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A Summer of Grieving

Just when my heart felt as though it was healing a bit, pain tore through it again on Saturday, August 22 as we sad goodbye to my younger son’s dog Hami and helped him pass peacefully over the Rainbow Bridge.

We were, and remain, heartbroken. As anyone who has loved and nurtured a canine companion knows, the pet’s passing tears open a wound in your heart and life. Schedules and daily routines are warped. Attention focuses disappear. Wet noses, happy tongue slurps and silky fur strokes disappear. Even other pets in the house grieve and whimper as they scour the house looking for their companion.

Try as I might, I couldn’t function or concentrate well enough this past week to work on anything other than my upcoming manuscript. So I am using this post to honor Hami, who has been laid to rest near my citrus trees (where he reveled in nosing around and digging up beetle grubs).

I’m honoring him by printing the story I wrote about him that appeared in the recently released (last month) Chicken Soup for the Soul book, The Magic of Dogs.

Here is “Transforming Hami” in its entirety.

Transforming Hami

Hamilton von Watts was the last dog I would have adopted. When we first saw him, the big German Shorthaired Pointer/black Lab mix lay abjectly in his cage. A yellow identification tag noted his name.

But I wasn’t going to have much say in the adoption matter. This was going to be our thirteen-year-old son’s dog, and he was doing the selecting. I groaned when Cory asked the shelter employee to let Hamilton out of the cage to visit with him.

The seventeen-month-old mutt looked worse on inspection—filthy, with open wounds and a battalion of ticks. Touching his punctured ear elicited a sharp whine; patting him produced a dust cloud. His puffed right eye oozed, and he emitted an odious scent. But I could see the love pass between Cory and Hamilton when their eyes locked.

And then Hami plucked our heartstrings by flashing a toothy smile, a grin he produced by wrinkling up his nose, and baring his brilliant white teeth and chomping them together several times. An energetic snort punctuated each chomp. He even mustered enough pizzazz to happily paw the air. I could almost hear him cry out, “Please give me a chance!”

An hour later, after Cory and my husband, Chris, filled out the paperwork and plunked down the money for him, Hami bounded around the back of our Suburban. He seemed so grateful. I, however, remained dubious.

Hami’s introduction to our home was rough. He charged our cat, Tibbs, who attempted a warm nose-to-nose welcome. Our Queensland Heeler, Sydney, gave us an alarmed, now-you’ve- ruined-the-neighborhood look.

And while he clearly adored Cory, he cowered and scampered away from our eighteen- year-old son Parker and his buddies and acted anxious around Chris. When Chris removed his belt while undressing, Hami bolted from him. When friends visited, the sixty-five-pound dog growled and hid behind my legs or beneath my skirt. His legs quivered as he peered out at intruders. When frightened, which happened often, he urinated on the floor.

Hami was also undisciplined. He ignored commands and boundaries and led us on lengthy hunting expeditions for him through our hilly, cactus-filled neighborhood. A frequent refrain around our house was “Cory, come get your dog!”

I felt guilty about my uncharitable feelings, but Hami aggravated me. It wasn’t that I didn’t like dogs. Chris and I had cared for six of them so far during our marriage. And Chris said he knew I was “the one” because I was the only female his Border Collie, Felina, had ever liked.

But I liked high-IQ, compliant dogs. Classy dogs with manners and respect for my personal space. Not unruly dogs who barreled into rooms, knocking things—and me—over. I tried to avoid him, but as much as I tried, he insisted on following me around like a

sheep to a shepherd. He got underfoot when I worked in the kitchen. When he’d had enough roughhousing with Chris and the boys, he’d scurry away from them and lean against me for protection. I’d shoo the guys away and tell them sternly that the dog had had enough.

He seemed so grateful for everything I did for him, no matter how small it was—stroke his back, acknowledge his presence, or feed him. He’d give me that big, chompy smile and slurpy kiss and then tap dance in front of me.

I think Hami knew his perseverance would wear me down eventually. His smile, gratitude and amusing antics chipped away at my defenses. I couldn’t keep my heart from surrendering to this hurt dog. But my rigid brain needed coaxing to follow suit. I wrestled against frustration and expectations, prayed for divine patience, and changed my behavior.

