Sep
23
Yes, You Can Get Over a Crisis
September 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Whatever it is ? heartache, rape, the death of a loved one ? there are stages you need to go through to heal. Here’s how to deal with them and move on.
Crises can strike at any time ? robbery, rape, retrenchment, a relationship break up or a car accident. But crippling as they may seem at the time, we can get over them. The secret is understanding the process you need to go through and getting help when you need it. Having information about your response to a crises empowers you because you know what to expect.
?I couldn’t breathe. It was as though someone had dropped a load of bricks on my chest,’ says Judi, a 29 year old bank clerk. Early one August evening in 2006 she learnt her partner of two years had died in a car crash.
May
2
Now that your relatives have gone back home and you are alone for the first time has the sense of being all alone engulfed you? Or, now that it has been several weeks since the death of your loved one, has the reality of his/her absence finally hit home? This horrendous feeling is not easy to dispel when first confronted.
Experts on loneliness tell us the key to dealing with it is a concerted effort at self-development and working on the quality of your inner life. This is especially difficult to do if your identity was completely enmeshed with the person who died.
May
1
Employing The Art Of The Possible When Mourning The Death Of A Loved One
May 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Have you been thinking, “Why am I feeling so empty and without purpose in my life?” Or, “How can I begin to reduce the pain and suffering that has turned my life upside down? Where can I go? What can I do?” These are questions we all face at some time in life, and they do have answers.
The effectiveness of the answers depends on your willingness to extricate yourself from your deep emotional turmoil and the bondage to the deceased. This does not imply in any way that you forget your loved one, because you have to establish a new relationship with him/her. By intensely focusing on the tasks of grief, not on the outcome, you naturally establish the needed relationship.
Apr
17
Ambiguous Losses That Bring Unresolved And Ongoing Grief
April 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Ambiguous losses are shrouded in uncertainty, seem to go on forever, and show no signs of ending. They are much more prevalent than the general public realizes, and cause much confusion for would be caregivers who try to provide support for the bereaved.
The first type of ambiguous loss involves uncertainty with regard to whether the person involved has actually died (in cases of suspected suicide, was it an accident or?). Someone falls off a cruise liner at sea. A soldier is reported missing in action in a war zone. A child disappears without a trace. An adult is missing in a mountain climbing accident. Is the person still alive or have they died? Can survivors ever find out?
Apr
12
Why You Are Never Alone, Especially When Mourning
April 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The death of a loved one suddenly throws us into a state of mind where we often feel utterly alone, even though we are often surrounded by friends and relatives providing support. This paradox is a direct result of our cultural conditioning to expect certainty in life and the dismissal of the unseen as nothing but wishful thinking.
In reality, the unseen is infinitely more important to inner peace, happiness, and coping with loss than any physical object or amount of money. Love, hope, peace, and a variety of beliefs, for example, are extremely powerful unseen forces that are the real pillars of life and bring meaning to existence.
Apr
4
Facing The Unknown After The Death Of A Loved One
April 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Has fear of the unknown frozen you so that you are hesitant to make much needed decisions? Or, has thinking about the future and how you are going to manage without your loved one brought great anxiety? Fear of the unknown is among the most common, and most difficult, grief-related issues to deal with.
Why is this so? Simply because uncertainty is an integral part of life that is ignored by most until it forces us to confront it. Then we have to take a stand when we are in an anxiety-filled frame of mind. The choice becomes: either learn to live one day at a time (perhaps one minute at a time) or allow the unknown to fill us with crippling fear and freeze us. So what can we do to deal with fear of the future, the unknown?
Mar
30
Funeral Celebrants
March 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Whatever the age a person is when he/she dies, those who loved him/her will experience grief. That grief will come in many forms-anger, sadness, loneliness, relief, guilt and many other emotions or combinations of all of the above.
There are different names we can put to the ceremony where we pay tribute to that person: funeral, memorial, celebration of life. But whatever we name it and however it is done, grief will be a part of it.
Traditionally, funerals were held in a church and were attended by entire communities and large extended families. The church minister, priest, rabbi or pastor would lead the service. Today, there are still many funerals that follow this more traditional way of saying goodbye.
Mar
23
My Father, In His Deathbed
March 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment
My father bought me a Macintosh computer when I was fifteen years old. The Sears salesman told us that for an extra little 200 dollars we could upgrade with more megahertz to a faster CPU. Dad balked.
“What do you need a fast computer for? You’re not going anywhere!” And he was not joking.
Serious moments like this, where my crinkle-browed Dad could not understand exactly where the world was headed or why, really belied the jolly frivolity that often leapt from the twinkle of his eyes. This man told me once that a glimpse of the footage of President Kennedy’s assassination was enough to make him cry or want to puke his guts out. Yet he often made jokes about being the Fifth Beatle, and sometimes he pretended to cry out in pain after faking having chopped a finger while preparing vegetables for a stew. My friends did not think this funny, nor did I. But they loved him almost like he was their father.
Mar
11
Bereavement Overload - Coping With Multiple Losses
March 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment
How can anyone cope with the death of more than one family member when those deaths occur in a short period of time? What happens to the person who is grieving the death of a loved one, then losses a job, and has to move from their home or apartment because of financial conditions? Multiple losses occur more frequently than most people realize and they can complicate the mourning process.
To begin with, it is important to recognize that we grieve many changes in life other than the death of a loved one. The break-up of any close relationship, divorce, incarceration, geographical relocation, children going off to college, destructive fires, workplace changes, or the loss of family heirlooms can bring a strong grief reaction. In most instances, these losses can bring a cascade of emotional responses as strong as those associated with the death of a loved one.
Mar
11
Empathy 101: What To Say To Your Upset Friend
March 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The trauma resulting from my near death, passing of my mother-in-law, mother, father, and unborn son was a real strain on our marriage. Michael and I had married just 6 months before the losses began, and I felt robbed of a normal honeymoon period. Making matters worse was our drastically differing coping styles: I was openly a wreck while he did not express as much angst. This difficulty was compounded by the fact that I was in more anguish than he was. Michael, unfortunately, simply did not know how to respond to me, even if I was his wife.
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