S3_E4 Mia Cosco: Loss, Psychedelics, and Growth through Grief

Today's guest is Mia Cosco, an author exploring loss, psychedelics, and the beauty of grief. Mia shares her journey from losing her mother at a young age to her brief stint in modeling, and how these experiences shaped her understanding of grief and personal growth. She discusses the power of psychedelics in self-discovery and her mission to help others navigate their own grief journeys.

Episode Highlights:

• Early Loss: Mia's experience of losing her mother at age seven and its profound impact on her life.
• Modeling Career: Her brief foray into modeling and how it influenced her perspective on confidence and self-worth.
• Psychedelic Insights: How psychedelic experiences helped Mia gain a deeper understanding of herself and others.
• Grief Understanding: Mia's insights on the stages of grief and the importance of cultural rituals in processing loss.
• Writing Process: Her approach to becoming an author, including the valuable exercise of writing one's life story.
• Purpose and Meaning: Mia's perspective on finding purpose and meaning as a way to navigate through grief and life's challenges.

You can follow Mia here. 

Transcript

Raad: Today. My guest is Mia Cost-Co. Who is an author exploring. Exploring loss, psychedelics and the beauty of grief topics that she's intimately aware. Aware of having lost her mother at the age of seven. I mean, as these trials, the. The encounter with psychedelics open new realms of perception. And she co-founded the UBC. The psychedelic society fundraise from apps, Canada, and volunteered for the Zendo Project. In addition to writing a book, Mia moonlights as a marketing strategist 

Mia: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Raad: That's quite the bio, and there's lots to cover, so I'm really looking forward to the conversation. One thing that struck me in your bio, was that you describe yourself, your true essence is [00:01:00] in that of an author. Now, how does one, come to that conclusion?

Mia: Yeah, that's a good question because I have been debating between whether to just call myself a writer or an author because Whether or not my works get published, I do write. And writing has been my, like, people know that they're a writer when they, when their go to for expression of their creative art is to write.

Mia: That's when they know. And for me, whether or not I have a book out or I publish anything, I know that I'm a writer and that's what's most important to me. So being an author was something I knew that I was going to be at a young age, because everyone around me just observed me and said, you know, you could be an author easily.

Mia: And I thought, okay, sure, I will, you know, I hope to do that one day. But of course, you know, it only took me until my Saturn return to actually embrace that fully.

Raad: Do you draw a distinction between writing [00:02:00] and being an author? Authoring, rather?

Mia: Yeah, because there's lots of people who just write in their spare time, or who are good writers or who journal a lot, but they don't have plans to be an author. Never become an author

Raad: And so when did you become comfortable calling yourself an author? Yeah.

Mia: When I when the book was really shaping up. So when I finally, you know I just I landed on the vision of the book when I kind of became a leader of the vision of what book I wanted to publish in the world

Raad: I find this topic really interesting because I for a long time struggled to call myself an artist and I am still an artist. I play a lot of music. I used to produce back in the day, but I think for most of my time growing up, I didn't call myself an artist. Can I go to, didn't go to art school. I'm not like how you typically define an artist.

Raad: And so these titles and these labels are really interesting, right? Because on one hand you would hope that they describe an aspect of you that is true and authentic. On the other hand, there's like the, are you a [00:03:00] professional? Are you doing it professionally? do people pay you for it? There's the other side of it, which I think discourages a lot of people, you know, from really expressing themselves.

Raad: It does the labels definitely do divest people from just practicing their craft because they feel like in, especially in a Western industrial Eurocentric world, it's like if you're not monetizing your craft, then what's the point? It's just a hobby and hobbies are really undervalued or just kind of not taken seriously.

Mia: Yeah.

Raad: Yeah. Yeah. You know, you hear all these successful entrepreneurs, but you don't hear about the hobbies that got them there. really, right?all the little experiments, right? Um, I think the core of the conversation that I'm really looking forward to is sort of really unpacking this idea, not idea, the idea and experience of grief, right?

Raad: And grief is something, at least in my view, in my experience, is something your perception of grief changes through time, as you [00:04:00] reflect not only the grief you're experiencing at the current moment, but the grief you've experienced in the past. Now, You know, before we talk about the specifics, because I think there are events in your life that really shaped who you are and it's still shaping who you are.

Raad: I'm really curious about this idea of acute grief and diffuse grief, right? And I think diffuse grief is something that, um, Esther Perel actually termed during the pandemic, because I think so much of, so many of us were like all of a sudden isolated, locked in at home and we didn't really, we couldn't really put into words what we were experiencing.

Raad: And so she talked about this, you know, this thing about diffuse grief. I'm curious, what do you have to say on how do you sort of, um, talk about diffuse grief and grief that is more acute, maybe related to particular events?

Mia: Yeah. I would say that I would say the diffuse grief is, [00:05:00] I mean, to me, it seems like it's kind of the difference between PTSD versus complex PTSD. So when people don't really understand grief, or don't know how to define grief, or don't understand why I care about it so much, or they have a very limited understanding of grief,that is no surprise to me, first of all, because, for example, if people want If people like want paid leave because they're grieving, they only get three days in, in the corporate world.

Mia: And this is in both Canada and the States. And you only get three days of paid leave for an indefinite, for the death of an immediate family member. So if you have a friendship breakup, if you have a devastating 10 year breakup after a long term relationship, if your pet dies, um, yeah, no, that's not factored into the definition, which I think is.

