Thursday's Therapy - Resilience ~ Part Three - Developing Personal Resilience

Thursday's Therapy

Resilience ~ Part Three

Developing Personal Resilience 

Human energy is the currency of change. Mental, emotional, and physical energy are required to shift minds, hearts, and bodies into new patterns. Resilience—thriving in the midst of turbulence—ultimately comes down to how people use their energy when they encounter disruption.

What can individuals do to manage their own energy effectively during change?

People are fundamentally resilient. One way or another, we pick up and carry on after just about anything—natural disasters, broken hearts, even the Holocaust. Most organizational change is relatively small in comparison to the challenges that people have overcome in other arenas of life. Why, then, do we sometimes struggle with it so?

In many ways, organizational change creates the same dynamics that life crises do. When people make decisions that affect us, we experience a loss of control. When those decisions require us to change established patterns of thinking and behaving, we grieve the loss of the familiar and we get frustrated when our mental models of how to operate no longer work. We expend energy to help us work through the emotions and build new mental models that enable us to succeed. We adapt. But sometimes we thrash around a lot in the process and burn up energy that we could be using more productively.

Some people seem to go through this process of adaptation more easily than others. In other words, they get better results with less wasted energy. There’s no big mystery to it…research and experience point to a set of elements that help them do this. Let me briefly describe each of them.

Positive - This one is the cornerstone. When you are able to see hope and possibility in dark corners, you have a reason to engage your energy in dealing with the challenges. If all you see are dangers, your energy goes into worrying, defending, and protecting.

Focused - By definition, change brings confusion and ambiguity. It’s not always clear what you should be doing with that limited supply of energy. If you’ve done the work of thinking about what’s important to you, and you’ve practiced saying “no” to anything that’s not, you can direct your energy wisely. If you’re responding to others’ needs and demands without a compass, you will scatter your energy all over the place and end up burned out and drained.

Flexible - Most change involves solving unfamiliar problems and generating new approaches. There are two things that can help you here. First, being good at coming up with a lot of ideas. Not only is this fun, which means it usually increases your energy level, but it also helps you identify possibilities and options. When you only stick with familiar ways of thinking, and look for “the one right answer” too soon, you usually get frustrated and drain your energy trying to make old answers fit new questions.

The second part of being flexible is recognizing that other people have energy too. You don’t have to do it all yourself. Drawing on others’ mental capacity, emotional support, and physical assistance boosts your available resources. When you try to go it alone, you use more of your energy than you need to.

Organized - In the midst of turbulence, order and stability play a critical role. You need to be able to establish zones of predictability by creating effective structures and plans, and using them with disciplined attention. Otherwise your energy gets drained in chaos and clutter.

Proactive - If you wait for certainty before doing anything to respond to the challenges of change, you will wait a long time and miss a lot of departing trains. This last element of resilience is about taking risks; moving out of your comfort zone; experimenting and learning. You can waste an awful lot of energy trying to create a perfect solution. Sometimes you just have to move, see what happens, and adjust from there.

So the next obvious question is: 

Can people learn to do these things better, or are we born with a level of resilience we can’t change? 

My answer: These characteristics are like muscles. Some people start with more than others, but through regular practice, we can all get stronger. It’s not necessarily easy, and you don’t do it in one training class. Instead, you take time every day to do the resilience equivalent of push ups and biceps curls, so that when the challenges hit, your responses come easily and you apply your energy efficiently and effectively to adapt to the changes you face.

~Linda Hoopes, May 29, 2011  

Article: http://www.reply-mc.com/2011/05/29/developing-personal-resilience-by-linda-hoopes/

Thursday's Therapy - Resilience, part two - The Importance of Resilience

Thursday's Therapy

Resilience, part two

The Importance of Resilience

As a Child-Loss Griever, there is so much that is out of our control... The terrible pain of losing your child is debilitating; there is no getting around having to walk through our horrendous loss. There is so much we have so little control over. Just as we could not keep our child from getting killed, neither can we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps to survive such loss. It is only by grace, and by being willing to take one baby step at a time, of facing our loss, of grieving our loss, of looking for ways to survive even if no one else understands what we are doing or why we are doing it. 

