Tag: counseling

Grief, Loss

Dealing with Grief

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Experiencing Grief

Experiencing grief can be a grueling long path to again feel whole.  There are countless books and websites outlining the 5 stages of grief

  • Denial
  • Pain and Guilt
  • Anger
  • Depression
  • Acceptance

This list although generally true implies that there is a linear progression to grief and once you move past one stage you are done and will not go back to a stage multiple times. Nobody’s grief is like yours and nobody will know how you feel. There is nothing magically anyone including a therapist can do to fix you or make you move past what can be debilitating grief and sadness.

How long should you grieve?

This is your grief and it will be a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs. You may be laughing at the funeral hearing a funny story about your loved one and you may cry a year later when a birthday or anniversary is missed. The saying “Time heals all wounds” ignores that “grieve” is a verb and needs to be an active process.

Active Grieving

There are many ways to actively grieve.

  • Fully accept the loss
    • By accepting the loss, you are able to be open to truly grieving.
  • Talk about your loved one with family and friends
    • Talking about your loved one brings out memories of happier times and relieves the feeling of loss
  • Find time to cry
    • Crying releases chemicals and hormones that relieve stress and can alleviate the effects of minor depression.
  • Turn your loss into action
    • Find a constructive way to honor your loved one in the community

The bereavement period begins after the initial grief and is a process that has no clear end and it may take years to fully mourn the loss of a loved one. Feelings of guilt are normal as you move through bereavement as your loved one enters your thoughts less and less.

Avoiding Bereavement

There is a societal stigma about seeking professional mental health therapy. People consider their mind as something they can control and through personal strength and will they can solve their problems. Being the strong one or working so hard that you don’t have time to think about let alone grieve your loss leads to living years with unresolved trauma that manifests itself in not easily connected health and behavioral issues.

Consider that chronic pain or fatigue maybe rooted in a loss that occurred years before that you thought you dealt with or forgot all about.

If you think you may need help, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Why you shouldn’t?
    • Is it financial?
    • Can’t find the time?
  • How your mourning may impact someone else?
    • I need to be strong for them?
  • Are you responsible to keep everyone happy?
    • If I am sad they will be too
  • Would my loved one want me to feel this way?
    • Would they?

The need to strongly consider professional help if you experience thoughts of suicide or self-harm, serious changes in weight, or are unable to perform daily functions such as getting out of bed or going to work for more than an occasional day.

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Relationships Love

Is Love More than Words?

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Saying I love you
Is not the words I want to hear from you
It’s not that I want you
Not to say, but if you only knew
How easy it would be to show me how you feel
More than words is all you have to do to make it real
Then you wouldn’t have to say that you love me

‘Cause I’d already know (Extreme 1991)

The Day to Celebrate Love

As another Valentine’s Day arrives, we will try and make a special effort to show our partner how much they mean to us with chocolate, dinner, and flowers. I will admit that I love to receive all of those things. Then I asked myself, how will I make an effort the other 360+ days per year.

One day to keep our relationship fresh?

It’s hard to imagine one day would be enough. It can be hard to always find quality time in our fast-paced lives to make time regularly to show our partners how we feel. We fill our time with the chores and obligations of life waiting for the quiet moment that rarely comes.

Sustaining our needs with small gestures

Small moments showing love such as:

  • A loving smile from across the room
  • A quick text just to say you are thinking about them
  • A gentle touch as you pass them

When the concept of love enters our world, we look to people around us as models of a healthy loving relationship. More times than we like to admit the role models we have as children do not reflect what we come to desire in a loving relationship.

Putting our Foot in our Mouth Should be Expected and Kept in Perspective

No one ever taught us how to breathe and love seems like something we should just be able to do. Feeling love for someone in your heart is the easy part, but how we express that love in a way that is understood can be a learning process.

