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Guiding through Grief (Oct 2020)
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@deanna
“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).” I love how you gudided your client to use examples or nature to represents the old self and news elf., Within that recognizing how the old self provided nutrients for the new self structure You. also do an seamless incorporation of the pendulum exercise in your sessions. I feel your session is a nice example of weaving and building on the tools offered through brain change, recognizing trauma and guiding through grief as well as your own self reflection feeling frustrated when your client was “looping back” and recognizing what was being triggered in you in that moment(s). I too have experienced a similar frustration with client looping back into the a low road. While I feel your direction of bringing body movement to assist in somehing that has not completed sequencing, it also feels that it’s a good time bring to question where the client is in their body, what is felt in the body? Particularly if she is stuck in a mental loop. Bringing the awareness the feeling of the body, see wha that may allow to open up, perhaps it would open up an opportunity for movement…all and all I love hearing your about experiences with your clients and how you gudide/and coach them. I find your sharings very supportive to my own coaching and self awareness as a coach. -
synopsis a take away for me is allowing ourself to experience grief can be necessary to move forward in life. Not allowing the grief freezes or limit one to the past whether it’s concessions or subconscious. Somewhere down the road of life, the grief will come out. The energy of grief has a desire to be released and acknowledge in some way. Until that process is complete it has the potential to limit someone to the past, instead of setting them free to be present and move toward the future.
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**Initial Post**
I do not have any clients yet, so I will write on my personal experience with this intensive and how I hope to utilize this in the future.This was the intensive I’ve been waiting for. Grief work is really interesting to me. The uniqueness of how it affects people. Reminiscing past adventures, retelling stories, longing for life to go back to how it was before. I find all of that really moving. And so important. What this course reminded me was that not all grief is related to death. People grieve the loss of a job, a loss of relationships, a grieving a decision made that can no longer be undone. Grief is what binds us because it affects us all in so many ways.
During my coaching session, I talked through a grief that involved a past choice that cannot be changed and the heartache it caused then and continues to cause now. Though I did not necessarily need coaching or resourcing, what I needed was someone to listen to my story. That’s all. And sometimes, that’s what grief work is—just being there and holding space. When the bereaved is ready to share, the story will come out, it is our job to be there when it is time. I am grateful that my coaching partner held that space for me. What could have been a challenge, the fact that I was new to the group, did not seem to affect the session at all.
As I grow into my new work as a postpartum doula, I am certain to encounter parents experiencing grief. Mourning the loss of their childless days and the freedoms they had. Mourning the loss of friends who drift away after a birth. Mourning the loss of opportunities at work, as your focus shifts to your child. I hope to be able to utilize the trainings I have received here and elsewhere to help facilitate parents’ grief.
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@david.fontaine2
Hey David, thanks for your in-depth reply. It’s fun navigating this stuff with you!
I really like your idea of bringing light to the the old personality by asking the client, “how did those behavior serve you in the past?” I think this is an excellent idea, and I definitely want to ask this to my clients in the future! In asking this question, we are helping our clients change their narrative about the past. We are helping them re-wire their perspective on the memory, and re-wire the memory itself. So cool! Similar to how story-telling an uncomfortable memory while being in nature or a peaceful/enjoyable setting creates new positive associations with the past memory, and re-wires the memory. Thanks for bringing this all to my attention! -
@david.fontaine2
Hey David, thanks for your in-depth reply. It’s fun navigating this stuff with you!
I really like your idea of bringing light to the the old personality by asking the client, “how did those behavior serve you in the past?” I think this is an excellent idea, and I definitely want to ask this to my clients in the future! In asking this question, we are helping our clients change their narrative about the past. We are helping them re-wire their perspective on the memory, and re-wire the memory itself. So cool! Similar to how story-telling an uncomfortable memory while being in nature or a peaceful/enjoyable setting creates new positive associations with the past memory, and re-wires the memory. Thanks for bringing this all to my attention!@gmlobito1
Hey Gina, thanks for your response to my post. I also really enjoyed reading your post about holding space for the man at the park. So many people are feeling exactly what the man was describing (including myself at times), so it’s really beautiful that you are so well resourced and equipped to hold space and support people in that way. I am also inspired by the space you held for that man. What a gift to give right now!
