Thursday's Therapy - How Meditation Can Help Our Bereaved Brain

Thursday's Therapy

How Meditation Can Help Our Bereaved Brain

In a Trauma seminar that Tommy and I attended in Atlanta, the point was emphasized over and over that severe trauma can alter the brain. It can even shrink parts of the brain such as the amygdala and the hippocampus! The hippocampus is where learning and memory take place. When the hippocampus is affected, we can forget directions to places we habitually drove to before. We can leave a mall, and forget where we parked our car. We can take a shower, and forget the habitual steps we normally performed every day before our child's death!

Did you notice some time in your Child Loss Grief that your memory was impacted? I did. My children could tell me something, and days later I wouldn't remember that they had even told me this information. They began worrying about me at some point, but I reassured them that it was connected to my grief and would therefore dissipate over time. I explained that grief was taking up about 90% of my brain, and only 10% was left over to attend to information coming in apart from grief so that I may or may not forget that information. I think they have been relieved over time as they see me back to my old self, at least in terms of memory! 

So, of course, any of us should feel concerned if we think our severe trauma could alter the brain to the point of shrinking a part of it. But in this Trauma conference, fortunately, we were also reassured that since our ability to perform brain scans in recent years, they discovered that brain cells can indeed regenerate in the process called neurogenesis! There are things we can do to facilitate that process taking place so that we can help our traumatized brains to heal, and be restored. Meditation is one of those things. 

Many people question, "What is Meditation anyway?" A simplified answer is that it is practicing to focus the brain in on the "here and now" so that you are very aware of the present rather than your mind being adrift, unfocused, or even too focused on the past or future so that you are not experiencing the things that are present in and around you. Simple methods of focusing in on your own breathing can be meditation, and you can even feel yourself beginning to relax and just "be" in the moment. Over time, this creates positive changes in the brain, even giving us much more resilience amidst our stress and trauma. It is part of the challenge we each face of refining the balancing art of living even while we're ever dealing with the death of our beloved child. And for those of us who are attuned spiritually, the meditating on the love God has for us in all of its many aspects can be incredibly healing.

The following is an article from The New York Times' blog that shows how meditation can positively affect our brain.

~~~

How Meditation May Change the Brain

By Sindya N. Bhanoo

Over the December holidays, my husband went on a 10-day silent meditation retreat. Not my idea of fun, but he came back rejuvenated and energetic.

He said the experience was so transformational that he has committed to meditating for two hours daily, one hour in the morning and one in the evening, until the end of March. He’s running an experiment to determine whether and how meditation actually improves the quality of his life.

I’ll admit I’m a skeptic.

But now, scientists say that meditators like my husband may be benefiting from changes in their brains. The researchers report that those who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. The findings will appear in the Jan. 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.

M.R.I. brain scans taken before and after the participants’ meditation regimen found increased gray matter in the hippocampus, an area important for learning and memory. The images also showed a reduction of gray matter in the amygdala, a region connected to anxiety and stress. A control group that did not practice meditation showed no such changes.

But how exactly did these study volunteers, all seeking stress reduction in their lives but new to the practice, meditate? So many people talk about meditating these days. Within four miles of our Bay Area home, there are at least six centers that offer some type of meditation class, and I often hear phrases like, “So how was your sit today?”

Britta Hölzel, a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and the study’s lead author, said the participants practiced mindfulness meditation, a form of meditation that was introduced in the United States in the late 1970s....

“The main idea is to use different objects to focus one’s attention, and it could be a focus on sensations of breathing, or emotions or thoughts, or observing any type of body sensations,” she said. “But it’s about bringing the mind back to the here and now, as opposed to letting the mind drift.” Generally the meditators are seated upright on a chair or the floor and in silence, although sometimes there might be a guide leading a session, Dr. Hölzel said.

Of course, it’s important to remember that the human brain is complicated. Understanding what the increased density of gray matter really means is still, well, a gray area.

“The field is very, very young, and we don’t really know enough about it yet,” Dr. Hölzel said. “I would say these are still quite preliminary findings. We see that there is something there, but we have to replicate these findings and find out what they really mean.”

