Month: May 2021

Most of my clients are not in a hurry to get over their grief. They cannot conceive of not hurting for the loss of their loved one.

Occasionally I see clients who just want to get over their grief. And they expect me to have some strategies to give them to get over it quickly.

Here are some reasons why you can’t just will yourself to get over it.

1.YOUR MOTIVATION IS BASED ON FEAR.

It is scary losing someone you love, especially if your financial security was reliant on that person. It is so incredibly scary. How are you going to survive financially?

There may be pressure to get back to work or find work quickly to help with the finances.

Grief makes it difficult to do those things. Not impossible, just difficult.

2.YOU ARE WORRIED ABOUT “MAKING A SCENE” BY CRYING AT WORK.

A lot of people talk to me about the fear of crying in front of others. There is such a taboo in our society about people crying that losing control of your emotions in public can be terrifying.

3.YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE ON A ROLLERCOASTER OF EMOTIONS.

You feel like it because you are.

Grief results in so many different emotions. There is no control over them and no predictability, particularly in the early days of grief.

Neurologically there is a very good reason why you are experiencing so many emotions. Your brain is working really hard to build new neural pathways and erase old ones.

4.YOU FIND IT DIFFICULT TO FOCUS AND CONCENTRATE ON TASKS.

Your brain is to blame for this one. As mentioned above, it is very busy.

5.THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS YOU HAVE TO ORGANISE AND DECISIONS YOU HAVE TO MAKE.

You are trying to do this while experiencing that rollercoaster of emotions and finding it difficult to concentrate.

You try really hard but focusing on making those decisions is just not working.

Or you make a decision and regret it later.

6.YOU HAVE TO ALLOW YOURSELF TIME TO GRIEVE.

The quickest way to get over that grief is to give yourself time and space to grieve.

The more you force getting over it, the longer it will take.

7.YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN SEE A COUNSELLOR WHO WILL GIVE YOU STRATEGIES TO GET OVER YOUR GRIEF.

There are counsellors out there who will tell you they can do that, but there are no strategies.

If you come to see me and discuss this one with me, I will ask you for more information on what is happening for you and what “getting over it” looks like.

I am more likely to tell you to give yourself permission to have bad days, and good days. To give yourself permission to want to spend the day in bed or go to work.

I might add here that many people who rush back to work regret that decision later. Because in the early days they are not in a position to cope with work.

I can teach you ways to deal with a particular issue, but there is no strategy to “get over” grief.

8.FINALLY, THE DEATH OF YOUR LOVED ONE WAS TRAUMATIC AND YOU ARE DESPERATE TO FORGET THAT TRAUMA.

I don’t blame you for wanting to forget that. Traumatic events are things we avoid not look forward to.

Counselling and debriefing is essential. Not just as a one off but as a few sessions to allow yourself time to process the trauma.

You will not be able to process your grief until you process your trauma.

All the will in the world cannot force your brain and body to get over grief quickly. You may force yourself by running and running, but sooner or later you will come crashing down.

Seek counselling and stick with it. You need help processing all that has happened.

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief, especially traumatic grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

When you are hurting from trauma, whether recent or in your childhood, your focus is often on what you can’t do, or what you do that you consider bad. There is rarely any focus on your strengths.

But to survive and be able to function, even for a little while, you have strengths.

What if you were to stop and consider your strengths? Right now.

I have a pack of strength cards I often use with people and myself. I find it useful to draw a card and consider how that strength manifests in my life. Other people find that useful too.

Here are 5 strengths that I drew before I started writing.

How do these strengths help you on your healing journey?

1. ENTHUSIASM

It may not seem much. But your enthusiasm for the world gives you the motivation to get moving each day.

We all have enthusiasm. But sometimes life hides it from us.

How can you find that enthusiasm today?

Look at the things you do that you enjoy, or feel pride in. It is enthusiasm that allows you to do those things. It may be getting out of bed in the morning, going out for a walk, talking to someone. It may be painting some furniture, painting a picture, dancing to a tune you love.

