This is very helpful to frame my sessions for a client who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. How to hold space for her as she begins her journey that at the moment is full of fear.
Tara, your wisdom and gentle demeanor are a balm and antidote in themselves. This short 15 minute listening took me on a deep dive into my life (I’m 68) and there are myriad traumas I’ve not fully embraced. The worst being the guilt and shame that I blanche at regarding episodes in my life where I behaved pretty badly. I will try and be mindful of these buried feelings and allow myself to grieve them authentically, or more authentically. Thank you for your presence of heart.
Not feeling the impact of change in my relationship with my only child. He is an adult and lives with my ex.
I get depressed and work and busy myself with anything at times not to feel.
I work in health care with women with Gyn cancer and there is always loss around me.
Often, I will isolate, withdrawing from others and making up a story about my own toxicity – so I’m withdrawing partly to protect them from me. If I suspect that I’m making up a story but don’t yet feel able to turn off that faucet, I sometimes distract myself with British drama and a glass of wine. Or just comfort food, wine, and an early bedtime. And sometimes, I go for long walks in Golden Gate Park, immersing myself in nature.
I journal, go for walks in nature, distract myself with podcasts and films, but many times that brings up the grief and feelings and I’m forced to feel them and release them. I also have a practice of meditation and yoga but since I’ve lost my job I do yoga at home. I tend to isolate and can dwell in sadness if I don’t balance my time with seeing friends. I’m in a coaching program that is very helpful with understanding more of how I behave and react and how relationships work. I want to get back into art work but haven’t. Self compassion is so important.
Susan Williams, Counseling, Fort Collins, CO, USAsays
I chose to leave a relationship due to differences in our values. However, I remain very sad and hurt, as I continue to blame him for his unwillingness to make changes in his numbing habits, which I decided no longer served me as I was resenting him.
I find that Internally, I am still trying to change him, while no longer being in relationship. This creates suffering and increases my sadness and sense of not being worthy of the type of healthy relationship with a man, that I have longed for over the last many years.
My anger and blame are forms of avoiding the pain of loss as a result of my decision to leave him, and the accompanying loneliness his absence creates inside of me.
I feel it in my gut, which is always tense and finds me losing interest in food. However, I continue to feed myself as a symbol of self care, and continue to busy myself as I am able t distract from the pain of this current loss.
I think it’s so hard because you want to be the person you were before this horrible thing happened and then you realize that person will never come back. I think for me that’s the hardest thing. I don’t even know who I am anymore. Therapy helped me stay alive which I’m thankful but I’ve spent the last 5 years in survival mode and sometimes I wonder if it would have been better for everyone if I had just succumbed to my illness.
I loss my oldest son, Hugh, nearly two years ago. He was in his early 50s. He died of lung cancer. I am so sad. I have not tried to avoid grief. O am living it everyday. I miss him. I am learning to balance my grief with gratitude for all the times I had with him and with the understanding of what a wonderful man he was. I have no regrets. I did all i could to support him through his struggle. I do miss him. Sometimes the loss is unbearable.
I am on my yoga mat, crying through my practice, as I listen to this recording. I am 53 and in the last nine years, I have lost all of my siblings, both of my parents, my son, a breast to cancer, and my children’s father to suicide after our marriage of eighteen years ended in divorce. My most recent loss was my brother in January. My numbing, and compulsive use of sex to both numb and feel are no longer working. I am wrecked.
I was sole caretaker of my husband who had dementia. For the last two years of his life -and especially the last year – I took care of him but forgot to take care of myself. I could never sleep because he was always trying to escape and we live d on 87 acres that I had to also take care of.
I lost weight, was so sleep sleep deprived that I couldn’t think straight and would wake up from a nightmare (often) that I had forgotten to do something very important. It would take 15-30 minutes laying there confused to realize that it was only a dream.
I felt like a hurricane-type storm was swirling around me and my 3 daughters couldn’t hear that this was killing me.
I needed their support – a solid support that was wasn’t only what they wanted to do if it was convenient for them – but something consistent that I could count on but they didn’t hear me.
My husband died and I ended up in ICU with severe sepsis/septic shock.
I have purposely cut myself off from my family even though two of my daughters have tried to reach out – but not acknowledge what happened.
I find myself thinking-thinking- blaming-blaming in a negative spiral loop and realize – listening to Tara how destructive that is to my happiness and peace of mind.
I have broken down crying listening to a song by Lisa Haley called, “Always Be Your Guide”
I don’t know how to face my grief and process it and am wanting to explore Meditation to quiet my mind.
In the past 4 years I have lost my best friend of 50 years, my brother, my father, and my faithful dog and protector.
I know from my tears listening to Lisa Haley’s song that there is hope. It feels good to cry.
My heart goes out to everyone else who is troubled and sad and wish us all well♥️
They or even myself avoid grief by filling the space/void with distraction or clutter. By mindless chatter, music or tv in the silence. Clients avoid grief by isolating, suppressing, scrolling on their phone; simply put avoiding connection.
I am finding myself in a multi layered grief experience I hope to articulate here. The last few years have presented the deaths of friends, close family, romantic partnerships, and the start of limitations in my own physical and mental capacity. What arises for me is a lack of motivation. freeze responses, numbing with tv, anger, and isolation. But I also notice is a settling feeling. I feel present in the moment, am leaning into dependence on spirit and taking actions to improve my relationship with what Is. I am making a conscious effort to connect like never before. My struggles are becoming my strengths. I hope to understand this more clearly here, overcome the suffering, and help others to heal. 📿
I tend to use avoidance such as staying busy and not talking about it. The recent loss I suffered, was very unexpected and sole crushing. Nothing I have ever experienced. Hoping to work on “turning towards it” and staying there.
