more grief stuff

[dalin]

"
Killer Clichés" About Loss
by Russell Friedman & John W. James of The Grief Recovery Institute
We have all been educated on how to acquire things. We have been taught how to get an education, get a job, buy a house, etc. There are colleges, universities, trade schools, and technical schools. You can take courses in virtually anything that might interest you.
What education do we receive about dealing with loss? What school do you go to learn to deal with the conflicting feelings caused by significant emotional loss? Loss is so much more predictable and inevitable than gain, and yet we are woefully ill-prepared to deal with loss.

One of the most damaging killer clichés about loss is "time heals all wounds." When we present open lectures on the subject of Grief Recovery®, we often ask if anyone is still feeling pain, isolation, or loneliness as the result of the death of a loved one 20 or more years ago. There are always several hands raised in response to that question. Then we gently ask, "if time is going to heal, then 20 years still isn't enough?"

While recovery from loss does take some time, it need not take as much time as you have been led to believe. Recovery is totally individual, there is no absolute time frame. Sometimes in an attempt to conform to other people's time frames, we do ourselves great harm. This idea leads us to another of the killer clichés, "you should be over it by now."

It is bad enough that well-meaning, well intentioned friends attack us with killer clichés, but then we start picking on ourselves. We start believing that we are defective or somehow deficient because we haven't recovered yet.

If we take just the two killer clichés we've mentioned so far, we can see that they have something in common. They both imply that a non-action will have some therapeutic or recovery value. That by waiting, and letting some time pass, we will heal. Let's add a third cliché to the batch, "you have to keep busy." Many grievers follow this incorrect advice and work two or three jobs. They fill their time with endless tasks and chores. At the end of any given day, asked how they feel, invariably they report that their heart still feels broken; that all they accomplished by staying busy was to get exhausted.

Now, with only three basic killer clichés we can severely limit and restrict our ability to participate in effective recovery. It is not only that people around us tell us these clichés, in an attempt to help, but we ourselves learned and practiced these false beliefs for most of our lives. It is time for us to learn some new and helpful beliefs to assist us in grieving and completing relationships that have ended or changed.

QUESTION: I have heard that it takes 2 years to "get over" the death of a loved one; 5 years to "get over" the death of a parent; and you never "get over" the death of a child.
Is this true?
ANSWER: Part of the problem is the phrase "get over." It is more accurate to say that you would never forget a child who had died, anymore than you would ever forget a parent or a loved one. Another part of the problem is one of those killer clichés we talked about, that time, of itself, is a recovery action. Although recovery from loss does take some time, it is the actions within time that lead to successful recovery.
The primary goal of Grief Recovery® is to help you "grieve and complete" relationships that have ended or changed. Successful Grief Recovery® allows you to have fond memories not turn painful and helps you retake a happy and productive place in your own life. In addition, you regain the ability to begin new relationships, rather than attempting to replace or avoid past relationships.

© 2002 Russell P. Friedman, John W. James and The Grief Recovery Institute.
All rights reserved. For permission to reprint this and other articles
please contact The Grief Recovery Institute at Editor@grief.net or by phone
USA (818) 907-9600 Canada (519) 586-8825

[dalin]

Right or Happy...Pick One
by Russell Friedman & John W. James
What we believe usually dictates how we feel. Our attitudes about people and events will generate our emotional responses to them. Our attitudes and beliefs are always right, otherwise we would believe something else. Since we have practiced our attitudes and beliefs over a lifetime, we are very loyal to them.
It is very common to get stuck on our rightness and lose sight of our real human objective which is to be happy. Many people believe that being right IS being happy. Most of us eventually learn that our rightness may be limiting or restricting our happiness.

Our rightness about effective recovery from significant emotional losses often limits our ability to complete relationships that have ended or changed. Many of the ideas and beliefs that we were taught about dealing with our losses are incorrect and unhelpful, but after practicing them for a lifetime, they can seem to be very RIGHT.