A colleague of mine is a renowned psychiatrist in this town; when I told him of our Child-Loss, his words surprised me. He of course said that he was terribly sorry. But then he looked at me seriously and said, "Learn something new!" I was stunned. I said, "Yes, I know creativity is important to survive and to soothe our traumatized brains." He again repeated, "Learn something new!" Knowing that he is ever gaining knowledge about the latest research in the field, I recalled another psychiatrist, Bessel A. van der Kolk teaching us about trauma, that it is so important to learn something new... Our brains are so traumatized that they need help in being rewired. The basic steps of living can confound us once we lose our baby... The old wires are not working so well; they are worn down from the tragic shock; it's as if new wires need to be carved out for our survival.  

So I began to realize that just like a tiny baby in the arms of her mother is having her brain wired and re-wired as she sees her mother's responsiveness toward her, we too are in the process of beginning again, having our brains rewired little by little, creating new pathways so that we can process the unimaginable, the unbearable, the unwanted, the most devastating reality known to mankind. 

I had already begun "learning many things new" as I had delved into the world of the internet, starting a blog to help myself process my grief as well as to help other grieving parents who may have nowhere else to turn but to the internet (as so often, it is hard to even step foot out of our homes as they are our cocoons of safety). Some thought it asinine if not downright crazy to put so much energy into a blog when our livelihoods were compromised, and it would seem we would need to focus on getting more work... What they didn't know was that that was almost impossible. About all we could do was grieve. About all we wanted to do was grieve. We were in survival mode, and grieving was our way to survive. Now as I look back at some of the things I intuitively chose to do, I can recognize the critical part they had in fostering my healing, even if that healing was only inch by inch... In my own way, I was learning to be resilient even as I felt I was dying inside...

This article on resilience grabbed my attention last week. I had to keep in mind most of the people who write such articles have no idea what the world of a Child-Loss griever is like. But there are some truths they elucidate from which we can glean some kernels of hope...

The Importance of Resilience

Resilience is our ability to adapt and bounce back when things don't go as planned. Resilient people don't wallow or dwell on failures; they acknowledge the situation, learn from their mistakes, and then move forward. 

There are three elements that are essential to resilience:

1.   Challenge - Resilient people view a difficulty as a challenge, not as a paralyzing event. They look at their failures and mistakes as lessons to be learned from, and as opportunities for growth. They don't view them as a negative reflection on their abilities or self-worth.

2.   Commitment - Resilient people are committed to their lives and their goals, and they have a compelling reason to get out of bed in the morning. Commitment isn't just restricted to their work - they commit to their relationships, their friendships, the causes they care about, and their religious or spiritual beliefs.

3.   Personal Control - Resilient people spend their time and energy focusing on situations and events that they have control over. Because they put their efforts where they can have the most impact, they feel empowered and confident. Those who spend time worrying about uncontrollable events can often feel lost, helpless, and powerless to take action.

The way that we explain setbacks to ourselves is also important and is made up of a few main elements:

·        Permanence - People who are optimistic (and therefore have more resilience) see the effects of bad events as temporary rather than permanent. For instance, they might say "My boss didn't like the work I did on that project" rather than "My boss never likes my work."

·        Pervasiveness - Resilient people don't let setbacks or bad events affect other unrelated areas of their lives. For instance, they would say "I'm not very good at this" rather than "I'm no good at anything."

·        Personalization - People who have resilience don't blame themselves when bad events occur. Instead, they see other people, or the circumstances, as the cause. For instance, they might say "I didn't get the support I needed to finish that project successfully," rather than "I messed that project up because I can't do my job."

Here are several further attributes that are common in resilient people:

Resilient people have a positive image of the future. That is, they maintain a positive outlook, and envision brighter days ahead.

Resilient people have solid goals, and a desire to achieve those goals.

Resilient people are empathetic and compassionate, however, they don't waste time worrying what others think of them. They maintain healthy relationships, but don't bow to peer pressure.

Resilient people never think of themselves as victims - they focus their time and energy on changing the things that they have control over.

How we view adversity and stress strongly affects how we succeed, and this is one of the most important reasons that having a resilient mindset is so important.

