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Guiding through Grief (Oct 2020)
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35 Replies
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Initial Post
For this discussion I’m going to use the profile of a friend who I have informally coached. She is a LCSW and is also trained as a coach. As an empath, she is heavily affected by the emotions of others. She is overworked by choice, and as a BIPOC woman is also marginalized in many ways. She has been diagnosed with a mental health disorder that I can’t remember the name of, but that often leads to “mini” manic and depressive episodes. She often experiences depression, and also has cancer. So, to an outsider her emotions can seem very intense and all over the place. We chat every day and often guide each other, and it tends to be very informal because we are close friends. However if I were to actually coach her, I would ask for explicit permission to do so and would set aside time that is dedicated solely for this purpose so that we can give it our full and undivided attention. Interestingly enough, we have both guided each other through various different losses over the years.
When I think of the Dimensions of Grief that could potentially appear, the emotions that immediately pop out in regards to this ‘client’ are numbness, sadness, emptiness, frustration, anxiety, depression, overwhelm, and panic. The Mental dimensions are preoccupation, yearning, absent minded, lack of concentration, detachment, and insecurity. She also tends to experience social withdrawal, isolation, and cries. Physically when she is experiencing difficult emotions she is fatigued and lacks energy, and also has nausea. She tends to ruminate and obsess over challenging situations, including those that involve loss. As I read through this list, I can really see that every person has a different constellation of dimensions of grief, and I think it could be helpful to ask questions that get curious about what that is for each client.
One thing that I think can help guide her through grief and loss is to help her understand the time and work that goes into the grieving process. I would explicitly focus my language on self-compassion. I would also focus on how the grieving process is healing for her, without trying to fix her. Often, all she needs is for me to listen to her without judgement, and validate what she is experiencing. I also might show curiosity about the meaning she sees in the loss and grieving process.
This client has experienced suicidal ideation in the past and has communicated that ideation to me. However, she is also very aware of it when it’s happening, and knows that she needs to seek help immediately when that’s the case. Her family typically does not understand and is judgmental when it happens, so she reaches out to me. Without judgement I tell her that she is loved and make sure that she is taking steps to be safe. This client also tends to experience sudden changes in mood, ranging from highs to depths of sadness. In this case, I would simply validate and normalize the roller coaster of emotions she experiences.
In general, I find that sitting in silence, listening with the heart (not trying to fix), responding with validation and normalizing what the client is experiencing, and riding the waves with the client rather than trying to direct them, to be powerful. I ensure that I don’t use imperatives or “shoulds” in my language, and I ask curious questions around what they are feeling and their experience. Sometimes I find that I tend to move into that ‘fix it’ mode, so I have to ensure that I’m very present and aware of my own thoughts and emotions. I create a ‘I am I’ and You are You’ barrier while being thoughtful and intentional about everything I say. Sometimes I’ll ask how I can best support the client to ensure that I am not moving into that fix it mode.
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Initial Post:
I had a super ineteresting session with one of my clients a couple of weeks ago where he identified grief and loss as a barrier to moving forward. This is a client who is in his early 60s and working on detaching from a self-described codependent relationship attachment style. As he contemplates his next decade which includes some version of “retirement”, he wants to ensure he has his own “playbook” to guide him. He wants to live with purpose and wholeness as he moves forward to the next phase of his life. He is very visual with his images/metaphors and sees the next 10 years as a puzzle. He wants to identify the puzzle pieces he wants to put into his puzzle. He is currently single and being alone is very uncomfortable for him.
His goal for our session was to explore spirituality as he sees it as a foundational piece of his puzzle. During our session, he shared that his concept of God has changed dramatically and that now he no longer feels any connection to Spirit. As his younger self, God was perceived as “participatory”. Now he sees God as a disengaged “observer”. His life experiences of hardship, cancer, and loss of relationships have made him question who/what God is. As we continued to explore this, he identified barriers and the need to “clean house”. There are things in the way and he “can’t even open the door for the experience of God to come in.” As we walked in the forest, he used the image of “deadfall” to describe the obstacles and that his normal way of dealing with these obstacles is to “skirt around them”. As we walked, he saw all the deadfall in the forest and connected to the natural process of decomposition–“deadfall decomposes to nourish the soil and turns granite into life-giving soil”. He realized he wanted to “decompose the deadfall that stands in the way” of reconnecting to his spirituality. He wants to be a source of nourishment for others and self.
