Wakanda Forever: Layers of Grief

Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster movies and psychoanalyze them.
My name is Bernie Brownfield and I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by
Ben Stover, individual therapist, Hannah Espinoza, marriage and family therapists. We're
all licensed clinical professional counselors also know as therapists who practice out of Chicago.
Even though we are licensed mental health professionals, this podcast is purely for entertainment
purposes and to fulfill our love of dissecting pop culture in all forms. Please
remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists, we aren't your therapist.
If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find a local mental
health provider. Hi, everybody, So today we're going to be talking about
the sequel to Black Panther Wakonda Forever. Surprise, Surprise. We're gonna be
talking about the big g grief this whole episode. I know that's been kind
of a heavy hitter topic this season and kind of throughout our podcast, but
this one it's kind of hard to avoid because this whole movie is about grief,
different kinds of grief too, and also about the active process and grief
so we're gonna be talking about all that. Just a brief overview of the
plot. This movie starts out with the death of Tachaala Rip Chadwick Boseman.
Because of his death in real life, they had to portray his death in
the film or they didn't portray, which actually I thought was a good move.
Is having him die off screen felt respectful. Yeah, And we are
seeing now a year after his death as everyone in his life, his mother,
Ramanda a Koya, sureI Nikia, all of them as they're kind of
actively processing or not processing still the year anniversary and the year that's happened of
Tachaula's untimely, unpredictable death, which they chose to allow the audience to grieve
much the same way they have to grieve the character that we had to grieve
the actor that the same story essentially played out on screen, which was I
think a kindness that the director chose to give us because much like Techalla,
Chadwick Boseman kept his illness secret and only a few people knew, and then
we only found out he had cancer and was terminal when it was too late.
And they started out the movie right at that point where you see.
Sure he's struggle with trying to use her skills to make something work, because
not only have they been grieving the loss and the illness of their king and
brother and son, but also the loss of the black Panther and the heart
shaped herb that the sustainability of their culture, yeah, is now gone.
Well, so much change has happened all at once, I mean if you
think about it, even of the course of like the Marvel movies like these,
the mal Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yes, their first king has died to
Challa's father, I can't remember his name, king to Chocca, to Chaca.
So they've had in a very short amount of time, they've lost their
king, they have lost their black panther, anonymity with the world. So
there's also this process of almost like grieving their culture in a way, or
their protectiveness to Challa. The five year blip, like he was part of
that. I mean, that's kind of a collective trauma that happened that they
do I think a good job in the Marvel of Universe touching upon here and
there, but he was a part of that too. So that also was
five years that they don't really talk about in which he was gone. There
is so much that have happened in this community that is grief, and even
I would say in Black Panther two, like they basically had a civil war,
you know, and there with Kilmonger and that too, and like they
kind of reference with a Koya that her husband seems to be being prisoned or
an exile or something, yeah, because she says you can go visit him.
And I'm sure it's because Danielle klu is like a huge actor and probably
too busy for Marvel movies, right, probably because he really blew up since
that appearance. But I would say there is so much that is that is
changed in a community that I bet just because of the secret, the secret
toness and the protectiveness of how they've guarded what Conda for so long, probably
stayed pretty secure, Like I bet you life was pretty stable, yes,
for a long time, and then this past several years, maybe in the
past like ten years, within this country, it's been loss change, grief,
loss change, you know, like over and over over again until now,
like probably within like I said, they also original King, then they
lost to Challa to the blip, and then they get him back and then
he couldn't have been around for much longer before than he passes away forever.
Yeah, and all this happens so quickly, and you know, I don't
really think about the fact that he was gone in the blip. They don't
really touch upon that, obviously, not because that complicates the story. Yeahs
too much, yea, with the story that's already laiden with the real life
grief of Chadwick Boseman. You know, I think you make a great point,
Bend, which is that there's I think, even as like a therapist
watching this movie, it does a great job of letting there be space to
be sad. You know how the opening credits the Marvel sort of like where
they do all the imagery of the comics, like the Big Marvel, the
fan. Yeah, in the very beginning of the movie, how that's just
dead silent. Yeah, And it's just pictures of Chadwick Boseman pretty much.
And when I saw this in theaters, you could hear a pin drop like
it was dead silent. Besides, like you'd hear occasional like sniffles of people
crying like and then later in the movie at the very end, when sure
he's finally allowing herself to grieve it also dead quiet, dead quiet, and
another time when the theater was dead quiet, Yes, and except for sniffles,
my own sniffles. Yes. And so yeah, I think what you're
saying, Ben is beautiful that this movie, it didn't Hollywood eyes glamorizes his
death. It really sunk into it in a way that felt respectful to Chadwick
Boseman, into the other cast who had to be in active grief themselves while
filming this. I'm sure there wasn't a lot of happening well, and the
and the fans and the entire cultural icon that the man was. Yeah.
Having the movie parallel what happened in real life was a brilliant choice by Ryan
Coogler and the writing team to allow everyone to access their real setness for the
loss of not only what he was, but what he was going to be.
And I remember when I was standing in line to see Black Panther and
seeing all of these people come out in African garb, and there were people
standing in line saying like like wow, Yeah, people talk about how black
people don't come out to movies, like won't make a movie for us,
Then make a make a movie about us. Yeah, bro us, we'll
come out, we'll wear our stuff. And you know, it was really
nice to see that. You know, again, it was obviously quite powerful
for people to get to see an icon who is such a talented actor and
portray all of their hopes and dreams that they would get to see somebody looks
like them, somebody who tells their story, somebody tells a story about somebody
with dark skin, somebody from Africa. In a way that doesn't need anything
else to tie to it, that he is just the king and he is
not flawed, he is not damaged. He is intelligent and strong and shining
example of a human And for Chadwick Boseman have done that so well, the
audience needed to grieve the loss of that because that's a hard thing to find.
That's a hard thing to find it and it took way too long for
that to exist, and then the audience lost that with his death. M
Yeah, I mean the movie opening, even the way it did, it
felt like it was like we just have to acknowledge, Yeah, what has
happened because we can't avoid it. Yeah, and we don't want to be
macabre and weird and like almost like propping up his corpse. Yeah. I
mean it's like, think the fact that they don't show him, yeah,
like like a wax version of him. Yeah, you know what I mean,
Like you don't show of like a CGI like Paul Walker esque, yeah,
you know, right version of him. What they did with Princess Leah,
like please please don't. Yeah, that one was a little trickier,
but yeah, to pull I mean, just story wise, but I think
this was done so respectfully and like I said, allowing that space to breathe
before then we get into the story. And I think jumping ahead a year
was also smart in that. I think what I also like with this movie,
and as we're going to keep talking about it, is that it shows
that a year later, it wasn't a way for their director and the story
to be like Okay, we got that out of the way. Yeah,
now we can get back to business. Now we're back in a Marvel movie.
Baby, Like it's just like lights, camera action. It was still
heavy, like the whole movie was heavy, and it shows that even a
year later, it's the anniversary that's always point. Yet we've talked on this
podcast before about how you should always make sure when you if you're a therapist
working with clients, he'll know the important anniversaries, yes, so that you
can check in with your clients. So a year anniversary of a death like
this would be something you'd have to make sure as a therapist to keep your
eye on absolutely your client. And we see how all these characters have been
dealing with the grief differently, because I think what we've talked about is to
challow the character isn't just a partner, a brother, a son. He
was like a unifying position in his community. So it's not even just how
do we deal with our grief as an individual or as a family. We
see like the collective grief that has gone on, especially in a situation where
he's in this position of king, where so many parts of the community,
like his sister and a Koyer, feel like their job in a lot of
ways with a king right is to keep him safe, is to protect him,
is to look out for him, and that not only is that our
job, but that's what we're best at. Yeah, you know, there's
something sure he says in the movie that I thought was really true and something
it's it reminded me of something someone would say in my office, which is
that what's the point of me being able to do all this stuff, being
so smart and so talented and have all these resources in my hands if I
couldn't have saved my brother? Yeah, Like what does it matter? And
I probably think similar to a Koyer, you know, especially once she loses
Surey. Then also in this movie, it's that same thing of like who
what does it matter? Who? If I can do these things, if
I can't fulfill my number one purpose, which is to keep my king safe
and then to keep his sister safe, the princess. Yeah, and like
so it's like, I think what this movie does well is it shows that
grief sometimes isn't just grief. It's also like traumatic, you know, and
not traumatic in this sense. I think when we think of trauma and grief,
we think of it like, oh, you must have saw him die
in front of you, or like it must have been like a horrible death,
like a car accident or something really violent. But like it can also
be in this way too, where just the loss of someone can have a
trauma effect on you. You might necessarily not get diagnosed with PTSD, you
know, but it seeps into you in the way that trauma can seep into
you while watching someone die is traumatic. It's inherently traumatic. It meets the
criteria for PTSD by itself watching someone die from its assume it's cancer or any
other disease, whether it's sudden or prolonged. Either way, you get the
opportunity to meet the criteria for PTSD. Unfortunately, because it's actual or threatened
death or bodily harm and a terminal illness meets at criteria, but people don't
often allow themselves to even look at that way, and it takes skilled practitioner
many years to understand that someone is being tortured watching their loved one be tortured,
and for someone like sureI, there is no doubt she is dissociating away
from that. They show us that right at the beginning, that Sure He
has been dissociating away from feeling anything or doing any of the pregrieving, acknowledging
that her brother's death is likely and putting herself in a position where she's entertaining
a but ultimately it's proven false reality that she can do something about it.
