Transcription:
Transforming Your Grief Episode 5

Scott Webb (Host): We've all dealt with loss and grief in our lives and perhaps even more so over the past year. And today, as we continue our series with Shannon Radel, Hospice Social Worker and Bereavement Coordinator at Upland Hills Health in Dodgeville; we're going to discuss, being more present in our lives, thought modification and how we can empower ourselves and develop strategies to get out of our own heads.

This is the Inspire Health podcast from Upland Hills Health. I'm Scott Webb. Shannon, great to be back on with you. We are continuing our series on grief and loss. So, great to talk to you. The weather's nice outside. So, let's dive in here. There's been a lot of emphasis on self-care over the past year, and I think we know why, the pandemic primarily, what can you add to the narrative as it pertains to grief and loss?

Shannon Radel, MSW, CISW (Guest): Well, thanks, Scott. It's great to be back. As we continue to transform and process grief, we can begin to focus more on daily living, empowerment, and hopefully looking ahead to a brighter future. You know, when we experience loss, so it becomes really easy to be immersed in that. And while there's likely nothing that you could have done to control why you are experiencing current grief, you do have control over how you treat yourself, how you spend your time and how you interact with others. So, if you're listening to this, I want you to ask yourself, what does it mean to take care of myself and how would my life change if I took better care of myself?

Many of our listeners may have been caregivers for the person that they are grieving or at the very least, we're helping someone through a loss and they have spent probably a lot of time helping someone else; but I think it's important that when we are in this grieving state or this loss state, that we start viewing the future from the lens of I am better when I give myself time. Taking care of oneself is going to look different for everybody, of course. Some people may want to focus on physical wellbeing, where others may want to dive into spiritual or emotional growth. But I do think it's important that we give ourselves permission to allow ourselves to enjoy something again, without feeling guilty. Self care also means evaluating where you're at right now. How much have you or your body or your circumstances changed since maybe the last time you checked in with yourself or the last time that you recall giving yourself self care? When we were living in the present, checking in on ourselves, this doesn't mean that we are ignoring our grief, because like I've mentioned in previous sessions, if you have the courage to set your grief aside for just a couple moments or maybe even an hour, we not only know it'll be there when we get back to it, but we can also take in what's right in front of us, the here and now.

Host: Yeah, the here and now, that's so pertinent, really. And I was just speaking with somebody earlier today. We were talking about laughter. And the importance of laughter and smiling and laughing. And, you know, the question came up well, is it okay to smile and laugh when so many people are suffering, perhaps people in our own families? So, I want to talk to you about some of the techniques that may help listeners to become more present, whether that's smiling and laughing or whatever it might be, that maybe you could share some of the techniques that would really help us all to just be more present.

Shannon: I want to give listeners something to think about. So, have you ever driven to work or from work or even to your favorite store and just like that, you were there and you don't even remember the drive? The drive was so automatic that you zoned out for the entire thing, or have you showered and as you're getting ready to turn off the water, you ask yourself, wait, did I wash my hair? When was the last time that you ate a meal and savored the flavor, paid attention to how the food smelled, how it felt and how it tastes? This may sound silly, but the truth is, that when we are stuck in the crux of our grief, or when we are looking ahead or recalling this past year, we aren't living in the moment.

Perhaps we want to numb ourselves or deliberately zone out. And when we're in that space, it's really difficult to look ahead and it's really difficult to move forward. But the more we are able to live in the moment, the easier it will be to let go of some of the past pain and hurt and worry. So, a technique in addition to, I think laughing and smiling, anytime that you can, because even without COVID-19, even without this last year, life is hard and things happen that unexpectedly can change the course of our life. So, always find something that will put a smile on your face if given the opportunity. But a technique that I like to share and I have actually used, is something called five, four, three, two, one grounding.

So, the goal is to identify elements in our world around us, by using our five senses, hence the five, four, three, two one. So, that's sight, smell, hear, touch and taste. As you can in the moment, focus on these things, you are less likely to be focused on that sudden rush of anxiety or intense sadness. And it doesn't need to be five things. It could be name all the things that you see around you, if you're feeling something coming on that you either want to avoid or set aside for a later time. I want to share a brief story about being present and living in the now. Well, a couple of years ago, a coworker of mine who was closer to exiting the workforce than myself, her and I were talking about family, spending time with loved ones.

And she said to me, when my kids were younger, I wish I had not worried so much about the dishes in the sink or that the floor needed to be vacuumed. I should've been spending time with them creating memories and not reminding them of how busy I was. She then rhetorically asked why couldn't I have been more present? You know that conversation occurred five years ago or so. And it has stayed with me because I think it is on target with how many adults spend our time and how we spend our energy. For that coworker, myself and probably a lot of people listening, it is so hard to get out of our head and just live in the moment to enjoy the things around us right now; whether that be our spouse or our kids or our pets, or even the afternoon sunshine coming through a Western facing window.

