Grief Counselling

Grief Is A Change You Didn’t Want

Heartbreak is there in grief.

This is because when a person you love dies you are heartbroken.

When a person you love leaves you and rejects you and continues to reject you, then you are heartbroken.

Which pain is worse?

The worst pain is the pain you are experiencing.

Heartbreak

Heartbreak is always present in grief. It is heartbreak at the loss of the future with that person, whether they are alive or dead. Now you must face a future you did not plan and may not even like.

Heartbreak can occur through other life events. Losing a job, not getting the job you really wanted, not getting into the university course you wanted, not getting the marks in an exam you wanted, losing out on the house you wanted to buy, losing the house you can no longer afford to pay the loan on, your car being stolen, your house broken into, the end of a relationship, losing your pet, losing your country.

The really important thing to remember is your pain is always worse for you. There is no comparison. Just because someone else is hurting, it doesn’t mean their pain is worse. Comparisons just can’t be made when it comes to grief.

Heartbreak is not logical

It is always important to remember that the act of making a comparison is one that uses your mind. But when you are heartbroken and suffering grief, those are emotions you are feeling. They are not logical, they are not of the mind. They are the emotions of heartbreak.

Be careful, because grief that isn’t attended to doesn’t just go away. It stays there, unattended, and trips you up when something reminds you of it.

Questions to ask yourself

Ask yourself the question. What heartbreak, what grief, what disappointments in your life have you not attended to?

Once you have the answer ask yourself. Why don’t you attend to it?

The answer is most likely that it is difficult, painful even, to confront that pain.

It is so easy to run from pain. Pain hurts.

The realness of emotional pain

Did you know that physical pain and emotional pain are registered in the same part of the brain?

All these years people’s emotional pain has been dismissed as being nothing, yet it is as painful as physical pain.

The metaphor of the Buffalo

Grief expert David Kessler uses the metaphor of a buffalo turning to face a storm and walk into it. The buffalo knows it will get through the storm faster if it does this. But humans try to stay away from the storm. They try to keep a metre or so away. This way they remain in the storm a long time.

Instead of facing the storm, humans stay close to it and try to numb themselves, try to move away, but not far away, or try to avoid any triggering memories. Humans may even run away.

Substituting One Emotion For Another

One way of avoiding the storm is to go to another emotion that feels more comfortable.

What emotions might that be?

The most common one to go after is anger.

If you explore what is under your anger you will often find it is sadness, grief or fear.

There is a very real fear that once you give in to the pain of grief you will never be able to stop crying.

But you will stop crying in time.

Self Compassion Is The Best Treatment

When you allow yourself to enter the storm and feel your emotions deeply. When you allow yourself to engage with the emotions, then you are caring for yourself. You are showing up for yourself. Allowing yourself to feel these emotions is the way you can be there for you. It is an opportunity to show self compassion.

Self compassion only works if you pay attention to your emotions.

To show self compassion you have to be able to accept that this horrible thing happened. You have to be allowed to feel sorry for yourself, for the pain you are experiencing and have experienced.

Our society tells us it is wrong to feel sorry for yourself. But that is wrong. It is not wrong to feel sorry for yourself. It is not wrong to feel for what you have been through. To acknowledge that what you have been through was horrible.

When others try to shut you down over this it is because they feel uncomfortable and don’t want to be exposed to that discomfort.

Beware The Failure To Own Your Problems

Refusing to be accountable for what you have done in your life and refusing to own your problems causes difficulties around feeling sorry for yourself.

If you feel sorry for yourself and get stuck in that place, constantly seeking those who will affirm your pain but never doing anything to get out of that pain, then you are failing to understand your own problems and find ways to resolve them.

The Importance of Being Seen

It is important to feel seen, to have your pain acknowledged. But sometimes you are the one who is going to see you, who will acknowledge your pain.

Being seen is empowering. Seeing yourself is as empowering as being seen by someone else.

Tara Brach PhD, a leading western teacher of Buddhist meditation, emotional healing and spiritual awakening, talks about the importance of putting your hand over your heart centre and saying “Ouch, that hurts” as a way to acknowledge the pain you are feeling and give yourself self compassion. Try it sometime, you will most likely find it helps a lot.

In Summary

The worst abandonment is when you abandon yourself

In your pain do not fail to acknowledge to yourself the pain you are in.

Don’t fail to show compassion to yourself.

Stop judging yourself, shaming yourself, criticising yourself, telling yourself you are bad or unworthy, failing to defend yourself.

Make sure you recognise your own pain. Remember “Ouch it hurts” is very important.

Sit with your pain and acknowledge it. Comfort yourself.

Advice To The Recently Bereaved

I often have recently bereaved people visit me. Their bereavement is so recent they haven’t even had the funeral yet. One of the things I tell them in that first session is to be kind to themselves, to be okay to not look after other people at the funeral. To let others care for them. To absent themselves from the post funeral get together if they need to. To cry, be unstable, not want to talk, not want to socialise, not look after others are all permissible and necessary self care actions.

Grief Forces Change

I model for the recently bereaved how to speak kindly to yourself, how to be caring and compassionate to yourself, how to be there for yourself.

