Coping with Grief: 9 Tips & Activities from A Therapist

hi guys welcome back to my channel and if you're new welcome to my channel my name is Stephanie Yates and we light step on you for short I'm a licensed associate Marriage and Family Therapist and this channel is for fellow therapists those thinking of becoming therapists and those who are simply looking to create their best lives today we'll be dealing with a really tough subject grief and we'll be talking about what to expect during the stages of grief but more importantly some exercises that might help you through your grieving process if you're curious about a few tips that may help you cope with your grief please stay tuned [Music] I want to give a shout out to one of my Instagram followers and subscribers who actually requested this topic on my Instagram most weeks I will ask if there's anything you all are struggling with that would be useful to talk about sometimes I'll ask about challenges in certain areas of your life and so I just wanted to thank my followers and all of you who have been constantly letting me know the videos that would be most useful for you I'm trying to get to them as fast as I can knowing that I can only upload once a week ok so typically you know I start with the definition but I think we all have a good understanding what grief means so being a therapist grief is something that I'm talking about all of the time it's multifaceted for some people it'll be grief around a miscarriage for others it could be grief around a person being diagnosed with an illness sometimes we're also grieving the end of a relationship and all of those things come with a sense of mourning and trying to understand what's next how do I move forward with this new reality so I don't want people to feel like we're only talking about Greek through the lens of losing a person through death but we will be talking predominantly today about the loss of a loved one but most of these tips will be applicable no matter what type of grief you're dealing with I'll start with those five stages of grief that many of us have heard of but some haven't and I think the stages sometimes can be confusing for people if they feel like they're not progressing fast enough but just so that maybe you can see where you are which stage might be the most applicable to you I'll go ahead and quickly define those five stages of grief and then I'll move into my tips so the five stages of grief the acronym is dab-dab the first one is denial about the passing or loss of the person or situation that you're grieving the second one a is for anger and that is self-explanatory at that point you are upset about whatever loss you're experiencing the B stands for bargaining so in some cases we are asking God or asking the dr. whatever the situation may be we're bargaining to see take us instead or take that instead we're asking how can we get this person or the situation fact that we loved and held on to so dearly the second D stands for depression and this stage I find can be the most long-standing stage of grief this is where I see people who are really struggling with their my chronically depressed or is this situational depression because it can last for a long time sometimes it can last for years so if you are in a stage where you feel like you have been just stuck in your grief for a really long time that is okay you're not weird it's not wrong of you to feel that way you don't have to keep it a secret and the last a stands for acceptance acceptance of this change in your life this new normal this experience of having to move on or move forward without that person or situation I just want to briefly give you guys the five stages of grief because it's so popularly known and it can be helpful to kind of know where you are and maybe how you can anticipate to go but keep in mind it is cyclical you can go from one stage back to another stage grief is really unpredictable and I don't want you to feel any pressure to continue just moving through those stages I have tried so many things with my clients and these are some of the things that have just really stuck that my clients have shared with me have been really useful for them and think that I myself have used in my times of grief just for a moment of self disclosure probably the biggest debts that I've experienced was the death of my mother about five years ago and the depth of my grandmother which happened at the end of 2019 which was last year and so I used similar techniques and my own personal experiences and these things really did help me just sharing that knowledge of my experience but again I want to iterate that grief is such a unique process and there's no right way to do it I'm just hoping that these exercises might be able to help you process your feelings the first thing that I see that my clients friends family I struggled with is honestly being open with people that you're struggling sometimes we feel this pressure to just be strong and keep pushing and life goes forward when we lose that person or situation but it is totally ok for you to be struggling with accepting a reality without that person or that situation and so being open and honest with your close support system hey just so you know I am still struggling I'm frustrated I can't sleep at night I'm crying at night just bringing them in the loop and letting them know what you do or don't need sometimes my clients are so hyper aware of pity and they don't want to be pitied and I understand that but what happened to you is sad and people will be sad about it for you because they love you and they care about you and it doesn't make you a weak or bad or less interesting person because you are sad and people do feel bad for you there are times where you felt bad for people we all will experience times where we are the person that people feel sorry for and that is okay so if you are afraid of being pitied I'd encourage you to move past that fear or discomfort so that the people that can actually help you know that there is something that they need to be helping with and if you can't talk to your loved ones my next tip is to course find a therapist or a grief counselor there are certified grief counselors who literally work day in and day out with people who are grieving another great option would be to find a grief support group the wonderful thing about support groups is that they can get very very specific so maybe you lost a person due to cancer they'll have a group that specifically for people who have lost someone due to cancer or maybe you've been diagnosed with cancer and you need some support kind of grieving that loss of health or this new experience in your life so finding a support group can be a really great way for you not to feel so alienated even if you don't feel comfortable sharing it with your inner circle you can still