words matter

Hello,

My final post on covering grief is what I call “the unexpected riches of grief”.

This might be a challenging idea to grasp – that the grief that you may feel holds value and depth – yet it can have a positive impact in your life.

First, understand that moving through grief means making sense of memories – your life stories – and the pain connected to those memories.

Once you have made sense of your life stories and make your way through emotional pain, the experience shifts from a life event, situation, or episode from which you may have distanced yourself, to an experience that is more meaningfully integrated into the overall narrative thread of how you tell the story of your life.

Yet you can’t make the pain disappear simply by saying to yourself, “Let’s just get rid of the bad stuff” – as if you’re just taking out the trash without a second thought.

The very feelings you tried to push away when those life events first occurred are ultimately the same ones that can help you move to a place of understanding and forgiveness.

In order to really, truly, move through grief, you have to come to grips with the fact that you can never undo what was done, nor do what was left undone.

Let’s read that again:

“In order to really move through grief, you have to come to grips with the fact that you can never undo what was done, nor do what was left undone.”

Making your way through this grief, then, is a crucial step as you move towards greater emotional well-being and emotional mastery.

You are able to release anger, bitterness, grudges, and resentment and can, instead, be less emotionally reactive. You can become a compassionate observer to what used to trigger you.

You’ll notice that you naturally become more spontaneous and present. You become self-aware and self-attuned.

You possess the ability to feel and live in (and with) your moment-to-moment experience.

Use the Grief Reset Protocol.

I know from my practice what it can do to change people’s lives.

When you deal with such grief, you open yourself up to laughter and joy.

When you forgive, you open to deeper connections, with yourself and others.

“When you deal with grief, you open yourself up to laughter and joy.

When you forgive, you open to deeper connections,
with yourself and others.”

Know that facing the truth within yourself is the only thing that puts you in the right relationship with yourself – and it is the only thing that can lead to love within and for yourself.

The more you stay present to the truth of what your life was, the more you free yourself to create a life you love.

Warmly,

Dr. Joan Rosenberg

DrJoanRosenberg.com
90SecondsBook.com

If you are wanting to revisit my previous posts on grief, follow these links:

1. Have You Been Experiencing Loss?
2. Disguised Grief
3. Helping You Make Sense of Unresolved Grief
4. How To Understand The Impact Of Your Life Experiences

Find Me On Social Media: | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter |

Hello,

This is the second to last in this series on how to make sense of your difficult life experiences, grief, and disguised grief.

As we continue to explore all aspects of grief, I want to speak on the importance of “inquiring more deeply”, or better put, understanding the impact of your experiences across time.

Consider that your life experiences exist for your overall growth and evolution as a person. Rather than asking yourself:

“Why did this happen to me?” consider asking “Why did this happen for me?”

The nature of your answers may differ depending on which question you ask.

Your focus here is to think about the impact, influence, and meaning these life experiences had on you or for you when they occurred and how these events have shaped your life.

When you go through difficult and painful experiences in life, you often develop beliefs, hold attitudes, and make decisions about your life that came about because of the pain.

Sometimes those beliefs, attitudes, and decisions cause you even more pain, beyond the experiences themselves.

What meaning did you attach to these experiences?

How did that change how you viewed yourself, your character, your capabilities, or your deservedness?

Did you, for instance, withdraw, stop trusting others, or start behaving in a rude, mean, or aggressive manner?

Did you become more thoughtful and kinder?

Did you look at how you used your time differently?

As you consider the questions that follow, simply be an observer, absent judgment. Be gentle with yourself. The key questions relative to all of these aspects are:

– Who did I become, because of what I went through, at the time of the event, and as I aged?

Consider first, the impact these experiences had on you as you grew up – as a child or youth – and second, the impact those early experiences had on you as an adult.

– How did the experiences impact you across time?

Did your perspective change for better or worse? Let’s approach understanding your experiences from one more angle.

Here, then, are the kinds of questions you want to ask yourself:

– How did these experiences change the attitudes you hold?
– How did these experiences change what you believe?
– How did these experiences change the decisions you made?

As you think about the impact and meaning these experiences had on you, think about what positive things you can learn from each one.

If we can glean a positive learning from painful life experiences, we begin to sculpt our character and life in important ways.

And again just some gentle encouragement to consider journaling your thoughts.