For example, we were all taught that "time heals all wounds." But time does not complete anything that is emotionally incomplete in our relationship with someone who died. If we believe, with tremendous rightness, that time is going to heal our emotional wound, we are destined to wait forever.

Time does not heal. Time goes by. It is the actions that you take within time that can help you grieve and complete relationships that have ended or changed. It is essential to take a new position of rightness about which actions are most helpful to achieve effective long-term Grief Recovery.

Another example of a belief that you may have learned and practiced is keeping busy. As a response to the conflicting feelings caused by loss, keeping busy can be a dangerous short-term distraction. At the end of a busy day your heart is still broken, and the relationship may still be incomplete. Keeping busy does not complete relationships. People are often as right about keeping busy as they are about time healing wounds.

In our last column, on Familiarity, we said, "familiar is not necessarily good, it is only familiar." By the same token, Right is not necessarily good, it is only Right. We tend to develop a ferocious loyalty to our rightness even though it often leads us to horrible squabbles with our mates and friends. If you think about most of the fights you've had, you will realize that both sides clung fiercely to the rightness of their position. Even in the aftermath, either party may have stayed on a position of rightness and refused to apologize, and thereby extended the fray.

It may be time for you to examine some of your beliefs and attitudes about recovery from significant emotional loss. How you process the conflicting feelings caused by loss is dictated by what you believe. You must ensure that you have effective beliefs that can lead you towards happiness, rather than stuck in rightness.

The Grief Recovery Handbook is an ideal source of effective Grief Recovery information and actions which can lead you to completion of relationships that have ended or changed. Using correct information and actions can help you capture or recapture the happiness you deserve. You may also discover ways to apply these principles in other areas of your life.

© 2002 Russell P. Friedman, John W. James and The Grief Recovery Institute.

[Prescott]

Thanx dalin, look forward to hearing more....John

[dalin]

the book these guys put out helped me out alot

[Prescott]

Hi Dalin, I'm going to order it today. Thank you for sharing ...John

[dalin]

If I Start Crying will I be Able to Stop?
by Russell Friedman & John W. James of The Grief Recovery Institute
There are many misconceptions about the pain associated with significant emotional loss. Some relate to the reaction of others, for example: "it's not fair to burden them with my pain," or "you have to be strong for others" [mom, dad, kids, etc.]. Some relate to how we think we should be reacting to the loss, for example: "I should be over it by now", or "I have to keep busy".
One of the most hidden and dangerous fears is that if I ever let myself feel the pain that I sense, I will start crying and never be able to stop. It is precisely this kind of incorrect assumption that can keep us locked into a position of unresolved grief, forever. And yet, based on what we have been taught in our society, it is a most logical extension of everything we have ever learned.

We were taught from our earliest ages that sad, painful, or negative feelings were to be avoided at all cost, and if we were unable to avoid them, at least, not to show them in public. Everyone we've ever talked to can relate to these comments: "if you're going to cry, go to your room, and cry alone"; "knock off that crying or I'll give you a reason to cry"; "smile and the whole world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone."

Those are just a small sampling of the kinds of remarks that have dictated your reactions to the loss events in your life. In last month's article we said that many of our survival habits were developed when we were quite young, and that we may be managing adult lives with the limited skills and perceptions of a child.

If you picture a tiny infant, unhappy about something, you will realize that the infant communicates displeasure at the top of its little lungs. If you think about it, you will recall that infants also express pleasure at the top of their lungs. They make no distinction between happy and sad, in terms of volume or intensity. As children move out of infancy they are socialized to reduce both the volume and intensity of the expression of their feeling responses to life. This might be somewhat acceptable if both happy and sad were merely muted a little and muted equally. Unfortunately, only the sad side gets severely crimped. The happy, joyful, and positive feelings are allowed to stay, and can even be shared with others. The other half of our normal feeling existence is relegated to isolation, separation, and aloneness.

