Good grief; coping with loss - Dr. Susan Delaney

thank you and thanks for coming and thanks for inviting me and go talk tonight about good grief coping with loss we want to start with M a writer I have a lot of time for Steven Levine and he says all of us have grief to explore the grief of incompletion of not having what we wish the loss of face the death of friends the loss of one's past good friends moving away and old pains returning the moments of being unloved the loss of faith in fact all things in column B the world weariness the fatigue the struggle the loss of love the carelessness of actions that congealed around the heart and I'd like to read that piece because I think it reminds us M there's a lot to grief and I'd like us to talk em about grief in general tonight and here we are on a Wednesday evening fellow grief travelers and with an opportunity maybe to learn a little from from each other because I would always say to be belong grief be very cautious who you take advice from we're all amateurs at grief I'm happy to share a little bit around my thinking about grief at the moment and if I was doing this lecture six months ago it would probably have been different and probably be different this time next year as well I'll just talk to you a little bit around my understanding of us at the moment and I'm hoping you might share some of your thoughts and experiences as well and we get caught up on the stories and we know that they all lived happily ever after and what they don't because nothing lasts forever we grieve for all the things and people that were important to us so those might include the loss of someone important that's the most obvious way thank you we think of grief and I always include pets in that because I always think of my own dad I think he was he was fonder of his his job than he was of most people last of mental health lots of employment loss of physical health laughter dreams so we really broaden out the meaning of laughs and grief to thinking of basically life just not working out the way we had planned we call the last of the assumptive world we agree for what we have had and last but let's also remember we also agree for what we had hoped to have when we started out in our life the story that we thought would unfold what we thought we'd have expected to have and failed to have so the absence of presence but also the presence of absence we talked about this a lot M there's really always a talk around Christmas in the hospice and people talking about perhaps the death of a child but for every family that's facing the death of a child there's many many more families who are facing another year with infertility or miscarriage or just never having the family they thought they'd have so I think to be aware when Steve Levine is saying we all know grief it's both of these things and when I'm teaching students sometimes they'll say well I haven't really had a bereavement you know and you kind of think God loved us you know you don't get to be human in this life without losing something that is grief Molly Fumiya in her book a safe passage says grief is the most patient and persistent of all of life's companions it's an ancient universal power that links all human beings so we're all here as grievers okay so what we're going to do about it and I think it's kabat-zinn says we can't stop the waves but we can learn to surf this is the one I use that says we can't we can't do anything about what happens we're always faced with what are we going to do now that this has happened we don't have choice around what happens or we have a choice with what we do with what happens and excuse me now when I move today exhibit a this is where I was asking for the lattice I just think visuals help sometimes with these things all the same optimist so this one is as amidst yeah and this one this one I like to call not what I ordered it's not original to me I'm taking it from somebody else but when I saw out I thought that's grief isn't it yeah and we spent an awful lot of time be it at the bar the coffee sharpening no sorry that's not mine no no not what I ordered no thanks you're confusing me with someone else it's not mine we spent a lot of time and energy pushing back nope can't be not what I ordered so I leave it there as a visual I think it helps but even to think in your own head the energy that we already have taken up with trying to not accept what's already here not what I ordered do you like that he took as well yeah yeah so let's not make it any more difficult than it needs to be because sometimes they did the most difficult times we give the times the times we give ourselves were all faced with laughs what are we going to do about it even if it isn't what we ordered it's what we got yeah I do a lot of work in the hospice foundation with people who are and presented with what we know called complicated grief people that are very stuck in their grief and I think the first order of business for any grief but particularly for the people I work with has to be what's going to be a good resolution how are you going to know when you finished your grief journey and the kind of things that I'm playing with at the moment and and I suppose most of what I've learned I've learned from the people I work with and the grief isn't going away you know we got a bit caught up thinking there were stages of grief and you get through it and you'd be finished and you'd be back to your old self it's not any news to you I know but it doesn't work like that we always want to remember the person that died the attachment that was important to us but I suggested that perhaps it's possible to remember with love rather than pain because you can get very stuck in the pain of grief to learn to accept the loss and the consequent changes that it brings okay it