Grief

The Work and the Gateway to healing

What is it?

• "... Grief is love with no place to go."
• It's "work"
• Not something we are good at in our culture.
• It's universal, personal, and highly individualistic

The stages...

• Denial, shock, or numbness
• Anger/anxiety
• Bargaining
• Depression/sadness
• Acceptance

What role does grief play in our work?

Grief in our work

• Idealize the lost loved ones
• Societal "stoicism"
• behavior that protects/distracts from grief
• Grief is unacknowledged

Myths and Facts

• "Get over" Vs. Emotional memory cannot be erased.
• Go away faster if you ignore it Vs. Addressing the grief is short-term pain for long-term gain.

Myths and Facts

• Being stoic Vs. Humans are made to connect through emotions- "sorrow shared is halved"
• Time line Vs. A 2nd year my be worse- support gose, numbness subsides
• Tears are weakness Vs. Tears release emotions and toxins from the body

Myths and Facts

• Don't talk about it Vs. We should talk about it with those who are most difficult to talk with
• Sheltered from it Vs working it out in honesty, loving, comforting, reassuring environment.
• "finish" greving Vs. love last beyond grief.

Myths and Facts

• Nothing to Grieve Vs. if you avoid it you miss out on the joys and positives of that relationship
• Can't grieve something you never had Vs. the loss of the potential relatinship
• Return to "normal" Vs. profound loss changes people forever.

Keep in mind

• People are feeling beings before they are thinking beings
• grief easy manifest as "difficult behaviors"

Notes to the Pros

• keep in mind that our youth are still embedded within their unique familial system- family of origin and the one that is raising them.
• acknowlege the traumatic losses that adoption creates
• Make sure you are holding/finding/ fighting for space for your own greif.
• The grief process leads to resiliancey