November 2021 – PLC Blog

3 ways to avoid buying too much at Christmas

We are at that time of the year when we think of Christmas.

Christmas is a time of year that brings up many emotions. It can be difficult emotionally. Issues that you can ignore at other times of the year often surface at Christmas time.

Additionally, if you have people to give presents to, there is the purchasing of presents to complete.

If you eat at home, or go somewhere and take food with you, then there is the purchasing of food items.

Everywhere you go there are amazing displays and temptations to buy. Whether it is amazing gifts or tempting food items, there is always the call to spend.

This happens in person and online.

Of course in the middle of this there are also the calls to buy things for yourself.

It is very easy to go online and click, click, click or go into a shop and fill your trolley or arms with gifts.

Neurologically we notice what is novel or different. This is a mechanism to keep us safe. It ensure we notice the things that are different in case those things are dangerous. This feature of our brains trips us up when shopping as we are more likely to notice what is different and novel and be tempted to buy it.

All this push to spend is made worse when old traumas surface as Christmas approaches. Many people find buying things to be very comforting. It is a form of addiction and addiction exists to soothe and calm. This belief is bolstered by advertising that sends the message that happiness is found in buying. Unless you want a houseful of novel items or fantastic specials on household goods (and there is no limit to the number of sheets and towels you can buy, right?) then this buying is unhelpful.

What can you do?

Use Mindfulness as an ally and helpful tool:

• Recognise the pain of past hurts and trauma. Use a simple soothing meditation to assist you in calming the hurt part of you. In my next Thursday blog I will include a simple meditation. If it is difficult to manage the pain then see a trauma informed counsellor.

• Set an intention to only buy what fits within your budget and list.

• Set a budget of how much you will spend on each person and be strict with it.

• Write a list of what you want to buy and stick to it.

When you find yourself looking at an item and wanting to buy it, ask yourself these questions:

Do I really need this item? Is my brain hooked on its novelty or the advertising campaign around it?
Is my desire to buy this item a deep need that wants my attention. This is where you can check in with yourself and ask what desire you have that you think buying this item will fulfil. Are you seeking love, connection, acceptance or to fill a childhood need? If you answer yes to any of this, stop and acknowledge the need and offer your wounded part compassion and understanding. Reassure that part it does not need that item anymore.
Now ask yourself what will happen if you buy the item. Will you need to take money out of your present budget, which means someone else will miss out on a present? Will you instead spend money you have been saving for something else? Will you use the item and what will you use it for? Is this item good value for money? The question list is endless.

Whatever you decide, you need to be happy with your decisions.

It is also helpful to get help from a counsellor who is trained in trauma therapy and understands the issues around the pain of past hurts and traumas. I have training in trauma therapy and understand the pain.

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your hurts and trauma, 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

Is my grief normal?

Many people come to see me because they are concerned they are not grieving properly. Many are told by family and friends that they should be over the grief by now and worry that their family and friends are right.

So what is considered “normal”?

It is normal to grieve a loss.

Grief is the emotional suffering you feel when someone or something you love is taken away. That pain can be overwhelming.

The emotional pain you experience can be mixed and not what you might expect to feel.

You may feel shock, anger, disbelief, relief, guilt, devastated, extremely sad, numbness, denial, despair, anxiety, loneliness, depression, helplessness and yearning.

You may feel overwhelming feelings and thoughts as well as physical sensations and behaviours you don’t normally experience.

Your progression through grief may not look like someone else’s progression through grief. But that doesn’t mean your grief experience is wrong, or that someone else’s grief experience is wrong. There are many different ways to grieve.

Basically, when you are grieving you will come to a point where you can:

• Accept the reality of your loss

• Allow yourself to experience the pain of your loss

• Adjust to the new reality in which who or what you have lost is no longer present

• Allow yourself to have other relationships.

All these things will take different amounts of time for different people and will be experienced at different intensities by different people.

You will reach a point when you find yourself interested in life again and are able to think of the one you love without a more manageable pain.

Sometimes the act of grieving becomes stuck and the person is known as suffering from prolonged grief, sometimes also known as complicated or persistent grief.

The definition of prolonged grief is that is must be at least 6-12 months after the loss of a loved one and be longer than the expectation of the society and culture to which the person belongs.

Such a person will still have a persistent longing for and preoccupation with the lost loved one that has not diminished with time. This longing will be accompanied by intense unrelenting emotional pain and will significantly impair the person’s daily function.

It is considered the person will have certain areas where they are emotionally stuck. These include:

• Sadness

• Guilt

• Anger

• Denial

• Difficulty accepting the death

• Feeling one has lost part of one’s emotional self,

• Emotional numbness, difficulty engaging with social or other activities

The person may not feel they have moved forward at all. They may feel stuck in the same pain they experienced immediately after the loss of their loved one.