may not be what you're ordered but as you accept it and get used to it and get familiar with it maybe it's not quite as bad as it seemed not I mean that across the board I'm talking depression right through to death of the most important person in your life and the ability to experience joy and satisfaction again I'm disheartened I suppose that a lot of people in grief don't feel they have any choice I spoke with a man one time who was very actively suicidal and we were talking about why he hadn't gone for help and he said it never dawned on me that there was anything out there that could help me now you're already ahead of the pack here with a connection to aware but I did think it was extraordinary vision need to do a better PR job it is possible to heal from loss and grief and to again experience joy and satisfaction does it all go away and you're happy as Larry give me a break no but kind of be moments of joy again yes there can and I think that's the hope that we hold out the hope that things can indeed be different and I like again just to have some sort of visual sort of for that and straight this one I wanted and it's actually a tree and Pembroke Road that someone sent me a photo of and I liked it so much we put it on the cover of the book we did a few years ago and I loved it as a visual and the tree continuing to grow even though it has something hard doesn't it look like it's hard and cold some people see other things but they just have dirty minds don't mind them you know washes if and buts look at the tree the tree continues to grow if we call that the pain or the grief or the loss in the middle it's not going anywhere in fact it's right at the center but the trees continue to grow I'll give you one more and then we'll come back to these during's this is what I call the the flu model of grief and I think it works equally well for depression and that's a ball inside a jar do you know what that feels like when you're so full of something there's no space for anything else and you couldn't even stand someone to touch you it's just loss and pain there's no space no space for anything else and if you had the flu this was the flu it'd feel pretty rotten for a week or so and then the symptoms would ease I need some more and if we had more jars right at the end she could hardly see it at all it would be gone and wouldn't you be back to your old self again grief isn't like that but we push it as a model and when we say things to people like are you over that yet or are you back to your old self or I thought that happened last year what are we saying you know come on move along here move along and and certainly the brief people I see are very clear when they get maybe not said but the look that says could you not try a little harder or maybe you're milking it a little bit you know we gave you a certain amount of time no come on seriously move along everybody has problems yeah so grief is not like flu it's not a useful M model and I think most especially because if you've had a significant loss in your life the last thing you want is to forget if the person that you loved most in the world has died you don't want to forget that person even the most difficult memories are very precious it's a connection to that person so this is very scary I think when people are breathed this is our new improved hi-tech model starting in the same place and that really is a cute grief I think that's a pretty reasonable visual of a cute grief you're just full of it and when people say that's the woman whose child died that's the man whose mother died that's how you feel as well it's the only way you can define yourself is by your loss your suffering or your grief so we know this place this is the acute place and and there's no guarantees particularly in grief so when I see people and they'll say well when when might I be feeling better will I be better by Christmas how long is a piece of string we don't know so we don't wait we don't know what the course of grief is going to be it's different for everybody so we don't wait tah-dah we get a bigger container right if so if the ball is now the last or the grief I'm not changing it that's the same ball but the container is bigger and bigger and so on we could do it that way instead so if we're talking about a significant loss we're saying the last will always be there but the proportion changes as the container changes the grief hasn't changed it may change we don't know how can we know Who am I to tell anybody what will be the course of their grief how could I possibly know and who would I think I was to be telling them but this we can do we can grow we can grow so you get something like saying the the grief doesn't get lighter but the shoulders can get stronger and then what happens you can carry it more lightly you can fish other things in here you're not just the man with depression or the woman whose child died you can also be other things like sister mother welder painter comedian whatever there's space for other things but it still privileges the loss and again not original I'm passing it on I think these things belong to the universe but if it's a useful visual for you I encourage you to to use it now this is not a lecture on Buddhism and but I like this piece and I like to include it when we're talking about grief because they just say it up straight you know what all life is about suffering I think my life would have been easier as a young woman had I known that right we don't cross our fingers and hope that suffering doesn't come our way it is coming it's here all life includes suffering we're hardwired as human beings were hardwired to attach that's what we do we have to attach as a baby we wouldn't survive we're hardwired we attach to people in our lives and that continues right up through our