She had been married nearly 50 years, having married in her teens. It was a very long and seemingly happy marriage.
One day her husband told her he had never loved her.
He left.
She was devastated.
The Impact of a Relationship Ending
It is unlikely what he said was true, but so often I hear one of a couple tell their partner the same thing. It is as if in the moment they don’t love the person any more so it becomes “I never loved you”.
This woman had worked hard all her adult life. She was approaching retirement. They had been planning all the things they would do. Now all that was over.
She was facing retirement and old age on her own without the man who had been part of her life for almost 50 years.
Relationship Ending Cause Grief Too
And there was the pain.
He didn’t part amicably. It was nasty and messy. He left and ignored her. The only contact was through lawyers.
The Pain of Rejection
How do you recover when someone you have spent all your adult life with is gone?
It is hard enough when they die. But when their departure is due to them not wanting to be with you anymore that is excruciatingly painful.
It is an incredible rejection.
She had moulded herself to be the other half of a couple. They had a lifetime of memories together. The children they shared, the places they had lived, the pets they had over the years. Everything was a tattered wreck.
How Counselling Helped Her
The woman who walked into my room was shattered. She was stripped of self confidence, self esteem, self worth and sense of self. She was deeply grieving the loss of her future, her plans, her dreams.
But she was resilient. After a few sessions where she was able to express all her anger, devastation, fear and the desire to get him back, she began to realise how resilient she was.
She determined to reclaim her life. And to reclaim it as it related to her. Not as half a couple but as an individual.
Retelling Your Life Story
To do this she decided to tell her life story. Prior to this point she had been telling it as half of a couple. Now she told it as a single person.
She told and retold and retold the story.
She kept telling it until she was able to develop a fresh sense of self.
Finding Who You Are in the Retelling
With that newfound sense of self she was able to hold a fresh perspective on her life. With this perspective and her renewed sense of self she was able to find purpose and meaning in her life to date and in her life moving forward.
This may sound extreme, but we all tell and retell our life stories. Every time you relate to someone else the hurtful things in your past, or the great things in your past, you are telling your story.
What this woman did was look at her life story from a different perspective. She looked at is from the perspective of being an individual.
You can do this too, not just with your stories of loss, but with anything in your life.
Can I Help?
When you are in the depths of grief and rejection, it can be hard to find your story to tell and retell from a new perspective. At those times it can be helpful to see a specialist grief counsellor.
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your loss and rejection, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful 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
Do you need other people to validate the things you do?
Do you need the approval of others?
Do you find it hard making decisions for yourself?
Do you find it hard feeling self-reliant?
Do you find it hard to regulate your emotions?
Are you really hard on yourself?
Do you feel you have little or no worth?
Do you do things to numb your emotional pain?
Are you frightened of rejection and abandonment?
Do you feel you are stuck in angry mode?
Do you find it hard to feel joy or peace?
Do you find it hard to get close to other people?
Do you feel lonely and seek out others to compensate for your loneliness?
Do you feel lost, misunderstood or that you don’t fit in and others are judging you for that?
Do you frequently feel anxious or depressed?
Are you frightened of social situations and fear being rejected.
Do you feel others judge you as not being good enough?
Do you feel empowered in your life?
How childhood experiences can impact you as an adult
Did you know that trauma in childhood has a significant impact on your self-worth?
If your sense of safety and belonging in childhood was damaged you are likely to have developed skills to keep you safe in that situation. As you grew up you may never have unlearned those skills, so they trap you in patterns that don’t serve you in adulthood.
Also, poor attachment between your parents and you puts you at risk of suffering from loneliness in adulthood.
Traumatic experiences in your childhood disrupt how you see your self as a person and affect your ability to regulate your emotions. All this impacts on the quality of the interpersonal relationships you have later in life.
My parents didn’t physically or sexually abuse me. I can’t have suffered trauma.
It can be hard to understand you have been traumatised in childhood. The usual picture of trauma is that of being hit or sexually abused. But trauma covers much more than just that. In fact, the worst traumas are emotional and psychological.
Neglect
Neglect is a trauma that is often overlooked. With neglect the child’s physical and emotional needs are frequently overlooked. It may involve not receiving regular meals, not having clean clothes to wear, not having your emotional needs for comfort and support met. A parent who rarely interacts or shows an interest in you is also neglectful.
Neglectful parents are also unlikely to be there to teach you skills of emotional regulation. They may not teach you how to wash yourself, how often to change your clothes.
It is unlikely a neglectful parent will see you and spend time connecting to you. This is known as attunement. A child who is not seen is a child who is not safe. Not being safe is extremely traumatic.
The clear message in this situation is that you have no worth or value. After all, you are not worth having any time or attention given to you.
Narcissistic Parent
Narcissistic parents are also very destructive of a child’s sense of self-worth.
Such a parent depends on the child to make them feel good. The child gets positive attention when they do things that serve the parent. The trouble is, there are no clear guidelines as to what the child needs to do to serve the parent. Consequently, the child lives life second guessing the parent in order to feel that the parent will care for them and they will be safe.
Narcissistic parents will also often shame their children in front of others. They will expect their child to meet their needs, to do things to make them proud. They will never teach their child any skills that will equip them for adulthood and self-reliance.
Narcissistic parents will often hold the child close to serve their needs. They want the child to stay dependent on them because the child is there to serve their needs and that is why they had them.
One classic example is of a woman who would take her child to school. The child would happily run into the classroom and greet her friends. The mother would call her back and make a fuss of her, stating it was okay for mummy to leave now and she would be okay. The child would go back to her friends and be happily talking with them. Again, the mother would call her back. This would continue until the child’s resolve was broken and she would wail and beg her mother not to leave her.
A narcissistic parent is one of the most destructive types of parent and sentence their children to mental poor health and a dependence on validation from others in adulthood.
Complex PTSD and Borderline personality disorder
These conditions develop because of chronic trauma experienced in childhood. The type of trauma most associated with these conditions is emotional abuse and invalidation. It can happen if you are neglected or have a narcissistic parent. It can also happen from other types of abuse and invalidation.
Sometimes parents are not aware that their behaviour towards their children is invalidating and can be surprised when their child develops this disorder in adulthood.
When a parent is emotionally abusive or invalidating during a child’s early years it impacts on the child’s sense of self and the child can struggle to have a strong sense of self.
You may develop self-defeating attitudes and beliefs around yourself and the trustworthiness of the world.
