Taking Care of Yourself

In order to stay as balanced as possible when grief evokes intense and variable emotional states, we must attend to body, mind and spirit. Use gentle, peaceful means, and be patient with your self and your process.

BODY
Make gentle, slow changes that you can hold to the rest of your life.

Nutrition: Avoid the standard American diet of too much sugar, fat, salt, protein, and processed foods, which include most of the above, plus toxic chemicals. Move towards whole grains, unprocessed vegetables, fish and poultry. Food is primitive and basic, so understand that we use it for many purposes, both physical and psychological.

Exercise: We need to have two types of exercise on a regular basis in order to maintain balance and health. Cardiovascular exercise should be at minimum 20-45 minutes, not necessarily done consecutively, three times per week. The safest is brisk walking or swimming. More difficult on the body are high-impact sports, like aerobics and running. Secondly, we need strength, flexibility and energy for the body. These are best gained from non-Western styles, such as yoga, tai chi and other mind-body integrated systems.

Stress Management: The body itself needs to be de-stressed from chronic physical and muscular holding patterns. Meditation and imagery have proven to be the premiere forms of physical stress reduction. Deeper states of consciousness create new chemical production arrays from the brain, reduce chronic muscle tension, lower blood pressure, and elevate our moods. Try to find a good teacher. Massage is also good. In fact, we should be conscious of our need for non-sexual, physical touch. We want to be held, petted and taken care of through warm, safe, physical affection. In addition, sexuality is one of nature’s healing methods of stress reduction. Try to maintain your intimate relationships as smoothly as possible.

Touch: We can’t forget that we are part of the animal kingdom and that we need physical affection and nurturing. Ashley Montague’s book, Touching, provides a vivid list of all the ways touch is used by animals. We should be careful to be clear about how we want to be touched so that we don’t get into uncomfortable or dangerous situations while we are off-balance.

MIND
A vast resource that you can use in many ways to support you during this process.

Nurturing: We need to find as many ways as possible to nurture ourselves. Grief evokes a wide range of feelings and an intensity of emotion that often makes people worry about their balance and even their sanity. We aren’t used to dealing with the natural intensity and range of feelings that come to us as we go through the grieving process. Therefore, we need to both nurture ourselves and allow others to take care of us. We need to reach out to family and friends in as many ways as possible.

Soothing: Healthy people have a wide range of soothing mechanisms. Since we are all different, and no one activity works for all, we must find the experiences that fit for us. Some find calm in a book, a warm bath, a vigorous game of tennis, or a walk. Nature is often soothing and peaceful. We should be aware of all of our senses. Sounds such as music or water can often be helpful. Scents from flowers or aromatic oils, tastes of good food, and as we discussed, touch. Vision takes 25% of our daily energy expenditure, so be sure to surround yourself with beauty.

Being Listened To: One of the greatest gifts anyone can provide is to listen and attempt to understand another human being. We always need to have this, but especially so when our soul cries out in pain.

Reasoning: Our mind holds both emotions and thoughts, so we must attend to our rational processes also. Finding meaning in what happened and coming to terms with the results of the death are important. We can use our thought processes to help us understand the permanent changes and the results of those changes.

SPIRIT
Connection to that which is more vast than you, be it nature, your community or a higher deity.

Ceremonies and Rituals: If you have a spiritual tradition that links you to others and that provides a path for mourning, you are very fortunate. All religions used to have elaborate ceremonies and practices that supported bereaved people. Most of these practices have been abridged, and it is necessary to invent our own. In fact, we are a secular society in which many people are not connected to any spiritual path, so that we may need to develop our own ceremonies.

Connection to the Universe: A death or serious loss can make us feel that our place in the universe no longer exists. One major function of any spiritual path is to teach us that we are a child of God, meaning that we belong on this earth, that we have a significant role to play, and that our life has meaning and value. We need to feel connected to family, friends, community, all of humanity, all sentient beings, and all of the cosmos. When we lose that spiritual connection, we are off-balance, and must get our spirit reconnected.

Find us at www.griefcounselor.org

The Center for Grief Recovery and Creativity E-Letter
Autumn 2006

Greetings and Happy Autumn!