If she had just been better, she could have fixed him, And that
becomes the driving force that dictates where Sure He's emotional growth and journey has to
go throughout this whole film because one of the things that's so important to understand
about trauma. And I'm gonna go into the DR way of looking at it
here, but I think it's one of the better ones. Even though there's
lots of ways to look at it. One is not necessarily better than the
other. Clients need what they need, not what one methodology says, but
looking at it from any DR standpoint, you look at what are the images?
What are the body sensations? And clients love to skip over that one.
What are the emotions? What is the negative thought? Because the way
the trauma encodes is going to be stuck with all of those who we look
at someone like Shrei, we don't know what she might report as the worst
images. It could have been watching her brother wither away and seeing him get
sick and go from someone who is so strong to someone who's withered away.
It could have been the moment where she's informed that he's gone. It could
be watching the machine light up red red, red, over and over again.
But this film doesn't show us the flashbacks to where she gets stuck,
much like clients might report to us later. But what it does tell us
over and over again is we see her racking her body and then numbing out
throughout much of the film to not feel anything at all except anger and guilt
because she is beating herself up that she couldn't save him. The negative thought
that persists in her mind, that is racked with shame, that doesn't allow
her to process her grief until her mother does her the great kindness she doesn't,
takes her out into the wilderness and like, you're grieving now he's gone.
It was my fault. She doesn't allow herself to grieve until she verbalizes
it's my fault, and then is slowly starts to accept it because of the
journey her mother and her go on. But the thing that's really important to
understand with looking at PTSD is there is almost always some kind of blocking belief
that keeps people stuck, and in this movie is such a prime example of
it. It's my fault, my brother is gone. I wasn't good enough.
Yeah, which, honestly, I think if she was in my office,
I would have to validate for her that it makes sense why she felt
that way. She was, Like, if you think about even Infinity War.
I think it's a little thinking of like, if she had been given
enough time, it seems like she would have been able to crack the code
of vision. Right, So she is someone that is smarter than everybody else
in the room. She's smarter than Stark, Like she's the smartest person.
Maybe not this new character rewreathe of they introduced, but yeah, you know
that she is the smartest person. And so this probably is the first time
that she hasn't been able to do something about the situation, right that's in
front of her. Yeah, because the thing with her father was countries away,
continents away, Yeah, and an explosion, you know what I mean,
Like there's nothing she could have done, you know, nothing, But
this is probably the first time that a challenge has been presented to her,
you know, or she's taken it on yea, and she couldn't do anything
about it. I always read it, I mean, because they don't give
a lot of detail into what happened to him, which I think is correct
to do. Yes, And I always got the impression that might just be
making up a headcannon, that he died pretty suddenly, that maybe like he
was fine and then maybe one day he just collapsed. It was really sick,
and then it was gone. Just because it seems like he kept her
so secret and it was so there seemed like to be a suddenness to it.
Maybe I was just reading into like the frenetic energy of the opening scene.
No, I feel like I feel like that's accurate. But I feel
like the yeah, go ahead, Hannah, Well, especially because we hear
sure he says that he didn't tell me until it was too late, so
she didn't know. They didn't know that he was sick, the same way
that the audience didn't know that Chadick Boseman had cancer. But yeah, so
I think with sureI I'd have to really tell her, Like, it makes
sense that you feel responsible, responsible because this is like, even from like
an identity standpoint, Yes, this is the first challenge that you haven't accomplished
or overcome and it's the most important one. Yeah. Yeah, it's vital
to recognize that. That's part of it when you're treating this, and we'll
obviously be covering that later, but looking at how important it is to recognize
the depth to which people assigned themselves responsibility and how difficult it is for them
to escape from the reality they constructed out of their own expectation. It is
quite irrelevant that it wasn't possible until she can feel that tension from the moment
that didn't get to do what she activated it to do, until that can
leave her body. So I'm not going to get too deep into it because
it's an idea I've been only formulating into my head. Here's still catch line
sort of, no you see that like mark of like hold on, motherfucker,
that's mother So Brittany, as you said Batman last time first, so
you know, just for things are changing, Things are changing, But what's
what's important to understand with the people that are in places like sure she is
and she's clearly the most in pain in this movie. Everyone's in pain,
but sure he's stuck. Yes, she's the least resolved about it, Like
she's done the least processing. Yeah, the least prove it. She's being
the most avoidant, but she's being avoidant because of what shame is doing to
deactivate her ability to grieve. Shame deactivates arousal states, but you need an
arousal state to process a situation. Emotion is an activation of our arousal state.
To encode our memory with enough information to make an experience relevant to our
survival. Most of our experiences in our life are entirely irrelevant and we don't
remember them. You don't remember trips to the grocery store. You don't remember
what you hurt on the radio three weeks ago. You don't remember every drive
to work. You're accessing a general pool of memories and you're pulling up one
of a thousand times you did the things unless something specific happened. But if
you went to the grocery store and somebody cut you in line, well guess
what you had a feeling about them cutting you in line? And now it's
relevant because there's a threat presented to you and you're going to remember that one.
But when you have somebody like sureI having shame blocking her from dealing with
that emotional activation, she stays stuck the part of her she created to be
the smartest person in the room to shut down all of the noise of no
matter what's going on, which we have seen her do. Wakanda is literally
under attack, and she is in her lab building weapons and programming things and
managing these computer things when death is at her door. But she's probably like
sixteen when all the story started. I don't know how old she is,
but she's found this place inside her head where she can shut it all out,
and she tries to do that to save her brother, and she couldn't.
But the problem is that part exists specifically to solve those problems, and
it didn't get to complete its mission. So the loop that it's created is
still active. It did not close. And working on this idea of recognizing
when a part is active, it needs to complete its mission or close the
loop, and if it doesn't close the loop, the part stays active,
stuck in the state it was created in, and it stays stuck there for
a long time until either the person who is grieving can bring the part into
the present experience where it's not needed, and then that releases or it gets
the corrective experiences we've been talking about since this has been such a theme of
our season, and it's so important to understand when you see somebody so stuck
like that, Yes we want to acknowledge their pain. Yes we want to
acknowledge that this must have been so incredibly difficult and impossible for you to feel
that when you've done so much under such difficult circumstances that you couldn't do it
this time. Yeah, but it takes more than that. And I think
that's where clinicians get so stuck, because our teaching on it is so sparse
in early career that people don't get this level of detail into why do people
grieve and not grieve? Why do they get stuck and not stuck? Why
do they do things that everyone else can tell them to learn? Blue in
the Face is not their fault, but they won't let it go. This
movie was done with brilliant emotional intelligence to that, and I think it's a
cultural gem and a psychological gem because of it. I mean, for me,
I think it's interesting the juxtaposition of Romanda. I think I'm playing her
name right, Romanda and Sherry. The different way that they've dealt with Chachalla's
death. To me, it almost feels like when I work with clients and
I'm explaining, like why is mine the difference between like our emotional mind and
our logic mind, and how we at least in like a Western society because
I can't speak to other societies. I haven't been a part of them.
