Thread by @ThyConsigliori

1) Don't you love it when you wake up in the morning, and the sun is practically shouting a warm and wonderful hello at you? I sure do! It makes me feel like all will be well, which I truly do believe. I hope you do too.

2) Funny, stepping on our porch to take that picture just now, I also saw that our Hello Fresh box was there, evidently had been overnight, from yesterday, Thursday. It's supposed to come on Wednesdays and my wife @KateScopelliti was worried it might not come. But here it is!

3) I've liked our Hello Fresh service for, oh, about a year or so now, maybe a bit more. Isn't it amazing how a crisis like the one we're in changes how you feel? It kind of goes from like to love. I was simply thrilled to see that box and bring it in. Kate will be so happy!

3) Kate's been working for the past two days to log in a pickup order at Walmart, but couldn't get a time. Last night, just before we went to bed, she got one, at 12:00 - 1:00 on Saturday. Again, the joy was no less than thrilling. Funny, isn't it? How strange but wonderful.

4) In our discussion, yesterday, we talked about the power of a strange, foreign virus to cause uncontrollable fear and panic. And, we talked about the fact that in the end, the threat is pneumonia, something we know well. Something I personally know well.

5) Normalizing this new disease is one of our most important objectives. I'll say it again, our economy has Coronavirus. It has entered and changed our world. Then there was a report last night that, evidently, the population at greatest risk is those with diabetes. Me!

6) Poor Kate. I try to comfort her. I work on my immune system everyday. My body knows what pneumonia is, and I simply do not fear it. I am very cautious, indeed. But I just can't be afraid. We will all die sometime, and that includes me. I just say, not today.

7) What I believe you can observe in my words, here, in what I share, is that I am completely at the stage of acceptance. I am in no denial at all. Forgive the bragging, and believe it or not, I state all this with all the humility in my soul. I am so grateful to be alive.

8) I'm 59, now, but was literally scared out of my head at age 30 when I was struck by pneumonia. I did not know if I would live or die. At the time, I had a 6 year old son, and a 1 year old son. I was not sure I'd see them grow up and become men. I have. I am so grateful.

9) And that brings us, finally, to today's topic. In our conversation yesterday we discussed the path from denial to acceptance over this damnable virus from afar. It has, as I have repeated, it has to become a new normal for us. We must learn to accept it, but not surrender.

10) This path from denial to acceptance has a name. It is something that many people deny, which is kind of funny, since denial is the first of its five stages. It is called the Cycle of Grieving and was discovered by Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. We are wrong to deny it.

11) They turned off our economy. No matter how many times the thought goes through my head, I still can't really believe it. That means that, for all my profound acceptance, I'm still somewhat in the stage of denial. They turned off our economy. Who knew that could even happen?

12) What that tells you is that the loss is so vast, the pain is so great, that my mind is not capable of fully comprehending the truth. I raise my metaphorical arms in front of my face and say no, it isn't so, it cannot be so. Yet, it is. This is the universal response to loss.

13) The power of loss, its greatest power, is when your mind could not have imagined the loss until it occurs. My own first experience of loss was when, at not quite 12, my beloved grandfather, for whom I am named, died. I didn't know that could happen.

Here, now, I didn't know that the greatest economy in the history of the world could be turned off, just shut down. Boom. Gone. I am in shock. I am still in denial. I am not quite done denying this yet. How can this be? My mind is a bit too small to handle these thoughts.

15) That's what Dr. Kubler-Ross noted is the universal response to loss. The first thing we do is enter the stage of denial. She worked with patients who had received a terminal diagnosis, and she also counseled their families. Looming loss.

16) If I recall it right, her stages were:

1) Denial
2) Anger
3) Bargaining
4) Depression
5) Acceptance

I consider this to be one of the greatest discoveries in the history of the field of psychology. We must all learn the meaning of her work.

17) In college, although I did not graduate, I studied history and psychology. In psychology, Sigmund Freud was my guy. Still is. I am a true Freudian, and damned proud of it. In my daily work, I employ the lessons of Freudian Psychology each and every day.

18) I won't say Freud missed Dr. KR's discovery. Rather, I say he empowered it. Here we just need two of his terms, the Conscious and the Unconscious Mind. Grief and grieving tend to be a bit more unconscious than conscious. We don't know we're grieving when we are, often.

19) Dr. KR's structure opens up a path downward, from the conscious mind, into the unconscious, empowering us to come to understand what we're going through, as we are. Here, I need to speak about American culture, and what we may call the American Mindset.