"One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters
the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate
ourselves to that."

Joseph Campbell

I hope you had a brilliant summer. For me, with all of the rainfall this past season, and the vegetation being so lush, it was a sheer pleasure to be outdoors. I hope you found this to be so for you, too. And now we forge ahead to prepare for autumn, a season, which for many reasons embodies a host of contradictions.

“August and September are poignant times for most of us. The days get shorter and signal the end of summer. Evenings begin to cool off letting us know that winter approaches. The end of the summer growing season is at hand, and yet we are expected to begin anew. Most of us long ago have forgotten that September is the big time for new beginnings. We have let it slip from our memory that every September (August for some), for thirteen years, we have started school. (If we went to college we added four years, and graduate or technical schools might add even more). New teachers, new classes, new friends—a whole new world arrives every September with the start of school.”

Jerry Rothman, LCSW, P.h.D., the Center’s co-founder, and first director, wrote these words in 1998, when he was reflecting upon the role school continues to play in our lives. Certainly, as I have discovered by meditating and talking with clients, this time of year does bring with it many difficult challenges. As Jerry pointed out, many of us, for example, have forgotten the power and influence of the new school year. Recall that in elementary school we only have one teacher. What an enormous disaster it is when we don’t like that teacher. Very few schools make allowances for the fact that many children and teachers don’t mesh for various reasons. Personalities clash. Pacing and energy might be in opposition. The slower-paced student who is hurried along by a faster-paced teacher experiences real emotional pain. The horror of spending an entire year with a teacher that doesn’t fit remains with us for a lifetime. Often, too, we may have had bad peer relations, causing us to feel isolated, alone, and depressed.

Another contradiction of this time of year can be seen in the fact that the school schedule runs directly opposite of nature’s schedule. Spring, the natural season for new birth, is actually the end of the school year. Autumn, nature’s end of the growth cycle, becomes the birthing time for our most important human endeavor: learning. This central contradiction adds up to more confusion for children, because it rarely even comes into our awareness and almost never gets talked about.

So, for us it is a time to bring these facts into our awareness and encourage others do so as well in their own ways. In so doing, as Joseph Campbell suggests, we help ourselves begin to discover what is in us waiting to be dedicated to the flowering of our own humanity. Autumn is a time for reflection and bringing our attention lightly inward to notice more clearly these possibilities. It is a time to have our new beginnings, to initiate and generate, but also to be mindful of the many contradictions of this time of year.

In this way, at the Center we continue our mission to help empower and heal individuals to enrich their lives. We do this work through individual, couples, family, and group psychotherapy. In addition to our work in the office, we provide on-site consultations and professional trainings in many areas. (See our Institute for Creativity and Development webpage).

As you may know we, too, have been experiencing new beginnings. For example, our former director, Chris Lucia Rothman, Psy.D., has moved to Florida on a full-time basis, and remains connected to us as our administrative and clinical consultant. She has begun a new psychotherapy practice in West Palm Beach, and continues to phone conference and visit with clients in Chicago quarterly. We also celebrated a 10th year anniversary for our colleague KC Conway, LCSW, whose work in psychotherapy is truly wonderful and far-reaching. Our colleague Allan Schnarr, Ph.D., has moved to a new home and office, where he sees several Center clients in addition to using our location in Rogers Park. My responsibilities have widened to encompass what I refer to as “running the therapy shop.” So, while I continue to enjoy seeing clients in my practice I am also keeping the fires stoked as our director. I am excited about these new beginnings and look forward to informing you about more of them in the coming months. For example, our Institute for Creativity and Development will be introducing several new and exciting services. Stay tuned for more information.

So with the strong and sincere aspiration for peaceful change and transition into this next challenging phase of the year the Center sends warm regards. We are easy to reach.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments.

Sincerely,

David Fireman, LCSW
Director - 773/274-4600
Center for Grief Recovery and Creativity
1263 W. Loyola
Chicago, IL 60626
Find us www.griefcounselor.org at our website.

Good Quote

Many people ask how long they will grieve their loss. There is no correct timetable for the grief experience. Here is a quote from an excellent book entitled, "Living When a Loved One Has Died," by Earl A. Grollman:

"Grief work takes time.
How long?
Much depends upon you and your relationship to your beloved.
When did your loved one die?
Was there a long illness?
How much help have you been given?

