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On December 31st, 1997 my husband Bob excused himself briefly from our small dinner party to check on a teen's house party taking place down the street at the home of a vacationing friend. He never returned. Bob was beaten to death as he attempted to break up the party and I was left widowed with two small children. It took an undercover police operation to break the code of silence that shrouded the small town we lived in, and finally, five years later an arrest was made. Police were stunned by my request to meet the young man who was charged in connection with Bob's death. That face-to-face meeting was the first step in forever changing my perception of real justice.
Grief happens to all of us at some time in our lives. You may think that grief happens only after the death of a loved one, but you also grieve after any major change in your identity such as losing a job, divorce, kids going off to college, or moving. No matter the cause, grief can be one of the hardest experiences of your life. Not only can grief feel emotionally unpredictable, but it is often physically and mentally stressful and exhausting. The following tips can help you mindfully navigate the path of grief:
excerpt from Grieving Mindfully
It is extremely important to remember that the lessons of grief are at their most potent not when they are being learned, but when they are being integrated into your life. It is one thing to read about these ideas, but it is quite another thing to put these ideas into practice. Grief has the power to radically change your life, to encourage a more meaningful, richer life, but only when its lessons are manifested in the way you live your life every day. This means becoming a more active and more mindful participant in your life.
One of the hardest steps in this process can be putting the lessons of grief into practice. Many people I have worked with have a passive appreciation of the concept of mindfulness and the positive transformation of suffering long before they integrate these ideas into their everyday life. By exploring specific areas of their lives, they help this passive appreciation to develop into a more active, dynamic process. It becomes an invigorating, life-affirming task, even though there are still many emotional ups and downs along the way.
excerpt from The End-of-Life Handbook
When informed of a loved one’s serious illness, you may wish to find out more information from the doctor. Unfortunately, doctors don’t always communicate with patients and families as effectively as possible (and vice versa). This can occur for lots of reasons. Sometimes the fault lies with doctors: They may use overly technical jargon or fail to spend sufficient time answering questions. On the other hand, sometimes patients and family members can’t think of the right questions to ask, or they may feel so intimidated by the whole process that they remain quiet. If you’ve experienced any of these situations, you know how frustrating they can be. Nonetheless, it’s usually worth making another effort to communicate effectively with your loved one’s physician. In the next chapter, we’ll offer detailed advice about how to maximize your time with the doctor. For now, we’d like to offer some pointers to help you through the first few conversations:
Excerpt from Walking After Midnight
I love being in the center of the busy energy in our home. However, I hold my breath every time the phone rings. I know at any moment the police could call to say there has been some activity on the criminal investigation, and our lives will be thrown into a tailspin.
I agonize over how the waiting must be affecting families on the other side of the tragedy. Surely parents have seen loved teenagers change over the last two years as they have tried to push the events of New Year’s Eve 1997 far, far down into the realm of forgotten memory. I imagine those parents watching in isolation, fearing something horrible has happened to pull the light from their children’s eyes, but having no idea what it was.
Excerpt from Grief’s Courageous Journey
Grief is a highly personal response to life losses. Every relationship we have with a person is unique, irreplaceable, and unrepeatable. Since our relationships are unique, our grief is unique, too.
There are no road maps, no blueprints for grief.
It is always a mistake to judge how another person is expressing grief.
Instead of judging, we must be very patient and accept the uniqueness of ever individual’s grief process, including our own.
Excerpt from Grieving Mindfully
Suffering can bring you to a place of profound mindfulness about your relationships and your spiritual beliefs. In the context of grief, the person, and by extension the relationship, can be your spiritual teacher. Being aware of how your loved one lived, what his or her role was in your life, and how you are experiencing the loss of that person can turn your grief journey into a vehicle for your spiritual growth. Without this person's presence in and loss from your life, you would not have this unique opportunity to appreciate life and love, and seek out personal growth.
Using the pain of loss as a spiritual teacher, you begin to cultivate a sense of gratitude toward what you are feeling and experiencing. The intense emotional pain of your grief may still hurt. However, as you experience grief mindfully, allowing yourself to feel the twists and turns of the spiral staircase, the triggers and changes in your relationships, and your own personal development, you may eventually come to realize, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, perhaps even physically, that your capacity to grieve - and your capacity to love - are interconnected.
New Harbinger Publications
Susan Albers, Ph.D.
Ronald Alexander, Ph.D.
Lisa Firestone, Ph.D.
E lisha Goldstein, Ph.D.
Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D.
Lara Honos-Webb, Ph.D.
Susan Kuchinskas
Karen Leland
Pavel Somov, Ph.D.
Cassandra Vieten, Ph.D.
Barton Goldsmith, Ph.D. "Emotional Fitness"
Bill Knaus, Ed.D. "Science and Sensibility"
Cassandra Vieten, Ph.D. "Mindful Motherhood"
Jefferson Singer, Ph.D. "Life Scripts"
John P. Forsyth, Ph.D. "Peace of Mind"
Jonathan Kaplan, Ph.D. "Urban Mindfulness"
Karen Leland "The Perfect Blend"
Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. "The Science of Willpower"
Lisa Firestone, Ph.D. "Compassion Matters"
Marilyn Krieger, Ph.D. "The White Knight Syndrome"
Mary Lamia, Ph.D. "The White Knight Syndrome"
Randi Kreger "Stop Walking on Eggshells"
Raychelle Cassada Lohmann, MS, LPC "Teen Angst"
Rick Hanson, Ph.D. "Your Wise Brain"
Robert Firestone, Ph.D. "The Human Experience"
Ronald Alexander, Ph.D. "The Wise Mind Open Mind"
Russ Federman, Ph.D., ABPP "Bipolar You"
Russ Harris, MD "The Happiness Trap"
Stephanie Sarkis, Ph.D. "Here, There, and Everywhere"
Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D. "Get Out of Your Mind"
Susan Albers, Psy.D. "Comfort Cravings"
Susan Pease Gadoua, LCSW "Contemplating Divorce"
Troy DuFrene "Fumbling for Change"
Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. "Mindfulness & Psychotherapy"
Suzanne Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP "Healing Together for Couples"
Pavel Somov, Ph.D. "360º of Mindful Living"
a blog by Russ Harris, MD