Instead of avoiding Hami, I gritted my teeth and embarked on a mission to uncover his potential. I knew it had to be there under all that fear and pain. But could the trauma be undone?

I instructed Chris and the boys to top his kibble with nutrient-packed chicken and duck eggs. Cory spent hundreds of dollars of his own money to heal Hami’s wounds and eradicate his external and internal vermin. We lavished love and attention on him and made sure we avoided his anxiety triggers. When I sat on the floor next to him and massaged the right hip that caused him to limp and whine so much, he’d heave exaggerated sighs and lick my face. It took weeks of scrubbing ground-in grime from his broken body to uncover his sleek, dark chocolate coat.

And with all that love and attention, a miracle occurred. As the grime washed away, and his body and heart healed, Hami transformed. His formerly ragged coat glistened in the sunshine. He started trusting and obeying. His once fearful eyes emitted security. And he gained confidence in himself.

He started doing surveillance patrols around the house. He learned his boundaries and responded to commands. He became comfortable with our friends and made the rounds among them for fanny scratches and ear rubs. Every morning, primed to enjoy another day, he smiled and tap danced. In fact, he smiled all the time—when he went outside and when he was invited back in; when he was fed; and when he got leashed up for a walk. The refrain around our house became “Everyone should be as happy as Hami.” Even Sydney started to pal around with him.

In the process, I realized I was learning from Hami.

He taught me to be eternally grateful for everything, even the small things. Especially the small things. And to lighten up. He’d wheedled the dormant Type B personality out of me, the one I had long ago discarded. In the chaotic swirl of wifedom, motherhood and work, I’d become uptight, rigid, and preoccupied by trivial things. Hami re-directed my attention and taught me to smile at each new day.

And I’m still learning.

The ravages of time and a neurological disease wasting his hind leg muscles have taken their toll. But thirteen-year-old Hami is teaching me how to decline physically and age gracefully. I’m taking notes:

If you feel inclined, sleep a little more, and make the most out of what you can do when the body parts are limbered up and operating properly, which may take a while after a nap.
Don’t be too proud to let someone help you stand upright to get moving. Hobble outside to do your business, bark at the Amazon Prime guy, and soak up the sunshine. Life is good.
If you forget the rules and do something wrong, give your person a brilliant smile and bury your head in their lap. It works every time.
Never let your infirmities steal your gratefulness.

Not long ago, I gazed into Hami’s clouded eyes, cupped his gray muzzle in my hands,  and thanked him for what he’d done and for being patient with me. He heaved a sigh, plopped onto the floor next to me and fell asleep, seemingly satisfied that I’d understood his purpose.  Cory’s selection had been divinely directed.  Love and patience had transformed Hami—and me.

—Andrea Arthur Owan—

I’m looking forward to being reunited with this special dog on the other side of the Bridge.

Until next week, when we’ll return to the next post in our grieving recovery series, love your pets well and thank God every day for them.

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John).

How to Grieve Well: Successful Steps to Complete Your Grief Healing—Part 2

HOW ARE YOU at completing what you started, taking it all the way to the end? Would you say you’re a great starter, AND a great finisher? Or are you better at getting all excited about starting something, delving into it, only to find yourself fizzling out and leaving it undone?

I confess I’m a better starter than finisher. I usually burn up all my enthusiasm and energy for a project before putting the finishing touches of completion on it. All I have to do is glance around my house to prove it. Or open a craft box. (To my joy, many of those years-left-partially-finished-and-undone projects were recently completed. Hallelujah! But I had to really give myself a lot of pep talks and fanny kicking to do them.)

Complicate the matter with my ADD tendencies, and the fact that I often have too many projects going at one time, and you have a recipe for lots of starts but few completions.

But after a project is really finished, it feels soooo good. Not only does the project look and feel completed, and gives me pleasure, but I kind of feel completed too. Really satisfied. And better. Looking at undone projects depresses me, and makes me feel a little tarnished, like the threads of my life are hanging frayed and knotted.

Grief and grieving can follow the same course.

