Alive and Mortal

I an honored to facilitate 2 expressive arts workshops in March, 2012 for The Cancer Support Community. CSC is an international non-profit dedicated to providing support, education and hope to people affected by cancer.

An adult's grief over the loss of a loved one may be radically compounded by "separation anxiety" when a current loss exposes anew an old, old, old wound.

I am very compassionate toward people with multiple losses - and I am NOT a psychologist nor a psychiatrist, so please read me as a peer. I have been thinking long and hard about certain grievers within a sample of people that have all experienced losses due to violence or severe trauma.

I speak of it only because sometimes it is of benefit to name your enemy.

For some of these people, the name of their enemy is not "grief." The enemy's name is "separation anxiety."

Separation anxiety may absolutely cripple a person who otherwise joins the rest of humanity in this painful grief process when a loved one dies. It is a wound of childhood that can become like a thorny briar patch in grief.

The messages that accompany separation anxiety may torture a grieving person and keep them in a mire.The results of this old condition that was partly or fully avoided also may become mixed and confused with grief in such a way that the person - and those who care for them - may not recognize the problem for what it is.

In grief, one may experience a trait of anxiety. But grief coupled with separation anxiety may  result in the "trait" becoming a full-blown "state" of anxiety.

A trait of anxiety could appear as the following:

 Alternating being with people and being alone (not wanting to be with people and not wanting to be alone)
Being afraid to eat out alone in the beginning
Worrying over bills that you are not accustom to dealing with
Occasional insomnia over sleeping alone
Occasionally being pulled by the trauma of the circumstances of the death
Concern about your future well-being

So afraid to eat out alone that you withdraw
Fear over bills and hiding/ignoring them for months or years
Daily insomnia over sleeping alone
Frequently replaying the trauma of the circumstances of the death
Abject fear about your future well-being
Always wanting to being alone but finding acute pain in the alone-ness

Daily Observation - Spend three to five minutes doing slow,focused and carefulobservation of your surroundings.  If you can chose a lovely and/or complex environment, that is all the better to immerse yourself in.

Daily Tea - Prepare, with intention, a cup of herbal tea. Do this slowly. Select a cup with intention, touch the cup and feel it's surface. Select tea and take great care and attention in preparing the tea (even if it is in a tea bag)... smell the odor of the dry tea. Listen to the sound of the water as it pours into the kettle or pot, place your hand 10 inches from the heat source and feel the heat building (careful not to get too close!). Do not do anything but wait and listen and watch as the water slowly gets to a boiling point. Watch the steam. You get the general idea - it is to make tea for yourself as a very slow and intentional act of nurture and being fully present to the process.

Thankful Ritual - Gather together a couple symbols that represent an ending - such as rings, photos, keys, glasses - anything of your choosing that is symbolic. Hold each item in your hand and note its significance to your wisdom. Say something of gratitude for all the lessons you have learned. Wrap all these remembrances of things past in a cloth together. Keep this wrapped package in a prominent place as an affirmation of wisdom and protection of your emerging self. Whenever you view the wrapped cloth parcel, thank the items again. Keep the parcel out as long as you desire.

Special Surroundings - Select a favorite place. It could be a garden, a waterfall, a room, or anything else. A place where you feel content and safe. Close your eyes and imagine yourself in that favorite place. Walk around slowly and notice the colors and textures around you. Focus on sight, feeling, hearing and smelling.Spend some time exploring each of your senses. And notice how good and relaxed you feel. When you are ready, gently open your eyes and come back to the present moment.

A Moment Together - Recall a very happy moment you shared with the departed. Do not allow anything to rob you of the sheer pleasure of this memory. Close your eyes and imagine yourself with them and recall all that transpired. Notice the sounds, sights, colors and textures around you. Spend some time exploring each of your senses as you recall what happened and if you forget how something transpired - do not worry. This is about nurturing your memory and more will come back to you the more you pause to exercise your memories. When you are ready, gently open your eyes and come back to the present moment.