find a support system to kind of lean on and even lend your shoulder to here's one of my favorite exercises to do with my clients and something that really helped me is sharing the story of you and that person you lost it can be so surprising the things that we don't voice out loud that trip we took to the store with that person or the memorable day where we stopped and got ice cream share that story because sometimes it feels like these really insignificant moments are just so insignificant that they're not worth talking about but once you lose a person things become so much more significant that last hug that last phone call so share your story from beginning to end just telling that story again that could be to a close friend that could be to a therapist that could be in your journal just writing that narrative so that you can remember it because one of the scariest things about losing someone is feeling like you're going to forget them and you won't remember those special moments that you have with them I had a client that talked about someone looking in the rear view mirror and they would always wink at each other it just always did that but now they look in the rearview mirror and they're not there anymore if you're an artist drawing those special moments that you don't want to forget think about a way to canonize them and and keep them in your memory forever do something in their honor and usually with my clients we're talking about either something that that loved one always loved to do or something that they always wanted you to do so maybe they always told you you should sing more maybe you sing a song for them maybe you upload that song in their honor maybe they always want it to travel to a certain place and maybe you go there and there be have those little things of doing something in their honor can sometimes give us the closure that we never really got with that person especially in cases where it wasn't unexpected or surprising loss here's another great closure bringing one is to learn more about them through the perspective of other people that were in a different phase of their life so it was really rewarding for me to hear stories from my mom sorority sisters I never knew those stories and I never knew her through their eyes so just finding out more about that person through other people can be so healing to just get to feel like you're getting to know them all over again is that there is no shortage of memories or stories regarding that person that you've lost here's one that works well too if you're grieving a breakup or someone that you're just having to sever ties with but also is really effective if you have lost someone we have those reminders of them on a day to day basis the small things we would have called them about or texted them we can't tell them those things anymore but sometimes it can be healing to still get those things out those thoughts out of your mind write it down so they'll have a journal and let's say that you know a certain celebrity comes on that you know you would have talked a little about it I just saw such-and-such you will love their outfit whatever your dynamic was of that person you have an outlet for writing down the things that you would have texted them or called them about just so it feels like you still are remembering them and honoring that dynamic along those lines it can be helpful to write full-length letters to them address it in their name catching them up on what's been going on with you maybe asking them for guidance or help if your spiritual and just still keeping that communication alive if you still have so much you need to say to them write them a letter and if you knew them really well some of my clients have actually written a letter back from that person's perspective and that can be a little eerie but sometimes you know that person so well that you know exactly what they would have said and sometimes it would have been a word of encouragement or a word of comfort and maybe that's what you need right now and so writing it from their perspective back to you could be really healing as well and I don't take these tasks lightly I know that this can be very emotionally charged and draining and so do it at your own pace listen to your body if you're doing any of these things and it's way too overwhelming stop you know yourself better but if you are doing these things and it is emotionally charged but you're feeling like you're finally getting some of these things out keep with it because emotions aren't bad that's the whole point to the grieving process is to process those emotions cope with the new reality and respect the fact that you're sad angry in denial it doesn't matter where you're at it's okay to feel that way and you want to respect those feelings so those are just a few tips or exercises that my clients and I have used has kind of made the process of grieving and mourning feel like it has more of a purpose it made us feel like we were able to do something about it so these are things that have worked for us my clients and me but maybe there are other things that I've worked for you if you've got some wonderful tips or things that worked for you that could be useful for anyone watching this video please leave that in the comments below let's build a support community around grief especially right now where we all don't have access to those rituals that were accustomed to like a funeral or gathering together at a person's house to just support one another we don't have those resources right now over at quarantined so it can be really difficult to figure out how can I find any closure and losing the significant person if I don't have access to those rituals that have brought me peace in the past we just don't have the same access it's totally ok to be struggling it's totally expected there is absolutely no timeline for processing grief take your time and do the things that make you feel better I hope this helps again my name is Stephanie aids I employ lace deaf onion for short I hope that you subscribe to this channel and like this video if you found it helpful I truly appreciate you for watching until the end of the video that really helps me thank you [Applause] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Steph Anya, LMFT

Views: 81,038

Keywords: mental health, black therapist, natural hair, kati morton, self care, therapist, whats anya mind, what's anya mind, social work, life coach, counselor, grief, social distancing, death, loss, young therapist, how to cope with grief, psychologist, mourning loss, 5 stages of grief, stages of grief, loss of parent, loss of child, how to deal wit grief, the grieving process, in loving memory, the death of a loved one, loss of husband, depression, george floyd, complicated grief

Id: Cxsrkryoafs

Length: 13min 33sec (813 seconds)

Published: Mon May 04 2020