Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hi, it's Steve indigot sport Law. Leave me a message. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Hey, Steve, it's Dina. You aren't going to believe what just came across my desk. We need to chat. Give me a call.
Today's podcast deals with potentially sensitive content that may be difficult for some. If that is true for you, remember that you can reach out to me or a certified mental health professional. We also have resources on our website and on Griefinleashed CA to support you.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Welcome to the latest episode of Sportopia. We're so excited for our latest conversation about healthy human sport. Today we're going to spend some time talking about one of Dina's deep passions, grief and loss literacy in sport.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Before we jump in today, what's coming across your desk this week, Steve?
[00:01:06] Speaker A: I love preparing for our Sportopia podcast, Dina, because it makes me think about what's going on and what we've been working on. And today I came up with the idea of talking about contracts. It's something that I was up early reviewing this morning were several contracts for clients who needed them on a timely basis. And it just reminded me of the importance of what I like to call that. I call it the 90 ten, but I think I should change it to the 99 1%. Rule is that having your contracts reviewed in advance of execution is likely going to cause 1% of your problems rather than 99% of your problems. If it's something you've executed and then haven't had the ability to have it reviewed prior to execution.
And things of importance are indemnification insurance, termination clauses, confidentiality use of personal information, all these different things. Sometimes we just gloss over and it's really the important part. It's interesting that when I review a contract, I'm less concerned about the dollar amount or the payment terms, but more so again on those clauses that I just spoke about. So I really advocate for our customers and clients to review their agreements prior to execution, and that includes employment agreements as well. How about you, Dina? What's new with you?
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Hey, Steve. Yeah? Thank you for know it got me thinking about the importance of being proactive when you were talking about can we press pause as clients and help them really think through the implications of their contract? So I'm grateful that you're doing that kind of proactive work. And what I would offer what's coming across my desk is recently I did a keynote, and it's going to bridge to what we're doing here today because it was an hour conversation around the importance of leading with values and understanding the complexity of what it means to live and compete and coach in today's VUCA world. Volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. And while I was speaking, I was connecting to the audience and I found myself getting emotional. Big surprise because I was tapping into a sense of loss that many of these volunteers for this particular client, I would say that 95% of the people in the room were volunteer, volunteer club owners, volunteer administrators and coaches. And for them, they were realizing and acknowledging that what got them into the sport that they so loved, it has changed dramatically. And I had them do a pause and check in, like, look to the left of you and to the right of you who's not in the room. And they were able to acknowledge limitations. Like, people of color were not in the room, and young people were not in the room. So there's this kind of collective loss that I was experiencing. And when I was able to pause and acknowledge that and even express some emotion, I had people come up to me after and say, it was really refreshing to see someone who wasn't polished on stage, who actually was tapping into something that everybody was feeling. So it's kind of a bridge to what we're talking about.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: That's really cool. Thanks for sharing that, Dina. As you know, what makes our partnership great is that we think differently, but we align in the mushy middle. And as you've heard me say on numerous occasions, I like to say, you play at 30,000ft and I play at 3000ft. So we're here today to talk about grief and loss. But come on, Dina, what does grief and loss have to do with sport?
[00:04:51] Speaker B: How long do you have? It's really interesting.
My path to this work, of course, as you know, is deeply personal. Right. It came about after the death of my younger sister Tracy, and we're talking 22 years ago now. So I've had a moment or two to be able to reflect and make sense of this topic called grief and loss. It's really not a topic. It's a way of being in our life. A couple of things that I would offer just to situate this for our listeners. Steve Ford is an ecosystem that's nestled within a larger Canadian societal context. And we are nestled inside a colonial, mainly white bodied context. And some of what we absorb and inherent are practices and ways of being that are limiting our capacity to be fully human. And so part of those practices include our way of being. And with know, I want you to imagine. Steve, have you ever broken a bone?
[00:05:55] Speaker A: I did, playing basketball, and I did finish the game. It was the first day of summer camp, and the doctor told me I needed a cast, which basically wouldn't ruin my summer. But he said, do you like your hand? You should put a cast on it, or we'll have to cut it off, really.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: So you know what it's like, right, to break a bone. And the natural response when you break that bone is like, ouch. So loss is a severed attachment.
And we as parents, you and I, know what it's like when our kids, when we leave the room when they're really young and they start screaming like, where's Mummy? Where's Daddy? We're no longer there. And so they experience this anguish. And that's what loss is. Grief is this internal, involuntary, natural response to that loss.