Address Stress - Imagine an object, sound or color that represents stress to you. For example, you may choose to imagine the color red, or a rope with knots or a loud startling noise. When you select your image, sound or color, then you take a deep belly breath and hold it for 1 count and then slowly release the breath out of your mouth. Imagine your image slowly transforming into something calming. The color red can slowly fade into a nice soft and gentle color pink. The rope with knots can slowly transform into a smooth and soft silk or velvet fabric. And the loud noise can gradually transform into a soothing sound of ocean waves. Let your muscles relax. If the stress reforms, do not be distressed by the suborn nature of stress but notice it and repeat the above. When you are ready, gently open your eyes and come back to the present moment. If you continue this practice you will eventually have more calm states available to you.

I am negotiating upcoming expressive arts workshops for grieving people at Adult Bereavement Group at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and The Cancer Support Community in the Los Angeles area. Stay tuned!
Love,
Kim

I find it hard to select a few favorite blog posts of 2011, I DO NOT WANT TO LEAVE ANYTHING OUT!

(I said that I would do 20, and I will, I just need to come back to this after work!)

However, I would like to give a shout out to these particular 2011 blog posts because they stayed with me... I suspect that this is an indication of how well written and/or unique they were in examining the journey from a particular or insightful angle.

If you do not have a lot of time to read, this is a vetted list of some really wonderful blogging moments with grief. Kleenex box should be strategically placed.

So, here is my list, in no particular order:

Eloquent: Clearly expressing or indicating something.
Grief: Deep sorrow, esp. that caused by someone's death.

Something that I did not anticipate with this year's Advent Calendar project was a kind request to continue into 2012 with providing readers with daily readings.

I am humbled and honored that there are a handful of people that would like to continue a connection throughout the year. There is a small cluster of people who are quietly working at grief, impermanence, eloquence and evolving bonds. And I want to go with them.

I became a little overwhelmed over HOW to fulfill such a commitment... and then, I recalled something that I enjoy very much and how I might adapt it to this project.

On the Twitter social network I enjoy following #micropoetry. The people write with the known limitation of 144 characters. There are some amazing and potent words that come through the ether. Similar to haiku, it can capture a universe of meaning in an economy of words.

I was inspired by the tradition of haiku and the #micropoets to open a separate twitter account just for this kind of writing, for tight, brief grounding meditations... and they are linked to here to have them post daily on this blog in the right column... see this image:

So, finally Facebook's Timeline seems to have figured it's way through litigation and is coming soon.

Today's Alive and Mortal online advent calendar reading is about Christopher Love.

"God hath many mercies in store for you;

the prayer of a dying husband,

for you,

will not be lost."

 Again, this year, I offer my free Online Advent Calendar for Grieving People.

"Speak a new language and the world will be a new world. " -Rumi

“What… Copernicus [and] Darwin really achieved was not the discovery of a new theory, but a fertile new point of view.” - Michael Michalko

Our Evolving Bonds Photo Project Facebook Group is continuing in our 3-week cycle of exploring our evolving bonds with the beloved departed as a group.

It is quite moving to watch the variety, depth and breadth of experiences being contemplated and shared.

Today, they receive their next assignment: A Second Home. The prompt will, hopefully, open space for new or elevated awareness.

 I am honored to be in the company of these friends in the journey.

Love,
Kim

A monk asks, "Is there anything more miraculous than the wonders of nature?" The master replies, "Yes, your awareness of the wonders of nature." -- Angelus Silesius

We have 12 members so far in our Evolving Bonds Photo Project... there is still time to join us - we commence on Sunday, October 16th! Consider being a part of this wonderful group of people who are going to teach each other through powerful reflections on their evolving bonds.

Here are some of my reflections along with Rumi for this week to help us ready our hearts and eyes...

"I am so small I can barely be seen.
How can this great love be inside me?
Look at your eyes,
they are small
but they see enormous things."

When we set an intention to pay attention and take in awareness, many things can come forward that are normally in the background. These are gifts that we have yet to receive. As we bend ourselves toward awareness, the gifts can unfold. The way these gifts present themselves are too numerous to quantify. Here are just a few examples of when the awareness might break through...

