Day 53: How Does a Therapist Grieve #5 ? Seek Out Projects (Hammer preferred) I grew up going to the hardware store with my dad. I always appreciated (and still do) the consistent candy options at the check-out, the concrete floors, a full aisle of nails, and even the sharp sound of a key being cut. My daughter and I have found ourselves at ACE many times over the past year, and even more in the past month. Recently, we’ve built a platform/elevator with pulley for her

Day 52: How Does a Therapist Grieve #4 ? Allowing For Not Knowing and Mind Changing My ability and willingness (and even relief) to say “I have no idea,” no matter what that not knowing is about, has been a learning I’ve embraced since the beginning of the pandemic. Not knowing and saying it out loud is in my experience, a shift from a feeling of helplessness to an experience of powerlessness. I choose powerlessness any day, which I experience as a full embrace of what

Day 51: How Does a Therapist Grieve #3 ? By Getting Lost in a Meaty Novel As much as I let the absences flow over and into and through me, I also know that part of grief is oscillating—moving from a depth, to something else. Sometimes, this something else is a happy memory. But more than not in early grief, it needs to be completely unrelated—a break, a pause, a momentary shift from one’s reality. I do not call this distraction. I do not call this dissociation. I call i

Day 50: How Does a Therapist Grieve #2 ? Noticing the Absences As painful as it is, I let myself notice the absences. My mom offered up “the blessing” at a family dinner—something I’ve never heard her do in my entire life. My dad wasn’t at the top of the driveway to greet us. The lights are lower in the house, instead of achingly bright as he liked them. His car takes up the same spot. It is about that time that it is beginning to feel odd to not have spoken to him. The

Day 49: 1a. Why these Children’s Grief Books? The reason I offer up these books is that they cover the 4 important elements in navigating death/dying conversations with young children: 1) The Process of Death (the How) 2) Grief Emotions (normalizing this confusing landscape) 3) Continuing Bond (finding an enduring connection despite physical absence) 4) Supporting the Grown-Up (how to show up for our own stuff around death as we parent). Process of Death: Parents te

Day 48: How Does a Grief Therapist Grieve? Collect Quality Children’s Grief Books. As I grief therapist, I am supposed to tell you that I put myself first when my dad died, honored my process, and let my grief be most important. But that’s not what happened. As a parent to a 5 year old who was very close to her Bapa, and being that I do not live with another adult, putting my grief first did not happen. At least that first day. My 5 year old was the first person who I to

Day 47: A New Series—How Does a Grief Therapist Grieve? In no particular order, I will be sharing on the topic of grieving as a grief therapist. This question has come up for some lately, and I will run with it. The major caveats to what I have to share include: 1) I am only one human, living one specific life, and do not/cannot represent any “correct” or “right” way when it comes to how to grieve. 2) Most of what I have learned to center for myself during my own gr

Day 46: Grief Fog—a benevolent companion The fog of grief is something I hear about often, and feel encompassed by at the moment. I have learned to embrace it, because I know it is protective. The fog knows there is the creep of the visceral knowing that all is different—which seems to sneak in late at night and in the early mornings. It is the knowing, maybe only for a few seconds, that I exist in a new world. And that knowing is way too much to know and hold in the b

Day 45: Early on in grief, absence looms as it’s own presence. It is in every nook and cranny. Vacuuming the rug you gave me. Your slippers at the garage entrance. Your bathrobe hanging on the hook. The last text I sent, not replied to with “love, dad.” Your rhododendrons in the back. You died, and then the next day, spring came. The buds opened. The pollen blanketed my car. We started to sneeze. We picked some eager rhododendron blossoms that don’t usually bloom until Ma

Day 43: Anything Could Happen When our people die, anything could happen. In early grief, I am finding a pattern of death awareness to bone fatigue on repeat. I’m so aware of dying. It’s not a fear of death itself…mostly wanting to be sure I don’t die so my 5 year old doesn’t have another one on her hands. Her parents’ marriage died, then her fish, Rainbow, died, and then her beloved Bapa died. It’s enough. I didn’t let my trusted doctor adjust my neck. I proceeded out of