Find something that you enjoy or feel pride in achieving. What does that feel like? What do you notice in your body when you do that, or think about having done it? What thoughts are in your mind?

Those feelings in your body and thoughts in your mind are what enthusiasm feels like for you. Maybe you only feel them slightly. You will not always feel the same level of enthusiasm every time you use this strength.

What are things you can do that will amplify that feeling?

Enthusiasm allows you to do things. It can pull you out of the drowning overwhelm of trauma memories. It can show you how to move forward in life and heal.

2. PATIENT

Healing from trauma takes a long time. It is easy to get fed up and want to rush things. But healing can not be rushed.

Patience is your greatest strength when you are fed up with the way trauma derails your plans and throws you off balance.

Allow patience to soothe you.

Allow patience to lead you to reflect on the many ways you have made progress in your trauma healing.

Draw strength from that progress.

3. ENCOURAGING

Encouragement is a very important strength in your healing journey.

It is encouragement that allows you to identify the progress you have made when you reflect patiently on your healing.

It is encouragement that soothes the hurt parts of you.

It is encouragement that shows you that the things you have done in reaction to your trauma are not as catastrophic as you think.

It is encouragement that positively reflects on your progress and keeps your enthusiasm in your healing journey high.

4. HOPEFUL

This gentle strength is a truly rare and valuable gem.

Hope allows you to continue to believe that you can and are healing.

Hope underpins enthusiasm, patience and encouragement.

Hope keeps you alive, keeps you moving forward, gives you the encouragement to try again.

Never lost hope, it keeps you alive.

5. DIFFERENT.

You are a unique individual.

You will never be the same as other people.

You are different.

That is a great strength.

The trauma you have suffered has given you strengths that are incredibly valuable. Those strengths keep you going and allow you to heal.

Celebrate those things that make you different.

See the beauty in your difference.

Know how special you being different makes you.

There will be days when you are massively triggered by life and feel you are drowning and overwhelmed.
But know that those are the days to look after you and seek a place of safety.
Allow your strengths to minister to you on those days.
On the good days, your strengths will allow you to make progress on your healing journey.

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your healing journey, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

I get a lot of people who come to see me expecting me to have a magic wand I can just wave and make life instantly better.

Sadly, that is not how life works.

It is not how therapy works.

That is not how grief works.

What I can promise you is that I will walk beside you on your journey.

I will listen to you.

I will not give you advice.

I will show you empathy.

I will not tell you it is time to “get over it”.

I will teach you coping skills, but they will be genuine skills, not some flashy suggestion to do a particular thing and ignore your feelings.

I will teach you to listen to your intuition.

To grieve in your own way, at your own pace.

To understand it is normal to find it hard to cope. It is normal to struggle. It is normal to forget things. It is normal to think you are going mad.

There is no fast track through grief.

The more you try to push your feelings down and force yourself to “get over it”, the longer it will take and the greater will be your suffering.

Yes I can help you.

I can teach you very effective coping skills.

But you will have to work, there is no quick fix.

You will have to be patient.

But if you allow me to help you there is much you can learn and grow.

If it has been six months or more since your bereavement and you live on the Sunshine Coast, you may like to take part in Demeter’s Journey. This 6 week workshop will take you on a journey through your grief. You will learn the many ways people grieve, ways to remember your loved one, some coping strategies, your own strengths, and how to move on with life while maintaining the bond to your loved one. You will also have the chance to tell your story in a supportive environment and hear the stories of others who are grieving. This course will run on Tuesdays and is due to start at the end of May/early June. Please contact me if you would like to be part of this.

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief or to take part in the workshop, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

Much of your resilience comes from the way you are able to manage when your brain and body react to stress and throw you into a fight/flight/freeze/fawn response.

The stress response has little conscious control, most of it is below your level of awareness. But there are things you can do once you learn to identify the signs your stress response has activated.

It is worthwhile learning to pay attention to your body.

What are you noticing about it?

How do your hands feel? Are they hot or cold? Are you clenching your hands, moving your fingers or anything else you notice?