There's so much reverence of your logic side and your pragmatic side. I assume
it's because we are rooted in patriarchy and misogyny, which is why, like
there is this reverence for being hyperlogical. Yeah, and this like disdain almost
from being like emotional or woo woo woo, like even those kind of terms
like getting real woo woo, we're getting real corny, like how we have
to And I do that's myself, even like as a therapist, as a
caveat when I tells people, I go, I'm gonna ask you to do
something that's gonna sound woo woo, so I need to hang in there with
me. I do the same thing because I know it's like I have to
acknowledge that systemically. Yeah, And Ramanda seems like someone who has been able
to dip into their emotional self and that their emotion self breathe. I'm sure
he is someone and I see people like her all the time, because,
like I said, I'm part of Western society where they get stuck in their
logic mind, or they get stuck in what they think is their logic mind,
but it's really their emotion mind. And what I mean by that is
trying to problem solve the situation they're in. Yeah, you know, I
think her or like, if I think about it enough, I'll come up
with a resolution. I'll come up with the answer to something. If I
throw myself into work and make this accomplishment or that accomplishment, kind of what
you're saying, but almost like if I play the loop enough where I do
it right this time, I will stop feeling this way. Yeah, you
know, it's almost like the goal is to not have emotions and to really
dive into the emotions. I think because we can be conditioned to be so
logical minded, we all so become avoidant and don't trust that we can tolerate
our emotions. Yeah, And so like what Ramanda says with her grieving the
queen is like I went into the desert. I went and no distractions,
no nothing, you know, just kind of focused on my body and the
world around me and let myself feel and really gave into it, you know,
And that helped her heal as much as she could heal. Right,
Yeah, and I think what she was trying to impress that upon to Surey
by taking her on that little like you were saying, then that little excursion
by the water is, you know, trying to get Shary to release,
and of course Surey is pushing on that because she's also doing that thing people
do that I when I have in my office, which is like rejection of
the woo wo to the extent of like even here where her mom's trying to
get her to access like the ephemeral, you know, like the universe,
spirituality, this idea that there's a plane after this one, you know,
and letting that comfort her or trying to get that to comfort her. And
sure He's like, I don't believe in any of that stuff. That doesn't
make sense to me, you know what I mean, which is I see
people do that all the time, you know this, and I think it
is that it's this way that we act, like logic is like the smart
person's avenue, right when really it is also a way to hide behind but
hide from emotion, Yeah, hide from these complicated feelings and experiences. But
you can, but you can pretend that you're doing it because you're like above
it all, or you're too smart to believe in the afterlife, or you're
too smart to believe in like cosmic whatever. Yeah, or even this idea
that there's things bigger than you, because emotions are bigger than you, death
is bigger than you. Like, there's a lot of things that are bigger
than yourself that you can that you can lean into that feeling without having to
believe in like God, Yeah, if that's not your jam, yeah,
right, spirituality is possible without a deity, yeah, Like, and when
people do recovery work, like somebtance use recovery, which can be very got
heavy. Sometimes they'll be like they'll take people to the shore and they'll say,
look at the water, like the ocean, or they'll you know,
it's bigger than us. So it's just like it's just surrendering to the idea
that there are things that are bigger than you that you can't overcome, that
you can't problem solve your way out of, you can't put your head down
and work really hard. And that includes like death is bigger than that,
Your grief is bigger than that. And in that moment, like it seemed
like her mother was really trying to get Sharry there, but sure he was
so stuck in that rejection, yes, of those ideas and hiding behind the
idea that she knows better, which is in a classic woole in hideection,
wole in hiding behind her intellect. Yeah, she's the smartest person in the
room all the time. Like that's a part of what she's going to hide
behind. And I also like the thing that you said about how we're afraid
of the emotions, afraid of how big they are. There so many times
where when I work with people who go through grief or who are actively going
through grief, and I talk to them about how it feels like you're not
going to stop crying, and people are worried that they're not going to be
able to stop crying, that there's not going to be an end, that
the pain is so big and so deep that they're not going to be able
to handle it. And I talk to them about how to that that you
will stop crying now your body can't sustain it, I mean, yeah,
they can only throw a tangent for so long before they literally pass out.
Yeah, do not test the universe. Yeah, I've been saying that because
we are recording in his home right now where he actually he has a five
year old with the tenacious personality for another baby, very tenacious. Yeah.
She is my child and my wife's child. Yeah, but what I tell
people is like, it's not to feel that big is not literally sustainable.
Our body will poop out, even go to sleep for a little while.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. No, I talked to people about because I
felt this way when I had depression when I was like nineteen and wouldn't go
to a therapist ironically because I was a psychology major and it felt like I
was at the edge of a big black hole and if I looked at it
and if I talked about it, if God forbid I went to a therapist,
I'd fall into that hole and I'd never get out of it. Yeah,
And now I know, because I've gotten older, I do this work.
I've been to therapy for years that you're not going to fall into that
hole and it's not a hole, and there's a bottom even if there is,
when you there's and you'll be okay and and like and you're you won't
like you said, you won't cry forever. It feels like you're crying from
it's like the anticipation. Yeah, I think the feel so bad. It's
like sometimes I've talked to people about this kind of thing. I'm like,
it's like there's a boogeyman that's haunting your house. Like there's a closet in
your house that you won't look in, but you hear something behind it,
and because you never check anything could be behind there. It's like Schrodin Nur's
cat or whatever it's called. No, you don't the cats alive and dead
at the same time. Well, I, well, just the idea that
there's something behind there and you can't determine like what it is. But there's
also like the cave, Plato's cave or whatever. But I'm probably mixing all
these philosophical ideas. I don't give a shit. Don't email me about it.
I don't want to know. Anyway, while we're derailed temporarily here,
let's take a break for a second. We'll take a break here, we'll
come back and we'll reformulate this thought. So what I sometimes tell people when
they're not going to process something is like, it's like there's a house.
There's a room in your house that you won't open the door to and you
don't know what's behind it, so it grows and grows. It's like a
bilgy man. And if you can just get up enough courage or trust in
yourself to open the door and check out what's behind there. It probably won't
be as bad as you think. And even if it's really bad back there,
now you know what you're dealing with, and then you can actually start
dealing with it. You know, we do so much of like walking around
not looking at things directly, not when it opened the door, and it
just keeps us in this perpetual state of kind of agony in a lot of
ways, and that, unfortunately, is where sure he's at. Yeah,
you know, is that like you were saying, I can't look at it
and you can't make me Yeah, yeah, Which I think is another point
we can talk about, which is that the way that her grief exhibits itself
the most other than avoidance, is irritability and anger. Yeah, she's really
mad, she is. She is really mad. But looking at that idea
before we go on that train is looking at the idea of Hanney. You
started hitting at the anticipation, the apprehensive expectation of how bad it's gonna be.
Absolutely I want to hear more about that, because I think our listeners
need to hear more about that. I feel like when I'm working with people
who are grieving that the fear of I'm not going to be able to stop
crying, the fear of if I do this, it's going to be so
hard, I'm not gonna be able to do anything. I'm not going to
be able to handle it. They're so worried about not being able to handle
it, they're so worried about needing to ask for help. And I think
in a lot of ways, it's the anticipation and the worry of what it's
going to look like and what they're going to look like when they're actually feeling
the feelings, and it's all the anticipation about what is it going to be
like and what can it be like? And your brain spiraling about that,
spiraling about the different possibilities of what could happen, like I'm gonna fall into
the hole, I'm not going to be able to get out of it.
There's so much that anticipation is so intense because it's it's so intense because our
brain, especially after we've lost somebody who's so important to us, who has
had such a big impact on our identity, to imagine what it's going to
be like, to truly feel the sadness and feel the grief and the loss
of that person. It's scary. That's a scary thing. And I think
that's a part of where people can really get stuck in that anticipation, in
that anticipation kind of in a cycle of I'm like, I will talk about
all these different ways to manage your grief, and I'll talk about you can
do something where you're allowed to be sad for twenty minutes and you set a
time, or and you describe for twenty minutes and that's the time that you
have. Or you have times where you where you're journaling about it, of
times where you're looking at stuff. There's so many different rituals that we can
have when it comes to grieving. And it's really and in a lot of
ways people that I've worked with who have engaged in some kind of ritual activity.
And it can be and that can be anything. That can be going
to visit a grave site. It can be writing about them, it can
be talking about them with someone. It can really be anything watch a movie
that you guys like together exactly. Yeah, Like, there's so many different
ways to kind of honor someone's memory and honor the impact that they had in
your life. And I think that the anticipation, anticipation, I keep saying
that word wrong. I don't know what's going on with my brain. That
the anticipation of it is so scary because I think the true reality of being
still alive, when someone that you care about so much is not alive anymore,
is such a scary existence to have to be in in the beginning,
Well, death is a trip, and that are like it's so existential and
surreal. Yeah, you know, like we can never really wrap our heads
around it, like being there and gone. That's why people even if it's
like a slow death, like a like a sickness, people will still feel
like it's so sudden. Yeah, you know, And I think it is
that part. I mean they like philosophers will argue that we'd go mad,
would go crazy if like we really could conceptualize death actively like that we have
to keep it behind a door in our brain to keep on going through life.
And also I like what you were saying because sometimes I'll have clients I'll
make the argument does work better when you do it in person because I only
see clients virtually, but in person, that's we're works too, is saying
like, can we start in this office together. Yes, in session together.
Can we take five minutes and just see if we can sit here together
and breathe through this to really feel it. I'm here with you, and
then we'd only answer five minutes and the rest of the session we can bullshit.
We can talk about movies, we can talk about books, you can
we can be done with the session for the day. If you want to
take a nap, yeah, if you want to go for a walk,
we can go for a walk together. Like I think a lot too with
that anticipation part is if you can build rapport with a client too. Sometimes
I'll pull the this card on them, which is like do you trust me?
Do you trust that I know what I'm doing? Yeah, I've a
good one. I've helped other people, yes, deal with this and they
were able to do it. I wouldn't ask you to do something that I
didn't think you could live through. Absolutely, or at least for today.
Absolutely, we can do. And I'm not going to rush you, right.
I think a sign of a green a green therapist, and I've had
these moments too, is trying to attack something like this too hard, too
quickly. Yes, because you think you're not doing your job properly as a
therapist, if you're not like attacking it, like challenging and pushing your client
when in reality, like you have to go slow gre this kind of thing.