It is scary to be placed in the position where you have to grow and change. But grief puts you there and there is only one way out and that is to walk through the storm.

You are going to have to learn the new way to be. You will not know it immediately, but you will learn over time and self compassion is your best ally in this learning.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief and heartbreak 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

5 Actions to Help Process Your Grief

If you have been following my blogs for any length of time, you will have read that there is no right way to process your grief.

All people grieve differently. Yes, there are similarities in people’s experiences and I often write about them, but you still grieve differently to other people.

What To Do To Help Process Your Grief

Despite their being no right way to grieve, there are 5 things that are important to do to assist you with your grieving.

Name and feel your loss
It is important that you acknowledge your loss. You do this my naming it. After naming it you acknowledge it by allowing yourself to feel any emotions that come up because of that grief.
Be aware that, particularly in the early time of grief, you may not have any feelings. Feelings will come in time.
When they do, name them and allow yourself to experience them, even if that means you “fall apart”.
Seek the support of others
This is important. Friends and family can be a great support at this time. If you don’t have friends and family able to support you then a grief counselling can be helpful to engage with.
At some point in your grief, you may find it helpful to join a group of people who are grieving.
Don’t bottle up your emotions, allow yourself to express them.
There are many ways you can express your emotions. These include:
*Talking to others
*Writing
*Art – painting, drawing, collage, clay work and so on
*Journalling
*Finding activities that help give meaning to your grief
Look after yourself
You must give self care a high priority. If you don’t look after yourself, you will not be able to care for others. So make self care a priority – you deserve it.
Self care includes getting adequate rest, eating nutritionally balanced food, exercise, taking time out to go out with friends if you want, or to spend time alone. Having a massage may be your go to for self care. Or you may want to go fishing, watch a movie, walk in the park.
There are myriad ways to care for you.
Remember also that some says will be harder than others. When that happens, don’t despair, there will be good days too. In the meantime, give yourself extra care on those bad days.
Be patient
Grief is not something you get over in a matter of days. It takes time to grieve. A lot of time. Don’t be hard on yourself when things continue to upset you months or even years later. That is all perfectly normal.

A Final Action

One important thing I stress to people is that it is okay to be happy again. It is okay to have fun. It is okay to go out and enjoy yourself. It is okay for live to move on.

Moving on in life does not mean you did not love the one who your lost, you will always love and grieve for them, but you will do it as part of the life you continue to live.

Can I Help?

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

5 Things You Can Do To Manage The Bad Days After Your Loss

If you read my blogs regularly, you will by now be familiar with the fact that grief is not a sequential process with and end point. It goes on for the rest of your life.

The intensity of the pain will lessen in intensity and frequency over time, but there will still be days when you are hit by the pain.

Sub heading How To Manage Those Difficult Days

The following are ways people report have helped them:

1. Comfort Kit.

This kit is a special box or bag that can be placed somewhere easy to access.

Put in it things that you find comforting. Popular items include candles, bath oils, art supplies, a cuddly toy.

This box is about doing something special for you as you feel low. To give you love and a warm hug of comfort.

What can you put in your comfort kit?

2. Important Lists To Assist

By this I mean the following:

• Put together a playlist of favourite uplifting songs. Don’t add sad songs to the list, those songs are for other times. This list is about listening to songs that soothe and encourage.

• Keep an updated list of people you can talk to on those bad days. This should be composed of people who will give you the support, love and encouragement you need on those bad days.

• Have a list of movement activities. These are things you can do to get you up and moving. This can include places to walk, something to dance to, some yoga exercises to practise, work you can do in the garden. Anything that gets you moving in an enjoyable way (so don’t decide to tackle a massive weed pile in the garden unless you get great joy out of tackling that).

• A feel good list. This is a list of things you enjoy doing that make you feel good. This might involve funny movies, inspiriting books, comfort food, friends to visit who make you feel good, animals you love to see and so on.

• Getting out in nature list. Ideas of things you can do out in nature. Research proves the value of nature – be it the bush or the beach. These are places you can go to feel better. Maybe it is to go on a hike, walk along a favourite beach, sit in a park, listen to birds, whale watch, swim. The list is endless.

• Positive sayings or affirmations: On your good days, collects sayings and affirmations. When you are having a bad day get them out and read through them. They can be as simple as: “ It’s okay to cry”, “This will pass” “It is okay to be sad” “It is okay to have a sad day” “It is okay to take time out to honour your pain”.

• Places you can go to care for yourself: This can include a place you find comforting, places you can visit, tourist ideas you have never visited in your local area, going to a retreat to reflect and be pampered. Places that feed your soul.

Which of these lists would you find useful? Make those lists today.

3. Daily Gratitude Journal.

This is a preventative measure. The ideas is that you have a special journal where you write 10 things you are grateful for every day. Write your list then read it out aloud and say “Thank you, thank you, thank you” after each list item. Remember small things can be on that list, not just spectacular things. You can be grateful for you feet because they support you as you go about your day. You can be grateful for the food you eat. You can be grateful for family members. You can be grateful for your home, even furniture in your home.