What about your feet? Are they hot or cold? Are you tapping them, or clenching them or do they tingle? Anything else you notice?

What about your legs? Your arms? Are you aware of them being hot or cold? Are you aware of any movement in them? Do you feel any tingling or pain or any other sensation?

Observe your trunk. Are there any feelings in your tummy, or back, or public region? What about your breathing? Does your heart feel like it is pounding? Is there tension anywhere?

Pay attention to your neck. Is it tight? Do you feel you are drawing your shoulders up towards your ears? Do your shoulders feel stiff? Do you feel like you have something on your back?

What about your face? Your head? Is there any tension there? Particularly notice your jaw, that is a favourite area to carry tension. Does your forehead feel tight or hot?

It is really helpful to form a picture of what your body does when you are under stress or feeling panicky.

Observe any thoughts you are aware of. Maybe you can identify some words or statements running through your thoughts. Maybe you have a sense of something scary, or something bad. Maybe you have a sense of being incompetent or a failure. The list is endless.

Over time, you can learn to watch out for these sensations and thoughts and spot the signs of a fight/flight/freeze/fawn response when it is about to start, or in its early stages before it starts.

Here are three things you can do when you become aware of this response:

1. Breathe.

That may sound patronising. How many times have you been told glibly to “just breathe” but the right type of breathing is helpful.

When you are in a fight/flight/freeze/fawn response your breathing becomes shallow and you breathe in the top of your chest. This sends messages to your brain that keep you in this stress response.

What you need to do is to focus on slowing and deepening your breath.

This may not be easy, but the more you do it the easier it will get.

Consciously breathe in so that you feel your stomach rise. Try to breath to the slow count of 4 to ensure you take in a slow enough breath.

You will notice the sensation of breathing more in one part of your body. It may be in your nose, your throat, your chest or belly. Pay attention to that part of your body as you breathe.

Focus on a deep breath in to the count of 4, holding for 4 and then breathing out for 4. It can be helpful to breathe out through your mouth and in through your nose. This allows you to focus better on the breathing and increases its effectiveness. Notice all the time the sensation of the breath entering and leaving your body, and notice the sensation of it sitting in your body.

Focus on these sensations and say thank you to your breathe for keeping you alive.

2. Sigh Deeply.

Sighing releases tension and helps reset your nervous system. Research has shown a deep sigh helps to calm the stress response in your body.

To do the sigh, breathe in fully to the count of 4, hold for the count of 7, then sigh out the breath to the count of 8. This helps calm your nervous system down.

Sighing is a great tension reliever and worth using when you need to.

3. Touch

When your nervous system puts you in a fight/flight/freeze/fawn state it puts you into a state of fear. You lose the sense of being safe, of being able to trust your own ability to be safe. Touch that is safe helps to release oxytocin. This is an antidote to Cortisol, the hormone we release in response to stress.

Touch is often referred to as our Mammalian Defence System because it is present in Mammals and is our first go to response when we feel threatened.

All mammals automatically reach out to others for comfort. It is only when you can’t get that comfort that the fight/flight/freeze/fawn response is activated.

You can use touch to bring yourself out of your stress response.

Touch, being close to others, and making eye contact with others gives you the message that you are safe and everything is okay.

Touch can involve a hug, a touch on the arm or hand.

If there is no-one there to touch you, you can touch yourself. Wrapping your arms around yourself, touching your cheek, putting your hand over your heart, holding your arm are ways people frequently use to get that touch. You can do that too.

So next time you find yourself falling into a flight/fight/freeze/fawn response pay attention to what is happening in your body so that you can be more aware in future of the signs this is about to happen.

Breathe, Sigh and Touch as well.

The better you get at noticing when you are falling into the stress response the better you will get at calming it down or preventing it.

The better you get at practising Breathe, Sigh and Touch the quicker you will be able to calm down and the more control you will have over your reaction to stress.

You will find you can increase your resilience in the face of stressful events.

You may find counselling helpful to process trauma that is triggering your stress response. You may also find counselling helpful to learn how to put Breathe, Sigh and Touch into practice.