Day 42: Grief is Confusing It just is. So confusing. Because it also can be clarifying. And then confusing again. And then it feels like wisdom. And then it can feel like it clouds all. So, go slow. And give yourself and others grace. #grief #bereavement #grieftherapy #griefcounseling #groundedgrief #acutegrief #traumaticgrief #disenfranchisedgrief #miscarriage #suicide #homicide #infertility #nondeathloss #divorce #petloss #complicatedgrief #griefeducation #ambiguousloss #

Day 41: Enough. I like this word. I like how it sounds coming out of my mouth. I like that I can say it calmly, clearly. I like that it can be soft and forceful at the same time. I like that it is one word, and doesn’t need an explanation to follow. I think a lot about boundaries, as I have learned so much from my clients as I witness their grieving. Most grieving humans don’t have time for bullshit. And, there are moments in grief that bring enormous clarity. I have c

Day 40: Grief and the Pause In the grief world, there is a lot of talk about how important it is to FEEL the grief, to have it, to be in the mire of it. Yet grief isn’t that simple, nor that cruel. Grief also has a built in “pause” button. Some people believe this pause to be “avoidance” or “distraction.” There are certainly times when I meet folks who have compartmentalized their grief to an extent of “avoidance,” yet it’s actually pretty rare. Grief is so powerful

Day 39: Grief as stubbornly suspenseful The maddening and confusing and relentless and stubborn nature of grief is something I hear about often, as well as have experienced myself. C.S. Lewis’s words hit home as he reflected on the relentless grief when his partner died. C.S. wrote A Grief Observed in 1961 and this a slim, yet powerful read continues to occupy a front and center place on my bookshelf. #grief #bereavement #grieftherapy #griefcounseling #groundedgrief #acuteg

Day 38: Grief is a Learning Process Learning can be brutally hard. Think of how difficult it can be to learn a new language, a new sport, a new job—all things that some of us make choices towards. And then, think about learning something you don’t want to learn—how much harder that is. And then, think about learning something that is your nightmare, and then having to re-encounter that every day. This type of learning involves re-working a new world while simultaneously ca

Day 37: In honor of the heart… I woke up thinking about my heart today. Sending thoughts for your heart, and celebrating all of the beautiful wounds that you may carry. For more thoughts on the heart, see a previous post-- Day 71: Anatomy of a Grief-Shattered Heart. #grief #bereavement #grieftherapy #griefcounseling #groundedgrief #acutegrief #traumaticgrief #disenfranchisedgrief #miscarriage #suicide #homicide #infertility #nondeathloss #divorce #petloss #complicatedgrief

Day 36: Rainbow Died… We talk about death in our house. A lot. Because it seems to come up when you have a 5 year old. Here are just a few questions I’ve gotten lately: · Mama—do you know what I found yesterday? A leaf skeleton. Did you know that leaves die too? And they have skeletons? · Mama—when will our bunny die? · Mama---when will we die? · Mama—how did Rainbow the fish get dead? Kids are incredibly able to navigate these conversations if the adult involved can

Day 34: The cost of judging our grief… One powerful learning I’m metabolizing as of late is that so much harm is done when we assign moral meaning to our emotions (thanks, Mike Elkin, IFS trainer). Emotions do not have moral meaning. They are a result of us being human beings. So many of us have been socialized and taught to assign moral meaning to the experience of and emotions of grief—meaning we judge ourselves for the extent of the pain and mire and the torture of

Day 33: This is Me. And just a slice of my story. My daughter has only ever slept on me when she is sick. I realized recently that I captured some of these moments. The first picture is in May of 2020. The second is in October of 2021. In legal speak, my marriage ended in Dec 2021. One day before my daughter turned 5. In real life, my marriage ended in February of 2020. Days before my panicked trip to the grocery store for canned goods. A pandemic has been either the best

Day 32: Rage & Anger & Grief Francis Weller’s words have helped reveal to me all the ways to be in relationship with rage and anger. I welcome rage into my sessions. Rage is unprocessed grief that needs to be seen and cared for. It needs space to exist, and then melt into the grief that it is. I welcome anger into my sessions and into my life. Anger is a relational process, revealing how our boundaries have been crossed, and is a way of telling our stories about what is