When a person experiences significant loss, it’s natural to want to offer comfort and relieve their pain.
But according to Jack Kornfield, PhD, it’s crucial not to rush past difficult emotions in the healing process. In fact, as Jack explains, it’s important to learn how to honor and acknowledge grief.
Jack reveals more in the video below, and illustrates responses that can help people express grief and begin to heal from it.
Take a look – it’s just about five minutes.
What strategies have you used in your life, or your work with patients, to deal with grief and loss? Please share your experience in the comment section below.
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I totally agree with Jack Kornfield. Having grown up with European parents, not American – shut it off, don’t talk about it (during 50’s and 60’s) types, I have experienced the all all consuming support of people who allowed me to, dare I say, wallow in and completely feel my grief with their quiet support or presence, do I could go through it and then move on. I think it is very important for healing, to fully feel and experience one’s grief, not matter how ugly, in order to be totally ‘done’ with it so you CAN move on.
Thank you for your video.
Video helped me rethink my pain and I liked the comment that I was not alone SO many other people are coping with grief at this moment. My lovely kind husband died 8 months ago and I cry each day and I want it to stop as it is so physically tiring. Not at the stage where I can accept that he will never return to me. Think that maybe Mindfulness is the way forward ?
How Mindfulness Can Help Us Work through Grief. First I’d like to acknowledge Jack Kornfield’s (PhdD) video discussion on Mindfullness and grief. Thank you for this insight. I myself am (and have been for many years) on the healing journey of childhood and adult traumatic experiences. I never thought though to give myself permission to grieve, that it’s actually important to allow the grief to come out, to heal and clense me, u til I accepted Christ into my life. Only recently with the help of a psychologist, I’ve become more comfterble with saying to myself that it’s ok to be angry because anger is a natural human emotion and reaction to events in our lives that have and could threaten our very existance. Yet I’m aware that to grieve naturally isn’t really accepted in our western society. It’s my personal and also social experinces that have led me to this conclusion, that it’s ok to grieve for a certain amount of time but any longer than said time people begin to become extremely uncomfterable with our grief and these people who once supported us in our grieving now want us to just “get over it”, “move on”, “no use walowing in self pity” etc….As a person of the Christian Faith God, himself shows me that grieving is important in the healing process. You can see in the Psalms the anguish and despair the Psalmists wrote/sang about. Connecting with peoples faith, of whichever faith the person follows is a good tool amongst others in the Psych tool bag, that can assist in the healing process. Just like some people refer to as the wholistic approach to health care. Thank you for this article.
Sincerely
Claudia Koelndorfer
NSW, Australia.
This is some interesting thoughts on grief. I can see how it might be more harmful to try and rush yourself through the grieving process. My grandpa just passed away a little while ago, so I will have to remember this.
Excellent video. As a person living with a mental health condition, I really wish we would allow men to express the full range of emotions they are feeling. Stifling these emotions is just leading them down the path that feels like suicide is their only way out. I am very curious about Buddhist meditation, and this concept of holding your negative emotions inside yourself, almost like a little child, until you gain insight. I think this is very much in line with what Jack Kornfield, PhD is saying.
We need to have permission in our western culture for things like meditation. I love his concept of expressing grief through dance and other ways as well. For me, writing has always been very cathartic. Now, being a blogger for a mental health website committed to ending the stigma is heaven. Thanks for sharing.
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When my husband died, after a wonderful, happy marriage of 62 years, I was at a loss. I think the best piece of advice that I received was from a Buddhist monk who told me when I felt self pity, I should think of doing something for someone else. That was such simple advice. He said, “Think of these three things: 1 – everyone dies, 2 – be grateful for your happy life, 3 – do good for others”
Four years later, I am doing so well. I often think of my many joyous memories with my husband and I also volunteer in my community and often write notes and make calls to others who are suffering.
I even have a new love in my life. And I think this is what my husband would want for me!
I have been available to listen to grieving friends,co-workers & patients about their loved ones.
Thanks for so much for the video.
After 4 years of watching my mother deteriorate, suffer, losing her ability to move and speak – her care was given lovingly – but was all consuming. After she passed I felt a sense of unbelief, of numbness and exhaustion. It has been 2 1/2 years since her passing. I have felt that I gradually found a place of acceptance of life, of loss, and have observed myself more throughout this process. It has helped me to view life more as a journey with nothing stationary. I have let go of expectations and go more with what is and have stopped clinging to an unrealistic vision. The one thing I have learned is that life is forever moving and I must be flexible and move with it. You cannot rush grief it is also moving… moving through many stages and forms. Thank you for your video – it would have been helpful to me in the early stages of my grief. and was still helpful now. My grief is still there – but is rather like an old friend now…. that visits once in awhile. I look at it, I reflect and I move forward.
The Glass House Shelter Project, a grassroots organization that brings college courses into homeless shelters, operates on the premise that words heal, that telling our stories is transformative, that, in short, bibliotherapy works! Dealing with any kind of loss is difficult and can leave us feeling isolated. Writing our stories down helps us transcend them, move beyond the role of victim and into a place of coping and strength. This is because stories connect us to each other, allow us to say “Me, too!” in a way that brings us back, makes us present. Sometimes we don’t know what we’re dealing with until we see it on the page in front of us; naming our grief, the tentacles of it, the complexities of what we are mourning, is the first step.
this was most imformative. i had forgotten most of it due to recent loss of my mate. i thank you very much.
I’m glad he addressed both allowing the pain AND being aware that sometimes our story can become addictive. That’s something I’ve been looking at in my life and the people I work with. Feeling our feelings fully can be healing and transformative, but beware the addictive pull of misery to wallow in it and perpetuate it (what Eckhart Tolle calls the ‘pain body’).