“The minute I heard my first love story 
I started looking for you,

not knowing how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.

They're in each other all along.”

I am hosting a new 3 week interactive expressive arts experience – starting October 16, 2011.

The Evolving Bonds Photo Project  

...is an expressive and exclusive community experience where you will:

Use Your Eyes As A Lens To Your Heart:
We'll venture into our world with our cameras and/or camera phones. We will be using our eyes to increasingly move from looking at what is physically present to seeing what is emotionally and spiritually present. 

Use Your Voice As A Tribute To Your Love:
Without pressure, we use our own words or add from prose, memoir, and poetry.

Use Your Relationship Muscles:
If happiness was to be found in focusing on ourselves, we would surely be happy by now!
 
If happiness is found in connecting with loved ones - then, with camera or camera phone in hand, our perception and awareness can be invited to naturally and easily shift in amazing ways. We find new or renewed ways to connect with our departed and members of the group.

The photographs will help us notice, remember and commit to memory the continuing bonds we are experiencing. Telling stories with photos can be powerful and highly communicative to others who you are connecting with through the group. Your story has power. To see our continuing bonds, reflect on them and allow others to bear witness is a powerful tool.

•     new levels of intimacy with self, your departed and people in the group
•     exposure to other people’s stories which are  inspiring
•     practice in learning to see your continuing bonds
•     a designated space to stretch your imagination
•     confidence
•     support
•     adventure
•     new levels of awareness of love

"I'm asking for a do-over."

Going back and seeing the progression that my life took is a bit of a psychological work out.

 I, personally, do not have posts before Brian's death, I was not on Facebook then. I was living a very different life then - I was far more engaged with work and family. My first posts on Facebook are heartbroken posts, punctuated by jokes so that people could tell that I was still breathing. 

 Back then - I thought that no one wanted to see my grief posting, so I can see that I held it to a minimum - it took me a while before I discarded that position for believing that my avocation was to create culture shift in society for grieving people by speaking freely about my loss and others losses.

Interestingly, Facebook has included a new feature that will be important for new grieving people. It seems to allow you to flag posts - even that you have lost a loved one... 

I recall months of petitioning Facebook to include a widowed status, and now they allow you to mark a post this way...

I want to alert people that are grieving that seeing months and years of sad posts and then seeing your friends months and years of happy posts may seem a bit rough. It reminds me of all those Christmas cards you would get every year where people went on and on and had so many great stories to write about and I only had deaths to discuss (which I opted out of telling them about.) 

 I also had 2 dear friends suddenly die since I was on Facebook. So, in a short 3 year period, there is a lot of sorrow in the posts that show up. 

I might suggest that grieving people take this change in Facebook slowly. Go into that timeline with a lot of support around you. Do not go there when you are feeling really down. Maybe invite a friend who understands your grief to be there with you and support you. If you have a therapist, bring your laptop to a session and begin to unpack it together. Make sure you have support for yourself. That will look different for each person. But take care of yourself in the changes. And stay in touch. Do not lose your network of support by prematurely closing your account. Not on my watch, anyway.

I think the richness of a life is not defined by the sum of fun moments we have had as much as how much and deeply we loved - regardless of the pain and discomfort that came with it. I believe that grieving people are some of the most rich, complex and deep people on the planet. You have a story and it has power.

If you accept this intention - there can be an embracing of your story and a love and compassion for yourself that is fostered by the encounter with your Timeline. 

Be proud of who you are, what you have been through, who you are becoming - the light that you bear in dark places is beautiful, friends.

I am going to be ruminating on this more, and if I have more to add, I will do so as a P.S.. I just wanted to get the word out there, because the change will happen October 5, whether you are ready or not...

I have been experiencing an increase of discussion about suicide in many groups, not just the widowed community - even a group that I am in that has nothing to do with grief has several people struggling with accepting the world they find themselves in.

I wrote this because I have had so many conversations of late around the topic and my heart breaks but I want to impart more than sympathy, I want to impart life.

Take what you like and leave the rest, comments are also welcome.

Namaste.

STARTING AT 4 pm

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Love,
Kim