Panic Attacks - Grief and Bereavement Solutions For... CHILDREN!

 I have become somewhat of an expert on the subject of panic attacks, having done great battle with them after Brian, my life partner, died. It was a 21 day journey from diagnosis to his crossing and I was running on so much adrenalin at that point that I am certain that my body chemistry had shifted.

I have posted on this subject before:

GROUNDING TECHNIQUES FOR PANIC ATTACKS

and

WHAT A PANIC ATTACK FEELS LIKE

If you click on the titles, it will take you to those posts...

Occasionally I run across something that I feel adds to these posts... That happened today. There is a youtube video that captures breathing techniques FOR CHILDREN!

I love this. It is good to watch this with your young ones when it is a non-stressful moment so they focus on the skills, practice and have fun. Repeat the phrases that they use, sing along, bodily copy what they are doing in the video - all this will help create a mind map that the kids can go back to when they are stressed out!

Take a look:

Parents, please comment and let me know your thoughts... is this helpful?

Love,
Kim

Camp Widow West Ensues!

I am honored to be leading 2 workshops at Camp Widow West this year. I will be the panel moderator for a discussion on children of widows on Friday late afternoon. And, I am excited to present an intensive on both Friday and Saturday called "Rituals for the Journey."

Camp Widow West™ 2012 will be held at the San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina in San Diego, California from August 10-12, 2012.

See below!

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY

Here I am, wearing an Amish hat! (Just kidding!)

FRIDAY ONLY

To see more, go to www.campwidow.org

NOTE: I just learned that anyone who signs up because they heard about camp from me can use the group rate registration which saves them $50!

Love,
Kim

EMDR - what the heck is it and will it help?

If you are having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) you may fall into one or more of three categories:  

• intrusive memories
• avoidance and numbing
• increased anxiety or emotional arousal (hyperarousal)

You may have someone suggest EMDR treatment to you. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and is a treatment for PTSD.

In EMDR, a patient brings to mind emotionally unpleasant images and beliefs about themselves related to their traumatic event. With these thoughts and images in mind, patients are asked to experience bi-lateral stimulation as guided by the therapist.

I traveled to New England to receive EMDR but you can find a local clinician.

 In your first session, the clinician will likely explain how EMDR might be used to address the specific concerns you have identified - and help you to identify the "target(s)" for EMDR reprocessing - the particular feeling(s), memory(ies), belief(s), or situation(s) that has been problematic for you.

There are different types of bilateral stimulation. Your clinician may use ear phones, tappers held in your hands, lights that can be followed by your eyes or various types of music with embedded bilateral sounds.

Using bilateral stimulation, you explore positive resources in your mind. EMDR is very effective at enhancing positive images, thoughts, and memories. Later, when working with upsetting targets, you can return to these positive resources as a place of safety, support, and calm.

As you think about the target - bilateral stimulation helps your mind "reprocess" the target by allowing your mind to move towards new thoughts and feelings. "Desensitization" occurs when there is a decrease in the anxiety or negative emotions associated with the target. When you no longer find the target disturbing, you have arrived at "adaptive resolution".

How many sessions will be needed? 

Repeated studies show that EMDR can be extremely effective in as few as three sessions - compared to years in more traditional forms of therapy (see the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, vol.13,1999). Often one might anticipate 6 sessions and an assessment on whether to continue or to conclude EMDR. The time frame of the work will largely be determined by your needs and goals.

I used EMDR and it has been highly effective for me. I had a talented clinician and attended 8 sessions. I highly recommend EMDR.

Love, 

Kim

Gathering Memories After The Loss Of A Partner

My husband died in June of 2008 of pancreatic cancer.

Gatherings

I am coming up on the anniversary of Brian's death, his birthday and Father's Day.

I am remembering Brian.

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother - Caretaking My Husband In Hospice

Last Sunday I hauled my tired and weary self to a local church wondering what might be there for me.

As a backdrop to this - I am sad to report that it has been a long time since I have been moved to weep at a Sunday service anywhere. Given that I have spent the last 3+ years traveling around the United States and actively grieving the loss of my soul mate, it seems like I would have cried often during church - generally, tears have not been in short supply. However, very few services have brought me to tears. I suspect this is an indication of how far away my life path has taken me from what a majority of what a church service is about. I have been in the slow grist of death and so much of church seems to be about being in the motion and details of undisturbed living.

But this Sunday, I wept.

Mid-way through the service, after an at-length apology about the lack of inclusive language, the choir sang a choral version of the song "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother."

This song has been around for many decades. I have heard it enough that I thought I knew most of the lyrics. But, now I am listening with new ears. The ears of a person that assisted someone in crossing over under hospice care.