I find that my breath is a tool that is available to me every moment, and can be a very soothing means by which to enter into a mindful state of being. When I consciously use my mind to slow down my respirations and focus my attention and awareness on it, I feel an almost instant calming effect. I am suddenly aware of more than just my fearful thoughts–I am aware of spaciousness, my bodily sensations, & what’s happening in and around me. It is the most powerful medicine I know for soothing myself when I am agitated, anxious, afraid, angry, worried, overly excited, etc. My breath is a bridge from my thinking mind to the deeper awareness & wisdom we all possess, but can’t always access b/c we are lost in our often difficult thoughts. Following my breath connects me to my body and the deeper places within me that DO know all that I need in that moment. And most importantly, my breath connects me to the here and now–not the guilty past or the overwhelming future. It is the fast track to NOW. Where else would we want to be?
Agreed!
Accept, even encourage the tears, the expression (writing or whatever)… the catharsis of their loss. It detoxifies the soul and the very cells of their grieving, making way for restoration and healing. Thank you Dr. Jack.
I am torn and amazed at the same time about the inpatients I meet who are hospitalized because they are depressed following a major loss whether that be beloved spouse, pet, child or person with in a past week, yesterday, or a couple of months ago. When I mention the grieving process almost all of them have not heard of it. I come from the Elizabeth Kulber Ross era and have guided people through that process during the height of the aids epidemic. That is not to say someone trying to kill themselves so they can follow their beloved surely needs to be redirected probably into a safel setting until that feeling passes. I feel torn between what I know works over time and how the medical establishment often handles the situation.
I also found the Narrative approach to grief and healing very helpful for clients. I also have clients write to their missed loved one how they are feeling right now, what they remember about them that gave them joy, what they wished they had done or said to that loved one. I also have them go through a ritual of connecting with a lost loved pone by having them visit a place that was significant for them, that they have good memories of, then have them sit and mindfully bring that person in mind and enjoy again the happy memories. Finally, I have them leave something symbolic of their parting. One client left a poem and flowers and intends to do this annually. This facilitates the leave-taking more compassionately and also relieves the guilt of them getting on with their lives.
Using body and emotional awareness while sitting with my grief and that of those I walk with has been immensely helpful for all of us in healing our grief
My mom is dying. At the same time as a single parent, my son is getting ready to graduate and go off to college. I deal with my grief by: 1) giving myself the excuse to slow down and be less busy- I only do work, visiting my mom and keeping up with my son’s activities; 2) letting myself cry when I need to.cry. I do get a pit in my stomach loneliness at times, but it does pass in less than an hour normally.
I love the way you can encourage one to walk towards painful feelings and also how to work with the story
To have the support and courage to sit with one’s grief is the single most powerful way to process and move through the stages. Mindfulness is key.
When the grief is about unresolved traumas and losses of childhood and people are afraid that if they start crying they will never stop, I remind then that they lived a finite number of days as a child and suffered a finite number of hurts that can never happen again to them as a child. The grieving process is finite. Sometimes that makes them less afraid to approach the grief.
In my own healing journey with multiple deaths and trauma I found that as I fully surrendered into whatever was there, I did it with compassion and discovered that each time I healed more gracefully and was left with a strength of spirit and a knowing that truly I was being guided with grace and I would get through this and recover. Now as I walk the stages of acceptance I look back with gratitude and awe of what is possible when one surrenders into the flow of life and simply allows it. All pain gives way to greater love, light and peace. All contraction becomes expansion. Separation becomes oneness. Gratitude is what lives on.
Thankyou for that. This is is the true and complete perspective i am in excess need of at this moment in dealing with my own sorrow. Emilia
I work with clients with complex trauma and find that being “with” them while they are experiencing their grief and loss during the session is a powerful and healing process for them. I liked Jack’s recommendation to encourage the client to externalise their feelings of grief through art and / or movement.
I have found the brief presentation of Dr.Kornfield very powerful. I n working with the grief process with my patients,, there is no doubt in my mind as to the validation that the healing power comes from us allowing our patients to feel loss and pain to it,s depth. We as therapists must work through our own feelings regarding loss in order to allow our patients to go to whatever depths they need to go to to experience theirs.
Miriam Nicoll LCSW;BCD
The timing of watching this video is amazing. A client (whose young adult son suddenly died) is a musician. His son truly respected and admired this. In our next session, I will ask him to consider expressing his grief through his gift of music.
As a practitioner and member of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing, therapist, former body worker ( Trager Psychphysicsl Integration) and coach, I have used the following process, which i interactive ith feeling or sensations in the body
1. Scan the body for where the grief seems to be sitting: usually throat, chest, sometimes belly
2. Welcome the sadness “Welcome back, my old friend. ”
3. Hold the grief or sadness in your arms like a baby, gently rocking it.
4. Ask “What is your true name?” What seems like anger may be fear or sadness. Some of us need to learn the names of feelings, and can find them at a site of on the internet. Remember that most feelings fall within the categories ” mad, sad, glad, lonely, scared”. Self- judgment or other concepts are mental stories. It may be good to recognize them, but this process shifts actual emotions or feelings best. ( The feeling behind self- judgement may be fear or shame, for example.)
5. Ask ” why are you here sgain with me at this moment?” Let answer arise with its own voice, rather than have your head figure it out. Be with the feeling and let it speak.
6. Ask “What do you need from me today?” Again, listen for the answer to rise within you, which might be: Please acknowledge me and my pain! ” or an outward action “Please write to ( lost person or object..like something important lost in a fire) and tell her/him/ it how you feel and how much you miss them. Take time to do thus, or make a promise you can keep later, to listen more, write, or speak further with the Feeling
7. Thank the grief or sadness for visiting, and tell them they are welcome back at any time.
Wishing the feeling to go away when it is too soon is like pushing, and it may push back and stay longer. Like an ignored child, it may stay stubbornly waiting to be addressed. Welcoming it and holding it as a precious child may help it to relax and begin to melt away, or rest for a while.
Each time this is done, the feeling may speak more easily, or have a different request. At each stage of the process, when the question is answered, you will feel a shift, an easing for that moment. Gradually, the grief will ease.
Thank you for these ideas on how to be gentle and kind to oneself whebn in grief.