Article: http://www.justaskdenise.com/2012/03/importance-of-resilience.html

Thursday's Therapy - 5 Lessons Heroes Teach Us About Resilience ~Debra Manchester Macmannis, LCSW

Thursday's Therapy

5 Lessons Heroes Teach Us About Resilience

~Debra Manchester Macmannis, LCSW 

“You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces – my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined.”  

                                           

~(Grieving Mother) Elizabeth Edwards

Life isn’t always easy. It’s not a bed of roses. The journey inevitably includes suffering, for some far more than for others. Most of us have known good people who have not been able to withstand the pain of existence and have succumbed to drugs and alcohol, acts of violence, and even deep despair and suicide.

But, at the same time, there have always been heroes–strong men and women who have overcome hardship and risen to greatness. There are examples of strength and resilience in every walk of life–athletes, artists, politicians, whistle-blowers, game-changers. There are also the unacknowledged heroes among us–people who will never be rich or famous but who were there as role models, facing life with grace and courage.

One important way to teach our kids how to be resilient is by studying and celebrating our heroes. 

What can they teach us?

1. Reach out to others.

At times of loss and trauma, most people feel alone. Just knowing that others have gone through whatever hardship we are currently facing can provide hope and comfort. This is why support groups are so effective. In 2010, researchers at Brigham Young University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill examined every research paper on the relationship of social relationships and health, involving more than 300,000 men and women. They found that those with poor social connections had on average 50% higher odds of death in the study’s follow-up period (an average of 7.5 years) than people with more social ties.

2. Notice and celebrate the gifts that you are receiving.

A crucial element of being resilient, or bouncing back from trauma and loss in families, is the ability to find a silver lining in times of hardship. The world is hungry for heroes, and often the heroic instinct surfaces in our darkest moments of need. We have seen countless acts of charity, kindness, and courage in the wake of every disaster. With the help of the internet, we can now share these heroic stories and teach our children the importance of both giving and receiving.

3. Practice living and cherishing the present moment.

One of our national heroes, and rightly so, was the late Elizabeth Edwards. She faced the worst of losses that any parent can imagine–the death of a child. Her life and death from cancer was a profile in courage, and millions are still able to benefit from her willingness to share her personal experiences. 

She is a profile in resilience.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/elizabeth-edwards-words/story?id=12337723

4. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

It is no accident that the miraculous story of a previously unsung hero climbed quickly to the top of the New York Times bestseller list and has stayed there for two years. If you have not already done so, and need inspiration, read the book Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, the extraordinary story of Louis Zamperini, (see below) the World War II vet who survived both his shipwreck and long imprisonment as a POW in the South Pacific. As more and more families have been affected by sons and daughters fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, we need to find ways both to honor our heroes and also to help families to survive in the face of adversity.

For more on Zamperini, see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0pulc6kDsk

5. Find heroes all around you and thank them.

We know that good parents lead by example. Notice the heroes in every day life (teachers, waitresses, firemen, nurses, kids helping others), in books, in movies, on the news, and share what you appreciate about them with your kids. Praise effort more than outcome and see obstacles or problems as opportunities for growth and perseverance. Parents can also encourage and model pro-social behaviors like volunteering, supporting local causes, and helping friends and neighbors in need. Just think how the world might change if everyone focussed more time celebrating our heroes and practicing acts of kindness and generosity…

Picture, by Google Images
Article: 
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/parenting-tips/2013/02/5-lessons-heroes-teach-us-about-resilience/

Thursday's Therapy - From Stress... to Resilience: 7 Strategies that Can Boost Resilience

Thursday's Therapy

From Stress... to Resilience:

7 Strategies that Can Boost Resilience

~with Dr. David Sack

From Rigid to Resilient: Bouncing Back From Stress In Recovery

By DAVID SACK, M.D.

Resilience is a hallmark of good mental health. It is particularly important (for victims of severe trauma and loss such as us Child-Loss Grievers, as well as) for recovering addicts who have learned how to survive but in negative ways – for example, by dissociating from childhood trauma or using drugs and alcohol to escape emotional pain.