Mia: Like a glaring mistake, honestly, but also, um, it just reflects cultural values and understandings [00:06:00] in the West around death and grief. So I would say that diffuse grief is sort of like, when you're just kind of going through, The motions of life, and you're saying goodbye to things all the time. You're losing opportunities.

Mia: You're losing touch with people. you know, people, yes, may die around you. Um, and you're also saying hello to things. So you're constantly swimming in between goodbyes and hellos in life constantly. And we're not really that self aware collectively about it. We're not really acknowledging how many goodbyes and how many hellos we're actually saying.

Mia: Um, maybe we're not even. You know, empowered in our hellos and our goodbyes in life. And I would say acute grief is when we, I guess, when we are more self aware or when we can't help, but be aware of something that's going on. when something is so visceral in our face, our entire family's dealing with it, you know, it's very present for us and we can't run away from it. Um,

Raad: That's really beautifully put, [00:07:00] actually. I like describing it in the sense of this blink between goodbyes and hellos. So from that perspective, do you think? A grief is a unresolved goodbye.

Mia: A lot of really beautiful definitions for grief. And I would say that. It could be an unresolved goodbye. Like it really depends on your relationship with the thing or person you're saying goodbye to. I've also heard grief be described as leftover love. Um, and when you think about, when you think about grief as really like you have this love or you have this care or have this something with someone, this relationship, and now or there's incomplete things you haven't said or haven't done.

Mia: Um, gifts that you were planning on giving to them or You know, letters you were planning on sending to them. Um, then yeah, you could say it's left over something. I mean, I think an incomplete, I think incompletions would be grief, but I think even if you were complete with the person, [00:08:00] you can still grieve, like you can still grieve someone who you were, you know, everyone was aware that they would pass away at a very specific time and they did, people can still grieve because it's like suddenly they were here and now they're not, that's an incredibly existential. You know, confusing situation that can bring inevitable anxiety. So, you know, there's someone of any age if they were grieving and they knew that they had pre grieved or not, um, you know, sometimes and also grief has stages, right? We know that grief has 5 stages. So, for example, if someone has spent their entire pre grieving of someone, if they were giving themselves time to pre grieve, and they had spent that entire time in denial, then yeah, I wouldn't be surprised when that person actually passes away, and they're actually no longer here, suddenly that shifts to anger, depression, bargaining, etc.

Raad: What are the other stages of, um, of grief?

Mia: Yeah, so it starts with denial, apparently, typically, and [00:09:00] then anger, and then depression, or and then bargaining, and then depression, and then acceptance.

Raad: you just mentioned that. I'm more curious sort of like how does one tumble from one stage to the other?

Mia: I mean, I mean, like, how do you know if you're

Raad: yeah. So I'm like, yeah, I'm thinking, because I mean it's a really good point, right? Like it's sort of like the 13 stages of burnout, right? Um, it's just because like when you're experiencing it, it's hard to say, because for example, the times that I burnt out, I only found out that. Okay. Oh, all my relationships are strained.

Mia: I'm blaming everybody. Okay. All right. So it's not them. It's me. That's when I sort of figured it out. So I'm wondering, like with grief, is it, do you only understand it's grief or stages you're in at the very extremes? Are there ways to know what's happening in between? Yeah. Good to know. Yeah, I, that's why I like addressing subtleties and nuances when I'm educating people about the stages of grief. Because, [00:10:00] for example, a lot of people don't understand bargaining. Bargaining being the third stage of grief, people are like, what's that? Cause they're like, I know what anger feels and looks like and sounds like, but I don't know the animal of bargaining and what that sounds like.

Mia: And I say, yeah, there's actually a few different ways of looking at it. And I provide, I love providing lots of examples because people latch onto examples. As soon as you present an example, people think, okay, great. then I feel more understood. Um, and grief is such an isolating experience that the ability to communicate very well is important if you're communicating people about grief, you have to be willing to go deep within your experiences of loss to be able to communicate it so that people can latch on to something and be like, Oh, you get it.

Mia: Okay, cool. Um, so, for example, with bargaining, you know, I provide subtle examples like, Bargaining can be everything from, Oh, you know, I've never wanted to play baseball, but my mom who just passed away always wanted me to play [00:11:00] baseball, or she thought, she once said that I would make a good baseball player.

Mia: So, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take up baseball, and just maybe start looking into games, or, you know, going on a softball league or something. I don't know. Um, and it can be something subtle too. Like, and this way people are saying, Oh, this is my way of honoring their memory. If I do, if I play the thing, I play baseball like they wanted, maybe that way I'm honoring or respecting that person's memory more. Um, and some interesting spiritual sort of, inkling we get, or it can be something like, it can be, like, this might not feel as extreme for people, but people might say, you know, um, like if they were in, for example, a car crash and the person next to them died, but they didn't, they can say, you know, there can be subtle ways in which they can express the frustration or conflict within.

Mia: Where they wonder if, they wonder why they survived and the other person didn't. There can be very subtle ways. For example, [00:12:00] this is important to understand subtext. So sometimes when you're talking to someone, And they've just experienced a loss, maybe of their pet or something, and their pet to them signified comfort because they got their pet after a relationship ended.