Lovely and wise process. Thank you for sharing!
I feel it’s imperative to respect grief,however long it takes to heal (sometimes never) and in whatever form it may take. It is something our culture continues to find hard to accept or is frightened by . Grief is a rite of passage :through the loss of the beloved we can stare death in the face, perhaps for the first time. Grief is unique to the sufferer. Jack’s advice to go with the feelings and let them lead is the only way. Gifts can come out of deep grief. It is a word for pain. It is a word for irrevocable change. It is a word for love.
life is a constant grieving process. the big losses tend to overwhelm us. we can learn to work with the smaller losses which will build our capacity when a goant loss comes around. no surfer starts with the biggest wave he can find but starts out mastering the smaller waves and works up within his capacity. always comforting to see and hear jacks soothing voice and compassion . ive been to several workshops with stephen and ondrea levine and their work with the grief process is on the same path as jacks work.
i hve a unique situation i am very ill,, i have asthma pretty bad,,,,,, my Father is getting very old and frail,, i cannot travel to see him and he is too frail to come here,,, i love him with aall my heart and he has always treated me with so much love,,,
and when he passes i will grieve for the loss but also for the time that we could have had now and is sli[[ong away from us,,, i already feel so much anger at the situation and jealousy that my brothers and sisters are there with him anytime they want to see him
BUT i havea REALLY bad asthma when i get upset i CAN NOT JUST L ET THE tears flow i would end up being hospitalized,,,, i have to find another way,, even expressing anger gives me asthma ..bad!! i eed to protest myself ..my health,,
any ideas??
Shari
Thank you so very much for this healing video!
Thank you for posting Jack Kornfield’s insights about grief. I found his comment about the value of using both expressive and cognitive approaches particularly valuable – I’ve had clients describe feelings of release or relief through movement, art, writing etc but be then be devastated or despondent by subsequent return of grief “story”. Integrating expressive and cognitive approaches has been so helpful when working with my own grief and loss stories, as well as with clients; I’ve used a combination of yoga & massage alongside guided mindfulness practices both cognitive and body-based (e.g. Kristin Neff’s “soften, soothe and allow” guided meditation http://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/) to honour and work with grief at multiple levels. Om shanti
Dear madam Ruth,
I am deeply impressed by you & your teams spirit to guide ,teach and request for comments from people from various walks of life world wide. I am 66 year old a retd engineering professional, I had a
very bad and unfortunate fate following me since 1987, My wife was diagnosed with a schizophrenia and a bad health problems.Later she became acute anemic followed with esophageal carcinoma and scum bled to it in 2011.I find your web site some where that time following your guidance on mindfulness,trauma and related subject regularly. Your untiring effort to guide millions around the globe on this very interesting phenomena is laudable and I dont have any words to express my express.
May god bless you and you expert team guide all of us in such a harsh phase of our life to lead a peaceful and healthy mental life. With love Muralidhara ( India )
I simply let it run its course, no matter how long it took. It took 12 years.
Much as Jack has shared before I try to take care to remain fully within and alongside the person’s pain until that person shows that they feel they have been heard and I really understand their pain. To know our pain by going toward it and being in it and not pushing it aside or running from it has a remarkable ability to eventually create space for another way of being, another way which often doesn’t include this pain or suffering. I’ve seen this with all kinds of pain and suffering, not just that resulting from what we typically think of grief and loss. In fact, I think all pain and suffering can be thought of a sort of loss (of what we thought of as acceptable) with accompanying grief.
Great reminder to trust the body and the process. Giving it space and creating loving rituals and finding people who can stay with your grief is very important. Spiritual beliefs that help one to feel connected to those who have died and can comfort some. Rose oil on the heart area can sooth and acknowledge.
Prayer is helpful for some when loss is intense. A human experience that takes time needs to be normalised in our culture that can sometimes be intolerant of pain and shut these experiences down.
Thanks.
I appreciate this acceptance approach as many people assume they should be able to “get over” a loss in a scripted or time limited amnner. I like to explain the First Nations cultural traditions in which the people left behind are given a year to grieve all of the “firsts” that they will encounter without their loved one. They are also excused from community obligations and ceremonies because are recognized as needing the time to process and heal. It can create a softening of expectation that my clients tend to appreciate….particularly when they are rigid self-expectations.
Jack is so right that you cannot hurry-up grief. It runs a unique course for everyone. What may appear trivial to one person seems to roll of another (not so feeling or connected individual) like nothing happened.
I do think feeling people had good attachments, and their sense of loss may be greater. Distanced people seem to *get over it* quickly.
As a practitioner of aromatherapy, as well as other modalities, I find that using essential oils specific to grief can be really helpful in soothing the painful experience, and allowing new ways to view it. I think it is very necessary to not “short-circuit” the grieving process, but to fully experience it. It is also important not to expect that others will understand what one is experiencing personally – we are all individuals, and even though we may have similar experiences (e.g., death of a loved one), we will still have our own personal process as we move through grief.
Personally, I began losing dear family members when I was nine years old. I lost my first love in a car accident when I was 19; I also lost two of my adult children within a 10-year span, and many more such losses over the years, so deep loss has been part of my life. I don’t believe it ever “gets easier” nor have I hardened myself against loss, but it becomes apparent that “change is the only constant’ in physical life, that we humans have a remarkable capacity to endure and continue on, that we are certainly so much more than our frail little physical bodies would have us believe.
This is my personal experience, and I do not expect my clients to have the same outlook. However, I think that my own experience enables me to have more compassion, understanding and patience for the unique processes of others’ grief.
Thanks for the video, Ruth and Jack, and for the opportunity to comment. Blessings.
I use the metaphor of grief being like an ocean tide, it will feel like it goes away for a while and then it may come back and flood us again. the importance of honouring the person we lost and what they gave us and brought into our lives and world.