Thank you for your idea on asking the client, “what do you feel in your body?” as they loop. I think that asking the client what they feel in their body when they loop back to the memory or thought, then pendulating to the resource, is a wonderful way to help them sequence that stuck grief/trauma. Thank you so much for your insight! -
**David
Such great insights here! While you are correct that it would be difficult to coach a family member, I commend you for being able to momentarily detach yourself from that role and even be able to recognize what your mom needs and is experiencing. Sometimes, it is difficult to take a step back and fully listen and feel what a loved one is expressing. Well done!
As I read this, I can tell the level of love and care your mom had for her former client. What a sacrifice to be able to care for her the way she did, tirelessly and without question. It is rare to see such service, unfortunately. And the toll it must have taken, having a dear friend not remember you.
This is a very good reminder that not all grief is mourning a death, but also mourning a loss of a relationship and a loss of one’s identity. Grief takes on so many different faces and can affect us in so many different ways.
I think recommending a minimum of 3 sessions with the client is a good idea. When dealing with grief, I think a long-term coaching relationship is best. There are so many avenues to take and so much that might come up has the client navigates the stages of grief.
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**Gina
First, I want to commend you for taking the time to talk to the man at the dog park. For myself, I know that I would not have engaged him the way that you did. Between it being a stranger, and his frustrations with the government and institutions, I would find it uncomfortable to carry on any lengthy conversation. It’s interesting that that is my gut reaction, when coaching is such an act of service. Perhaps something to explore within myself.
As so many of us have recognized, grief comes in many forms. Through his frustrations and pandemic fatigue, this gentleman seems to be experiencing grief for what used to be—grief for his friend’s restaurant, grief for his son, grief for the population at large whose lives are being affected by the virus. The question is, how do we properly address a grief that seems so big and out of our hands. And a grief that affects us as coaches, as well as the client?
You are correct, sometimes simply holding space is what the client needs. Sometimes the client just needs to be heard and validated. It sounds like you provided this to this man. Even though this was just a chance meeting, you provided that caring ear. That shows your true character. Well done!
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**Summary
As I read through everyone’s posts and am reminded of the various paths grief can take, I am experiencing some grief myself. Grief for an end to an experience. Grief for friendships that will surely fade and grief for a loss of a respite from the daily grind. You see, I am finishing up my last posts for my NCC certificate. This has been a long time coming. And it’s a chapter closed in my life.
It is appropriate that grief is the last intensive because the tools learned help me to process the feelings I have.
How grateful I am to have finished the program with a cohort that welcomed me as one of their own. I appreciate you.
My message to you all, keep coaching and keep reaching people. Keep having important conversations with family, keep holding space for strangers, and keep exploring deep feeling within yourself.
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Response:
David thank you so much for sharing such a personal story about your mother! It’s clear how much you care about her, and that you want to do whatever you can to support her during this time. How did your holding space for her and truly listening, impact her? What did you notice?
In response to your question, the need to fix it does come up in my coaching, but typically only when I’m on the “low road”. When I’m fully aware and present, it doesn’t tend to happen, but if I get caught up in something, or ‘hooked’ as I remember Pema Chodron phrasing the idea, then I tend to fall in that low road tendency to want to fix. I’m a problem solver and a planner, and these are things that are deeply embedded in my brain, so it’s a lifelong practice of moving through that tendency to fix and making my way back towards the high road. Deanna mentioned something insightful, that grief is always involved when we step into a new way of being, and that’s a good way for me to remember that the change process is one that I can’t force.
Deana, you mentioned the need to fix comes from a conditioned response to avoiding pain – and I think that’s why planning and problem solving are deeply embedded into my psyche – it likely stems from the pain of childhood trauma. This was super insightful for me, thank you for your comments! I also appreciate you sharing about your client in the context of the Brain & Change 1/Trauma modules – having just completed them this week, my understanding of what you’re describing is much clearer, and a great example for my learning! I didn’t think of needing to sequence grief as you would trauma, but it certainly makes sense.