Since we were standing in a forest full of deadfall, I asked permission to guide him through a threshold experience. I sensed some reluctance, however, he agreed and gave permission. I asked him to look around at the deadfall and see if he could identify what obstacles the deadfall represented. As we began to move through the deadfall, he recognized his pattern of walking around it, rather than facing the deadfall. He’s never “walked toward the deadfall”. So instead of the normal pattern of walking around, I invited him to walk toward the deadfall. As we stood in front of one of the many fallen trees in the area, and began lifting our feet to walk over the deadfall, he recognized that he had never mourned his parent’s divorce when he was 4, the death of his mother, his divorce, nor the death of his ex-wife. He was never show how to grieve and by consequence, he had never allowed himself to feel these great losses–he had skirted around them. We continued to move through the deadfall, walking over it, as he began to connect with his story of loss. As he talked, he began to cry, the emotions welling up. He understood how important it was for him to face the grief and allow himself to feel. The rest of our session was focused on holding the grief, listening to his memories, creating space for him to feel whatever was flowing through.
At the end of the session, he asked for resources around grief and loss and decided he wanted to move forward with:
–naming the deadfall by going on a nature wander
–beginning a grieving process
–connecting with feelings around these lossesI have not reconnected with him for our next session. However, I did send him many of the resources we were given at our toolbox. It was pretty amazing that I had this session right after our toolbox…. I felt prepared to move through this experience with him. Nature was very present and offered him so many metaphors to help him identify and process his obstacles.
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Maria it sounds like this was a powerful experience for your client, and what a beautiful way to incorporate nature as a metaphor! I’m curious to know what you noticed come up within yourself as you were guiding him. You said you felt prepared to move through this experience with him – what did you notice within yourself that helped inform how you moved through it? How did you find yourself responding, and using what concepts and strategies?
The idea of losing God or spirituality is one that resonates with me, and is something I realize I haven’t fully faced myself. It’s so interesting to consider the variety of things we can “lose” and thus cause grief. What causes our grief is just as unique as each individual person is. The last part you mention about him needing to walk towards the deadfall – it makes me think in general of how we tend to avoid uncomfortable or negative experiences, and how doing so only serves to prolong the – they never go away when we do that. I’ve been reading The Untethered Soul at night before bed and what has stood out to me recently is the idea that allowing yourself to approach the thing that you’re avoiding is necessary in order for you to be able to then release it- and that’s the part that helps transform us spiritually. It sounds like that’s what he’s learning to do.
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Hi Leslie,
Thanks so much for your response to my post. What I noticed come up for me while I was guiding was thinking “Oh, wow…. I just did this toolbox”. The feelings that were coming up where confidence, quiet, peace, and ease. I felt empathy and compassion, and also was able to hold space from a grounded/centered and confident space. Because we had just been through the toolbox I had a sense of the “territory” I was in–it was familiar while unique. I could identify similar landforms and felt I could walk along side my client without needing to orient or find my footing. The strategies/concepts I used where to listen and give him space to reflect on his loss. At one point he began to cry and I reached out and gently touched his shoulder as we were walking, just so he would know I was there with him in his pain. It seemed that by creating a big enough silence, he was able to tap into the “bigness” of his own experience.I’ve been reading The Untethered Soul also. And, to me, “loosing” one’s sense of God reflects a shift in our image/perception of God–this disorientation can be a gateway to a much greater image of the Sacred. With my client, his previous concept of God is no longer working for him because his life experiences are revealing a different reality. A new image is forming–perhaps a much larger/expansive understanding of the Mystery. It will be interesting to see what this new image will be for him as he works through his “un-decomposed” grief. However, I also realize that we are never really done grieving but our relationship with our ability to grieve changes. We can hold ourselves in our grief and allow it to flow through us rather than rejecting it to avoid the discomfort. Likewise, we can hold ourselves in unknowing and discomfort and BE in it/with it–allowing the emotions/feelings to move through us, like a mountain remains present to the movement of the weather. The mountain IS, it’s the weather that changes. I think we are all trying to understand/connect with that “ISness” within our selves.