It has been hard to pinpoint the benefits of meditation, but a 2009 study suggests that meditation may reduce blood pressure in patients with coronary heart disease. And a 2007 study found that meditators have longer attention spans.

Previous studies have also shown that there are structural differences between the brains of meditators and those who don’t meditate, although this new study is the first to document changes in gray matter over time through meditation.

Ultimately, Dr. Hölzel said she and her colleagues would like to demonstrate how meditation results in definitive improvements in people’s lives.

“A lot of studies find that it increases well-being, improves quality of life, but it’s always hard to determine how you can objectively test that,” she said. “Relatively little is known about the brain and the psychological mechanisms about how this is being done.”

In a 2008 study published in the journal PloS One, researchers found that when meditators heard the sounds of people suffering, they had stronger activation levels in their temporal parietal junctures, a part of the brain tied to empathy, than people who did not meditate.

“They may be more willing to help when someone suffers, and act more compassionately,” Dr. Hölzel said.

Further study is needed, but that bodes well for me. For now, I’m more than happy to support my husband’s little experiment, despite the fact that he now rises at 5 a.m. and is exhausted by 10 at night. An empathetic husband who takes out the trash and puts gas in the car because he knows I don’t like to — I’ll take that.

Picture: thanks to FotoSearch.com
Article: How Meditation May Change the Brain: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/how-meditation-may-change-the-brain/ 

Thursday's Therapy - 8 Ideas for Healing to Start in Your Child-Loss Grief

Thursday's Therapy

8 Ideas for Healing 
to Start 
in Your Child-Loss Grief


with


~Thomas M. Ellis

Remember, suffering alone does not teach. Time does not heal all wounds. For healing to begin, intentional grief work is necessary. Developing tools and skills to help you accommodate to your changed world is necessary. So what helps you to begin this healing process? 

Here are a few ideas:

• Companions for the journey. Are you spending enough time with others who truly care about you and who validate your personal grief process? Clergy, friends who "get it," family members who "get it," a grief group, or a grief therapist may be on your list. Do you feel cared for, understood, and validated in your experience?

• Time for your grief. How much time do you spend each day acknowledging and taking care of yourself? Grief demands your attention. You have not failed and you aren't "going crazy"--you are grieving, which takes time. 

• Permission for expression. Is it okay for you to feel a mix of emotions? Discover different ways to externalize your thoughts and feelings of grief. Talking, crying, and laughing are okay. Loss is the problem, not you.

• Becoming an expert. Are you curious about this life experience? Pay attention to what grief feels like, how it ebbs and flows, and what helps it to diminish. Gathering information about your loss can reduce anxiety.

• Naming what is lost and what is not. Have you focused both on what you have lost and on what you have left? Clarifying your multiple losses and recognizing both what is left and what may come can lead to hope.

• Be kind to yourself. Are you paying attention to yourself? Realize that you can't do this alone. Do what you can and not what others think or say you should do. Promote a sense of calm and healing. It's okay to take a break from your grief.

• Embracing imperfection. Realize that you don't have all the answers. You will continue to make good and bad choices. When it feels as if you can't make any more decisions, don't.

• Creating places of sanctuary. Where do you feel safe and free to be real with your grief? Peaceful environments in and out of your home allow you to fulfill your need for peace, quiet, and escape. Find the place that nourish you--you may have some favorites already.

Remember that you won't simply "get over" your grief. Rather, it sits on your shoulder. But if you periodically turn your head and look at it straight on, the honest acknowledgment of your pain will bring relief. Grief is hard work, and it will take as long as it takes. Being still and present in times of despair is a healing approach to this work. Grieving can become a sacred and creative time for you to discover who you are and how you choose to transform your life. Many have discovered that they can hold on to two opposing ideas--grief and hope--at the same time. You can, too.