Mia: Then it's not uncommon for example, if someone loses their pets and that pet was a comfort to them from a great time of loneliness and breakup and heartbreak that, you know, when they get sort of a new partner in their life. You know, they might say, and something goes, something, they might have a fight in that new relationship or something.

Mia: That person might say, you know what? I feel like getting a pet. I feel like getting a new pet. Um, you know, people can, people feel like they can replace pets when they feel the urge for that original pet to come into their life, to come back again. So grief is a very subtle psychological process. It doesn't have to be an extreme thing.

Mia: I think people think [00:13:00] grief has to be extreme, but that is just a symptom of Yes, the West kind of thinking grief has to be this big, explosive, ugly crying session, um, when in reality, grief is so beautiful when it's expressed subtly.

Raad: I couldn't agree with that more. I think, you know, one way that I think of grief is, you know, melancholy, right? And melancholy is a, I think one of the most beautiful things, if you know how to understand it well, because every, I think every art, every piece of art, every like piece of music, like books that I've sort of, that changed my life, that I've left an imprint.

Raad: Dealt with some sort of melancholy, you know, when you go and like climb on top of a mountain and you look at the sky and you look at the stars, you're like, there's a melancholy there because you're like, oh, I am so insignificant and tiny, and maybe I'll never understand the meaning of it all, and I'm just gonna die like everybody else.

Raad: It doesn't have to be like, oh [00:14:00] shit, my life is purposeless. It's more like the universe is so big. It's so beautiful. Why not experience everything, all of it in between, right? Um, I like the term bargaining. I've never thought about it that way. Because to me, it sounds like there is an aspect of grief or a process of the grief is sort of like you're negotiating between the imprint of grief, which is that state that you're frozen in, And your future state, the ideal state, or the where you want to be.

Raad: So I guess it is a bit of bargaining there. Yeah, interesting. Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna come back to, um, this sort of, because one of the questions I did have is about how in your work that you're, when you're working with lots of people from different backgrounds, how, where does the cultural aspects come in? I certainly being from South Asia have a very different view of grief and how my family and we were raised understanding grief, but we'll get into that in a bit.

Raad: Um, there's a few more pivots before I want to talk about before we talk about that aspect. [00:15:00] Um, one of the things that really intrigued me, um, given where you are now and, you know, some of your experiences before is that you had a career in modeling. And, in my research, one of the videos that I found, or you were talking to people who were either contemplating modeling or going into the beauty industry in your words.

Raad: Um, and what to consider some of the perils of, you know, traversing that space, how did you get into modeling? And then where's the through, through line between that part of your life and what are you doing now?

Mia: To me, it makes sense because modeling for me was a way where, as with most teenage girls, I was aware of the fact that my, that whatever, you know, This term or essence of confidence was I was lacking and I saw people who were older than me who were more experienced than me with [00:16:00] lots of factors that contributed to this thing called confidence and I thought, why don't I have that?

Mia: People are telling people compliment me, but why don't I feel that? And so. going into, you know, I acted in high school as well, and in high school acting was a way for me to gain a lot of confidence too, not only in my body, but also in my psychology, psychological confidence, because, you know, not only in acting, are you sometimes stripping down to your underwear in between various different outfit changes, but you're also getting tons of remarks on how your hair should be, how your makeup should be.

Mia: And I was in eight, eight high school plays over the course of five years of high school. And so that provided a lot of experience to critique not only my body, but also my mind. And then modeling was no [00:17:00] different, except for the fact that it was pretty much just looks. I do remember though, there were just some phenomenally, you know, like logged into my long term hippocampus memory, um, like encounters with modeling agents.

Mia: Obviously agents, whether in the talent industry or any industry, They're not beloved icons. No one likes, no one is like, Oh, an agent, you know, they must be like Gandhi. Like, no, no agent is ever going to resemble Gandhi because agents are naturally supposed to be very pushy. They get by on their connections.

Mia: They are not your friend. Um, so I remember talking to many modeling agents and they would say everything from. You know, we would be having a completely different conversation if you were two inches taller. Or, oh, but if you were, like, if you were just this much skinnier, then we could talk about you flying to Turkey or China or whatever.

Mia: And, it was like, the [00:18:00] way in which these things were said, I thought, this is such, like, looking back, I think, this is such a non trauma informed, um, industry. And, you know, what's funny about it is that it's so psychologically, Destroying to someone. Um, and the biggest people in that industry, the biggest, you know, pool of talent are 14 year old girls.

Mia: So you think what is going on?you learn the hard way. You develop a backbone or a thick skin and you think of the world, like whatever sort of LA paradise you're living in, you quickly revert to some sort of New York, hard mindset, some very East Coast, salty mindset about the world and your place in it as a woman, as a young woman, as an attractive woman.

Mia: And. I would say for me, it was a very natural move for me to suddenly care more [00:19:00] about studying psychology than I didn't care about modeling because I always cared. I always cared first about psychology before I ever wanted to go into modeling. I just knew in my soul that I needed to go and endure the perils and pitfalls of the acting industry and the modeling industry because I knew there was something there for me.

Mia: I knew there was some. This thing I needed to embody and that was confidence and yeah, confidence was gained. It was hard earned in some ways and in some ways it was, um, it was easily gotten. So yeah.