But just how do we ensure that we complete the grieving well and don’t leave any suppressed grief festering in our souls?

The “How” of Grief Recovery and Completion—

If statistics are correct, we are people who love to learn how to do things. We constantly search “How to” do this or that on the Internet. We want to learn, so we can accomplish things, grow, share our new knowledge and achieve. Change.

But as much as we want to be able to get through the grief we didn’t start on purpose, we don’t always ask “How?” or know what steps we should take to finish the grief, or complete it. Deep in our hearts, we still feel as though something’s not quite finished with the grieving process.

Last week we started our discussion on the grief completion process, and I introduced the term and idea of using a relationship review to help with that completion. Before we move on, though, let’s review the Grief Recovery Institute’s definition of completion.

“Completion is the action of discovering and communicating, directly or indirectly, the undelivered emotions that attach to any relationship that changes or ends.”

Sounds simple, straightforward and easy enough, doesn’t it?

But maybe it’s not.

Like any project we endeavor to start and complete, there are steps we need to take to get it done. We usually can’t do the steps out of order, and we sometimes need to wait patiently for one step to be completed (maybe dry or cure) before moving onto the next one. And if we bungle one, sometimes we need to tamp down our frustration, back up, and redo it. Otherwise the finished product looks kind of crummy and unfinished.

**What’s involved in grief completion?**

Again, before we move on, let’s review the truths of this completion definition.

Completion is an action. It requires the griever to do something for herself; to be an active participant.
Completion is an act of discovery, which implies uncovering hidden truths or tangible items. Bringing into the light what was once hidden from sight or recognition.
Completion is communicating, verbalizing what was once unspoken or unexpressed.
Completion uncovers or sheds light on emotionsthat have not previously been acknowledged or expressed.

Grief completion is the process you go through. It’s where you dig deeply into your heart and memory banks to find and expose those emotions that naturally accompany any relationship. The emotions you buried or were lying dormant.

The emotions that brought you joy.

The emotions that brought you pain.

The emotions you felt guilty for having.

The emotions you wanted to express, but, for whatever reason, you didn’t or couldn’t.

Through that act of discovery—identifying those honest emotions and expressing them—you move forward to completing your grief. Putting yourself back together, to be whole and thrive.

And the means by which we can do this is the relationship review.

What is a relationship review?

A relationship review happens when we dig down deep and draw out and express those emotions we had, and may still have, surrounding a relationship and its loss.

Happy emotions. Sad emotions. Regretful or guilty emotions. Unfinished emotions.

Emotions directly related to your relationship with the person, job, or pet you lost.

The family member that died. The house and community you had to leave. The beloved pet you had to put down. The job you walked away from, or lost. The friend that decided they no longer valued you or your friendship and said goodbye.

Those are the emotions swirling around what you wished could or would have been different, better, or more about the relationship. Unrealized hopes and dreams about the future. The ones you had to say goodbye to or walk away from.

The discovery of those emotions can be used to complete what is emotionally unfinished.

Who’s responsible for making the correct action choices?

In spite of exhaustion or a desire to ignore and hope it goes away, it is the griever who needs to take these decisive actions. A concerned friend or family member can’t do it for them. While you may suggest and encourage, go first, or walk alongside, or be a listening ear, you cannot force or do.

You cannot complete this difficult project for them.

Recovery from grief or loss is achieved by a series of steps—small and correct actions—made by the griever.

Each griever had his or her own unique relationship with the person, family, pet, or circumstance. The actions they take are entirely about their relationship—not anyone else’s—with those people or things.

Other people’s relationship emotions must not be planted into the griever’s mind.

And therein lies the danger of sharing your emotions with family members.

While some siblings or other family survivors are good, sympathetic listeners, others may try to guide, put down or dismiss another survivor’s emotions. This only causes a griever to clam up, shut down, and then never revisit the grief. Or, they might claim others’ expressed emotions as their own.

All these things must be guarded against, which is why joining a grief group, or connecting with someone trained in the process can be so helpful and effective. You feel freer to really bare and share your heart and all those emotions. You won’t need to worry about being judged, criticized or belittled for your feelings or voiced expressions.