~Thomas M. Ellis (2006)

This Thing Called Grief: New Understandings of Loss

Picture, thanks to Grieving Mothers

Thursday's Therapy - 30+ Tips for Surviving Our Child-Loss Grief by Building Resilience ~From Our Bodies, Ourselves (2005)

Thursday's Therapy

30+ Tips for Surviving Our Child-Loss Grief by Building Resilience

~from Our Bodies, Ourselves (2005)

Resilience: the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness; the ability to spring back into shape

In the following advice from the well-known book, Our Bodies, Ourselves (2005), we find 30+ tips for surviving difficulty - for us, surviving the difficulty of walking through our Child-Loss Grief. (Some of these ideas are repeated among lists.) Perhaps you can add even more survival tips that you have found. We welcome you to add these in the comments!

It is unfortunate that, in the book, so little emphasis was given to these preventive kinds of self-discipline and self-nurturance activities. Therefore, we wanted to bring these tips to your attention so that we child-loss grievers better may arm ourselves to endure the journey ahead with better preparation for our arduous journey through grief and trauma.

Sustaining our emotional well-being is often challenging…

During difficult times, doing positive things for ourselves--such as

• eating well,
• exercising, and
• enjoying simple pleasures
• (hot baths,
• time alone, or
• special time with friends) can bring some relief or comfort.

These activities may also help prevent or manage the physical problems that can result from periods of excessive demands and pressures.

These (physical problems that might be managed with these activities to build your resistance) include

• headaches;
• neck, back, and shoulder pains;
• insomnia;
• skin rashes;
• jaw pains;
• cold sores;
• stomachaches;
• severely increased or decreased appetite; and
• diarrhea or constipation.

At times it is enough to talk, cry, ask friends for encouragement (or a foot rub), or find ways to laugh and play. Here are some other things you can try:

Wellness Strategies such as

• eating well,
• getting enough rest,
• getting enough exercise,
• meditating, and
• participating in relaxing activities.

A healthy body and a calm mind can help you become more resilient.

Spiritual work, including

• mediation
• prayer, and
• involvement in a religious community.

Creative activities, alone or with others:

• dancing,
• singing,
• arts and crafts,
• reading for fun, or
• learning about the kinds of dilemmas or problems you are confronting, through novels, biographies or magazine articles.

Support, self-help, or common-interest groups. Many groups exist that address various problems and challenges--

• becoming a new mother (groups),
• recovering from addiction (groups),
• growing older (groups), ...
• understanding self-injury (groups),
• living with a particular illness or disability (groups), or
• separating from a long-term relationship (groups).
• {And, of course, we would add: participating in one or more child-loss parent groups}.

At their best, these groups help people to feel less alone and to see individual concerns within a larger societal context.

Friendships and community.

Find and reach out to a community of

• family,
• friends,
• neighbors, and
• spiritual advisers

with whom you can celebrate and grieve life transitions. Sometimes a good listener is what we need most.

Working for social/political change.

Working to change social and economic factors that make life difficult, from expensive day care to racial discrimination on the job, can be meaningful, especially when the things you are trying to change are the things that cause you pain (for us, handling our child-loss grief; maintaining a safe community of support; keeping our bodies, minds, souls, behaviors, and spirits healthy; etc.).

Therapy as an option.

Sometimes those closest to you are unable or unwilling to talk about what's wrong, offer helpful advice, or are too much a part of your problem to assist you. Even when you have good support from people who care for you, you may still want additional help or a fresh perspective. If so, it can be useful to explore the option of therapy.

~From Our Bodies, Ourselves (2005)

Italicized comments, ours

What about you? What have you found to be helpful survival tips for our arduous journey? We welcome you to share your discoveries with us and our readers in a comment below! Thank you!

Picture, thanks to FotoSearch.com

For a longer list of healthy resilience-building exercises, the book invites us to their companion website link of www.ourbodiesourselves.org

Thursday's Therapy - Grief-and-Trauma Treasure Hunt: Is There Healing to Be Found?

Thursday's Therapy

Grief-and-Trauma Treasure Hunt:

Is There Healing to Be Found?

OUR GRIEF/TRAUMA IN CHILD-LOSS IS AS MUCH PHYSIOLOGICAL AS EMOTIONAL!