An essential part of recovery is learning new tools that build resilience, which guards against the return of old, automatic behaviors that so often leads to relapse.

What Is Resilience?

Resilience is our ability to adapt to or bounce back from stress and adversity. Can you describe what you’re feeling, and can you respond to emotions in ways that alleviate your suffering without adding to it? 

People who score low on resilience typically do things that keep them stuck like dwelling on negative thoughts, avoiding other people, or using drugs, alcohol, shopping, gambling or other substances or behaviors to escape.

People who are resilient, by contrast, have the coping skills to manage life’s ups and downs with flexibility and a positive outlook.

Research suggests that the brain has an inherent capacity for resilience. Like empathy and other fundamental human capacities, our ability to adapt and thrive in the face of hardship may have biological roots to help us survive in an ever-changing world.

Although environmental factors can strengthen or weaken an individual’s natural capacity to withstand hardship, a tough childhood does not mean someone is destined to struggle with addiction or mental illness. Resilience comes naturally to some, but can be learned by all. In developmental studies, more than half of children born into high-risk families where parents struggled with addiction, mental illness, poverty, crime and related problems still managed to lead successful lives.

Cultivating Resilience in... Recovery

Resilience, like recovery itself, is a process of reconnection – with self, others and life. Perhaps you didn’t have the upbringing you would’ve liked, or your family history has left you with problems you’d hoped to avoid. 

If you’re not as resilient as you’d like to be, it’s never too late to learn the skills that promote strength and flexibility. 

The following are a few Strategies that Can Boost Resilience, and thereby help guard against relapse:

1.) Take Care of Yourself

Stress is more difficult to manage when you haven’t taken care of your basic human needs. Like your recovery, resilience depends in part on your commitment to exercise, eat right, get enough sleep and make time for the things you most enjoy.

2.) Set High Expectations and Achievable Goals

People accomplish more and feel more confident when they set high expectations for themselves. In recovery, a common goal is abstinence from mood-altering substances. Although it is a lofty goal, it is certainly attainable, as evidenced by the millions of people who have managed to stay clean and sober.

Success often hinges on breaking the goal into digestible parts – for example, taking recovery one day at a time. The key is taking some action, no matter how small, to improve the situation and then celebrating your progress.

3.) Build a Social Support System

Resilient people are not necessarily hardened or wholly autonomous. Rather, they utilize their resources, often by asking for help or leaning on a close friend or family member, a self-help support group, a spiritual advisor or other supporters for feedback and ideas. 

Through these relationships, (people recovering from severe grief and trauma such as Child-Loss Grievers, as well as those who are) recovering addicts develop important social skills, including empathy, respect, trust and the ability to have fun without drugs or alcohol, which in turn foster resilience.

4.) Find Meaning and Purpose

Someone with a strong sense of purpose will not be easily shaken by stress or excessively focused on self. 

Meaning comes, in part, from knowing your strengths, sharing them with others and continually working toward a larger goal. For some, it may be developing a strong connection with their higher power, 

(ever ready to receive the comfort He is always ready to provide:)

For (these and) others, it might involve giving back to the community, pursuing educational or career goals, or helping other (Child-Loss Grievers, and/or other victims of trauma, and/or) addicts find their way into recovery.

5.) Hone Your Problem-Solving Skills

You didn’t choose (Child-Loss Grief. Others didn't want to struggle with) addiction, but you can choose (to develop a stronger resilience, or) recovery by taking responsibility for your choices, recognizing the need for change and taking steps to address (any) addictive behaviors. Skilled problem-solving requires, at a minimum, sitting with a problem without taking action that will make it worse, such as abusing drugs or alcohol.

As you experiment with different approaches, you can learn to be more fully present, avoid the pull of instant gratification and begin thinking through the consequences of your decisions. When you feel confident in your ability to find solutions to your own problems, you can make needed changes, which in turn creates a sense of self-efficacy and optimism about the future.

6.) Embrace Setbacks as a Learning Experience

Change is inevitable, as are occasional disappointments. Particularly for those who struggle with addiction, it may come naturally to exaggerate a problem or feel that one setback ruins everything. Instead of making the problem more overwhelming than it needs to be, remember that most challenges are surmountable. Relapse, for example, can be viewed as a normal part of the recovery process and a valuable learning experience rather than a failure. 