Raad: Interesting. Um, because you think that the modeling industry that constantly, chastises you for not looking a particular way. Made you feel now, here's the question. Did you understand, did you get understand the tools to feel confident or did you feel actually feel confident on the inside,

Mia: Yeah, well, it was, I think [00:20:00] confidence really started to sink in when You know, I worked hard to get into a runway show and I got in or when I felt discovered by a designer, when the designer kind of picked me out of a lineup of girls and was like, you are the face of this thing. You kind of felt like, first of all, you felt special.

Mia: Um, which is something that, you know, it feels really good when you're young or when you don't really know any better. You feel good. You'll feel special. Um, But I would say that confidence really came when I was finally in college and I was studying the subject of my dreams, which was finally, you know, advanced psychology.

Mia: And I began to have all these conversations about everything from, you know, the different defense mechanisms that Freud would posit to, you know, what, how stress contributes to cancer and different types of cancers. And I just learned all these really interesting biopsychosocial models. [00:21:00] And then I would go to a runway show and I'd be backstage for eight hours, hair, makeup, gossiping, eating.

Mia: And then, you know, I'd say, I talked to people who I really wanted to connect with and I'd tell them about what I was learning and how interesting my philosophy classes were as well. And no one cared. No one really cared. People were there and maybe they were there because they needed to finance. It's, you know, a, an expensive lifestyle of champagne.

Mia: They needed to be there because they needed to make rent just quickly. They needed to be there and They just needed their name in the paper, um, and I was like, this is not, I don't feel enlivened here. I don't feel stimulated here. This is not a place where I feel like I'm being served or nourished anymore.

Mia: So when I figured that out, um, without, without, without severe judgment on the modeling industry entirely, like I think. You know, the fact that I came out of there without a drug or [00:22:00] alcohol addiction means that I curbed some, maybe some intense times. Um, I believe that, um, I just, I had the confidence in finally, in myself in a deeper way than in myself superficially. There was no, there was not a focus on what I looked like, which I think is really important for girls, especially in the age of social media. I was modeling before Instagram was around. It was like early days of Facebook for me. And I'm really glad that I had that because I think if I had been modeling now, I would feel, I would be so much more preoccupied with every single thing on my body.

Mia: As opposed to just like, how tall are you? And how skinny are you? That was, those were just like this and that. What does that look like?

Raad: Well, there's this aspect of, um, Well, a quick reflection, actually. So I spent some time in the music industry and, although they're very different in terms of like what you're being [00:23:00] chastised or validated for. I also, it's, it, to me, it's one of those industries that feels like is like high privilege and low life, you know?

Raad: So like, yeah, you're going to invite to all the parties and free pizza and booze and whatever. Like, but you get paid very little and there's a lot of abuse. I think, again, I don't know anything about the modeling industry, but like I know from the music industry back then, it certainly felt like that.

Raad: Um, But there's an aspect of confidence that I think is really interesting to talk about here, which is, you know, there's the confidence in your belief of yourself, but sometimes also you can feel more conviction in something by not, by knowing that what you don't want. So having gone to the moment, knowing, okay, I tried it.

Raad: I could do well if I want to, but I'm also, it's enough. I don't want to. I'm part of it. I think there's a confidence that comes with that kind of conviction, too.

Mia: Yeah. The confidence to, to know what you want to do in the world, the confidence being your, the knowing the knowledge of your purpose. So you make that full hero's journey arc and you come back with the, with new knowledge [00:24:00] and you kind of say, you know, maybe I didn't have to go through that to get this knowledge, maybe.

Mia: But I did. And this is what I got. Yeah.

Raad: you can't really change the past, right? No point regretting anything, right? You live your life and hopefully you find a better. Better way forward, more in line with what you want. Okay, so, you did Mali for a little bit, you went back to university, and then how did the rest of the time go?

Raad: So, where's the line between then and now?

Mia: So, you know, I would say that psychologically, personally, I was quite narrow minded. I was quite judgmental of myself and others. I was very self critical and I was really low in my awareness of that entire process. I started meditating. That was very helpful because I would have panic attacks about, you know, where my life would be if I made one wrong step.

Mia: I think that's very common for people. Early days, freshmen, university. I think it's, those are very common fears. [00:25:00] And if they get out of hand, you know, you become a statistic where it's very unfortunate that are the young are being left in the trenches right now, and there's high rates of suicide, especially.

Mia: Um, you know, first year in college, I think I read a statistic somewhere recently where, um, the highest rate of freshmen, I think, suicide, self harm, it's actually at MIT, which is one of, seen as one of the greatest schools in the West, and, um, Yeah, anyways, that's really tough. And so for me, I was definitely going through it.

Mia: And thankfully I also sought counseling as well. And while I was seeking counseling, I was also being told by, um, very valued close friends of mine, you know, maybe you should try Um, cause I talked to my counselor and I said, do you think I need antidepressants? And she said, I don't think you have depression, but if you want to try something, there are some natural remedies you can look into to curb potential depression, like St.

Mia: John's [00:26:00] ward or whatever. And I thought, okay, I'll think about it. You know, being very atheistic, I was raised Roman Catholic, so I naturally became an atheist. and so, um, So I did look into what my friends were newly deciding to tell me, which was, like, you know, like, research, and I thought, like, with LSD?

