The Most Devastating Myths Of Grief and How to Combat Them Part 2
Experiencing the loss of a loved one can be one of the most trying experiences a human can endure. Join registered nurse and care manager, Diane Carbo, on her journey of healing and learn how to combat the myths and navigate the process of grief with her Afterlife Recovering from Grief program.
Welcome back to the most devastating grief, myths, and how to combat them. This is series two. Hi, I’m Diane carbo, a registered nurse care manager and owner of caregiver relief.com. If you were viewing this, you may be in the middle of one of the most powerful, painful experiences in your life. No one can know the depths of your pain.
Loss and grief are one of the most trying experiences. Any human can possibly endure. I know because I lost my mother at 18 years old. And most recently I lost my eldest son, a disabled vet to suicide. He was 35 years old if you were here because you’ve experienced the painful loss of a loved one, I would first like to say, I’m so sorry for you.
During my healing journey. I did some work with coach Fiona LivingWell who lost her 17 year old daughter to a tragic car accident. After working with Fiona and feeling the benefits of her very powerful course, we decided to collaborate and support others who would be suffering. And, and this is how the afterlife recovering from grief program was created.
We were both here where you have been. And want to help you to a healthy resolution to your grief. Before we get into a few of the grief coping strategies I have for you today, I want to answer some of the questions that were most often asked on the previous forum. When will these feelings stop? And when will my grieving end.
If you were in a place where your lost may still be fresh, raw, and excruciating, you may find it hard to believe you can ever recover or heal from this. I know because I felt that way. Grieving is a very personal experience and everyone has a different experience. I can tell you that it will take a while, a long time.
It takes as long as you needed to take. And I can tell you that after your caregiving journey is finished, there are really brighter days ahead, but grieving is a process. It’s a journey that is different for everyone. We all have our own thoughts and how we handle these change. Your process is going to propel you into unwanted feelings and emotions.
Your grief process is like a woman in labor. There are contracts. The contractions subside and then they come back stronger. And the time between the contractions become shorter, this is a natural and inevitable process. You will have moments of painful emotions, followed by peace periods of peace and calm until you evolve and reach your new normal.
You must consider the unique relationship that you had with your lost love. From every relationship we benefit and grow as a person realizing there is something in us that is part of that person is a way to honor that relationship. There is no healthy way to shorten the grieving process. There are no shortcuts to final resolution and as painful as it is.
You must let the feelings of loss and grief run its course. The afterlife recovering from grieving program is designed to help work towards a healthy resolution of your bereavement. The important thing here is to keep moving through the process and try very hard not to get stuck movement through grief will take you from pain to calm resistance.
To mindfulness from grief paralysis to action and from fear towards calm and most importantly from despair towards hope. There is no normal amount of time for morning. Some people will adjust to a new life in a matter of. Others take a year or more. So I’m up to two years or longer to complete their grieving process.
Most people take a year or two to recover. What is the best length of time for you? The simplest answer is whatever time you need. I know from personal experience, even after you think you’re done grieving. You may experience grief feelings from time to time for me, and for most people, this happens, especially during special or significant dates, such as anniversaries, birthdays, and definitely for me during the holidays just expected just the other day I was making breakfast for everyone and it’s close to the holidays.
I was fine. One month. And the very next moment as I’m flipping pancakes, I find myself crying and feeling very sad. I miss my son and I miss my mom. Now, my mom died during the holiday season. So for me, the holidays have always been difficult, but after my sons were born, I had joy again. And I had something to look forward to.
But the holidays now are just not the same without my oldest son here to enjoy them with us. The end of your grieving process does not mean that you forget your family member that you lost or that you ever stopped loving them. When you experience a tragic loss, your heart breaks, and you feel as if you’ve lost a piece of yourself.
And in reality, you, you have. But there is hope your heart will mend. Your loved ones will always have a place in your heart. Your grieving journey is a process that creates change in your life and in yourself, that change allows you to gradually relinquish. Yeah. Your need for your lost loved one. It doesn’t mean you stop loving them, just meeting them at this moment.
You may think that this is not possible, but I will show you how it is possible and still feel close to them. Grief is a process that helps you comes to terms with this, and it helps you to refocus your energies towards the future. Grief is not about returning to normal because you are forever changed and you will never be the same as you were before.
The grief is about finding and creating a new life for yourself. As hard as you may believe it is right now, the pain will eventually ease up and allow you to reinvent your life and your identity. You will reinvest in your life and find thing yourself, planning for the future with some degree of calm and.
You will begin to send some new beginnings every day will slowly replace your feelings of despair and sadness with hope and looking towards the future. Here are a few things about your grieving journey that will help you have a better understanding of the process. You will have your own unique and individual way of expressing and experiencing grief.
You will feel as if you are on an emotional roller coaster ride of your life. And trust me, you are, it is just the nature of the beast. The grieving process is unpredictable and definitely inconsistent. One moment. You feel a period of relative calm and a break from your tears. And then all of a sudden you were sobbing and feeling intense grief all over again.
You will find, as I did yourself, questioning yourself. If you’re making any progress at all, from my own personal experience, trust me, you will. The feelings of grief will stop in its own time. You will come back ready to embrace life without your loved one at your side. And you will gradually feel stronger and more in charge of your life.
It really does end. So how do you get to that point? There are many things I’m going to share with you today that will help you start to hear. And is it so important to understand from that grief from the death of someone you deeply love cannot be mastered or conquered, you cannot ever fully recover or return to life as it was once as it once was, you can learn to live with your loss and there will be healing.
