Rays of Hope in Times of Loss

Profound Grief in Aurora Colorado

On the weekend of July 20, 2012, we were all shocked and horrified to learn of the mass shooting at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado. Loss of loved ones is extremely difficult even when due to "natural causes." When young people die from violent and intentional homicide, the grief is unfathomable. Sudden, unexpected, and fraught with evil images, the mind and spirit go into overload.

There are no words that can adequately express the host of emotions such a terrible event triggers. Sorrow, confusion, despair, and anger hit intensity levels that become overwhelming and exhausting.

Our hearts go out to the loved ones of those lost and we encourage consolers to be present and listen. Never will the right words exist to bring comfort that can eliminate the suffering of this profound grief. Express your sympathy and care and offer your listening presence now and in the many months and years ahead.

Rays of Hope in Times of Loss: Courage and Comfort for Grieving Hearts, offers this poem,

"A Young Leader:"

None of us ever thought it would be you

Leading the way to the next life's view.

It seemed your life had just begun,

And was so far from being done.

We are the elders, so unprepared,

For youth gone first, a thought never dared.

We assumed we'd be the ones to lead,

An order in life and death to heed.

But these are things beyond our control;

You've lead the way, so we'll follow your soul.

Your life is now enfolded in ours,

And over us your spirit towers.

In deepest sympathy for the loss of precious loved ones,

Susan Zimmerman

 

May is Mental Health Month

I remember one thing clearly from grad school about the definition of mental health. It's a little funny, though, because it was about what mental health is NOT. Mental health is not merely the absence of illness. Mental health is actually mental wellness. It goes beyond coping, tolerating, and getting by.

May is mental health month. After working on our taxes in April, don't we all need a nice mental health month? I think so!

I may have to practice these May tips for mental health myself:

• If something you care about is unsettled in your life and you've either procrastinated about it, or unsuccessfully solved it, seek help. Dare to share your dilemma and seek advice from a professional counselor or a wise mentor.

• Is your "To Do" list perpetually too long even for a Super Hero to accomplish? Then cut it out. Force yourself to admit what is realistically possible given the time you have, and take some stuff off the darn list. If it makes you feel better, start an official "Back Burner" list you can visit from time to time, guilt free. If your priorities or available time has changed to accomodate something from this list, go ahead and return it to your "To Do" list.

• Are you grieving a loss of any kind? Get Rays of Hope in Times of Loss and read it no less than two times. The poems and narrative can apply to many kinds of loss, from developmental ones (such as aging or empty nest), or loss of a loved one through death, divorce, or departure.

• Journal about what is lost AND still remains AND is possible. It's important to recognize losses, but also to be mindfully conscious of the good that can still be in your life.

• Play. If you're no longer sure what is fun for you, start experimenting. That's why I signed up for a canoeing adventure in May.

• Think like a shrink - a really good one. Come up with your own healthy prescription and do it with zest. I bet it will even enrich your rest time! That's good for your mental health, too.

Grief is NEAR

Coping with the stress of loss has some common passages that are normal, though not comfortable. The sheer intensity and unfamiliar nature of emotions in grief can cause doubts about mental health, so it can be helpful to know that others have experienced similar reactions. If you use the acronym "NEAR" to help you remember these grief reactions, you may find it comforting:

• N is for Numb. Especially if a change is unexpected, the emotions that come do so over time. Initially, we may feel very little other than a numbness that helps us cope.
• E is for Emotional. After the numbness begins to wear off, many emotions may surface, from anger and denial to deep sorrow and anxiety. The emotional intensity is heightened in the early months of loss and usually diminishes over time.
• A is for Adjusting. Loss engages us in a continual and challenging adjustment as we begin to live with what has changed in our lives. Acceptance is a word that's difficult to grasp, especially in the early period of a significant loss.  Adjusting and accepting evolve over time and are never fully completed. They can be described as a recognition that the earlier periods of emotional intensity fade and we begin to incorporate the loss into our current lives. Acceptance does not mean we are "over it" or that the loss is okay with us, it simply means our psychological resistance to it is diminished.
• R is for Rebuilding or Restructuring. Life continues on with our renewed participation in it. We begin more fully integrating necessary changes to honor our discovered new meanings.

What else is changing in your life? Your answer may be considered a positive change or a painful one. Transitions can trigger multiple layers of stress, even with positive changes such as graduations, marriage, or birth of a child. Move through this site at your pace and know you will make it through this difficult time.

Leaving Grieving

Regardless of what you call it, grief is something that has its own timing. Denial and numbness may happen for a while, but eventually the many varied emotions come and spend whatever amount of time they need in us. But they aren't like a bird perching on a fence, landing and flying away. Their exit is barely perceived. Leaving grieving happens, but not in one smooth or identifiable motion. It's rarely a conscious or forced decision. Leaving grieving happens when we're not looking.

