The Happy Thanatologist

I just returned from the Association of Death Education and Counseling Conference in Portland, Oregon. Some people who love me fear that my choice of profession at this stage in my life is based on an unwillingness to let go of the trauma of death or, at the very least, it is probably really depressing.  I have to tell you that neither of these suppositions is true!

Delving deep into how people cope with death and loss and how they come out the other side is actually inspiring. Attending lectures by passionate researchers, psychologists and counselors and listening to others who are supporting people of all ages, in all kinds of grief, is enlivening. I paired this educational experience with a visit to my oldest daughter to see her new home and a visit with some dear old friends so my 10-day trip was fun as well as educational.

I had never been to Oregon before and it is quite beautiful, although a little wet. My dear friend took me to the Columbia Gorge and we saw the amazing Multnomah Falls which splashed on our faces. We started talking in the car at the airport and did not stop until she dropped me off at the hotel for the conference. I love it when you haven’t seen friends in a long time and it is just a matter of catching up on the interval with stories. I am very grateful to her and her husband for being so welcoming, especially since I invited myself over!

Once ensconced in my hotel room with a view of the Willamette River, my conference experience began in earnest with a meet and greet. Many old colleagues were there including a woman from my first year cohort in my Master’s program. And I began to meet new colleagues, accept dinner invitations and share information and ways to practice. The keynote speakers were stimulating, especially Okello Kelo Sam, a former child soldier from Uganda who drummed and sang while telling us about the orphanage and school he has started for children who have suffered as he did.

Thursday afternoon, I presented my talk on using expressive therapies in grief counseling sessions. This is what I am passionate about because I believe that pairing non-verbal modalities with talk therapy can be very beneficial. And while I know that developing evidence based research in thanatology is important, apparently many attendees were hungry for some ideas that were both practical and different. I expected to have perhaps 20 people at my experiential workshop; instead over 80 people came. They were sitting on the floor and crowded in the doorway! The interaction was great and people continued to comment that they had enjoyed the talk.

Since I’ve been on stage since I was little, my inner performer came out to play. I enjoyed speaking without a script and I particularly enjoyed helping people to see that expressive modes can really help people when they are grieving.

I hope the many people I connected with keep in touch!

Meaning and Purpose

When I first began studying grief, I learned about a model called “meaning-making.”  At first this angered me because I did not think that I could come up with a meaning for Alby's death. It made no sense that he left us in the middle of our lives together.  I also felt that my own life had lost its meaning, even though the work I was engaged in continued and even ramped up since I was now trying to complete it alone.  I puzzled over the idea of meaning for a long time.

Dr. Robert Neimeyer, an influential leader in grief counseling and therapy, talks about meaning making as a way to rebuild your life after loss.  In the reconstruction model of grief counseling, the story becomes a pathway to transformation. By telling the story of the loss and of the relationship, you can find points of connection. Through the narrative, you might discover new activities, new passions. As I worked through my own story of loss, I slowly understood that by living a meaningful life, I would discover its new purpose.  By finding connections from our relationship, I continue to bring him forward into my life now.  In other words, the meaning in my life moves through our shared story and finds purpose in the stories I am creating and the work I do in my life now. In other words, there was no meaning in his death but I can make meaning in my own life, afterwards.

Many of my clients talk about a loss of purpose.  One young woman feels that it is important to focus on her purpose now that her shared plans with her boyfriend will not come about. Even as she cries, she seeks meaning in a penny on the ground, a hawk in the sky. She visits places they intended to go together and looks towards finding a more satisfying job to enhance her career, as if she is being invisibly encouraged by him. An older woman struggles to find meaning in other parts of her life besides her work which, although it gives her a true sense of purpose, does not supply enough meaning to fill the hole left by her husband. She seeks connection with her adult children, in remembrance of their loved one. A mother, mourning the sudden death of her daughter, searches for purpose now that she no longer has this child to guide. It will take her a while to rekindle any sense of meaning after this death. A young man, struggling with issues of growing up, leaving childhood friends and bad habits behind, longs to create a meaningful career to shape himself as an adult.

