As you might know, anxiety can be inextricably connected to grief and is considered a normal part of the grieving process. For some, it can become a constant companion in the grieving process. What is anxiety? Basically, it’s feeling a sense of worry, nervousness, unease and excessive apprehension. Honestly, it can just feel plain terrifying and awful, as though you’re going crazy…
Take a moment and imagine your life as a tapestry.
What you see depends upon which side you’re looking at.
Sometimes, you only see what looks like the back side of the fabric, with broken threads and uneven and missed stitches, the difficult painful events.
If you take a breath, give it time to unfold and hold onto faith/hope/love, you may be able to imagine the top side of the tapestry and begin to believe that your life will become upright and okay again, maybe even beautiful in its own unique, changed way. It won’t always feel upside down the way the loss of loved one can throw it.
October, and Halloween — oh what memories! Wearing costumes with a mask that you wanted to fool a friend with. In those days that was a fun kind of mask.
Now, as a grieving adult, you discover that masks take on a different purpose. Such as the metaphorical mask to avoid the sadness of grief with family and friends, when you don’t want them to know how you really feel.
After your husband, wife or partner dies, you embark on a journey to a foreign land. Exploring this territory is the process of grieving. To support you on your journey, HOPE group therapists offer suggestions to help you grieve, including ideas for healing, keeping the memory of your loved one alive and honoring them. One way to begin healing is by simply talking or writing to your loved one. Telling stories about them and reliving cherished events are wonderful ways to keep them alive in your heart. Honoring them can involve creating rituals such as lighting a candle for them at a holiday dinner or playing their favorite music at family get-togethers.
Like a thick veil slowly descending, blanketing itself over you and obscuring your vision, you can’t help but give in to the weight of its powerful effect. These are times when you cannot think, cannot feel, cannot see or eat or speak. The death of a spouse, child or anyone that you love dearly can leave you in this experience. No one wants to be in this place, especially not you.
There is a famous line in the 1932 classic movie, Grand Hotel, where Greta Garbo says… “I want to be alone.” That phrase says so much. Alone… is it healthy or unhealthy? Well, that depends upon many factors and circumstances, especially when you are grieving the death of a loved one.
Animals, when wounded, seek isolation to lick their wounds and hopefully heal. It’s a self-soothing behavior that occurs naturally. Is it normal for human beings, when emotionally wounded from loss, to want to isolate and be alone?
“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: “Bereavement, Grief and Mourning” (August 2024) — Jo Christner, Psy.D.
I see grief down the blockSo I turn the corner I have dinner with a friendGrief, at a nearby table, waves to meBut agrees to keep its distance I go for a swim in the local poolGrateful that grief is not sharing a lane with meHoping that if I swim till I’m exhaustedGrief will leave me alone After a day filled with…
The award-winning song “You’ve Got A Friend in Me” is blaring as the drama group sings out with wild enthusiasm. Flying arms reach out to as many others as possible with fist bumps. The song ends with hugs, laughter — the joy of being together. These are the Born To Act Players, a non-profit group of young adults with challenges — Down syndrome, autism, seizure disorders and more. Some of the participants have dealt with illness, surgery, death of a parent or sibling. Their lives have had times of struggle but not in this moment of togetherness.
By Jeff Kober Jeff Kober has spent much of the last 30 years studying metaphysics and meditation, traveling extensively in India. In 2007 he began to teach Vedic meditation, and writes a daily Vedic Meditation. Visit his website Jeff Kober Meditation. The pain that we feel at the loss of someone in our life is a given. Where once there was another human…