Once again, Thank you, Thank you, Ruth for these incredibly helpful videos! I consistently use The Grief Recovery Method to help clients process their losses, and have quite honestly never found a better model to help work through thoughts and feelings clients are left with after a loss…especially those “if only I would have…” thoughts that can keep clients stuck in the pain of that loss. I so appreciate Jack Kornfield’s validation of the need for people to feel their feelings, to have the pain of those losses acknowledged, and to allow the grief to move through in order for real healing to take place. How blessed I feel to have this resource that you and nicabm provide to all of us!
So true ….. allowing yourself to let go of the grief and feel whole again is also and important step.
I use mindfulness in a visulization so that all unresolved issues may be generated to be released. Feeling the sadness of the loss . Sometimes its an oppotunity to bring up other losses which have not been resolved. Grief is a vehicle for love. Opening the heart is the fuel .
It was helpful to get this today because this morning I learned on facebook that a close friend had died suddenly. I went to the cemetery where my husband is buried for a long walk and reflected on impermanence and wept. Then I called two mutual friends and promised to stay in touch in the weeks to come. Both solitude and contact with friends helps me deal with grief. I also meditate daily with tapes of singing bowls and the sounds of rain and waves.
How do you get thru loss that’s has no closure niece abducted almost 10 yrs ago never found no answer to crime
Perhaps there is no resolution in terms of knowing what happened, but there is a loss for you of her presence and the time you would have had together. You can use the process I posted above to speak to your loss and to your missing niece. This is not easy or comfortable, but it csn help you move out of feeling stuck with effects of that crime.
What such criminals do not realize is that they are robbing and affecting whole fsmilies, friendship groups, and cultures. Remember you are not alone with your grief.
Thank you!
Thank you so much for your fast deep summary
I have operated in the red zone for years
My body is tired but I am moving into loving kindness meditations thru Jack Kornfield’s classes and Tara Brach
Thank you Ruth for your work
This was great! “Grieving Mindfully” by Sameet Kumar, PhD,( a psychologist and Buddhist who works at a cancer center in Florida), expresses similar, helpful and practical ideas. Was given this book by a grief counselor when my parents died with 8 weeks of each other. Mother was already in hospice care, father healthy. Then, Dad was diagnosed with brain cancer and died before Mom who died less than 8 weeks later. Just after father’s diagnosis I was found to have had stage 4 cancer. So waqs in an ocean of loss at that time. That was 3 years ago. I found the concepts to be extremely comforting and helpful. Am guessing that Jack and Sameet know each other as Jack also dsicusses the grieivng process in the context of Buddhist psychology. These ideas can help be helpful not only while greiving the loss of someone in your life but also apply to those going through life’s transitons, medical diagnosis of serious chronic conditions, etc., with the inherent sense of loss as part of the process.. Would love to have Jack teach us more. Thanks again!
Thank you.
A lovely reminder to trust the body, the body wants to heal and has the capacity to heal and grow.
The importance of tears, expression and with loving awareness meeting what is.
Resources I use for myself and others ( constantly need the reminder that these resources are there within and around me!! Thank you Jack Kornfield, and Ruth Buczynski for sharing)
A weave of creative expression,
dance, painting, singing , writing.
connecting with nature and others.
Deep listening.
Body work, more recently TRE trauma release exercises.
Mindful awareness is the ground which I endeavour to work from,
My aspiration :being present and ultimately letting going of knowing and trusting the unfolding nature of things.
Like all the challenging situations we face in life, it turns out that grief is an opportunity. With guidance from the spiritual work “A Course in Miracles,” determined mindfulness, faith and a constantly renewing commitment to TRUST, I was able to deepen my spiritual understanding and grow through my own loss. Of course the process included allowing and expressing my grief, as well as examining the stories that prolonged it and becoming willing to let them go. To walk through the intense emotional experience of grief allowing it to transform us is an alchemy that produces priceless treasures. It also inspired me to write “Healing Loss: Choose Love Now” healingloss.biz which outlines the spiritual principles and practices that became my path to healing. Thank you for addressing this important universal topic.
I had to put my shepherd to sleep suddenly at six, for aggression. It’s been over a year and it is still very very painful for me – I think of him every day, and certainly every morning. I engaged in some art therapy for several sessions right after, and still, when I feel it is so painful if I pick up my pastels and my sketch book and draw a mandala… it helps. I take a bowl and trace it, pretty big, like 15 inches across. And then I have this circle and I just draw whatever inside of it, whatever comes out… abstract or sometimes images. I have a large sketch book of all these mandalas I have done from the beginning … it’s a very healing thing to do. The art therapist said it gives us some distance from the pain… and as the video said, allows us to express it.
Just thought I’d share…
I find that nature is a great healer. I have walked in the woods (or a park) and did walking meditation in a way that was grounding and healing. I’ve recommended it to patients, who often have similar experiences.
i appreciate this allowing and acknowledging of the weight of grief. the reminder that expressing feeling and fully allowing the river of tears and feelings that the tides of grief bring is so important in our healing. as a nurse myself i often marvel at the ability of the body to heal.and in my own journey with breast cancer it is amazing from what we can recover, i see grief as a moving entity of its own, sometimes a beast that so much bigger than what we could have imagined, sometimes a friend reminding us to check in with ourself, what is it we need to support ourselves as another wave washes through. grief is liberating yet so easily denied. thank you. Kumari Ellis, Mullumbimby, Australia
This was beautifully articulated! Always grateful for the wisdom and compassion
that is brought to light in your work.
I really appreciate everybody’s comments. I did some (very easy to read) research (which partially relates to Adele Nicols’ above comment) entitled “Lives Unseen: Unacknowledged Trauma of Non-disordered, Competent Adult Children Of Parents with a Severe Mental Illness (ACOPSMI)” – it includes their grief. I also wrote a resource website on the grief of the same population studied. It’s being used by some at The Royal Melbourne Children’s Hospital, the Victoria VVCS – Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service Department of Veterans’ Affairs, other mental health teams including other institutions and individuals in Australia and internationally. Following a presentation I did to the emergency and medical personnel in Japan post tsunami and Fukushima meltdown the Loss & Grief page now has a Japanese translation.