The other use for a gratitude list is that you can take it our on your bad days and read it.

As well as a gratitude journal, I also have a gratitude jar. I write things on a piece of paper that I am grateful for. I write at least once a week and add items on other days if something amazing happens.

4. Grief Support Groups You Can Reach Out To.

Many people find going to a grief support group, joining a live group online, joining a social media group is helpful. They report the benefits of seeking support from those groups on their bad days provides great comfort.

5. Ask For Help List.

There are times when you may need the support of a grief counsellor. Having a list of counsellors in your local area makes it easier for you to ring to arrange an appointment.

Time For Action

Now is the time to write down your plan of action for your next difficult day.

What will you put in that plan?

Are you going to assemble your comfort box?

Have you written some lists of things to do?

Have you considered some of the other things you can do to support you on those bad days?

Can I Help?

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

Why You Can Safely Disregard Common Grief Advice

If you are grieving you may have noticed that a lot of people want to give you advice on how to manage your grief.

They may tell you how long you should grieve, or that you should read this book, or do that course, or join this particular group.

They may tell you that you should be over your grief by now, or to cheer up.

They may tell you to throw out things that you are holding on to that remind you of the one you lost.

They may try the “They are in a better place” line. Or tell you “You can have another child”. Or “You are young, there will be other partners out there”.

Some of their advice may be helpful, but most isn’t.

What I Will Do If You Come To See Me.

If you come to me to ask you how you should be grieving I won’t tell you. I will help you to understand that your grief symptoms are experienced by many other people. So you are not going mad.

I will listen to your story and help you to tell that story.

I will help you to make sense of what is going on in your life.

But I will not tell you what to do.

I will answer your questions and help you to explore books, courses and groups if you wish to explore them.

But I will not tell you what to do.

Why Can’t I Tell You What To Do?

I can’t tell you what to do because you are you and I am me. Our life experiences are different. Our personalities are different. Our way of viewing the world is different. Our experiences of grief are different.

Yes, I understand the grief process. I have studied grief extensively and have been trained on a number of different ways of helping you with your grief, some of which I may use when you come to see me.

But I will not impose any formulas on you or tell you how you should be grieving.

You Are The Expert Of Your Own Grief

You are the expert of your own grief are the worlds of Grief Therapist David Kessler.

He experienced some of his own terrible tragedies, yet he never tells people how to grieve. He has counselled people in grief for decades and he has never told them how to grieve.

He understands that each grief is individual. Yes, other people may experience similar things, but they will not have the same grief as you. And what worked for them will not work for you.

Sharing Ideas With Others

It can be helpful to share your experience with other people who will listen.

You may hear ways that other people have managed and find that works for you too. On the flip side, you may hear ways other people have managed and know that is not going to work for you.

As long as the ideas of others are shared in conversation when you want to listen and not shoved down your throat, they may be helpful.

Grief Is Different All The Time

I was reminded of this recently when I found myself feeling inexplicably down, then realised it was the 21st anniversary of my mother’s death. Why this year? Other years I hadn’t even noticed the date, but this year it was really hard.

I am not alone in that experience. People often tell me how confused they are that doing something that has not upset then previously suddenly has caused great distress.

Grief is very like that.

I teach many people that grief is like the seasons. It changes constantly. It is like living in Melbourne! Several seasons in one day. That is how grief impacts.

You can never pick when your grief will impact you. All you can do is learn to roll with the feelings.

Remember The Advice Givers Are Often Uncomfortable With Your Feelings

I always tell people that the advice givers are often giving advice because they are uncomfortable with your feelings.

Maybe they don’t know how to respond.

Maybe they feel they have to “solve your problem” and don’t know how to.

Maybe they were taught to shut down their own feelings.

Maybe they just don’t know how to deal with the discomfort of your emotions.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you to feel heard, understand and to not receive advice, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

How The Stories You Give To Your Life Assist With Your Grief

There is a lot to talk about in this topic, so the blog is very long. Allow several minutes to read it, or read it in stages.

All people have a major thing in common. We give meaning to everything in life.

We organise events into a narrative, or story, that allows us to form a sense of continuity and meaning in our lives.

Grief is no different.

We assign meaning to losses and these meanings impact the course of our bereavement.

Assumptions about the nature of life, love, suffering, human vulnerabilities and death inform a lot of the meaning we give to life. We source these assumptions mainly from our culture and our life experiences.

One Story: The Assumption They Were The Only One Who Loved Me

One thing I see a lot in my work is where a person loses someone they love and feels rejected by others in the period after the loss.

Maybe that has been your experience? In which case you may relate to the story that forms where the person who died is the only one who loved you.

As a result of this story you may push others away because of your hurt.

Loss Hurts

Loss hurts BUT memories and what the one you loved has left behind will continue and can help you find a meaningful, productive and hopeful path forward.

So much of loss can involve deep despair and it is impossible to express that loss in words, especially early on in your grief.

It is during this time you may find it hard for your story to be heard.

Putting Your Story Together

You may not have a story that makes sense, even to you. You may not be able to put your story into words. You may need to talk about events before you can put together a story that makes sense.