... It's only in looking back that we realize our days have begun to feel a little more normal. We've rebuilt some of our routines. We've laughed without guilt. Perhaps our sleep patterns and meals are more regular again and we notice an appetite has returned. Leaving grieving is a thing to trust. It doesn't mean we no longer feel sad or empty at the loss. It means the extreme upheaval has flowed on, giving us some peace. We are allowed to float on the quiet stream of calm rather than thrash around in the storm of suffering. Leaving grieving is a gift. Allow the gift to be opened and help in the healing process.

Crazy Normal

Grief is a crazy time. Whether you've lost your job or lost a loved one, it is normal to feel like your world has stopped. It feels strange that others around you are still dashing around, focused on things that now seem so very unimportant. It is normal to feel isolated and strange. Hopelessness may seem the most real feeling you experience.

How do you find hope in the midst of hopelessness? Remember these four words with HOPE:

Honor - Respect your emotions and know you can survive feeling them.

Open - Clear away obstacles to healthy choices that allow you to move through your grief.

Persevere - Keep living and affirm your ability to navigate through this difficult terrain.

Elevate - Allow yourself to be uplifted by experiences and people that make you feel better.

Many people mention feeling guilty when they have their first joyful experiences again, especially after the death of a loved one. The painful feelings of grief have become their "new normal" and they have accidentally defined this as permanent.

Although grief isn't an illness you recover from, the painful intensity of the early months does diminish.  Allow enjoyment to re-enter your life without guilt. Life changes after significant loss and you can incorporate the new meanings and lessons you've learned to honor your experience. Crazy as normal gradually vanishes when you incorporate the guidance of HOPE in your days.

Your GEM: Generate Empowered Movement

I created a process I call GEM, to help people mine their memories to better their life. The 3 steps are:

1. Gather Essential Memories
2. Gain Enlightened Meanings
3. Generate Empowered Movement

The GEM process can help tremendously when you are grieving a loss. We have all created certain rules to live by for ourselves. But often our rules lie in our unconscious minds. We follow them even though we don't know of their presence. Yet they guide our stops and turns just like a GPS. The problem is, sometimes that GPS contains distortions that give us the worst directions.

Learn to analyse some of your memorable life events and you will uncover the distorted directions there. That is how to find the meanings we gave to things at the time. Those meanings, especially if formed in childhood, contain conclusions that steer us poorly. That's how you find the 2nd GEM - Gain Enlightened Meanings.

By restructuring the directional system in that GPS, you receive a great gift. That gift is the 3rd GEM - Generate Empowered Movement. In grief, it can help you move through the difficult terrain of a changed life. It can help you find new hope and joy sooner.

For GEM coaching and book information, go to:

http://www.mindfulactionplanning.com/coaching-programs.html

Spring Into Action

Isn’t spring an invigorating season? Every year it seems like many of us have budding experiences in this rejuvenating time of year. New elements of our being burst forth, just like the beautiful buds blossoming into their next life phase.

I especially remember one spring in 1983. I was at home with my 4-year old daughter and 2-year old son. I noticed my daughter, Katie, was particularly quiet so I peeked around the corner to see why. She was sitting about halfway up the steps holding one of her shoes. She was intently working on the little shoe strings, absolutely determined to tie a bow.

Despite her focus and great effort, the strings weren’t cooperating. Persistently, she kept starting over, and over, and over. The birth of a bow surely had to come soon! I was amazed at her patience. But suddenly she’d had it. As she stood and sent the shoe hurling across the full length of the living room, she simultaneously screamed and began sobbing.

Resilience

Have you ever found something you weren't looking for? I was recently looking on my bookshelf for a parenting book for a client to borrow. Before finding it, I noticed a booklet I hadn't read in some time. It is called "Bouncing Back: Staying resilient through the challenges of life" and it was published by Ceridian ([email protected]). Resilience heightens your sense of purpose in life and helps you sustain a positive outlook. It offers several defining features of resilience, including:

- Seeking help when you need it;
- Taking action in response to change;
- Relying on and giving support to family, friends, and community.

These can be difficult to imagine doing when you are grieving or discouraged due to stressful life changes. The only way I have found to "be" a resilient person is to break down action into very small steps. The more difficult the transition, the smaller the steps must become. Otherwise, the chances of self-sabotage increase. If the action is bigger than your energy, you won't follow through.