When raised in such an environment it is also difficult to learn to regulate your emotions. This is often due to your parents being unable to regulate their emotions. How can you teach another person how to regulate their emotions if you can’t do it yourself.
For this reason, I encourage people who had difficult childhoods to seek counselling from a trauma trained professional before having children. Many parents who were emotionally abused as children are determined their own children will never have to go through that. But sometimes things your children do can trigger reactions in you that you can’t control and don’t like doing. If you find raising your children triggers behaviours you struggle to control then seek counselling. Seeking help makes you a good parent.
Unstable and intense relationships
If you find that any type of relationship you have with others tends to be intense and over time unstable then you may be experiencing the impacts of chronic trauma in childhood. Sometimes these relationships happen because you are uncomfortable being alone and seek out anyone who looks willing to be in a relationship with you. This can result in you unconsciously choosing the wrong type of person to have a relationship with.
Sometimes when you are in a relationship you can sabotage it by clinging to the person and unwittingly pushing them away.
I think you are the best, I hate you patterns
Another impact of childhood trauma can be seen in meeting someone new and idealising them. This continues for some time then you start devaluing them and finding things wrong with them.
You are too hard on yourself
One of the saddest impacts of childhood trauma is the lack of self-worth and lack of self-compassion.
It is not surprising that children develop these beliefs. When a parent is abusive, or expects you to jump over hoops to gain their approval, the natural response is to believe this is because you are a bad person. If your parent constantly tells you that you are bad then this belief is reinforced.
The reality is that a child is just a child learning how to live life. There is no inherent badness in a child. Sadly a child doesn’t know that. Shame becomes a big part of the life of an abused child.
Ways to dull the pain
If you never learned how to regulate your emotions, and you believe you are a bad person, then you feel great pain that you don’t know how to soothe.
Many people turn to behaviours that numb the pain. These behaviours may be dangerous. A good example of this is children who steal cars then drive them dangerously at high speed. The risk and dangers inherent in this activity help to suppress their pain.
Other things people do include addictions such as substance abuse, smoking or vaping, gambling, compulsive shopping, sex addiction, exercise addiction and eating disorders.
I am lonely
If you don’t feel you are worth anything then you may not feel you are likeable. The result is that you may avoid getting close to others so that they can’t reject you.
Getting close to another person means exposing yourself to the rejection of your parents. If they rejected you, then other people will too.
When you do form relationships with others you may be frightened of expressing your needs or asking for help because your parents failed to meet those needs when you were a child. So you may feel even lonelier because you can’t turn to someone for help.
Many people who suffered trauma in childhood report feeling lonely.
Depression and Anxiety
It is very common for someone traumatised as a child to be anxious. Your childhood was an anxious time of never being sure when you would receive support, or whether you may be abused. Abusers are rarely predictable so hypervigilance was an essential part of childhood.
Hypervigilance leads to anxiety. There is the need to be constantly on your guard because you never know what is going to happen in the next minute. You never know when things will suddenly become dangerous and frightening.
When you grow up and things become safer the fear doesn’t go away because your brain has developed neural pathways that constantly scan for danger. This is why anxiety is a constant companion of the traumatised child.
Depression is another consequence of this type of childhood. Many people report feeling depressed from childhood. The sense of not being good enough, the lack of self-worth, being emotionally worn down with anxiety and fear, the rejection and abandonment of parents and the sense of never being safe all contribute to feeling overwhelmed and hopeless and lead into depression.
I constantly feel on edge
The environment of neglect and emotional abuse is a highly stressful environment. Children in this situation are being impacted regularly by the release of stress hormones in the body. This has an impact on the developing brain and will often result in an adult who is highly sensitive to stress hormones.
The result is that your brain is in a constant state of defending yourself. In other words the fight/flight/freeze response.
It is very difficult to cope with life if your brain is constantly seeing danger and you spend a lot of time with your brain taking over your life and deciding whether you are to fight, run away, or freeze.
When this defence mechanism takes over, your thinking brain switches off. You can’t control your reactions. Sadly, very few people understand this and you may find yourself judged when you get stuck in this defence response.
It is for this reason that it is important to seek counselling from a qualified trauma counsellor.
Can I Help?
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your childhood trauma, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful 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
In life you will meet a lot of people. Some will matter very much to you but the relationships will end, or will become more distant.
Examples of this include someone you were once in love with, a family member you lost contact with, a close friend who grew distant when the two of you moved in different directions.
When a relationship ends there is an initial grief for that relationship. But grieving for that relationship does not mean you are not going to grieve again when that person dies. In fact, you are more likely to grieve again over their death.
Denying your right to grieve
The difficulty is in other people recognising your grief, or considering you have the right to grieve.
This type of grief is known as disenfranchised grief. It is a denial of your right to grieve.
The idea of disenfranchised grief is grounded in the concept of human dignity. It is a recognition of human attachment and the needs of individuals to grieve for those they love when they die. For some people, others actively deny them the right to grieve for the one they love. An example is that of an estranged family member who is denied by the rest of the family the right to be at the funeral or say goodbye to the person they love.
For others there may be an assumption by those around them that they wouldn’t feel grief at this person’s death. An example of that is of the ex-partner who moved on from the relationship but still holds love for the person. Many assume that once a relationship is over there is no love there, but that is not true in most cases.
Other ways grief is disenfranchised.
For people in non traditional relationships, grief may be disenfranchised.
In the past people in same sex relationships were often disenfranchised in their grief. Those having extra-marital relationships are also often disenfranchised. Other people may have a close bond with someone that other people do not realise exists. This may happen with a work colleague or a friend.
The loss is not recognised as a loss
If people don’t consider you have lost anything then your grief becomes disenfranchised. This happens frequently with miscarriages, still births, abortions, deaths of companion animals, someone you love being brain damaged or suffering from dementia.
You are not capable of grieving
The belief that you are not capable of grieving happens particularly with children. The old belief that children are resilient fails to acknowledge the impact loss has on a child at any age.
This can also happen with elderly people, especially those with dementia, and those with intellectual disabilities.
The way your loved one died
In this type of loss people may judge the one who has died and consider their death was deserved or not worth grieving over. This can occur with suicide, death from a stigmatised disease, death from overdose, or death due to recklessness – as in a car accident where the person was the one at fault.