Before, we always thought there was a separation between body and emotion. Even in our doctors' offices, there are physicians who treat the body and psychotherapists who treat the mind and emotions. But we are discovering more and more that body and emotions do not operate separately ~ in fact, they cannot operate separately, as if they were in a vacuum from one another! Instead, all parts of the body and the emotions feed off of the messages of distress each part of the system may send, and then work together to find and then produce the solution.

So what if one part of this intricately interwoven system is thrown off balance by, say, something like life's trauma?

Then one's whole system can be thrown off track, and can even become toxic to oneself. Psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists seek to examine the system to determine what best helps to put the system back together again on behalf of the "psyche" ~ the emotional well-being of the person. Neurologists seek to work on behalf of the brain. Cardiologists seek to work on behalf of the heart. And so on, and so on.

We are now realizing, there needs to be a much more integrated approach to the whole person as all systems are affected by trauma and therefore, the whole person needs to be considered.

The development of our traumatic symptoms over the years has convinced us that the effects of Child-Loss are as much about trauma as about grief!

"We carry our stress with us for a lifetime."

~opening line of his book, Does Stress Damage the Brain, by J. Douglas Bremner, M.D., assoc. professor of psychiatry and radiology at Emory University of Medicine, psychiatrist and neuroscientist

For these first five years of child-loss, we have experienced the effects of a damaged brain due to the trauma of losing our child! It is an invisible disability; others do not see it, but we feel it and know it's there, sending us into hypervigilance and/or hyperarousal and leaving us there whether danger is present or not.

We begin to fear that we cannot trust our own emotions to correctly hone out the REAL dangers present. And that is only one component of our trauma. Many of us cannot work our jobs or careers the ways we once did. We cannot be as "active" with our living children as we once were. Our lives are affected in so many ways, that, even though we walk and talk and breathe and look normal, we know we are not our whole selves that we once were.

Just going to a grief counselor won't cut it.

A grief counselor misses a large part of our child-loss issues. A regular grief counselor does not understand the massive degree of grief in child loss nor do they even know that TRAUMA is a huge factor, or that it even exists in child-loss!

Most counselors come from a "stages-of-grief theory," believing there are essentially several concrete, finite stages that they think come and go in linear fashion, and then one is "healed." Many counselors (and even doctors) do not realize that such a simplistic theory has been totally debunked.

TOO OFTEN, THERAPISTS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THAT CHILD-LOSS GRIEF LASTS AN ENTIRE LIFETIME NO MATTER HOW HEALTHY YOU ARE!

"The brain areas involved in emotion are also involved in memory formation."

~J. Douglas Bremner, M.D.

So child-loss grief and trauma is not just about our emotions. It is also very physiological, greatly affecting our brain! Brain areas including hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex, and amygdala become extremely affected by our trauma, and they must be managed to best mediate our symptoms of Traumatic Grief. Many of us will have some degree of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and each of these three areas of the brain must be accessed to help us navigate our way through such distress.

These three brain areas mediate memory and the fear response. We are now going to have an impaired brain. We often begin to think we are "losing our minds" because things don't register like they once did; we or sometimes our family members fear seeing symptoms that seem an awful lot like Alzheimers. And it is no wonder, for in both disorders, the hippocampus has been damaged! Our severe grief-and-trauma throws us for a loop. At times, it will impair our memory and dis-regulate our fear response (the part of the brain that should turn off our fear if no real threat is pending, does NOT turn off our fear, so we are left feeling traumatized over and over, and wonder if life will ever be "sane" again. We wonder if we will ever be able to trust our brains to discern true danger as opposed to just signs of possible danger, for example.

The stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol race through our systems trying to protect us in such a hypervigilant state even when there is no real danger. And such racing through our bodies repeatedly can ravage our system, weaken our blood vessels, depress our immune system, and before we know it we have added problems like heart disease, or cancer, or both.

But, though we have massive amounts of adjustments to make to our "New Normal," possible treatments to undergo to stabilize our psyche, and preventive activities to do to soothe our post-traumatic stress disorder, it is important to know there is another positive side to things!

