If you’re grieving the death of your spouse, it may sometimes feel as though you’ll never heal. But as the days and weeks and months and, yes, even years go by, healing does occur. One essential part of the healing process is gratitude. In the early days of your grief, gratitude might also seem like an emotion you’ll never experience again. If you make a practice of gratitude, though — expressing it even if you do not wholeheartedly feel it — you may just find that gratitude helps you heal.
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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 by HOPE Connection (Page 4)
“Loneliness is not a surprising by-product of widowhood. I mean, even for the people who have never been through it, it’s a no-brainer. But frankly, I think that lonely is not a strong enough word.” So begins an article by Catherine Tidd on OpenToHope. For anyone who has been a widow or widower for even a month, these words resonate. The sheer aloneness…
The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your…
Michael Linsk is a poet and HOPE Connection group alum.
My wife, lover, friend, soul mate
is no longer a warm, living, breathing part of my life.
Death intervened.
You are grieving, upset, depressed, anxious, feeling alone and lost while finding yourself in a maze of people. Some of those people are family, good friends, co-workers, neighbors — the myriad of human beings who inhabit your world. You used to be able count on them to lift your spirits, trade a smile, give a caring word. Now you barely recognize your life and the people in it. Some are avoiding you as though you had a contagious disease. Even worse are those who speak in a language that cuts right to the bone of your despair. Perhaps you have been on the receiving end of these gems of insensitivity. Here are just a few that you may recognize:
If you’re a current member of a HOPE group or an alum, do you remember your orientation at your first meeting? Many members, even a few weeks after that first meeting, can’t remember a thing that was said. They remember how they felt — the overwhelming emotions that virtually prevented them from speaking, and — also very important — the kindness and compassion of the therapists and mentor who explained the process to come. But what was said? No.
Max Izenberg, founder of the newsletter “Suddenly65,” focuses on how a healthy lifestyle impacts peoples’ health and well being. She has written two books and various articles on health and wellness and her book “Who Took My Chocolate Cake?” is dedicated to helping seniors maintain their health and zest for life as they move through the years. You may find even more…
At HOPE Connection, we have a tradition that we encourage every group member to participate in. It is the simple act of saying goodbye to other group members and the group therapist when a member moves from one group to the next. We continue that tradition when a member graduates from Group Five. The following is a poem that Lynne Goldklang wrote and then read to the entire HOPE Connection community as she said goodbye.
“One thing that we at HOPE know is that community heals. When compassionate hearts gather, love and comfort pour into the broken places and healing happens. It is this understanding that makes HOPE such a vibrant grief support community.” So begins the latest fundraising letter from HOPE Connection Executive Director, Dr. Jo Christner. But it is not a typical fundraising letter, because…
One of the most striking aspects of grieving in the early months after your spouse has died is that words truly seem inadequate. Even the word “grieving” does not begin to capture the range and intensity of emotions that can erupt in an instant, and it takes days, weeks, months to begin to understand the complexity of the process.
Catherine Tidd, in an article on the website, Open To Hope, focuses on a single aspect of grieving, loneliness, and her realization that definitions she once took for granted cannot capture the kaleidoscope of thoughts, feelings, experiences, even physical responses, that constitute the grieving process.