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Initial Post: For the purposes of this post I want to use the story my Mom currently shared with me about her current life situation. While I wouldn’t formally coach my Mom, I will approach this as though it was a future client’s situation. My Mom used to run her own house cleaning business and has since retired. Her clients were mostly the elderly and they often lived alone. She became close with many of them and cared for them way beyond taking care of their homes. After retirement, she fell into becoming a primary caretaker for a past client who lives alone and has alzheimer’s. For the past 2 years, right up until recently, she had spent 6 days a week with her. She poured her life into caring for her….cooking meals, cleaning her house, bathing her and being a friend and source of social interaction. Each day she would show up at the house and the lady wouldn’t remember what they did or talked about the day before. Often my Mom would have to remind her who she was. Because her former client’s condition is continuing to deteriorate, my Mom has had to step back from her role as caretaker. It is beyond what she can take on personally. As she was telling me this story of the hard reality of having to discontinue this role, I heard feelings of guilt. She felt like she was abandoning her friend. She was very tearful. She’s feeling a loss of control because she knew what her friend needed and what it took to care for her properly. She has a hard time trusting that the next person will care for her properly. She spoke of recent difficulties with sleeping with the weight of this on her mind. All of these are dimensions of grief. But I also heard relief, another dimension of grief. She’d spent 90% of her time fulfilling this role selflessly for 2 years, sacrificing time at home with my Dad, sacrificing her own self care. I listened to her like I’ve never listened before. She needed to be heard and held. A significant part of her existence was now gone and she’s left in the void of “what now?” She even made the comment “I guess I need to figure out what I want to do with my life now”. This is loss at the very core. Not only a loss of the connection and depth of relationship with her friend but a loss of her own identity.
If this were a client, I would have asked permission to guide her in this very sensitive and emotionally charged topic. I would also ideally try to come to an agreement on 3 sessions with this client, minimally. There is so much opportunity in this kind of life transition for someone but at the forefront is the mourning of the old way of being, an acknowledgement and letting go of what was. This client is already contemplating what life will be for them now and that is a hearty topic for other sessions but, we can’t create a new way of being during times of distress. There is pain to be processed. The good news in this scenario is that the client still has friendly contact with her former client and so there is a way to still have an enduring connection with her (one of the tasks of mourning) even though the dynamic between them will look different.
The first session would be focused on checking in on the grief to see if anything has shifted, become more/less intense, etc. I’d be curious how free time is being spent to get a pulse on how grounded the client is or isn’t. Are they engaging in a lot of mindless activity to avoid dealing with reality? Are they taking time for self care, reflection, emotional processing? I’d also be interested in incorporating nature into our time together to see what connections the client would make or what glimpses toward the future may occur. Time would be dedicated to story-telling to allow her to share some of her favorite memories from the old personality. I’d encourage some type of ceremony to honor the service and unconditional love she provided to her friend. It would also be important to acknowledge the current reality of what is and finding ways to be hopeful for the future without feeling any pressure to move on. Revisiting memories can be very healing but awareness of present moment and the reality of what currently is can keep the mourning process moving forward. This session would be about support, coaching presence, active listening and allowing emotions to move at their own pace.
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Wow, what a powerful interaction with the deadfall in the forest and symbolism in that. Deadfall in the forest takes years to decay and return to the earth just a grieving can not only be a long process but it also needs to happen on its own time. I really felt how you both supported where your client was in their process but also invited him to explore his edges by asking him if he would approach and step over the deadfall that he identified with as being a reflection of losses he’d skirted around in his life. There’s no doubt that that experience will be present for him when encountering loss in the future. Such a powerful insight and a new neural pathway being forged! I’m interested to know how you sensed his initial reluctance to the threshold experience. What did you notice that told you that?