It's a common theme although we each have our own unique story to tell. Listen to these stories that you tell yourself and others. Notice where the connections are. Notice your own themes and see if they will lead you to a new sense of purpose.

 

How have you rediscovered meaning and purpose after death or a difficult transition? Leave me a message - I'd love to read your response.

Character Education: Political Correctness vs Civility

Years ago, when I was PTA Rabble Rouser in Chief, a parent came to a meeting with an elaborate presentation about something called “character education.” She said that children needed to be taught manners and how to be nice to each other, in school. She backed up her argument with charts and visual aids.  I was a bit taken aback because I thought that manners, tolerance and how to be kind to other people was MY job, at home, as a parent. After pointing out that recommendations for changes to the educational system needed to be implemented by the school board, not the PTA, I went home very puzzled.  A year later, character education became a state mandate.  How was it possible that we needed to mandate the teaching of common decency and civility?

I must be blind or completely out of the loop. It seems that not only did we need character education, a major sector of this country needs a refresher course. Suddenly, people seem to think they can say whatever they want, no matter how mean, intrusive or bigoted. At check-out lines across the country, nutty people feel emboldened to comment nastily on other people, without knowing anything about their challenges, their lives or who they are. A mother struggling with two special needs kids, another young boy and a toddler gets threatened with CPS by the woman in front of her. Wouldn’t it have been kinder to say, “May I help you?” The nephew of a friend, calmly waiting his turn on line in a store suddenly gets called a vile racial epithet for no reason at all, other than some bug-eyed man’s idea of “free speech.” Using the excuse that we no longer have to be “politically correct,” the crazies have come out of the closet.

Calling people names is not “telling it like it is.” Being rude, hostile, loud and threatening does not show strength of character – quite the opposite. What happened to offering assistance? To common courtesy? Tolerance?  Basic human dignity and kindness? Character is defined as the mental and MORAL qualities of an individual. Can we live up to our highest standards instead of the lowest?

Free speech does not mean you can say whatever hateful or hurtful thing that pops into your head. Good character dictates thinking before speaking, in case your words might wound.  Free speech is not verbal vomiting. In a civil society, we need to be just that – civil. Good character means good conduct in the best sense, not because it is politically correct but because it is good. We do not know what another person is going through and it behooves us to take a breath and at least try to be calm and kind. And if we are unable to do that, perhaps we should not speak at all.

Shattering and Becoming WHOLE Again

Spring is coming; even though it is early March, green shoots are rising up from the damp soil. Birdsong has changed and we are collectively hoping for something positive to generate along with the change in seasons. At least I know I am.

I’ve been focusing on a project that’s been burbling just below the surface, sometimes bursting forth and sometimes lying dormant. Over the years it has metamorphosed from intense journal entries to a sort of memoir to a travel guide for the journey with no map. If you’ve ever grieved, you know what I mean. Now, I have committed to the project and in order to hold myself more accountable, I am going public with it.

It’s a book and its working title is Shattering Grief: Picking up the pieces to become WHOLE again.

My theme (my personal mission?) has always been working through those feelings of brokenness, the sense that your life is in shards after the death of someone so integral to you. That feeling of being shattered was so pervasive that it required a quest of repair. I wanted, no, NEEDED to feel WHOLE again. There have been so many discoveries during this process and the most wonderful one is that now, I feel relatively complete. Was that broken feeling just an illusion? In the same way that grief can masquerade as depression and insanity, perhaps it put on a grand costume of fractured mirrors.  Whether this was real or not, it required a lot of attention.  It compelled me to look at all the pieces of my life and my self and consider each one carefully. By considering the various roles I play in my life and in the lives of family and friends, the possibility of growth and even some change appeared.

Death often creates a sort of identity crisis. We can cope with this by considering who we thought we were and who we are now. We can use our relationship as the foundation on which to rebuild; to use qualities of our loved one as some of the bricks. We can enhance our own abilities and develop new interests. Slowly, we can begin to ask another question.  Who do I want to be? And how can I accomplish that?

