of grief, you're in a different phase versus the rest of the family, and it's grieving the same person, so they have moved on, but then you are feeling stuck. So who do you even talk to?

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Right, right. I was thinking about how in in like the words that we use for debt in our culture, like there is you know, the Soft language like Chalbase or Guzargay, like this person has walked on. Like I know in indigenous culture, like even here in the US, folks do talk about people have walked on. And I think Chalbase Guzargay is one way of saying so and so has walked on. And then I remembered once sharing with someone the word Dehant. Umka Dehanto where it literally means their body has ended. And I'm just thinking about how spiritually that is so meaningful that we recognize that someone's body has ended, but they are bigger than their body. And I think that's the experience I had when I visited my grandmother's house a few years ago. My grandmother passed away sometime in 2020, just before COVID. So she missed the horrors of COVID. But I went to the house where you know we used to spend time with her and everything. So we'd gone to stay in that house for a few days. And it was so interesting to be in that house and really remember my nani with so much love and still feel like she was there. But maybe she's gone to the market or she's gone to, you know, she's just out of town for a little bit. But we happened to find like bags of rice that nani had left, you know, because then she left that house. Maybe even she didn't know she would never come back. So there were bags of rice, and my nani had been ghee, and then ghee was still there. So we used that ghee is the mandir, and then the bags of rice. Of course, you know, we ate rice. I remember really feeling like, oh wow, it really feels like nani Kanher. Yeah, and she's not there, but all her memories were there, and we were on there talking about her. So I think I really take that with me. That even as I may have left the country, there are ways in which I support myself and even my clients in recognizing that we are the living versions of everything that we are grieving. So, how can we help the people we love live forever? It's by actually being their continuation in some way. How do we continue being like you know, their children, their grandchildren or whatever, continuing their qualities in some way? Yeah, I think that's one thing that really I'm remembering now how working.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

Oh, that's so beautiful. I'm so glad. I'm so glad you were able to be there and you know, see the ghee and the rice, and you were able to just feel it energy as you guys just kind of you know enjoy it, especially food. You know, food is a big part of us, so the fact that you were able to find some food behind that just sounds so great.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

It was really nice. What I think do move forward uh despite the grief.

SPEAKER_03 26:16

Grief is very complicated for me. I have lost a lot of my grandparents, and and I was aware enough to see them go away. I think so. I had a very complicated grief when it when it when it was also for my nanny and the way she was gone. And for five years since since the time that she was gone, I could not talk about her. I could not think about her. Like it was really, really triggering for me to even if I would see any reminders of her that would I could be dysregulated and I would just like automatically just start crying. And my defense was like, nope, don't talk to me. And it was just shut. You just couldn't. And then this was when I became a therapist, then being an associate therapist, and I had, and this was very first maybe a few months of this job, okay. My first full-time job as a therapist, and I had I get a client who wants to work on graves, and they came into the session, and they told me someone passed away, and this someone was really, really, really close to them. And I didn't I didn't clock in, oh, they want to talk about grief, it could trigger me. You know, this is like a beginner therapist. I don't have none of it triggering. So I go into the session. Like the dissociation levels, I researched on grief, okay? Wow. I researched on grief. Nobody is this isn't one person session, okay? Like 2017, most likely 2017. And you can as I start talking and holding space for this client, and I'm explaining their grief stages of I started like I started choking. I'm like, oh crap, like my chest is all up, and like my eyes are like well with tears as I'm talking to her.