This person may be unable to shake the sadness of their experience. They may be caught up in wishful thinking (If only …). They may still think and dream incessantly of the person who has died. They feel great pain related to the loss of their loved one.

They may find life is without meaning and find themselves unsure of where they fit into life anymore. They may even wish they had died with their loved one.

If you are concerned you, or someone you care about, is suffering prolonged grief then it is important to see a grief counsellor in order to work through those stuck points and release them.

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

Ambiguous Loss – how do you work with it?

There are many losses in life that are frequently overlooked as losses.

One is having a child with an intellectual disability. The loss of anticipated outcomes for that child is frequently unnoticed or unacknowledged. The same applies if someone you love suffers from an acquired brain injury, or a much loved parent gets dementia. In those situations you are grieving the loss of the person while they are still there.

This is an ambiguous loss.

Another ambiguous loss is when a loved one goes missing. You don’t know where they are or, in some cases, if they are alive. You may know your loved one is dead but no body has been found. You may wonder if they are alive or whether you should grieve their death. Again the loss is ambiguous.

When someone you love is a drug addict, or suffers from a severe mental illness, you can also experience ambiguous loss.

Ambiguous loss is often described as occurring when the person is physically present but psychologically absent, or physically absent but psychologically present.

The trouble with ambiguous loss is that people put their lives on hold as a result of the loss. If your parent with dementia dies, then you have a funeral and can say goodbye. But if the body of your parent is still there, but the personality that made them who they were is gone then you have suffered a loss of that parent. You can’t grieve them, because they are still there, but you suffer grief because they are not your parent anymore.

The same thing happens when someone you love is missing. They are not there, but you don’t know what has happened to them. They may eventually re-enter your life. You don’t know. So you can’t mourn.

This situation makes ambiguous loss traumatic. There is no resolution of this loss, no way to end it. If someone dies you have a funeral and you learn to move forward. With ambiguous loss there is no moving forward. That person is always in your life, either physically in the case of the parent with dementia, or psychologically in the case of the missing person.

Grief never stops when it is ambiguous. The torture of the person’s condition goes on day after day. You have lost the person you know but they are still there. Or the person you know is lost but still there in your mind because you don’t know where they are.

Research on the experiences of people whose loved one is physically present, but psychologically absent report feeling stressed, that life is chaotic and very confused. They feel sad, angry, frightened and can experience guilt and feelings of powerlessness. They are also likely to report feeling anxious about the future. Not surprisingly they will also report feeling physically depleted. Many report feeling that they are in a living nightmare that doesn’t stop. They reach out to friends for support. Initially that support is present, but over time friends drift away as they tire of providing support for an ongoing crisis that never ends. This results in the person often feeling unsupported and isolated.

Unfortunately, that person is very likely to be diagnosed as depressed, rather than suffering an ambiguous loss.

When someone is physically absent but psychologically present it is difficult for families to move on. Even when the evidence suggests the person is dead, without a body there is still a possibility they are alive. It is also difficult in that there are many unanswered questions about how the person has died. There is no sense of being able to make sense of a death where the circumstances surrounding the death and manner of death are never answered.

Part of the process of Grief is making meaning in the loved one’s death. How do you do that when you don’t know if they are dead? And if it is likely they died, you don’t know what happened. Eventually the grieving family members come to the conclusion their loved one is dead and they will never see their body. Then they have to construct their own meaning and truth around the death. The trouble with ambiguity is that a person’s grief process and cognition become frozen by the uncertainty and the processes that are needed to construct this meaning are blocked.

It is worth noting that this type of ambiguous loss occurs when a loved one has been kidnapped, or when people have been involved in a traumatic war or genocide event such as has happened in Syria, Rwanda, Cambodia and the Holocaust. It also happens when a loved one dies overseas and the body is never returned home. This was particularly common after the World Wars when the loved one was buried overseas, or was listed as missing. Another cause of ambiguous loss is where a family member is caught up in a religious cult, or caught up in a coercive control relationship where contact with the family is lost.

It is important to remember that your feelings are valid. You are grieving. Grief is normal. For you, grieving an ambiguous loss is more difficult than a more usual type of loss. There is no certainty, whether the one you love is missing or whether they are dying day by day from dementia. There is no death certificate, no funeral or memorial service. There is often nothing tangible to grieve. What you have lost and continue to lose every day is something other people cannot see.

Did you know that research has shown people suffering ambiguous loss feel incompetent, guilty and uncertain? That their sense of certainty in this world and their ability to cope with it is shattered. That it is common to feel helpless and confused?

One of the hardest, but most important tasks, of ambiguous loss is to work to change what you can and accept what you cannot. One of the hardest things to do is learn to be at peace with not knowing all the answers.

It is hard to deal with ambiguous loss on your own. This is where a grief trained counsellor is helpful.

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