Maybe those close to you are hurting too and aren’t able to hear your story.

Maybe friends are too busy to hear your story.

Grief groups can be helpful but they only work if others in the group are able to listen and not impose their own agenda on your telling of the story.

This is where a counsellor who specialises in grief can be helpful. I am such a counsellor, and my interest is in hearing your story and allowing you to tell it. I know how important that story is.

Questions To Explore During Your Time of Grief

Some questions that can be helpful to consider are:

• What should I do with this sense of meaninglessness?

• What did my loved one’s life mean?

• What did I learn from them?

• How should I make good use of all the love they gave me?

History Of Beliefs Around Grief

At the end of the nineteenth century, when modern psychological theory was born, it was believed that grief had an end point.

The theory stated that to grieve properly you had to sever attachment to the one who died. Continuing to have an emotional bond with the person was considered pathological!

By the 1940s the time limit of 4-6 weeks was suggested as the correct length of time to grieve!

This is where the belief that you had to ‘get over’ grief and get over it quickly came about.

Many people tell me they encounter others who suggest that now the funeral is over it is time to be over the death! The harm caused by that belief is significant.

It is now known that the brain has to make major changes to its neural networks after the loss of a loved one and that takes months.

Missing My Mother

When my mother was alive she used to ring me every week. I lived overseas and was very isolated with no one to share events in my life with. My mother was that person I talked to.

Then she was dead and there were no weekly catch ups. Things happened in my life and there was no one to share those events with. I missed her.

I mentioned this to my brothers and the response was that I obviously needed to see someone because what I was experiencing wasn’t normal. Of course they were wrong, but at the time I didn’t know that.

More Recent Understanding Of Grief

By the 1980s beliefs around grief had expanded the grieving time to two years. Attachment to the dead was seen as being important. There was emotional energy in the relationship and it was believed you had to withdraw that energy and pour it into other people instead.

This slowly transformed to an understanding that memorialising the person instead of withdrawing emotional energy was actually what was needed.

It was still believed that people would “recover” and go back to normal.

How Grief Is Understood Today

There have been great advances in grief understanding since then and the word “recovery” has been replaced by words such as adaptation, re-integration, management, coping or transformation.

Recovery is considered to portray grief as something minor and fails to acknowledge the importance of loss and something that is not repairable.

The main understanding today is that you “don’t get over” grief.

Life never returns to how it was. Part of working through your grief involves learning how to adjust to the new reality without the one you love.

Ways You May React To The Death Of A Loved One

Grief reactions and responses typically involve:

• emotional distress,

• depressed mood,

• confusion,

• difficulty sleeping,

• forgetfulness,

• crying a lot,

• feeling a range of emotions, seemingly with no control over them,

• loss of interest in forming new relationships and goals,

• disruption of sense of self, worldview and life narrative.

Problems can arise when, over a long period of time:

• it is hard to accept the loss,

• there is preoccupation with the deceased,

• loss of identity and role in life

• and loss of purpose and goals for the future.

This is a situation where counselling interventions are required.

Grief Is Not Full Time

When you are grieving, you don’t spend every waking moment engaged in grief. In the initial period when you are likely to feel numb it is more likely you will be preoccupied with what has happened, but over the next few days you will start to spend time living.

You do take time away from grief. Your brain can’t manage if you don’t. You also need to live. You need to eat, drink, sleep, shower, care for others and so on.

You do need time to grieve, but you also need time to:

• learn the new reality

• develop new roles in your life

• develop a new identity without your loved one

• develop new relationships both to your loved one and those around you.

It is important to also understand that grief is not just something within you, it is also something that is between you and other people around you:

It involves:

• your world view and changes you may need to make to it,

• reconstructing meaning in your life

• forming a continuing bond with your loved one

• reconstructing your identity

• making positive changes in your life as you adjust to your grief.

Meaning Making

There are two aspects to making meaning of loss. These are:

• Assimilating the loss into the assumptions you made about life before your loss and the self narrative you had. This approach allows you to maintain a sense of continuation with your life before the one you loved died.

• Accommodate to the loss by dealing with previous assumptions about life by reorganising, expanding, or replacing them. This will often result in positive changes and personal growth that allow you to continue with life.

To do this three things need to happen:

Sense making – you need to make sense of your life now,
Benefit finding – you need to find a benefit either in the death of the person or your growth as a result of that loss. You may find you grow in your knowledge and sense of competence in your life, you gain valuable perspectives about life, develop stronger relationships with others and establish valuable connections.
Identity change – It has been known for thousands of years that pain leads to growth. After the initial disorganisation of grief you go through a long period of growth alternating with the pain of loss. As the pain of loss becomes more bearable you continue to grow.

What Grief Involves

Grief involves you allowing yourself to feel the pain and all the emotions associated with your loss. Then you will start to reorganise your life and develop a new identity. In the process you will change your worldview to incorporate your experience of grief. You will rebuild yourself and develop a new narrative (story) of your life that includes the grief experience.

This is meaning making.