I’m a stay busy type of person. when I stop to pause, I can sense the grief start to build. So I have learned to keep going and don’t dwell on my grief. But it definitely catches up with me. When I truly feel the loss, it gets stuck in my chest. I end up patting myself on the chest and reassuring myself that all things end, and so will these feelings.
Patty Stephens, Other, Saint Augustine , FL, USAsays
My husband of 47 years died recently. The first few weeks I felt numb, unable to fully accept he died even though I held him through hospice. I kept busy settling his affairs; I was afraid that if I didn’t take care of things I would lose momentum and freeze. A few weeks later I began to notice grief trying to come to the surface. I blamed myself for not having noticed how sick he was, for not telling him how I felt and allowing the same from him, for thinking there was more time. Some days I felt depressed; unable to focus on the important things in my life such as the grandchildren I watched during the summer months or my hobbies. I just wanted quiet and to be alone. I numbed with alcohol and shopping. But grief has a way of showing up in the most unexpected ways; I still have the feeling that I’ve stepped into an alternate reality or that I don’t belong here. Some explain the sadness as the bottom dropping out but for me it was like my heart cracked wide open with no thought of where the bottom is. As the time stretches grief has changed and I feel profoundly changed. I no longer have a sense of who I am or will be in the future; no solid anchor to hold onto. I hope in time I’ll feel better
Linda Coupe, Counseling, Scarborough , ME, USAsays
All types of loss are important to examine. Some may seem too small in comparison to other larger losses. It is most useful to acknowledge all as best we can
My clients experience loss by avoidance, getting involved in something anything that they think moves them forward and honors their loved one or their perceived life’s purpose. It’s an illusion that changing your direction helps heal the loss. It is another facet of their grief that won’t heal unless the loss is faced openly with belief that moving thru the storm in front of you gives direction and helps clarify your purpose.
Sandra Hanley, Counseling, Saratoga Springs, NY, USAsays
What’s most difficult for me is the finality, the words that were yet to be spoken, the cavalier belief that there is more time. The recognition of moments not cherished and the reality that it will always remain incomplete, unspoken, and not valued enough. I sought programs and documentaries on near-death experiences to embrace an understanding and acceptance of a continuation of life with God for my loved one. Through prayer, I have directed my innermost thoughts, regrets, and love for him, which in some way gives movement to my emotions from a dark, still place to a light-filled, open place.
Thank you for sharing these thoughts – confirms what I’ve been learning in my own grief journey(s) and what I experience client’s doing when they are certain that the emotional content will overpower them. Also confirms that the ways in which I’m working to help them gently/slowly wade into the pain is where the healing is.
Helps me know too, that this stepping in is a slow process and takes an enormous amount of courage.
Thank you!!
I avoid grief by stopping everything I normally do. I recently lost my nephew in a car accident and I can’t wrap my head around why this happened. I have slowly began to get back to my daily routine, but I see that I was stuck in depression.
I avoid grief by saying it’s not part of my life. I just happened to get stuck with
a sister who once was nice but her borderline personality, narcistice person. and
paranoid sciiz. has bso negative toward me, what a loss of a beautiful l0 year senior sweet sister has been. She is dying and after a hiatus of not speaking much,
she has. reached out to help her, with constant abuse. My loss is her warmth and loving. How to remember this in her remaining months is so hard. I feel like walking away every minute. Trying to find a way to remember the good and help her in this time of need. I never could be light about these things. Would be great to learn I can take care not to get hurt. x0x0
The pain can be terrifying, like everything is lost and nothing can be right again. Like there can be nothing left for me or maybe left of me. Or enough left to just feel continual torment. It sounds so dramatic, I guess it feels very dramatic. It feels like a choice between distraction or endless emotional distress. Maybe it’s resistance to actually accepting what has happened. Stuck in this moment of first realizing what has happened. Feeling that it’s so horrible it just can’t be. But it is. But we don’t feel we can bear that. So it feels safer to keep our mind somewhere else. Not realizing what that is really costing. Maybe a lot of us feel this way, maybe why we often say the unhelpful things that we do to others who have recently been through loss. The more I learn to relate to loss more openly and mindfully, the more helpful my presence can be for others. I want to learn more about how to do that. We can’t avoid pain and loss but can learn how to reduce suffering (Buddha) including closing ourselves off to truly living. Freeing myself from judgement, can help me see where I am stuck and point to a better path. Believing in my own strength can help me be more present with the pain and fear. This is like a journal entry I use to help guide myself. Maybe the most helpful part was the very beginning where I reached for words about the pain and terror. Turning more toward what I tend to turn away from. It all makes sense, most of it is intellectual. Which can be helpful, but I can get stuck there.
i HAVE A 53 YEAR OLD SON WHO SUFFERS FROM PARANOIA AND DELUSIONS. HE IS INCAPACITATED. HE IS NO LONGER THE SON WHO SEEMED TO BE WORKING HIS WAY WELL THROUGH LIFE. QUITTING WORK, ISOLATING HIMSELF FROM FRIENDS AND FAMILY WHILE BLAMING ALL HE MET ALONG HIS JOURNEY OF LIFE.HE WILL NOT GET HELP OR TAKE MEDS. I THOUGHT I HAD TO SAVE HIM.I AM HIS MOM! I PUT MY ENERGY INTO IT TRYING TO MAKE HIM AWARE OF HIS ILLNESS AND ACCEPT HELP. IT DID NOT WORK. HE IS ALIVE BUT NOT THE SAME PERSON I KNEW OR THOUGHT I KNEW THROUGH HIS FIRST 50. I NOW KNOW I HAVE TO LET HIM GO AS HE WAS AND ACCEPT A HIM AS HE IS.
