Sheryle Baker lost her brother when she was sixteen after watching him live with a devastating illness throughout his childhood. That early experience of loss led her to train with pioneering psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and, eventually, to more than three decades of helping people navigate trauma, illness, death, and devastating grief.
Now, living with multiple myeloma, Sheryle is confronting mortality from the other side of the room.
In this deeply personal conversation, she shares what a lifetime of midwifing others through loss and suffering has taught her: we don't have to carry someone else's suffering in order to love them; we can't fix another person's pain; presence and silence can be healing; and caring for others requires withdrawing our own projections.
We talk about grief, resilience, intuition, spiritual practice, unfinished business, and how grief, when it is allowed to run its course, can give way to love.
Guest Bio: Sheryle R. Baker, M.A., LMHC, served 33 years as Executive Director of The LIFE Center of the Suncoast in Tampa, Florida. She trained under Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, is certified in EMDR and Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), and pioneered art-based grief counseling for children — the practice behind the two stories in this episode.
Sheryle’s 2015 Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITw_Dh4W9eM
The Life Center of the Sun Coast: https://www.thelifecenterofthesuncoast.com/
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome: A Lifetime Holding Space for Others' Suffering
00:53 Growing Up in the Shadow of a Sick Sibling
06:28 Navigating Childhood Trauma and Grief
07:37 "Get the Dying Over With": The Night Ira Died
11:54 The Power of Music and Art in Healing
15:34 Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and the Art of Being Present
18:08 "Don't Bring Your Baggage into the Room of a Person who is Dying or Ill"
20:59 Let Your Intuitive Gut Feeling Guide You
24:21 Healing Through Art: What Children Intuitively Know
28:10 Being a Grief Midwife: 33 Years at the Life Center of the Suncoast
31:39 The Will to Heal
37:38 The Uniqueness of Each Loss and "Good Grief"
40:38 Inner Work for Caregivers: Sufi Teachings, Buddhist Sangha, and Support Groups
43:03 Living with Multiple Myeloma: "May I Complete the Work I am Meant to Do Here"
48:24 Hoping for a Good Death & Looking Forward to the Next Adventure
49:40 "Suffering is burning through whatever one carries"
52:27 The Physiological and Psychological Readiness to Heal
57:38 Grief is Experienced as Love...
59:21 Beginnings from Endings: Life After Loss
Intro and outro music by Benjamin Bigelow