Yes, you absolutely do. I totally agree with that you have to.
I also think about the validation of their pain is so important. Now
when you're getting trained as a therapist, we're taught to reflect back what people
say in some kind of one kind of way or another, and a part
of that is to validate their their thoughts and feelings and their experiences. Yeah,
and when somebody is grieving, this is one of those times where I
really kind of step back into that. It sounds like the it sounds like
you're feeling this, It sounds like it feels like blah blah blah. And
a part of that is because validating that it's okay, that it makes sense
that somebody feels the way that they do. Really, again, is that's
helping process. That's helping process. They are part in this, in this
grieving process. And so and I feel like, and I definitely start with
clients in my office the same way that you described it of saying of us,
say what would you like to talk about them? Tell me something about
them, tell me any story, Tell me a story, Tell me a
story. And that's where. But I definitely I know exactly what you mean
when you say when a green therapist just tries to come up with solutions or
tries to or doesn't spend enough time letting them just feel. This is such
an important Grief is such an important thing to learn how to process because we
experience it so fucking often in so many different ways. And it's pervasive,
yes, invasive, an omnipresent. There are no short cuts in grief.
Yeah, and people want them. I want them so badly. I mean,
who wants to be in that pain? You know? Nobody? I
tell clients too, Like, you have to surrender to it because grief is
like one of them most unpredictable experiences we can have emotionally and that you can
be fine, legit fine, and then you can be crying, then you
can be laughing. Then you can forget yea that they died, and that
can feel and then you can feel guilty that you forgot that they died.
Yeah, Like you just kind of have to let yourself. It is like
one of the most like where your body and your emotional self is like actively
processing it, like almost like if you want to think of it, when
I stay processing, like going through a factory inside of you, trying to
figure out what to do with it. Yeah, so you're gonna feel all
these different feelings and that's okay, and don't judge yourself by it too.
Yeah. I think what does also feel so beautiful about this movie? And
we might make some faux palls full possum or cultural standpoint, We're happy to
be corrected on that if that feels appropriate for anyone listening. It does seem
like they give more space in their culture of Wakonda for that processing, you
know, like even like what her mother describes, I wouldn't be surprised if
that was of some sort of ritual that's pal be common go out into nature
and just kind of get back to yourself. But she's describing is also very
grounding. Just focus on don't let don't worry about anything else. Just try
to get food to drink, you know, water to drink, food to
eat, place to sleep, like and just be listened to the nature ground
right, don't distract yourself, don't be busy, which and I think,
yeah, well, and I think what we see Shari do is she's isolating
herself. She is not responding to Nikia. Nikia is calling Nikia, who
is I think one of the people who really gets her also the person who
loved her brother. Like the fact that she is she is avoiding everything.
She's avoiding the people in her life, and she's avoiding processing it and she's
really just focused on she's hyper focused on the technology, whatever that, whatever
that, whatever she's doing with it, it's brilliant. Whatever she's doing with
it, it's awesome. She's really good at it. But that she is,
she is isolating herself in a very specific way. And because it looks
productive, Yeah, arguably is productive in like the definition of the word.
I mean, that's why people hide and work, you know. Yeah,
is that it looks like you're fine in a lot of ways to like it's
a way for sure. He to also maybe throwing her mom's face or Nikia's
face, like I'm still inventing things, I'm still doing i can still,
i can still do my job. Like clearly I'm fine, I'm fine a
Midwestern but like, but that's what she's saying, right, absolutely, that's
what And when her mom comes in like that year later and she's like,
you know, it's the anniversary. She's like yeah and yeah, you know
she's trying to show but she's fine, which I think what I think a
part of the ritual is you burn your morning clothes clothes. Yeah, you
burn your morning clothes a year later. Because I would say, sure,
he is the one that seems to be having the hardest time. I know,
she's the one we see the most, like Brens were most inside of
her head. Yeah, but like Umbaku Nikia even so Akoia in some ways
they but I would also say, like going back some way you just said,
Hannah, is that they also seem like they're the most still in community.
Yeah, they're still with other people, They're still doing things. I
mean that's what's so beautiful like the dormalage as well, for like Akoia is
like there's people around her that she feels very connected to and that gives her
purpose outside of to Challa's death. Yeah, I think where Akoia really loses
it is when like she loses Sherry and then she loses that position. Yeah,
that's when we see a Quoia breakdown. Yes is yeah, and not
know what to do well when the Queen is also not as elevated above this
as she's so thought. Yeah, it echoes back to that idea I'm talking
about loops being closed. But before we get into that, because that's going
to tie into kind of the anger theme of this episode that we definitely need
to come up. Let's take a break here and then talk about some of
the different ways that grief manifests beyond just the avoidance of sadness, because the
theme of this movie, beyond just the grief, is the anger. Vengeance
to vengeance some some some batman ship some batman ship And look at that.
I didn't even have to say it. Well, two motherfuckers, we need
to go to fucking therapy. Yeah, instead of being like I'm gonna put
on a black outfit just beat people up. Yeah, and break. And
now we're back from break? Are we? That notion? But the thing
we need to cover in this movie beyond just digging deep into grief, which
we can obviously probably do forever forever. And I could translate everything Hannah and
Brittany had said so beautifully from their theory orientations back into mine and say it
in a different way and speak it into the language of parts through which I
have found so much meaning and understanding and feel like I see it and it
just because I see it and can speak it that way, it doesn't mean
that's the right way. It's the way that made it make sense to me.
Yeah. And you know what's so interesting this just a little like tidbit
for all the therapists or psychologist students listening, is when Ben describes it,
I have to really think about how he's conceptualizing it. Yeah, which is
why it's so so when you ever you hear any of us talking about something,
we might not be like your orientation, Like you're saying, Ben,
right that there's different ways you can figure out how the human experience makes sense
to you, right, which is why I cordially invited myself to shut the
fuck up for a minute and through it to Hannah because I thought Hannah was
on something like we got brain squirreled away from and like wanted to let Hannah's
thought of air. Not that I'm the keeper of it, but I just
wanted to. You know, Ben tells us when we are allowed to speaks
that is the nature of this podcast, as he's just gendered white male.
I feel like in this episode of Black Panther that I assert mydenomens, and
Ben allows us to speak as I am king of this motherfucking cast, and
I will be deleting all of it. But those of you who get the
outtakes can enjoy our nonsense listeners, because none of that is our Dana.
But I want, I wanted to Hannah's point to have of air because it's
important that people hear it from different perspectives, and we need to let the
reality of psychology be that it's a thousand and one ways of saying the same
thing. But finding a practitioner that speaks the language that resonates to you is
where you can find healing, which takes a lot of time for the characters
in this movie to do some of them millennia yah, because I'd say another
big theme I think you're getting to Ben is anger and vengeance in this movie.
We haven't really talked about that since, like Princess Bride, in that
way, we like this idea that I haven't. If I can avenge yes,
something like this person I've loved who died, I will just not feel
like this anymore. Absolutely, I'll feel great, I'll feel fine. I
won't have any hard feelings ever again and watching what they chose to do as
this film progressed. Introducing no More as the villain and him being in such
a dark, vengeful place that he has been repairing since the fifteen hundreds to
take vengeance on the surface world. He's been keeping his people alive. He
is a full on mythical being a god o mutant. Right. Yeah,
he does identify himself as a mutant, which was absolutely not Kevin Figgy playing
with us as he tends to do. Yeah, but having him as a
villain is an excellent depiction of shadow work m which is another orientation young Ian
Yes Union perspective on that is that sure, he has to go through a
lot of shadow work. She not only has to deal with no More as
her primary villain, but when she finds he does reactivate or recultivate, re
engineer, whatever the proper term for making the heart shape herb comeback that she
does when she goes to the ancestral plane. Ryan Coogler and the writing team
again make a brilliant decision for it to be kill Monger, For it to
be kill Monger. That was like who that was? Like I gasped out
loud when I saw him. Well, also him in that sweater girl anyway,
ambulo good? But yeah, I think well, one, Ben,
can you explain to the audience what you mean by shadow and shadow work.
That's a word that kind of gets tossed around sometimes, but no one really
explains what that means. So in Union theory, the shadow is the dark
version of yourself. It is the version of you, or a reflection of
you that does everything you wish you could have done if you had no morals.
Mm, if you could have given in to the dark side. M
M. I was waiting on it, waiting, wait, waiting, waiting
for the literal best example of that ever to be Darth Vader. Oh,
Anakin Skywalker. We're not talking about Anakin Skywalker. Okay, Anakin is not
the shadow. No, Vader is. Vader is the shadow. That's true.
You're right, that's true. And Joker is the show. That's what
I go to say. I was waiting for you to say Joker when you
were saying no morals. Yeah, well, Joker is is chaos. He's
chaos, he's no morals. No, he's dog chasing a car. I
wouldn't know what to do with it if he got it now, that was
a lie, That was a manipulation to manipulate two face. I think Joker
always knows what he's doing, he just doesn't always know when or how.