The type of meaning you make will include the culture of your society and family and how these two cultures understand death. There are different ways of expressing grief, different rituals around mourning, different ideas about what is normal and how to relate to the one who has died. This will have a major impact on how you make meaning of the death of your loved one.

Your outlook on life will also have a deep influence. If you are someone who tends to see the positives in life you are more likely to look for the positives in your experience. This doesn’t mean you won’t experience any pain, but it does mean you will seek to find positive meaning in your grief.

Ultimately, how you view grief will depend on your outlook on life, how your family perceives death and how your culture conceptualises grief.

Why Meaning Making?

When your losses challenge or even shatter the meaning you have given to your life you search for new meaning. Making meaning of their loss is how you understand and make sense of their loss. During this process you will reconstruct that meaning through making sense of what has happened, seeking to find a benefit in your new reality, and identifying the way you have changed.

Strategies to Make Meaning

One of the main ways to make meaning is through storytelling. This is why it is important to have someone to tell your story to. This is where seeing a counsellor can be helpful.

As you tell your story of loss again, and again. As you remember details and share them, even adding them into the overall narrative, you start to gain a sense of the loss of that person.

Your story may be about things you would love to tell the one who is gone.

Your story may be about things that didn’t happen, but you wish had. Or it may be about things that did happen that are now causing pain.

In your story you may be able to find an understanding about the things your loved one did.

The story may involve gaining permission to grieve. This is particularly important if you were not allowed to show emotion to your loved one in their life.

It may also involve an exploration about what death is and how you and the one you loved felt about death. You may even tell a story about whether you believed the death was preventable.

It is important to remember that not all meanings are positive. Some people include a lot of regret in their story. They may believe something could have been done to prevent the death.

Over time, even those less positive meanings can be incorporated in a large, more positive meaning. That doesn’t mean all deaths are positive. It is hard to see a positive in death due to murder, or an accident for example. But it is possible to see positives in what you were able to do after death. Maybe being able to honour their life in some way can be the positive that came out of their death.

Who Am I Now The One I Love Is Dead?

When you love someone your identity includes that person. When that person dies part of your identity is challenged.

You exist as a person in a relationship. But if the other person in that relationship is dead then who are you now?

You may have been a partner, child, parent, friend to the one who died. Now they are dead, who are you? What is your identity now?

Your life had plans, hopes and dreams that included your loved one. What is your life now without them?

Telling your story, over and over helps to put your loss in order and start making sense of it. You can celebrate who they were, cherish the memories you have of them, and feel grateful for what you gained from that relationship.

You also can express the negatives about losing that person. In fact that is what you will most likely spend the early part of acute grief focusing on. As time goes on the time spent on the negatives will become less and you will switch to celebrating their life, cherishing the memories you have of them and living your life to honour them.

Over time you can learn to understand yourself better and form an understanding about who you are. This is an important aspect of grieving.

The Importance Of Your Story

Part of being human involves constructing stories about your life.

Your stories will most likely include things that were important to you. They can be negative things and positive things.

All those stories contain meanings. It may not be obvious when you construct them, but telling others can help you to identify those meanings.

The stories you tell around grieving are not simply stories about the death, they are also stories that affirm life, everlasting love and consolation. Also contained in those stories are the pain, anguish and the often daunting challenges you faced in grief.

Recognising what you have been through and survived is valuable for you in recognising who you are and assists you to make further meaning about the loss of your loved one.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief, telling your story and finding meaning in your experience please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

Grief is learning and learning takes time

How many of you have experienced grief and felt very disoriented?

In all the losses I have experienced I have definitely felt disoriented. I thought I was going mad until I went to a grief course and learned that this is the most common experience of people.

There is the here and now. There is reality. But it is new and so different.

The Loss Of The Familiar, Safe Framework

All the normal routines and things that anchor the day are not there anymore.

The day-to-day interactions with the other person, whether face to face or through telephone conversations and messaging, or online connections, have gone. What is left is very new and frightening. You no longer feel that safe framework around you.

The feelings of disorientation will eventually pass, as you learn the new routines and learn to feel safe again within the framework of those new routines.

You never forget the old routines and what they felt like, but you learn new routines that help you to feel safe again.

There Are Many Losses To Grieve.

What I have described so far has been fitted to someone close dying, or the relationship ending and them not being in your life anywhere. I will continue to write about that perspective, but there are many losses where you experience the same disorientation and learning.

This could also apply to:

• a new house,

• a new location,

• a new country,

• changes in your health that impact how you live your life,

• changes in the health of someone close to you,

• the loss of a pet (due to death or no longer owning it),

• losing your job,

• losing financial security,

• and so on.

The Role Of Adaptation In Learning

As you progress through the days after your loss, you will learn how to live in this new reality. The term used for this is adaptation.

Many people see adaptation as learning how to live the same life again.

But you can’t. Your life isn’t and never will be the same again.

There is a lot of pressure from society to get over the loss and “move on”. There are non grief trained counsellors who will work with you to move on within the old framework.

But that old framework doesn’t exist any more. Trying to fit back into it is doomed to failure.