Did you think you are demonstrating your love by prolonging the length
of your grief?

Because there are many variables,
one person may quickly pick up
the threads and work out new patterns
of behavior,
while another, even after a longer
grieving period, still cannot adjust
to a new life."

Find us here at our website.

Good Quote

We are a non-sectarian counseling center. However, each of us considers spirituality to be of importance in the work we do in psychotherapy. It is a privilege to companion our clients on their personal odysseys. Often we do draw from our own and others' spiritual foundations in order to support and enhance the psychological aspects of the work. That said, we value our clients' experiences and honor their unique ways of making meaning in their lives, whether this involves spiritual insights or not.

Here is a powerful quote from an old favorite:

"Do not think that the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth.
Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times."

Thich Nhat Hanh

Find us at www.griefcounselor.org

Managing the Holidays

Holidays Can Be Difficult
No matter what your religion or lack thereof, the holiday time can be most trying. The holidays stir up memories of the past, evoke powerful feelings, and force us to compare our life situation to that of the perfect family portrayed on television.

Memories of the past are tied to this time of year. Many people have traditions which are sanctioned by religion, but many also have traditions which are more secular in nature. The gift giving, the taking of vacations, the sharing of special times or activities -- may have been part of the joy that we had with a lost loved one. Getting through the first season can nightmarish and the next ones may be a bit more moderate, but still quite painful emotionally. All of these memories of good times and rituals shared together may raise bittersweet thoughts and feelings.

Not only good times shared, but bad times shared may be dredged up. If we are like many people, the holidays may have been unpleasant for economic or emotional reasons. In this case, we may feel guilty that we couldn't have provided better for our son or daughter, wife or husband, father or mother. Thus, the holidays are times of great emotional intensity to start with, and a death may build on this foundation and add to the feelings of loss that arise from memories.

Thus, it is not memories alone that are dredged up to haunt us, it is the feelings that may accompany these memories, that also cause pain. Powerful emotions are evoked by the holidays and these are added to our intensity, generated by our loss. We may experience a whole range of feelings which are hard for us to tolerate. Sadness is difficult enough, but loneliness, emptiness, helplessness and vulnerability are even harder to manage. Given the stereotype of the American character, these emotions are almost opposite and often considered negative in our society.

Another reason that the holidays can be disappointing is that we are bombarded with stereotypes of the perfect family, experiencing nothing but joy and warmth on a white Christmas. This myth has been commercialized and used to sell merchandise in mass quantities. It is therefore a force to be reckoned with and one that we can't escape. We are made to compare the reality of our loss-filled family life with the myth of perfect family closeness that we see on television. This painful comparison is often unsatisfactory to even healthy families, but families who have sustained losses are even further from the mark.

What to Do
There are a good many ways to facilitate getting through difficult periods of time. Although first, it's important to have a mindset that you are not helpless. We may feel helpless and hopeless, but that doesn't mean we really are. Once you get it firmly established that you can do some things to make life more bearable, then you can get busy and implement some of the following suggestions.

First, express the feelings as they arise. It's not only OK to grieve, but it is important to grieve. Grief is a process that may be painful, but it has healing qualities. So tolerate the difficult emotions and express them to yourself and others. Anger, sadness, frustration, loneliness, vulnerability, helplessness, emptiness and others may all be present. The mourning process can be very painful because of the intensity and range of feelings that arise. It is healthier to let them be and not try to sweep them under the rug.

Having said this, it is also important to modify the statement by adding that it's not OK to express these feelings in a way that harms yourself or others. It isn't the feelings themselves that can cause damage; it's what we do with them or how we express them that needs to be monitored. In doing so, be aware of the burden you place on others. You can't ask people to help you beyond their own ability to tolerate feelings. Thus, we can't expect friends and relatives to be continuously receptive. We have to be aware of their limits. There is no point in being bitter, if they simply can't keep listening and absorbing your grief. Ask from them only what they can give or you may be sorely disappointed.

