Jason Ridler — Season Three

“She's in my warm, salty tears that still flow at times. She's in the cold autumn fall. When I see the leaves begin to submit to the painting of the forest with radiant acceptance, she's really everywhere I go. I do not need a holiday to remind me of my grief."
— Ken Breniman

This episode is a departure from the season, but it's also something I felt was coming forward for the holidays that needed to be heard and expressed. In this episode, you’ll hear from Ken Breniman and Deborah Szeto, guest hosts from Season 2, Naila Francis, guest host from Season 3 and past guest from Season 2, Dr. Jason Ridler, guest from Season 3, Daisy from Season 1 and Sarah Davis, founder and producer.

The prompt I gave everyone who you'll hear from in this episode was simple: A friend and past guest suggested she read from a letter she wrote to her mom this year, and it made me think about all the creative ways we express our grief in writing that can help others. Do you want to share a recording of you reading from an essay, poem, letter, or otherwise you wrote about this topic?

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Find out more about guests and guest hosts:

Ken Breniman’s episodes
Naila Francis’ episodes
Deborah Szeto’s episodes
Sarah Davis’ episodes
Dr Jay Ridler’s episode, Writing from the Heart
Daisy’s episode, Grief is a Shipwreck

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Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Leave a rating or review. The more ratings, the more likely others who have lost parents will hear these stories.

“The joy was not just in the simple stuff — like a good cup of coffee and being being mindful and present — but experiencing joy, looking for joy, and having a hand in it. And knowing that does not have to be completed necessarily by somebody validating it.”
-Dr. Jason Ridler

This episode is part of a Breathing Wind miniseries titled Finding Unexpected Joy, hosted by Sarah Davis. The Finding Unexpected Joy miniseries explores the idea that joy can happen in the midst of grief, and that maybe we don’t know yet what might come out of our grief journeys.

In this episode, Sarah talks with Dr. Jason Ridler (Dr. Jay) about the act of writing as a way to process by doing, how his grief transformed his relationship to writing, and how he connected back to the joy of why he became a writer in the first place. Dr. Jay is an historian, writer, and teacher of creative writing who has worked for such clients as Johns Hopkins University, Google, and the US Naval Academy, among others. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Dr. Jay remains a loyal but critical form of professional wrestling.

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Moments from this ~38 minute episode:

[3:01] “Whatever your assumed or presumed goal is on the way to it, life gives you a curveball that actually says that's a stepping stone.”
[5:57] How Dr. Jay came to teach the creative writing class, “Writing from the Heart.”
[9:48] Background behind Catastrophe and Transformation, an article Dr. Jay wrote about his grief over tragic events in his life, and how that shifted his writing trajectory and views on life
[14:28] “When you abandon the goal and you do the art, all of a sudden the art gets better and people want to give you more goals.”
[18:00] “But when you are forced to sit down and put your thoughts on paper, and they reflect back to you, all of a sudden, you're in the process of knowing by doing.”
[19:39] “What grief did was shake most of the illusions I had about how the world worked away. I couldn't be blind to the things that I wanted to be blind to. Grief denied me this.”
[25:45] “When all of that stuff got shattered, the joy was not just in the simple stuff, like a good cup of coffee, and being mindful and present — but experiencing joy, looking for joy, and having a hand in it. And knowing that no one else that does not have to be completed necessarily by somebody validating it.”

Resources mentioned:

Dr. Jay’s website
Catastrophe and Transformation by Dr. Jason Ridler
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
The Writing Salon
Model Yachting Breathing Wind Episode, Episode 49: A walk in the park with friends

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