Going through tough times, by itself, does not necessarily make people stronger. It’s vowing to find the lesson in these experiences and then persevering that builds resilience.

7.) Focus on the Positive

Having a problem-free life is not necessarily the best indicator of resilience. In fact, research shows that resilient people experience negative emotions, often intensely, but they also have more positive feelings. It is focusing on positive feelings like joy, generosity and gratitude, not avoiding or ignoring the negative ones, that leads to greater happiness and well-being.

Resilience is not a superhuman concept. It is not something that is available only to those with privileged childhoods or ideal family lives. The capacity is within each of us and can be nurtured, at any age or stage of life, to enhance your life, (your resilience,) and your recovery.

(The major content of the above article is from) David Sack, M.D., (who) is board certified in Psychiatry, Addiction Psychiatry, and Addiction Medicine. He is CEO of Elements Behavioral Health, a network of addiction treatment centers that include Promises Treatment Centers in Malibu and Los Angeles, The Ranch near Nashville, The Recovery Place in Florida, and The Sexual Recovery Institute.

I have revised some of the above content to be more applicable to us Child-Loss Grief and Trauma Survivors. The graphics throughout the article have all been provided by various grieving mothers as they lovingly reach out to other Child-Loss Grief and Trauma Survivors.

Pictures - The majority of the graphics and pictures are thanks to grieving mother, Jill Compton.
Original Article - http://blogs.psychcentral.com/addiction-recovery/2012/06/resilience-in-addiction-recovery/

Friday's Faith - Grief's Travails Over Time

Friday's Faith

Grief's Travails Over Time

Feeling bad today. My oldest child, my son Rollin, just called me today to see if Tommy and I could come to his baby girl's, our grand baby daughter's, dedication on Sunday. Now don't get me wrong, the sun rises and sets for this child in our eyes~we adore her. But I am also a grieving mother, Tommy is also a grieving daddy, and we never know what we can and cannot do, especially in a public setting, especially in one as sacred as a church, and not just in A church, but in THE church where our child's casket was up front as friends gathered around us a few days after her death. In that same area, now our grand baby girl will be dedicated? Can we go? I couldn't tell him. I know better than to commit ahead of time…

As grief expert Thomas M. Ellis says it,

Grief is a crazy-making, complicated process.

Grief has been described as a roller coaster of emotions. You might experience it as an engulfing wave, an ever-changing sea of experience, a place with nothing to protect you… Whatever you feel today, you learn that it will probably be different tomorrow. Grief is not about clear, predictable stages or steps. Rather, it is a natural process of dynamic changes that will ebb and flow as they may. You experience grief across every dimension of your being--body, mind, and spirit. ..

…Grief is relentless trudging, with unstable footing, in a dimly lit, strange place. Grief is a continuing personal process, a struggle to acknowledge the life-changing impact of loss.

Grief is depriving and painful in that it acknowledges that something has been taken away. You have lost someone and/or something. You are left with a painful void in your life. Grief is despairing, isolating, and overwhelming. Life suddenly changes, and its meaning is less clear than ever. Grief is disorganized and mischievous. It enjoys playing tricks on you and keeps you unbalanced.

There is a danger in discussing the life process of grief. You may be tricked into a place in which you gain a sense of final understanding. Beware the "grief expert." The only expert on grief is the person experiencing a particular loss at a particular time. You. Grief is so personally unique and changing that getting your mind and heart around it once and for all is impossible. Just when you reach a place of understanding, it changes again.

Someone... is gone, and you are left with a broken heart. You feel a deep emptiness, a sense of deprivation. Grief and pain are changing you….

…Grief is a cumulative creature that can grow larger over time. And if you try to hide from grief, it may cripple you.

(We are now)…a changed and changing family on a rest-of-our-lives journey of dashed hopes and dreams. There will be no more family photos with (our daughter's) beautiful smile--instead there will be pictures of a grieving family with affected expressions. (Our) family… will continue but with a noticeable missing piece. Family experiences will no longer include our beloved (daughter)… Her death will always impact our lives and all those whose lives she touched…

(You have to learn to) do what you can and not what others think you should do. Know what you feel, and what it is that you need to do. (W)hatever the situation, grief will demand that you take care of yourself.