Jack Kornfield mindfulness notion of “being part of the whole” has worked (partially) for sexual abuse survivors because this group is part of a fairly well-established global movement – at least within the English speaking world and much has been written about their trauma. But it’s not easy or straightforward for the population I studied for reasons best explained in the work itself. Here is the link to my research + resource website — including feedback from practitioners, researchers and survivors, etc. Feel free to distribute it. Scroll down to click on other pages
sites.google.com/site/workwithin/home/trauma
(I welcome feedback – critical or otherwise)
One important foundation (I can hardly call it a “strategy”) I use in life and in my work with patients dealing with grief and loss is psycho-education – based on research or important writings – as much as possible. I believe that the grief of non-physical death related matters is perhaps the most complex essentially because it is disenfranchised and peppered with all sorts of themes (my research explains why, with regards to the population, studied more fully than what can be offered here). Thanks Ruth for organising and distributing this important info.
Thank you. As a therapist, grief counselor and a bereaved caregiver from a long terminal illness loss, I share space with the bereaved and create a safe environment for Gestalt therapy, writing a letter/email to cyberspace, journaling, coloring, and other hands on and psychodrama activities for expression. The use of choosing various pieces of sea glass to depict the process of ones grief has helped as well as river or beach stones of various shapes, sizes and textures. I try to incorporate the senses to create awareness as much as possible. I find all the above helps honor the process of grieving.
Journaling helped emensely when I lost my husband. Also daily walking became of form of meditation. It brought me peace and awareness. Catherine Cauthorne
Thank you for this. I have been practising exactly what you advise and I am managing well. I lost my darling father, aged 91 a month ago today. We had all understood that his time was fast approaching and he made it clear to us that he was ready. He had never been truly happy since his wife died.
I had been already been grieving as I had been loosing him little by little to dementia. I found great comfort in the words of a wise woman. She told me that when he was increasingly absent, due to dementia, he was choosing to spend time with my mother and getting ready to be reunited with her in the next life. Dad was a Catholic who believed in heaven as I do and I am comforted to think that they are together now.
Keening can be an important part of recovery from loss and grief . Keening is the traditional Celtic wailing about one’s loss, with one’s wails prolonged, loud, full, and projected out into the depths of the universe.
This has provided clients with a sense of release and clearing, especially when done with the full attention of a supportive group that confirms the need to express one’s grief, as was done through keening at traditional Celtic funerals held at home in the past. If the client is afraid to wail loudly, I invite them to wail into a pillow, so their voice doesn’t startle them, and I model it for them, so they understand what full wailing is. I also explain that recovery from loss and grief is often profound, long lasting process, highly varied in its manifestations over time, and, that fully feeling and expressing the loss will ultimately cleanse, restore, and bring peace and compassion to both mind and soul.
I also ask clients to speak directly to the person or situation they have lost, expressing what they admired or liked, benefited from, treasured, are grateful to carry within themselves from that person or situation, and the opposite, what they did not admire or like, wanted less or none of, felt impaired by, and internalized from that person or situation but no longer want to carry within themselves.
I love what Carol from Jerusalem writes about wailing . Makes so much sense. In a sense it is another route to releasing over time the energy of all the pain and suffering and loss.
We lost our dad recently and noticed we each deal with our loss differently. I, for example, honour the person he was and have taken up some of his hobbies. Mom has been keening I suppose, as she wails from morning till night. She also talks to his picture throughout the day. My question is, how do the rest of the family deal with her method of grieving? This is making me physically ill because when she wails, it causes a strange sensation in my body. As if I am paralyzed and being suffocated. Other members stay away and I guess I would too if I wasn’t mom’s care provider for now.
Dora I was in a similar situation with a close friend who lost her husband. It was a deep loss for me as well but we handled it very differently. I also became physically ill and developed a kind of trauma response to the friend I had considered one of my best.
I’m not a professional, but I felt like I should share a little bit about what I’ve learned for myself with you in the hopes that it might help.
First I wish I would have had the courage to not define her by her loss and pain. I felt her pain was so much that she would be unable to handle anything else. In the gentle moments where I did try and speak to her, she was still so deep into her grief she couldn’t hear so I gave up on my own needs. Even if she couldn’t hear me, I wish I would have communicated clearly the state I was in and told her I needed others to step in for me.
Although I was not a dedicated care giver, I was the go-to friend and as time has passed I’ve realized how very unhelpful I was. Because of my high stress state and failing health I was not the best person to take care of her and I was completely ignoring my own family. Believe me getting over the story of guilt for “leaving” a friend in grief has been a struggle. And I am not suggesting just running away. Space showed me improved health and spirit so I knew I was on the right path. Slowly, through meditation and artistic expression (https://vitalitymob.wordpress.com) I started to turn off the stress response I had been running on for 2 straight years and even more slowly I’m working through the relationship that remains between us.
I realized the strongest support I could give myself in all of that grief would come from me, and once I took the time to listen to what I needed, things began to change for the better. I hope you find what you need!
My best wishes on your journey.
Rosa
Wonderful idea! Thanks for sharing.
My principal strategies, in dealing with grief & loss, have been prayer, meditation, EFT, maintaining a journal & writing my book. My book is about confronting grief, moving through it & the road to forgiveness & healing, then reclaiming wholeness.
For me 2 strategies have been particularly effective:
1. Fully allowing myself to feel and go into whatever comes up in the moment
2. Using Trauma/Tension Release Exercises (TRE) and the shaking this induces which is wonderfully relaxing and sometimes helps me release emotions.
thank you.
So beautifully stated. Thank you~
…tears are important detergent, natural soap to wash away the unwanted debris of pain, regret, and sorrow. And if the sadness is shared with an understanding soul, the ‘wash out need not last more that a few minutes….
I disagree with ‘a few minutes’. Deep sorrow can take months or up to two years to be processed.