Grieving differently to other’s expectations
If your style of grieving does not match what other people expect you to show you may be judged by others and your grief discounted. You may be shut down in your way of grieving which acts to disenfranchise you from being able to grieve.
In many cultures there are different ways of grieving. Being able to observe those rituals is important. If you are denied that then your grief becomes disenfranchised.
When people expect you to “be over it now” that also disenfranchises your grief.
Respect for those who are grieving
It is important to respect those who are grieving and to respect their suffering and their right to suffer.
In grieving there is a drive to experience your suffering. There is also an ability to thrive and live meaningfully after your loss. Allowing you to grieve in your own way to allow your natural resilience to guide you through the difficulties of grief. I will explain this more further in the blog.
Resilience is driven by hope and the potential within you to live meaningfully again. When you are not allowed to grieve at your own pace in your own way it hinders your natural resilience.
The lack of understanding around grief
When other people fail to understand and appreciate what you are living through they are more likely to interfere in your grief. This interference often destroys your natural grief.
People can be well meaning in the way they respond to grief but it can be the wrong approach. When my grandfather died I was staying with my brother, 4 hours drive from home. We were particularly close to my grandfather and could have comforted each other upon learning of his death. Unfortunately my mother decided to let us know individually after I had returned home. She was concerned I wouldn’t be able to drive home safely. My grandfather had died two days earlier so I would have had two days to be with my brother so we could both process our grief together. My brother, who lived on his own and was a single teacher in a one teacher school, found out when there was no one in the house or his workplace to talk to. I arrived home, one hour before I had to go to my work as a registered nurse, and saw a message to ring my mother at her work. I was alone in the house and had no one to talk to either. I had to drive to work on my own so that wasn’t any safer. At work I was on the relieving roster so spent the evening working with people I didn’t know and with no one to talk to.
Both of us were disenfranchised from the grief at our grandfather’s death.
Unhelpful, disenfranchising comments
The following are a list of comments people on an online poll reported being told. In all cases they felt their grief was devalued and downplayed:
• When things like this happen, all you can do is give it time, wait it out.
• Eventually, you’ll get over this.
• I don’t see how his life can be worthwhile again. He’s lost the only thing that really mattered to him.
• Somehow it feels disloyal to laugh or try to be happy. I sometimes feel that I owe it to him to live in sorrow. What can I possibly have to look forward to? Response: The best thing is to try to put what happened behind you and get back to normal as soon as possible. Try to go on as if nothing has changed.
• There’s no point in looking for meaning in something like this. Suffering brings us face to face with absurdity. The best thing is to try to forget.
• You shouldn’t be looking for anything positive in this. There can’t be any such thing.
• Oh, that’s just a coincidence. You’re reading too much into what happened.
• I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that in some ways I seem to have grown from the death of my child. Response: Face reality. She is dead. You will have to fill her place with something else. Response: Everything she meant to you is undone.
• If you’re going to grieve, you have to let go completely. It is all about the heartache of goodbye. If you don’t let go, you are stuck in the past.
• Remembering adds to your pain and prolongs suffering. Spending so much time with memories can only bring you down. Let the past stay in the past.
• Don’t keep talking about her. You should be more focused on those who are still here.
You have to let go completely
One thing about the comments listed above is the message that you have to let go of the one who has gone. So often people feel they are not allowed to grieve their loved one. Instead, they are expected to push away all memories and thoughts of their loved one and stop being sad.
Much of this pressure comes from people who feel uncomfortable at another person’s pain. But how can you push away memories of the one you loved so much? Love doesn’t end just because the other person is dead. You will always love them. You will always feel grief and pain at their passing. You will learn how to live with it and you will even learn how to be happy again, but you will never forget.
Grief is constructive
Strange and profane as it may seem. Grief is constructive. It takes resilience to work through grief and find the capacity to thrive and find meaning in life again. It takes strength to face the pain and learn how to live with it. It takes drive to learn how to live again in a changed world. Grief is about experiencing the pain but still saying Yes to life. Saying yes to learning how to forge new patterns of living, find new narratives in life and learn to live in a way that honours you and allows you to live a meaningful life again.
The drive of the Soul
There are two major areas of the self that are worked on in grief. The first is the soul.
Many grief commentators refer to the soul as a drive within. This drive finds the ability to keep going, to find a reason to be living in the present.
The drive of the soul is one to connect to life and other people. It is this drive that leads you to love others and love life. This is the core of the strength and resilience that allows you to continue with life.
This soul drive pushes you on despite the pain. It drives you to reconnect despite the hole left in your world by the one who has gone. This drive pushes you back into life. It pushes you into life with the absence of your loved one.
The drive of the Spirit
The other area of the self is the Spirit.
This is another drive. This drive allows you to get through the acute phase of your grief. This drive allows you to move forward into the future. A future with more unknowns than you thought it may have held. Despite those unknowns, this drive gives you the strength and motivation to step forward and determine to survive and find a new way of living. It guides you to find meaning in your life again.
As with the soul drive, this drive is the core of the strength and resilience that allows you to continue with life.
This is your grief
You can be disenfranchised from grief in so many ways.
There are the losses where you are not recognised as having a right to grieve.
There are the losses where your are not recognised as having lost anything.
There are the losses where people believe you are not capable of grieving.
There are the losses where people judge the worth of the one who died.
There are the losses where you don’t grieve according to the belief of other people.
There are the pat statements that are unhelpful and deny your right to grieve.
There are so many more ways that grief can be disenfranchised.
But you have two drives within you that help you grieve and move forward into life again. The drive of the soul sustains you for the long haul. Alongside this the drive of the spirit helps you through the days of acute grief.
Sometimes you can get through your grief with those you can find to support you. Other times you might need the help of a grief counsellor.
Can I Help?
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful 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
As you try to come to terms with your grief it can feel so hard to do. Being able to verbalise what you are feeling and experiencing can be so difficult to accomplish that many people never process their grief to that depth.
Grief is complex, overwhelming and unsettling.
The 5 stages of death belief
Back in the 70s it was thought that grief was processed in a straight line. There was a five stage process that you went through in that order. According to this theory you were supposed to experience the stages of:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
Later an extra stage was added:
Meaning
This was a theory formed to describe the process of dying, not the process of grief.
So much harm was done to people who weren’t grieving according to the rigid stages structure. Even today, there are those who adhere to this long defunct theory.
The effects of grief are more complex than a simple linear theory.
