Grief Support For The Holidays

So welcome,

I'm Barry Ebert and my special guest today is a good friend,

Dr.

Patty Leukenbach,

And she is someone who's done a lot of work and a lot of study on grief and processing our grief.

And today we wanted to talk a little bit about grief that comes up at the holidays,

And it seems to come up for a lot of people as they access their memories and all the visual images that come in at the holidays.

So welcome,

Patty.

It's good to see you,

And why do you think the holidays bring up such grief for people?

The holidays are a real trigger for people.

Holidays and anniversaries like birthdays or any special occasion,

But especially the holidays because they have been built around,

At least in our Western hemisphere here,

They've been built around family,

Community,

And they've been built around joy.

So if you have experienced incredible change like we have in the last two years or a loss of a loved one,

You're probably not zooming into that joy.

I want to share a personal story,

And I share it with great respect because over the many years I've been able to work with this and to find resolve.

But many years ago,

My birthday is in December,

And my father died the day before my 11th birthday very suddenly.

And so,

You know,

I'm just a kid,

And the family was hemorrhaging with emotion,

With grief.

And then Christmas was just a couple weeks away.

I remember receiving seven Barbie dolls.

I wish I had them now.

I'd be up for a millionaire.

But anyway,

People took pity upon me,

Pity upon our family.

They didn't know what to say.

The casserole brigade came,

And everyone was trying to express their feelings.

So yes,

I know what it's like to lose someone at the holiday period.

I just only wish that the holidays were over way back when.

So over the years,

I've learned to reframe the holidays.

And that's what we work with people in our grief recovery groups to find their own unique way to reframe the holidays,

Such as,

Say,

Thanksgiving is right upon us.

That instead of everyone sitting at the table not thinking about Uncle Frank,

Perhaps we could put a candle,

A little tea candle at every person's place setting so that he is brought into the room,

Because everyone's thinking about Uncle Frank,

And people need to express about Uncle Frank.

So that's just an idea that has come from people who have come together in group to decide how they're going to come through the holidays.

Those are their suggestions,

Not mine.

So there's ways that we can really honor and remember the anniversaries,

The holidays,

Christmas is upon us.

And it could be perhaps buying a special gift that you would have been buying for your loved one who's no longer physically here,

And gifting it to someone else.

That's also been something that has been suggested.

So grief is a hard taskmaster,

And grief is emotional pain.

And we grieve because we have love so much.

And there's so much grief right now in the world,

And there's a lot of pain because there's been a lot of change.

And change is a great shape shifter.

So we all have been shifting,

And a lot of people have been isolated.

And so we hear a lot about mental illness,

And I would say,

And I'm not a psychiatrist,

But I would say that to look at our emotional pain,

How can we express it?

Can we come together with another person?

Can we come together in community,

Even if it's a small support group,

And talk about it?

Because that's what assisted me many,

Many,

Many years ago.

Once I realized it was okay to share with someone what I was feeling.

So that's the important ingredient in recovery from those smacks of loss that take place.

To be able to find a safe place to talk about it.

And there's a lot of people that don't have someone to speak to,

But I know on November 6th at Mile High Church,

We're going to have Navigating the Holidays,

Which is from 9 to noon here at the church.

And in a very constructive,

Compassionate way,

We come together to talk about how we're going to move through this.

And it's a people,

Not myself as a facilitator.

It's a people that come up with the ways.

So it's rich and we create a garden of compassion.

So I would invite anyone who's perhaps listening,

That that could be an avenue,

Whether at Mile High or create a little group,

Maybe at your workplace.

But to talk about it,

To express it.

Because once we can express it,

It takes the emotion,

It moves it,

So it's not so buried deep,

Deep,

Deep within the soil of our being.

And we water it with love,

We water it with compassion.

And I believe the Zen referred to compassion as the understanding of the lack of understanding.

Because we're never going to totally understand all these changes.

We're never going to totally understand the losses that have taken place.

But when we allow ourselves to be open to life itself,

Which I behold as love,

Love is like a fire that lives within us.

We have to breathe breath into dry bones.

We need to breathe upon that fire to find our self once again when we're in puddles of incredible grief.