When you agree to be a caregiver with hospice, you will find yourself doing many custodial tasks -  lifting a person physically who can no longer stand on their own two feet. Feeding someone who can no longer hold a spoon. We trim, toilet and wash, comb and brush. We administer meds. And more importantly, we lend a watchful eye to insure the provision of a safe and loving environment for the dying to spend their final days in.

Upon hearing these lyrics, the clouds parted and I was hearing something about love, as if for the first time. There was a clarity of kindness, an honest recognition of the need of community and commitment in our places of being stripped down... the bonds that hold us together in our most fundamental weakness and strengths.

I recognized so much wisdom in the words - so I was determined to know who wrote this song.

There are a lot of details that I might say about the song's origins, but I would like to only focus on one factor - that one of the two co-authors of this song was dying of cancer of the lymph nodes.

Yet, the song is written from the perspective of the one that is able-bodied to assist. Perhaps the lyrics were written by the co-author who was healthy. I am uncertain. Yet, it seems to me that the song being birthed around the dying makes perfect sense. Perhaps this is why the song is so stripped down to the elemental of what rests between human beings. What I imagine - is when confronted by a person who is actively dying or when we are actively dying - that we finally understand what all humans need.

My husband died in June of 2008 of pancreatic cancer.

I am a widow. My husband died in June 2008. I miss him so. But, I would do it all over again.

The Lyrics:

The road is long

With many a winding turn

That leads us to who knows where

Who knows when
But I'm strong

Strong enough to carry him

He ain't heavy, he's my brother
So on we go

His welfare is of my concern

No burden is he to bear
We'll get there

For I know
He would not encumber me

He ain't heavy, he's my brother
If I'm laden at all
I'm laden with sadness

That everyone's heart
Isn't filled with the gladness

Of love for one another
It's a long, long road
From which there is no return

While we're on the way to there

Why not share
And the load

Doesn't weigh me down at all
He ain't heavy, he's my brother.

"He ain't heavy, he's my brother" is a statement of disputed origins, many tales around it's source are interesting. The statement is what is called a paraprosdokian - a phrasing where the second half of the phrase causes the listener to revisit and gain a different understanding of the first part of the phrase.

To illustrate, this is where the assumptive reasoning would take us upon hearing:
"He ain't heavy..."

"... he only weighs 180 pounds."
"... he lost a lost of weight."
"... he is only 5 years old."

Instead, we hear an unexpected reason for the ease of carrying the person...

"... he is my brother."

This is often a device of humor, seldom is it used for an emotionally moving sentence. In this phrase, it alerts us to the bond between human beings as the metric for when something is a burden or a sacred responsibility.

Brian was my life partner, and in that way I would call him a mate as well as a lover and a brother. In 2008, I joined thousands of people who choose the supporting structure of hospice care as a way to carry our brothers and sisters down a long road with many a winding turn
, that leads to who knows where
, who knows when. I have often said that helping Brian cross over with the least amount of pain and the most amount of love was the most sacred thing I have ever done in my life.

When I meet others that have been caregivers with hospice, there is a connection that occurs - because we know what it means to work to deliver a person to the other side with loving-kindness and peace. We share the art of dying with the nurses and doctors. We do not shrink away from caring for our beloved unto death.

And when people voice how frightening, how hard and awful that might be, I can honestly say that it is awful and hard - but I would do it again for Brian or anyone else that I cared for. Because helping someone die surrounded by safety and peace - as much as is possible - is what we do when we love each other.

Brian actively dying from pancreatic cancer

Love,
Kim

Explaining Death To A Child

Natalie Merchant's new song HERE



Spring and Fall: to a Young Child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving? 

Leaves, like the things of man, you 

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? 

Ah! as the heart grows older 

It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; 

And yet you will weep and know why. 

Now no matter, child, the name: 

Sorrow's springs are the same. 

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed 

What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed: 

It is the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins


“Goldengrove,” - a child's play-world - is “unleaving,” or losing its leaves as winter approaches. Age will change her innocent response to loss, and that later whole “worlds” of forest will lie in leafless disarray (“leafmeal,” like “piecemeal”). Margaret will weep later, but for a more conscious reason - Margaret is already mourning over her own mortality.

Grief Caveats - Don't Be Outside Our Boxes, Please

"mellehcimb" is a blogger that I have been reading recently... her blog is full of her beautiful poems. Her blog cycles over the sacred grounds of her mourning. Her fiance', Nelson James, succumbed to sudden cardiac arrest in November 2009. She is mourning his loss, trying to pick up the pieces, and figure out where to go from here.

She writes a list that I think gives insight into the specific challenges that a "never married" in a faith community has in grieving... a high view of the institution of marriage can equal a low view of grief:

1) Don't tell me we might have/would have broken up. Our mutual love is one of the things I've still got.