And yes, even joy again, as times goes by life has a way of dealing pain and challenges to everyone in life. And the longer you live, the greater your chances are of being struck by a major loss in life. There is no easy way out or quick fix to. You may be tempted to lessen your feelings of overwhelming grief by numbing your, your mind and your body with alcohol or drugs or escape mechanisms such as reading all the time, watching TV or overeating the first strategy and the most important one.
To me when dealing with grief is to allow yourself to experience and express grief fully, especially in the beginning, surrender to it, express it, allow yourself to cry when you need to, and don’t try to avoid it. This is so important to grief resolution. There will come a time in your grieving process.
When you realize that you need to function again in the real world, it may not be today. It may not be tomorrow, but that day will come. I’m going to share with you a few coping mechanisms to help you get through to that day. I’ve had personal experience with others being insensitive or what I viewed as insensitive.
And just making cruel and stupid remarks, the most important strategies, not to let others determined when you should be getting on with your life. I know that’s hard. Um, but as I said before, uh, people avoided me when I was grieving after my mother died. And then when my son died, it was hard. Yeah. When my son died, as he did complete suicide, and that really carries a stigma to it.
People are much more judgmental from my experience. I have learned people are just uncomfortable with death and they’re ignorant on what a healthy grieving process entails. So when they want you to get over with over it or get on with your life. You know, I people mean well, but you just cannot. And I could not allow their fear and discomfort with my grief to become my problem.
I recommend that you do not allow anyone to manipulate your grieving process. And I strongly recommend this is easier said than done. I realize that, but that you avoid these pieces. The negative people that aren’t supportive of you as you go through your grieving journey, surround yourself with people that will support you, stand by you, people that will allow you to express yourself and not judge you and rush your process.
Another proven strategy for a healthy recovery grief recovery is to learn to be gentle with yourself. I know for myself and for me, Out there. That is a really difficult thing to do. Um, it’s hard to learn, but you have to take time for things like self care. I had really good days and I had really bad days on the bad days.
I did not push myself and I lowered the expectations of the day. I allowed myself to feel whatever I was feeling that. It really takes patience to allow yourself to heal. I learned to focus on self care. I realized at this point in time, I was not able to help or take care of others. I just had nothing inside me to give self care became a focus for those of you that have family members, you are sharing your grief.
Um, it’s really a difficult time because you want to be strong for the person that you, um, are your other family members. So self-care needs to become a focus for all of you in your grieving journey. I focused focused on my own needs and healing. I sought out loving, supportive family and friends. I had to force myself to eat.
And to get some exercise. I must tell you that getting out in the fresh air is very healing. So on the bad days, I had to force myself, even if it was just for a few moments to get outside and breathe, the fresh air. Another strategy I’ve found very expressive. I found very effective, was telling myself.
That I would survive this experience. Now I want you to know, I learned from the loss of my mother, that life does go on and that I would survive the death of my son. But when you feel such terrible pain and sorrow, it’s hard to think you will survive this, but I can assure you that you will, you will be a different person.
You will never feel the void of the person you lost, but over time you will learn to live life with meaning and purpose. Again, give yourself permission to laugh or cry. Tears are a natural stress reliever. It’s okay to laugh too. I have a weird sense of humor, but laughing is not being disrespectful. It is just another way to cope and relieve stress.
Naturally, there will come a time in your grieving process that you’ll want a great break from all the feelings of sadness and stuff. In the early stages of grief, you need to experience the strong, emotional impact of pain and loss in order to heal and experience a healthy resolution to your grief over time, you will start to realize that once again, you need to be responsible for your own happiness and little by little.
You will find things that once again, make you feel good and that make you smile. One of the things that I had to do as a grieving strategy in the, in the earlier stages was to choose to find happiness in every day. It’s not an easy thing to do, but when you have supportive family, friends, and animals around to help you through your day, It’s a good thing.
I’d like now touch very briefly on spirituality and Korea. I have found over the years that many questioned their religious beliefs after a tragedy has struck realize that this is a common response to it. It is important that you allow those feelings to surface and work through them. You may be angry with God, and you may even question your beliefs as you begin to heal.
And your grief response solves your spiritual beliefs and faith will return. You may feel differently about it, but they will return many find bereavement has actually strengthened. Their spiritual and religious beliefs. Grieving is a time to embrace your spirituality and rituals. Prayer and faith may give you comfort and support many fine.
That is what helps them get through the toughest times when nothing else works. If you have found comfort in your church before the death of your love. Continuing continue to attend church services, reach out to your church, friends for support. I’m also going to address today the feelings of grief and clinical depression, the feelings of loss, sadness, and sorrow during a grief period are normal.
Grief is a normal response to life. Clinical depression is not a normal response. Depression requires a different approach and treatment. Some people feel that their depression will go away and it’s just something they have to go through and perceive depression as a stage. This reinforces that someday they will get through this stage and over the depression.
And it will pass, but this is another myth that people have about grief and your grieving journey waiting for depression to lift many, do not seek help and the support they need. As I’ve said before time does not heal emotional wounds. Again, I’m going to say that again because people need to hear. Time does not heal emotional wounds.
Grief Matters
Okay. There is a way to create new memories and retrain the brain to work towards grief resolution. The afterlife grieving from recovering program has helped me and will help you too. I have so much more to share with you. On the next video, we’re going to address some creative ways to help you deal with your grief.
But before you go, please scroll down to the end of the page here and like the Facebook page or the sheet at the bottom of this video and you know, how we all might need to be like, so please it’s like me. Leave comment. I really would like to hear from you.
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Diane Carbo