Mia: Like, what is that? I thought LSD was on the same wavelength as heroin at some point in my early life, and, like, most people, like, a lot of people do, unfortunately. And I looked into it, I thought this is, I'm interested. I'm intrigued. I asked a few family members who I knew probably had tried psychedelics in their past.

Mia: They told me, you know, it was wild. They don't really, they don't do it anymore. But, you know, it was part of kind of growing up in some ways. And so I looked into it. I had psychedelic experiences. They were so beautiful and remarkable and life changing. That I started to [00:27:00] almost immediately devote my life to the education of these molecules I thought this is it like in terms of people Figuring out like people they might not need to meditate for 18 years They might not need to go to counseling for a decade, you know, they could have these molecules in this medicine.

Mia: So I, I immediately saw the potential. It was incredible. And I'm so grateful for those experiences because I know that it's very possible to have bad trips, especially for first psychedelic experiences. And you know, the rest is kind of history.

Raad: What did you find so meaningful in psychedelics?

Mia: I think just the fact that for me, I was like, when you're really stressed out in school, and you're in a time of your life where you're building and you're stressed out and you're, you have so much to prove to yourself and others, it's, you find yourself sometimes not laughing for a long time. [00:28:00] Like, you don't just have a good, genuine laugh.

Mia: Um, something that psychedelic experiences do really wonderfully is you start giggling a lot. Like psychedelic experiences, you're known for just giggling and laughing at a lot of things. And this is really important. This is medicine in medicine where you're able to laugh at kind of absurd nuances of the universe.

Mia: You know, you like, if you're an LSD and you get into an elevator and you see everyone just like look at the door and look or look away from each other, that can be kind of absurd and funny, like something to remark on. Um, so I just want to. So all this came to the surface and it was quite remarkable to just wake up, like just literally open my eyes and wake up to the absurdities and the collective perils and the individual nuances of humanity when on these substances.

Mia: And I thought, wow, like, I mean, not only does music sound better and food tastes better, but I mean, I'm seeing, like, I feel like I'm seeing everything and I'm tuning into this collective intelligence. And I remember When I [00:29:00] first had that sense, I think on a heroic dose of something or other, I had this sense where the past, the present, and the future all collapsed into one moment.

Mia: Like I felt like I was just living in the timelessness or something. I mean, whatever. it's an, it's like, there's a term for it. I thought this is so remarkable. Like, what is this? And I just thought, you know, there needs to be, there needs to just be more people need to just do these substances more smart people.

Mia: And then we'll just get more things going. Yes,

Raad: With you. I agree with you. I think with like a LSD in particular, I find with, um, with mushrooms, a lot of my friends take mushrooms casually. And for me, mushrooms are always work. I can't seem to like. Lap, but with LSD though, that's the one I'm like, holy shit. It's like all it's all pure. So it's kind of nice.

Raad: It helps me, decouple from like the emotional stuff, which sometimes I think we need, it's like, you know, better not to [00:30:00] always ruminate in that, but I agree with you, I think like, um, I loved your analogy of like being in the elevator stuck with a bunch of people and everybody's like stuck in their heads Pretending to not see anyone else in the elevator and then it on LSD.

Raad: That's like that's kind of absurd It's the most hilariously uncomfortable thing possible, right? Um, I'm curious In terms of, again, like coming back to the root of the conversation, grief, you lost your mom when you were seven, so fairly young when you started doing psychedelic, and I mean, you alluded to the fact that, you know, you were, you didn't feel confident.

Raad: That's what took you to modeling and then sort of like psychology, I'm assuming there's sort of like a line of inquiry that you were um, questing for.how did psychedelics and experience with psychedelic and these medicines inform. What you might have experienced back in the day, like, did it help you process that particular event in a different way?

Raad: what did you see?[00:31:00] 

Mia: Very much. So because I could, I like, psychedelics kind of make you meditate on life. You just get to slow down, especially if you're living a very fast life where you're always doing a million things in the, at the moment and you pride yourself on that. Psychedelics make you sit and think and meditate on what just fricking happened.

Mia: So that's kind of nice. And then I would say that, like, for example, um, yeah, I started to, the biggest realization was that. And I told my grandmother this, um, the past year about psychedelics because I wanted her to know that I had taken psychedelics and the benefits that they had given me so as to kind of educate her as well being of the silent generation. So I thought that would be cool. And I told her that I, when I took psychedelics, when I first started taking psychedelics and I just had a few big journeys, I [00:32:00] was of the mind that I was studying psychology to figure out everyone else. Like, everyone else needs to be figured out, you know, they do stupid things, they do nonsensical things.

Mia: Other people, just, what are they doing? And when I took psychedelics, I realized my own work to do, my own absurdities, my own idiosyncrasies, hypocrisies, contradictions, and also not to be, eventually, too tough on myself. Because, hey! We're all on this journey in this life, school, earth thing. So, I thought, when I was studying psychology, that I was put on this planet to figure out other people.

Mia: How other people are. And then psychedelics helped me realize that, nope, figure out yourself first at least. Start there. Seek to, um, seek to understand before being understood. Or something, no. yes, exactly. Um, and that was really, it was a really powerful moment because I think that has really defined my [00:33:00] character and why I'm so keen on personal growth and just sort of realizing that the more I take responsibility in my life, the happier I will be, there will be a cleansing period and that will be really tough.