In the early stages of grief, one action might be to talk to someone and resist the tendency to totally withdraw. What can help you act on good advice is to link it to an action you still do automatically. For example, if you have a cup of coffee each morning, tell yourself, "I will call one close friend or family member when I have my coffee." Then, don't think about it or reconsider the decision, simply pick up the phone and dial. If you get voice mail, leave a message asking for a call back.

When you have taken a small action, it almost always gives you energy to do it again. As you find small encouragements, continue to take additional steps that grow as your energy grows. You can think of it as a fitness plan. Most exercise programs increase the level of effort required in order to get better results. Push yourself just a little bit and you will be rewarded with resilience.

Thinking in 3D

When challenging changes in life get overwhelming, it can be helpful to think in "3D." As we ponder what matters in our “Becoming” process, it can be useful to look through a 3D lens, for:

• Depth;
• Direction;
• Definition.

Depth is the innermost part of anything, and I discovered many of my pursuits required substantial depth. That takes a special kind of bravery, honesty, and energy, but the benefit is worth it. We can’t always have what we want, but we get a lot closer if we ask ourselves the question, “What do you deeply want?” One of my answers to that question this past year brought me to executing part of my business succession plan. I also recognized the need for putting simple fun back on my list.

Direction is the course or line along which something moves. That definition seems obvious, but it is easy to lose sight of how our business or personal life course is really moving. Are we moving toward a destination we identified clearly, or have we gotten into a habit of simply reactively taking it as it comes? It’s one thing to choose a circuitous course, but what if we have simply failed to notice that we’ve drifted off-course?

Definition is the determination of a decision. Without definition, decisions don’t get made; they happen by default. Some are good or even great, and some are just the opposite. We always need to learn how to define our decision criteria and review it regularly.

You might also find that your 3D process turns out to be a valuable exercise that brings insightful surprises and an interesting focus about growing or redirecting your usual activities. Allow yourself, also, to identify new things you want to learn about important people in your life. What have they discovered along their way? Can their discoveries help you with any of your current challenges?

Enjoy the 3D formula for your “Becoming Breakthroughs” and your nurturing challenge:
Depth + Direction + Definition = Destination

My bet is you might just love the ride a little bit more, and appreciate where it takes you!

A Three Hour Tour

No, it wasn’t Gilligan’s Island we visited. My husband and I signed up for a Ghost Tour of Seattle when we were there for a conference recently. It was interesting to hear the “ghostly” spin that was put on stories that were mostly about historic crimes in the city. The tour guide started by telling us about the many types of haunts that can occur. The general theme was about how ghosts tend to hide out and occasionally make an appearance in various mischievous styles that catch our attention. But then they vanish again and we’re left questioning whether we actually saw them in the first place.

I attended a program recently that was a wonderful invitation for all of us to think about “breaking out of a mold” we may have found ourselves in. I had to chuckle at some of the parallels a ghost story can have to trying to break out of a mold. Have you ever caught yourself doing something you do not enjoy, yet you've continued to do it daily?

This can be something as minor as using the same toothpaste your parents provided in childhood to something as major as your life work or significant relationships.

Sometimes we get good at something, only to discover our skill doesn’t bring us fulfillment. Or we may be doing tasks we’re not good at that we should hire someone to do for us. Yet to ask the question, "Should I change?" seems not to occur to us because the perceived risk of change is too great. A glimpse of that change may flash before us like a mischievous ghost. We definitely saw it in a flash, but then we doubt our own vision.

Fear of the unknown can be paralyzing, causing us to hide out in our familiar roles and routines. How do we know if this is what we've been doing?

These are the questions I’ve used to guide some of my mold-breaking:
Have I been hiding out in any area of my life?
Is there something I've been tolerating that I don't have to?
Am I staying put because I'm afraid a change will make things worse?
How do I assess if that’s an accurate perception?
Do I have a talent I’ve kept hidden away?

If you answer yes to half or more of the above questions, perhaps it is time to start your own “ghost tour.” Explore by asking friends, family, or colleagues what they see as most energizing to you. What do they see as your greatest talents? They can help you eliminate the doubt and trust your vision again. Compare the mix of answers. Is there a theme running throughout?

Next, ask yourself how often you get to do any of your favorite, energizing things in a typical week. If the answer is none or very little, begin to explore small steps you can take. Perhaps there are opportunities for your passion right where you are, but you just never noticed before.

Breaking a tough mold here and there is like meeting a friendly ghost. It helps us venture out of the familiar and explore new opportunities with courage. It can take time – more than a three hour tour! My latest conscious change has taken 10 years. But the energy boost it provides is worth it and the tour is much more fun that way. When your talents align with how you spend your time, you improve your overall health and joy in life. And that reaches others to boost the positive outcomes in the world.