Well, I have a 46 year-old son who was once a star, beautiful helpful on his way to college jazz musician who started having paranoia attacks after doing drugs and he has been on a long-term antipsychotics that have made him worse for 20 years so the meds aren’t gonna be the answer If you do antipsychotics make sure they’re monitored and therefore a short period of time it’s a tragedy I grieve every day it’s a funeral that does not end. My heart is empty without him. I put 1 foot in the other. I don’t wanna live, but what am I gonna do? I have another son.
Elaine Bailey, Another Field, Port Angeles, WA, USAsays
It’s complicated. I’m 86 and have lost so many in my life. My husband had Parkinsons and died three years ago. I miss who he was but try not to hold him here. So many have come to me in dreams and said not to try to keep them on this earth, not to hold them in my mind. To let them go! So I have allowed myself to cry, to howl for days. to feel the loss and emptiness. then let them go. It’s a lonely feeling that I allow. I make new friends, garden and wonder at the beauty of this earth. My sister is dying now and I will miss her, but I will let her go. I am grateful for all I have done and learned in this amazing world. Each day is new.
Instead of taking notes only and skipping the brief meditation, I leaned in and shut my eyes.
The loss I explored was grief from a disappointing 26th anniversary with my husband last night.
I felt tears quickly well up and I imagined my kind Inner Therapist (the one who holds space for my patients every week) who sat beside my sad Inner Child who was crying because she felt so alone. She allowed me to cry & feel how actually sad I was and hurt by not feeling cared for last night.
I felt achy in my shoulders and wanted to go upside down on the couch and hang my head lower than my heart.
I haven’t had time yet to do so … and I have a business meeting in 2 minutes … but I will take an inversion after my meeting and remind myself “I am loved” so I can remember the sweet foundation of my marriage to a sweet and awakening man.
This is a beautiful start to responding to loss. I think it’s important to remind ourselves changing our conditioned response takes practice and time. It’s difficult and painful, but so worthwhile.
First, I want to thank you for this deeply supportive first day of the presentation. I was a therapist for many years and experienced numerous losses throughout my life. With each loss—if it was an individual—I grieved and told myself, “This is the worst loss, and I know I can handle the next.” That held true until the loss of a child.
Before that, I had offered grief therapy to many adults, children, and couples over the years. Because I had grieved past losses, I did survive the loss of my son—but I became a more spiritual person afterward. That shift, I believe, was an important change for me. It helped me grieve more fully. It taught me to be more compassionate and kind toward myself.
Even though I was a therapist, it took a long time before I could go on with my life. Eventually, I retired and became a life coach. Our own losses can propel us to become better listeners and holders of space for others. When I hear someone express grief, I can sit with them and listen—with both my heart and my mind.
Kelley Foley, Health Education, Wrightwood , CA, USAsays
I lost my 41 year old daughter Heather to suicide August 5 2022. I am experiencing every emotion you named in the video. Mornings are the hardest as she and I both worked early morning jobs. We always texted each other in the morning. I miss her so much. I have now been diagnosed with pericardium issues. I also have an autoimmune disease that I think runs in the family that was never diagnosed in my mother or my daughter. I did see them suffering from symptoms of autoimmune disease in their lives. I’ve also been diagnosed with anxiety, depression and PTSD. I have been busy my whole life, hiding from unresolved childhood trauma, and violent relationships. At this point in my life, I feel stuck. Oh yeah, and I’m great at procrastination and starting things and not finishing them. Thank you for listening.
I pendular. Have my client sense the loss, sadness and other emotions deep inside. But then I have them move away to a happy memory with that person. And then return to the wound. This helps keep them from being overwhelmed with the loss.
Robin Brownstein, Social Work, Seattle, WA, USAsays
My questions have to do with clients who are facing complex,traumatic grief and are flooded, despairing, and unable to get to their resources which do not offer relief and grounding given the enormity if the traumatic loss.
I focus on somatic resourcing but wonder if Tara,you have meditations for this type of grieving situation.
🙏🏼 thank you
For some time now, I’ve experienced the futility of my strategies, my protective behaviors, even felt the actual physical sensations of them, like a sickness that accompanies them. There’s my old flight into intellectualizing. I was a teacher. The moment I sense my return to that behavior, I recognize it’s uselessness, it’s utter diversion and postponement of real experience. There’s my addiction to chores, practical getting things done. Though there are necessary, practical things to attend to (in my particularly unusual circumstances, really too much to be done), I can feel the discomfort in my body as I attend to them. I feel the familiar addictive behavior, its attractiveness. And I feel the discomfort, sometimes nausea even of the inclination to get busy. In recent months, I usually turn away from all but the most necessary chores.
I tear up more now. Feel overwhelmed more. Lonely more, even though I have more trustworthy friends than I’ve had most of my life. Of particular painfulness in this very difficult journey of mine is that my wife, in her busy attempts to avoid difficult feelings, keeps very busy in her social work career, and then pursues amusement for relief.
Sheila Johnstone, Molecular Biologist, Houston, Tx.
I have finally been able to immerse myself in greater awareness instead of cognitive dissonance which was salvation in my family of origin. Awareness, Gratitude, Self-compassion,plus Somatic Exercising to deal with anxiety.
Thank you for this beautiful video and those to follow, Tara! Blessings.