Another way you can help yourself through the holidays is to honor the memory of your loved one. Acknowledge their importance to you and make up ceremonies that express that awareness. Through thoughts, feelings, traditions and ceremonies you can express some of the grief that you feel and gain some comfort. Rituals may be easier for some of your friends to share, so make use of them. Or you may find comfort in developing new traditions that honor the memory of your loved one. A contribution to charity, a day of volunteering in honor of your memories, or a visit to the grave may have some use to you.

Planning activities and ways to stay busy or keep from being too busy, can give you the right mixture of activity and freedom from unnecessary stress. You can review your own needs and decide how to plan. If you can't stand the idea of being alone, you could plan activities with others. If you find being alone valuable and your holiday season is usually set at a frantic pace with social obligations, you could reconsider and cancel some of the get-togethers.

Find a way to soothe yourself. When under stress, we need to be willing to indulge ourselves sometimes. We each have differing ways to calm our troubled souls. Think about what you have historically done to take care of yourself. Go ahead and give in to some soothing activities as long as they aren't destructive to self or others. For example, if eating is a significant soother, then you may want to let yourself gain a few pounds over the holidays and take off the weight afterwards when the emotional strains are moderated. However, if you have a weight problem, you may find it harmful to your self-esteem to gain weight. You'll have to balance the pro's and con's of each method of soothing.

Other Ideas To Think About
First, it is necessary to get beyond the myth of a blissful, perfect holiday season. We have to realize that many people are unhappy during this time and they are unhappy for many different reasons. Grief and sadness may intervene and need to be attended to. This isn't unusual or bad. So accept what is for you and deal with it; avoid denying what's going on and you'll be able to use the above techniques to cope.

Another useful idea is that we need to express as much emotion as we can tolerate without becoming overwhelmed. So, on the one hand, it is important to express and explore our emotions rather than avoid becoming aware of them. While on the other hand, we have to use some soothing techniques to help us manage so that we don't totally lose our balance. Too much flooding with feelings can destroy our equilibrium. So find the balance that fits for you and express whatever you can, while also being kind to yourself through using your own unique soothers.

An additional significant idea is that you have to individualize all of the advice you get. That is, there are no correct formulas for managing in difficult times. Look at the ways you function as an individual and tailor all of the friendly and professional advise so that it fits your situation and your needs. Don't sacrifice your uniqueness to a formula or to what someone else claims to be the right way.

You might consider another concept that can be helpful. Being said is often confused with being depressed. There are some quick concepts that help differentiate. Sadness is not the same as depression. And being sad won't make you depressed. Here are some comparisons:

Sadness

Can be shared with others
Humor interspersed
Periods of energy
Light at the end of the tunnel

Depression

Is isolating, withdrawn
Little or no sense of humor
Tired, deflated
No hope, pessimistic

There is another dualism that should be explored. Useful, purposeful action around planning satisfying activities is different from driven, frenzied action, which we might conveniently call hyperactivity:

Purposeful Action

Use of intelligence
Mindful of our needs
Feelings are expressed

Hyperactivity

Unconscious, unthought out
Symbolic or unaware
Feelings are avoided;
actions take their place

Conclusion
The holidays may not be a time of perfect bliss and your true feelings may be quite different from the mythology that commercial television and the media portray. Give yourself some leeway to be yourself and to accept whatever your feelings tell you. In fact, the holiday season can be one of the most difficult times of the year for mourners and for many other folks. However, you can understand and act, so that you are not helpless, and you can creatively cope with whatever the season brings to you. While no one enjoys pain, you can take this opportunity to face your troubles and to work on them in a way that can be creative and meaningful.

Find us here at our website.

How Do You Know Therapy is Working?

How Do You Know Therapy is Working?

There are many ways of thinking about and answering this question. We hear a lot of ideas and answers from others, but what are some specific measures or outcomes you can identify to help you with this important question?

To address this question, the Institute has developed a list of outcomes that you can use. Remember that each person is unique and will have their own particular version or experience of these outcomes:

•You feel increasingly mature
•You feel more powerful
•You are more active and less passive
•You give up attempts to control others yet have more influence with others
•You have increased ability to shape the environment
•You are more aware of your deeper needs, and get more of your needs met
•You are more independent
•You are more connected to others
•You have a broader range of emotional responses
•You feel more balanced

Please send us other outcomes you may have noticed in yourself if you have had a course of therapy or would like to have if you are considering it. Either way we would welcome your comments.