What adaptation is about is learning to live in the world as it is now. This applies to anyone moving through life. But for you, dealing with grief, this is about adapting to the new reality, the new world in which you live. The world without the person you loved and still love.

The Brain Is An Expert At Keeping You Alive.

Your brain is designed to keep you alive.

One of the things it does is predict what will happen. This frees you to focus more on interactions with other people, which are always potentially dangerous.

Your brain will pattern much throughout your day as it predicts the routines and dangers in your world.

How Your Brain Predicts Regular Interactions

If you have had a relationship with someone that lasted many years, your brain has strong connections to the normal daily interactions you had with that person. So as you go through your day at the times where interactions normally happened, your brain will expect them. If those interactions don’t happen, that is confusing for your brain. You notice. You again experience that sense of loss.

Over time, your brain learns that those interactions won’t happen and the reminder, coupled with the fresh sense of loss, slowly abates.

It takes your brain months to learn the new reality.

That means the sense of disorientation will continue until your brain has learned and adapted.

Your Brain Works On The Assumption That Your Loved One Will Be There

Your brain is designed for connection. There are several structures within the brain that feed that connection. There are hormones within that brain that feed that connection. Your brain works hard to maintain those connections. Your safety framework is part of those connections.

Your brain seeks those connections. When someone you have a connection with is gone, then your brain seeks for the connection and can’t find it.

That is very disorienting.

Who Am I When Not Part Of That Person?

So much of your identity includes the people you love. Your brain actually has structures that connect you with the people you love.

When someone you love is no longer in your life, your brain has to remove the connections. This impacts on who you see yourself as, as well as impacting your connection to that person.

This means you define who you are in relation to the people in your life that you love and the places you go and things you do.

• Who are you if you lose your partner?

• Who are you if you lose your child?

• Who are you if your pet dies?

• Who are you if you are no longer working in a particular job?

• Who are you if you live in a different place? A different country?

• Who are you if you have lost a body part?

• Who are you if your health has changed?

This is more work that your brain has to do and it is disorienting.

Why Do I Keep Seeing, Feeling or Hearing This Person?

Many people report feeling their loved one is close to them, or think they see them in a crowd or hear their voice.

When you consider how the brain works, this is not surprising.

You are not deluded. You are not going mad.

Your brain will continue to predict the presence of that person for a long time.

After my mother died I would want to pick up the phone to tell her about something that had happened. This is part of the brain’s prediction of the person still being there.

Other people will say they still expect the person to walk through the door. They may say they feel the person is walking through the house. They may report feeling the other person touches them.

You are not going mad if that is your experience. It is your brain. Part of your brain is predicting those connections and not yet aware the person is no longer there. In time the brain will learn they are not there.

After my grandmother died I would go to the house and clean it. I often felt her presence in her old bedroom because that is where I expected to find her.

Forming Continuing Bonds With What You Have Lost

As your brain learns that the one you have lost is no longer there, it changes to allow the past memories and learn the new present. In that healthy state you will continue to feel a connection with and love for the person.

That is known as continuing bonds.

Integrating Your Grief

Another healthy way your brain will adapt is that the relationship to the one you have lost and the pain you experience will settle into a longer term response. In this place you will learn how who you are now that person is gone. You will learn how to live your life with the grief. You will learn how to remember alongside the grief.

This is know as integrated grief. You will still hurt, but it will be less acute.

You will have reached a point of learning to live and accept the new world, as it is now, and our place in it.

It Is Okay To Ask For Help

Grief is a long and continuous process. This is no smooth path. It is a long process where some days you will feel as though you have made great progress, and other days you will just want to turn your back on the world.

I liken it to a Northern Hemisphere autumn where the sun is often covered by clouds, there are winds that are no longer warm, and leaves are changing colour and falling off the trees. Everything is different and confusing. Some moments are beautiful and some moments are depressing.

You may wake up to a beautiful sunny sky and a late day of great warmth. Then you may wake up to clouds, wind and rain with a bleakness in the air.

And there is the constant flurry of emotions mirroring the multicoloured leaves as they leave the bare trees and blow around.

You may feel pressured by others or by yourself to “move on” and “get over it”. But you can’t get out of this place of swirling emotions, of good and bad days, of feeling you take a few tentative steps forward then hurtle backwards.

Navigating this time is hard. Sometimes you need help. This may be talking to a friend who understands. This may be talking to a grief trained counsellor.

Can I Help?

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

Reflections on Grief

By Nan Cameron

This is a poem I wrote in response to grief I experienced.

In an instant it’s gone
Just nothing
Cloying
Vacant
Nothing
Hanging in the space
Left behind
Nothing matters
Not anymore.

The disbelief
The horror
Of the fullness of life
No more.

And you stare at the empty shore
And feel the emptiness
The infinite emptiness.

Desolate shore
Howling winds of emptiness
Blow across the bleak sand
The ocean of desolation cries to the hollows.

There is nothing
Once there was light
Laughter
Joy
Delight
Sunshine
Love
Now there is only this bleakness
The searing pain
In an instant it was gone.

