Crazy Grief

In this finale episode of the first season of Crazy Grief Podcast, we talk about the 3 P's - Personalisation, Permanence and Pervasiveness. And we explore some of negative thought patterns we can become attached to, which may affect our wellbeing and our progression through our grief journey. 

Crazy Grief Podcast is now officially in hiatus for a few months, while I tend to some other important parts of my life. 

Edit Horvath is the driving force behind Active WorkLife Solutions. As an organisational psychologist, Edit uses her expert knowledge in a professional and pragmatic fashion. With more than 25 years experience in business and consulting worldwide, Edit has faced a broad-range of issues.  She loves a challenge and enjoys complex problems, both strategic and operational.

Her strengths are in supporting organisations and meeting their specific needs that contribute to maximise their effectiveness, efficiency and ultimately their productivity. Her professional approach and sophisticated solutions have been proven to be effective and powerful for her clients.

Edith is has also worked for many years as a sex therapist and she is a fully qualified Yoga instructor. 

We have so many unanswerable questions when our person dies. More often than not, those questions start with "Why" and these types of questions can be detrimental to our own mental and emotional wellbeing. But what is the alternative when we are plagued with questions to which we can never get an answer? 

I hope this episode may give you some insights into reframing your questions so you can discover more empowerment, peace and strength for the long journey ahead. 

Let me know what you think, I would love to hear from you and keep the conversation alive. 

Mothers often put themselves last in order to care for everyone else. But when the death of a family member brings paralysing grief, how can a grieving mother continue to care for her children who are also grieving? 

Every family, every death, and every situation is unique, but there are some common elements bereaved mothers face. Drawing from her personal experience and her work as a grief coach, Megan Hillukka shares practical advise on self-care which enables mothers to find health ways to care for themselves in their process of grief, while also being present for their living child/children, and assist them in their unique grief journey.  

Megan Hillukka runs a "Life after child loss program" which supports bereaved mothers to embrace their grief journey and create meaning and purpose for their own lives. Megan's online workshop "Spot talking, Start Feeling" is a great tool for those who desire to find healthier ways to relate to their own grief and reconnect with their emotions. 

Megan Hillukka is a mother of 6 beautiful Children. 5 who are still here. Of them, her daughter Aria, died as a baby and her death plummeted Megan into PTSD and into a long recovery journey, where she has done the work to find healing in her brain, in her body and in her life. Now, Megan wants everyone to know that PTSD is not a life sentence, and that healing is possible. She has become a grief coach, encouraging and supporting grieving mothers to embrace their grief and to discover that though the worst thing has happened to them, their life is not over.

Megan has a mini course called "Stop Talking, Start Feeling" In it she helps people process grief and begin to connect with the scary and terrifying emotions that come with it. 

Fix the sex and you fix the relationship (according to Esther Perel). But how does a widowed person deal with the challenges of their sexual desire for a partner who is no longer here. To make things even more complex, when spiritual beliefs bring shame, condemnation and secrecy about sex, what is a healthy path towards exploring our own sexuality when we are now on our own? 

Together with my dear friend Christy Lanterman, who is an amazing counsellor based in Kansas City, I share some of my very personal journey of struggle and celebration in re-discovering and -reclaiming my own sexuality after the death of my husband. 

I've heard the saying "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" and in my experience, not having my husband physically present has certainly increased my desire for intimacy with him. I believe I am not the only one who feels like this. Death in many instances can intensify the intimacy desire we feel for our partner, and unleash a difficult and often complicated path to fulfil the sexual need we truly crave for. But open and tasteful conversations about this topic in relationship to grief, are rare and often avoided

The intersection of grief and sexuality is unique for each grieving individual, and recognising that our sexual needs and desires didn't die with our partner is the first step towards reclaiming our bodies and finding a new expression of this integral part of being human. 

Christy Lanterman is a master’s level licensed professional counsellor with emphasis in couples and family therapy. Two years of experience counselling individuals, couples and families. Success working with a diverse clientele presenting with a variety of concerns including trauma, history of physical and sexual abuse, depression, anxiety, grief, religious wounds, relationship and family concerns, infidelity, intimacy, co-parenting, divorce, separation and reunification.

Christy understands that every person’s story and situation is unique and valid. She is intentional about developing trust and creating a judgment free space because she sees counselling as a collaborative process where my primary goal is to meet you at whatever point in your journey you are today. When working with couples, she takes a Gottman approach, which integrates empirical evidence on what makes love last. Based on 40 years of relationship research, the Gottman approach takes the guess-work out of how we can cultivate strong and lasting relationships.

Not everyone is interested in dating again after the death of a spouse, but for many of us, being alone is not something we want either. For many people the possibility  and challenges of finding love after loss, of connecting with someone special in a physical and emotional level is a deep desire because as human being we are wired for connection and intimacy. We thrive in healthy relationships and we wither in the absence of it.

It is incredibly difficult exploring how to heal our own lives, specially how to engage in loving again while navigating the turmoil of grieving children and close family members. Everyone wants us to be happy - in theory. In reality, dating after loss activates other people's grief into high decibel waves.

Human beings are by nature creative and imaginative. Because grief is a holistic experience that affects every level of our being and it requires an outlet, tapping into a creative process can be extremely cathartic during our grief journey. Creativity can really help us process our emotions and find a way through. Be it journaling, drawing, dancing, singing, or even having a mindful walk in nature, any big or small creative is valuable.

Claudia Coenen is a certified grief counsellor and thanatologist with a Masters in Transpersonal Psychology. Her life experience as a performer, mother, chef and widow informs her work. Claudia has a private practice in Hudson, NY where she helps people move through grief, cope with illness, and relationship issues, often bringing simple art modalities into her sessions.