Grief is not about stages you go through and ultimately graduate from. Rather it is a dynamic process of ups and downs, fluctuating with painful and peaceful moments, hours, days, and weeks.

Grief is not something you get over. Instead it is an experience that you must go through directly, taking in all of the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that you encounter along the way.

Grief is not time-limited, nor does time heal all wounds.

Give yourself permission to be free of others' expectations, and grant that freedom to others to explore and heal in ways that are real to them.

Grief and pain are changing you….

Grief and pain are changing you now, but they have the potential to transform your life in a healing way. Your capacity for courage is amazing. You have an inherent propensity for resilience.

~Thomas M. Ellis

This Thing Called Grief: New Understandings of Loss

(Italicized quote adapted to fit our family)

Let's just wait and see what Sunday brings. Perhaps it will expose for us a new strength, and courage, and resilience. But we cannot presume. We must simply wait, and see…

Picture, thanks to Grieving Mothers

Thursday’s Therapy - Resilience - Why Can't We Grievers "Get On" With Life?

Thursday's Therapy

Resilience

"You need rest, sunshine, and lots of hugs from Daddy."

All the very things I need, but for which, I am not taking enough time out!

Thursday’s Therapy

Resilience -

Why Can't We Grievers "Get On" with Life?

The Incoherence of Intense Distress

of the Violent Death of our Child

The death and violent dying of an emotionally valued person is an external and indirect threat. It is rare that we were at risk of our own violent dying. Instead, the distress is provoked by the persistent memory of the vulnerability of the person as s/he was being killed. Because of the caring connection, the external event of violent dying is transformed into an internalized memory of the killing.

We have two major stresses going on in the violent loss of our child:

1) Death creates irreversible loss of our child which causes Separation Distress. Such sudden and unforeseen loss of our child through death, a complete separation creates a longing and searching for reunion with our lost child to relieve our grief and distress.

2) The violent death creates an additional Trauma Distress to the way our child died. Our central nervous system is programmed to process the trauma of violent dying before the more complex reprocessing of the (above) emotional connection with the deceased. We will struggle with numbness and shock, avoidance, and reenactment fantasies.

Many parents will suffer -- for years -- persistent thoughts of reenactment (playing over and over in our minds the possible violent death of our child), remorse (feeling guilty or responsible that we could not stop their death), retaliation (a cold rage and strong desire for revenge for the killing of our child), and overprotection (going into high alert to prevent what-feels-like the impending imminent loss of other family members after we so helplessly have lost this child).

The author calls this phenomenon of some or all of these thoughts swirling through our system "possession."

(I wonder if he uses this term to show that traumatic grief in-a-way "possesses" you so that it takes on a life of its on...?)

The problem with "possession" is that it interferes with our reengagement to living as the death feels like a "right-now" experience despite the passage of time.

The author does stipulate that all of these raging thought processes are

"a rudimentary accompaniment to the processing of the dying memory and should not be interpreted as abnormal."

Yet he goes on to say...

However, when possessive fantasies of violent dying do not spontaneously diminish, the teller becomes a helpless witness or subject within the awareness (of all these devastating thoughts and feelings), having lost governance of himself or herself.

Hopefully next week, we will pursue these above "possessions" (+ an added "possession" of "reuniting" we will discuss later):

• Reenactment of the dying itself, with the teller only a helpless witness
• Remorse, "I should have prevented this from happening"
• Retaliation, "Someone else needs to pay for what happened."
• Overprotection, "I will not allow this to happen (to anyone I love) again.
• Reuniting, "I will do whatever it takes to find and reestablish my idealized attachment to my child, or I will remain inconsolable."

Again, the author admits that processing each of these dynamics at some level is needed and is normal to the grief process,

but if and when we become consumed by any one of them, it then leads to prolonged problems for our "reengagement to life."