2) Don't tell me I'll find someone new. It's not a breakup. We loved each other deeply. When he passed, we were planning on soon being engaged. See above. Our mutual love--and the memory of that-- is one of the few things I've still got.

3) Don't tell me I'll eventually be ready to find someone new, find new love, etc. I really don't care. I found the real thing, I found the man I wanted to get married to, and he died. Whether I get married now, ever, or not, I don't care--indefinitely.

4) Don't tell me I need to move on. It hasn't even been a month yet since his death. From all accounts, the first year is very hard, especially for widows, which I might as well be (albeit not legally).

5) Don't be afraid of mentioning him. I want you to mention him and tell me your memories. They are all precious to me.

6) Don't tell me I need to take, or increase, my psychopharmaceuticals. I can manage that myself.

7) I am coping as best as I can. Please spare me your advice on how I need to cope better. I can walk, I can drive, I can see without double vision. I'm doing much better. Right now I am focusing on getting through one day at a time.

8) Don't tell me it was God's will as if that will make me feel better. I wrote my thesis on the subject. I've probably pondered the issue more deeply than you have. God's will governs all things. Telling me so isn't really going to be helpful.

9) Don't tell me you understand because you lost your mother/father/sister/brother/friend/etc. It's not the same. Or at least, if you do, don't use that as your excuse to give me advice about it. If you use your experience to empathetically listen, though--that's good.

10) The Biblical saying that we are not to grieve as those without hope (1 Thess 4:13) does NOT mean that we are not supposed to grieve. Got that? If you want to get into an exegetical argument with me on that passage, bring it.
11) I believe he is in heaven. I believe he is praying for me. I pray for him. I talk to him. That mitigates the agony. But telling me, "At least he's in heaven now" is not going to make it go away. It's grief. It hurts.

12) Don't tell me I need to a) move on, b) move on faster, c) get over it, c) get over it faster, or ask me, at any point in the indefinite future, if I'm still grieving. I'm on grief's timetable, not yours--not even on mine. “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.” (John 21:18) I am being brought where I did not wish to go. Any assertions as to the slowness of grief's timetable, or questions thereunto, are manifestly unhelpful.

13) Don't assume that because I laugh, or smile at something, that it means I'm not grieving. It just relieves the pressure for a second. It's always there.

14) Don't tell me that, because I'm suffering, I need to see a doctor, or a psychiatrist, or a psychologist, or any other such professional, or ask me when I'm going to do so. Please assume I've got that covered.

15) Don't extrapolate your experience with grief, or your friend's, or your family's, onto my own. You may have handled your grief by a) throwing yourself into work, b) retreating into a little cave and shutting yourself off from everyone, c) needing antidepressants or sedatives, or needing the doses raised, d) or buying a farm and raising llamas. Everybody grieves differently. Don't assume that because I'm not grieving your way, I'm not grieving right.

16) Don't assume that because I'm grieving, I want to be left alone. Apparently that's not how I roll. Please call me. Please come over. It's hard to make calls, and it's hard to reach out to people, but when people reach out to me, I really appreciate it. The love and support of my friends and family is helping me get through/survive this.


LINK

Love,

Why Expressive Arts for Grief Work?

Someone recently asked me why expressive arts are so powerful.

I have experienced the power of expressive arts personally in my own personal journey of healing. I see others gaining freedom from this work. But it is good to have some data to support our observations.

MRI research has demonstrated that upon being traumatized the blood flow in the brain moves from the left side to right side of brain. The left side, of course, is the area that uses logic, is detail oriented, factual, where words and language reside and reality based. The blood flows to the right side where feeling and
imagination reside, where symbols and images predominate, spatial perception operates. This is the area that presents possibilities, can be impetuous and risk taking.

The body is saying that it needs more than just language to survive a traumatic event.

There is a story of counselors that worked with the children of the tsunami. These beautiful children were all, understandably, terrified of the ocean. All the counseling efforts did not seem to pierce the fears of the fishermen's children. Children whose future livelihood was dependent upon the sea. After months of counseling, the therapists brought in an art therapist to work with the children. That day, the children drew simple pictures of huge waves and people drowning and so forth. At the end of the day, the therapists were surprised that the children all held hands and ran into the ocean together.

There was something about getting away from the pure language center of the brain and into the right side that helped these children finally gain some sense of mastery over their stories and move into a new relationship with the sea.