Loren Gelberg Goff, Psychotherapy, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USAsays
Beautifully stated. Having experienced numerous changes and losses throughout my life, and spending my career working with people with chronic illness, in hospices, with families with multi-handicapped babies, and those who grew up with trauma(s). I learned that I turned my learned denial of my struggles into ensuring others would have the time, space, support and guidance to open up to their feelings in loving and compassionate ways. I gave to others what hadn’t been acknowledged in my life growing up, and when, in a very short period of time my husband and my son died, I had to practice for myself what I had (and continue to do) always given away.
Your descriptions are so on point, and I am grateful to have listened, this time just for myself. Thank you.
Laura Crane, Another Field, Falls Church, VA, USAsays
Living in recent great grief has opened me to facing earlier grief. I lost my son 15 months ago and my mom 17 months ago. It wasn’t an act of courage to face that grief, it really was just all I could do. (I believe that my son upheld and led me through this transformation.) But in this broken-open state, I found myself. I saw myself. I saw the past abuse that had befallen me as a child with a surprising ease, a calm, that hadn’t been available to me before. I could re-observe myself and dwell in the hurt I had denied for decades. Avoiding the earlier hurt drove me forward becoming a “drive” that was a central and valued part of my identity but a part of me that kept me apart from my true identity. From the perspective of grief over my son, by sitting with that grief, the other grief came forward and from this spiritual space, I could find myself – my truer self within me. Yes, of course, this has been devastating, but, although I hesitate to say this because I would never, never, never have wanted this, I would prefer to have him still with me in this life, but also true, I am eternally grateful to him for the gift of growth his death has given me.
Kitty O’Dowd, Another Field, Crownsville, MD, USAsays
I think about losing my son all the time. It’s only been 3 months so the grief can be overwhelming and is constantly there. I work 2 days a week and that helps me get back into life and find joy helping customers and interacting with my coworkers in a positive environment. I stay active not as an avoidance but rather as a way to not constantly feel depressed and doing something good for myself. Grief surrounds me all the time, it’s unavoidable. I carry it with me but try not to let it devour me. Because I loved so much the grief is so heavy. That’s why I am here and getting help so I can process it, live in it and try not to wallow in it. I know my life will never be the same so I’m trying to figure out the new me and find meaning, purpose, relief, joy, reckoning, peace and fulfillment as I journey through this. I have a feeling this journey will be for the rest of my life.
Mikki Anderson, Another Field, Laguna Niguel, CA, USAsays
I have had many losses in my life that I have avoided. My ways are eating, uber exercising, working myself to exhaustion, drinking, isolating, blaming myself for doing things “wrong” in the relationship. (not being worthy) and depression. I did not have the inner guidance in how to support myself in order to embrace the grief and the truth so I ran from it.
Thank you Tara for helping me and those like me without these skills to learn to be compassionate and gentle with ourselves in order to see and face both truth and grief straight on.
Joy Harper, Another Field, Los Angeles, CA, USAsays
WOW!!! This video was so helpful. I clearly see how much I’ve been rushing myself through grief. I feel more compassion and grace for myself, now. Although, I do let myself feel grief, and cry, at the same time. I allow myself to be seen in my sadness, and I rest.
For many years, I’ve approached grief from the perspective of not holding any negative feelings inside, so I wouldn’t add sickness to my grief experience. I also maintain my strength training, yoga practice, and healthy eating habits, to avoid spiraling downward.
Grief is part of life. So, I accept it. Yet, when it stays too long, I find it not serving me. It makes me look like sh*t. It turns my eyes down, gives me heavy eyelids, and a scowl on my face. As a woman, I don’t want to end up looking like an old witch. Grief also puts too much pressure and temptation on me, to self medicate with junk food, smoke cloves, or drink wine, and none of those things serve me. So, grief is not my friend, but I respect it. After a “reasonable” period of time, grieving, I’d push grief along, like a toddler taking “too long” to potty train, so that I wouldn’t numb, or go down hill. The low grade anxiety I’ve had around grief, that it was going to drag me down past the point of return, came more to the forefront of my mind, from watching this video.
The long and short of it is, grief is something to feel and embrace, but I’m still going to approach each day, with gratitude and a deep desire to be the most physically strong, and spiritually free woman I can be. Like the Buddha said “the root of all suffering is attachment”. So, every day, I breathe deep throughout the day. I too put my hand over my heart, and belly, and say I love you, I’ve got you. I, also, repeat these mantras:
•I trust the present moment
•I trust you God
•I trust the Universe
•I trust divine order
•I trust divine timing
•I trust the unknown
•I am love
•I am peace
•I am oneness
These practices give me solace, and the strength, and focus, to allow myself to feel, while I evolve through grief, staying focused on being my best self.
ways I’ve avoided grief: watching movies, feeling hurt from the past, sitting in sadness, feeling like I’m not deserving or worthy to have a life anymore
loss: separation from parents/family that I chose, they are still alive. I feel guilty about what I’ve done even knowing I needed to for my health. I feel like I’m waiting for the pen to drop off the next bad thing around the corner like when they pass
I made these choices not knowing what else to do or how to handle it. I didn’t have anything in place of support from others and I didn’t know how to support myself.
thank you very much for making these videos, truly helped me on the subject and your words helped me tune in to “facing it” for the first time. thank you very much 🙏❤️🙏
I responded to the loss of our dear pet, Roxy, with busy-ness and some guilt for choosing to euthanize her. As I have learned more about her condition from the vets who treated her, I realize I did all I could and made the right choice.
With food .. overeating or restricting..
starting something new..
I have digestive issues and I’m working on staying committed to whatever I begun and taking a time to decide before starting again..