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@lesliewier
I think this point is so important for all of us to remember, “I would also focus on how the grieving process is healing for her, without trying to fix her.” It reminds me of the importance of trust that our client has everything they need within them. The grieving process is not some prescribed method to heal that was invented. It’s a natural pathway to healing that came about through observing healthy human behavior. As guides, we’re just there to help them remember the way. I think you and I have spoken before about that tendency to go into fix it mode. That is something that is still very present with me in my personal life at times. It’s funny that it doesn’t happen in my coaching though! Maybe that’s because I don’t have deep emotional involvement or investment in clients that could pull me down that path. It sounds like you’re figuring out how to manage that well in your personal life. Do you find it coming up in coaching?
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@ David,
Love your post and how you were able to be present to your mom. What a gift. How beautiful to be able to hold space for someone as self-less as she seems to be and someone you love so much. You saw her grief and indentified all the losses she is experiencing.I like the way you took her experience as an example of what a client might bring to a session. The suggestions you offered, storytelling, ceremoy, acknowledging “what is”, and connecting with hope for the future seem to allow the feelings of grief and loss to circulate and for the emotions to be seen, felt, lived with as needed. You also touched upon the importance of “pendulation”–the going back and forth by “revisiting memories” having “awareness of present moment and the reality of what currently is” so the processing of grief can move forward. How would you relate this process to “integration”?
In answer to your question for me around my perception that my client was somewhat reluctant to enter into a threshold experience–what told me he was reluctant? It was his body language, slight hesitation, and then an over eagerness as if trying to “comply” or “please”. He has codependency tendencies so I am aware that there may be times he goes along with a suggestion to please. That is his default. I try to be very careful in making suggestions so that he really knows he has choice. He is practicing a new way of being–to listen to his own internal “knowing” rather than going along with other’s suggestions. It may be that he was practicing checking in with himself and that may have been the hesitation that I sensed.
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Hi everyone,
It’s so sweet to connect with you all in this space. I miss you all!
Reading your post gives me the chills. The session with your client is very inspiring to read. I love how you incorporated nature into your client’s story, and encouraged interaction with the deadfall. The simple interaction of moving towards, or skirting around, the deadfall was clearly a groundbreaking realization for your client. I always appreciate reading how you incorporate the external landscape into your sessions, because you seem to do so with such ease and trust. I am inspired by the thought that grief (the deadfall) can be “decomposed” and in-turn a source of nutrients for transformation.
@david.fontaine2
You wrote, “We can’t create a new way of being during times of distress.
There is pain to be processed.” This is a very important reminder. As a coach, sometimes I can get excited about discovering the new mythic image and new way of being, but I am reminded that the process of identifying the new mythic image is slow when grief is involved. Actually, I suppose grief is always involved when we step into a new way of being, but the timeline can vary depending on the grief and loss.I am personally inspired to work with people who are experiencing collective grief from the climate crisis, and helping them process grief as a doorway for cultivating a nature-connected mindset and way of being. Your words remind me that my clients and I cannot bypass grief in order to step into a nature-connected world. It’s a necessary part of the paradigm shift.
@lesliewier
Leslie, it’s so beautiful that you hold that space for your friend. I am also working on my desire to “fix it”. For me, I know that wanting to “fix it” can come from a place of love and care for others, but I mostly feel like it’s a conditioned response to avoiding pain. I have also been reading the Untethered Soul (which has been blowing my mind by the way). In reading that book, I have taken a lot of time to observe my thoughts, and I have found that my mind has discovered a way to observe my thoughts as a way of avoiding pain! Tricky mind! So, I’m now working on observing while also allowing myself to FEEL discomfort. It’s a new experience for me.
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Initial Post:
The Grief and Loss module has been very relevant to my sessions, personal relationships, and life overall. I notice an openness in myself to being with my own grief, as well as grief in others.
I would like to share about a new client who has expressed grief around her “old self” and stepping into a new way of being. I feel that this context can apply for any of our coaching clients.
I met with this client for the first time about a month ago. She wants to launch her massage and bodywork business, and reached out to me because she is curious about bringing nature-connection into her work. We are doing trade with one another (lucky me)!