^

|

|

{I'm afraid I'm there... At least it feels like it!}

*******

But before we can effectively resolve any of the above issues, the psychiatrist Rynearson highly recognizes what we in the trauma-field understand is the first call-for-action, and that is to establish an emotional "safety zone" for oneself.

To give you an analogy to better climb into the need for this, it is a lot like what I experienced in physical therapy this year when I broke three bones in my pelvic girdle (which the orthopedic surgeon said was, in essence, like me being split in two, right down the middle!).

Each time I went to physical therapy, they made sure I was working on strengthening my body - yet always from a certain comfort-zone - to ensure healthy recovery. Always checking for the level of pain I was feeling from Zero to Ten in pain from zero being no pain to speak of up to ten being unbearable pain. They really didn't want me to get much over a "2" or "3" so that my body would endure the stress to build strength but not so much stress that it would do more harm than good.

So a certain zone of safety and comfort is important, even while stressing our systems for the needed growth to process through to healthiness.

To Restore Resilience

Before developing your restorative retelling of your child’s death, it is important for your healing that you to know how to “return to safety," essentially to know how to “float” amidst the storm of grief. Retelling your child’s story is very important to your healing process, but it can be triggering and possibly overwhelming if you do not pace yourself in the process. Thus it is important to learn how to achieve a calm base for a sense of “safety.” The following are pathways to that sense of safety.

Pacification (Self-Calming/Soothing) - Physical actions that encourage relaxation. Pacification is essential as a basis for limiting the primal experience of disintegrating terror. (Again, we don't want too much emotional pain, though pushing through some emotional pain is healthy and strengthening in the long fun. The old saying, "No pain, no gain" is essentially true!)

It is important to learn how to achieve both an ability to process both the traumatic loss and its incumbent memories and all of the myriad emotions that such loss and memories stir up within you. But it is equally important to learn how to effectively distance from the traumatic effects of grief at times so that you can have sweet reprieve from such deep grief. Thus it is important to learn how to be able to "float" above the riptide of your child-loss trauma, or even the seemingly-endless emotional agony that goes with it.

Consider what kinds of things soothe your senses and begin to help yourself by practicing these things:

· Deep-breathing,

· Meditation,

· Relaxing in the warm waters of a bath or spa,

· Basking in the sunshine,

· Painting or artwork,

· Watching a funny show or movie,

· Loosening up muscle groups,

· Creative writing,

· Sitting outside and watching nature,

· Guided imagery...for example, imagining God holding you and comforting you as you lay your head down on your pillow to drift off to sleep.

Partition (Separateness/Self-discrimination) It is essential in establishing a limitation or boundary between the experiential worlds of "me" and "not-me." Also, it is important that we develop a separateness from the violent trauma so that we do not as Rynearson says, “disintegrate with (our child) in their dying story.”

Perspective (Self-transcendence) It is essential to allow time to penetrate our experience so that we can begin to anticipate change. In this way, time will bring change by the parent's transcending and prevailing in a restorative scheme and procedure (Rynearson will define at least one such procedure for us {hopefully to come in a later post}).

Keeping the Overall Picture, which includes not only the traumatic ending but also the positives of pondering the sweet times of the days my child was here with me, all of which help me to maintain a more constructive focus. To get to some of these positives, you may want to answer the following questions for yourself.

Tell about your child as s/he was, living with you...

(...Since there is more to my child than just her death.)

Look at pictures of your child as s/he was happy, smiling…

(Recalling these happy times keeps the mind from settling in on violent scenes that were only a part of your child's life.)

How would your child feel about your asking for help?

(It is helpful to engage the image or essence of your deceased child as a supportive ally in processing through the grief story. When I hear from my precious daughter, it is usually very affirming!)

What would s/he say that you need now?

...I can just hear Merry Katherine telling me,

"You need rest, sunshine, and lots of hugs from Daddy."

{All the very things I need, but for which, I'm not taking enough time out!}

And on that note, and at this late hour, I think I WILL go and rest now! And now that we know some of the ways in which we can get centered again in the midst of our deep grief, next week I hope to examine some of the areas (Rynearson calls "possessions") in which we get "stuck" in our grief...

Paraphrased and quoted from Edward K. Rynearson's book, Retelling Violent Death