The tasks of grieving
There have been many theories of death proposed since then. In many of the theories it was suggested there were “tasks” to be completed during the grieving process.
One of the most popular theories gives four tasks:
Accept the reality of the loss
Process the pain of grief
Adjust to a world without the one you lost
Find an enduring connection with the person in the midst of embarking on a new life.
The tasks in themselves aren’t wrong. But a rigid adherence to them is not helpful when you are grieving.
Oscillating between grief and life
More recently the Dual Process Model has become popular. In this theory you oscillate between loss oriented mode and restoration oriented mode. This model has great validity. You need to keep living so you do have to live in the real world and there are tasks of living you still need to do. Additionally you need to learn how to live in the world without the one you love. You also need to process the loss so you need to spend time and allow yourself to experience and accept the emotional pain of your loss.
But there is more to understanding grief than oscillating from loss and restoration.
Multidimensional Grief Theory
In 2023 a paper was released describing Multidimensional Grief Theory (MGT). This theory relates to children aged 7-18 who are grieving. According to the theory there are three dimensions of grief. They are:
• Separation Distress
• Existential/identity distress
• Circumstance-related distress
Although this is aimed at children, my reading of the theory is that it can be applied to adults as well.
Separation Distress
Separation distress is not just an emotional reaction. It also involves areas of the brain where attachments to other people form. When someone close dies, there is a time of that area of the brain removing and altering neural networks connected to that person.
The big issue with separation distress is finding a way to feel connected to the person you are grieving for, even when they are gone.
Existential and Identity exploration
Every time you lose a loved one, there is a period of redefining yourself. This happens because every person you are connected to helps you define who you are. When one person dies, especially if they were very important in your life, you have to redefine who you are.
Every loss is a challenge existentially. I have found this is greater when it is the first time you have encountered the death of someone you know.
The way they died
The last dimension of grief relates to the circumstances of that person’s death. How do you think and feel about the way they died? How do you learn to accept that?
These three dimensions of grief have a major impact on how well you process grief and incorporate it into your life.
The importance of understanding what is happening to you
You may wonder why I am giving you all this information.
It is important you understand what is happening to you. When people talk about you being in denial or anger you can understand this is an outmoded theory on dying that was misapplied to grief.
If someone talks to you about tasks you must complete you can understand what they are referring to.
You are more likely to hear about the dual process model if you visit me and I will explain how you sometimes are overwhelmed by grief and other times focused on daily tasks and learning to live after your loss.
As for MGT, I am also likely to discuss with you the impact on your brain of the separation from the one you love. I will also at some stage explore the existential and identity aspects of your loss. You may also want to talk about how your loved one died so I will most likely explore your perception of that with you.
To Summarise
Grief is a complicated journey. There is a lot to process and a lot of physical changes in your brain to be completed. You need to learn how to live in the world now they are gone. You need to learn who you are. You also need to process your feelings around the manner of their death. Sometimes you will want to talk, other times cry, and maybe other times process your feelings through expressive activities such as poetry, painting, sandplay, or journalling.
This journey takes time, so don’t rush it. Be okay for it to take as long as it needs to.
Can I Help?
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
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful 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
Something momentous has happened. Maybe you just got your dream job. Maybe you accomplished something you are proud of. Maybe you are feeling down. Maybe you just want to share your thoughts with another human being.
You talk to another person and they don’t respond as you want. Maybe they jump in with their own story, not even acknowledging yours. Maybe they rush to tell you how to sort the problem, when all you wanted was to be heard. Maybe they said something negative.
It is really hard when another person doesn’t listen.
What you want is for someone else to hold the space for you. To honour you in that moment. To see you. To really listen actively by focusing on your and respecting you enough to pay attention to what you are saying.
Sharing your story is a bid for connection. People make these bids all the time. But those bids are often ignored. When that happens you can feel invisible.
It is really important to give other people time and space to express themselves. And it is really important other people give you that time and space as well.
It is easy when chatting with another person to get caught up in telling your own story, just as they can find they get caught up in telling their story and now hearing your own.
Sometimes you just need to listen. At other times the other person needs to listen.
When you are having a conversation with another person, try to put thoughts about how you might reply out of your mind and just focus on what they are saying. Give them empathy and love because that is usually what they are seeking.
It is important to honour others with your presence.
It is also important that others honour you with their presence.
A good friendship has give and take. Sometimes you listen and hold the space for them. Other times they listen and hold the space for you.
If you find your friend is always expecting you to hold the space and never holds the space for you then maybe it is time to find another friend.
Honour yourself and set healthy boundaries.
Hold the space for others, and expect them to hold the space for you as well.
If you have things going on in your life that you need to talk to with something and be heard, and you can’t find anyone to do that, you can see a counsellor.
Can I Help?
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you see me, I will listen, offer empathy and love, and help you make sense of your problem. I will never tell you what to do.
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful 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
Grief happens to everyone. Although it is always assumed to be about the death of a loved one, there is more to grief than bereavement.
Grief is about anything you lose.
It may be about getting older.
It may be about losing a job.
It may be about the end of a friendship or romantic relationship.
It may be about moving house.
It may be about being burgled.
It may be about losing your wallet.
It may be about leaving school.
It may be about the loss of your imagined future.
It may be about anything that involves losing something.
Below are 5 steps that are vital for healing.
1.Acknowledge that you have lost something important to you and that you are experiencing grief.
If you don’t recognise that you are experiencing a loss, you can’t process it properly. So much in life involves loss. If you can’t recognise it is a loss it makes it hard to move on in life and in time may hamper you from pursuing new life experiences.
2. Acknowledge your feelings and accept them.
Now that you have recognised you are experiencing grief, acknowledge that grief and accept that you are going to experience a range of emotions that are difficult and that is okay. Grief is most recognised as being sadness, but it can also be anger, guilt, numbness, confusion, irritability, forgetfulness, loss of faith in the world and people and more.
Allow yourself to grieve. It is not “just a wallet”, “just another birthday” or “there’ll be others” to name a few. It is something that you have lost and need to heal from. So be okay to grieve and process what you have lost.
Not acknowledging your grief and trying to avoid feeling the emotions has negative consequences in the future as the pain you were not allowed to process continues to bother you.
Remember that healing takes time, so don’t be impatient to heal, allow the healing to proceed at its own pace. You have the skills and the strength to heal. Remember, there will always be pain and sadness, but it will be easier to cope with.