In our first session, she told me her life story. She teared and cried when she told me about the pain and suffering that she has been through, and the self-destructive decisions that she has made. She identified a lot of beliefs that are no longer serving her and that she is ready to step-out-of. She is clearly in a transition towards a new way of being.
I asked her if she saw anything in the landscape that could represent her “old self” and “new self”. She put together a pile of redwood debris to represent her “old self”, and t represent her “new self”, she created a new pile of redwood debris with a stick structure on top. She said that her new self still contained redwood debris because she is not leaving those experiences behind, but unlike the old self, her new self has structure. She realized that she needs more structure in her life.
Looking back upon this session, I realize that my client’s past experiences (the redwood debris) serve as nutrients and a foundation for the new structure in her life (the new growth). In the session, I saw my client pendulating between grief around her old ways of being, and empowerment over her new way of being. I held space for her grief, while also empowering her in her new mythic image. However, I see where I could be improved in this session. I remember feeling a desire to focus on her new mythic image, and looking back on the session, I feel like I could have given more space to her grief. My client is a very verbal person, and can loop on her thoughts, so I remember feeling slightly judgmental and impatient that my client was looping on her grief. I responded to her looping by focusing the session back to the new mythic image. However, looking back, maybe her “looping” was an indication that the grief needed to be sequenced. I understand that focusing her attention back on the new mythic image could have been a form of pendulation, but I’m not sure it worked well, because it was coming from my slight frustration and impatience (my own traumas). My client continued to loop, so it’s clear that something needed to be processsed. Going forward, I am curious about introducing other methods for sequencing the grief when I notice that my clients go into looping mode. This could include releasing through body movement, gestalt therapy, creating art on the land, or identifying aspects of the landscape that represent the grief. Going forward, I would like to continue working on the pendulation tool.
I am curious to hear what you all think about sequencing trauma from grief, and how to keep a balance between being with grief and moving forward. It’s definitely an art!
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Maria thank you for your feedback on my post and for your thoughtful question! In regards to your question of how I relate the pendulation process to integration, I think pendulation between the positive aspects of “what was” and sitting with “what is” helps to widen the window of tolerance in this case. By focusing on the positive through story-telling, a client comes back to the present moment in a less distressed state, making the reality of “what is” more tolerable. This can help to change (in a favorable way) the associations that were firing in the neural network that were causing the distress.
Great awareness with your client and knowing what his tendencies are or can be. Your sensitivity around the co-dependence as well as helping him to keep it in check is so valuable!
David
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@deanna.falge
Deanna, this is a tool that I really want to start using in my coaching. I’ve seen many examples through your shares as well as other folks in the cohort of how powerful this question can be.
“I asked her if she saw anything in the landscape that could represent her ‘old self’ and ‘new self’.”Her internal world became external in this moment and what an incredible way to shift perspective for your client to get to the deeper need. I’m reminded of what Michael said during the Brain 2 intensive that I also happened to take a note of: “when someone identifies what they want, they have integrated it”. And so with this statement, it makes me feel like the direction you were trying to steer this session was spot on. I think the fact that you were able to get to the deeper need here is the key. I don’t think you would have ever gotten there if grief over the old ways was causing dysfunction. As you said, this was a form of pendulation but when she was going back to the grief over the old ways it was from a negative perspective. I ask this question to myself and to you as well, do you think the outcome would have been any different if when she revisited the old ways, you invited her to identify how those old ways DID serve her in the past? Even though they aren’t serving her now, they did at one time. I wonder if it was grief she was exhibiting or possibly shame. We can get hung up in the shame of the old ways because we now label them as “bad”. Pendulating back to the old ways in a more positive light how DID they serve me) and then to present moment probably feels differently than beating ourselves up for the way we used to be. Curious what your thoughts are here.