But looking at the Shadow as a exercise, people at some point, when
they're in this spaces with grief and pain and loss and trauma, have a
choice to make that may or may not feel like a choice. You're gonna
deal or you're not gonna deal. You're gonna deal or you're not gonna deal,
or are you going to dissociate and activate your fight part or a hateful
part of yourself that is going to constantly seek to inflict the same pain you
have been under and still feel upon others. Hurt people, hurt people,
hurt people do hurt people, and no more exists because of that, And
looking at how firmly into that life, Sure, he gets tempted, and
she very very nearly gives into it, and she does for some period of
time she is full on letting Wakanda join. And it's not until Nakia shows
up and shines a light on that shadow that she gets shocked back out of
it and realizes how dark that path is that there is no light. People
may or may not like the new Metallica album, but there's the second song
on that album is called Shadows Follow, and the chorus over and over that
they repeat in that song is on I Run, but Still My Shadows Follow.
In Union Work, the acknowledgement that that dark part of us is always
there's always there, There's always some voice in our head that is going burn
it, all of it. There's characters in movies and stories that have existed
forever, like Palpatine. I've in particular, don't bring him into this.
I mean, you've got one more Star Wars reference for this episode, so
I can probably do it. Like you know, they all follow the same
thing. It's all the Joseph Campbell path a hero, right'. It's it's
all basically that. But yeah, having your shadow talk to you is something
we can only externally represent and we do in media, and it resonates.
The best villains are the most rational depictions of our shadow self that tell us
what we want to hear, what the angry part wants to be unleashed.
And no more does that for her, of explaining to her and showing her
that there is a world where you can thrive in your anger and your pain.
You don't have to feel you don't have to let it go, you
don't have to succumb to this, you don't have to feel weak. Instead,
you can feel strong and you can destroy your enemies. Yeah. I
mean we've talked before about at length about how anger is an emotion that allows
us to believe in the fantasy that we have control. Yeah, and it
feels like a powerful feeling, and the sadness, grief, all these other
feelings feel so passive, and it feels like an action. Yeah, And
anger feels like an action, like an action become one yeah. Yeah,
I mean violence definitely, there's an action there, and there's arguably power there,
right, and there's emotional release and catharsis, yeah, which I think
when you were talking about that, Ben, that's what I was thinking of,
is that catharsis and that's theme is what all validated for clients too.
I go, Yeah, it can feel good in the moment to be self
destructive as sometimes how I'll put it, you know, to act on those
desires, those impulses, right, it can feel good in the moment and
it becomes you have to really struggle with yourself about long term quality of life
over short term catharsis, and that you are paying a price by giving in
to these more in the moment, shadow fueled, if you will behaviors the
dark side. You just didn't want to say, You're gonna fall into a
lava pit and lose all your limbs and your ability to breathe appropriately, and
you have to wear like that stupid suit the rest of your life, like
that fucking dork Darth Vader. I find your lack of faith disturbing, and
I'd be like, yeah, and Darth Vader should have bats with with a
teenage girl anyway. But the importance of acknowledging the shadow itself and why it
resonates in media and why young studied it is because it's a voice we hear
inside ourselves all the time. It's an impulse we have to deal with.
There is constantly a discussion a boardroom meeting. I often remind clients you are
the president, and you are sitting in your war room beneath the White House,
and all of your cabinet members are there talking to you, and there
is going to be at some point where your Secretary of State or your attached
part is saying, we have to use diplomacy. We have to understand their
world, we have to understand where they're coming from. And your secretary of
Defense is sitting there in a military uniform with his arms crossed or her arms
crossed, or their arms crossed, however they present for you, however you
present, it's all okay, sits down, inclusive, King Ben, go
ahead, God, I hate you so much and I'm provoking your right to
speak, damn it. But it's sitting there with its arm a cross,
sticking and going like, I don't know why we're talking about peace negotiations.
We could just fire bomb them and they won't be a problem anymore. Fist
to the table. Why are we even joking about this? This is like
nukes exactly. Yeah. But the problem is those are only reflections. They
are components of your personality, and they exist to complete a function and then
they retreat back. So, sticking with the fire bombing metaphor, the Secretary
Defense has no problem making the call to the pilot to fly a bomb or
fly a plane over, drop a bunch of bombs, and then that plane's
gonna fly land back and its hanger and like all's good person that flew that
plane won't be on the ground, won't be surveying the damage, won't be
seeing what they did, and won't give a shit because they did what they're
supposed to do and they're they're going home. Yeah, but you you are
still going to be there that you in your life, right, and you're
gonna be in the middle of it when you drop whatever bomb you want to
drop, right, you will not be able to stay in that dissociated state
where you don't feel that and you just activate your fight part to go out
and do it. But when people are grieving, they don't always know how
to see that, and because these feelings are so intense and there's nowhere to
go, that they get stuck and they seek some way to let these open
loops have a way out to speak to try to close so that they can
deactivate, because otherwise some parts stays activated forever. And that avoidance is what
Hannah is talking about earlier. And we see that no More refuses to acknowledge
that humanity may have changed. He sees it through the lens he wants to.
He is stuck replaying from the mindset of a small child watching his people
be tortured and burned, watching his mother die. Yeah, well, I
wrote in my notes, like the trauma of colonalization, like yeah, and
how that, how that can't not forever alter your perception of the world,
of the outside world, of people with maybe different skin color than you,
like in the situation the Spanish, right, the Europeans, And how he
does something that people do do, which is then they make a big decision
and isolate, like he's taken his people underwater, like forever, detached from
the rest of the world, the surface, as he says, And so
yeah, you're right then in that because of that, it continues a narrative
for him that people are not to be trusted. Surface people are evil,
uniformly evil. Yeah, they will hurt you. They won't try to understand
you. They'll write you off as a child, as being demonic. They
won't even consider why you felt the way you were feeling towards them or acted
the way that you acted. Like I was even thinking, like he's so
little and to be so powerful like that would be a trip, period,
and like how do you make sense of having much power? Not even just
like the literal mutant power, but also like people listening to you like a
god from that age, right, Yeah, And so nothing then ever challenges
your viewpoint of the world. And then in this situation, because he's immortal
and it's been like generations and generations of his people, no one, no
one will think to challenge. It's like the feedback loop, you know of
like mythology and about the world, the surface world, and massive distrust understandable.
So, I mean, I think that's like when I know, I
wasn't because I was moving, I wasn't a part of the our episode on
the first Black Panther, So I you know, I apologize if I repeat
stuff that was said in that episode. But I think that was what's so
interesting about Killmonger again. And I think why it was interesting that they showed
up again in this movie is that very understandable idea of that distrust of like
people really were split on Killmonger, like thinking that he had the right idea
in the first movie in terms of how to handle things and how to deal
with like the oppressive people white people right are coming. Yeah, And so
I think when you work with someone like no More, I don't think you
would ever come to therapist office, you know, that also requires that acknowledgment
of like, it makes sense why you feel this way and why you believe
that, and what you're doing is an act of love to your people,
being that protective, being that isolated, being that insular. Like and it's
so myopic, which is what you're saying then, like, it's so one
viewpoint kill mongers like that to one viewpoint, one voo point only, and
that is letting sure He's shadow self thrive. The writing on this is so
brilliant, right is it? It ties all of that in. There's multiple
layers of grief happening that are activating her threat. They encounter no More,
who is a threat, but he doesn't necessarily want to be a threat.
He wants to ally with them. But they are two leaders of hidden kingdoms
seeking to protect their own things. But no More still has his power,
and sure He's kingdom does not, and her kingdom has made the decision to
open themselves up to the world, and No More is still in the hardcore
belief that that is the bad decision to make. But then the French had
a moment where they did something in the United Nations scene that they weren't supposed
to do. An AID sent or the UN sent commandos whoever it was,
and tried to keep it secret and violated the treaty the backdoor with some mercenaries,
right, And I think it was the French that they but I'm not
sure. I feel like they were speaking French, so I think you're onto
something. Definitely it was the French. I don't know if it was the
front the country. It was the country of France, but they was.
They were all speaking French. Yeah, but they right, they tried to
backdoor it, and we're proving the threat is real, the threat her people
have contended with for generations while they hid behind their force field. Which is
why, like when I do work with people, I think in order to
do this work, you have to also be somewhat aware of systems of oppression,
like to validate clients, right, kind of what you're saying, Ben
is like sometimes when these things up, you have to validate that for clients
too, especially clients you work with who aren't part of like the majority.