3. Seek support from your friends and family.
One of the first questions I ask people who come to see me is who their support network are. Most people have at least one or two people they can talk to. If you don’t then counselling can help. There are also crisis lines such as Lifeline 13 11 14 and Griefline 1300845745 that you can talk to if you need one off support.
It is important to connect to people who will listen and be present for you. Sharing your feelings, being understood and offered words of care and support is important.
4. Self Care is vital.
Allow yourself space to grieve. You are worth taking time out to look after yourself. If you want to spend some quiet time processing your grief instead of going out with people then do that. On the other hand, if you want to go out with friends then do that. Give yourself time to engage in activities that bring you comfort, renewal and peace.
One of the things most people find helpful is getting into nature, even if it is sitting under a tree in a local park. The beach is also another wonderful place to be. Having a massage can be helpful too. Meditation can also help, especially after the initial intense grief period.
Allowing yourself time to cry and be sad is also important. As long as you have periods in between where you go out and interact with the world it is good to have time alone. If large numbers of people overwhelm you, just go out with one friends who you find comforting.
You may find getting involved in hobbies, exercise or social groups may help as well.
5. See a Grief Counsellor.
If you continue to find your grief overwhelming, it may be helpful to see a grief counsellor. A counsellor trained in treating Grief can help you to process your grief without the misinformation that is out in the community.
When I work with you I will help you to acknowledge and explore the many different feelings you are experiencing. I will guide you to seek understanding of what you have been through. I will assist you to find in that understanding new meaning in your life and new paths to walk on as you journey into the future.
Can I Help?
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with healing your grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful 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
Over the years I have worked with many people who are suicidal.
One thing I was introduced to early on in my suicide training was the concept of Hope.
What researchers have found is that Hope is a vital ingredient in survival. It is not possible to ask someone who has killed themself what was going through their mind at the time they took the actions to end their life. All researchers have been able to do is to ask people who took steps to kill themselves but survived. What researchers found was that people took the actions to end their lives when they had lost hope.
But hope does more than keep you from killing yourself. It also affects how you cope with life’s crises such as serious illnesses, bereavement, and financial reverses.
Hope is the first Dose
I was recently reading a book by W. Lee Warren “Hope is the First Dose: A Treatment Plan for Recovering from Trauma, Tragedy, and Other Massive Things”.
Dr Warren is a Brain surgeon who works with people who have Glioblastomas, a type of brain tumour.
He always struggled with how to help his patients as they struggled with this rarely survivable, aggressive cancer.
What Dr Warren did was to research how people manage with diagnoses of diseases that will never be cured. He observed his patients, and he researched as many papers on the subject as he could find.
What emerged was 4 patterns of response to the trauma. He named these responses Crashers, Dippers, Untouchables and Climbers.
Crashers
These are people who seem to have their life together. They have faith in life and are happy. Then something bad happens and they crash emotionally. This crash changes them permanently. Even if the event that caused them to crash and lose faith in life is resolved, they never recover from it. This event becomes the focal point of their world view.
When I work with people who have experienced a traumatic event, such as a bereavement or a serious illness in themself or someone close to them, I frequently notice they have lost their faith in life.
Traumatic events are devastating. They very effectively remove all sense of the certainty of life and of the world as a trustworthy place. It is not surprising that people can crash and not recover without professional help.
Dippers
Other people enjoy good lives and are doing well. Then when the traumatic event happens they lose their hope and faith in the world.
After some time they start to recover their hope and rebuild their faith in the world.
They learn how to bounce back, often with professional help.
Climbers
There are some people who are in a bad place when traumatic events happen. Maybe they are struggling to be mentally healthy. Maybe they have a chronic illness. Maybe they struggle with addiction. Maybe they are just not happy with their life.
Traumatic events are accepted as though that is just another horrible thing happening in life. What Dr Warren found was that the climbers would discover joy, hope and faith in the world. Sometimes they made this discovery on their own, other times the discovery was made after seeking professional help.
They would emerge from this event with a better outlook on life than before. For many their lives were transformed by this experience.
It is as though it gave them something tangible to work on and they were able to use skills they didn’t know they had to improve their outlook on life.
Untouchables
These are people who are seemingly unaffected by traumatic events. They just pick themselves up and get on with life. And they lead full, happy lives.
The Discovery about Survival
Dr Warren discovered that hope was the key in how people coped with traumatic events.
Those who held on to hope were the ones who coped well, even found life better afterwards.
From his observation, that holding on to hope depended on the ability to separate happiness from circumstances.
Gratitude
From my experience as a counsellor and in my own life, that ability is about gratitude. Being able to find things to be grateful for, no matter what is happening in life.
You can always find something to be grateful for, and that will change your perspective from one without hope to one with an abundance of hope.
Another aspect of holding on to hope is being able to accept the difficulties in life. It is about making a choice to see the traumatic events in life from a different perspective. To choose to heal.
This is what Dr Warren did when his own son died, and that is what you can do. It doesn’t change the traumatic events and their aftermath, but it does change your perception and willingness to heal.
Can I Help?
Sometimes it helps to talk to a counsellor to help you find that different perspective and to receive the support you need in difficult times.
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful 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 my mother died, I was living on the other side of the world.
I left my husband and children and flew across the world, not knowing if she would still be alive when I got there.
Losing my mother without the support network of my husband and children around me was hard. I felt completely isolated.
Everyone else involved in the process of her death had someone there for them. I felt very alone and without comfort.
After The Funeral
When I returned home I was isolated from those who knew my mother. Yes my husband knew her, but she was never interested in having a relationship with him so he wasn’t able to relate to my pain. My children were too young and, as my mother was not the grandmotherly type, had little relationship with her anyway.
I tried to communicate with my siblings long distance but they were just not interested in talking about her or sharing their feelings. I don’t even know if they were upset that she died.
My friends, especially one close friend, were supportive for a few days. Then life went on. And I was expected to be over it.
The Toll of Grief
Grief can demolish your life.
Grief can demolish your sense of who you are.
Grief can destroy your trust in a fair world.
Grief can fling you into the deepest, darkest pit.
Yet it is dismissed as if it doesn’t matter.
The Difficulties of Having Your Pain Taken Seriously
When I first learned my mother was dying I thought I would never get to see her again or attend the funeral. So many are in that position. I was lucky. The expat contract my husband worked under allowed for paid flights back home if a close relative died.