Mia: It's really tough to look at your mistakes. It's really tough to look at how you've wronged others or how you've You know, yeah, just deceived yourself, deceived the world. Um, but awareness is the first step and it's like the, yeah, the truth will set you free, but first it will definitely piss you off. So psychedelics, they do that may help you.

Raad: What were, what was the most, glaring absurdity that you recognized about ? That you recognize it by yourself?

Mia: Yeah, I think, um, I think it was thinking, yeah, I really want to say this is that as a child. When you're confronted with the idea of death, I would say, before you understand what [00:34:00] life even means, like losing my mom at age seven, the most existentially anxiety inducing realization was realizing, eventually, later on in life, that no, I didn't do anything to make mommy mad, I didn't make mommy sad, I didn't push her away.

Mia: I had to realize there is a very complicated, but also simple and very humane set of voices. That develop inner criticism that culminate into depression that people ruminate on and when left unchecked, when overblown, you know, can lead to major depressive disorder. And it's something I don't have the chance.

Mia: I don't have the opportunity to interview her to really understand her. And even if I did, I still wouldn't understand her experience of life, her mental illness, her decisions. [00:35:00] With the cards that she was dealt in life is something I will never understand, but I am almost uniquely the closest person to understanding her in that being her only child, her daughter.

Mia: And I would say that under like understanding that, which is that I will never understand her, but also I could understand her more than anybody else. So I, and I also being human, it's just, I under like, I can understand her almost. Really just easily, was a really mind popping idea. And I would say that was an absurdity, to realize how I integrated her death in a really unhealthy way, because I was seven, and my understanding of the world was very egocentric.

Mia: And to sort of realize that, um, all of my attachment anxieties or attachment insecurities growing up resulted from that. So like seeking [00:36:00] people that left me feeling in a way where I was comforted by her loss. In this really odd ways that I had, that I did a lot of journaling on, trust me, but, um, realizing that, you know, there, there's, I had to process the grief in an adult way, in a grown up way, as opposed to from an egocentric way that kind of stunted my healthy understanding of people's psychology.

Raad: It's interesting. Um, I haven't experienced grief the way you have. Um, I've experienced grief in other ways, but I think one of the ever present feeling that I had growing up was a sense of alienation because I was this, on one hand, very social, on the other hand, very extremely private. And I felt misunderstood a lot of my life.

Raad: And I think that kind of like alienation or maybe grief, even, it sharpens your focus and filter about what is in [00:37:00] the essence of people, right? On one hand, I felt I understood underdogs really well. I was deeply empathetic towards people suffering. On the other hand, though, it could be egocentric because you're like, all right, I kind of know who you are.

Raad: Fuck off like done. Um, and so like, there's this interesting, I think, um, paradigm, Between like, on one hand, it sharpens the focus, helps you understand people. On the other hand. It's too focused and you start to like, you stop zooming out and rather see the things, see humanity, society, communities for what it is.

Raad: And you start to see only individuals. So I find really interesting what you're saying. Um, I'm curious if somebody was going through what you had gone through when you were seven, what would you say to them? To, to them now? Knowing what you know about grief and knowing what you know about somebody who has experienced suffering like that.

Mia: So this is actually, I thought, something I thought about, [00:38:00] um, about a year ago. Because I realized that after this book comes out, what I would love to do is to set up a children's charity, um, later on in life, where I teach children or I help facilitate in the assistance of children who have specifically gone through trauma, um, being separated from their parents, being orphaned, et cetera.

Mia: Um, That has, that kind of fundamentally grows them up. Like it, it challenges them. It puts them on an express lane to being an adult because they go through adult things as a child and bringing them into a children's charity where not only, you know, assist in any sort of reading, writing comprehension, but also get any works of theirs published so that people can hear the voices of traumatized children and understand that.

Mia: Children should not be neglected when they have a traumatized voice inside of them, because they've gone through something very adult as a child. And so that's a [00:39:00] really big passion of mine. And I would say that if, for example, someone walked in or, you know, my own child or something went through something, um, yeah, I would, I mean, I think what I would do is like, I'm a big kid at heart and I love kids.

Mia: I absolutely adore working with children and I do volunteer with children these days. Um, you know, I would, I think the greatest gift I could give them would be to be with them to let them know that, you know, what they went through, um, what their, what they went through, what they have gone through is, not, it doesn't like make them, A horrible person it doesn't make them wrong.

Mia: It doesn't make them bad. They didn't deserve thatbut like they are okay, like They are in no way troubled or like i'm not going to project pity onto them um, and I think also what I would do is I would believe in them. I would believe in them so ardently. Like if they came to me and they said, I want to [00:40:00] levitate on top of this chair.

Mia: I'd say, you know, if you put your mind to it, I bet you really could. You know, I bet like, you know, they came to me and said, Hey, I want to be the first female, whatever. I want to be the first, you know, Indian, so such and such. I'd be like, you can do it. Like you, you say it, you plan for it, you work for it, you can do it.

Mia: Like I already can see it in you. The gift of believing in a child is the biggest gift my dad ever gave me and it's made all the difference. So just believing in a child, believing they can truly do anything. Like it seriously sets their world apart. Like it sets them up for absolute success and it costs zero

Raad: So I hope people understand that when they're budgeting how to have children.