Grief is a great taskmaster.

It's not so easy,

But it demands that we continue to grow.

We don't want to bury ourselves in grief.

So I would suggest to all who are listening to don't stay in the place of pity with your loss,

But allow your loss or your experience of having had to say goodbye to Mimi has been your pet,

That's been your companion.

Perhaps it's been a family member.

Mimi now you're the top person in your family because everyone else has passed away.

We need to find our niche and we need to live fully in that niche.

Well,

I think a lot of what I've experienced in your workshops and also what you're talking about today is bringing ourselves to the present moment with grief and to incorporate it into our experience,

Not to be afraid of it or to let it shut us down,

But to take the opportunity to talk to someone else about it,

To have a friend that we can confide in or to find someone that we can share with so that we can bring ourselves back to the present moment and create rituals.

One of the things that I love that you've talked about is creating rituals around the holiday this year,

This year that you're dealing with now to not only help you navigate your way through,

But to celebrate what is still alive in you,

The gifts that we still have now.

I think that that's an important thing of just bringing ourselves to this moment and as strange as it may be,

So many changes that we've gone through,

There are still things to celebrate and to find ways to bring ourselves into this moment and to experience it for all that it is.

I totally agree.

And even going outside,

Even in the winter months,

Put on a warm coat,

But go outside and feel the snow,

Feel the cool breath.

And I think a lot of times we've gotten away from the simplicity of life and we get all tied up in knots with all our comparisons,

With our losses,

That type thing,

And that knots up inside of us.

So finding those simple ways,

Maybe it's calling a child and just believing in that child.

And of course ritual.

Ritual opens our hearts.

And I remember many years ago,

Many summers ago,

It wasn't Christmas time,

But it was summer,

And a blessed dog that my husband and I had passed away.

And my little grandchildren at the time loved that dog too.

And it was my grandson who insisted with his mother to buy a small little pine tree that we could plant.

And I thought that was so sweet of him.

And so they came to our home and it was important that the pine tree was planted.

So when I drove into the driveway,

This was important to my grandson,

When I drive into the driveway,

I could see the tree.

Well,

That was wonderful,

But that was helping him too,

That little ritual,

Because he too had loved that dog.

So rituals are unique and we don't have to be someone in a high order of ceremonial organizations to create one.

Keep it simple,

Like lighting the candle to remember Uncle Frank at Thanksgiving.

Yeah.

Another thing that you just brought up that I think is really important is the thing of comparison,

Because we have so much information coming in from social media and from all of our visual things of television and the internet,

Where we can compare ourselves to other people who feel like they're in joy and they don't have all the problems that we have and they're not experiencing the same kind of grief.

And I think that we have to be aware of that and not let our comparisons steal our joy from what's happening for us in our moment.

And so I think limiting our exposure to those media outlets and giving ourselves the opportunity to connect with the natural world,

As you just brought out,

The thing of just being outside and feeling the cool of the air and walking around a lake or walking in the trees,

I think can connect you with what's real and what's deep and what's important and powerful in our lives,

Which transcends the time that we happen to be in.

Right.

Yes,

That's a great wisdom,

Barry.

And also during these times,

It depends kind of on our dynamics.

It depends a lot on how we witnessed our family grieving.

And some people grieved hard,

Some people just put it under the rug and no one talked about it.

But uniquely,

Individually find your space to be able to express.

And that is so,

So important.

And I'm big on journaling and I love it when all of a sudden I'm touched by something like,

Oh,

Many years ago my nephew was married.

Well,

My father,

Who passed many years ago,

Of course never got to physically meet my nephew,

But instead of going into a lot of tears,

After the wedding I went home and I wrote my father the most beautiful letter and I described how beautiful Michael's ceremony was and how proud he would be.

It didn't make me sad.

It brought a sense of communion because many people say that those who have passed on that perhaps they watch over us.

So let's just connect in heart those good things instead of beating ourselves up.

And comparison,

Comparing one to the other,

There's no balance in comparison.

So we're striving for balance at this time of the year.

Yeah.

