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Surviving Child Loss As a Couple

October 11, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

The loss of a child is without any doubt one of the most challenging experiences I have gone through in my life both personally and in my relationship.

The most important aspect I have found through my survey of more than a hundred people and through interviewing parents one-on-one are:

Understanding different ways of grieving
Accepting the differences
Allowing each other time to grieve.

The 5 steps to survive your loss as a couple

Grief and death are topics that make a lot of people uncomfortable. Since you and I have both experienced the loss of a child, we know this from personal experience. You as a couple have a common source for your experience of loss. Nonetheless, even though the source may be the same, the experience itself can be very different. When, where, and how the experience differs is the point at which you need to keep working with each other to stay connected.[Tweet “What do you really know about your partner’s way of grieving?”] [Read more…] about Surviving Child Loss As a Couple

Back by Popular Demand Series: Love Language Part 3 – Receiving Gifts

September 26, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

A gift is something that you can hold in your hand and say, “Look, he was thinking of me,” or “She remembered me.” You must be thinking of someone to give a gift. The gift itself is a symbol of that thought. It doesn’t matter if it costs money.

Gifts need not to expensive, nor must they be given weekly. But for some individuals, their worth has nothing to do with monetary value and everything to do with love.

Within every language, there are many dialects. Here below you will find just a few but in the end you need to understand your spouse’s dialect.[Tweet “Remember to learn your spouse’s dialect. It might be ‘diamonds’…”]

Purchased Gifts:

Anything you can imagine, [Read more…] about Back by Popular Demand Series: Love Language Part 3 – Receiving Gifts

10 Things About Helping Children Through Grief

September 17, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Supporting-Children-Through-Grief — Supporting Children Through Grief

Children are affected by the loss of a loved one, just as we adults are. Depending on their age and maturity, they will have different needs and show various symptoms. Siblings might respond in a similar manner or some seemingly not as much.

1. Support according to age and maturity

All children are affected, how and if they show it can be quite different. Young toddlers might not consciously know what’s going on, nor cognitively understand death, but they respond to the parents’ emotional state. Teenagers understand and often deal with death in their own personal way. Choose support for your child according to their personal needs, age and maturity.[Tweet “Why Everyone Wins When You Put Your Oxygen Mask on First”]

10 Things About Relationship Changes With Grief

September 10, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Grief and loss changes many things and the people directly involved. There is no doubt that it also changes the relationship dynamics between directly involved people, as well as the way friends and family interact with the bereaved and vice versa.

1. The world has changed

The world of a bereaved person changes dramatically following a loss. The way they see and interpret what has happened influences their worldview.

2. I have changed

Many bereaved people are challenged with the way they personally are changed after a loss. There is a term, describing the time post loss as the ‘New Normal’, which in most cases feels anything but normal.[Tweet “Relationship change, with or without loss”]

3. My partner has changed [Read more…] about 10 Things About Relationship Changes With Grief

Who Is Your Spiritual Authority?

August 27, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Going through life we learn from parents, teachers, lecturers, educators, coaches, trainers, workshop leaders, religious leaders, partners, and children. Spiritual seekers often learn from gurus. But who is your spiritual authority? Who tells you what’s right and what’s wrong? What to believe and from whom? When to apply what you have learnt and why?

The good, the bad and the useless

As a child, we learn and believe our parents. As pupils, we learn from our teachers. Sadly, not all the teaching we receive is beneficial. When the teaching is received in the formative years of a child, it is often taken on before they gain the ability to decipher between good and bad. As we grow older, we hopefully become more and more equipped to differentiate between what of the learning and beliefs we want to believe and what we need to throw over board. [Tweet “Who decides what you believe?”]

Experience and perception

If you were to ask me what I believe after all that I’ve been through, [Read more…] about Who Is Your Spiritual Authority?

10 Things About the First Year of Grief

August 20, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

The first year marks the first time you experience and do everything without the person you have lost. Traditionally, society believed that it gets easier after the first year. Some still believe this nowadays. The truth is that the challenging time post-loss is as individual as the bereaved themselves. Trust in your own time-line processing grief.

1. Shock and numbness

The very first phase of grief will most likely be spent in numbness from the shock. This is a protective way for the body to help you cope with the intensity.

2. Surviving

Living through the first phase of grief may not seem survivable. It may even seem as no relief to know other bereaved have walked this path before. It is survivable and it takes time and energy. [Tweet “Grief is survivable and it takes time and energy.”]