And then you fly home and life is expected to get back to normal.
Except it doesn’t.
After The Funeral
I see a lot of people who take time off work for the funeral but then find themselves incapable of getting back to work when their leave is up.
They can’t manage to function well enough to do anything.
Many report feeling totally without interest in life. They report experiencing brain fog. They feel numb. Many can’t sleep or eat. Many cry sometimes for hours at random times. Others experience severe anxiety, even panic attacks.
Grief Is Not Taken Seriously
A colleague once commented that if someone went to a doctor with these symptoms they would likely be diagnosed with depression and put on medications. They would also likely be given a lengthy medical certificate for work. Because it is grief, there is no such option.
Grief is not recognised as being something you can be signed off work for.
I remember feeling totally lost. I had no idea who I was. I worried I was mentally ill because I had no pleasure in life, in doing anything. I couldn’t focus enough to do anything. Sometimes I felt angry. Other times I found myself crying for no reason at all. I have always been an optimistic person but suddenly I lost all hope. The colour drained out of my world.
It was only years later when I attended a grief support group that I learned I was experiencing totally normal reactions to grief.
The Support Just Drops Away
Apart from the initial support when I returned home, there was never any more support. It was just as if “that’s over let’s get on with life”.
Years later I would feel inexplicably down and realise it was the date my mother died or her birthday.
Complicating Factors
So many people come to see me and report feeling life is just not worth continuing. In fact bereavement is a risk factor for suicide.
For some people their grief can be complicated by other factors. Lack of support is one of the biggest issues for people as they grieve.
For some people I see, the death of their loved one has left them financially devastated. Not only are they trying to work through the fog to grieve, but they are also having to try to navigate the financial mess they have been left. Trying to make decisions about finances at a time like this is virtually impossible.
Prolonged Grief Disorder
Most people will eventually be able to work through the pain and find a way to function and move forward with life. But occasionally people can’t do that. Sometimes people get stuck in their grief. Then it becomes prolonged grief.
Prolonged grief is a more complicated form of grief. It requires specialised treatment to help the person process their grief and find a way to continue with life. I am trained in working with Prolonged Grief Disorder.
You Are Normal
If you are grieving the loss of a loved one, please know it is absolutely normal to experience brain fog, numbness, inability to sleep or eat, or sleeping or eating too much. It is normal to cry a lot and at inconvenient times. It is also normal to be anxious. It is normal to wonder if life is worth living. It is normal to feel hopeless and that your life is devoid of colour.
It is normal to grieve. It is normal for that grief to last the rest of your life. It is normal for you to be able to function again and live your life again. It is normal for you to sometimes feel sad about what you have lost in the years ahead.
Find people who can support you. If you need to talk to someone more objective then seek counselling support. Expect to one day feel somewhat better, but don’t force yourself. It all takes time.
Can I Help?
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful 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 see a lot of people who have been involved in traumatic situations. One of the biggest fears they express is that they will develop PTSD as a result of the trauma.
What does PTSD look like?
I am including this information to demonstrate how complex PTSD is. People are often afraid they have PTSD but are actually just experiencing a normal reaction to a really traumatic situation.
This information is not to be used to self diagnose. If you are concerned it is best to see a professional who is experienced with PTSD and can make a correct diagnosis.
Formal diagnosis of PTSD includes experiencing at least one of each category of the following symptoms for at least a month:
Re-experiencing the trauma – at least one of these: • Flashbacks including reliving the event and experiencing physical symptoms of fear such as a rapid heart beat or sweating • Recurring memories or dreams of the event • Distressing thoughts about the event • Experiencing a rapid heart beat, sweating or other physical symptom of stress
Avoiding reminders of the trauma – at least one of these: • Avoiding places, events, objects or anything that reminds you of the trauma • Avoiding thoughts or feelings related to the traumatic event. • Changing routines to avoid anything that reminds you of the trauma
Symptoms of arousal or reactivity that have arisen or worsened since the event– at least one of these: • Easily startled • Feeling tense or on guard • Difficult concentrating • Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep • Feeling irritable, even having angry outbursts • Engaging in risky, reckless or destructive behaviour
Thoughts and mood symptoms – at least one of these: • Having trouble remembering parts or all of the trauma • Experiencing negative thoughts about yourself or the world • Feelings of blame directed at you or others that are exaggerated • Experiencing negative emotions that persist. These include fear, anger, guilt or shame. • Losing interest in enjoyable activities • Feeling socially isolated • Finding it hard to feel positive emotions such as happiness.
How likely is it that you will develop PTSD after a traumatic event?
More people recover from trauma than get PTSD.
Research has shown that previous trauma, especially in childhood, increases your likelihood of developing PTSD. But even that does not mean you will develop PTSD.
The Normal processing of trauma
Many people will report some memories of traumatic events for some time after the event, but these memories fade over time.
People can become stuck in the traumatic event. Triggers that throw them back into the event time and time again are distressing and interfere with healthy daily functioning. Others will avoid talking about the event and situations, people or places they associate with the event.
Trauma processing is similar to Grief processing
There is another life event that can have a similar effect. That is the death of a loved one. For some people the only way to cope with the grief is to avoid all reminders of the loved one.
Another thing that researchers have found is that the more you avoid memories and reminders of traumatic events, the more likely it is that you will develop PTSD. Just as the more you avoid memories and reminders of a loved one, the more likely it is that you will develop Complex Grief Disorder.
Avoiding these memories and reminders is usually due to the extreme discomfort of experiencing these memories and reminders. The emotions associated with them can be extremely difficult to experience.
The importance of processing trauma
When a traumatic event happens it is essential you emotionally process what happened. Much as with grief, it is considered the best way to process this is to titrate your emotional exposure to the event. You allow yourself time to think about it, then allow yourself time to think about other things.
Debriefing after a traumatic event is very important. 30 years ago it was considered essential for everyone to talk about what happened. People were forced to take part in debriefing when they weren’t ready to talk. This caused extreme distress for some people. Not everyone is ready to dive into processing something immediately after it has happened. They need more time to titrate the emotional exposure.
Debriefing today is more an opportunity to talk if you want to and access to trauma counsellors who can help you debrief.
Having your story witnessed and acknowledged
Sometimes after a trauma the focus may be on certain people who are considered to be “worse affected” than others. This may mean that you are not given the chance to tell your story and have the impact of the trauma on you acknowledged. In can be helpful to talk to a trauma counsellor to allow you to share your story and have that story acknowledged. This allows for a better resolution of the trauma.