There are people who show up and pay their respects when a death occurs. There are people who show up and bring practical help in the days and weeks after a funeral. And them, there are people who continue to show up months and years later as a grieving person tries - and often fails - to rebuild a new life after the death of their person. 

My dearest friend, soul sister, delightful "companheira" Edna Gaspar is the kind of person who can do all of the above and beyond. And she does it with intention and unconditional love.  I wish everyone could have a friend like Edna because people like her are a gift to this world. 

Edna and her husband Olegario run  Pearanui, an NGO in Tauranga, New Zealand, which provides youth programs for kids at risk without a stable family structure. They pour their heart, soul and hard work into creating a safe, loving and inclusive environment where kids can learn practical skills that will give them better chances of future employment, pick up life and communication skills to help them face challenges and create a build relationships in healthy ways, as well as providing them with a hopeful and encouraging perspective about themselves. 

Our attachments don't die with the person we lost. In many cases they do intensify but in the absence of their physical presence it's vitally important to redefine what kind of relationship we can still have with our person. In this episode Dr. Ruth Lawson- McConnell explains the 6 stages of attachment, and how we can redefine them in order to foster a new way to relate with our loved one who is not physically present.

Dr. Ruth Lawson -McConnell is a brilliant therapist who also happen to be my dear friend. Ruth is a sought-after counsellor and trainer with 30 years’ experience of counselling adults, children, adolescents and families. She specialises in Attachment issues both in adults and children; her clinical practice involves individual work with people experiencing relationship difficulties, depression, anxiety and trauma, specialist supervision on attachment issues, as well as parent consulting on behavioural and emotional issues in children and adolescents.  She is a Professional Associate of the Neufeld Institute where she trained with Dr Gordon Neufeld in his Attachment based Developmental paradigm. She is also a certified Neuro-psychotherapist as well as a Partners of Sexual Addicts Trauma specialist.  

We are continuing our conversation with Nada Frazier where we explore some of the important aspects and benefits of having open and honest dialogues about death and dying with our loved ones. We also talk about what we can do to get our affairs in order before the hot minute* - when death is arriving and emotions may cloud our vision and ability to do what is necessary for our loved ones who are dying and for ourselves are caregivers facing the challenges of grief. 

Many people don't want to talk about death because quite frankly we are scared to face the big death elephant in the room. That is, until death is starts knocking on our door through a terminal diagnosis or has already bursted into our lives unannounced through a sudden death of a loved one. If you struggle to talk about death and dying as a family or if you are on your own and don't know who to turn to, you may want to consider reaching out to someone like Nada Frazier, who helps people as an End-of-Life Doula.

Widow's brain is a real thing, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. When we suffer a trauma such as the death of our person, our amazing brains respond to the immediate trauma and the consequent grief in intricate ways. One of the them is to shut down areas that are not immediate crucial for survival and fire up our danger instincts: fight, flight, freeze or collapse. In this episode we explore what can happen to our brain and our capacity to think when we are grieving, and we also talk about ways in which we can make our own minds a safe space where we learn to give ourselves self-kindness and self-love. We dive into a bit of neuroscience, which affirms that Love is the super emotion that can help us heal and build resilience, and why validating our own experiences is crucial for our wellbeing. 

Pauline Skeates has been a therapist for several years. She has created and developed a model of therapy - Insight Focused Neurotherapy (IFnT)- which she applies with her clients (*ahem* me as one of them) to help them develop a new and more positive way to see themselves, to train how to re-focus, and to find purpose for their lives amidst the circumstances they are facing.  She sees clients on her private practice in Auckland, New Zealand, and through online sessions. She also provides training for professionals in this method, mainly in Europe and NZ.

It's hard to see someone you care for grieving. And it's even harder when you are also grieving. Too many times as friends of the person who died and of the partner who was left behind, our desire to help and our drive to make things better can cloud our judgment and lead us off track from what really matters: seeking support for our grief elsewhere so we can provide the support our grieving friend needs, not the support we think they should have. 

Cristiane Heale is a brilliant counsellor and she one of my closest friends, she was also my husband's friend and when he died she too felt the impact and the pain of his passing.  In this episode we explore some aspects of her experience as a friend - who is grieving - trying to support me in the first days and weeks following Jason's death. 

John Katsavos has faced some intense grief and mental distress and he found his saving grace through martial arts. By choosing to submit his body to the arduous training of Systema, John built physical strength but most importantly, mental and emotional resilience. His training methods are not for the faint of heart and may not suit everyone, but his experience with grief and loss are most certainly very relatable.

Oftentimes when we are grieving we don't know how to be present with our pain. We want it to go away, and in doing so we miss the opportunity to be present with ourselves and to become aware of what are our deepest needs are.

Other times, when someone is grieving our first response is to DO something, because as human being we are uncomfortable with someone else's pain. So we try in may ways to make them feel better, but in doing so we fail to acknowledge that often the only thing we can do is to be present with them in their distress - no biblical jargon or empty platitudes, just simply be with them in their pain

Mark Pierson has some great insights in what it means to be present. We can only be present with others when we learn to be present with ourselves. And that takes time, self awareness and intentionality.  

Here is the quote Mark shared during our conversation:

"Wake me to your presence Lord, that I might not waste my times of trial"

Facing another day can feel overwhelming when we are grieving. Adding tiny drops of goodness to our routine and taking little steps towards the life we would like create can help us to carry on. And over time those tiny drops can make a big difference for the better.

ACT - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy - can helps us unhook from negative thought patterns and expand our focus, when we are in distress or when grief seems all consuming.