I think it isn't until we lose someone or something life altering occurs, that it makes us start paying attention to the magic of life right in front of us. And if being present with our thoughts or being mindful or meditating seems too overwhelming or something that's just not of interest to you, I would encourage folks to find something small, to focus your attention on something else for just 30 seconds. You know, so, if you were doing the dishes and that rush of anxiety came to you, focus on how the water feels on your hands. The soap suds or the temperature change when you're rinsing a dish. If you're driving, take a moment to really see what you're passing by, of course, doing so safely, but whether it be nature or the snow melting on fields or trees budding you're here very soon.

So, if you're feeling overwhelmed or having those negative and intense thoughts, just remind yourself that if I can focus on this moment right now, by using some of the techniques I've just shared, before you know it, that moment will have passed and then hopefully you are able to move on with the rest of your day.

Host: This is bringing such a smile to my face and I'm sort of nodding my head in agreement about being in the moment and living in the moment. My daughter plays basketball and I'm always rolling video on my phone because I guess I assume she's going to go to the Hall of Fame someday. And I want to be that dad who has all the videos, you know. And the other day when she played, I just made this conscious decision I'm not rolling video tonight, even if she has the greatest play she's ever made in her life, I'm going to be okay with that, that I don't have it on video. Well, at least I hope I'm going to be okay with that. So, this is so relevant. What you're saying is sometimes just reminding ourselves that we won't get these moments back.

And yeah, you'll have it on video, but you weren't really watching, you know, because you were looking at your phone instead of looking at your kid, you know. Yeah and there's just something so empowering about knowing how to get out of our own head at times, especially when we're struggling. Good times, bad times, whatever it is. So, maybe you have some thoughts about that. How do we get out of our own heads?

Shannon: Yeah. So, one of the things, and it's a fairly well-known concept within like the therapy world, or even working with grief and losses, it's known as modifying our thoughts. So, the principle of modifying your thoughts is not about denying your feelings, it's about being aware of destructive thinking patterns and transforming them into something more empowering. I want to spend a bit of time sharing with you several ideas and examples that if practiced can be incredibly helpful during a grief stricken or dark moment as well, it can be used during future difficult moments.

So, the first technique that I'll share is known as reframing Reframing essentially identifies and disputes irrational or negative thoughts in order to find something more positive or more alternative that we can focus on. So, this idea generally challenges our views to turn problems into opportunities or weaknesses into strengths, or taking a distant possibility to a near possibility. So, during the grief group, the example that I share is by asking participants to share their perspective, by imagining with the greatest possible empathy, a situation from another person's perspective. So, for example, if you were to imagine yourself, say as your best friend, looking into your life again, as your friend, what would they say to you?

How would your friend comfort you? How would your friend treat yourself? And when you can see it from someone else's perspective, you may come to realize that how you're treating yourself or talking to yourself or thinking about yourself or the world is negative or not helpful, or maybe even irrational. I think that when we're able to see our problems from a bird's eye view versus having tunnel vision or being stuck in the crux of sadness, what else would we be able to see? I like the idea of a distant possibility to a near possibility. So, as it pertains to grief, right now you might feel depressed, angry, or sad.

However, in one year it's unlikely that you're going to continue to feel the exact same way you feel right now. So, even the act of envisioning that moment might be the way out of that really difficult time. During a group a couple of years ago, one of the participants shared a really great example and honestly, I found it so insightful and so poignant that, I mean, I wrote it down because it was something that needed to be shared again. So, this gentleman had lost one of his parents and he had been recently divorced and with the idea of reframing in mind, he had said that, you know, he had demanded a lot from his ex-wife, that he wanted her unconditional love. And he tried to change her essentially. And he went on to say, you know, I ruined my marriage because in wanting that love, I didn't really realize that I had to do the exact same thing. So, he said that later after therapy and reading books and such that he said, the love was within me. He said that love is a verb and the feeling is a result of our actions.

And so he said he used that pain of losing his marriage to rethink about love and about future romantic relationships. And he said that his original belief was, I want love from my romantic partner. And he said that his replacement belief was, love is within me and I feel I can give it. And I really love that because I think that whether it is, a marriage or another relationship, it's like just being able to take something as universal as love and reframe that to be more helpful. I just really loved it. So, another example or tool that a person could use when it comes to thought modification is the idea of using a rubber band. So, this is a pretty simple concept. And when I'm facilitating a grief support group, I will often ask how many of you engage in inner conversation?