Most of our neurologists and psychiatrists were taught that: once the brain becomes damaged and neurons are killed, there is nothing we can do; the neurons die and scar over, making worse problems for us…

But now, we are learning about "Neuroplasticity"!

neuroplasticity - The brain's natural ability to form new connections in order to compensate for injury or changes in the environment. The ability of the brain to reorganize pathways between neurons as a result of new experiences.

Scientists are now discovering a whole new world since brain-imaging shows us the reality of the brain's world. We are learning by watching the brain at work that the brain has the potentiality for what is called "neuroplasticity," meaning there are things we can do to reverse our "brain-damage"! And that is the Treasure Hunt that scientists are on now to find out what all we can do to achieve this recovery of the damage our trauma has done to our brains. And that is the Treasure Hunt Tommy and I are undertaking too so that we can learn how to help ourselves and how to help you heal the parts of yourself that, indeed, can be healed! Stay tuned!

Picture: thanks to FotoSearch.com

Definition of neuroplasticity - http://www.hdsa.org/research/glossary/index.html?active_letter=N

Thursday's Therapy - TRAUMA Therapy Toolbox: EFT ~Emotional Freedom Technique / Tapping

Thursday's Therapy

TRAUMA Therapy Toolbox:

EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique / Tapping

A new grieving-mother friend emailed me recently and in the process of our writing one another, I discovered that she has been in grief almost three times as long as I have been. So she was telling me she has received therapy off and on over those years, but she was unaware that there was such a thing as "Trauma Therapy."

I should not be too surprised because the discoveries about trauma are relatively new. And yet, this precious mother lost her child in such a violent way, that I could hardly believe there was no one in the helping field that would have helped her with the traumatic aspects of her very deep grief.

So I decided to share some of what I have found helpful regarding treating our trauma that can be found on the internet.

*****

Tommy and I attended a seminar in Atlanta, Georgia a few months ago for our continuing education led by the psychiatrist who helped to coin the term, PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, psychiatrist Bessel A. van der Kolk; he also helped to formulate the symptoms that composed the disorder for the Diagnostic Manual for Psychology/Psychiatry. Dr. van der Kolk, in his workshop, instructed us in how to do the tapping technique shown below, and though he (like I) does "talk therapy," he was amazed to discover this technique that uses very little talk therapy, but directly addresses the body through tapping to help effectively rewire our brain by rewiring the brain's neural pathways.

Hebb's Law - Neurons that fire together wire together.

Thus, as we think or envision the traumatic memory or imagine what our child went through before death, the "neuro-bundle" in our brain becomes thicker and thicker over time. Our bodies are triggered by this wiring and rewiring to go into fight-flight-or freeze response in association with such traumatic memories.

In tapping, your body is activating this thick neuro-bundle, and then all of a sudden, the body gets a different signal with your tapping and your newly-spoken positive affirmations. Before, our bodies went into fight-or-flight feelings, "the stress response."

Now we are feeling safe feelings through tapping and repeating safe affirmations along with our thinking the otherwise-frightening thought. So the body rewires the brain to defuse that conditioned reflex loop, so that the body no longer goes into the stress response!

Once people learn how the tapping is done, it's simple enough for them to use on themselves whenever they sense fear or pain.

In recent years, we in the psychology field have seen the development of a family of therapies that offer clinically effective alternatives to traditional, long-term treatments. These therapies only require one to three sessions, but the results are usually permanent. Each of them provides noticeable relief from negative emotions, pain and trauma. It doesn't matter whether the pain suffered is physical or emotional. This first tool in your trauma therapy toolbox is called EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), better known as "Tapping."

EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique / Tapping:

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) Demo with Aila

***Warning: If you try this technique along with this registered nurse, Aila, please stop immediately if you feel too much uncomfortable distress in using the technique!

It is important to keep a healthy balance between activating your emotional distress in order to keep your grief flowing, while maintaining a healthy level of emotional peace and safety.