Not necessarily in this order, but always beginning with listening:
Invitation to talk about: what is hardest for them right now; what happened to end their loved one’s life; who else knew and loved that person and shares the grief; memories that soothe; regrets that haunt; how the body feels in remembering; sense of a voice from their loved one; rituals enacted thus far or the absence of one; permission to allow grief to visit as often as it needs to.
Feeling our feelings and they way we feel about our feelings is a critical part of the grieving process. This tape heightens the importance of acceptance, expression and love (for self and others) in the time when we need it so deeply…Just being there, and creating space for our clients to feel their spectrum of their feelings is so therapeutic.
Thanks for this video. This reminds me how important for the clinicians ourselves to truly exercise loving awareness in the sessions with clients, holding and experiencing the pain of grief and loss with them, before they even are aware of their own capacity to do so. This is one essential exercise I do in my own practice.
Trusting in the capactiy of the body to heal is sadly so much not a part of our medically dominated culture. Our system is so designed toward procedures and medication. This “do something to get rid of the excrutiating pain of loss ” is all too often diagnosed and pathologised and medications get prescribed as the remedy and all the wisdom that jack Kornfeld suggests and the many rituals that cultures and ancient religions suggest are superceded by the medicalisation of the normal inevitable experiences of loss and grief which are an inevitable part of the human condition.
As a society we have far more compassion toward those who are in treatment for an ailment/pain that manifests through the physical body such as cancer and heart disease than for those whose pain manifests in the burdensome heavy painful difficult energy of pain and grief.
Holding loving connecting compassion gentle time patience are the best medicines for grief and probably for most depression too , if only we were free to see that
Helping people stay with their pain even briefly using mindfulness has helped many of my clients to move forward in healing their grief
It will be 7 years in August of this year that my youngest daughter died. In the brief time period from mishap to finding her dead in her hospital bed, I have found, as Jack Kornfield mentioned, a connection to many who have lost a loved one. One of the most helpful action I have found for myself is to let go of my boundary to Nature, asking for confirmation of my grief and help for absorbing and understanding of this circle/cycle of life. Trees especially, with their roots and connections to all trees, I believe, carry with them this pulsation of the beating knowing heart of the Earth. This predictable, constant is reliable everlasting and a reminder of the connectedness of all living things. This is a humbling, gratifying and restorative process.
The therapeutic use of touch
With a very compassionate
And sensitive soul, can create a
Safe container to release or discharge
Emotional pain trapped in the body.
And guidance with breath work at
The same time can be a powerful
Combination. Mindfulness, IMHO
Doesn’t work so well if the persons frontal lobes
Are off line due to hyper or hypo arousal.
Loving touch can release and ground.
Once on solid ground it is easier to have
“The witness” be mindful.
Is
Thank you for all of your comments, as they have been very helpful. I would like remind us to also include the population of people who are grieving “non-bereavement grief and losses.” In addition to physical death, there are many who are experiencing devastating emotional pain due to situations where no one has died, and the same symptoms and stages of grief usually apply. The following are examples: children and families of children in foster care, natural disasters, divorce, serious and persistent mental illness, Alzheimer’s, etc. Often, it is even a more difficult healing process, as a result of the fact that no one has died and the loss isn’t recognized culturally. No one sends flowers, cards, organizes a meal sign-up list, no memorial service or ceremonial gathering of support. People often feel even more isolated and disconnected, left wondering what’s wrong with them.
I’m really glad you mention “non-bereavement” grief. I’m not a therapist but someone who has recently gone through a lot of complicated losses (a mental illness diagnosis, losing a home, losing employment, all bound up with losing a relationship very suddenly). Luckily, I have caring friends around me, but they did not necessarily see I was grieving, At first I felt the need to hurry up getting back on my feet – surely I should be looking forward? I felt very isolated. Fortunately, I found an excellent therapist who helped me find the space I needed to honour my own grief. I realised I needed time to accept I was grieving for a lost future, and that even if it wasn’t a culturally recognised loss, it was still real and important to me. The experience has really opened my eyes to other forms of grief and loss that are hidden. Honouring my own grief helped me enormously, because I realised it was ok to let in these strong feelings and that they would not stay forever. That gave me the courage to talk to my friends about how I felt, and to ask for the support I needed.
Adele yes I think a book should be written on that. My own children went through that a divoirce situation and their father couldn’t see them due to the fact he would t do a drug test. So a walking corpse he was. Even familities with incarcerated members.
I must say, that in a most basic way, one of the best ways I have found to deal with the losses is to just ‘listen to Jack Kornfield’, even for a few minutes, again and again and again and again… because the ‘duo’ of human vulnerability and the innate capacity to heal, ring true so clearly and re-set the system….beautifully. There is no judgement for the also innate capacity/need to let the system be ‘re-set’…. to discover once again that growing is also ‘re-growing.’
One tool that I use for those in transition, and grieving the loss of a loved one’s capacity ( through dementia) – is a kundalini mantra and mudra action. Sa Ta Na Ma. This means, birth, life, death and re-birth. I often translate it as; Beginning, Middle, End, New Beginning or Transformation. The words, and neurological finger connections help different parts of the brain and is self soothing to the bodymind.
I also incorporate Psychodrama to assist in retelling the past, present and future from the client (protagonist) perspective. This ‘action narrative’ embodies the grief, the resources and the relationship.
Writing letters to the deceased is helpful. Taking walks in nature and talking to them, asking them to show you signs that they are still with you. Sitting quietly and feeling gratitude for the time spent together and what was learned throughout the time together. If the person had been ill, picture the peace they now have and the fact that all pain and suffering is now gone.
Thank you! And concerning your question, as a psychologist i am a great fan of letting my clients write letters. Two examples:
1. The client writes to the one he/she lost AND he/she writes response back to self. A client who had a late miscarriage felt an enormous relief when she wrote a letter to her child mourning its death and then to write back to herself as the lost child.
2. A goodbye letter in more complicated relationships can also help. The goodbye letter has a real structure and may take many weeks of writing, the client may take the letter back and forth to the sessions to read bits and pieces out loud (very important, the letter has to have a VOICE that is being heard).
