Transcription:
Transforming Your Grief: Episode 2

Scott Webb: Accepting loss and living with our grief is a process and oftentimes a difficult one, but it can be a bit easier if we recognize that accepting our loss is a choice and I'm joined today for part two in our series on transforming our grief by Shannon Radel. She's a hospice social worker and bereavement coordinator at Upland Hills Health in Dodgeville.

This is the Inspire Health podcast from Upland Hills Health. I'm Scott Webb. Shannon, it's so great to be back on with you today. We're talking about accepting loss and living with our grief, which can be challenging and unimaginable for people. So let's start here. Let's talk about this. How do we accept loss?

Shannon Radel: So I want to talk about living after loss and specifically, how can we accept our loss in a meaningful and healthy way. So the last time I was on the show, I briefly spoke about the five stages of grief and those include denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. In that stage, acceptance is the last stage, but I want to challenge our listeners and flip the five stages, making acceptance the first stage.

Now that may sound crazy, but it's my opinion that if we struggle in accepting the reality of our loss, we will struggle with how we perceive others and the world around us moving forward. Your ability to process the death and the subsequent stages of grief will get you to acceptance. Acceptance of one's death does not mean that you are left unscaved. Death of a loved one will change you forever. But how you deal with that grieving process will determine your acceptance and the ability to move forward. So acceptance shouldn't be confused with the healing or recovering from loss since that would put an enormous amount of pressure on the people experiencing grief.

Acceptance is really the beginning of the real healing process. It's the point where the recovery becomes about the person left behind and not about the person being mourned. So the real problem with this is that most people in the midst of their sorrow can't imagine accepting the loss of their loved one. To do so would inadvertently mean that that person wasn't meaningful or they aren't worth the pain and sorrow.

The crux of acceptance is the assumption that the person experiencing the grief is now of course healed and that they will, once again, live fully and wholly, and those feelings of loss are gone forever. Well, that's not simply how grief and acceptance works. Acceptance involves the recognition that your life in some way changed forever because of the loss of your loved one. And you will never return to that person or that time before they were gone.

So like with all actions, acceptance is truly a choice we can choose to face what has happened to us or to the family member or we can deny it, hide from it and not deal with it. But consider this when we hide, we're hiding from our emotions. When we deny, we're denying ourselves to live fully in the present. And when we choose not to deal with something, not only are we not dealing with the big stuff, but we're probably missing out on the day-to-day magic that makes up a life.

So I actually want to share a quick personal story about what acceptance in the moment might look like. So this actually just happened to me just last night. And, um, I took my 13-year-old cat to the vet. She hasn't been herself lately. And so I just wanted to rule out some minor things and get her back on the path to healthiness. Well, it turns out that Cricket, my cat, she's actually in the end-stage kidney failure.

So when vet was going over the labs and she was discussing next steps, I was welling up with tears. And when she left the room, as well as the tech, I just started to ugly sob. It was the type of crying that is audible and one that we generally reserve for alone time. So I did this for maybe 30 seconds, maybe a minute. And then as if a switch was flipped, I said to myself, "To love is to grieve. To love is to grieve."

To pull myself out from that mindset or from that spiraling hole and then going forward in a more positive way, that was a big deal. Something as basic as reminding myself of a simple truth can be viewed as acceptance. So the truth is in this situation, I'm aware that pets don't live forever. The truth is that I love my cat very much and I will miss her terribly when she passes. These are the truths that I can accept right now.

Acceptance of the hard things doesn't make it hurt less. It just helps us turn that hurt into something more productive. By shifting or modifying my thoughts, I was mentally present when the vet came back into the room to review those treatment plans and care options. So the same can be said about humans and how we accept loss or accept a hard truth in the moment.

Scott Webb: In accepting loss of a pet or a loved one of any kind, it's how we channel that and how we, you know, move to the future. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about the strategies that can help listeners, help all of us move into an acceptance mindset in the midst of feeling overwhelmed or grief stricken.

Shannon Radel: The strategies I'm about to share are going to be ones that you can do when you're having a tough moment or when you are maybe driving to work or on a lunch break or, you know, just mindlessly watching TV at night, but then the grief hits you. And if for anyone who has lost someone or even a pet or gone through a significant loss such as divorce or some major accidents where their life has changed, grief and that type of pain, it will just sneak up on you unexpectedly.

So it's important to have strategies and tools that you can kind of go to in case that grief strikes you at, um, a time that you weren't expecting. So the first one is something that is called square breathing. Now this particular exercise goes by several different names, but essentially, you know, if you are about to lose your cool or you feel yourself spiraling, you know, we just want to take a breath.

And so square breathing is essentially that you inhale. So you'd take a deep breath for four counts that would look like; inhale two, three, four. And then you hold your breath for four counts. You exhale out or breathe out for four counts, so that would be: exhale two, three, four. And hold that again for another four counts.