And I think being willing to go in the direction that best serves our health mentally and physically and to take good care of ourselves during the holidays is important.

And to let go of that idea that there's always something lacking,

That I can't enjoy it because someone is missing or something is missing or because some changes come on that's pulled me away from the thing that brings me the most joy and to bring ourselves into the present moment and find it there.

So for somebody that's listening now that might be wondering,

How am I going to make it through these holidays?

Can you just maybe highlight a couple of rituals that somebody might start out with to get themselves going?

Well,

Once again,

Keep the rituals simple,

But I would say get out an old spiral notebook.

And if you're able to get a pencil or a pen and write,

Begin to write your feelings.

First and foremost,

Express your feelings.

If you need to cry,

Cry a bucket of tears and then turn the page.

Turn the page in that spiral notebook to write about your favorite holiday.

Another bucket of tears.

Turn the page and get to a place where you can write how I choose now to experience,

Let's say Thanksgiving,

How I now choose to experience Christmas because I believe that there's a nugget inside all beings that is a navigator that has never been touched by pain.

And that is standing tall within us.

So not to get a theory co-honest,

But to be able to just utilize the system of writing.

Or if you don't want to write,

Do you have a good friend?

Or create a good friend.

Maybe it's your dog.

Maybe it's your cat.

Talk to them.

Tell them how you're feeling.

But work with change because grief has a capacity to open us to such love,

Such love,

A greater appreciation for life and everything changes.

And so for us to be like a willow,

A willow can bend and it can bend in the wind.

And the trees,

It's autumn time and the leaves are starting to fall.

The winds have turned up a little bit.

It's a process.

Process means movement and everything changes.

So to remember that begins to open us to companion ourselves through these losses.

And a lot of times if there's someone that can companion you,

Which means to just walk by your side as you move through the wilderness,

It may feel like a wilderness,

But to be able to know that you're going to get to the other side or the top of the mountain on that journey of wilderness.

So there will be a day where you will have the strength to companion another person who has lost someone very,

Very dear.

Well,

I like what you said about grief breaking our hearts open.

I think it connects us with the bigger aspects of ourselves,

Which a lot of times we kind of dance around with our busyness and we think if we can just stay busy,

If I can just keep my mind busy,

I won't have to deal with this.

But these are deep emotions that are in us and having the courage to open to them,

To express them,

To write about them,

To talk about them,

I think helps us grow larger and helps us become more connected to how our soul is growing in this experience that we're having here.

Because,

As you said,

These are timeless experiences that all humans go through and they hurt big time when they happen to us,

But they also bring gifts with them.

And I think that they open us up to the larger aspects of our life experience.

So I think that's a lot of what your work does,

Is allows people to sit down and to express with each other,

To talk with each other,

And to maybe dig into that story that brought a gift bigger than they knew at the time.

Right.

Yes,

To be able to tell the story.

And there's so many love stories.

I'm so fortunate to hear so many love stories.

And it was probably close to 30 years in my life,

Because my first loss was dad when I was a kid,

Before I ever gave myself or someone else open the door for me to tell my story.

So that's very common.

A lot of times it's 30,

40 years.

People haven't actually verbalized what took place.

And once we can express it,

There's a catharsis that takes place that starts to loosen it and untie that pain.

And I just wanted to say that we are living,

I feel,

In such incredible times right now.

And instead of going into our little shell and grieving like,

Oh,

Things have changed and what's going to happen,

And just getting caught up in all the,

I guess I can say,

This manure of thinking,

That we need to bring ourselves back.

Because this is a time where our hearts are being blown open to sense that central fire that lives within us as a human race.

So grieving going on,

Indeed.

But the heart is open.

The fire is burning.

Thank you.

I want to thank you so much for being here today.

And for,

Yeah,

The gifts that you bring to so many people,

So many people with your work about grief.

So I appreciate you coming in here before the holidays.

But these messages that you're giving us are certainly important any time of year,

In any season.

Because grief touches us always in the unexpected ways that we didn't see coming.

So I want to thank you for being here.

And I thank all of you who tuned in today.

And we will be back again with more messages for you.

Thank you,

Dr.

Patty.

Thank you.