life most functioning adults will have about five significant attachments at any time in their life so a pause moment and you can count by yourself and that's what we do but yet it's the attachments that get us into trouble because everything ends so there's that very difficult paradox that we're working with we're hardwired to attach to people to stories to how we think our life should be to how we think we should be and we're disappointed when it doesn't work out like that so giving us a better hope then good old Buddhism also says it's possible to release yourself from suffering and there's things you can do and that's what I'd like us to talk about I don't have a magical cure I'm sorry but I thought I'd just offer you a couple of ideas and and truly they're just things I'm interested at the moment around em how moving from self criticism to self compassion can help us can broaden the shoulders so that the weight is a bit lighter now as they say this is the science part don't ask me questions about this because I have a very rudimentary understanding of it but you know we have an old reptilian brain years and years and years ago and that just tried to keep us alive I basically checked were there any Tigers coming our way and it's like velcro for trash or hurt so it stays with us we have an overlay of new brain but that old brain has a negativity bias because it's trying to keep us alive and and that shows itself in all kinds of ways we'll notice 10 people are nice to us one person gives us a dirty look we remember that and when Paul Gilbert was here last year and talking on self compassion he must have said it 10 times in his talk he'd say it's the way you're made it's not your fault and I thought it was lovely we just think that's the way were made we always have to be on the lookout for threat that's what we do and that's what old brain does best we now have new with neocortex the new brain when we learned to think and to think about thinking the new brain two million years old not that new no obviously this brain is fabulous and does all sorts of things but also get us in a lot of trouble when we have difficulties because we can think about thinking we can ruminate and my goodness if you think of a loss and think about the sleepless nights they shoulda woulda couldas the what-ifs what if I turn left instead of turning right if only I don't X and not Y it doesn't actually serve us very well in our suffering zamak sense just think about it wonderful brain allows us to reflect on things and do all kinds of amazing things in our life but it can catch us up don't need to read this one I'm just saying evolved design is not necessarily good design the to talk to you a little bit about just how emotions are are organized within the brain and petrulio time sages are our brain particularly if you're a heady person that likes to think things out it can trip us up yeah very simple things and I think I'll take a day off I'm feeling so bad so you call in sick and and the next thing your brain is since you shouldn't have done that well you just told me you know what are you going to do it doesn't serve you well because as soon as you do something you're then going to reflect on it that didn't happen back on the plains the tiger didn't get you you just got on with life for another day you didn't spend a lot of time thinking about geez I was lucky escape and this could happen - hold it - yeah it's not like that but the rumination that goes on we've now moved from being on the lookout Tigers to whether people liked our picture on Facebook you know it's the same story as far as your brain is concerned so we have to kind of learn and understand the motives of the old brain that's fine but we can use our new brain to commish no I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this it's really just a little bit of ground work so I can we can talk a little bit about things we can do to help just to think about the way emotions are organized threat and self-protection the most important thing and for us in our the world we live in now it's things like losing jobs losing face being criticized but it's the same mechanism that was keeping us safe from the Tigers and and there's always a negativity bias because we it's always better to be safe than sorry right add to that that the sort of desire the resource seeking to to get stuff more is better and you know how we all fall into that pit of I'd be happy if and when such-and-such happens or if so-and-so would act differently then you know but there's always something out there that with the call I like that expression the hedonistic try well there's always something and that somebody else has to do or the universe has to provide before we can settle with ourselves there's always stuff for wanting and as soon as you get something sure someone else has it better yeah so where does it get you the bit that we're going to concern ourselves with tonight is the soothing and contentment how do we balance both of those so if a lot of that the previous lights have made no sense to you don't worry about it I'm just laying a bit of foundation to say we have the ability to use self compassion to calm ourselves that's all I'm saying we know and this is just a piece from research we know which reduces anxiety and stress and depression now the opposite of self compassion is self criticism and we use it it's certainly how I was I grew up and how I was educated and criticism being used as motivator it doesn't work right but we do it to ourselves as well you know push push push it's not enough never happy always more we could have done should have done would it on right you can hear that new brain data data that the story about why you just don't measure up I see people probably most weeks in my practice that say I'm not grieving