You know, is that there's reasons, there's legit reasons why their fears,
their angers, their protective stances are valid. They are and watching sure he
have to deal with hearing Nemore's point of view and showing her just how safe
and thriving being able to keep his people. The entire political discussion they're going
through about Wakanda and bringing it into the light of the world threatens that safety
and does so without the Black Panther, which has been a big failure to
her, and she's trying to contend with all of that simultaneously. And then
having Killmonger's voice be the one when she does get the power back. Yes,
scared, ry It's scary because his was they're real, They're coming for
you, And it was the same voice echoing the shadow voice, which makes
the fact that sure he had a brief heel turn before she turned back face
all the more heroic. And I think what's so interesting about that part of
it is that that's confrontational for Shari in several ways, right, Like it's
like the turn in the movie is one her having to really acknowledge that there
is an afterlife, like the spiritual aspect of it that she's been trying to
reject and in favor of technology and modernity and like the things that she understands,
and also to be confronted with of everyone she could see. Yeah,
it has passed on that she loves. She sees this guy, this motherfucker
who had created the problem she's trying to solve, like the heart, the
heart herb, you know, heart shaped herb and all this stuff, and
that it makes sense. Why when she comes back in to the real world,
Yeah, she lies. Yeah, And I appreciate that Nikia calls her
on it several times. I think Nikia is such a good grounding character,
such an emotionally intelligent, grounded character. Yeah, someone who clearly has processed
her grief well. And so I think what I like about Nikia with that
is that she challenges Suri once she's like, did you who did you see?
She does not get combative with Sherry when she says nobody, I didn't
see anything, even though it clearly worked, because she punches that dummy,
that mannequin like into the wall, and then later she says, again,
what did you see? You know, Nikia does a great job of which
is kind of like a therapist. He kind of job which is I'm not
pushing you, but I am. I'm challenging a little bit, but I'm
not trying to push you past your point of tolerance, but I'm also not
an abling you, you know, and that there is something there and she's
trying to get her to acknowledge it. Because something I tell clients too is
like you're not not having emotions because you're not dealing with it. You are
having a hard time. You're not not having a hard time, and that,
like you're kind of saying with the anticipation part, this is the idea
that like I will go into it the emotions, I will open the door,
I will fall him a pit whatever, and that I will then be
suffering and sometimes I'll stay to clients if I have good enough for poort.
Babe, you're already suffering, like you are already suffering. Yeah, and
she needs to be said. I think Nikki is kind of trying to do
that with her, Which what are we doing? I think so too.
You're already having a hard time. This isn't keeping. You're not bullshitting me.
Yeah, we're bullshit. You're not bullshing anybody, you're Yes. I
mean, as a therapist, we need to be mindful of what level of
report we have, Like you can't see to the client there's not there,
but like when it's things like that that are that blatantly obvious. I think
it's our role, and I coach the people that I train. Those are
the moments where you have to recognize you're their therapist and not their friend.
You're their therapist and not their family, and they are employing you to help
guide them to the answers that they need. And those aren't always the fun
ones. You don't need to be an asshole, and you shouldn't be,
but sometimes you need to say what needs to be said, which can be
you are in pain, like I'm looking at you right now. I'm looking
at you right now, and you look miserable. Yeah, you know,
you need to crack the film of bullshit, that bubble of nonsense that people
construct around themselves when they're it's stuck in those places that they know they can
just do it. They can do it their way. They can they can
be okay, they can find the solution, they can do it the right
way. They just need to try harder this time. And it's our job
to be like, do exactly what the queen did and say no and then
later Nikia and I think what makes it feel because it's a really quick turn,
like she's full vengeance, vengeance, anger, anger, and then the
last minute she gives No More of the opportunity to yield, right, like
we can pull this together, which is really quick. I think I can
kind of argue that why I can believe that versus like a Killmonger and a
a Moore who can't get there, you know, And as we see in
like the kind of epilogue of the movie No More, it was kind of
bullshitting. Yeah, he's like, no, this as part of my like
he's lived centuries, like, yeah, this is just a blip in his
long term plan, right, And is that surey? I think what also
says why she probably would be diagnosed with something if she came to something like
one of her office is maybe PTSD something like that, is that this is
a different presentation of her as you've seen in these other movies with her,
she's bubbly, she's jokey, she's optimistic. She's very like hopeful and silly
and young and vibrant and so and giving, like she's very generous. She
helps the colonize her as they keep calling Martin Freeman's character, yes, like
vision like she's very open person and very loving and so I think why she's
capable of making that turn, which I could see people saying, like that
happens so quickly, is I think that that is who she really is,
the yielding and all this anger and vengeance is her, you kind of say,
been like her, that part of her that's coming in and kind of
taking the front seat during this time, and she's not dealing. So I
think even though that happens quick I can believe that because this version of her
in this movie is such a different presentation of her, yes, than everything
we've seen so far. I think is important to point out, if you're
thinking of her from like a clinical standpoint, is that she is characteristically different.
Yeah, whereas no more has been like this for a long time.
Kill Mongers by that way, for a long time. You know, that's
still their own stuff, Like I'm not trying to say the gush as their
personality, Like that's still their stuff. But sure has only been like this
for a year. Yeah, And seeing her turn in and out of it
so quickly versus those two cana is a fantastic point because sure he has operated
from a world where she has had everything your privilege, safety, security,
intelligence. Sure he has not lived in a world where she has experienced a
long history of loss and abuse and intrusions under her territory. She has lived
in a world where they literally had a shield and technology that is so far
advanced that if any other civilization even attempted to enter their world, it would
go poorly. And she designed the technology that would make it go poorly.
So the position of safety she'd operated from her whole life, it makes sense
that she would be able to find herself again quicker than these other characters.
And yet she's just no match for no more. She's no match in him
fawning, which is your submit, your appease, part of yourself that you
have to find in order to submit when you are defeated. But it's only
there when the threats there. Ye, so long as the threats active,
he could fawn to her and show the submission and make an alliance. But
once Namara enters the picture, he's to seven somebody, of course, because
Marvel and their brilliants, they don't They're not going to tell us who and
leave it as a narrative path for him to follow to confront his own shadow.
We see this conflict resolve for her that I'm not going to be that
once she gets on the precipice of it, which is that that gift that
you can give someone in a story that real people don't always get. Real
people don't always get the chance to turn things around on a dime, and
where people can have that reaction. You're talking about it like God, that's
really fast because they've been in similar places themselves. Maybe not as fantastical,
but they've been in similar places themselves and made the wrong choice that activates a
regret from them and going like, Nah, you don't get out of that
that fast, you're gonna blow up your life. Then you're gonna feel real
sad about it and salty and angry and guilty, and then you're going to
crawl back on your knees through that shame guilt and find your path to forgiveness.
Before you get there, she ain't gonna happen. We could be split
in the moment, but that's not entirely true. Either can go infinite ways.
And also what I think will be powerful for sure is that I mean,
we don't know what's going to happen with like no more like long term
use of the Marvel universe. Yeah, but she is what'll be powerful for
her is she is rewarded for making this decision, for choosing a path that's
more connected to her authentic self, right in that it ends the war he
yields. There's peace. Everyone seems to be okay with this decision she made.
Umbaku very like peacefully is like it seems to be like ruling as a
regent for her so that she can go get the space she needs, like
no one's mad at her for taking this approach and not like dominating no more.
Yeah, So I think what is really healing for sure is that there
isn't any defiance or consequences for her that she knows about, right, yeah,
the short term. And that's powerful too because I think also with clients
there's that anxiety of if I go this way, if I don't feed into
my shadow self right in that protective way, then they'll be like, there'll
be consequences for that that I can't abide. And sometimes when I talk to
people, I'm like, there might be. You know, everything is consequences
too, Like these consequences that you can live with, and I think we're
sure he like she can't live with the consequence of being a murderer like that.
Yeah, she can't. And I'm glad you brought up Imbaku because he
is someone who is also doing a little bit of a reflection journey. He
is doing the opposite, He is living in his light self. But I
love him and Baku is he's a great character. But he has been he
has showing himself to be a little rogueish and also withdrawn. But he's ambitious
and eager and wants the throne and wants things to be done the way of
the gorilla. And then he's getting his validation. He's getting an opportunity to
reflect and live on his light side. But don't forget he challenges for the
throne while she's away in Haiti. Yeah, but I feel like that was
a deal he made with her. Yeah, I feel like I feel like
he is ruling in her said while she goes and takes care of herself,
because he did say like I'm here for you, like I'm here to give
you counsel. That was your brother's like deathbed wish to me. Yeah,
you know, I think I always viewed him coming off of the plane at
the end as him being like kind of a joke, like you know how
I am here to call like, But really it was him I think,
saying like, hey, I mean I chit chattawa. Surey, this is
kind of like what we're doing for right now, which probably does satisfy the
part of him that wants to be more in charge. People do love being
regions for that reason in the stories I've read. Yeah, and I guess
I want to trust because I love him that when she's ready to step into
it. Yeah, he might be like her, her first lieutenant, you
know what I mean, like her buddy, her hand of the king,
if you will. Yes, I don't think that's just gonna happen that way.