When we fall in love we are compelled to show our partner how we feel about them, but the message isn’t always received loud and clear even when to us the message is in high definition. When our partner doesn’t get the message, it is easy to feel rejected by our partner. Never realizing that the message is being misinterpreted by our partner. Feelings of anger and passive aggressive behavior can quickly enter the relationship. These feelings can pile on each other until we spend more time feeling defensive and insecure. Eventually growing closer in our relationship starts to take a backseat. Being vulnerable with our partner and telling them when we feel hurt or misunderstood clears the out hard feelings. Taking accountability for our missteps keeps the walls down in our relationships. We need to keep perspective on what is most important in our relationship, each other.

Understanding the Love we Give

Learning that everyone receives love differently can be surprising.

  • Do our partners need gifts, words, or acts of service to be fulfilled?

Talking with our partner about what they need to find fulfillment can answer that question. It’s important to find the time to talk before we feel hurt. Once we are hurt, our emotions can be perceived as a criticism to our partner. Expressing to our partner how important they are and asking how we can better show them love.  Leads into telling them our needs without coming across as something they need to fix. Remembering that the success of our relationship relies on each of us to be fulfilled.  Sometimes this means putting our partner’s needs ahead of our own. The natural way our partners express love is likely the way they want to receive love. So our partner may not understand how they are not meeting our needs when their approach works so well for them. Meeting their needs first may help them understand. Knowing our needs change overtime and we should continue to talk with our partner about our needs.

Change Can Be Uncomfortable

Being uncomfortable to make ourselves vulnerable especially when our concerns have been dismissed by our partner is to be expected. We should not resign accepting that our needs will never be fulfilled. We just need to change our approach in the way we talk to our partner about our needs.

Engaging a impartial 3rd party into the conversation can help . Counselors who focus on relationships or on individuals will provide an unbiased perspective. Sometimes it just takes someone putting our feelings in words that our partner understands to make all the difference.

Until we feel comfortable with our needs we may give indirect clues on what we need to feel loved. Expecting our partner to be more direct with their needs is not fair, so we should look for indirect clues from them as well.

Have you ever heard any of the following from your partner?

  • I tell you I love you every day and you never say it back
  • You used to get me flowers
  • I am so busy all I want from you is to help me with the dishes
  • Can we sit together later and watch the Bachelor?

Although indirect these clues can indicate a desire from our partner. We may just hear them as a complaint about us as a partner or just see them as another thing they want us to do. Both thoughts are correct they are complaining and they are asking us to do something. The challenge is for us to realize they are asking us as their partner to show them love in a way they need to receive it.

Back to Celebrating Love

So as Valentine’s Day passes and our grand gestures are eaten and wilt, let’s resolve to make everyday a day where we are open to loving our partner by doing, showing and telling them in ways that allow them to feel appreciated and understood.  Let’s understand that the spark that brought us together doesn’t need to die, but can be kept alive with taking the time to notice and talk about our love. Because at the end of the day our love is unique to us and not like anyone else’s it deserves special effort every day of the year.

 

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Introducing Your Child to the Idea of Therapy

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Tips to help your child get used to the idea of going to therapy

 

1.) Do not lie to your child, regardless of their age

They need accurate, age appropriate information about what to expect at their first appointment. Providing them with facts they can understand not only helps decrease their anxiety, it helps lay healthy groundwork for a positive experience in therapy. Telling them their therapist’s name, office location, or even showing them a picture of their therapist are all helpful ideas.

2.) Give them some say in the matter

When kids feel like they have choices, it helps them feel more confident about new situations. Younger kids might like to pick what outfit they will wear to their first session, or select a special toy to bring. Older kids might have a day of the week they prefer, or may even have preferences about whether they see a male or female therapist.

3.) Let them express their thoughts and feelings

They might cry and tell you they don’t want to go. That’s ok-therapy can be overwhelming for adults at first thought too. Children respond well to stories and characters they can identify with personally. Reading some books together about beginning therapy also might help ease the transition. The following are available on Amazon:

4.) Encourage them to ask questions

It’s ok if you don’t have all the answers! Letting them know that, together, you can ask the therapist all sorts of questions when you meet will help reinforce the idea that everyone will be working together!

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If your child continues to be distressed about the idea of therapy, please reach out to their therapist for more personalized ideas about how to help!

 

By: Torrie Giovinazzi, M.Ed., LPCC, NCC

 

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