“Healing Grief… Moment by Moment” is a podcast created and produced by HOPE Connection. In each short episode Dr. Jo Christner or another HOPE Connection therapist offers a meditative exploration of a different aspect of grief and the healing process. As you listen, we wish you love, light and comfort. This episode: “Grief” (March 2021) — Dr. Jo Christner This is a…
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Grief Support Groups Serving West Los Angeles, Encino and Agoura Hills
Grief Support Groups Serving West Los Angeles, Encino and Agoura Hills
Posts from 2021 (Page 4)
When a loved one dies, we are faced with the stark reality that life is indelibly changed. It is a hard reality to accept, and it launches us into the grieving process. We mostly think of grief as a journey through sadness, fraught with a myriad of struggles along the way – with feelings of helplessness, exhaustion, stress, anxiety or loneliness as our travel companions. We wonder how long it will take until the pain subsides and if we can ever get on with our lives. It is helpful to remember that grieving is a healthy process, one we are wired to go through after a profound loss. Sometimes people think of grieving only as something to get over. But, unlike an illness, we don’t get over it — we go through it, resolving our feelings about the loss gradually.
Loss! We have all experienced losing a loved one but losing a parent is a unique loss and one that is often discounted. Anyone who has had a parent die knows that feeling of profound sadness, the feeling of being overwhelmed, the thoughts of, “Oh No! What now?”
There is a prevailing attitude in our cultural messages that the death of a parent is a natural course of events and we need to “just get over it!”
Nearly a year has passed since we celebrated HOPE Connection’s 40th anniversary. Rabbi Ed Feinstein had a message for the HOPE community on that day. It was a simple but profound message about an experience that virtually every group member can relate to: the realization that after the initial support of family and friends, you’re left alone with your grief.
Have you heard the phrase “Driven to distraction?” It’s a common reality for many. Grief brings worries, fears, anxiety, plus the pain of being alone. Being alone is one of the most difficult aspects of loss of a loved one. Now with the pandemic and physically needing to social distance, there is more alone time. With that is a craving of distractions to keep the mind busy. And understandably so. No one wants to feel the pain of grief and being alone.
Soon January will flow into February, another month with short colder days, often dreary. It is also the month with the sweetest, most passionate holiday — Valentine’s Day. When you have lost your life partner, whether recently or years ago, whether you are on your own or in a new relationship, Valentine’s Day can be an arrow to the heart. Our losses and grief can be deeper, more painful, when it seems as though the world is celebrating connection to the one special person.
Josh Groban, singing “To Where You Are”
In addition to the ways to connect with our loved ones that we discussed in The Wonder Of Everlasting Love, music is another especially powerful way to connect. Many partners have songs that are special to them. Whenever you hear any song that was part of your relationship, you have probably felt strong emotion, bringing back cherished memories.
People who grieve after the loss of a spouse often do so in isolation. Even when children and grandchildren are able to comfort a parent or grandparent in person, that comfort can sometimes be temporary at best.