Find us here at our website.

Managing New Beginnings

Autumn is a poignant time of year. The contradiction of having to start new activities (e.g., school) in the face of nature's end of the growing season can be rather difficult. Here is an article about helping yourself with your new beginnings.

1. Let whatever emotional pain you are experiencing come into your awareness. What are your hopes and fears about the future? List them. What memories come from the past? Painful memories tend to lose their power when they are published. Secrets become more and more powerful. You can use journaling to publish your memories and talk them over with trusted friends and supporters.

2. Reach out for support. Don’t’ try to go it alone. Mentors, sponsors, friends, trusted relatives, can all be approached. Usually we don’t need help with advice or problem solving. We often need to be listened to. It’s rare to find good listeners, but we have to keep searching.

3. Now that we are aware and feel supported, we can begin to reframe the pain and turn it into a challenge. It’s most important to turn the experience of a new beginning into a learning activity. Carefully consider what you can learn from this new beginning and make that more important than the outcome. If we let go of the outcome and invest in learning, we set up a situation that allows us to succeed no matter what happens.

4. Intervene with yourself. We need to develop a positive self-talk, in which we remind ourselves that we are no longer little school kids. As adults we have choices; we aren’t helpless to change bad situations. You don’t need a therapist to have this kind of therapy session.

5. Visualize a successful conclusion to the new beginning. If you are going to a job interview, you can visualize yourself leaving the office while the interviewer is telling you how well you have done, and imagine the feelings of pride and competence. Spend some time fantasizing about this most successful conclusion.

Find us here at our website.

The Grief Experience

Here is an article about grief. At the Center we see grief as a universal response to loss, which is expressed in extremely unique ways.

Grief is the natural, healthy, spontaneous, unlearned, normal, emotional, healing process that occurs after a significant loss. Grief is experienced uniquely by each of us, and is often experienced in waves, with emotions, thinking, physical, and social responses coming and going in terms of the intensity, duration, and order of our reactions to the loss. In addition there are many other variables that can affect our grief reaction.

Emotional Components of loss can include:

Shock, numbness, feeling of unreality
Helplessness
Vulnerability
Fearfulness
Sadness
Anger, irritability
Emptiness, loneliness
Guilt
Carelessness, harming oneself or others in any way
Outbursts, euphoria

Cognitive Components of loss can include:
Slowed and/or disorganized thinking
Confusion, aimlessness, difficulty concentrating
Preoccupation, rumination
Unaffected, no thoughts at all about the person or the circumstances
Dreams
Decreased self-esteem
Altered perceptions, sensing the presence of the deceased person

Physical Components of loss can include:
Fatigue, sleep disturbance
Decreased or increased appetite
Physical distress, nausea
Anxiety, hypo- or hyperactivity
Greater susceptibility to illness

Social Components of loss can include:
Being unaware of others' needs
Passivity
Withdrawing from or avoiding others
Decreased work productivity
Loss of interest in usual pleasures, including hobbies, relationships and/or sex
Strained relationships, differences in grieving needs between self and others

Variables that can affect your grief reaction:
Your own history of past losses, through deaths, divorce, relocation, lost dreams, phase of life changes. Violations of one's safety (accidents, fire, personal trauma, world crises), or health changes
Your current personal and situational stressors
Your personal beliefs in a faith tradition or spiritual practice
Your cultural and family expectations about loss
If the loss is anticipated or unanticipated
If the loss is marked by traumatic events
The degree to which closure with the person was possible
A "loss out of season," for the person who has died or for you
Your ability to share the loss with others
Your coping style and use of stress management resources
Working through past hurts and forgiveness issues
Finding a way to make meaning of the loss

Grieving is a process. There is no correct timetable for the waves and reactions of grief. Yet, as you work through your grief, you can regain your balance, develop a sense of completeness, and re-engage in life in a deeper way. Your self-awareness in the process can be a personal journey and also one you may wish to share with others, through family, friendship, and work circles, or through professional and community resources.

Find us here at our website.