And so when we understand grief and then loss in that context back to your beautiful question. What does this have to do with sport in its construct? Sport is designed to have winners, people who achieve the outcome, and losers. And every match, every game is contested using that kind of framework. So if we superimpose back to the societal expectations of how we are with loss, and we recognize that pretty much, sport, even at a community level, is adultified, so little people are having an adult version of the sport. Even as we change the size of the balls, we're still expecting these kids to have this attachment to an outcome called winning. And when they don't win, children at different developmental ages will connect to that pain, that sense of loss, mirroring what they see on the faces and on the bodies of the people that are there to support them. So their parents and the coaches. And so we, as people who have an aversion to all things loss, we have to be really mindful that 90, 95% of the people that are consuming sport are under the age of 18.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Right?
[00:08:07] Speaker B: Well, other than the weekend warriors like us. And so we have to really be cognizant of the fact that we are imposing ways of being and relationships with things like loss.
And that can be soul destroying. How many people drop off children drop off at the age of 1314 and 15 because they're not having fun anymore. And they're not having fun because we have loss. Illiterate parents and coaches who are superimposing their expectations of what a good experience is, which often has to do with winning. And we were just talking about that before with our amazing producer, Taylor.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: You mentioned little children, 12, 13, 14 year old. But I can really see how this topic would manifest itself on a career athlete, somebody who may have achieved podium success, international rankings, traveled the world, and are very well known for what they've done in the sporting world. And at whatever age, depending on your particular sport, it does all come to an end for us. Do you want to speak to how that transitions into a more experienced hmm.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Actually, the word you just used, Steve, is perfect transition as a bereavement companion, a grief coach. Part of what I do is I help people through life transitions. And one of the things that I'm doing a lot more of now is helping both coaches and athletes who are transitioning themselves, and executives, too, actually, for that matter, who are transitioning themselves out of a career that they've had for most of their life. Right. So if we take an athlete, for instance, a recent one, she was 36 and had spent 13 years on the National Team, you don't think that she was feeling a little bit lost even as she was excited about what was coming next?
And so being able to help her understand that in her formative development years, she was surrounded by teammates and coaches and parents in a bubble, having also competed and won at the Olympics. So her known way of being, even her education and training, took a second, a backseat, basically, to her life as athlete. And all of her identity, her meaning, making, her ways of valuing herself, was formed and shaped inside this bubble. And now, as she transitioned out, she was having deep reflection questions like, who am I now? What is my life purpose? And also a bit of a shock. I remember working with another athlete, an Olympian, who really just had very weak muscles on self organizing, hadn't had to deal with calendars and expectations and managing time and commitments because it was all a routine that was imposed for her.
So loss plays out in life transition, and I would say the same is true for executives and coaches, right when coaches leave a team to go on to another team in the professional world. I was working with one coach in pro.
He had 48 hours notice, and then he left one team, and then he was going to be indoctrinated into another culture. And so there was deep sadness for the athletes that didn't even really have a chance to say goodbye to their coach and have a ritual to honor his service, and he didn't either. So you carry some of those expectations. And for that particular team that I'm thinking about, it was harder for the next coach coming in because they hadn't had and I don't want to use the word closure because we don't talk about closure as bereavement specialists. We talk about honoring. Here's what I want to do to say goodbye and thank you for your time served. So can you feel, Steve, how it's everywhere in terms of how we relate to each other and how we say goodbye?
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Well, my mind's going in all kinds of different places as we've started off the podcast today. Obviously, trying to understand how grief and loss plays out into the sports sector takes me a lot of time to digest and understand what that means because it's a little bit different than the norm. And we've talked about transition, we've talked about athletes moving on.
I'm trying to think of other examples, Dina, where this plays out into the sport climate. And I'm thinking about unfortunate death, where it could be a family member, it could be a teammate, a coach.
And sometimes we just go back to practice, and we don't allow people the opportunity to, as you've said, process their feelings, their thoughts and emotions. I know me, personally, I had a teammate actually die at a hockey game on the ice. And the next day we went back to work, and I was able to call a friend who was on that team and say, geez, don't you find this really weird that we watched somebody's life end yesterday at a recreational hockey game? And today I'm at work at my computer reviewing a contract or writing a policy that's so weird that it was very hard to digest. And I did have the ability to talk that out with a friend of mine who actually had the same experience, and he's an architect, so he went back to start drawing buildings, and I went back to reviewing contracts and writing policy. But in the grand scheme of life, it was very hard to see somebody's life end and then the next day be back to work. So that was something that he and I worked out together in a conversation to talk about how that made us feel. And I'm just, again, thinking of other examples of where grief and loss plays out in the sporting context. And unfortunately, I know we've been involved in a lot of those areas.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: Well, we have. Steve, and I just wanted to see if we could actually model what you just opened up for us. So I'm curious if you're comfortable sharing the first name of the person who died.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: His name was Pat.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: So, Pat, you know, someone who you hung out with and who died unexpectedly, I'm guessing at a younger age, mid 40s.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: We were playing recreational hockey.