Remembering Lyn

My meditation walk is covered with yellow and brown leaves but the centers of energy around which I traverse can be brushed off.  Today I will walk in honor of a friend who left this earth on Sunday.

She was very tall and skinny and had been on life-sustaining, cancer abeyance medications for 4 years.  Her struggle to stay alive was coupled with her struggle to continue to work despite dizzying side effects. A gentle soul who cared deeply about ecology, peace and her daughters, we shared several threads of connection: the people we knew and living locations although at different times. Lyn was the Volunteer Coordinator at the hospice where I worked for some time and always tried to offer ideas for working with children since she had run creative programs for little ones for many years.

About a month ago, I visited Lyn in her home. She was still trying treatments but her body was rejecting even hydration attempts. She could no longer drive but she had many friends providing help.  She wanted to clear the energy in her home and we developed an affirmation for her to hold with intent. She wished to release negative thinking and ask for what she needs.  I gently suggested that she ask to receive whatever this was, including peace.  I lit sage and wafted it all over her home, upstairs and down, into nooks and corners, over boxes, books and bedclothes.  Lyn sat on her couch with her eyes close, desperate to hold on to the thinning cord of life that she still had.  With sympathy and love, I made her lunch and then gave her a cardboard circle and some pastels.  She made herself a shield with a golden center, black lines jagging out of the circle and blue lines of peaceful energy pointing in.  Then she said she was tired and I left.

Last week another former colleague and I went to see Lyn in the hospital.  We gave her a stone engraved with the word Peace and another that said “One Day at a Time.” She clutched them both and said she was scared but she also had what she needed – her two daughters had returned to be with her.  Lyn finally decided to enter Hospice on Friday.  My colleague felt that she would be more comfortable there and would probably feel better for a week or two; I thought I would have time to visit her again. But we did not know what was happening inside her.  Perhaps having finally accepted that death was near, she relaxed and let go.  Lyn floated into peace on Sunday.  She was a gentle, loving person and now, she has melted into that peaceful energy that surrounds us.

Today I will walk in Lyn’s memory rather than attend her funeral. I am glad I got to see her, hug her frail body, one more time before she left.  Relax, Lyn. You’ve been holding on for a long time.  You deserve this peace.

As you tell the story.....

We know each other by the stories we tell.  In fact, we organize our lives through our stories, whether it is telling a friend about the trip you took to the market where you discovered some beautiful organic avocados, or sitting in a group telling the story of your grief. We may actually be creating our lives via these stories, so perhaps it would be wise to pay attention.

A wise woman said to me a long time ago:  “As you tell the story, it begins to happen. So why not make it a good one?”  I agree wholeheartedly and find myself concerned when I spend time with someone whose stories are filled with negativity, disgruntled complaints and woe.  Not to be too simplistic, but if the stories we tell are dark and dreary, couldn’t that affect how we view the world?   If we were paying attention to the story as it is shaped by our words, would we be able to tweak it a little? If like attracts like, do we attract the worst if that is where our attention is?

Grief is such an unsettling place. We must give voice to fears, anxiety, loneliness – all those seemingly negative and overwhelming emotions.  Yet, is it possible to find a balance between releasing these monsters and searching for something positive – a kernel of gold within the muck that can give us hope?  This kernel is the heart-seed of possibilities, a “promise,” as the poet Rabindrath Tagore said.  We used this poem as part of our wedding ceremony, allowing for possibilities to show up in unexpected ways and to flower.  Did I think that widowhood would be one of these possibilities?  No.  But I continue to tell a good story and to attempt, with great effort, to transform cataclysm into a meaningful life.

What story are you telling today?  How can you use your story to transform your life?

                                             The faith waiting in the heart of the seed

                                             Promises a miracle of life

                                             Which it cannot prove at once.

                                                                            ~RabindranathTagore, Fireflies