This is very helpful to frame my sessions for a client who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. How to hold space for her as she begins her journey that at the moment is full of fear.
Tara, your wisdom and gentle demeanor are a balm and antidote in themselves. This short 15 minute listening took me on a deep dive into my life (I’m 68) and there are myriad traumas I’ve not fully embraced. The worst being the guilt and shame that I blanche at regarding episodes in my life where I behaved pretty badly. I will try and be mindful of these buried feelings and allow myself to grieve them authentically, or more authentically. Thank you for your presence of heart.
Not feeling the impact of change in my relationship with my only child. He is an adult and lives with my ex.
I get depressed and work and busy myself with anything at times not to feel.
I work in health care with women with Gyn cancer and there is always loss around me.
Often, I will isolate, withdrawing from others and making up a story about my own toxicity – so I’m withdrawing partly to protect them from me. If I suspect that I’m making up a story but don’t yet feel able to turn off that faucet, I sometimes distract myself with British drama and a glass of wine. Or just comfort food, wine, and an early bedtime. And sometimes, I go for long walks in Golden Gate Park, immersing myself in nature.
I journal, go for walks in nature, distract myself with podcasts and films, but many times that brings up the grief and feelings and I’m forced to feel them and release them. I also have a practice of meditation and yoga but since I’ve lost my job I do yoga at home. I tend to isolate and can dwell in sadness if I don’t balance my time with seeing friends. I’m in a coaching program that is very helpful with understanding more of how I behave and react and how relationships work. I want to get back into art work but haven’t. Self compassion is so important.
I avoid grief by being busy.
I chose to leave a relationship due to differences in our values. However, I remain very sad and hurt, as I continue to blame him for his unwillingness to make changes in his numbing habits, which I decided no longer served me as I was resenting him.
I find that Internally, I am still trying to change him, while no longer being in relationship. This creates suffering and increases my sadness and sense of not being worthy of the type of healthy relationship with a man, that I have longed for over the last many years.
My anger and blame are forms of avoiding the pain of loss as a result of my decision to leave him, and the accompanying loneliness his absence creates inside of me.
I feel it in my gut, which is always tense and finds me losing interest in food. However, I continue to feed myself as a symbol of self care, and continue to busy myself as I am able t distract from the pain of this current loss.
I think it’s so hard because you want to be the person you were before this horrible thing happened and then you realize that person will never come back. I think for me that’s the hardest thing. I don’t even know who I am anymore. Therapy helped me stay alive which I’m thankful but I’ve spent the last 5 years in survival mode and sometimes I wonder if it would have been better for everyone if I had just succumbed to my illness.
I loss my oldest son, Hugh, nearly two years ago. He was in his early 50s. He died of lung cancer. I am so sad. I have not tried to avoid grief. O am living it everyday. I miss him. I am learning to balance my grief with gratitude for all the times I had with him and with the understanding of what a wonderful man he was. I have no regrets. I did all i could to support him through his struggle. I do miss him. Sometimes the loss is unbearable.
I don’t do it actively. I think of my daughter everyday. But when you only have one child the emptiness hurts!
I am on my yoga mat, crying through my practice, as I listen to this recording. I am 53 and in the last nine years, I have lost all of my siblings, both of my parents, my son, a breast to cancer, and my children’s father to suicide after our marriage of eighteen years ended in divorce. My most recent loss was my brother in January. My numbing, and compulsive use of sex to both numb and feel are no longer working. I am wrecked.
I was sole caretaker of my husband who had dementia. For the last two years of his life -and especially the last year – I took care of him but forgot to take care of myself. I could never sleep because he was always trying to escape and we live d on 87 acres that I had to also take care of.
I lost weight, was so sleep sleep deprived that I couldn’t think straight and would wake up from a nightmare (often) that I had forgotten to do something very important. It would take 15-30 minutes laying there confused to realize that it was only a dream.
I felt like a hurricane-type storm was swirling around me and my 3 daughters couldn’t hear that this was killing me.
I needed their support – a solid support that was wasn’t only what they wanted to do if it was convenient for them – but something consistent that I could count on but they didn’t hear me.
My husband died and I ended up in ICU with severe sepsis/septic shock.
I have purposely cut myself off from my family even though two of my daughters have tried to reach out – but not acknowledge what happened.
I find myself thinking-thinking- blaming-blaming in a negative spiral loop and realize – listening to Tara how destructive that is to my happiness and peace of mind.
I have broken down crying listening to a song by Lisa Haley called, “Always Be Your Guide”
I don’t know how to face my grief and process it and am wanting to explore Meditation to quiet my mind.
In the past 4 years I have lost my best friend of 50 years, my brother, my father, and my faithful dog and protector.
I know from my tears listening to Lisa Haley’s song that there is hope. It feels good to cry.
My heart goes out to everyone else who is troubled and sad and wish us all well♥️
They or even myself avoid grief by filling the space/void with distraction or clutter. By mindless chatter, music or tv in the silence. Clients avoid grief by isolating, suppressing, scrolling on their phone; simply put avoiding connection.
I am finding myself in a multi layered grief experience I hope to articulate here. The last few years have presented the deaths of friends, close family, romantic partnerships, and the start of limitations in my own physical and mental capacity. What arises for me is a lack of motivation. freeze responses, numbing with tv, anger, and isolation. But I also notice is a settling feeling. I feel present in the moment, am leaning into dependence on spirit and taking actions to improve my relationship with what Is. I am making a conscious effort to connect like never before. My struggles are becoming my strengths. I hope to understand this more clearly here, overcome the suffering, and help others to heal. 📿
I tend to use avoidance such as staying busy and not talking about it. The recent loss I suffered, was very unexpected and sole crushing. Nothing I have ever experienced. Hoping to work on “turning towards it” and staying there.