right may was a joke that we're at a pointer we just think we're not even grieving right we can't even get that right there isn't a right or a wrong way but we beat ourselves up trying to find it so what we want to use the self compassion for is just to deactivate the threat system with something significant has happened in your life like like a significant loss and it activates that threat system it feels like there's danger and that stays in your body if you've ever had that experience of waking up in the morning and even before you're fully conscious you're already feeling scared or anxious or panicky and maybe feeling like when you were doing the leaving or whatever it might be but that panic and it's very common for people in grief to develop and anxiety disorders and to take panic attacks the world suddenly seems very dangerous because we do a great job with death denial we know in one part of our brain we know we're all going to die a hundred years from now none of us will be here I don't imagine but we don't live with that in our conscious mind how could we so we find a way to kind of push it aside and not deal with it but it does kind of wiggle its way in because we do know it's there and so we're just trying to look at how can we use the self compassion to calm ourselves to remind ourselves there's actually no dangers there's no Tigers coming it feels like there is and when you get that panic response in your body you just get the cortisol flowing through your body that stress response and the stress hormone the kind of stuff that gives you alters and it's no good so we need to use our new brain to say it's okay it's okay there's no danger what happened has happened and we're managing it the way you would talk to a very small child that was scared it's okay our body doesn't know it and we have to tell us it's not self pity and I think that's really important to say particularly in grief when when people struggle in their grief they do feel and are other people thinking I'm kind of wallowing in it yeah may not be sad to say it's just a bit of a look or a bowl writing yeah and nobody would choose to feel the way you feel in acute grief it's not a choice that people make and it's not an indulgence so what I'm saying to you is I think we beat ourselves up over something it's not our fault it's how we're hardwired so we're just looking at what can we do when we've been handed something we didn't order and we don't want quash are the possibilities in that well I just keep going with two questions at the end err people okay I can't see it so you could all be asleep from here okay I'm pause for a second now but I'm trying to sell yarn really is to consider the possibility of just accepting whatever you got even if it wasn't what you ordered and to consider just trying a couple of simple exercises for yourself to see can you come that the shooter woulda couldas the things not working out the way I wanted them to or I expected them to or other people expected of me very simply that's all I'm talking about and so this this piece that I've taken is it's worked by a Kristin Neff who's pretty fancy-schmancy psychologist in the States and but when she talks about self-compassion what she'll say is what brought it brought her to it was having had a very high flying career and then deciding it was time to have a child she had a very m significantly disabled child he had very serious autism and and the struggles with that and how that was for her as a parent and how she managed and how she managed other people's looks and all the carry on the goes with that one and we're all very quick with our judgments aren't we so this is she devised this kind of this way of being self compassionate and broke it down into into three three ways of being and I just thought if that's ok with you I'll show you a little around that just being kind being kind to yourself we write it on sympathy cards take care be good to yourself now during this difficult time do we do it as bereaved people do we hack know what would it even mean would you even know where to start to be kind to yourself what would it mean that it that little judgmental voice that you carry around with you yeah parental voice maybe it's just me no yeah that comment on everything yeah yeah yeah me the reason I was late Italian I was I went to st. James's Hospital so - st. Patrick's Hospital so voice had plenty to say seriously it was James's Street not just you know what are you going to do we're here now being kind a recognition that grieving and you see what I did there like a little typo just to show you that I'm human too yeah grieving failing and being imperfect are just part of being human it's part of the human condition it's part of the human condition suffering is part of being human we need to teach kids that in schools so they're better prepared for us then we can start looking at and here's what we can do about it to manage it to not get rid of it it's not going anywhere but we can manage it but we don't want to do is to ignore the pain or beat ourselves up with the self-criticism and then you get more stress more frustration and you're into quite a treadmill right there self kindness okay just take a nice and handy are we on to date Wednesday right don't need to peek yet okay give yourself to Friday I'm teasing okay common humanity my experience of grief is that it's a terribly isolating experience it doesn't matter if it happens to everybody when it happens to ourselves you feel like nobody has ever tried a similar path before it's terribly lonely and it's terribly isolating now if the person that you've lost is one of your attachment figures it's even more difficult if it's someone that you're very close to that's important to you and because when we lose that person we don't feel