When to begin the relationship review in the grieving process?

It is never too late to do a relationship review. If you feel stuck in grief or that you have unfinished relationship or circumstance emotions you never addressed, the review is helpful.

And there is no perfect time to begin the relationship review, although the sooner you start after the acute pain wears off is a good time. Sometimes it’s when you just feel and know it’s right to venture into the waters.

But watch out for negative grief influences!

What might hamper a relationship review?

Our Western world tends to look down on “sad” emotions. We negate emotional pain and suffering and tuck it into the “weak” category.

You may have been influenced by this pervasive thought and feel self-conscious or fearful of baring those different, more, and better thoughts and feelings.

Again, this is where a grief group or knowledgeable and sympathetic guide can be helpful.

Other things that might hamper a relationship review are myths, like saying everybody dies eventually. Or just pull yourself by your bootstraps and move on. Don’t feel bad, as though feeling bad is evil. Or believing if you just stay busy enough it won’t hurt as much, or it will go away.

None of those beliefs or tactics work. In fact, they can be detrimental to healing.

How to embark on a relationship review—

The first thing to remember is that all grief is experienced at 100 percent. Everyone experiences a loss at her own level of intensity. And that level is usually based on the uniqueness of the relationship.

While I am still suffering the loss of a dear friend and confidante, my friend’s husband and children are suffering in infinitely different and deeper ways. I must be very careful not to compare my suffering with theirs, or presume to know how each of them is feeling.

Like the physical effects they might be experiencing.

The physical effects of grief—

Grief fills up your entire being. No part of your body, soul, mind or spirit is left untouched. That’s why you can feel physically ill and in real pain. Just look what WebMD had to say about the physical effects of grief in a July 2019 article.

“A range of studies reveal the powerful effects grief can have on the body. Grief increases inflammation, which can worsen health problems you already have and cause new ones. It batters the immune system, leaving you depleted and vulnerable to infection. The heartbreak of grief can increase blood pressure and the risk of blood clots. Intense grief can alter the heart muscle so much that it causes “broken heart syndrome,” a form of heart disease with the same symptoms as a heart attack.”

Several weeks after my father died, my family went on a ski trip. I thought I was “managing” my grief, until the night I suddenly and unexpectedly had a rapid heart rate and started hyperventilating and had to lie down on the floor. For a moment I thought I might be experiencing a heart attack, until my mind landed on what was really going on.

A panic attack.

My body was reacting to my grief, throwing out symptoms of my pain. My heart muscle and lungs were suffering right along with my mind. After several minutes of controlled breathing and relaxation techniques, my heart calmed down and my breathing normalized.

A warning sign that things still were not well. I needed to continue the healing process.

The dangers of trying to intellectualize death and grief—

Ever have the question “Why?” run through your mind after a loved one dies?

What seems like an intellectual reaction is actually more an emotional lamentation.

Before you try to answer that question of why with a scientific explanation, it’s better to examine the real question. And sometimes, even after all the scientific evaluation is done and satisfied, the answer to that question is: “I don’t know why.”

So be careful of trying to shift your or a griever’s responses away from emotions and toward intellectual reasoning.

You want to maintain safety of expression so you, or the griever, can tell the emotional truth. You’re angry. You’re feeling upended and lost. Your heart feels splintered, or aches to the point of bursting. You’re upset about something the person said to you before they died. Or didn’t say. The way the whole thing happened.

When do feelings of loss end?

Don’t expect your grief feelings to end right after the funeral or memorial service. Feelings continue. Sometimes for a long time.

It’s never too late to review and address the emotions that pop into your mind and heart.

As Amy Davis, a recovered griever who was quoted in the WebMD article noted about grief:

“Lean into it. You only get to grieve your loved one once. Don’t spend the whole time trying to distract yourself or push it down….you will miss feeling that connected to that person again. And if you feel like your whole life has fallen apart, that’s fine! It totally has. Now you get to decide how to put yourself back together. Be creative. There’s new life to be lived all around you.”

Right on, Amy!

Invitation—

Who in your life would make an ideal grief listener? Someone you could share your innermost feelings with and not be made to feel weak or bad after voicing those emotions.