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

Love And Accepting The Rites Of Grief

“My grief says that I dared to love, that I allowed another to enter the very core of my being and find a home in my heart. Grief is akin to praise; it is how the soul recounts the depth to which someone has touched our lives. To love is to accept the rites of grief.” ~ Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

We lose so much in our lives. There is the obvious death of loved ones, of pets, of dear friends. There is also the loss of homes, jobs, health, fitness, for some, their country.

There are also the losses of dreams, community, nature.

There are too many losses in life to mention them all.

They all have something in common. You need to grieve for them.

The Unspoken Emptiness Inside

If you don’t grieve for the losses then you always have unprocessed grief, an emptiness, inside.

So many people have an unspoken emptiness inside. There is a hole there that you struggle to fill. The emptiness if the hole of unprocessed grief. It is a constant pain, sometimes sharp, but mostly dull. You try to push it aside, but it continues to gnaw at you and hide under the surface, waiting for an opportunity to resurface.

There are many in the field of unresolved grief research who believe that the desire for more in our society has its roots in unresolved grief.

People try to fill the hole by being busy, by frenetic activity, by buying more and more things, by wanting bigger houses and plenty of storage to hold the things that are accumulated.

People also try to control the external environment. Maybe you do that too. An obsession with bodily perfection, with having the perfect house, the nicest car, the picture perfect family, the right friends, the perfect kids, the helicopter cotton wool parent, the hothoused child.

The Myth Of Being Able To Control Your Life To Fill The Emptiness

All this is an attempt to control your life. It is a cover for the emptiness and feeling of being out of control inside. But controlling your external life does not fix the emptiness inside.

All that focus on external things does is deny you the necessary processing of your losses.

Losses are a core part of being human. Running away from the things that frighten you doesn’t make them go away. It makes them grow and become more problematic.

Gratitude, Humility and Reverence for Human Life

Instead you need to allow the pain. Be courageous and sit with that pain. You will find that the pain isn’t as large and insurmountable as you thought it would be. In fact, allowing yourself to feel the pain allows you to access great skills that help you heal.

These skills are gratitude, humility and reverence for human life.

This may sound very airy, but it isn’t.

Gratitude

Gratitude allows you to see those things in your day that you can be grateful for. Even on the worst days there is something to be grateful for. You don’t need to acknowledge gratitude through gritted teeth.

Sometimes the fact that you are alive is gratitude. Even when life seems too miserable to be alive there is still gratitude for that. Gratitude can be about people who in your day did something nice to you. The person who held a door open for you, the driver who let you out into the traffic when you were struggling to get out of a side street, the person who smiled at you and acknowledged your existence. These are just some examples of things you can be grateful for. You can also be grateful that you are breathing, that your heart is beating, that you can think, that you can explore things in your life to be grateful for.

Gratitude means looking for the good and not focusing on the negative.

Turning your attention to positive things is a great help in processing your grief.

Humility

Humility removes the sense of entitlement we all suffer from occasionally. The one that says bad things shouldn’t happen to us. The one that protests at the bad thing that has happened. When you humbly acknowledge that loss is part of being human you remove a burden caused by resisting what has happened and open the way to grieve and process the loss.

Humility doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be angry at what has happened. Far from it. If you are angry then honour that and allow yourself to acknowledge the anger. But allow that anger to dissipate when it is ready to go.

Do the same with other feelings you are experiencing. If you want to cry, then cry. Acknowledge what you are feeling and allow it be there.

Humility means you accept you are human. You accept that something has happened that you are upset about. That you have lost something that mattered to you. Humility means you accept that you are hurt and this is going to require some attention to allow yourself to feel and release the pain.

Reverence

Reverence for human life is important. All life is important and deserving of honour. You are important and deserving of honour. You deserve to be shown kindness. And the person to give that kindness to you is you.

Other people are not always available to give you kindness. If they are, then their kindness is like a cherry on top of a beautiful cake. But your kindness is the beautiful cake. It is the comfort and support available to you all the time. Make sure you show reverence for your own life and give yourself the kindness you need and deserve.

Can I Help?

Sometimes you need help with the grief you are feeling and the pain. It can be difficult trying to find gratitude, humility and reverence for yourself and others. You may need to talk through all the emotions you are experiencing.

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

Surviving Grief: Push Back or Pull Towards

I have written a lot about the experience of grief. About the spinning out of control feeling, especially in the early days of grief.

I have already written a lot about the juggling of grief and living you have to do.

And I have written about finding meaning in that grief.

One thing I haven’t written about is the choices you have.

The Choices in Grief

This is not something to be doing in that acute phase when your body is still in fight, flight or freeze. This is something for later when you feel more in control of your brain.

This choice is about choosing how you are going to react to your grief.

The Choices

When bad things, such as grief, happen you protest. Not surprising. I don’t know of anyone who happily accepts awful things happening. Most people are shocked, devastated, and confused.

At the point of being able to gain control of your brain and make choices you will have two choices to make.

The Protest: Pushing Back

You can continue protesting, in other words push back against the pain.

“No.”

“It shouldn’t be happening.”

“I don’t want this.”

“I want things to be normal again.”

“I hate this.”

And so on.