I’m a stay busy type of person. when I stop to pause, I can sense the grief start to build. So I have learned to keep going and don’t dwell on my grief. But it definitely catches up with me. When I truly feel the loss, it gets stuck in my chest. I end up patting myself on the chest and reassuring myself that all things end, and so will these feelings.
I definitely avoid feelings by pushing forward to the next thing. there is also some over sleeping, comfort eating, and numbing out with too much t.v.
food
no risk taking
stuck in place
emotiona flatness
sweep it under the rug, taking care of other “more pressing” issues.
being disconnected from his body, feelings
My husband of 47 years died recently. The first few weeks I felt numb, unable to fully accept he died even though I held him through hospice. I kept busy settling his affairs; I was afraid that if I didn’t take care of things I would lose momentum and freeze. A few weeks later I began to notice grief trying to come to the surface. I blamed myself for not having noticed how sick he was, for not telling him how I felt and allowing the same from him, for thinking there was more time. Some days I felt depressed; unable to focus on the important things in my life such as the grandchildren I watched during the summer months or my hobbies. I just wanted quiet and to be alone. I numbed with alcohol and shopping. But grief has a way of showing up in the most unexpected ways; I still have the feeling that I’ve stepped into an alternate reality or that I don’t belong here. Some explain the sadness as the bottom dropping out but for me it was like my heart cracked wide open with no thought of where the bottom is. As the time stretches grief has changed and I feel profoundly changed. I no longer have a sense of who I am or will be in the future; no solid anchor to hold onto. I hope in time I’ll feel better
this sounds horrible to say but I turn to anger and think of all the bad stuff about the person or thing that I lost it hurts less.
All types of loss are important to examine. Some may seem too small in comparison to other larger losses. It is most useful to acknowledge all as best we can
My clients experience loss by avoidance, getting involved in something anything that they think moves them forward and honors their loved one or their perceived life’s purpose. It’s an illusion that changing your direction helps heal the loss. It is another facet of their grief that won’t heal unless the loss is faced openly with belief that moving thru the storm in front of you gives direction and helps clarify your purpose.
I go for long walks in nature.
What’s most difficult for me is the finality, the words that were yet to be spoken, the cavalier belief that there is more time. The recognition of moments not cherished and the reality that it will always remain incomplete, unspoken, and not valued enough. I sought programs and documentaries on near-death experiences to embrace an understanding and acceptance of a continuation of life with God for my loved one. Through prayer, I have directed my innermost thoughts, regrets, and love for him, which in some way gives movement to my emotions from a dark, still place to a light-filled, open place.
Thank you for sharing these thoughts – confirms what I’ve been learning in my own grief journey(s) and what I experience client’s doing when they are certain that the emotional content will overpower them. Also confirms that the ways in which I’m working to help them gently/slowly wade into the pain is where the healing is.
Helps me know too, that this stepping in is a slow process and takes an enormous amount of courage.
Thank you!!
I avoid grief by stopping everything I normally do. I recently lost my nephew in a car accident and I can’t wrap my head around why this happened. I have slowly began to get back to my daily routine, but I see that I was stuck in depression.
I avoid grief by saying it’s not part of my life. I just happened to get stuck with
a sister who once was nice but her borderline personality, narcistice person. and
paranoid sciiz. has bso negative toward me, what a loss of a beautiful l0 year senior sweet sister has been. She is dying and after a hiatus of not speaking much,
she has. reached out to help her, with constant abuse. My loss is her warmth and loving. How to remember this in her remaining months is so hard. I feel like walking away every minute. Trying to find a way to remember the good and help her in this time of need. I never could be light about these things. Would be great to learn I can take care not to get hurt. x0x0
The pain can be terrifying, like everything is lost and nothing can be right again. Like there can be nothing left for me or maybe left of me. Or enough left to just feel continual torment. It sounds so dramatic, I guess it feels very dramatic. It feels like a choice between distraction or endless emotional distress. Maybe it’s resistance to actually accepting what has happened. Stuck in this moment of first realizing what has happened. Feeling that it’s so horrible it just can’t be. But it is. But we don’t feel we can bear that. So it feels safer to keep our mind somewhere else. Not realizing what that is really costing. Maybe a lot of us feel this way, maybe why we often say the unhelpful things that we do to others who have recently been through loss. The more I learn to relate to loss more openly and mindfully, the more helpful my presence can be for others. I want to learn more about how to do that. We can’t avoid pain and loss but can learn how to reduce suffering (Buddha) including closing ourselves off to truly living. Freeing myself from judgement, can help me see where I am stuck and point to a better path. Believing in my own strength can help me be more present with the pain and fear. This is like a journal entry I use to help guide myself. Maybe the most helpful part was the very beginning where I reached for words about the pain and terror. Turning more toward what I tend to turn away from. It all makes sense, most of it is intellectual. Which can be helpful, but I can get stuck there.
i HAVE A 53 YEAR OLD SON WHO SUFFERS FROM PARANOIA AND DELUSIONS. HE IS INCAPACITATED. HE IS NO LONGER THE SON WHO SEEMED TO BE WORKING HIS WAY WELL THROUGH LIFE. QUITTING WORK, ISOLATING HIMSELF FROM FRIENDS AND FAMILY WHILE BLAMING ALL HE MET ALONG HIS JOURNEY OF LIFE.HE WILL NOT GET HELP OR TAKE MEDS. I THOUGHT I HAD TO SAVE HIM.I AM HIS MOM! I PUT MY ENERGY INTO IT TRYING TO MAKE HIM AWARE OF HIS ILLNESS AND ACCEPT HELP. IT DID NOT WORK. HE IS ALIVE BUT NOT THE SAME PERSON I KNEW OR THOUGHT I KNEW THROUGH HIS FIRST 50. I NOW KNOW I HAVE TO LET HIM GO AS HE WAS AND ACCEPT A HIM AS HE IS.