The period had ended. He had skated, he was near the goalie. He skated back to the bench to shift off and literally fell over and died within about 15 minutes.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it sounds like you and your friend actually were doing what I'm advocating for, which is to be a companion to each other. And often we isolate ourselves. We too often shame ourselves into silence because we don't know what to say or how to ask for help. And it goes back to what I was alluding to at the beginning of our conversation. Generally, our society is grief and loss illiterate, and we're death phobic, as if not talking about it means it's not going to happen. Right? So part of what we need to do is normalize. The fact that we are born, we live, and then we die, and then having rituals, healthy, beautiful rituals. I know you're Jewish, so practicing Shiva and being able to honor your heritage and the ways in which you can come together and commune is really deeply honoring of the life of someone. So you and your buddy were able to just bear witness. I just want to really underscore that bearing witness to someone else's suffering and being able to make meaning of it can help you process it. And remember, grief is a natural and involuntary response to loss. So no matter how much we want to put that genie back in the bottle, Steve, our bodies keep the score, right? So our bodies are going to find ways to talk to us because much like childbirth, our bodies need to process this anguish that's alive for us because we have this severed attachment. And so as we work through know, it reminds me of some work we did with a client several years ago when a young athlete was shot in the danforth and our client called us in a panic called you, actually, on a Sunday. And then you referred her to me. And my work as a bereavement specialist allowed me to actually seek out support, right? Because at the time I didn't have the trauma training that I now do. So worked with a trauma specialist, brought in some acute care for the teammates of the athlete. And then I was able to use my experience to both accompany the leader who was really outside of her realm and zone of comfort and then allow some really smart, strategic and values based decisions to be made not in a rush or a panic, but to be really thoughtful and mindful and to think about the consequences. I'll give you one example. People rush to do a GoFundMe right after there's a traumatic experience or event. They often want to do something because that's what we do, right? So beyond bringing a lasagna, showing up to the funeral, what else can we do to make meaning and coherence of our world? Because what is happening Steve, is we have this schema or this way of thinking in the world. And when someone like nine years old gets shot in the danforth, what are you thinking? If it can happen to her, it can happen to me or my children. And so all of a sudden, all the assumptions that we make about the world and what's right and true and good and fair dissolves. And in that moment it creates so much disconnect and people then get scared, right? So when we can bring some stability to it, not rush into these things that we need to do so we can bring back some form of control, we help to alleviate unnecessary suffering. And back to the example on the GoFundMe, I often say to clients, don't rush into it. First of all, the parents or the people closest to the person need to have agency. They need to be able to choose whether or not this is a good idea.
Second of all, your rush to do something about this may actually not be a good idea in the long run. So I'm a believer in let some time to heal some of these immediate acute wounds. Allow some time so that there's a resting period. And then if there's a ceremony or a legacy that wants to arise out of that, at least you're going to come to it from a more informed perspective. Is that helpful?
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Oh, for sure. Dina, I'm curious to know your thoughts. We talk a lot about the sadness or the managing of emotions and being maybe quickly or too quickly proactive. But I wonder if you can address some of the more, again, positive impacts that managing grief and loss can have on sport leaders, coaches, athletes, I mean, people in general.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: It's such a great question because I'm going to speak a little bit about polarities and polarities, they are not mutually exclusive as concepts. They're actually mutually reinforcing. Now, what do I mean by that? It seems almost incongruent for me to hold both grief and peace in the same experience. So can I be at peace with my grief? Can I actually be joyful as I work through the deep sorrow after my dad died last year? And the answer is yes, because unlike pretty much any other human experience other than the birthing of my children, watching someone die is up there in terms of being present and awake to all that life is. And so I think as we move forward with this and I recognize that this episode may trigger some things for people, may actually have you going, wow, I had never thought of this. And so we do have some supportive material on our website, some additional readings for people to think about. I myself offer grief and bereavement support. And remember, if anything that we offer here at Sport Law is hard for you, then please accept it as an invitation. Right. We don't want people feeling worse off than they did before they listened to us. Steve and I would also offer, having done this now for several years, most of the time people feel relieved because we've given them some language to be able to talk about something that people don't talk about. So back to your question around, is it possible that people, once they're informed about this, actually experience something positive? Absolutely. My own lived experience is I felt relieved, I felt liberated, and then I felt empowered. And I did so because I wasn't so shackled in my experience and feeling so isolated. What I would invite people who are listening to reflect on is your grief is as individual to you as your footprint. And so because your attachment to either the dream or the person or the location mattered to you in a very specific kind of way, your sense of meaning making is going to be individual. Right. It's going to be individual to you. However, it doesn't have to be so isolating. So, yes, it's a lonely path because of your attachment, but it doesn't have to feel so isolating. Much like you modeled Steve, after Pat's death, you and your buddy were able to companion each other. A quick call to, you know, how are we going to do this? Go back to designing homes and looking at contracts? Well, life does go on because that's what life does. But in that moment, I'll just finish with this. Steve intimacy is forged, right? Your relationship with your friend, probably there was a little bit more of a forging because you felt comfortable enough to actually reach out to them and say, hey, how are you doing?