The structure is as follows:
i. What have you recieved from the lost person (sometimes the only thing a client can come up with is: life).
ii. What have you missed
iii. What will you take with you in your life
iv. What will you leave behind
v. What will you pass on to the future, your children, pupils, students, clients.
After reading the whole thing out loud, perhaps imaging the lost person in a chair across the room listening, a ritual to dispose of the letter, burning, sticking it in the grave, throwing it in the sea, making boats of it and letting it flow downstream – may take years to accomplish that last task.
Best wishes, otteline
When the World bears upon me, I am poor to reflect reason.
Sensing my grief as the flow of being, in and of this World, allows me no solace but affords meaning and becomes a touchstone of possibilities when I own the experience.
When the World bears upon me, I am poor to reflect reason.
Sensing my grief as the flow of being, in and of this World, allows me no solace but affords meaning and forms a touchstone of possibilities when I own the experience.
Surrendering to grief has made the transition through it more peaceful. Prayerfulness works, like meditation.
The faith of being connected to a source greater than one’s self often helps with acceptance following loss. Many people do not have that level of faith
Many people do not have a mindful practice.
Grief asks for a companion. A therapist might be that companion.
Without a practice, without strong faith, it is difficult to accept the loss of anything held dear.
If a person is struggling with acceptance, I often ask what is acceptable about the loss? They will usually say “NOTHING.” That, actually is a start. It is often an energetic response, and that energy is important.
What usually is the greatest loss is the loss of self.
We tend to attach to that which we have. We attach to the person we know and love. We feel a part of, and after the loss, apart from.
I bring the question back to holding one’s self in honor and love.
thank you for this short video…..it was a great reminder of the many possibilities…to deal with loss and grief…and the other comments are wonderful / helpful as well.
I use the book Tear Soup to help clients realize that their recipe for tear soup or grieving is just fine, everyone grieves differently and that is OK. I also ask them to tell me about the person, what they loved, what was the favorite thing they did with that person, what were some of the important things they learned from that person, etc. I make them feel safe to grieve however they want with me.
Like Jack Kornfield, I encourage my clients to honor and respect their grief in the same way they loved and honored their deceased loved one. I normalize the grieving process for those who say, “I think I[‘m going crazy; nothing makes sense to me anymore without her/him.” Family members, friends, work colleagues will often ask “How are you doing?” but when the bereaved person tells the truth a month or more out from the loss they are looked at disapprovingly or asked “Aren’t you over that yet?” Our culture doesn’t give permission for the person to have however long they need to metabolize the loss and find their way forward with their life without the loved one. I spend much of the time being supportive, listening to where the client is this week and reassuring them that this grief will last as long as it needs to, but not forever.
Jack is wonderfully clear in giving suggestions for helping others and the reasons the suggestions may work. I also appreciate that he gives several different options or areas to focus on.
I appreciated Jack’s comment about a client being “half done” when clients are asking if this feeling of grief will ever end.
With children experiencing grief, I like to suggest they write a letter or draw a picture and send it up to the loved one via helium balloon.
Thank you to Ruth and Jack!
1. express feelings by writing a letter1. to the loved one2 2.GD 3.to oneself. Grieving is a process.
2. readings the Psalms 0f David and connecting to GD’S LOVE is healing.
3,Listening to sad music helps to release the sad emotions as does watching sad movies.
4.loving and be kind to oneself ie: taking a soothing bath, walking or sitting in nature
5.avoid people who have no compassion or understanding—-many of them can’t or don’t want
to face the pain of their own grief or they just are not compassionate. Whatever the reason,
it does not matter, harbour no animosity to them accept them and do my job of taking care
of myself.
6,allow self to RECEIVE compassion.
7,since emotions affect us physically ie: the energy of grief affects the lungs and heart; I find massage
and acupuncture helpful in releasing the energy from the body and thus prevents physical illness.
Beautiful expression about Acceptance, Defusion, and Connection. Thank you for sharing this moment of reflection
So true. Thank you-
The technique which has helped me most in working with people who are grieving has been Holograhic Memory Resolution, developed by Brent Baum. HMR uses mind, body, color therapy. It helps by inducing an “Alpha-Theta” brainwave state that enhances sensory access to memory while grounding the client’s central nervous system. I have found that much of grief is about regret. HMR supports clients as they “reframe” that regret into peaceful memories.
Opening the front door and welcoming GRIEF inside… with a warm smile and a comforting hug, can offer a comforting place to be when it feels like nothing makes sense in the world….
being compassionate, both towards myself and my clients, has consistently been the most honorable, powerful and gentle way through it all…
thanks Ruth and Jack!
Thanks Eleanor, perfectly said.
so often I hear “I thought I was over it,” as if the person feels they are somehow deficient/should be ashamed, to find themselves grieving again long after the loss of someone- thankyou for this, which confirms acknowledging and honouring it however, whenever, it resonates.
Many people I have worked with were unable to verbalize their grief. Art-making was the only way they could express their pain and strong emotions to aid in the healing process. In the last ten to fifteen minutes of any session I implement Energy Meridian tapping with a deep breathing technique to help patients to relax before they leave. Between sessions patients practice Mindfulness and Relaxation Tapping to help them to cope with daily life.
Getting the heart to feel what the intellect knows is the hardest part.
Learning to sit with clients who are grieving is a great gift we can give them. Often, well meaning friends and relatives will try to help “fix” the problem, but what the person who is experiencing the loss may need most is someone to bear witness to their grief and need to talk about it. Grief and loss groups can be instrumental in the healing, to know that we are not alone and to feel hope that we will feel better.
I facilitate bereavement support writing groups, and use writing as an expressive tool because I have found it to be a powerful ally on the journey of grieving, in my own life and in the lives of my clients. Writing about our experiences and naming our feelings advances our cognitive understanding and simultaneously allows us to touch down into emotions in a safe way. Then, when we read our passages to one another, we understand that we are not alone, but are on a path traveled by many; we are held by, and connected to, a web of caring hearts who understand our pain.