Grieving Abroad Without Rituals

SPEAKER_03 28:37

But I think that client was really, really focused on, of course, their beef, so they probably didn't see what's going on with their sense. I'm glad they didn't. We complete the session, but oh boy, the kind of emotion dysregulation I went through after that session. Emotion dysregulation was grief, you know. We and that motivated me to go talk to a therapist that okay, I need to go process some of this grief. And that was my first time starting like official therapy as a therapist myself, and we worked through it. We worked through what was it that was keeping me stuck, and that was an amazing therapist, and he encouraged me to talk about her, and I would lose it while talking about her and cry and and I could talk only in small portions, I could not do a lot. I remember he he recommended, you know, writing to the person who's not here anymore, and slowly I built it up to that point where I could write to her, but then I remembered on my way home from my work, I stopped at this waterfront. I parked my car, and then I just sat in the car and I had a specific diary that I wanted to use. Literally, I just wrote one state, like that was my beginning of finding connection again with her. I just wrote one statement when that was overwhelming, and it was mixed with feeling connected back to pound and just that weight of oh my gosh, I'm talking to one. I never thought I'd talk to her, I thought she's gone, and you know, she's talking to women, and to now this is this is such a false circle. I can't even believe you're talking about this. Just yesterday, I had a whole conversation with Lima about who my nanny was. I mean, I knew who she was and whatnot, but I asked so many questions about what her personality was like, and just Rainey wanting to understand, like, okay, who was Nani as a mother? We call we call that BG. BG. So this was my BG. We never called her nanny G, we called her BG. So, like, how was BG's life and her personality again? My Papa G, my nanaji was a Sardar guy, and my mom just reminded me that everyone called my BG Sardagno. Of course. Sardarni is dancing, you know, can do this thing, this particular thing really well. And I just learned a lot, and I literally just pulled out a photo of me in my BG and my Papaji when I think I was like 10-year-old, and it was my birthday. So I'm gonna put that around this new place that I moved in. But that's the full circle, you know. It's that I can really talk about her and I feel like she's alive. Why should it mean that uh getting my wedding done? I had a dream where she gave me like like a really magenta-colored key chunni as a gift for the wedding when I came back. I had a dream she's giving me that chunni, and she's giving me perfumes, but I don't know why. But it was like two bottles of perfumes and then a magenta-coloured chunny as a wedding part.

SPEAKER_04 32:17

That's so amazing.

SPEAKER_02 32:23

Wow, wow, and it's just it's just so amazing though the connections, you know, to continue to build from across diamonds to dream of her this way.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

It's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 32:42

And even this is where we're gonna go. This is what therapy is like sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

You start by, so what do you want to focus on? And then and in the end, you're like, oh, okay, so we are here now. I as a therapist and as clients. I think both ways we are like, I didn't know this is where we were going to be today, but here we are.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

But here we are the clearly, it was important to us to talk about her journeys of grief and her connection with her grandparents, it really goes to show distance can seem so immaterial, you know, and how dawns remain they change form, they change form, they change form, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

I think some part of adapting feels like that a making peace with okay, it's a new form now. The person who used to talk to every day standing in the kitchen or something is now a person you talk to on the phone, maybe once a week, or maybe a little more than that.

SPEAKER_04 33:58

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:05

Would you like to talk a little bit about India or do you think I'm wondering what is something we would like folks to take from this podcast today? So in this part, what I'm saying, yeah, but what is something based on you know our conversation today about grief? What is something we'd want people to take with them, and what is something that you know you and I will maybe talk about in a future episode? This episode is about grieving as an immigrant. What is something we'd really want people to take with them from this podcast today?

SPEAKER_03 34:44

I'm having so many different ideas, and let me just spill them out. I'm having one addressing avoidance because grief sometimes makes us avoid this thing because it hurts too much. That severance from India, I don't want to think about India, I don't want to talk to people from India because it reminds me of India and that I miss it a lot. And another thing that's coming to my mind is like if you know we talked about how grief is different for different people. So, how do we kind of find connections? Ya,