You may want to either try it at another time, or use it in a therapeutic session with a trained psychotherapist who can help you through it.

How about you?

Have you been exposed to any type of "Trauma therapy" for your grief?

If so, I would love for you to share with me some of what you have experienced, and what was helpful and what was not.

Tommy and I would love to hear your experiences and perhaps learn more about what is in the field that can possibly be helpful to others in our same grieving-parent situation. Thank you, and I so look forward to hearing from you! Feel free to comment below, or if you had rather, you may email me at MotherGrieving @ gmail.com

May God bless,

Angie

Picture: http://www.withamymac.com/news/2007/09/11/i-love-power-tools/

For more on Hebb's law or "Hebb's theory," see this article in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_O._Hebb

Aila's video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l-VDOGqmd4

Thursday's Therapy - Writing and Grief - The Healing Power of the Pen ~by Alice J. Wisler

Thursday's Therapy

Writing and Grief

The Healing Power of the Pen

~by Alice J. Wisler

She? She lost her innocence,

And I? I lost my life.

She? She lost her life,

And I? I lost my innocence.

~Angie Bennett Prince 4/22/10

It's revealing that the titles of Fraser's and Want's books and Hendy's film all end in interrogation marks. The genre of grief memoir is by definition questioning: trying to come to terms with what happened and whether anything else might have been done.

~Mark Lawson, Writing a Way Through Grief

− Grief changes you. No matter how purposeful you are or become it impacts you in ways you can never work out. One of the reasons I started writing again was because I suddenly needed a voice to record the things that were happening, and people couldn't necessarily handle what I had to say.

Even I, a few years on, cannot fully appreciate the state of mind I was in when I wrote. It's just something that happens.

The brain has its bleeding and it must flow somewhere.

~Comment to Lawson's article by "disordered"

Spiritual equanimity is so finely worked that all wild, wounding, or awesome events fire the brain but briefly.

~Robert Dash, Notes from Madoo

My groaning has worn me out. At night my bed and pillow are soaked with tears.

~Psalm 6:6

Pain can be exhausting. Feelings of sorrow, depression, grief, and fear can eat away at us internally to the point that we feel our bodies will waste away. We lose strength. We forfeit any sense of balance and control over our emotions. We’re reduced to groaning, powerless, grief-stricken creatures.

Emotions are very fragile things. When you’re working through old hurts or new struggles, your emotions can help you deal with them in a healthy way. Stuffing them, pretending you don’t feel grief or fear, won’t help at all. In fact, it will hurt you in the long run.

~Peter Wallace, What the Psalmist Is Saying to You Today

Keep a journal. You will be surprised how much relief you will find through writing down your thoughts, questions, memories, fears, letters to your child, or anything else that comes to mind each day.

~Carol A. Ranney, Family Grief & Bereavement Examiner

*****

Often our child-loss grief, even as complicated and traumatic as it may be, is not always grief that needs to go through therapy, especially if that therapist is not extremely understanding of grief, even more especially if that therapist is not seasoned, with a few tragedies of his or her own under their belt.

As you read the following quote from a study of grievers (some of whom had bad experiences in going through therapy with their grief), you will see why I as a psychotherapist am somewhat protective of my fellow child-loss grievers. This dynamic that exists of the possibility that therapy, if poorly done, can also add to our grief also prompts me to find self-help ways that we can utilize to better process our grief on our own. Today's article is one of those self-help ways to enable our grief to flow out in as healthy a way as possible. As I have said to my clients,

Grief cannot be cured, but it does need to flow, and we CAN receive comfort in the process of our grieving. There is a lot to be said for that!

~Angie

...(D)iagnostic decisions ought to be conservative in the circumstances of bereavement to avoid interference in a normal human process and iatrogenic complications with the associated introduction of professional interventions and their accompanying side effects. [Belitsky & Jacobs, 1986, p. 280]

~from Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy by J. William Worden

*****

Writing through the heartache of losing a child is some of the best therapy I have found on this journey.