20) Not only do we tend to deny our grief, we're just not good at talking about our emotions. Like, hardly at all. Funny thing, we're geniuses of discussing others' emotions. That's called gossip and damn if we're not brilliant at it! We are amazingly awesome gossipers.

21) The basis of this great might of ours is that we always know what others are really feeling when they themselves do not. We know who's being faithful to his wife, and who's cheating every chance he gets. We know why his loving wife is so blind. And we talk about it!

22) In gossip, we discuss the hidden emotions, and actual motivations that others have. Now, catch someone, alone, and ask him about his own feelings and get...most often...just about nothing. We suck at talking about our own emotions. That too is America.

23) But in the face of loss, the option to NOT talk about our emotions kind of disappears. Go to any funeral. You will hear about how much love the beloved deceased engendered. And, you will hear about regret that that love was not expressed fully. Do you see?

24) I can't walk you through the significance, the cycle, the steps involved in full grieving here in today's thread. Perhaps my son Nico and I must do a podcast episode on the topic. Maybe we'll call it The Emotions Of Business. Or, maybe the Hidden Emotions of Business.

25) I can, however, share my own slightly altered version of Dr. KR's model, and apply it to where we are as a nation right now. Here are my own slightly reordered and slightly renamed 5 stages:

1) Denial
2) Bargaining
3) Rage
4) Despair
5) Acceptance

26) I've renamed Anger to Rage, and Depression to Despair. It's not really all that important. I just prefer the very most intense versions of emotions. Anger and Depression are fine terms, and important. Mine are, as I said, simply, I believe, a bit more intense.

27) I have also flipped out Anger from stage 2, and Bargaining from stage 3. Here's why. I consider Bargaining as completely necessary before we can actually feel our loss. We negotiate with it. My grandfather's not really gone, my denial states. I still have his name.

28) Yeah, you still have his name, my soul responds, but you'll never get to speak to him again. And, all those stories you should have forced him to tell you in his broken English, yeah, that's not gonna happen now. My grandfather never told me a single story of his life.

29) 11, almost 12 years old I realized that and I wept. I wept and wept. At his wake - all three nights of it - I stayed outside the funeral home. I didn't want to see his corpse. I wanted to remember him alive. Until my grandmother in her wisdom made me come in on the 3rd night.

30) I was bargaining. If I didn't see his corpse, I would only remember him alive. My grandmother in her native Italian wisdom knew I needed to see the corpse. I will always be grateful to her for that as long as I live. She made me come in, and give up my denial.

31) So, for me, it is bargaining that follows denial, and precedes rage. Why couldn't I have spent more time with my grandfather? Why did I never ask him so much as a single question? I never did. My still 11 year old self can't quite ever forgive myself for not asking.

32) I'm still angry about that. I have my reasons. I embrace all emotions, and judge none as negative. Anger is, I propose, a good thing, not bad. My 11 year old rage is still there in my soul. I do not relinquish or deny it. I treasure it. A warrior must have his rage.

33) Until we realize our loss, out of the bargaining, and not being able to bargain our loss away, we don't know how to be angry over what cannot be regained. There's a logic there. Once you truly know you can't speak to your grandfather ever again, you know how to rage.

34) And once you realize that no bargaining can cover your loss, and once your anger rages through and still can't affect the loss, then the sadness sets in. Please follow. Sadness is not bad. Sadness is good. None of us want to be sad. But this world does not allow that.

35) Cut back to America today. We are sad. We are grieving our loss. Our economy has been shut off. Who knew it could even happen? Certainly not me. Will we ever come back? Will we ever be quite so happy as we were before? How could it be, we despair.

36) We must allow our despair it full sway. When I despair, I do not fight it. I surrender. Why? Because I know that until despair has passed through me, and burnt me with its force and heat, I will never find my way to acceptance. Despair must be completed.

37) Of course I fear the collapse of the entire food supply chain. I fear that America will never rise again. My fear is as great as anyone's. I cower and quiver and shake in my fear. I am no superman. I do despair. Ah! But I never believe a damned thing I think when despairing.

38) What I've learned is this. Despair is merely fool's lead. Acceptance is the wise man's gold. Until we pass through the field of our despair, we cannot mine our fields of the gold of acceptance. It is in acceptance that wisdom is born.

39) After I understood my grandfather's passing I made a vow and one that I've never broken from then till now. If I have a question I ask it. If a person as a story I need to know, I discover their story, no matter their resistance to tell it. I am a consultant. I ask questions.

40) So that's my guidance for today. Grieve. We have lost something. Discover the loss and grieve it. But as a warrior, I say, don't quite let go the rage. When you accept what's going on, still be pissed off. I am. I won't stop. I demand retribution.