So this really gives your brain a second to kind of catch up with the emotions or it gives the logical part of your brain a second to catch up with kind of the emotional stuff that you might be going through and really, the act of just simple breathing is a game-changer and can be used in almost all difficult or stressful situations.

Additional strategies could be, you know, taking a pen to paper and telling your story about your loss. So, you know, just jotting down kind of the events surrounding the time that the loss occurred. What happened? Who was it? What did you do directly afterwards? When we are able to write down our story or own our story and experience, we give the feelings related to that experience less power.

So the next time you're out and about maybe at the grocery store and someone does ask you about what had happened, you can share the facts or just the details rather than sharing it with so much emotion that it puts you back in the same place you were when you actually experienced the loss initially.

So when we reshare a story or experience that was negative or it's triggering in some way, but we have not processed the feelings surrounding it, when you reshare that story, your body falls back into where it was the moment that the bad news came to you. So it's the idea of, you know, let's say you're complaining about a coworker, um, to your spouse at night after work and you're getting so worked up even though this event happened hours ago or maybe last week, but your body feels as tense as it did when the actual thing happened. So it's really important to try to own the moment, own the experience so that we're not re-triggering our body every single time we have to relive the experience.

And the last strategy I want to encourage folks to do is envisioning a higher self. So you want to envision yourself from the viewpoint of the person you are mourning or caring for. When we view ourselves from the perspective of our loved ones, you can simply ask yourself who does my mom or spouse need me to be right now to help them? Or in my case, who does Cricket need me to be right now? You know, my cat needs her fur mama to be on top of her medications and the food regimen. And so this might sound silly, but it's effective because we can't be the best version of ourselves for our loved ones if we are stuck in the well of grief.

Scott Webb: And so Shannon, as we get close to wrapping up this episode, anyway, I'm wondering about living with our grief. Tell us how we can do that.

Shannon Radel: So there are a couple of things that we can do when living with grief. And keep in mind that if you have lost someone, you're doing that right now, you know, and how effectively or how healthfully you are doing so is really up to you. But a couple things I want to encourage folks to do is just let yourself feel those emotions, be prepared to kind of experience this vast array of emotions, anything from anger, fear, irritability, resentment or even hopelessness.

The scope of our emotions is almost endless, but if these things aren't acknowledged or eventually worked out, then they will pull you down into the quicksand, into the quicksand of grief, um, and just causing you to have, you know, heartache for a longer period of time and kind of feel mired in that grief for perhaps more time than you would want to feel that way.

The second way is that you can strengthen your grief muscles. So just as we strengthen our physical muscles on a regular basis, we can strengthen our grief muscles. Most of the time, we're not even aware that we are doing this, but the more time that we spend without our loved ones, the more time we are able to learn that we can move forward while carrying that grief. So no matter how much time had passed between, let's say, the time you've lost your loved one to a less emotional period of time, in that time, you have been plotting forward, plotting ahead through the pain, through the hardship and the muscles recover in between each kind of session, if you will, where you are feeling that deep anguish.

So another strategy or thought is that as time goes by, do your best to limit the amount of time that you spend during the day focusing on grief. So it's kind of similar to being aware of how much time maybe you spend on your phone or watching television or doing something else that over time can be, you know, detrimental or just not helpful for us. So this idea is really difficult because sometimes it may feel like we have no control over what time we are spending mired in that grief.

And so finding a tactile or physical way to set aside time through the day might be very helpful. So think about maybe a favorite blanket or a pair of slippers that you use during your morning time. You set aside a specific time of day and wrap yourself in that blanket or wear those fluffy slippers, imagining yourself with the loved one and experiencing the loss together. After the item is put away and the griever can get back on, um, with the busyness of the day.

These physical reminders help us understand that we have control over the amount of time that we allow ourselves to actively grieve. It doesn't mean that you forget that person or pretend that your pain isn't real. It just means that you also recognize that you must learn how to live and function with the pain.

And the last thing I'll share on strategies is many times our default memories, they're about surrounding the moment that we lost that person, so like the last thing that we remember about them. But we can change that default picture by making a concerted effort to remember the love that you shared. Let your love help you carry that pain. Healing, grief, and learning to live without your loved one is the hardest thing you'll ever do. But loss and love can learn to walk side by side.

And I just want to end with a couple of quotes that have been helpful to me that has, um, helped clients in the past. And they are this, "One can not get through life without pain. What we can do is choose how to use the pain life presents to us." And lastly, "You'll come through this not stronger, not better, not worse, just through. You'll come through this just as you have moved through every other moment in your life breath by breath."

Scott Webb: Shannon, it's been so great speaking with you again. I look forward to our next episode. Thank you so much and you stay well.

Shannon Radel: Thanks. You as well.

Scott Webb: Watch for the next podcast on transforming your grief, search for podcasts at UplandHillsHealth.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels. This is the Inspire Health Podcast from Upland Hills Health. I'm Scott Webb. Stay well.