With all of those beliefs and habits as a backdrop, it is almost entirely logical that we might be terrified to show or express any of the normal and natural painful reactions to losses of any kind. It even makes sense that we might believe that if we started crying we wouldn't be able to stop. So, if you have been a little hard on yourself for what you could not do, give yourself a break. You may have been executing your programming perfectly.

It may sound a little harsh and inhuman to say that you were programmed, but if you follow the analogy, you might find it helpful in allowing you to change. At the very least, if you can see how well you executed the incorrect things you learned, you will see that you can also execute correct things with great precision.

We have yet to see anyone not be able to stop crying. However, we have seen too many people not begin the process of Grief Recovery® because of an inordinate fear of any expression of their sad, painful, or negative feelings.

© 2002 Russell P. Friedman, John W. James and The Grief Recovery Institute.
All rights reserved. For permission to reprint this and other articles
please contact The Grief Recovery Institute at Editor@grief.net or by phone
USA (818) 907-9600 Canada (519) 586-8825

[dalin]

Is It Ever to Soon to Recover?
by Russell Friedman & John W. James of The Grief Recovery Institute

The question of when to begin a process of completing relationships that have ended or changed, due to death or divorce, is confused by conflicting opinions from a wide variety of sources. Medical, psychological, societal and family experts all approach the issue from differing perspectives.
It is not at all uncommon for us to hear of people being told, by their Professional, "it's Too Soon to begin your grief work, you're not ready yet." We grit our teeth every time we hear that comment.

Imagine that you have fallen down and gashed your leg. Imagine that blood is gushing from the wound. Imagine someone walking by and saying: "it's Too Soon, you are not ready for medical attention yet."

Now, imagine that circumstances and events have broken your heart. Imagine that you are experiencing the massive and conflicting feelings caused by significant emotional loss. Imagine a friend, or worse, a professional, saying to you: "it's Too Soon, you are not ready for emotional attention yet."

This is an area that is so filled with misinformation that it is often difficult to fight through to the truth. We have been falsely educated to believe that grievers want and need to be alone. We have been incorrectly socialized to avoid the topic of the loss, in an attempt to protect the griever.

Here is the simple truth: most grievers want and need to talk about "What Happened" and their relationship with that person or event. They want and need to talk about it almost immediately following the loss. It pre-occupies them, just as the person with the gashed leg is pre-occupied with their accident and their treatment and their recovery. Those who do not want to talk about it will let you know.

When a person learns of the death of a loved one, an almost automatic review process begins. This process may be conscious or unconscious; usually both. In reviewing the relationship, the griever remembers many events that occurred over the length of the relationship. Some of the events are happy and produce fond memories, some are unhappy and produce sad memories. During this automatic review the griever will usually discover some things that they wish they'd had an opportunity to say, things they wish had ended "different, better, or more." It is those unsaid things which need to be discovered and completed.

The review is most intense and most accurate in the time immediately following the death. It is the time when we are most focused on the person who died and our relationship with them. We will rarely have another opportunity to remember with such detail and intensity. This is the circumstance where "time" not only doesn't heal, but also diminishes our memory as we move further away from the death itself.

We will refrain from offering any concrete definition as to the "time" involved. Every griever is unique. Every griever responds at their own pace. It is essential never to compare one griever to another. Each and every griever has their own individual beliefs about dealing with their feelings of loss. Each griever is remembering their own individual relationship with the person who died.

We have been talking about the review that follows the death of a loved one. Everything above also applies to the death of a "less than loved one." Everything above also applies to divorce and to any and all significant emotional losses.

As soon as a griever becomes aware of the review process going on inside their head and their heart, it is time to begin the process of Grief Recovery. The Grief Recovery Handbook is an excellent guide and addition to the natural process that the griever is already doing. The Handbook will keep you on track and help you to complete the pain caused by the loss.

If your loss occurred some time ago, even many years ago, do not despair. The process in The Grief Recovery Handbook can help you recapture the review that took place and may have been repeating