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Author: Dan Loeffler

  • Grieving Bravely

    Today, while sipping my coffee, I read some postings on the Grief Toolbox. There was sharing, sadness, and resolve. Regarding one particular entry, I wrote:

    “Grief shows up uniquely for everyone.

    Just reading the posts, you see a wide variety of feelings. There was anger, sadness, and compassion. But the poem I read spoke of wanting to shield the world from pain and to go on an inward journey.”

    What made this piece such a powerful statement for me was that healing can occur while grieving. Each grieving person who speaks their truth, whether it is from their pain or from their sense of healing, presents us with a gift. While suffering and pain is real during grief, when we speak from our heart an act of bravery is performed.

    To write of bravery recalls all the fictional constructs of physical muscle, stoic fortitude, and personal strength that allow nothing to deter you from your goal. But, in reflection of the many stories of the loss of a loved one, an image of a deeper kind of bravery has emerged.

    Grief involves broken heartedness.

    A painful condition when you realize that your life has been changed. What you thought was your path is shaken and you are left to wander. You stumble on in a wilderness of the unfamiliar. You do not know where you are and things seem hopeless. When you are lost you may not realize that you have choices. But the choice is to stay lost and stuck in your current funk or to find your compass and move.

    I read the personal stories that are posted on line. Some people have overcome and are aware that foundational changes have happened in their lives. Some wish that things could go back or be different. Some lament that they will never again know what they will do. The sadness and pain that flows from their words emanates from the pages.

    During grief, your pain is potent and paralyzing.

    People may spend a long time in their pain. Once you have reached the point where you have emptied yourself of that sorrow the bravery enters.

    This bravery is drawn from within; when you feel like you have nothing left moving forward takes courage.

    To meet the darkness of your feelings takes a brave heart. To know that you make a decision not to forget your loved one but to carry their memory takes strength.

    A moment of decision occurs when you take up the hand you were dealt or, as my mother would say, “to bear your cross”. In that decision, your grief can be transforming. It is not about missing your loved one, but of finding a way within yourself to love them in a different way. It is allowing yourself the permission to conclude the former relationship and dream a new way to carry those feelings that allows your heart to heal. You can then enter the new phase of your relationship in a way that honors their memory and builds a positive place for you to live.

    Grieve bravely for yourself and for the lost ones who you remember and love.

  • Continuing to Change the Conversation Around Grief

    Early grief is a difficult topic that also requires a change in conversation. The difficulty encountered during this emotional time just occurs immediately after a loss. The feeling associated with early grief can be overwhelmingly challenging. Learned responses based on our own faulty observations do not provide sufficient skill to prepare us for large life loss.

    When children face the loss of a parent, grandparent or sibling, a parent or any adult having skills at the ready to meet a child’s fear and emotions can make a difference in their recovery. Most children do not have the verbal skills necessary to express their emotional upheaval. They rely on their parent to provide assistance in this trying time. If the parent is not prepared and is grieving themselves, the child’s recovery may take much longer and be more difficult.

    The National Alliance for Grieving Children (NAGC.org) is sponsoring Grieving Children’s Awareness Day. Commemorated on the third Thursday of November (11-19-2015) this day highlights and encourages preparedness, outreach and support to all children who suffer from loss.

    The National Alliance for Grieving Children promotes awareness of the needs of children and teens grieving a death and provides education and resources for anyone who wants to support them. Raising awareness of children’s grief can make a difference in the life of a grieving child! Being prepared with answers to their questions when a loss occurs in their life is another aspect of changing the conversation around grief.

    For us this was apparent when Leah’s accident occurred and we waited to see if a recovery was possible. We were faced with the decision to hold this as a private family situation or open it to her network of friends. The same friends who were their everyday during those painful 5 days she was with us. Our decision to invite them in to visit, say their encouragements and goodbyes was a painful choice for us. To see the pain in their eyes and know they had no way to comprehend their friends fate or their own grief was one of the factors that affected our decision to do this work.