like going out in the world the world feels terribly scary we're like that small child again if you can't see your mother you get frantic yeah but as we get older we can carry a representation of the person and that consumed us but when we have to come to terms with the fact that that person is gone and they're never coming back that's very scary and again it links to why we see anxiety disorders and panic attacks and agoraphobia very frequently and with bereavement people end up saying you know I went into town I took a panic attack I thought I was having a heart attack or I thought I might vomit or wet myself you know the kind of things that that concern us as people if I was going to get sick where was I going to get sick it's just easier to stay at home but it comes from the loss of that person the safe haven that our attachment figures provide for us they make us feel safe in the world so common humanity is a little nudge to remind ourselves it happens to all of us it isn't just us we're not alone it can feel like we're alone and isolated in our pain but that's a feeling thoughts and feelings they're not rational you know that thoughts are just thoughts thoughts aren't truths but we have to remind ourselves of that just because we take something doesn't mean it's true pots aren't truths and I certainly have worked with people that on any measure seem to have got more than their fair share of difficulty you know whatever yardstick that is I don't know and and I remember a woman saying to me I just think someone's having a laugh you know we just try to make sense of it she's like seriously she didn't say it as politely as that but that's that's always there because when we find ourselves in our life and has a lot to do with things that are not within our control we're not as powerful as we think we are right you're working with the DNA and the genes that you got the where you find yourself the washer else is going on in your life what else is going on with the people around you and the people that care for you all that stuff you're carrying there's a little bit of it we've control of yeah we don't have to let the birds make the nest in our hair but the fact that they're flying overhead there's nothing we can do about that so as Paul Gilbert says it's not your fault and you're not alone and even that sometimes just as a soothing piece for yourself it's not my fault and I'm not alone not talking about excusing ourselves from anything but just as a way of comforting and being compassionate with ourselves okay it's both the bad stuff doesn't last and the good stuff doesn't last people often prefer this one so if you have had a lot of statue days look forward your day of being pigeon must be coming soon yeah and you can think about exactly what you're going to do and what statues you're going to target it's just the way it is nobody has it in for you it just is and we can fight it and we can say I'm sorry this is not what I ordered or we can relax into it and say now that this has happened what am I going to do about it okay so we're not talking about indulging ourselves or throwing a pity party because in fact there's no effect attached to it just is an invitation to start pushing against us acknowledging exactly what's there the final one I actually I'm a mindfulness teacher in another life and even I'm sick of mindfulness at this point sorry it's just everywhere isn't it there's like mindfulness dolphin - uh together and so I suppose I I'm sick of the word but certainly discovering mindfulness changed my life and I think they that kernel of mindfulness that says take a balanced approach don't privilege the negative over the positive neither of them are going to last we need to stop striving all the time towards the positive we need to not run away from the dark from the shadow both transitory both part of our existence and being in the world and we can be in both we're not avoiding one and moving towards the other yeah can we just accept right now how we are in the moment without judgment now to be honest and I hope I'm not offending anyone when I say this I do think at the moment maybe mindfulness has been oversold and it reminds us to come into the moment but I actually don't think that's enough we then have a choice and that's what we want when you come into the moment then you have a choice around what you're going to do in the next moment and that's what we're looking for there's the coming to the moment if you use your breath and talk about that a little bit brings into your body by these good place to be because your body doesn't lie right your head lies body doesn't lie but it just says this is where I find myself with no judgement it's where you are and it's not your fault and we like some moments though better than others we don't get a choice yeah yeah I'm all about living in the moment but it but it on live in this moment tough who only whoops the only one we have we don't get to choose it yeah just take a nap we only we only have moments to live yeah yeah that's the killer in mindfulness yeah I live in the moment person no not this one not this one not this one not the moment I ordered that won't I ordered yeah so when we got so what we got it's this it's this moment right now and if you were to pause with yourself right now and think right in this moment how do I find myself just noticing if I comes to you not going to ask you're obviously and can you accept it in a friendly curious way without judging may not be how you would choose to be we know but it's what it is okay and I'm very keen on self-soothing through the body and I'm kind of thinking I might be talking to the converted here said I just think the body doesn't lie the body is always in the present and it's always accurate you ever want to truly check out the truth