Carrying Loved Ones Forward

SPEAKER_03 35:18

you can feel the journey through match career, so that you can have someone that you need to talk to. That would really be helpful. Uh and there was one more thing that came up for me. I think even just for some people, moving abroad can be also a traumatic journey because of their visa issues and the fact that they can't go back. Yeah. I think that then itself it becomes a it's not just like an immigration grief, it's more like a trauma of really being physically away from the family and missing all these different stones. So, how do you build your life, Yamabe, which is becoming an amalgameration of both the worlds, so that you're not just thinking I can only find my Indianess when I go back to India. If Yahweh I have to continue to be this American person. No, you can make room for both of you here in US.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Like a few things that we would love for folks to think about. Because today's podcast actually, Malika, I don't think you and I were completely prepared for the amount we would end up talking about grief. We were initially thinking that, oh, you know, today we'll talk about what it's it like for our relationship with friends and family to evolve when we migrate. But as we started talking about that, we realized that one important part of that evolution was all the people we lost, you know, after we migrated. So I'm realizing that, you know, we're not the first or the last people who have experienced loss in that way. But as we prepare to close today's episode, I'm wondering about a few things that we would really like for our listeners to take with them based on our conversation. Anything that we would like to name. And of course, we'll dedicate future episodes to talk about these themes that we discussed in these last few minutes. The one that I am most familiar with is avoidance. I even recently for Mother's Day when I happened to call my mom and everything, and I missed her, so I left her a voice message on WhatsApp. But I told her, Mom, I know I've not called you for a while, but just know when I've not called you for a while, it's probably because I really miss you and it's harder for me to call you when I'm actively missing you. So that sort of thing. So, but I realized like that's one thing for me that it becomes I'm like that kid who, if she sees her mother, you know, from the school, then she'll start crying because she's just like, Oh god, I want to go home with my mom. So, like, I'm the kind of kid you see her in school because you come to take her home. Don't just show your face and leave. So I definitely I resonate with that part that's wishes to avoid. And every time I have actually come face to face with the feeling it's actually felt better, but it always feels like uh it's gonna be really hard to face it, but a lot of times I think when I finally get the energy to okay, at least stop for five minutes. It's it's always felt better. The avoidance always makes things a little harder at the same time. Not judging people for avoiding, I think we are all on our own journey. Uh so I think that's one thing that comes to me, that comes to mind that notice if you're avoiding and notice whether the avoidance really serves you or whether it is eventually coming face to face with the things that you're scared of feeling that actually helps you, you know, even if it's in small doses.

SPEAKER_03 39:08

Yeah, what comes of beau, Malika? Just following up on that, you know, sometimes we are avoiding, but then you may not even know that we are avoiding, you know, because sometimes that avoidance can turn into the opposite emotion. Like if you're avoiding a mom who's in India or something about India, music about India, movies about India, we avoid it, and then slowly it turns into I don't like it. This thing. Like we rainy, rainy mess, be it the cinema, be it the books, be it the culture. It starts with like, oh my god, I miss it so much. Oh, I miss it so much in with my crying, and then it's like suddenly the difference mechanism kicks in. It's like, you know what? I don't want to think about it, I don't want to talk about it, and the avoidance comes in. Avoidance, then the there comes this feeling of like, I don't like it, yeah. No, I don't even like it, you know. I don't want to think about it. That sudden shift towards I'm not preferring it, I don't want to watch it. I don't want to talk to these people because of

When Avoidance Becomes Dislike

SPEAKER_03 40:07

whatever, whatever. You know, no, I don't relate to them anymore, so I don't want to talk to them. And then it turns into hatred towards something that you really loved and missed. But because it was so hard to cope with being away from something that you love so much, it turns into that hatred or not preferring. So recognizing like where your feelings and emotions are coming from right now about a certain thing that is connected to your family of origin or your country of origin, is it really that your choices have changed, which is completely true? It happens, we all grow up. Or is it also like you miss it so much you can't afford to think about it because if you continue to think about it, you don't know how you can function.

SPEAKER_02 40:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:56

You don't know how you can regulate your emotions.

SPEAKER_02 40:59

What else would you say, you know, would you want folks to recognize about working with grief? Like anything else that you've noticed?

SPEAKER_03 41:12

Something that I know helps me and others and my clients that have learned from them is find a connection, finding a person here or whichever country. Finding a person who really can understand the nuances of the grief that you're going through. So that you don't think I'm the only one and I'm going through this alone and by myself. Because a point that you can go through it alone by even explaining others what I'm feeling, what I'm going through, you can educate them on your grieving experience. What happens is after a while, it you feel burnt out and you feel even more alone because you're always the one who is kind of teaching another person on how to support you because they don't know, they don't have the context of this grieving process that you're going through as an immigrant. So it's really, really important to find a friend here in the US. Find someone who really understands what you left behind. Find someone who really understands the use of grief and guilt and sadness that comes from leaving leaving your country behind and your people behind. Someone who with whom you don't have to explain it, someone who is also going through it, and they will be able to understand the words that you both haven't said. Right. It could be harder to find, but even if you find one person, I really say that it's it's worth it. Even if you find one person who really knows the kind of grief that you're going through.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