Some people process things by talking and talking. Others process by reflecting. That is why the debriefing I do, and the format that is recommended, involves letting you talk if you want to or allowing you space if you don’t want to talk.
Sometimes you will need to talk to a counsellor to help with processing the trauma, especially if you are avoiding the emotions and memories due to the pain they cause. A trauma counsellor can help you learn how to cope with those overwhelming emotions and how to titrate your exposure to them.
Unhelpful coping behaviours
In trying to cope with trauma, some people may adopt behaviours that are extremely unhelpful and keep them trapped in the trauma. Substance abuse and increased alcohol consumption are the most common behaviours that I see. They may provide temporary respite from troubling thoughts and emotions, but they are dangerous in the long term and actually keep you trapped in that place of trauma.
When to seek help
Traumatic events take time to recover from. Most people will recover in time. Recovery will usually involve talking about what happened, reflecting on the incident, being willing to cry or experience other emotions.
If you feel that you are stuck in these memories and emotions and don’t seem to be getting better, then it is helpful to seek counselling.
To summarise:
Risk factors that increase the likelihood of developing PTSD: • Previous trauma exposure, especially in childhood • Getting hurt or seeing others hurt or killed • Feeling helpless, horror or extreme fear • Thinking you are going to die • Having little or no social support after the event • Being exposed to extra stress after the traumatic event such as pain and injury, loss of job or home, loss of a loved one.
Things you can do to reduce the likelihood of developing PTSD: • Seek support from friends, family, support groups. Accept offers to engage in critical incident debriefing, either when the counsellors are present or at some point in the next few days. • Allowing yourself to be upset and impacted by the traumatic event • Allow yourself to process what has happened and learn from it • Seek counselling if you need support with the impacts of the event and processing the feelings around the event.
Can I Help?
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with processing your trauma, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful 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 often have parents ask me how to teach their child about grief. They may have a family member dying and they are trying to determine how to prepare their child for death. Or they may have had a family member die and they are trying to help their child understand and process grief.
Death is a major existential event in life. The first time you experience death you are faced with the existential aspects of death. What is it? What does it mean? How does it impact me? What is different in my life? Life isn’t safe anymore. What happens when you die? And so on.
What children need to learn about grief
Children need to learn about death and what it means. They also need to learn about grief.
After all, grief is not just over the death of someone.
Grief is experienced when you experience any loss. It may be the death of someone. Or it may be losing a much loved soft toy. Moving and losing the comfortable home and neighbourhood you felt safe in. Losing a friend, a job, a pet. There are more losses than I can list here.
It is natural to grieve. It is important to grieve. Without grief you cannot heal from the losses you experience in life. Sub heading Teaching your child about grief
There are many books about grief that can be read to children. There are also a number of movies that children can see. I am going to focus on the animated ones as children often relate to the animated movies better, especially if they are very young.
Here is a list of movies that are recommended as great ones to watch with your child. It is important that you discuss the issues in these movies afterwards. They provide good thoughts that your child can ponder and you can talk about together.
When you talk to your child don’t make it formal. Be relaxed and share what you felt about the movie. You might say how you felt at a particular event in the movie and leave it open for your child to share their feelings and ask questions.
It is important to remember that you teach your children how to grieve. If you can manage grief with openness and compassion, then your child will learn that it is okay to express your feelings and be kind to yourself when grieving. Your child can learn not to suppress what they are feeling and instead accept and embrace those feelings.
1. Charlotte’s Web
This is the original animation of Charlotte’s Web released in 1973. There has been a more recent live action remake, but I am using here the animation. This movie is a lovely gentle movie that is easy to watch and understand concepts presented in the film.
If you don’t know this movie, it is about a girl called Fern who saves a piglet that was the runt of the litter. She feeds him and looks after him and he grows big. He becomes a friend to her. When Wilbur gets too big, he is put in an outside pen where Fern visits him. He is frightened and makes friends with a spider called Charlotte. Wilbur hears that he must be slaughtered for meat. This is terrifying for Wilbur and Charlotte helps him by spinning words into her web. This gets the attention of people who come to visit the farm. Wilbur becomes more valuable alive so his life is safe.
However, Charlotte is a spider and they don’t live long so Wilbur loses Charlotte and grieves her death. But Charlotte has left behind an egg case so Wilbur soon has new friends in Charlotte’s children.
This film introduces the idea that the people we love die. This allows a discussion on death as a general concept. It also allows a discussion on the sadness when someone you love dies and the fact that life goes on and there can be good things happening after someone you love dies.
2. Big Hero 6
In this movie Hiro is a budding robotic scientist. His brother Tadashi is killed in a fire. In the aftermath of Tadashi’s death, Hiro shuts himself off from his friends and family. Eventually he starts to explore what happened to his brother and asks his friends and family for help.
As he investigates his brother’s death, Hiro becomes angry and seeks revenge on the person who started the fire. Eventually he realises that is not the answer and lets go of the need to assign blame and seek revenge.
This is a wonderful movie to show how many emotions are experienced in grief. It also covers the way many people isolate in the early stages of grief. Hiro’s journey from isolating himself, to starting to look outward, to asking friends for help, to wanting someone to pay for his brother’s death and eventually to finding a new purpose in his life is a wonderful example of a grief journey. The new purpose Hiro discovers in his life is what is commonly described as the meaning Hiro discovers in his brother’s death. A meaning he can then use to build his life moving forward.
3. Onward
This lovely movie is about a boy whose father died when he was too young to get to know him. Ian is the boy and we start his story on his 16th birthday.
Ian is given a magic wand that will allow him to spend one day with his father and he sets out of find the crystal he needs to operate it. He enlists the help of his brother Barley. Both boys are hurting over the death of their father. Ian hurts because he never knew his father. Barley hurts because he never got to say goodbye.
As the brother’s seek the crystal and the meeting with their father, they discover each other and the needs each has. They realise they can support each other in their grief.
This movie is wonderful to show how the death of a parent lasts throughout childhood and life. It also shows how important it is for families to reach out to each other and offer much needed support to each other.
4. Up
This beautiful movie is often remembered for the talking dog and its comic wandering thoughts about squirrels. But behind this humour this is a beautiful love story.