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with this, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

My blog today is personal. It is about losing a friend. And a mother. And finding time to grieve.

It is a situation we are all likely to face in life. Maybe you have faced it already. Maybe that is yet to come.

Last week a dear friend died. Her children, living on the other side of the ditch, jumped on a plane to see her and got to spend the last day of her life with her.

Her funeral was organised three days after her death. The children flew home late the following day.

There were several things about my friend’s passing and funeral that I wanted to share and talk about.

I thought of the children racing to get to Australia to say goodbye to their mother. Leaving their own children behind to make the dash to see their mother. They lived a long way away. Communication was often tricky and relationships were not always ideal. But at the end, they rushed to her side and spent time with her. A precious gift from them to her and for them also.

Many years ago I remember another friend trying to get from a remote Asian island to Australia to be with her dying mother. She left her children at home and just took her youngest, a baby, with her. The Aian airline system at the time was in disarray. It took her three days flying from place to place, baby in tow, before she was able to connect with a plane to Australia. She was able to spend a few precious hours with her mother before she passed.

I too made a journey many years ago from Europe to Australia to be with my dying mother. I left my family in Europe to make the lonely trip back.

The long journey you have no control over is a time of great anxiety. Will mum still be alive when I get there? Those who have had to get on a plane and desperately dash to be beside their dying parent can relate to that fear and anxiety.

The next stress is being so far away from your own children and home. Having to stay in strange places and negotiate systems that may not be familiar to you. In the case of my friend the systems were totally unfamiliar to her children.

Because my friend’s children had to return home and there was no other family here in Australia, they had to pack up her house in the few days they had after her death. They needed to empty the house to hand it back to the landlord.

These young adults didn’t even have time to grieve for their mother. They could take time out for the funeral, then they had to get back to packing up the house. They had no time to sit with what had happened. To sit with their mother’s belongings.

They had to work day and night to pack them up to dispose of them. They had to identify important documents, sentimental things and what was to go. They had to find where to send all that to.

On top of all that, it was Mother’s Day and they were hours away from their own children.

When my mother died, it was Mother’s Day and I was on the other side of the world from my own children. Mother’s Day is forever linked to memories of my mother’s death. It will be the same for my friend’s children.

When someone you love dies you do what you have to do. Often that involves having to put aside your own grief, the shock and disbelief, the devastation, to attend to the tasks of living. That usually means the funeral, the clearing of the house, all with a deadline.

The tasks you have to attend to after a loved one’s death don’t allow you time to sit with your grief.

So what do you do? You do what you have to and then you take time to be. Make time to be. Just be with the loss. You need to allow yourself time to feel and process this. There is plenty of time later to get on with life. But once you have attended to the immediate post death tasks, the time is right to feel and process.

What about losing a friend?

I miss her so much. We had busy lives and didn’t see each other much. But we always knew the other was there. We could arrange coffee together, or send each other messages. Now that will never happen again.

I was so shocked when I heard she had died. I was out and not in a place where I could just sit and cry and be with the news. So later in the day I took time out to just sit and paint. This is my favourite way to process my emotions. To honour what has happened. My favourite medium is water colour.

I made time to go to her funeral with a mutual friend. We were so glad we went. It was so special to say goodbye. We could have skyped the funeral, but going in person felt so much more important. We were lucky we could go.

I sat down that evening and painted again.

Then I travelled again to my friend’s house to bring home all her books to find homes for them. Being in her house. Feeling her there. Bringing her books into my home. I felt she was still there. I was still holding on to her.

Today I knew it was time to let her go. So I had a small smoking ceremony to release her and I painted another painting.

I will always miss my friend. I have such dear memories of her. I know from experience that it was important to honour her in my way. It was important to sit with my feelings and allow them to be there. It was important to honour those feelings, which I did with my paintings.

People have other ways to do that. My dear friend’s children are going to have to find time to sit with their feelings. To honour them. To process them. They will do that in their own unique way.

I am sure that every Mother’s Day I will remember my mother’s passing and my dear friend. And there will be many more paintings.