Is there a grief group in your area or online that you could access, to honestly share your pain?

How do you think you could benefit from it?

NEXT WEEK we’ll take a step further in undertaking a relationship review by looking at the initial questions to ask yourself and examining the emotional energy checklist.

Until then, don’t hide from your grief or try to wish it away, or cover it up with busyness. As Amy Davis said, “Lean into it.” If you take the right steps and make productive choices, you can and will thrive again!

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John).


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people to thrive physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

How to Grieve Well: Successful Steps to Complete Your Grief Healing—Part I

When you’ve been dropkicked into grief, you’re usually stunned by the intense pain—the fear, the deep heartache, the feeling that all your insides have been ripped out and you’re bleeding internally. And one of the first questions going through your mind is:

How am I going to survive this?

Because acute grief leads you to believe that what you’re experiencing isn’t survivable.

I think what we’re really asking ourselves, though, is: How, exactly, does one grieve? What does the grief process look like? How do I know if I’m doing this right? How do I do it right?

Will I ever recover?

While there’s still a debate on whether or not someone truly recovers from grief (based on the pure definition of “recovery”), there are steps we can take to complete our intense grieving, and heal so we can return to a normal, fulfilling life after a loss.

It is the process or path to grief completion that can help us get there.

What is grief completion?

When we complete something, we bring it to a close or conclusion. A wrap-up. If we understand that grief is an emotion—often intense, overwhelming and paralyzing—we can better understand that grief is a valley we can and should walk through with a goal to arrive on the other side, into a brighter day.

According to the Grief Recovery Institute, their definition of [grief] completion is:

“Completion is the action of discovering and communicating, directly or indirectly, the undelivered emotions that attach to any relationship that changes or ends.”

Examine that definition closely and pull it apart to understand each intricate part.

Completion is an action. It requires the griever to do something for herself; to be an active participant.
Completion is an act of discovery, which implies uncovering hidden truths or tangible items. Bringing into the light what was once hidden from sight or recognition.
Completion is communicating, verbalizing what was once unspoken or unexpressed.
Completion uncovers or sheds light on emotions that have not previously been acknowledged or expressed.

The emotions that brought you joy.

The emotions that brought you pain.

The emotions you felt guilty for having.

The emotions you wanted to express, but, for whatever reason, you didn’t or couldn’t.

Death, divorce, friendship loss, job loss, pet loss, moving, and other “loss” all bring with them emotional upheavals that often don’t get addressed adequately. Emotions over things that did happen. Emotions over things that didn’t.

Those deeply buried, undelivered emotions are the components of grief that can leave us stuck in our healing process.

Can you “recover” from grief?

When we’re grieving, we wonder if we’ll ever be able to enjoy life again. We wonder if things will ever get any better.

As I asked above: Will we recover?

The answer, I believe, is yes—and no.

If you will allow me to use a physical injury as my first example, I’ll explain.

When an athlete was injured, my first responsibility was to determine the exact injury and its degree, or seriousness. Knowing the degree determined how I approached treatment and prescribed steps to adequate healing. Depending upon the tissue injured—skin, bone, soft tissue, nerve, etc.—a mild injury usually healed well and completely within two to six weeks, maybe sooner. IF the athlete followed treatment and recovery protocol.

For more serious injuries, more time and more complex treatment would be ordered, and the athlete’s condition and adherence to treatment played a big role in how that recovery went. Some athletes required surgery, which made full recovery even more complex. And sometimes impossible.

Yes, impossible.

When I fractured my leg during a championship meet, it was a complex fracture requiring careful treatment. Unfortunately, the doctors caring for me didn’t do the best job devising an adequate treatment plan. Surgery was offered, which I accepted. And then the doctor said he didn’t want to do surgery, and cited numerous reasons why. One doctor said he’d never seen a fracture like that before and didn’t know what to do. So they casted me for six weeks and then set up a treatment regimen.

I followed their treatment protocol, which wasn’t too specific, outside wearing my cast and staying on my crutches. And then some basic rehab, which involved whirlpool range of motion exercises. But that, it turns out, wasn’t adequate treatment for my type of fracture—one that was eventually written up in a journal for its oddity and difficulty treating.