Raad: I agree. I think being a good parent nowadays is really tough. Um,what do you notice as, um, you know, you touched on this before and we're going to talk about this. What do you notice as the difference between [00:41:00] cultures, different communities, um, and how they process, um, or think about grief. Um, and now we can talk about the orientation being like industrial west to more ancient east.

Raad: Um, but I also want to include in this religion, right? I think, and religion, not just sort of in the monotheistic religions, but I mean, conservative look on religion, you know, heaven and hell, what it is, the role of God and so on. Um, what have you noticed in all the people that you've worked with that are working with now?

Raad: where's the key? What is the key difference and what is the challenge for most people?

Mia: Yeah, well, I'm not the authority or expert on this, cause there are several experts to go to in terms of comparative religion studies and also, um, death doulas and such, you probably know a lot about this, but what I can say is that, [00:42:00] you know, I say the West in terms of greatest help to learn how to grieve in healthy ways, because I think what I'm going to pull in here too is the meaning crisis.

Mia: Um, when John Verbeke and others talk about the meaning crisis, they are talking about it with spiritual roots. They are talking about it with religious roots, even if that's a bad word to some people because meaning does come from believing in something that may not be sensed yet. You may not feel it, see it, taste it, or touch it yet, but that shouldn't be a problem if you have faith.

Mia: if you have belief in

Raad: It is not only the Elon Musks of the world to believe in something that doesn't exist as some sort of radical, amazing, visionary entrepreneur. Anyone can be a visionary. You believe in something that isn't there yet, you have a vision. So lead that vision. I would say that, [00:43:00] um, in terms of going off of that and going into meaning, I would say when there is a meaning crisis positive in the West, it's because there is a severe fragmentation of belief systems in the West.

Mia: And I would say one of those things I talk about on my platform is the shopping mentality or the Western shopping mentality. So this is the belief that. You know, you can just like try little sample sizes of different beliefs and paths. Like, Oh, I'm just going to try have a pass in a meditation. And then I'm going to dabble over here and get into.

Mia: You know conscious connected breath work, but then i'm going to go over here and try a little bit of tantra And while this is great in terms of a tasting menu for spiritual faiths the um, you know people might Scratch their heads and wonder, you know, why things in their life might not adding up for them because, might [00:44:00] not be adding up for them because They are not really sticking to a path.

Mia: they are not humbling themselves and disciplining themselves To one way and this is something you will commonly see in Tibet in India people like they are adhering themselves to one way ardently Maybe they keep an open mind. Maybe they don't I think an open mind is a great gift But I think when you have too much of an open mind I will repeat something that I hear in the psychedelic space where if you because psychedelics inherently they do open your mind But if you already Take a lot of psychedelics, and you might arguably abuse psychedelic use with a pre existing open mind, then you risk your brains falling out.

Mia: It's a serious risk. and by that I just mean like you sometimes you're just running in a million different directions. There's nothing being accomplished. You're just [00:45:00] Constantly running in circles. There's no strategy. And whether you're playing a video game or you're approaching, you know, a deadline at work, there needs to be a strategy.

Mia: There needs to be a linearity to things. There needs to be some sort of path followed. And so when I can, when I talk about, you know, East versus West in terms of how different cultures go like handle grief, I more so appreciate a culture, even if I don't understand why they have different bardos for different sorts of deaths.

Mia: For example, there's a whole different bardo that you go through in Tibetan Buddhism. If you commit suicide, then if you're killed by, you know, suicide. like a car crash, and, um, and I may not understand if I see in India certain death rituals there, but at least there is one. I say at least there is a death ritual, at [00:46:00] least there is some sort of ritual, some sort of procession, some sort of thing.

Mia: Um, I mean, there are probably, there are definitely cultures that are more inspirational than others, you know, I don't know if, um, I don't know. The, I don't know if head hunting pygmies are your type of thing that you even want to be educating people about. But I would say that it's important to Celebrate, people, honor people's memory, respect people that you've lost in a way where there is something to it.

Mia: Because if you repress it, if you pretend like it didn't happen, if you just don't talk about it, then that's like a sexless culture. If you don't talk about sex, how are you ever going to learn about birth control? What you like, what you don't like, what keeps you feeling safe? You know, um, how far you could really take the spirituality of sex, for example, as just another way of looking at [00:47:00] grief.

Mia: So I went into a lot of different directions there, but hopefully I made my point.

Raad: No, yeah, no, you made it very well, and I, there's so much to reflect on. I like the analogy with sex, right? Um, in the West, we are obsessed with sex, but we can't talk about it. You can't describe it. It's like, you know, here, we've legitimized violence and shooting babies, but here, don't talk about sex.

Raad: Don't talk about, you know, smoking or doing drugs and shit. This is so absurd. Um, I'd argue that even headhunting pygmies have some sort of supernatural architecture to what their belief around passage, right? it might not be it might not be for the average person, but I'm pretty sure they have something Um, I really take your point well about I think the meaning making crisis at the crux of it, right?

Raad: And there's so much here a part of the issue could always also be like I think in the west Maybe in the East, like, I'm from Bangladesh, like, multi generational homes are [00:48:00] very common, you know? You live with your mom and dad, you live with your parents, maybe you live with your grandparents, you live with your uncles and stuff like that, in the same building, on the same apartment, same house, and so on.