Transform: Pulling Towards

Or you can consider what your needs are in this situation.
You can acknowledge your thoughts, feelings and sensations.
You can surrender to them and accept the pull towards feeling the experience of your grief. Through this decision you can transform the situation and proceed with your life.

It is not easy to do, but it is possible.

A Constant Series of Choices

You will find that on any given day you will have numerous occasions when you need to make that choice. It is not a one off, but a constant series of choices.

In a way, making the choice over every step of the way is easier than trying to make the choice over the entire process.

It does require a lot of effort, hence the exhaustion many people experience in grief. Sometimes you may protest and push back instead. Other times you will pull towards and transform your experience.

There will be times when you will need the support of others who will allow you to be with your experience and make your choices without pressure.

Can I Help?

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

What is Prolonged Grief Disorder and Do I Have It?

If you have ever experienced the loss of someone or something that was important to you, then you will know that grieving a loss is never simple.

For starters, grief hurts. A lot.

You will think your pain is settling down then something will trigger a memory and you are caught up in that pain again.

There will always be pain.

There will never be a time that it doesn’t hurt.

But for most people you learn to live with that pain and still function.

It is when grief continues and you can’t function well that grief can be considered to have become stuck and may need help to be able to function well in life.

This is what is known as Prolonged Grief Disorder.

Who Gets Prolonged Grief Disorder?

Anyone can suffer from Prolonged Grief Disorder.

Some people are more vulnerable to being affected this way. If you were particularly close to the person you are grieving, you will be more likely to be affected.

If you suffered from depression before experiencing this grief that may make you more susceptible.

If the death was sudden, traumatic or due to suicide it can also be more likely to happen.

It is important to acknowledge that Prolonged Grief Disorder is not just something that happens when someone dies, it can also happen with a job loss, the loss of a house, the loss of a country, the loss of a body part, the loss of a relationship, and so on.

Is There Anything I Can Do To Prevent This Happening?

It is really important that you give yourself space to acknowledge what has happened and allow yourself time to experience those feelings.

Don’t be pressured by other people to “get over it”. Don’t allow the expectations of others to force you to push your feelings aside and not process them.

Do recognise you will hurt for a long time. It is likely that before you are finished the worst part of grieving you will be fed up with being so sad. That is a good sign. It means you are getting ready to learn how to live with this pain.

Be willing to get help. See a counsellor, join a support group, use the support of understanding friends and family. Be prepared to experience your grief.

How Do I Know If I Have Prolonged Grief Disorder?

The first thing to remember is that no attempt is made to diagnose Prolonged Grief Disorder until at least 12 months has elapsed since your bereavement.

I have had people come to see me who are struggling to process the death of a loved one over a year ago, but then tell me another close family member only died a few months ago. If you have two major bereavements that close together, expect to be dramatically affected. You are not suffering from Prolonged Grief Disorder. You most likely need support, but you are not suffering from Prolonged Grief Disorder.

This is the criteria for an official diagnosis of Prolonged Grief Disorder:

• The bereavement occurred at least 12 months ago.

• You need the above plus at least three of the points below.

• You have lost your sense of who you are,

• You struggle to believe the person is dead,

• You avoid reminders that the person is dead,

• You are still experiencing intense emotional pain (sorrow, anger, bitterness for example) related to the death,

• You are having trouble getting back to work or social involvement,

• You feel emotionally numb,

• You feel your life is meaningless,

• You feel intensely lonely or feel totally detached from life.

If you feel this may be you then it is helpful to see a specialist grief counsellor.

What About My Children?

Children will grieve differently to adults. How they grieve will depend on their developmental stage and each new developmental stage will include a new period of processing more grief.

Another issue for children is the reaching of life stages where the one who has died may have been expected to be present. This is a fresh reminder of their absence and will include a new period of processing more grief.

Teenagers are included in this as their brains are still developing.

What you may see in children is:

• They may wait for their loved one to come back. This is particularly so with small children who have trouble understanding the concept of death.

• They may be frightened other people in their life may die too. With the death of someone in their life their sense of safety is disrupted and will take time and possibly assistance to regain.

• They may develop separation anxiety and not want other people to be away from them.

• They may think they just have to complete some task in order for their loved one to be alive again. This is known as magical thinking. Children can find it hard to understand that things happen in life and they cannot control them.

• Acting out behaviours that may not appear to be related to the loss. You may expect your child to cry or be sad. But what if they become angry and combative? Or they adopt destructive behaviours? Or they act like they don’t care about anything? There are many different behaviours you may see as your child tries to process these unfamiliar and overwhelming emotions.

If your child/teen is exhibiting behaviour that may suggest they are not coping with their loss it is helpful to arrange an appointment with a specialist child counsellor. Later teens are okay with a specialist grief counsellor but I would recommend a specialist for your younger children.

How To Treat Prolonged Grief Disorder.

There are many different therapies that work well with Prolonged Grief Disorder. In my work I use talk therapy, sand play, painting, movement, journalling, writing, poetry, therapeutic cards to name a few.

Please note that there is no medication treatment for this disorder. You need to process what has happened and medications do not facilitate that.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief, whether prolonged or not, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au