David
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Summary Post:
The Grief and Loss section of this program was surprisingly one of the more impactful toolboxes thus far. I have to say I never considered grief going beyond the loss of a loved one. Learning about the different types of grief and where it can come from was a big eye opener for me personally as I started thinking about the events of my life and whether I processed those as grief, or at all! I think knowing a client’s timeline of big events, or life story, is so important and can give insight into what factors might be affecting them, especially if there are grief events that have not cycled.It’s not surprising that the dimensions or “symptoms” of grief can look very similar to trauma. Both can present in hyper or hypo arousal of emotional, mental, behavioral and physical states. This can make identification difficult but the bottom line is, if these symptoms are presenting, its time to pause and check in with the client. I feel good about being able to support a client in grief through active listening and I know where my boundaries are as far as when to refer out or provide resources. As we all talked about in this discussion forum, there is nothing to be “fixed” when someone is grieving. There are no perfect words to console nor are there prescribed ways to move on with life. Everybody’s timeline and process is different and some will not deal with it at all. Nature can be an incredible co-guide and source of support during times of loss. Healthy forests all contain new growth, mature trees and deadfall. They are all important contributors to the whole of the forest. In our lives, loss and can can be a source of new growth in our personal forests if processed in a healthy way.
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“Her family typically does not understand and is judgmental when it happens, so she reaches out to me. Without judgement I tell her that she is loved and make sure that she is taking steps to be safe. This client also tends to experience sudden changes in mood, ranging from highs to depths of sadness. In this case, I would simply validate and normalize the roller coaster of emotions she experiences.”
Leslie, you express a beautiful example in guiding someone through grief while being mindful of not going outside of your scope of practice. You hold a space of being neutral, non-judgment, and supportive, and reminding the client that she is loved and making sure she is taking proper steps. You are also expressing your own experience of wanting “fix it” and being aware that there is nothing for you to fix, all of these experience from the client and yourself are normal. I am recognizing the power of being mindful and awareness from multiple perspectives. -
For this post I will be reflecting on a conversation with a man at the dog park.
He began expressing his frustration with Government and county’s approach to the COVID pandemic and constant change to restrictions, then spoke about changes needed within law enforcement with regard to medical retirement. He also spoke about how hard it was to know that a friends restaurant had to close, and the small business are suffering. He felt that our leaders do not consider the economic impact and loss of the small business owners. “Nothing Makes Sense” His complaints span a wide spectrum and he would vacillate. He then began expressing his frustration with schools, feeling that “no-one is doing anything about getting kids back in school” and he shared his desire for things to go back to “normal”. He later shared that his child is 11 years-old and is autistic and his and his wife are feeling the challenges of meeting their son’s needs while schooling from home. It became more clear to me he was wanting a break or some sense of support with.If he was my client, I would remind myself the importance of holding a confidential and neutral space. Taking a breathe, and pause and practicing deep listening is fundamental before I chose to respond and reflect back what he is expressing. It become clear to me he perhaps is experiencing multiple types of grief complex grief due to the Pandemic, possibly secondary grief due to the loss of his friends restaurant, and loss of special needs school structure for his son, along with the loss of the structure he once had with his work and home life balance. He would look off to the in the distance and occasionally down at his dog and stated, “I just wish we could go back to normal.”
Although, I was not formally coaching him, I did validate what he was sharing, and it sounded like he was also experience, what some are calling, Pandemic Fatigue. He said, “Yes, I am tired.” I asked him what he felt he could do to bring a sense of normalcy and self care to his day? With ease, he stated, He was thankful for the dog park, and he could be outside and relax and just be with his dog. I said that’s wonderful thing to recognize for yourself. I watched his body, soften, and he took a exhale, as he allowed himself to become more present being at the dog park. I realized he just needed to vent and decompress because everything was just piling up inside he needed a place to release it.
This reminds me that often times, the simple act of just being present and listening is all someone needs at the time. Grief, will show up is multifaceted and is connected to far more than one may realize and be aware of. For this man, he just needed to give his frustration a voice. I recognized that was all I needed to offer was deep listening, and I was very much aware of myself when wanting to interject. I just would fall back into my breath and just listen and ask what he needs in this moment to feel supported? If he did not know, I would just let him know I am here walking with him enjoying the dog park. Sometimes the physical presence of someone is just enough. That’s what this felt best for this man at this time.