Yeah. And somewhere I feel like connected to that is also we actually honor our feelings enough to feel like it's okay to share. When we give ourselves permission to share our feelings, we are actually honoring those feelings. And to give yourself permission to open up to another person about it. Whether it you might open up softly, like a little bit, just to get a sense of whether this person knows what you're talking about, or if somebody else happens to share it with you, to notice whether you are able to actually also say, I sometimes feel like that as well. Of course, you know, I'm listening first, and there's always that how do we make room for both listening and sharing, but also like at the heart of it, the how do we lead with our feeling paths and giving ourselves permission to find the kind of communities that will understand us and then taking care of ourselves by being in relationship with people with whom we don't have to explain anything?

SPEAKER_03 44:09

You know, as we talk about grace with like someone passing away back home, is there something that you can do here, even if you're away from all the people who are going through the that cremation and the funeral and the ceremonial process? Is there something you can do here simultaneously? If not simultaneously, if you haven't done it, is that something that's important to you? I'm not saying the spiritual or the religious aspects of it. Is there any kind of ritual that you would like to do which will help you to honor the person that you just lost and create space and feel like I'm paying my respects and paying my dues because that's the biggest part of it, right? The ceremony is about you honoring the person who's no longer here. So, how can you create that Yahape so that you feel like you're also? Moving through your grief versus not talking about it at all with anyone, which is also understandable.

Community, Sharing, And Small Rituals

SPEAKER_03 45:07

But if you want to move through it, it would be helpful to do that.

SPEAKER_02 45:13

Yeah. Um, I remember once losing someone and then actually writing to my colleagues who were also very close friends of mine. I mean, we all knew each other and cared for each other. But I remember writing to my colleagues and actually telling them that someone close to me had passed away. They had known that this person was ill, but I was able to write to them and tell them that they had passed away. I was able to share their name, share a few things I loved about them. And I think it really gave me a chance to, in some way, build a small home here. You know, like we always assume that it's only the people who knew them directly who will care for the person we have lost, but we don't realize that we are building a new home with our new friendships when we migrate. And those new friendships get to combine with the home we left by actually sharing with our new friends who is this person who was important in our life, we no longer can meet again because they have passed on. So somewhere and I remember that experience was also quite helpful for me because when my friends offered their condolences, but it was just helpful to have people know what I was holding. Yeah, that that was my reason.

SPEAKER_03 46:38

Yes. And something that I we both wouldn't let our twine snow, you know, if you feel this is a very sensitive information and you have never shared anything so sensitive with these friends, I wouldn't start with sharing grief. So we're not saying go find a friend and just start sharing your grief. The step one is to build a community that you feel key, perhaps maybe down the road, you can rely on them for emotional support. So, how about you start meeting people that you seem like you're on a similar wave and then kind of figuring out how to respond when you need support? And it could be like a very noticed kind of situation where you feel anxious about your job interview coming. Just was this new person able to support you? So build that trust and slowly you will be able to have this community who are going to show up for you in these difficult times as well. Yeah, and for sure. If you if you already love that community, the friends, and you feel like we hang out, but we really don't talk about these deeper stuff, it's helpful and easier to start one-on-one.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

So I think somewhere like as we wrap up this episode, we really hope that this conversation about grief and uh the challenges of sometimes losing experiences or friends or family after we migrate is something that not only sparks thought, but also maybe helps folks feel heard and understood in some way from all the experiences you may have had and not been able to share with others. We hope some of the things we talked about gave you language to share that, and more than anything, we hope that you felt seen in your Desi immigrant humanity as we shared about all our DeC immigrant human lives. So this is Gitika signing off for today until we meet next time.

SPEAKER_03 48:48

And this is Malika signing off until we see you next time. Thank you so much for listening.