    Every year on the third Thursday of November, the NAGC proudly observes Children’s Grief Awareness Day. Our Affiliate members, donors and supporters throughout the country acknowledge this day by wearing blue and hosting awareness events in their communities. Bereaved children are often referred to as the “forgotten mourners”. Many bereaved children feel isolated in their grief, unaware that they are not alone. Children’s Grief Awareness Day is an opportunity to tell children they are not forgotten and that there is support, hope and healing to be found.

    So on Thursday, I am wearing blue to recognize the cause, support our young people in their pain and be present to the possibility that the work of Being with Grief to bring about change in how we talk about and work to complete the undelivered communications that never had an opportunity to be said to your loved one.

  • Making the Move – Transitions

    The topic of transitions and how we approach change came up in a recent discussion while visiting independent living facilities. In working with seniors, and with becoming seniors ourselves, how I view change in my life and how we manage our transitions made an big impression. As I meet and interact with the residents, their frame of reference needs to have first priority.

    The Grief Recovery Method holds that grief is the conflicting feelings caused by an end or change in a familiar pattern of behavior. Our well-being in later life is impacted by these changes. How often and when these changes occur can affect our health and our longevity.

    Grief and Beefs!

    In terms of grief, these transitions can bring much to the surface. Our “griefs and beefs” are seldom spoken of, let alone shared. As we advance in years, the accumulation of these transitions may show up in our attitude and behaviors which then may challenge our health and make us feel older. We get determined, set in our ways, and without recognizing it, our world view gets smaller and more restrictive. We also hold these feelings too close to our hearts and rarely express them until they show up as ulcers, cancer, or other physical diseases.

    Take for example, the decision to leave the home where we have lived and raised our family. A transition like this can have both immediate and long term grief associated with it. Let me emphasize here that the grief may not appear as a problem. Recognize that these changes can create conflicting feelings. Knowing that a change is necessary yet, feeling remorse to letting go of a home that was filled with memories.

    These memories can be positive and negative at the same time.

    For example, remembering how hard you worked to make the mortgage payment may be offset by the many birthday celebrations that filled the place with laughter and joy. Another memory may be recollecting the joy of watching the onset of evening versus the chore of knowing the lawn needs mowing, again. These are examples of trade offs in our conflicting feelings. When we reach the tipping point that the familiar patterns of our life no longer serves us, it is time to let go. Our heart may feel the weight of our realization and in those moments we experience grief. This is one of life’s small griefs, not a death or a divorce, but over time small griefs can accumulate and wear us down.

    Loss of health and change in familiar behavior patterns are two more senior concerns. It can be the simplest of tasks that go by unrecognized or unacknowledged as a transition. Seemingly simple activities, such as attempting to open a stubborn jar or needing to put your glasses to read the ingredients in a recipe, causes us to lament our capabilities, our physical limitations and may even change the way we see our day unfolding. When walking and being ambulatory challenges us, our world dwindles and we opt again to reduce areas where we were once active. These transitions have profound impact on our happiness and can be sensed by those around us. Those people may even state to others, “keep away from him, he’s having a bad day.”

    Our work to change the conversation around grief.

    This takes on a new dimension when we consider the ramifications of the challenges faced by seniors. Small daily griefs accumulate quickly and can spiral uncontrolled if they are not recognized. The work of taking on these daily life challenges and putting them into a context that reframes our limits can be healthy. Reducing the grief conflict is the purpose of many of the activities provided for seniors in independent living facilities. Learning new ways of addressing change can help reduce anxiety and depression. We have not yet learned to reverse the aging process so we must work on ways of acceptance and grace in the openness by which we see ourselves. Our strength individually and collectively is in recognizing our humanness, as seen in the smile of recognition and understanding that each of us must learn over again each day, what it means to live in our light.

    Offerings

    This month we will be starting a new program to let the stories be told. I will be inviting the seniors to share their story and record their good news. In addition, I am scheduling small group meetings to begin the process. The program takes eight weeks to complete. Groups range from 4 to 14 participants and there are assignments that need to be completed outside of the sessions. I will also work one on one with anyone who needs additional help through the process. If you are interested in taking this next step or know someone who may be interested, please call for a personal conversation and sign-up so healing can begin.

    Dan Loeffler
    Certified Grief Recovery Specialist