Why it's not going to be that easy. I think I feel like
in a different story they would get married and the king and queen. It
may still happen, but I don't think it's going to be that easy because
I think, much like we're seeing this writer show, people have to deal
with the multiple parts of ourselves and the multiple ways they present when different feelings
in different circumstances become active for different characters. Yes, everybody is dealing with
the grief and the loss of T'Challa and what he meant and what he meant
to the society, et cetera. And we see that, but that dynamic
also plays out with Imbaku's people and his values and of the lowland groups.
And it's pure speculation. Maybe it will come out that he will kind of
see this and realize, I'll give it back to you. I feel like
he's taking like a surrogate big brother role with her. Yeah. I think
it would be really awful, like from an interpersonal perspective if he damaged that
with her. Yeah? Could he? Could he do that? Sure?
Like I'm not saying that story wise, that couldn't happen. Yeah, I'm
just I just what I'm saying right now. Is I really hope that doesn't
happen. Yeah, because I think his character has come a long way characterization
wise and who it seems like he wants to be to Shrei in like a
real authentic, familial way, especially given all that shure he's been through.
When he says that line of like, I'm not going to treat you like
a child. You've been through too much. I don't know. I feels
I feel like I felt there was respect there. Once he gets the chance
to live in that idealized self, he may not let go of it so
easily, even if he likely ultimately will, It's possible that it will be
difficult for the rogueishness of him to you let go of what he's always wanted.
And as we know with human beings, I do not always make the
right choice. Sure, and that can despite their best intentions or what the
purest part of them felt, that's not always the part that gets to be
in charge. And for Imbaku and that happening at the end of the film,
it is an interesting journey watching him struggle with who he wants to be
because his values are decidedly different and his alliance is always always been to his
people first, and I'm curious to see where that will go. M Yeah,
absolutely, We'll take a break here and then we will back for treatment.
So we've kind of talked about treatment here and there throughout this episode.
I don't know if there's anything any three of us would like to add,
or if there's any specific person in this movie that we would like to focus
on, because I feel like sure he is the person, and we've kind
of really talked about what we'd want to do with her, and like how
to approach a client in grief like her, But do any of us have
anything we'd like to elaborate on more specifically, or maybe even another character entirely
that you would like to work with and we get to see, Sure he
go on her journey. But I think what I want to conquertize is about
not necessarily maybe a character specific treatment of grief, but painting with a broader
brush to conquetize some of these ideas that we've talked about. Dealing with grief
and loss is my every day. I know it's many therapists every day,
but doing what I do in particular dealing with traumatic loss and long term loss
and these things are what I deal with in and out every day. And
I really dedicated a lot of time more the past couple of years learning what
I feel our profession doesn't do an adequate job of providing graduate students and education
in which is learning to understand just how deep, just how profound, and
just how difficult healing from grief is, and where a therapist head needs to
be at and how much you need to be able to see simultaneously so that
you're not buying in to the story the client wants you to believe more than
you're seeing what's going on with them, and that's always the role of the
therapist, right to like, we need to see what's going on, not
just a story I'm being told, but understanding. The journey of grief is
about communicating to people more than anything. There is no way back, There
is no return to the life you had, the person you were. I
want to feel like I did, then it will never ever again be the
same because nothing is the same. And communicating that is a hard message because
you want to provide comfort and you want to help people see that you'll be
okay, you can still be you and you can still do things. No,
you're no, that's not helpful. You're creating yet another suspended animation that
protects them, Like Magnetos bubble that he uses to fly protects him from anything
penetrating the reality of grief. To work is that the bubble must be popped.
The reality you are protecting yourself from is the one you need to feel
the most. Every single thing you felt about the person or situation or cold
or identity that you lost became relevant to you because it made you feel and
now you have to feel every bit of that change. Every one of those
definitions. You had a feeling to create a definition for you must have a
feeling now to redefine it and find yourself in this new world post loss and
watching sure he go on this journey where person after person in her life who
has gone on that journey in a different way, or is going on that
journey simultaneously in the case of a Koye, Koye is having her meanings stripped
from her and they're kind of telling parallel stories at the same time too.
But it is so vital when you were with grief that you are teaching people
you can face the darkness, you can deal with this. Reinforcing messages that
they cannot that they just need to keep going, that they just need to
keep going to work, that they need to keep doing all these other things
is not where healing lies. Healing lies and helping them learn to embrace the
pain, surrender to the emotions, and get back into their body instead of
in a thousand realities where they are perceiving more danger than is there while also
avoiding the pain. It's very real that they must feel their body will not
yield that pain ever until you feel it, and even then it won't be
gone. Grief comes in waves every time you have a new realization, a
new feeling, something that would have been relevant to that person. A song,
you hear, a movie, you think a thought of them. Every
time that feeling or thought comes up, you have to process it now from
that's something they, oh, we loved together, to that's something they would
have loved, which yet again makes you feel the loss. But if you
don't go through that journey where you feel those hurts, you open yourself to
feeling that sadness. You stay stuck and create a narrative that you are not
ever going to heal. And that's just regular loss. When you look at
things like traumatic loss like sure He's had, where there's something blocking it,
you have to resolve the guilt and the belief that they don't deserve to heal
because they did something wrong, and that becomes the work because if you can't
defeat the shame barrier that keeps people from feeling and being able to feel because
the feeling itself represents a loss of identity and they can't tolerate any more loss.
But the identity that they had with that person in their life must be
lost because the laws already happened. Important of acknowledging that reality, that pain,
the unavoidableness of it, the existentialness of it, and also that you
are not alone in it. It is bigger than you. It is part
of humanity. Suffering is inextricable from our experience. Trying is feudal. To
communicate those of kindness is what grief treatment is all about. So to add
more piggyback on that. So what I'm putting in the concepts that I recognize
in the way that I do therapy is like radical acceptance. Radical radical acceptance
is a big part I think of that kind of grief too. Like you're
saying, ben like reframing what is within and with what is within and without
your of your control. Sometimes we'll have clients draw a circle and we will
say, like, what's out of that, what's out of your control is
at is on the outside of the circle. What's in is in your control
is an inside which usually just you and your choices and your coping skills and
your limits and your boundaries, and really leaning into the fact that you can't
change what's already happened. You can't change the past. You know, you
can't see the future. Also, I think a lot of people will be
like, feel your feelings? What does that you? I mean? So,
what I've been learning more about is like sematic exercises and giving those to
clients. I think that can be really helpful with if you're really trying to
sit in your feelings and like it kind of be like, I don't even
know where my feelings are? Aren't even know where they? What do you
mean? Like? I like, if you find good like practical sematic extrises,
you can just google sematic exercises. They have questions and be like,
where do you feel your feeling in your body? Can you find that?
What color could it be? Does it have a sensation? Does it have
a weight? And I think it can really help people guide them through the
process of like trying to feel their feelings and tolerate the sensations of feeling their
feelings and that Sometimes I'll do that with clients. Sometimes I'll have them do
it as homework and then in talk about it next session, and I'll always
tell them like, if it feels too overwhelming, you can pull out yourself
out of it. We're just trying a little at the time. And grounding
exercises go with that too if you're feeling really overwhelmed trying those things. And
so those are more like practical applications of like the grieving process will sometimes give
clients and like I said, we can start in my office doing those.
So it's sure like the whole process of like going out to like Haiti,
which is kind of doing there to me feels like kind of what her mom's
implying is like somatic exercises like feel it in your body, feel it in
the world, or like sometimes set exercise, or like can you feel the
sensation of the air around you? Does it have a weight, doesn't have
a smell, And that's kind of what Ramanda is saying to Sure in that
earlier scene, right, So I think if for anyone who's listening and they
get annoyed with with that, like the feeling or feelings is like a vague
command, that's a more directive way to do it. That feels like you
know what you're doing, like you know what that actually means. So that's
like all I want to add to what you were sharing. Ben, Yeah,
it's important like that, like I was saying, with how embr work
particularly stratifies the targeting of all these things. Is the physical feeling is vital
to the healing. You cannot your brain and your body are not separate things.
There ain't no healing without physical feeling. Baby, you should put that
all the shirt. There you go. I'm gonna phrase it exactly like that.