Fast forward 43 years and 7 re-fractures later, and I’m still having difficulty with my right leg. The bone never healed straight enough, and I now have a leg length difference between my right and left leg due to the angle my leg takes when I walk.

If I go strictly by the definition of “recovery”—“to return to a normal state of health, mind or strength,” I would have to say I have not fully recovered from that injury. Not counting the age factor, I can’t do the things I used to do. I couldn’t do them right after the injury. And I could never return to doing them because of it.

Life is different.

The initial pain was so gut wrenching I would have been happy to be put out of my misery. Put down like some damaged racehorse. But eventually things got better, and the pain wasn’t as acute. And I am able to do a lot of physical activity, for which I’m grateful.

But all these years later, my brain is sometimes teased by regrets, and what used to be. And maybe what could have been. Especially when I have to think twice or three times about whether or not I should attempt a certain ski run, or hang up my downhill skis and turn exclusively to cross-country skiing now. And those thoughts sometimes trigger strong emotions, regrets and grief. It’s funny what can trigger grief’s return.

But now it’s not as gut-level painful. Instead, memories trigger a dull regret or sadness.

And it’s much the same when I think about our daughter, Victoria, and her death.

I thought the initial grief pain would kill me. Sometimes I hoped it would. But as I traversed the grieving process, the visceral pain and heartache became less intense. Twenty-seven years later the sadness still lingers, but I’m no longer living in it moment-by-moment.

Did life return to a state of normal for me? No. Life is different. Much different than it would be if our precious girl had survived.

But I’ve completed my grieving. I’m no longer suffering that deep anguish and fear. I’ve returned to a full life of joy and purpose.

And that’s the point and goal of grief completion.

What to do with those unfinished or undelivered emotions?

These unfinished emotions are often what cause us the most anguish. The thoughts of “what if.” The words left unspoken; the planned events cancelled. The holidays where someone is missing. The interactions that will never take place.

As much as we hope or intend to, it’s nearly impossible for our relationships or circumstances to end without those relationships containing some unfinished or undelivered emotions. Because our thoughts, opinions, and feelings about people and things change so often, our relationships are prone to constant minor and major shifts.

And because we can’t erase our emotional memories, we relive emotions—happy, warm or regretful—about an event or person throughout our lives. Indeed, grief can be re-triggered by dates, anniversaries, general event and location memories. Special music.

But there is a way to uncover those emotions, bring them into the light and understand them better. Confront them and take active action steps toward healing.

And one of the first things you can do is a relationship review.

What is a relationship review?

A relationship review often happens automatically after a loss. Have you ever sat around at a memorial luncheon, reminiscing about the person you’re honoring? Telling funny stories. Sharing memories.

That’s a basic relationship review. You’re sharing thoughts about the person’s relationship and interactions with you, and others are sharing their relationship to them. It helps keep the person’s memory alive and helps you advance into the grief completion process.

But you can, and should, go deeper with this process.

And that’s what we’ll delve into next week. How a relationship review can help us uncover the things we wished had been different. The things we wished had been better, the things we wished we could have enjoyed more of.

Discovering those wishes and thoughts can help us complete was is emotionally unfinished.

It’s all about small and correct action choices a grieving person takes to heal. Without them, we risk stunting our grieving and growth.

So let’s not think of grief recovery as getting to a time where we don’t remember our loved ones and never feel remorse over their death or estrangement from us, over no longer sharing life with them.

While the acute mourning eventually subsides, the memories and occasional melancholy linger.

And that’s okay.

Sigmund Freud had something to say about how the death of a loved one affects us.

“Although we know that after such a loss the acute state of mourning will subside, we also know we shall remain inconsolable and will never find a substitute. No matter what may fill the gap, even if it be filled completely, it nevertheless remains something else. And actually that is how it should be. It is the only way of perpetuating that love which we do not want to relinquish.” Letter from Sigmund Freud to Ludwig Binswanger, April 11, 1929

Invitation—

If you’re in the midst of grief, or if you feel as though you haven’t fully completed a grieving process, I invite you to ask yourself the following questions about the emotions you’re experiencing from your loss and maybe jot them down. We’ll use them in future sessions.