Well, I have a 46 year-old son who was once a star, beautiful helpful on his way to college jazz musician who started having paranoia attacks after doing drugs and he has been on a long-term antipsychotics that have made him worse for 20 years so the meds aren’t gonna be the answer If you do antipsychotics make sure they’re monitored and therefore a short period of time it’s a tragedy I grieve every day it’s a funeral that does not end. My heart is empty without him. I put 1 foot in the other. I don’t wanna live, but what am I gonna do? I have another son.
It’s complicated. I’m 86 and have lost so many in my life. My husband had Parkinsons and died three years ago. I miss who he was but try not to hold him here. So many have come to me in dreams and said not to try to keep them on this earth, not to hold them in my mind. To let them go! So I have allowed myself to cry, to howl for days. to feel the loss and emptiness. then let them go. It’s a lonely feeling that I allow. I make new friends, garden and wonder at the beauty of this earth. My sister is dying now and I will miss her, but I will let her go. I am grateful for all I have done and learned in this amazing world. Each day is new.
By trying to control others and situations.
Thank you!
Instead of taking notes only and skipping the brief meditation, I leaned in and shut my eyes.
The loss I explored was grief from a disappointing 26th anniversary with my husband last night.
I felt tears quickly well up and I imagined my kind Inner Therapist (the one who holds space for my patients every week) who sat beside my sad Inner Child who was crying because she felt so alone. She allowed me to cry & feel how actually sad I was and hurt by not feeling cared for last night.
I felt achy in my shoulders and wanted to go upside down on the couch and hang my head lower than my heart.
I haven’t had time yet to do so … and I have a business meeting in 2 minutes … but I will take an inversion after my meeting and remind myself “I am loved” so I can remember the sweet foundation of my marriage to a sweet and awakening man.
Grateful for this today. Thank you.
This is a beautiful start to responding to loss. I think it’s important to remind ourselves changing our conditioned response takes practice and time. It’s difficult and painful, but so worthwhile.
First, I want to thank you for this deeply supportive first day of the presentation. I was a therapist for many years and experienced numerous losses throughout my life. With each loss—if it was an individual—I grieved and told myself, “This is the worst loss, and I know I can handle the next.” That held true until the loss of a child.
Before that, I had offered grief therapy to many adults, children, and couples over the years. Because I had grieved past losses, I did survive the loss of my son—but I became a more spiritual person afterward. That shift, I believe, was an important change for me. It helped me grieve more fully. It taught me to be more compassionate and kind toward myself.
Even though I was a therapist, it took a long time before I could go on with my life. Eventually, I retired and became a life coach. Our own losses can propel us to become better listeners and holders of space for others. When I hear someone express grief, I can sit with them and listen—with both my heart and my mind.
I lost my 41 year old daughter Heather to suicide August 5 2022. I am experiencing every emotion you named in the video. Mornings are the hardest as she and I both worked early morning jobs. We always texted each other in the morning. I miss her so much. I have now been diagnosed with pericardium issues. I also have an autoimmune disease that I think runs in the family that was never diagnosed in my mother or my daughter. I did see them suffering from symptoms of autoimmune disease in their lives. I’ve also been diagnosed with anxiety, depression and PTSD. I have been busy my whole life, hiding from unresolved childhood trauma, and violent relationships. At this point in my life, I feel stuck. Oh yeah, and I’m great at procrastination and starting things and not finishing them. Thank you for listening.
I pendular. Have my client sense the loss, sadness and other emotions deep inside. But then I have them move away to a happy memory with that person. And then return to the wound. This helps keep them from being overwhelmed with the loss.
My questions have to do with clients who are facing complex,traumatic grief and are flooded, despairing, and unable to get to their resources which do not offer relief and grounding given the enormity if the traumatic loss.
I focus on somatic resourcing but wonder if Tara,you have meditations for this type of grieving situation.
🙏🏼 thank you
For some time now, I’ve experienced the futility of my strategies, my protective behaviors, even felt the actual physical sensations of them, like a sickness that accompanies them. There’s my old flight into intellectualizing. I was a teacher. The moment I sense my return to that behavior, I recognize it’s uselessness, it’s utter diversion and postponement of real experience. There’s my addiction to chores, practical getting things done. Though there are necessary, practical things to attend to (in my particularly unusual circumstances, really too much to be done), I can feel the discomfort in my body as I attend to them. I feel the familiar addictive behavior, its attractiveness. And I feel the discomfort, sometimes nausea even of the inclination to get busy. In recent months, I usually turn away from all but the most necessary chores.
I tear up more now. Feel overwhelmed more. Lonely more, even though I have more trustworthy friends than I’ve had most of my life. Of particular painfulness in this very difficult journey of mine is that my wife, in her busy attempts to avoid difficult feelings, keeps very busy in her social work career, and then pursues amusement for relief.
Sheila Johnstone, Molecular Biologist, Houston, Tx.
I have finally been able to immerse myself in greater awareness instead of cognitive dissonance which was salvation in my family of origin. Awareness, Gratitude, Self-compassion,plus Somatic Exercising to deal with anxiety.
