On Thursday October 12th, Don shared with us his presentation entitled “ Stuck in the Moment “

Don began by sharing that it has been a weird year for he and Miriam. With his son Josh moving home, and his continued health issues, and now the loss of Miriam’s job. He shared with us that loss seems to be overtaking his family right now. 

Sometimes when what is going on around us seems to be too much for you to process emotionally in that moment, you may shut down. But we have to go on. The world is suddenly different and we must adjust to it while we work through all the feels. In this moment, You likely are in a mild to severe state of shock. And it will take a while for that to go away. 

So how do we get unstuck? Don shared with us that Classic psychology lists there are five phases of grief.  The first one is Denial.  This helps us minimize the overwhelming pain of loss. As we process the reality of our loss, we are also trying to survive emotional pain. It can be hard to believe we have lost an important person or thing in our lives, especially when we may have just spoken with this person the previous week or even the previous day. 

Don gave us a few examples of this type of denial: 

 If you’re facing the death of a loved one, you might find yourself fantasizing someone will call to say there’s been a mistake and nothing really happened. • If you’re dealing with a breakup, you might convince yourself your partner will soon regret leaving and come back to you. • If you lost your job, you might feel your former boss will offer you the position back. But you wake up the next day and what happened is what happened. 

When this happens to you, for the first 24 hours: Remember to eat, Get some sleep, and maybe even cry. Don’t forget to rely on others, your family, your friends, someone from our support group. 

Don shared with us a quote that I really loved. “ Remember: You are not a failure just because you had a failure.”

The second stage of grief is Anger.

 Feeling intensely angry might surprise you or your loved ones.  But Don tells us it’s not uncommon. This anger serves a purpose. During the anger stage of grief, you might start asking questions like “Why me?” or “What did I do to deserve this?” You could also feel suddenly angry at inanimate objects, strangers, friends, or family members. You might feel angry at life in general. 

The next stage of grief is Bargaining. Bargaining is a stage of grief that helps you hold on to hope in a situation of intense pain. This is perhaps the time where you are least rational about what has happened, but you still really want the outcome to change. You might think to yourself that you’re willing to do anything and sacrifice everything if your life is restored to what it was

Phase 4 of grief is Depression.

During our experience of processing grief, there comes a time when our imaginations calm down and we slowly start to look at the reality of our present situation. Bargaining May no longer feel free like an option. 

We are faced with what is happening, and we start to feel the loss more.  As our panic begins to subside, the emotional fog begins to clear and the loss feels more present. 

In these depressive moments,  we may pull inward as the sadness grows. We might find ourselves retreating, being less sociable, and reaching out less to others about what we are going through.  Dealing with depression after the loss can be extremely isolating. 

And finally the stage of Acceptance. 

We all fail at some point. Failure happens to everyone.  It is a “normal” part of life. Not pleasant, but normal. But for us it tends to stay with us more . 

 Acceptance is more about how you acknowledge the losses you’ve experienced, how you learn to live with them, and how you readjust your life accordingly. 

So, how do we actually help ourselves get through loss? One of the things you will find yourself doing as you progress through the steps we have talked about is questioning yourself.  So, here are some common questions you may have.

 1. ‘I am doing it wrong’

When it comes to healing from a loss, there’s no correct way of doing it. You might find it useful to remind yourself there’s no “I should be feeling this

2. ‘I should be feeling…’ Not everyone experiences all the above-mentioned stages or even goes through these emotions the same way. For example, maybe the depression stage feels more like irritability than sadness for you. Your healing experience is unique and while different from someone else’s, it is your mind and body telling you what you need to heal.

 3. ‘My stages are not in the right order!’ Remember, there’s no specific or linear order for the stages of grief. You could move along the stages one by one, or you could go back and forth. Some days you might feel very sad, and the very next day you could wake up feeling hopeful. 

4. ‘It’s taking too long’ Some people navigate through grief in a few days. Others take months or longer to process their loss. There is no timeline, there are no deadlines to your process. 

5. ‘I’m depressed’. That may well be.  But, going through the stages of grief, particularly the depression stage, isn’t equivalent to clinical depression. There’s a distinction between having clinical depression and grieving. Think of grief depression as having a really bad series of days or weeks and clinical depression is a disease that needs to be treated.

 So, How do we unstick ourselves from this painful moment? We must actually believe the past is what we evaluate and learn from but do not live in. Accept that failure on some level has happened.

Accept that failure on some level has happened and ask yourself: What part of this was me? What part of this were the circumstances? Of the things I could control, what can I do better next time? 

And through all of this, remember, you are strong. Just being at group on Thursday’s means you know how to reach out for help.

Make an action plan. The plan you come up with will just be a start. You can make needed changes along the way. So you don’t have to make the perfect plan. But you do have to make it today, and you do have to start working it. 

Realize while today is painful, tomorrow does not have to be. Tomorrow is all about hard work and faith. Work to make the changes you need to make on yourself so at least you do not fail in the same way again. And Faith. Faith in whatever you believe in, but most importantly faith in yourself. You have to sometimes believe in a better tomorrow even though you can’t see it right away.

You are stronger than you know. You can handle it, even when you feel like you can’t.  Most of grief is short term, so do your best to keep it together. You are stronger than you know. Be gentle with yourself. Grief can be exhausting and draining. Care for your body during periods of intensive stress. Carve out time for naps, eat nourishing foods, and drink plenty of water. 

Remember nothing is ever really lost. People that are important to you live on in your mind and will come to you when you need them the most. And remember, after all of this, no matter how much you are hurting, you’re going to be okay!