Our grief work is about the story, and having the story begin to support us. This is the work that we are doing.
Love,

My "Bagua Map"

Bagua Map by expressivearts on Polyvore.com

Bagua (Ba-gua) is one of the main feng shui tools used to analyze the energies of any given space. Translated from Chinese, Bagua literally means "8 areas". We are playing very loosely with this idea and adapting it here as a way of self-reflection... this is a map of my energies in the space of my existence right now based on the idea of the Bagua.
Depicting
* work
* spirit
* health
* abundance
* reputation
* love
* creativity
* blessings

Approaching Grief with a Creative Regime

The idea of approaching grief with a creative regime might seem a little strange at first.

You may be saying: I'm not an artist.

Then this is perfect for you!

Did you ever realize that art is our first language? Art still works well when words cannot be found. What now may feel foreign to you was once a human being's primary way of communicating.

Expressive arts are ideal for those with little or no art background. The goal of expressive arts is to explore the self in safe and easy mediums that support your creativity and understanding. It is not a goal to produce works of art or craft.

Creativity is a larger word than art- and absolutely everyone is creative whether or not they know themselves to be. Creativity might be understood as manifesting something new through imagination. We use very simple artistic mediums because they work really well to support the emotions, grief and later - the imagination.

This is a way to love yourself, honor your story and explore your truth. Creativity can support you as a dynamic resource. When you begin to express yourself, you begin to heal. Having supportive and loving witnesses along the journey further reinforces these gains.

It takes a tremendous amount of creativity to go from a state of loss to a state of re-integration. Moments of loss are unique in that they often begin to change the ways we perceive and proceed in the world. Steering that process with creative experiences keeps us close to our hearts and insures the direction we take has integrity for the core person we are meant to be.

Consider joining us - see our website and click SIGN UP. Membership is free.

Love,

Improvisation and Loss Part Two

This is a series, please read part one HERE.

Tell the story and add history.

Grief can be a silent state of being. Early on when we are grieving, we might be totally numb and silent. Much of our early vocalization is through plain crying, screaming, sobbing and the most simple expressions of agony. There may come a day, however, when the silence or the instinctive utterances are no longer enough to serve you. You hunger to talk about the one that is gone to people. You need to start talking, at the very least as a way to make sense out of what you have been through.

In our culture, people do not want to talk about losses. There is little cultural endurance for the material you are working through. Often we can find ourselves isolated and alone.

Another way to understand the work of the grieving person is to understand the cycle that you have entered into. Think about it this way - most people's lives are in an acceleration mode. When we have a loss, much of out lives shift into deceleration mode, apart from any early frenetic activities that must be conducted around administrating the loss. If we use the illustration of improv again - we have an ensemble of members on our team. There is a slowing, a necessary pause because a member of our ensemble is gone. There is a shuffling of roles, canceled "performances" and confusion. A certain energy has departed. The stage might be "dark" as they say in theater terms. It is a state of slowing.
























No one else's life may have slowed like yours... As Robert Frost aptly said: "And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs."

Again, no one can tell you when, but there may be a day when you feel muted and the silence may hold you back. Everyone's life may still be accelerating. If you do not have a community to begin to talk about your losses with, or that is not sufficient for your needs, PLEASE contact me for ideas. There are many places for you to talk that are safe, non-judgemental and caring.

Give lots of information to your many partners on this journey of loss. In improv theater, stronger scenes are built on team work and the scene tells a rich and complex story. In life, stronger communities are built on sharing in depth as opposed to silence. Grief can be a silent state of being. There ARE people who want to hear your story. They want to tell theirs as well. We can all take space to tell our stories and know others stories.

Whenever you are ready.

For storytelling, some improv teachers suggest focusing on the past and present tense as often as possible. They suggest actors avoid talking too much about the future. Things in the future only might happen, they only might shape your character. It is conjecture. Things in the past and present did happen, they did shape you.

(Note: Some losses require us to really actively problem-solve our futures, because we cannot delay - the loss wiped out an essential part of our daily lives and we cannot delay decisions. Other losses have less of a daily impact on the function of our lives.)

Try and take time, if you can, to tell your story among compassionate companions. Look for meaning-making within the story. Your story will grow to support you. Our stories have power. We need to practice telling them in a safe environment where there is a lot of acceptance.

Mark Twain had an adage that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. In telling your story you will start to have an ear for the rhyming.

Summary of Parts One and Two... Flow with the Change

Life, like improv is about flow and change. The characters in a scene must experience some type of change for the scene to progress. Characters need to go on journeys, be altered by revelations, experience the ramifications of their choices and be moved by emotional moments. Improv music needs to move, to ebb and flow to be more than a static, droning sound.

I used to say, "The world belongs to people who can change." I never knew how much I would live into that particular phrase, my friends. My list of losses are pretty profound when you put them on paper, but I have found that this is not the end of the scene. We are alive and mortal. We have a chance to befriend impermanence and truly be present to life and death. And if we can improvise with the story that surrounds us, we can find a new level of peace.