Gina I so appreciate your share, and what you did for that man at the dog park. So many people could have responded defensively or with counter arguments, and I think a big part of the collective ‘problem’ is that culturally we are tending towards listening to respond rather than listening to understand. When we do that, someone who is trying to sequence their grief and trauma is abruptly stopped, and thus so is the healing. So we are all clogging each other up, leading to emotional reactions and more defensiveness. It’s a vicious cycle. Thank you for taking steps to break it!
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Response:
David thank you so much for sharing such a personal story about your mother! It’s clear how much you care about her, and that you want to do whatever you can to support her during this time. How did your holding space for her and truly listening, impact her? What did you notice?
In response to your question, the need to fix it does come up in my coaching, but typically only when I’m on the “low road”. When I’m fully aware and present, it doesn’t tend to happen, but if I get caught up in something, or ‘hooked’ as I remember Pema Chodron phrasing the idea, then I tend to fall in that low road tendency to want to fix. I’m a problem solver and a planner, and these are things that are deeply embedded in my brain, so it’s a lifelong practice of moving through that tendency to fix and making my way back towards the high road. Deanna mentioned something insightful, that grief is always involved when we step into a new way of being, and that’s a good way for me to remember that the change process is one that I can’t force.
Deana, you mentioned the need to fix comes from a conditioned response to avoiding pain – and I think that’s why planning and problem solving are deeply embedded into my psyche – it likely stems from the pain of childhood trauma. This was super insightful for me, thank you for your comments! I also appreciate you sharing about your client in the context of the Brain & Change 1/Trauma modules – having just completed them this week, my understanding of what you’re describing is much clearer, and a great example for my learning! I didn’t think of needing to sequence grief as you would trauma, but it certainly makes sense.
Gina I so appreciate your share, and what you did for that man at the dog park. So many people could have responded defensively or with counter arguments, and I think a big part of the collective ‘problem’ is that culturally we are tending towards listening to respond rather than listening to understand. When we do that, someone who is trying to sequence their grief and trauma is abruptly stopped, and thus so is the healing. So we are all clogging each other up, leading to emotional reactions and more defensiveness. It’s a vicious cycle. Thank you for taking steps to break it!
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Response:
David thank you so much for sharing such a personal story about your mother! It’s clear how much you care about her, and that you want to do whatever you can to support her during this time. How did your holding space for her and truly listening, impact her? What did you notice?
In response to your question, the need to fix it does come up in my coaching, but typically only when I’m on the “low road”. When I’m fully aware and present, it doesn’t tend to happen, but if I get caught up in something, or ‘hooked’ as I remember Pema Chodron phrasing the idea, then I tend to fall in that low road tendency to want to fix. I’m a problem solver and a planner, and these are things that are deeply embedded in my brain, so it’s a lifelong practice of moving through that tendency to fix and making my way back towards the high road. Deanna mentioned something insightful, that grief is always involved when we step into a new way of being, and that’s a good way for me to remember that the change process is one that I can’t force.
Deana, you mentioned the need to fix comes from a conditioned response to avoiding pain – and I think that’s why planning and problem solving are deeply embedded into my psyche – it likely stems from the pain of childhood trauma. This was super insightful for me, thank you for your comments! I also appreciate you sharing about your client in the context of the Brain & Change 1/Trauma modules – having just completed them this week, my understanding of what you’re describing is much clearer, and a great example for my learning! I didn’t think of needing to sequence grief as you would trauma, but it certainly makes sense.
Gina I so appreciate your share, and what you did for that man at the dog park. So many people could have responded defensively or with counter arguments, and I think a big part of the collective ‘problem’ is that culturally we are tending towards listening to respond rather than listening to understand. When we do that, someone who is trying to sequence their grief and trauma is abruptly stopped, and thus so is the healing. So we are all clogging each other up, leading to emotional reactions and more defensiveness. It’s a vicious cycle. Thank you for taking steps to break it!