What emotions that came along with the loss brought/bring you joy?
What emotions brought/bring you pain?
What emotions did/do you feel guilty for having?
What emotions did you want to express, but, for whatever reason, you didn’t or couldn’t?

NEXT WEEK we’ll explore more of what a relationship review entails and the questions to ask yourself in prompting a review to uncover all that emotional energy behind grieving.

Until then, be safe, be kind to yourself and others, and don’t be afraid to lean into your grieving.

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John).


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, award-winning inspirational writer and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people recover from grief, loss and trauma, and to thrive — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

The Shock of Grief: Grieving the Death of a Friend

I’ve encountered a lot of grief in my life, but it’s always just as horrible when it happens again, and especially when it happens unexpectedly. Sudden, unexpected grief leaves you in shock, like your insides have been gutted, your nerves have been supercharged to numbness, and your life energy has been vacuumed away.

Life seems instantly duller, and you aren’t quite sure how you’re going to go on. Everything—even making decisions—requires more energy, and you find you need to sleep more. If you can sleep. Otherwise you shuffle around in a perennial state of exhaustion.

That’s what happened to me on the afternoon of Sunday, July 19, when I called a local hospital to speak with a friend who was there awaiting heart valve replacement surgery the following day. When I asked to speak with my friend Carmen, the nurse asked me to hold a minute. Then another nurse came on the line and asked how she could help me.

In the pit of my stomach, I knew something was amiss.

When I repeated the same request to her, a pause followed. A long-enough pause to make my heart speed up a little. But then her answer made my heart race and my gut ache. Even while knowing, I hoped it wasn’t true.

“Carmen is no longer a patient in our hospital.”

I was politely told I’d have to contact her family for more information.

Terror and pain assailed my senses as I called her husband and received confirmation of my deepest fear.

My beloved friend had gone into sudden cardiac arrest around 3:00 AM and been given a direct flight to heaven.

The world instantly felt duller without her in it.

So now I’m limping along, trying to follow the playbook and do everything I teach you and my clients to do:

Lean into my emotions.
Write those emotions down and try to understand them.
Get exercise, even though that may the last thing on my mind.
Eat right, since eating doesn’t sound appealing right now.
Get plenty of sleep; and take naps when slogging through the afternoon seems an exercise in futility and won’t improve anything anyway.
Remind myself that staying busy isn’t going to make this better.
Talk about my loved one with family and friends. (My children have been great, passionate, and sympathetic listeners!)
Cry on my shoulder or in his arms. He knew her and is missing her too.
Give listening time to her husband and daughter. Just listen—and reminisce with them.
Write down what I would have liked to have been better about our friendship, what I would have liked more of; what I would have liked to do and know. What I liked best about our friendship and her.

Reminding myself that my friend confronted a lot of health hurdles, and this one was the latest and worst, helps me rejoice in her leaving us to enjoy her new home, where she is more alive than she’s ever been. And out of pain and sorrow.

But for now, I’m taking my own advice and working through this. To do that means I’m taking a two to three-week hiatus from my blogging. And in that period, my younger son has asked me to accompany him on a brief road trip to collect his new Shetland sheepdog puppy from a farm. I’m looking forward to the trip—to have coveted mother-son time and breathe a little.

But when I return, I’ll be right back here to help others navigate the grief valley and emerge from it recovered, healed, whole and read to thrive again.

Blessings,

Andrea

Aloha, my dear friend.

Until we meet again.

Grief Struggles: Short-Term Energy-Relieving Behaviors (STERBs)

Many things cause us to struggle or stumble in our grief recovery. Things like well meaning but misguided friends, and our attempts to hurry up our grief recovery. And our grief recovery struggles can be worsened by our own behavior errors, like using short-term energy-relieving behavior, or STERBs.

Knowing, understanding and recognizing STERBs can help us short circuit them, or avoid lapsing into them in the first place.

But just what is a STERB?