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Oh, for sure. The individual I reached out to, we grew up together at summer camp, lived in a cabin together, so the closeness was there to easily open up that conversation full circle. Dina, I love the fact that I come into this podcast saying, what are you talking about now? And why are you going in a new direction that people will have a difficult time understanding? And having, of course, worked with you for decades and now continuing this conversation, you can just see the benefit of how people can manage things or we can provide support to help people manage things. And I know just talking about something is always just a huge lift off someone's shoulders. So I do think and hope people understand that when we talk about grief and loss, of course our first thought is to go to death. But having heard you talk for the last little while, we can see how broad a spectrum it could be within any sector. And of course, we're talking about our sector, the sports sector. So just before we move on, Dina, was there any closing thoughts that you had with respect to this very intriguing new topic?
[00:23:31] Speaker B: Well, thank you for that, Steve. I also appreciate your way of being in the conversation. So I'm going to ask you, I'm going to give you a little time here to think about this, but I do want to ask you what has shifted for you in our conversations? Allow that to emerge for me. There's a couple of tips, if you will, if I can call them that. I actually call them grief wisdoms in my book.
I invite people to name their person, name that which has been lost. So you noticed how I said, hey, if you're comfortable, are you okay if we actually talk about the person that's died? Because too often when your grief and loss illiterate or more illiterate, actually, you'll start to notice people won't name their person because it opens up such a wound. But when someone else names my person so when people say, Tracy's name, it's like a healing bomb to my battered soul. So I just want to share that, that it's really important to actually give language to it. The second thing we can do is provide rituals, right? So with teams and athletes, and I've been doing this quite a bit now, we have rituals, right? We have rituals with how we stack the bags. We have rituals with how we start the game. Why not have rituals with how we're going to say goodbye? Can we start to practice a more grief and loss informed approach by how we support each other when life goes sideways, right? Because what we haven't talked about here, and this will be a whole other podcast, is Coping Styles, right? Everybody copes differently. Some people are more masculine, instrumental in their coping style, and some people are more feminine or more communal in their coping style. And there's a whole range in between. And so I think that would be a really cool follow up podcast.
The third thing that I would hope for is I do think it would be amazing if we equipped our coaches with a little Grief and Lost Literacy 101. And before people roll their eyes and say, are you kidding? They have to have all this certification and training and everything else. What I would offer is most of the athletes, again, are under the ages of 18 and children will grieve at their developmental age. Chances are if you're a coach, you're going to have one of your athletes suffer through a death, right? Could be a grandparent, it could be a sibling or a parent. You want to be able to normalize that. Above and beyond that, though, we equip the coaches to really understand their relationship with this thing called loss. And if coaches become more literate and they realize how attached they are to the win and they start to practice a lot more self awareness and put the experience of sport into perspective, I think we'll see a much more holistic approach to child development through sport. So those are some of my wish lists and I'm wondering now, Steve, we've heard a lot from me about this really important topic. I'm curious how you feel and if anything has shifted for you as a result of the journey we took this morning.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: Well, the journey that I've taken, dina was high performance athlete into law school, into practice, into working at sport law. And one of the things that I'm taking out of this personally is to try and remember to stop and assess and reflect and smell and check in on how I'm feeling, how I'm doing. And we've talked about this before.
Right now the world of sport is a bit heavy and things are changing and that change is difficult. And sometimes we feel internally, a lot of that falls on our shoulders as well as our sport leaders that we talk to on a daily basis. So being able to talk about things, being able to assess where things are, being able to express how we feel, is really something we've done together and something I will continue to do. So I really see, again, not that grief and loss perspective of death that I think where we always go to first. It's the secondary part of what grief and loss means and recognizing how we feel and are we dealing with it appropriately and giving ourselves an opportunity. So, yes, I've been listening to you over the last little while and as always, appreciate our time together to talk about everything and anything under the sun. We've linked a few blogs and learning opportunities in the episode. Notes below on how you can enhance your grief and loss literacy. Thank you so much to our listeners. We are so grateful to share our vision of Sportopia with you and to.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Help elevate sport, as always, to have your say in Sportopia. You can email us at hello at sportlaw. CA or on social media at sportlaw. CA to let us know what you want to hear about next. Thank you so much for listening. Take good care of yourself and stay tuned for the next episode.
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