Warmly,

Dr. Joan Rosenberg

DrJoanRosenberg.com
90SecondsBook.com

Find Me On Social Media: | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter |

Hello,

Today’s post is the 4th in this series covering aspects of grief and disguised grief.

This process takes time, space and the willingness to change and look at life with a different lens, so be gentle yourself as you consider the ideas below.

To help guide others through their experiences of grief, I developed the Grief Reset Protocol. Think about what remains emotionally unfinished in your life. Choose an experience you would like to resolve, be released from, or gain some relief around and follow the steps below.

While many reactions such as bitterness, hostility, and resentment suggest grief is present, notice feelings of sadness, helplessness, anger, and disappointment in particular as signs that you’re grieving.

G:
Let your genuine feelings be present and grieve over: 1) what you got and didn’t deserve (the bad stuff – abuse, chaos, inconsistency, neglect); 2) what you deserved and didn’t get (the good stuff – acknowledgment, praise, support); 3) what never was (the facts, circumstances, and missed opportunities of your life); 4) what is not now (the facts and circumstances of your life now); and 5) what may never be (accepting that certain changes or responses may never come).

R:
Reflect by identifying an important or high-impact memory or difficult life experience to resolve.

I:
Inquire more deeply. Make sense of your life history by understanding the impact, the importance, and meaning, or significance of your experiences across time. Who did you become because of the difficult life experience: at the time of the event? / in childhood? / in teen years? / in adulthood? / now? How did the experience shape you and your outlook or personality?

E:
Explore and extract the positive learnings … many times something good can be drawn from painful life experiences.

F:
Free yourself: Let go of the “old story” you have described about yourself. Forgive yourself for what you did or did not know, or did or did not do. Also, forgive others for what they did or did not know and for what they did or did not do. And last, forge new images of who you want to become and start living into that new story.

This is the process for helping you make sense of difficult life experiences or unresolved grief.

There is more to this conversation, so please watch for next weeks blog addressing disguised grief.

Just remember, journalling your thoughts is really helpful and can make a big difference in your sense of well-being.

Warmly,

– Joan

Hello,

Last week’s blog talked about loss and losses. In this week’s blog, I will deepen our conversation by describing what I call “Disguised Grief”.

As I wrote last week, most people associate grief, which I typically describe as sadness, helplessness, anger, or disappointment, with more immediate or present-day losses like relationship losses or the death of a human or pet.

Yet I believe there is a deeper level of grief that is connected to our life experiences during childhood and even through adulthood. If this type of grief remains unaddressed by being pushed back into the recesses of our minds, it can lead to such feelings as bitterness, resentfulness, grudges, and, eventually, soulful depression.

I am discussing this different kind of grief because it is one that most people don’t talk about or don’t even realize they experience.

It’s what I call “Disguised Grief”.

Disguised grief might appear as leftover anger, bitterness, blame, cynicism, envy, grudges, hostility, jealousy, negativity, pessimism, regret, resentment, desire for revenge, sarcasm, self-hate, or some other longstanding pain.

It also might involve facing what your childhood was (or was not) or what your adulthood is (or is not) and dealing with the difference between what you needed, what you wanted, what you dreamed of, and what really occurred.

After many years of clinical practice, I started to realize that when clients described memories associated with the gap mentioned immediately above or used any of the fifteen words listed a moment ago, both the memories and the words acted as signals that guided me to the “emotional stuff,” or unresolved pain, hiding behind these experiences, feelings, or reactions.

When I followed the signals, they led me to the pain – pain that I have since identified as grief – disguised grief.

If you stop to think about it, bitterness or resentment, for example, maybe more toxic versions of grief (sadness, helplessness, anger, and disappointment). It’s as if you are blending one or more of the eight difficult feelings with some degree of ill will or hostility.

The next step for you to take would be to simply identify if any of the grief signal words relate to you. Stop and think about what memories and or feelings may be attached to whichever words you identified.

If you’re up for it, I would encourage you to grab a journal and reflect on this idea of possible grudges, bitterness, and leftover pain – or whatever you experience – as disguised grief, and what that means to you.

This idea of disguised grief is intended to help you make sense of difficult life experiences. If you are interested in exploring these ideas I think it will be important for you to intentionally plan for time to reflect and to write. If you have questions, please send them my way.

Next week I will highlight another way to identify disguised grief and the week following I will provide questions to consider to help you move through disguised grief.

Warmly,

– Joan