And everyone who's been listening to the show and hearing my voice and my
addiction in the way I hear things, I want you to laugh every time
you hear my voice saying it that way, because I'd probably literally never say
that, and if I did, it would just sound so bad. But
it's a critical point, and it's a critical point of healing from these kinds
of losses, is uh. I know I've said it before one of my
colleagues as we were trying to explain to one of our other colleagues who was
trained differently than us and was very big on CBT and explaining the CBT,
and we're all going CBT is wonderful in hindsight, but for the traumatized person,
it is among my least favorite things because it ignores that fucking garbage,
fucking CBT. Fantastic for creating hindsight, right like an insight. Yeah,
yeah, I can help create insight in some ways, but I haven't found
it particularly helpful with any in any setting. And that the truth, it's
fine, it's brew sometimes. Yeah, just what my experience has been like,
Yeah, I think you know, I agree with what both of you
are saying, and I feel like working with Sherry, I would really want
to help her create rituals for herself because that's such a big part of her
culture, leaning into her culture, more leaning into her culture, more leaning
into seeking out people who have had multiple losses in her community, talking to
those people, like I think that I would want to really help her create
her own way to grieve these major losses that she's experienced. And also because
it'll be really important to help her because she's had so many, so much
loss in such a short amount of time, really allowing her to grieve each
one of them and not just grieve them together as a whole in some kind
of way of like really grieving her mother and grieving the relationship that she had
with her, and grieving the loss of that guidance that she doesn't have anymore
when her father, her mother, her father brother or her brother, and
like she's lost, she's I still can't believe they killed Romanda in this fucking
episode in this movie still bowls in my mind every time I had too I
know, I that's I know, but I don't hurt too much way to
my stomach her when she died in the fucking movie later, I was like,
wow, but anyway, so Disney way so so yeah. So I
think I think that's the only thing I really wanted to add, okay about
about what I would want to focused on with her. Yeah, that getting
past the floating head ness, right, sure, she is like the complete
definition of a floating head. Yeah, and you're talking about feeling it in
your stomach like that triggers something for me, Like I wanted to completely that
point that I got distracted from it that we had that discussion about. CBT
is like those of us who in more semantic that Clinton has trained in art
therapy and semantic experiencing an EMDR, and it operates on a similar wavelength to
where I do, of like, we need to get the feelings that are
stuck in the body out in the way that they are stuck. What CBT
misses is that you cannot rationalize with these things. It does not work.
Yes, you can adopt new behaviors and new feelings and new things to do
that can produce change. Yes, I understand, but what the point misses
is that you have to recognize that when the body is physiologically activated, it
operates differently than when it is calm. And when you are discussing pain and
grief, there is a massive amount of pain that is unaccessed, unrealized,
and unreleased that needs to be felt, and therapies that focus on getting that
out, making it safe, that all the distractions stop going out into the
bush or doing something else that helps you get grounded, that it gets you
isolated from things, not dissociated, but grounded, so that your body will
do what it is supposed to do and feel. All of our transformational experiences
come from having huge abdominal contractions and reactions that you feel in the pit of
our stomach. Think about all of the things that the big belly laughs.
The true laugh that breaks your depression is a huge belly laugh orgasm. A
huge athletic accomplishment comes at the point where you are the point of exhaustion that
you are heaving and gasping for air and find the strength and you to dig
through and finish that race or push the opponent off of your or whatever it
is, throw the little metal ball in my case, right like, whatever
it is that you do, all of our transformational experiences come from that.
And if we are blocking our body from feeling that and engaging our nervous system
to give the feedback through our whole body, our brain is part of our
nervous system is connected. Yes, mind brain, we can debate all day,
but brain body is not a debate and the mind is in the brain,
which is in the body. So fuck off fault and fuck off CBT.
In that case, we have to recognize creating a pathway that people can
feel not just the emotions, but the physical release and pain that must be
felt with grief, and that we don't teach them or reinforce through positive or
negative reinforcement, the pathways clients take to invest themselves in their work before they've
done the grieving as a matter of avoidance. What you do because of the
grieving is a different story. And there's a really great book on that called
man Surge Remaning. But you can't achieve the meaning from the loss without first
feeling the loss. Yeah, all right, so we'll take one last break
there and then come back with final thoughts. All right, who wants to
go first? I'll go first? All right? So I love this movie.
I think I think it was really well done. I really enjoyed it.
I've watched it many times. Even though it's so sad, that doesn't
stop you. It doesn't stop me. But with some of the things,
I really yeah, I really love the way that they honored Chidwick Boseman,
I really loved. I also really enjoyed the some of the things that are
the same from some of the other movies that The Black Panther is in.
So when Civil War, we watch Chechalla come to the same realization that vengeance
doesn't work. He comes to that same conclusion himself when he realizes all of
these other people iron Man and Captain America and Bucky are all trying to they're
all it's all because they're angry and upset and they're trying to do something and
heat t Chaca comes to that same realization that vengeance is not the way.
And I thought it was really beautiful that Shari comes to the same that same
has that same journey. The other thing that I think was interesting, The
other thing that I thought was interesting about the film is that they also killed
Queen Ramuda in a very similar way that her husband came to Chaka was killed
where there's the glass window, there's an explosion, and then the chaos and
then the death of her. So I thought it was really interesting that there
were some parallels from some of the other films. But I really it's really
beautifully acted. It's really it just tells such a beautiful story and leans into
grief in a way that I wish our society could in terms of the way
that they dealt with Chadwick Boseman and the way that they handled that. So
I love this movie. I'll definitely watch it again, and I'm excited to
see what we're going to get after this. I can go next. I
also love this movie. I think it's one of the best Marvel movies period,
of the ones that have come out so far. Yeah, in terms
of what we want to talk about so far, it had like a impossible
task, yes, which was to restructure a story where the main actor has
passed that is so beloved by and beloved like intimately by the cast, like
that's their friend and the director right, and so the director's friend. And
so I think it is such a beautiful job job not mishandling that you know,
it seemed like And what I hope that, like Kevin Figgy gave them
permission, like gave them space to do is kind of let them hate like
write it however they felt like they had to write it, Yeah, to
not make a meal out of Chadwick Boseman's death, not do any like sympathy
like gross exploitative stuff, which is passing, right. It seemed like they
really let the audience have whatever they needed to have with those spaces of silence
we talked about, which you don't really have in movies like that, like
no noise, you know, no like score coming up. It's supposed to
make us cry like something very like. Well, and so yeah, I
think this movie couldn't have been done better in terms of handling the horrible circumstances
in which it was made. Yeah, And I'm really interested where the story
will go. I'm really interested if like where sure a story will go,
like if she will become clean? Really kind of leaves it open ended,
which is interesting if it's gonna just maybe pass even to to Challa's son the
New to Challa right, It'll be interesting to see where it goes. I
think you could go in a lot of directions. But I really love it.
I think it's beau. I love the soundtrack. The soundtrack is beautiful.
Yeah, Ludvig Gorenson's really putting his foot and all these soundtracks lately good
for him. And yeah, I'm I really am glad to see that I
get handled well and beautifully, and I look forward to the continuation of the
story. I guess that leaves me and I full agree. This is,
if not the best, second best of the Marvel movies. It's absolutely accomplishing
an impossible task, but it's all doing it in such a ground did real
way, in a challenging way that it truly did the impossible and allowed us
all to grieve, to feel the conflict, the mistrust, the doubt,
and then the hope. It ended very beautifully. It I cry every time,
no matter how many times I've seen in the movie. I cry in
that last scene. The things it did right that echoes some of these,
you know, tireads and speeches that you know I tend to go on.
Sometimes she may have noticed, but you're still listening. So thank you.
But what what I love about this is that it it managed to do a
couple of things without repeating narratives that make me, as the therapist scream in
my mind. The thing people who are going through loss want, nothing,
want more than anything else, is what they can't have, and this movie
did not give that to us, and it did not give that to Shrei.
Shrei tells us many times she wants nothing more than to see her brother
again. And when she finally closes the loop on creating that herb and possibly
having a healing experience, expecting to see her father, to see T'Challa,
her mom, her mom, she sees kill Monker. And much like life,
we did not get what we want when it is not possible to get,
and we must reckon with that, We must face it. We must
deal with the sadness that comes from that and grow beyond it and find a
place for that hurt while opening ourselves up to what we needed to take from
that. And that's what this story did. Every chance they had to tell
a story and fantasy, they declined, and they told a story in reality
in a fantasy world. And I love that they did that, and it
is difficult. It is hard, and it is big feelings, and it's
going to make people who have gone through losses deal with big feelings or have
an avenue to have a cathartic experience they may need but may not be ready
for. I can see this movie being really challenging for people who've had laws,
but it's also really powerful in that it closes all its own loops by
going we cannot operate in a world where we construct control over that which cannot
be controlled, but instead we have to operate in a world what are these
fucking dogs are run through my motherfucking house when I'm trying to make my final
point and I'm going to take her breath before lose my ever loving shit.
What this movie did was it found a way to close all the loops that
people are feeling. That it helps us confront the narrative that we have no
control over death, we have no control over life, and we have no
control over what happens. All we can control is what we do with the
time that's been given to us and what choices we make next. And just
because we've made the wrong choice or the painful choice or a regrettable choice,
time and time again, doesn't mean we have to continue doing so and seeing
sure, we realize that that's the gift that she has, that she can
lean on who she has been, who she wants to be, and work
towards creating a world she wants to see, but not one that she has
to be reactive to all of the hurts of the past in order to create
the world she wants to see. I think is the most beautiful story that
Marvel has ever taken on, and I really look forward to seeing what they
do next. All right, so thank you all for listening. As always,
you can find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok a, Popcorn Psychology
Twitter or x question mark at Popcorn Underscore Yeah, just yeah. You can
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So you know everybody out there have thank you for listening. You could
have just said, what kind of forever will Conda forever? M