Raad: Here in the West, it's okay, you're too old, you're retired, put them in a retirement home, right? Discard them. Out of view, out of sight, right? And that's sort of, um, it completely breaks somebody's experience of what it's like to age and maybe age gracefully, right? It's just how life happens, right?

Raad: It's just us being mortals. Um, that's part of it. I feel like as well, you touched on this sort of, Oh my God, there's so many bliss junkies in psychedelics. Like, I think like they've gotten glued to the idea of doing a drug or a substance and they become like, Chasing light at the blissful experience rather than, and I don't know who coined this term, but you know, there's like ecstasy and then there's laundry.

Raad: Most of life is just laundry. You know, it's not going to be ecstasy. Um, and it's, but I'll, you know, underpinning all that is the meaning crisis, so I really appreciate you bringing that up. Um, [00:49:00] as we sort of go into the last stage of the podcast, I am, I want to come back to sort of what you're working on now and your life as an author and your soon to be released book.

Raad: One question I have for, you know, perhaps the difference between, being a writer and author and also laundry and not ecstasy, right? Which is how do you become a disciplined writer, right? You're going to be an author. You can write a book. How do you do that day in, day out? How do you. What do you tell yourself?

Raad: How do you become disciplined in your thinking so that you have an output that you have a cohesive philosophy that you're trying to imbue in the, in your readers?

Mia: Well, something that I mean, I could regurgitate obviously lots of advice around, you know, just right or no, do research or do morning pages, which I've done and which have really helped me, of course, um, But I would say also, if you are like, I know that I'm going to write a [00:50:00] book in my life, I just don't know on what, then here's where you start.

Mia: Write out your life story. So, for me, I was told in a women's group by two good friends. One of mine, one of my good friends, she's a Southeast Asian relationship coach. And the other one, um, Is, um, much like me. Um, she is a South African, um, coach as well, actually. And so they both said to me, Mia, just write your life story.

Mia: And I thought, okay. And they said, have you ever done that? And I said, no. And they said, well, that's where you start because. The book will fruit out of that. Like, it will just, it will almost appear to you. And I thought, okay, I'm willing to try that out. And so I did. And it took six months, because every Sunday I would write a bit more.

Mia: And so sometimes, like some months, I was just writing all about adolescence and what that was like. Sometimes we're [00:51:00] very cheerful to reflect on, and sometimes, like, being in college and being stressed, or, you know, when, like, my grandfather passed away, you know, those were very stressful things to write about.

Mia: And sometimes writing about that and saying to yourself, Mia, you're going to write about that whole thing and how it happened, and you're just going to do that, even if you don't put any of this in your book. You're doing it for The book. And so I did that and it sometimes it just took me out. I would spend days where I would just be in a cloud because of reflecting on that.

Mia: But it's very important. It's almost like, yeah, doing a 10 day silent retreat meditation because you reflect, you contemplate, you think about what just happened and you remember that you in fact did that. So it was very important to do. It's a very important place to start, I think, if you're a writer and you're like,what am I supposed to be writing?

Mia: Like, you know, God speak through me, make me a vessel. Like [00:52:00] what am I supposed to be doing with my life on this planet? Um, yeah, write out your life story and the book will just appear. You'll be like, this is of course the next step for my journey.

Raad: I appreciate you sharing that process. As a parting thought, what is your Advice, suggestion, recommendation, perspective, or unique vantage point, let's say, as a person who's experienced profound grief, um, a woman, a human being, to anyone who is currently going through grief, and I think the world is in absolute chaos, you know, um, or somebody who's experienced grief or is going through grief, um, because of more acute events, or let's just say somebody who is, charting their next chapter in their life.

Raad: And saying goodbye, like you said, between the hello and goodbye stage, what, what perspective do you have, or do you, what would you like to share?[00:53:00] 

Mia: Great question. I would say that, I mean, it's very easy to feel isolated in the world right now. Um, when you look at the news and news, of course, always wins in terms of what is important for us to focus on. You know, we're seeing again, of course, the tensions between Israel and Palestine again. And this is a fight that may never end.

Mia: It literally will just be the eternal parental divorce situation. And so I think in many ways we are lost and we are isolated because we are, we're not just in tune with, like, we're not just out of sync with, you know, potentially other people like our immediate family, friends. Um, I think in many ways, like we could be out of sync with ourselves, our purpose, our mission, our meaning, um, and in many ways, like our own spirituality.

Mia: So our [00:54:00] own sense of spirit, soul, um, you know, what we, the energy of us. And so I think it's important to bring us back into self, um, self awareness so that we can tune back into our mission and our meaning and our purpose. And I think that will, like, that would be, that will be the saving grace for people.

Mia: So the more people can just, the more people can, whatever grief stage they're at in life about anything, about everything, the more they can focus on the mission, their meaning, their purpose, it will shock and amaze them how quickly they can move on through things. They can move through intense grief, intense, constant shocks of trauma responses.

Mia: When they focus on their mission, their meaning, and their purpose. When you have that, you have your North Star, you keep going, um, you know, mountains can become molehills, in that sense.[00:55:00] 

Raad: Beautifully said. Yeah, thank you so much for joining us and really spending the last hour with us.

Mia: Of course, thanks for having me on, it was a pleasure to talk about all these things that I love to talk about.

Raad: Good luck with the book. We're looking forward to hearing more about it.