Grief: A Pathway to Forgiveness | Joan Rosenberg | TEDxRoseburg

[Applause] five losses in one September to September year it was about ten years ago and in December I lost my good friend and in February I got a phone call from my mother that my grandmother Rebecca had died and in April I lost another close friend stuff to leukemia in June I went through my own heartbreak my romantic relationship ended and then the next September that following September I was standing with my mother as we watched my father take his last breath I could barely catch my own breath that year it was it took me months actually to move through that grief when we talk about grief which I generally consider sadness helplessness anger and disappointment most of us think of the losses I just described but I want to talk about a different kind of grief one of us but one that most of us don't really even consider that we experience we don't realize it's even taking place instead it's disguised in front of us as this kind of grief leftover anger bitterness plain cynicism grudges hostility negativity regret resentment sarcasm self-hate and long-standing hurt that's all disguised grief is disguised inside of you buried piled head or even from adulthood the difference between what you experienced between what you needed what you wanted what you dreamed of and what really occurred both if when you move through grief and really heal the grief including disguised grief you open yourself up to forgiveness to happiness to a healthier life and much more joy in my 30 years as a psychologist and going through my multiple losses what I've realized is that there's there's not only a process but there's a healing nature to grief and it's that healing process that I want to talk about that I've developed to help people reclaim their lives it's what I call grief reset protocol the first is to grieve unspoken dimensions the second is to reflect on the memory itself the third is to inquire more deeply the fourth is to extract the good and the fifth is to forgive yourself and others let's start with the G then how do you uncover grief it takes knowing what you're grieving about it involves grieving over what you got and didn't deserve it's all forms of abuse it's chaos it might be a Buddhist ISM it's grieving over what you deserved and didn't get that's the good stuff the first ones the bad stuff the second ones the good stuff and that means grieving over the consistent support love nurturance or praise that we may not have received it's grieving over what never was think of that as the facts and circumstances of your early life so that might be the education or the opportunities you had when you were young it's also grieving over what is not now those are the facts and circumstances of your current life and grieving over what may never be that might be support from someone or someone saying something to you that you wish they'd say it just never comes the next then is to reflect on the memory how do you reflect on the memory that means going into the memory spending some time with the memory now you can do that all sorts of ways and shift into memory itself by being in nature by taking a walk or a hike you could read you could write you could journal listen to music play music engage with in a conversation with a close friend or a loved one know that when you take time with the memory that more details and more memories may come the next step then is I to inquire more deeply making sense of the memory so how do we make sense of the memory what that really involves is understanding how the experience impacted you when when they occur the experience itself occurred or when many experiences occurred it's to understand the impact the second is to understand the relevance how have those experience has been relevant to you as you've aged and the third is to understand what significance these experiences have on your life today so really in this is digging deepening the experience of what we're doing here I was at a conference lunch a few years ago with a man who was in his 70s that I will call Paul now Paul was very very gracious he turned to me and asked what I did professional and when I took the time to describe what I did he ended up within moments telling me about it something that happened to him in high school that involves singing it was during his senior year in high school now remember I'm a psychologist people tell their stories like that a lot so we're sitting and he tells me that he was singing his last senior highschool concert in front of 2,000 people two solos after the performance one of his close friends came up to me said Paul you sang so flat you should be so embarrassed never seen solos again in front of people and you know what Paul followed that advice he accept he took it one step further he never sang publicly again what's interesting here is that he carried the grief of what never was what is not now and what may never be because he made a decision to stop singing had he dealt with that grief and resolved that experience it's possible that he could have brought singing back into his life something that brought him much joy I can only imagine what his life would have been like if he had reclaimed that but if he made a different decision in his 20s 30s 40s or even later to bring that joyful experience back into his life what's challenging here is that when we go through experiences especially painful ones we hold attitudes we hold beliefs and we make decisions that sometimes cause us even more pain so these are the questions then to deepen our inquiry even further and that is how did these experiences change what I believed how did these experiences change the attitudes that I hold and how did these experiences change the decisions I made that takes us to e which is to extract the good when I was a young child I was bullied as many kids go through and well the teasing and a taunting and the mocking all hurt it was being left out being excluded that actually was the one that affected me the most because when I thought about that it felt like I would never fit in I'd never belong and then I would be all alone I would be with my mom and sitting at the kitchen table and she kind of grabbed my hands and hers and she she want to soothe me and say oh Joan it'll be okay now while it helped me feel a little bit better in the moment I would go back to school and it would happen again what what it involved for me was to take the time to resolve and make meaning or make sense of what those experiences did to me and who I wanted to become as a result of that and I did take that time in my mid-20s and as I did that I realized that I never wanted to hurt someone the way I'd been hurt so I made a decision to hold kindness as one of my highest values and it's something that I practice living into every day now most people don't necessarily dig into the benefit and try to understand the benefit of painful experiences yet doing this is such an important element of the whole brief reset protocol it really is important to try to tease out what it is that benefited me who I became as a result of that so what is it that you can extract for good and then that brings us to F to forgive here's the deal to really move through disguised grief you have to know and accept that you can never do what was undone nor undo what was done you can never do what was undone and you can never undo what was done for instance you can never do praise you never gave and you can never undo mean words you may have said now forgiveness doesn't mean that you agree and you condone what happened all it means is that you accept the truth that the experiences occurred here then is what to forgive and it's again it takes us deeper into the process it's forgiving yourself for what you did or did not know it's forgiving also yourself for what you did or did not do it's forgiving others for what they did or did not know and it's forgiving others for what they did or did not do understand this too takes very conscious practice over time so that in essence is the grief reset protocol the first is to grieve unspoken dimensions the second is to reflect on the memory itself the third is to inquire more deeply the fourth is to extract the good and the fifth is to forgive yourself and others when you walk this framework all the way through to the end to forgiveness you give yourself a chance to free yourself from your old life story which means that you can make different decisions you can hold different attitudes and beliefs who do you want to become what new story do you want to live into and create I knew that I needed to heal those five losses that I experienced that September to September year my friend Dan my grandmother my friend staff my partner and also my dad I did take the time to grieve that to make sense of what took place I want you to do the same use this grief reset protocol take some time with it do it soon I know how it changes people for the better when they allow themselves to move through but make sense and clear that grief the beauty of it is that grief opens to laughter and joy forgiveness opens to deeper connections and also know that the more you stay present to the truth of what your life was the more you free yourself to create what you want your life to be [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 46,160

Rating: 4.9295774 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Health, Bullying, Depression, Emotions, Happiness, Life Hack, Mental health, Personal growth, Psychology, Self improvement, Self-help

Id: UacbvBcbP34

Length: 14min 33sec (873 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 05 2017