In this movie we meet Carl. He is an old man whose wife, Ellie, has died. He lives in their home, isolating himself from the world he used to love. In his sadness he becomes bitter and unpleasant to other people. He remains in the house, reliving in his mind all the moments he and Ellie had together.
His house sits in the middle of a new development. Carl has refused to sell his home, but the developer has an idea. They claim Carl should be in a nursing home and he is about to become evicted.
Carl doesn’t want this and he attaches thousands of balloons to his house so it will float and he can visit a place he and Ellie dreamed of visiting.
Unintentionally a young boy, Russel, is in the house when it floats away.
Over time Carl warms to Russel and the things they do together help him to reach out to another human being. He learns to love again and engage with life. He is finally able to move on with his life.
This movie is a great illustration of the importance of allowing healing and the dangers of holding on too tight to grief.
5. Brother Bear
Kenai’s brother is killed by a bear. Kenai believes he was responsible for his brother’s death. He finds himself unable to face this so he turns his anger onto the bear and kills it.
He is then turned into a bear and discovers the dead bear’s cub. The cub helps him find the place he needs to visit to be returned to human form. As he journeys with this young cub he learns to love and care for it.
Kenai’s other brother, believing both his brothers have been killed by bears, sets out to hunt down the bear to kill it.
Eventually the two brothers let go of the desire for revenge, they learn to forgive, and they learn how to reach out to others for help.
Kenai makes a decision at the end to stay and care for the bear cub and the brothers resolve their differences.
This movie shows the dangers of revenge and how it is often hiding guilt. It shows the importance again of sitting with grief and allowing it to unfold. It also shows the importance of reaching out to each other in grief.
Forgiveness is another theme that is presented in this movie.
Sometimes, when someone is killed in an accident, or by another person/animal, revenge takes on a great importance. It is helpful to see in this movie how revenge is not the answer. Kenai looking after the bear cub is able to see the bear’s perspective and understand her actions more.
Kenai also learns to let go of his guilt and forgive himself and the bear.
There are a lot of emotions present when processing grief, and anger, desire for revenge and the need for forgiveness are powerful ones that frequently show up.
6. Kung Fu Panda 2
This is the story of Po, a panda who has become Dragon Warrior and protector of the Valley of Peace. His antagonist in this story is Lord Shen who has sworn a vendetta against Pandas and, after being banished by his parents, is now waging war against China. Po lost his parents in the Panda massacre Shen instigated and he still grieves for them. He doesn’t remember what happened and this haunts him.
Shen is grieving the rejection by his parents. He has allowed his hurt to become anger that has been turned into a desire for revenge. Po directs his grief into more positive pursuits. He accepts his pain but, instead of living in the past, he focuses on the present. This allows him to grow from the trauma of losing his parents.
Shen did not accept his pain. He tries to defeat his pain instead of accepting it and focusing on the present. As a result, he is not able to grow and move forward in life. Instead he is trapped in anger and revenge. He seeks to conquer all of China to overcome the pain he feels. His conquests, instead of bringing him peace, only exacerbate his pain.
Shen’s anger destroys him. Whereas Po’s acceptance and willingness to sit with the pain and accept it allows him to grow. These are important things to discuss with your child.
7. The Land Before Time
In this gentle movie, Littlefoot’s mother is killed by other dinosaurs. Much time is allocated to showing how Littlefoot grieves for his mother. In time another dinosaur, Rooter, comes and offers Littlefoot comfort.
This beautiful movie shows children the grief at losing a parent, which is important. It also shows the processing of that grief allowing a time when it doesn’t hurt as badly. But it also shows children how comfort can be found in the support of other people and sends a message about the importance of accepting help from others.
8. The Lion King
The 1994 movie is the one to watch, not the recent live action film.
Simba is distraught when his father is killed in a stampede. He believes he is to blame for his father’s death and he runs away. He grows up and adopts a lifestyle where he doesn’t care for anything and avoids the past.
When he is asked to come back to help his family defeat their enemy Simba refuses. His grief has not only impacted on him, but also on the rest of his family.
Eventually Simba is able to put his guilt aside and return to liberate his family from the enemy. In the process he learns he was not responsible for his father’s death. He is able to let go of his guilt and use his grief to honour his father. Children will often take on the blame for the death of someone close to them. It is important as parents to be aware of that possibility and include that in discussions with your child.
This movie is great for discussing the impact guilt has on grief, that running away from grief doesn’t make it go away, and that no one grieves in isolation. The grief one feels impacts on others as well.
9. Inside Out
This movie has been much loved for its handling of the emotions Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust.
But there is another side to this movie. It is about the grief the girl Riley experiences when her family moves away from her happy community to a major city.
Instead of allowing Riley to experience the pain of the loss, Joy tries to bury it. This is something people do so often with grief. This movie shows the ramifications of trying to push away grief instead of processing it.
Because the movie uses the emotions to show Riley’s thoughts, it is great for showing how many different emotions are involved in each memory. Even the happy moments in life have sadness in them.
The movie also demonstrates the importance of reaching out to others for comfort and reaching out to comfort others.
10. Frozen
If we look beyond the passion many young children have shown for this movie and the much played theme song, there is a very important message in this movie.
This movie is about unresolved grief and suppressed emotions.
Elsa’s emotions are demonstrated in her power over ice. As a child, when she is still learning to control her emotions, her ice creating happens often. Her parents are frightened of this and force her to suppress her emotions. She becomes expert at suppressing her emotions, but this also causes separation between her and her sister Anna.
Then their parents die and Elsa becomes isolated from everyone.
This suppression of her emotions causes the icing over of the kingdom. This is a powerful metaphor for the impact suppressed emotions have on you and those around you. So often people suppress their emotions out of fear of feeling them, or what will happen to their behaviour when they feel them.
But emotions need to be experienced in order to resolve them. When you allow yourself to feel emotions you become better able to control your reaction to them and express them in a healthy, helpful way.
So many people are taught to suppress their emotions, including grief. Fear is a driving force behind that suppression. Suppressing emotions can also lead to isolation from others.
This is what happened to Elsa.
The freezing of the kingdom is only resolved when Elsa learns not to isolate herself from her others and learns to not be afraid to experience her grief.
Can I Help?
Teaching your child about grief means you have to confront your own issues around grief and death. That can be hard. Sometimes you need help to give you the tools and resilience to take your child on this journey. There may be unresolved issues from your past that need to be processed to allow you to be present for your child.
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with grief and loss, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful 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