STERB: a short-term energy relieving behavior—

When we’re grieving, we often look for outlets for our pain. Many of these outlets we learned when we were children, when our mother gave us a cookie or treat to help us “feel better.”

When we get older, our well-meaning friends might take us out on the town to drink our sorrows away.

We might sit in front of the television, mindlessly binge-watching programs we’ve already seen countless times. Or read fantasy or romance books that whisk our imaginations away to places we wish we were living.

Away from our pain-ridden reality.

We may have been taught to try to substitute something for the loss, like going shopping.

These are all examples of short-term energy relieving behaviors.

Why do we use STERBs in grief?

Grief brings with it sad, painful or negative feelings. And those sad emotions produce tangible energy. Energy we want, and need, to relieve.

So we find ourselves searching for ways to distract ourselves.

Enter the handy STERB.

The dangers of STERBs—

If we substitute, try to take the easy way out, and don’t complete our grieving process well, we can carry around negative attachments to life events for years.

Have you ever met someone who relays a sad, personal life event to you in such a way that makes you feel as though the event happened yesterday, when in reality it’s been decades since the event happened? And they vividly relay the story over and over and over.

It takes a lot of energy to hang onto a painful story, to re-tell it as though you’re reliving it.

The energy it takes to hang onto that pain doesn’t just go underground and stay buried. It manifests itself in other ways, like physical ailments, diseases, and emotional and mental health issues.

There are physical consequences to holding onto the sadness or anger surrounding grief. Or trying to substitute a distraction for concrete, effective healing.

Some permanent habits and problems that might have started out as a STERB:

Smoking
Overeating
Drinking/Alcoholism
Over the Counter (OTC) drug overuse and abuse
Illegal drug abuse
Addictive exercise
Eating disorders—bulimia, anorexia nervosa, binge eating
Workaholism
Anger issues/Tantrums/Acting out
Fantasy (video games, computers, books, television, movies)
Isolation and Avoidance
Sex
Shopping (sometimes jokingly called “retail therapy”)

More often than not we use a STERB to self-medicate—numb our way out of the pain and sadness.

The Grief Recovery Institute points out that:

“Depending on age and other circumstances, the vast majority of young people begin their involvement with drugs and alcohol soon after a major loss experience.” (James, Friedman, and Matthews, When Children Grieve, 86)

Aside from this depressing and alarming statistic, there are— according to The Grief Recovery Institute—three major problems with STERBs.

They appear to work.

Notice the word “appear.” What might be mistaken for an effective, positive result is actually a created illusion. And that illusion causes you to bypass or bury the emotion.

But emotions don’t automatically die when you try to bury them alive. They find some other way to fight their way out, and often that means negatively affecting other body systems.

Short-term energy relievers are just that—short term.

STERBs don’t last, and they don’t address the emotional issue. And, like any drug, they often require higher and higher doses over time to be effective. Pretty soon you’ve got a habit or addiction you can’t stop.

In the long run, STERBs do nothing to relieve the pressure building up from the pent-up or ignored grief emotion.

In short, STERBs can cause more problems than they solve.

And they can add to the problem of unresolved grief.

If not STERBs for grief relief, then what?

We don’t want to just mow down the weeds in our lawn, we want to root them out so healthy grass can grow and we can enjoy all the benefits of a beautiful lawn.

We don’t want to just stuff the emotions, we want to address them, deal with them, so our lives can get fully back on track. And we can once again prosper and be happy.

In order to make a full recovery from grief, we need to achieve what is known as grief completion.

And that’s what we’ll explore more of next week.

Invitation:

Can you identify any STERBs in your life you can trace back to a specific loss or grief?
Can you identify any STERBs that seemed to work for you during a time of loss or grief but you now recognize as a problem?
How have STERBs worsened your grief or made it more difficult to recover from it?

NEXT WEEK we’ll delve into what grief completion is and embark on our journey to achieve it.

Until then, explore what STERBs you started in your life that have become pesky, nervous or avoidant habits.

Get ready to be set free!

And I’ll see you back here next week!

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John).

Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, award-winning inspirational writer and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people recover from grief, loss and trauma, and to thrive in life — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.