Generally people will awkwardly chuckle, but inevitably everybody raises their hand. I then talk to them about the power of their thoughts over how they feel and the power that they have to change those thoughts. Human beings in general, allow our thoughts to get in the way of what we want and how we feel the rest of the day. But we really do have the power to break that loop and one of the ways you can do that is by having a rubber band or an elastic hair piece or something around your wrist. So, I asked the question, how many people magnify a single thought and make it more powerful? Because of this magnified thought, does that situation become more painful or difficult?

So, imagine yourself getting into an argument or with a friend or a family member. Words were exchanged and now you're left with is negative residual energy. You want to call that person later to apologize, but you start replaying what has happened in your head and what was said and what you wanted to say and so on. And so in doing this, you feel yourself becoming more angry and more annoyed, and that can bleed into the rest of your day. So, when you're noticing this, tell yourself, stop and snap that rubber band. Hopefully, the physical sensation is meant to help you get out of your own head. Another way that you can utilize the rubber band concept, but without the rubber band, is by having kind of images on deck in your mind.

Maybe you have pictures on your phone or on your refrigerator. So, when you start thinking about something negative or you start noticing that you're going down that rabbit hole of self talk; things that aren't positive for you, you will have these images to hopefully help you remind yourself why am I so sad about missing this person? Or why does this loss feel so great? And if you're able to look back at a picture of maybe the grandparent that you lost or the spouse; yes, you are sad, you are grieving and you have every right to be sad and upset and feeling the way you're feeling. But you also have the right and hopefully the courage to remember why you're so sad.

I think I've mentioned it before that the cost of love is grief. So by remembering those things that you loved about the person or the good times that you had, you are able to again, hopefully move out of that moment. The other technique I want to talk about quickly is the light switch or imagining our negative self-talk and thoughts as if they are a light switch. So, just as you turn on a light on and off, by using that switch, you can do the same thing with your thoughts. So, light switch is a visual that we can universally understand, and when the lights are off, nothing's happening through that electrical outlet or those wires, but when it's on, something is happening in order to brighten that room.

So, when we're having the negative thoughts about ourselves or others, we're not really feeling bright or happy, probably. However, by envisioning those thoughts as a light switch, you are able to turn off the negativity and give you a moment to just take a break. I often say to people, this may not be easy, but it's not impossible. I think that it's probably no secret by this time that I love sharing quotes. I find quotes really meaningful and something that I recently read by Bernie Siegel was this, "You can not control everything no matter how much you try or worry or brood. If you work at it, you can keep your thoughts in order. When you control your thoughts, you maintain order in your mind, your body and your soul."

So, the last concept or idea that I will share as it pertains to thought modification today is something that therapists do utilize and utilize it in the grief support groups is using the acronym T-E-A. And that stands for thoughts, emotions, actions. So, T is based on what you think, which generally affects how you feel and what you feel is generally going to affect how you act. How many of us have examples of ruining our day, our drive home, or even an evening with our family, because we are rehashing in our mind the negative interactions that occurred earlier in the day? A well-known author says that "people have the power to create and people have the power to destroy just with their thoughts. “And I really liked that saying, because I think it's so true. I think it's something that is absolutely right on target with what we're talking about today.

Host: Great stuff as always, Shannon. You are always a wealth of information and we're going to continue this conversation in the future in future episodes. But before we wrap up today, any final words or takeaways that we can hold onto until next time?

Shannon: Yeah. So, the last thing I want to share, and if you remember nothing else from today, remember this, it's called the tale of two monks. So, two monks were walking down by the river and they saw a woman waiting to cross. She was wearing a dress and it was obvious that she didn't want to get her dress wet. So, the older monk, without even thinking about it or saying anything, he picked up the woman and carried her to the other side and set her down. The two monks were walking on their way in complete silence. And the younger monk said, with judgment, how could you have done that? We are not supposed to touch a woman. We are never supposed to touch a woman and you seem to have done it without even thinking about it. And the older monk said to the younger one, I put her down an hour ago. Why are you still carrying her? I think that story is really poignant that we really do carry a lot with us sometimes unbeknownst to even ourselves. And I think that when something happens, take that moment, take some time to figure out a game plan or to feel sad or to feel whatever, and then try to move on the best you can. And hopefully today I have shared a couple of techniques that will be able to help you do so.

Host: Yeah I think you have. Really effective techniques. And I look forward to our next time together. Thanks so much. Shannon. You stay well.

Shannon: Great. Thank you.

Host: That Shannon Radel, Hospice Social Worker and Bereavement Coordinator. Watch for the next podcast on transforming your grief and search for podcasts@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.