or something check in your gosh there's reasons we say things like that isn't it I just felt it in my gosh it's the same quirk I knew was in my waters I'm not really sure what that means that must be something in the body but there's a truth and a wisdom in the body you know you've made the right decision about something when you're kind of settled wherever it is maybe my tummy you know for the people with their chest your shoulders you know wherever it is you tend to hold things or where things manifest themselves in your body but you know when you're settled you think yeah or you get a bad feeling about something or somebody and you can't put your finger on it that's the body's truth so might there's lots of research about mindful breathing and if we distilled it down to two words what seems to help is breathing evenly and rhythmically what rhythmically means just getting into doesn't matter you could be doing in for a count of four up four come to four we suggest to people they do a little bit longer out-breath if you're feeling panicky are anxious and it's not correct and we probably all learned what we saying now what you need to do is take a deep breath know you don't deep breath makes your hyperventilation what's meant by a deep breath is really a belly breath that if you're breathing in you're trying to breathe down into your tummy but taking in big gulps of air doesn't help so even whatever suits you we know how to breathe it's the first thing we did in our lives and it'll be the last thing we do in our lives we know how to do it your body is just their breathing away so it's always something you can depend on you can come back to no am leaving oh so that obviously people that I'm breathing difficulties that's you know fair point but for most of us if we can just bring our attention to a steady even breath it calms us the cortisol that I was saying to you that stress hormone relax parasympathetic comes into play and your body gets the message this is not scary there's nothing happening at this moment whatever happened has already happened scanning the body is the same thing in your mind's eye just visualizing and thinking if it went from my head right down to my toes can I just notice where am i calm where do I need to send some some loving kindness and I'm just going to ask you do it if it suits you and if not that's 100% fine as I said you haven't the glasses on so it can't see you anyway but there's a nice connection because the people often do it quite naturally point they're just at the breastbone that we call a grief point and if it suits you have a little Explorer there and touch into it it's also a point though and where we can come to our breath not to change your breath but just to come to it just to see in a moment can you still a little bit I just have a feeling on there you can push in a little bit don't hurt yourself obviously but you can push in a little bit and see is that true for you is there grief residing there you just have a little push with your fingers and a gentle gentle massage in a very very simple way to calm yourself when you're having a moment that's not to your liking or your choosing as simple as saying to yourself breathing in I know I'm breathing in breathing out I know I'm breathing out so just a simple invitation just breathing in for whatever suits you may be a count of about 4 try out for about 5 in for 4 out for 5 just very simple things you can say to yourself I'm just going to give you a couple you can follow along if it suits you just take a breath in and as you're breathing out thank you bye exhale worry and on the inhale I inhale peace and on the out I release tension and on the end I accept tranquility I breathe out fear I breathe in courage I let go of anger I welcome love I release my sadness I receive joy just see for a moment how that sits with you Yoga can be a good way to increase your self compassion it connects the head to the body Yoga coming from York in New York them together lots of us walk around in our head and particularly if you're a heady sort of person and you have those yammering voices and Yoga is a great way to get into your body I don't mean the kind of yoga that ties you up into pretzels but just the sort of yoga that brings you into your body and out of your head and somebody described it once of saying I thought of my body as the the thing that just was kind of like a used car that I'd use to get around and I thought the used-car biz was good not even your own car that you might mind and but your own your rent one not really that bothered about us yeah but just as if your body is only there to bring your head where you're going this is not where we live this is a very very small part of it body is where the wisdom is and the others again just based in research not hocus-pocus kind of things and being compassionate with yourself just coming back to something that brings you some joy some tranquility peace it can be a smell that you enjoy an object a sound it's a blanky and everyone should have a blanky aren't kids so smart I love when I see them pulling the filthy things it's just so smart a security blanket the thing that helps calm you when you need calming pretty simple could be a storm whatever it is we know know as well that visualizing is nearly as good as the real thing this was huge in the Olympics with the athletes apparently visually yourself yourself crossing the finish line and really ups your game I've tried it in tennis I'm still useless but hope lives eternally if you can't go to a place that comes you imagining you're there is almost as good and I think that helps to know so it's not like you know my kids said you know to put down when you go to your happy place you know making a marketing's and it actually helps a place that comes you a person