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Summary:
There are several major takeaways for me with this module. The first, is that the face of loss is so varied. There are many different kinds of loss, and ways to experience grief. Change in and of itself presents a loss. That thought that change (and death) is the only constant in life isn’t entirely accurate. Rather it’s change, loss (and thus grief) and death. Initially that can sound depressing, but the reality is that beauty and joy also follows each one of those processes. Culturally we have spent so much time trying to avoid our pain instead of embracing it as our ancestors knew to do, and it’s stunting our evolution and growth as humans.
I also made a connection between grief, trauma, and negative emotions in general – in how they appear and move through the body through sequencing. Grief or negative emotions improperly sequenced essentially become trauma, and I while learned that this past week, it just makes a whole lot more sense to me now when reading about everyone’s examples and experiences. So, I’ve been able to more fully integrate some of the information between these toolboxes.
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Hi All,
Thanks for all your great stories and experiences around grief. So beautiful to see you all holding space for strangers, family, self, friends, clients, etc. We are all in a grief mode right now, I think…. the pandemic sure has changed our life in the near term and we don’t know what the longer term repercussions will be. The Winter Solstice reminds us to move through darkness to rebirth–this is the natural cycle of grief and loss. We just don’t give each other or ourselves space. Our culture just wants us to disconnect from the fullness of living.Hugs to all.
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Final Reflection:
Like others, I have found this toolbox to be invaluable. I have already experienced several moments of holding space for clients who are going through a loss of some kind. Every change and new experience is a process of letting go so we can make room for something else. Sometimes the “making room” is tangible, as in the case of one of my clients who wants to get rid of things that belonged to her grandparents. Each object requires a moment of grief and loss for her. The transitions of our life are threshold moments. We move from one reality to a new one. The moment of crossing is an acknowledgement of movement which requires a letting go, a loss, a moment of sadness & grief. Ultimately, we are practicing for our final letting go, the moment we transition from our body-state to whatever comes next. There is so much meaning making in each experience of grief and loss. Its how we move from one state to the next and provides comfort in our expanding experience of the rawness of life. We become bigger as we allow more experiences to be real. This requires us to be fully present to what is–pain, sorrow,joy, uncertainty, discomfort. When we are present to what is, we can be with ourselves and others with friendliness and compassion. Pema Chodron says: “The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
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Initial Post:
“Relationships involve the sharing of energy and information flow. When we communicate with one another we are exchanging energy in the form of informational signals that often contain value.” – from the pocket guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology by Daniel Siegel. This quote is a great way for me to communicate what I felt at the beginning of my follow up apt with my younger client that is currently going through a divorce. He was wearing a smile and showing up “strong” for the world at work recently. Today was different, unexpectedly, he showed up with his head hanging a bit. His energy was communicating something. What showed up for me, right away, was grief. He was going through a divorce and perhaps he had discovered this loss in his life and perhaps he hasn’t. Either way, I could see the divorce as the source of grief and this was his process. This was where he was in his process. I didn’t look to change where he was, but amazed by this new awareness of mine, I settled in to meet him right where he was at. We began the severance process by establishing our roles etc and I continued to ask questions and listen. He continued to speak and share about what was going on for him in the divorce.
The deeper need that showed up for him was…acknowledgement. To simply acknowledge that he is going through a divorce was a major step for him and it showed when his baseline shifted and his energy intensified. In fact, “Grief is a highly personal , lifelong, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual process of learning how to acknowledge…” – Kim Mooney. I remembered this quote and reminded myself of the power of presence and surrendered (let go of) the thought of wanting to fix him or his relationship.
I knew that this symbolic loss (divorce) was his discover on his own or not. We revisited his conversation about where he was in his process and what he wanted next in his life. I could see him physically move from pre-contemplation to contemplation and the conversation wanted to move directly in to what to DO next. At this time…we slowed the process down together and spoke about the “roller coaster” that this process can be. Just acknowledging his experience in this way seemed to help him. In closing the session…I acknowledged him powerfully. I asked him what he wanted to be acknowledged for…and he said “putting together an awesome Ritual of running daily to give my mind and body the health and a release it needs during this divorce process”. Wow…I couldn’t have said it better. This is great work that makes such a difference for people and makes such a difference for me. I’m forever grateful!