My patient who has anger toward a loved one who died
often had wished to be free of the person.. The anger was so prominent; the constant disappointment in the person for their loved one’soutbursts followed by their apology and cycle of regret which regularly occurred. The loved deceased partner had been so draining. What are others’ ideas and comments.
I agree about encouraging the person to feel his sorrow but to also to remember the joys, the wondeful memories of their times together. Also remind them that if the loved one has suffered a great deal from cancer or other long term illness to feel the thankfulness fo being with the loved one through this. To me it is a great and loving honor to go through the dying process with someone even if it is just sitting and being in their precense.
I am not a therapist, but I am getting a lot out of these webcasts and I think it helps me better understand how my therapist is trying to help me.
I was struck today about him talking about embracing the community of grief. When you suffer a great loss, it makes you want to pull inward and isolate yourself. And when the funeral is over and everyone has gone back to their own busy lives, you do feel very alone.
Joining a grief group was very helpful to me. If i had not had a friend who was also grieving, I probably would not have gone on my own. Even when I sat there saying and sharing nothing, hearing others express what I was feeling helped me connect with others. They understood my silence. And I could grasp on to the hope that I would get through it all.
I appreciate the teaching that the psyche has an innate healing capacity just as the body does. That the grief is trustworthy and can guide us to its resolution. It can be hard to make room for seemingly bottomless sorrow — to trust that it can be held in awareness. Thank you for this offering.
How you react to death and dying tells you a lot about how you face the unknown and things that seem beyond your control. Hypnosis evokes honoring self talk and respect for yourself and those in witness of this sacred journey. Hypnotherapist and Hospice nurse Lisa Sigsworth has written a jewel of a book on this subject “Crossing Over:Your Guide to Dying With Grace” I highly recommend it. Having helped many myself consider this idea to tell the departing “As you make your amazing transition from this life to the next phase, imagine YOU- your SELF- doing it willingly, joyfully and with serenity… all is well.”
My own personal loss 10 months ago has overwhelmed me. My bereavement training didn’t touch the enormous pain I have been experiencing. Connecting to others has been the thing that has gotten me through this awful year. I honor the grief, allow the tears and feel my loved one deep in my heart. My spiritual beliefs have certainly been a strength for me and the loss has deepened my faith in the afterlife as well as my compassion for others going through the grieving process. There is no easy way out, only through and I am seeing light at the end of this dark grief tunnel. Now I am working on meaning and ways to honor my daughters memory. I accept that grief is a lifelong process but that I do not need to stay stuck in that tunnel. Thank you Dr. Kornfield.
My patient’s 6 year old son was killed when a car hit him at a family reunion 19 years ago. That grief has remained fresh for her. I have sat with her in that grief for three years. Whatever she wants to do- sometimes we talk about cooking and recipes. More often we talk about her rich network of family and friends. She deflects any introspection. But she dreams and her son Jerald is always part of her dream life. Yesterday she brought a dream. her children. “The children were all playing in the creek.” The children included her grandchildren and their Daddies- all playing together, along with my pt and Other Mother who was her ex-husband’s grandmother and would get in the creek with the children in her late eighties. I would like to say the that I uttered the perfect interpretation here but the affect was strong and she shared it with me. At least I know not to get out too far ahead of a mother’s grief.
I am noticing over and over that not only in myself but in the people I work with, anger is always a mask over sadness which is almost always connected to grief. The tricky part is cutting through that anger until we hit the sadness. I find always that the anger and sadness result from the same root cause/story. And people, including myself, all have their own sometimes unconscious ways of getting through the entanglement with a little guidance that reminds them of connectedness to the rest of the world.
Listening to your thoughts and learning about mindfulness … thank you.
I have written a grief journal, Journaling Through Loss to Transformation, that offers guided questions to help people that are struggling with grief to work through the process of loss. The questions allow the person that is struggling with grief to delve more deeply to find the stories that have the power to heal-
Feeling the emotion and not getting stuck. It gives the therapist a tool to work with the patient and help contain and discuss the emotions emerging.
I have recently had a great loss. I want to help myself and others so I was wondering if you could please share your questions.
Using ACT, encouraging people to simply watch their emotions, no matter how painful as they pass over, without trying to stop, diminish, talk or wish them away. I and my clients have found such relief, since they do pass over and no longer threaten when they come round again. Simply letting them be has the paradoxical effect of resolving them.
I find that people need to be listened to. Not trying to fix the pain for them but to be able to hold the space that is safe for them to share their feelings. I have been a hospice nurse for 40 years and I agree that our body has the ability to heal. Thank you for this vignette. You provide a great service to our human community.
Warm wishes,
Sue
Thank you I love the expressiion of grief as a heavy laden rain cloud that needs to empty ! Thank you
Right on — Feel it to Heal it!
I have used art therapy with patients who have had a spouse die to stay with the grief and allow its expression through art done between sessions and then associate verbally and emotionally to this art produced while in session. I suggest doing the art at home, while in the lowest point which might seem intolerable and using color primarily rather than form to find a voice for those feelings. This has seemed to help patients hold their grief as an object and then bring that object/ artwork into session to share with the therapist in a an interpersonal relational way. This seems to help to move towards that experience of it being a shared experience with others.
I’ve found grief – just feeling grief – a powerful healer. I’ve found it softens things, changes things. Creativity flows.
I appreciate what Dr. Kornfield said about honoring your grief. He refers to Buddhist psychology, I am as a Christian and as a former missionary in Thailand well versed in what Buddhism teaches. I have found to face reality is easier because of the fact that Jesus suffers with us, and that He is always with us. The apostle Paul says [1 Cor. 11:24-27], “Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure”.
To experience this Presence physically has been such a help in my life and in the lives of those who came for help. Even non-christians were blessed by the experience that there is someone bigger than themselves, present in the counseling talk, without using this as a way to force anything on them.
Thanks.