~Alice J. Wisler

*****

The Healing Power of the Pen

~by Alice J. Wisler

(Grieving Mother and Writing Workshop Leader)

The first year after a death of a child is like having the (worst) noise possible running through your head each day and night. There is no way to turn the horrendous sounds off because there is no off button.

I wrote through that noise. I wrote from the heavy bag of emotions bereaved parents must carry—anger, guilt, sorrow and confusion, all the "what ifs" and "how comes" and "whys."

I wrote of longing for a blond-haired boy with blue eyes (whose) laughter brightened hospital rooms. A quiet spot under weeping willows at a local park is where I carried my pen, journal and pain. As I wrote over the course of many months, I was, although I didn’t realize it at the time, providing therapy for myself.

Some days when the weather did not permit a trip to the park and my body and mind harbored excruciating pain, I shut myself in a room, away from my other children and husband. I’d grab my journal and let the experiences of the day and my feelings freely emerge onto each white page. Grammar didn’t matter, penmanship went out the window. These aren’t a concern when you are writing to survive.

Writing the heartache, complete and honest, is a way of healing.

Our cry is, "Help me with this pain!"

We find ourselves lamenting as King David did in Psalm 13:2, "How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?"

David wrote many of his psalms starting with anger and agony and gradually, ending with hope.

Writing can do that for us. We enter into our devastation, get a good grip on what our struggles are and something about seeing them on paper causes us to realize the pain is not only within us anymore. It is shared, even if only on a sheet of notebook paper. It is documented and the more we write, the better we are able to understand and deal with our intense sorrow.

Some people think only the creative types write, when in reality, writing through the pain is available to anyone who has suffered the loss of a child. "I don’t have time," many say. "What will I write?" others wonder. The blank page scares some because they think they have to fill it with something profound.

But just writing a memory of your child or a few lines about how you felt after he died is a notable start. If we think of writing as a private endeavor and an effective tool, not a paper to be graded by a high school English teacher, we will conquer many of the doubts about our ability. In time, we will see that writing helps us become better in tune with our feelings and thoughts. It clarifies our lives and gives us understanding.

Other reasons to take the time to write are:

• To experience personal growth.

• To leave a legacy or a keepsake so that there will be recordings of what and who our child was.

• To demonstrate a way of cherishing our child.

• To feel a connection to our child as we remember the things we shared here on earth.

We also are honoring our grief, our pain and what has happened to us. We are validating its existence. As studies have shown, writing is healthy for our minds and bodies.

Professor James Pennebaker claims that writing actually helps the physical body when the writer is able to open up, by sharing deep feelings on paper over a period of time. In his study, half a group of students at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, wrote their heartfelt thoughts and feelings about a stressful event from their lives; the other half wrote about superficial topics. Each group wrote for twenty minutes a day, for four consecutive days.

Before writing and immediately after writing, blood pressure and heart rates were tested and a galvanic skin response was done. Six weeks later, the students had their blood tested again.

The group that had written about trivial topics showed no sign of changes. But the group that had poured their pain onto paper, claimed writing had actually calmed them. Their skin was drier after writing and both heart rate and blood pressure had decreased. Their blood work even showed an increase in lymphocytes, the white blood cells that work to keep the immune system healthy.

Writing through the heartache of losing a child is some of the best therapy I have found on this journey.

I didn’t know how helpful it was. I just knew I needed to organize any thoughts and get them out on paper. Now, four years since my four-year-old son Daniel’s death, I see that when all the evidence is presented, there is no reason not to write. It causes dim skies to light up when not only the pain, but also the love and cherished memories, are recorded.

~ Alice J. Wisler

(Published in the Durham Herald-Sun in April, 2002)

Picture: http://bit.ly/d2oVtT

Poem - Aftermath - Angie B. Prince - 4/22/10

Lawson: http://bit.ly/d7W0BY

Commenter to Lawson: http://bit.ly/9mVXPg

Alice J. Wisler's blog: http://www.writingtheheartache.blogspot.com/

Wisler's article: http://bit.ly/avtKUb