that comes you if you can't be with them imagine being there close your eyes visualize you're there and it's almost as good you can add it in to bringing your attention to your breath and notice how it comes wash would the most loving person the most compassionate person you know say to you in the difficult moments if you can say it to yourself that's great if you have difficulty being kind to yourself than imagine the most loving person you know and what they would say or imagine what you would say to a small child that you loved dearly treat yourself that way treat yourself that way meditation I don't mean some big highfalutin thing it's far from meditation I was reared I'm simply talking about something like coming to the breath and something as simple as saying breathing in I know I'm breathing in breathing out I know I'm breathing out parts will continue to arise feelings will continue to arise let them not trying to stop them not trying to clear your mind but you have a choice you don't have to interact with them let them off let them off it's like saying no my dance card is full you don't have to dance with them they'll continue to come and particularly in grief it's important to notice the EM I suppose we call in the shadow feelings we all know the people are sad in grief but it really isn't the most predominant feeling grief is multi-layered and there's all sorts of feelings and if it's someone very close to us that has died there's always ambivalence and if you're interested probably the most ambivalent relationship is mothers and daughters I say that as a mother and a daughter and we feel all kinds of things and we feel them all at the same time and grief doesn't just happen in a linear way so be so not sure I was going to say be on the lookout for but I think I'm going to say to expect the arrival of and guilt shame crankiness irritability resignation relief relief sometimes followed by a guilt about feeling relief all of those it's all part of grief and our only job is to accept what we're handed because we can't give it back so it's better than sitting around do nothing so if that's the choice and perhaps give the breathing a bit of a goal and and I just say it that way it's easy just to remember if in doubt breathe out the focus isn't on the in-breath because that makes people more anxious actually if you feel you need to steady yourself in your grief or in your loss a little bit longer on the out-breath is what you want so when in doubt read out and in managing your grief I think access to information about what to expect in loss is really important we have loads of leaflets and stuff em in the hospice foundation I brought some of them today and you're more than welcome to take them but there's loads em on the website and you could call in and em would send them out to you as well but I think sometimes where you we are ambushed by grief because we don't know what to expect and isn't it extraordinary something that's been happening since the world began and something that happens to each and every one of us were still so surprised by it and frequently people would say to me I must be doing it wrong it couldn't be like this surely this isn't what everybody is going through we don't like to talk about it and yet my goodness when you start talking about your grief it opens it up for other people trust your own immune system it's very hard either in imagining the worst possible grief that you could have to endure or if you're now at this moment going through it it's really really hard to see that you could come out the other end but we actually have what they call a psychological immune system which is a parallel to the physical immune system your body knows how to heal your grief sometimes we have to get out of the way if you're burn yourself we know that the immune system will heal that we know that and it doesn't heal it and it all goes away we could go back to the bowls and jars there's going to be a scar but sometimes we need that scar we like having the reminders and of wash of what happened to us of what has made us the person we are but trusted grief won't kill you I know it you see it sometimes in in the paper or something people dying of a broken heart and it really doesn't kill you it can bring you down but I think like a willow it makes you bend but it is possible to heal and sometimes we need to just trust in the process and let our own psychological immune system do what it needs to do and when in training people in in bereavement counseling I say to them you know if someone has a broken arm and there's a sling on it that's fine you can be the sling but the sling doesn't heal the arm sure doesn't wear the sling what is this sling do hold support sir holds it in place maybe let someone know could you be careful please my arm my arm here is broken but sling doesn't heal the arm the arm heals the arm connect with people who accept you as you are and a lot of the bereavement literature will say you know people get through breathing with the help of family and friends and colleagues I wish they would always include an - you know that that will accept you grieving the way you need to grieve and not having it do it the way they would like you to do it or the way they would prescribe it and we have very strong opinions on us or I wouldn't like to sound to that no no that doesn't sound right no to me really really so it's with people who will accept you as you are sometimes you might want to talk sometimes you might want to cry sometimes you might just want to be distracted that's all part of grief and truly truly take good care of yourself thank you you

Channel: Aware

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Id: TxSd8f2Utpk

Length: 53min 51sec (3231 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 20 2014