Thank you for this beautiful video and those to follow, Tara! Blessings.
Beautifully stated. Having experienced numerous changes and losses throughout my life, and spending my career working with people with chronic illness, in hospices, with families with multi-handicapped babies, and those who grew up with trauma(s). I learned that I turned my learned denial of my struggles into ensuring others would have the time, space, support and guidance to open up to their feelings in loving and compassionate ways. I gave to others what hadn’t been acknowledged in my life growing up, and when, in a very short period of time my husband and my son died, I had to practice for myself what I had (and continue to do) always given away.
Your descriptions are so on point, and I am grateful to have listened, this time just for myself. Thank you.
Living in recent great grief has opened me to facing earlier grief. I lost my son 15 months ago and my mom 17 months ago. It wasn’t an act of courage to face that grief, it really was just all I could do. (I believe that my son upheld and led me through this transformation.) But in this broken-open state, I found myself. I saw myself. I saw the past abuse that had befallen me as a child with a surprising ease, a calm, that hadn’t been available to me before. I could re-observe myself and dwell in the hurt I had denied for decades. Avoiding the earlier hurt drove me forward becoming a “drive” that was a central and valued part of my identity but a part of me that kept me apart from my true identity. From the perspective of grief over my son, by sitting with that grief, the other grief came forward and from this spiritual space, I could find myself – my truer self within me. Yes, of course, this has been devastating, but, although I hesitate to say this because I would never, never, never have wanted this, I would prefer to have him still with me in this life, but also true, I am eternally grateful to him for the gift of growth his death has given me.
I think about losing my son all the time. It’s only been 3 months so the grief can be overwhelming and is constantly there. I work 2 days a week and that helps me get back into life and find joy helping customers and interacting with my coworkers in a positive environment. I stay active not as an avoidance but rather as a way to not constantly feel depressed and doing something good for myself. Grief surrounds me all the time, it’s unavoidable. I carry it with me but try not to let it devour me. Because I loved so much the grief is so heavy. That’s why I am here and getting help so I can process it, live in it and try not to wallow in it. I know my life will never be the same so I’m trying to figure out the new me and find meaning, purpose, relief, joy, reckoning, peace and fulfillment as I journey through this. I have a feeling this journey will be for the rest of my life.
💗
i stay busy
I have had many losses in my life that I have avoided. My ways are eating, uber exercising, working myself to exhaustion, drinking, isolating, blaming myself for doing things “wrong” in the relationship. (not being worthy) and depression. I did not have the inner guidance in how to support myself in order to embrace the grief and the truth so I ran from it.
Thank you Tara for helping me and those like me without these skills to learn to be compassionate and gentle with ourselves in order to see and face both truth and grief straight on.
WOW!!! This video was so helpful. I clearly see how much I’ve been rushing myself through grief. I feel more compassion and grace for myself, now. Although, I do let myself feel grief, and cry, at the same time. I allow myself to be seen in my sadness, and I rest.
For many years, I’ve approached grief from the perspective of not holding any negative feelings inside, so I wouldn’t add sickness to my grief experience. I also maintain my strength training, yoga practice, and healthy eating habits, to avoid spiraling downward.
Grief is part of life. So, I accept it. Yet, when it stays too long, I find it not serving me. It makes me look like sh*t. It turns my eyes down, gives me heavy eyelids, and a scowl on my face. As a woman, I don’t want to end up looking like an old witch. Grief also puts too much pressure and temptation on me, to self medicate with junk food, smoke cloves, or drink wine, and none of those things serve me. So, grief is not my friend, but I respect it. After a “reasonable” period of time, grieving, I’d push grief along, like a toddler taking “too long” to potty train, so that I wouldn’t numb, or go down hill. The low grade anxiety I’ve had around grief, that it was going to drag me down past the point of return, came more to the forefront of my mind, from watching this video.
The long and short of it is, grief is something to feel and embrace, but I’m still going to approach each day, with gratitude and a deep desire to be the most physically strong, and spiritually free woman I can be. Like the Buddha said “the root of all suffering is attachment”. So, every day, I breathe deep throughout the day. I too put my hand over my heart, and belly, and say I love you, I’ve got you. I, also, repeat these mantras:
•I trust the present moment
•I trust you God
•I trust the Universe
•I trust divine order
•I trust divine timing
•I trust the unknown
•I am love
•I am peace
•I am oneness
These practices give me solace, and the strength, and focus, to allow myself to feel, while I evolve through grief, staying focused on being my best self.
💗
ways I’ve avoided grief: watching movies, feeling hurt from the past, sitting in sadness, feeling like I’m not deserving or worthy to have a life anymore
loss: separation from parents/family that I chose, they are still alive. I feel guilty about what I’ve done even knowing I needed to for my health. I feel like I’m waiting for the pen to drop off the next bad thing around the corner like when they pass
I made these choices not knowing what else to do or how to handle it. I didn’t have anything in place of support from others and I didn’t know how to support myself.
thank you very much for making these videos, truly helped me on the subject and your words helped me tune in to “facing it” for the first time. thank you very much 🙏❤️🙏
I responded to the loss of our dear pet, Roxy, with busy-ness and some guilt for choosing to euthanize her. As I have learned more about her condition from the vets who treated her, I realize I did all I could and made the right choice.
With food .. overeating or restricting..
starting something new..
I have digestive issues and I’m working on staying committed to whatever I begun and taking a time to decide before starting again..
Feeling angry, depressed, and crying when talking about the loved ones they lost. Some patients do resort to substance use to escape the pain.