grief support

You’re the Hero in Your Grief Story

November 18, 2021 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Why is it important to share your grief story?

So let me be clear: you don’t need to share your story, but if you do, you have the choice over how much you share and with whom.

I have found working with clients time and time again that there was healing power in talking about not just what happened but also how they faced adversity and how they found hope within the dark.

Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Story applied to grief

Joseph Campbell, an American professor of literature, found out that for thousands of years people all over the world communicated with stories having similar patterns and basic elements. He structured these patterns and elements into 12 phases, or stages, and called it “The Hero’s Journey“. These stages incorporate mechanisms that connect people on a deeper, core level.

No wonder this technique is so popular in Hollywood. You can find the 12 phases of Hero’s Journey in almost all of the movies.

Campbell’s Hero Journey Model

Without diving into too many details of those phases, the Hero’s journey can be boiled down to three essential stages:

The departure: The Hero leaves the familiar world behind.
The initiation: The Hero learns to navigate the unfamiliar world.
The return: The Hero returns to the familiar world.

Let’s explore the details of the three stages:

Image Source: https://windhorseguild.org

Departure

In brief, the Hero is living in the so-called “ordinary world” when he receives a call to adventure.

Usually, the Hero is unsure of following this call — this phase is known as the “refusal of the call” — but is then helped by a mentor figure, who gives him counsel and convinces him to follow the call.

Initiation – On the road

In the initiation section, the hero enters the “special world,” where he begins facing a series of tasks until he reaches the story’s climax — the main obstacle or enemy.

Here, the hero puts into practice everything he has learned on his journey to overcome the obstacle.

Campbell talks about the hero attaining some kind of prize for his troubles — this can be a physical token or “elixir”, or just good, old-fashioned wisdom (or both).

Return – Transformation

Feeling like he is ready to go back to his world, the hero must now leave.

Once back in the ordinary world, he undergoes a personal metamorphosis to realize how his adventure has changed him as a person.

Application to grieving a loss

Many people facing loss would oppose the loss being “a call to adventure”. Nevertheless, the bereaved would probably agree with me to call grieving “a hell of a journey”.

Departure

The ordinary world: A person is living their every day, “before-loss” life, unaware of what awaits them. (Comfort Zone)

The call to adventure: The person is experiencing a loss (divorce, losing a job, the ending of a relationship, the loss of a role as a parent, etc.) and is asked to step into the unknown. The call within the context of grief may be expected, but more often it is unexpected, unwelcome, and unwanted. The individual rarely feels prepared, often caught by surprise. Regardless of the circumstance, an invitation has been made and the individual must grapple with the invitation to deal with the loss. (Stressor: Sadness, guilt, blame, helplessness, depression, anger)

Initiation – On the road

Refusal of the call: The person can’t believe what is happening to them. They feel like they are an actor in a movie. The individual must grapple with whether to accept the invitation or decline. (Denial)

Mentor: Support people, such as friends & family members, colleagues, doctors, nurses, therapists show up and help the person face the fact of the loss. (Grief Support)

Crossing the threshold: The person realizes the loss more and more, for example when attending the funeral, or seeing their ex with another new friend, etc. They are moving into their “after-the-loss” life. (Dealing with all the feelings and stages of grief, moving towards acceptance)

The ordeal: The person is dealing with grief’s pain, grief triggers and is learning to live without the person, pet, thing, or any other situation they lost. While enduring the grief journey, a powerful secret about ourselves is discovered: We can survive grief’s pain. And it almost killed us. (Self-reflection, self-knowledge, understanding of grief’s pain on a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual level)

Return – Transformation

The return: The person has experienced not just loss and the intensity of grief’s pain but also that they can survive it. They return, non in terms of getting back to the “before-loss” life or the person they were before but transformed by the experience and becoming a new person. (True acceptance, self-compassion, and integration back into life)

Teachings from Joseph Campell’s Hero’s Journey in grief

As witnessed in every hero’s journey ever told, regardless of where the challenges originate, the hero must find effective approaches and develop strategies that will aid them in their recovery.

The same applies to the bereaved hero:

You need to find approaches that help you deal with your emotions and grief triggers
You need to collect strategies to deal with those mentioned
You need to apply those strategies
The aim is to re-integrate into life, with and through the transformation of the grief journey.

💭 I daydream…

September 15, 2021 By Nathalie Himmelrich 18 Comments

I daydream about … 💫 who they would have become ✨

Last night I went to Ananda Mae’s parents’ evening at the school. Every parent had to introduce their child given it was a new formation of kids.

As I heard the other parents describe their child, mentioning their siblings, I went off daydreaming about AM’s sister, A’Mya.

Who would you have become? What would it be like for the two to go to the same school, or even class? To share friends, experiences, and birthdays?

Just the other day Ananda Mae had asked me to daydream with her about her sister. She asked exactly those questions. “Mum, would A’Mya look just like me?” “I imagine very similar, given you are identical twins,” I replied.

Go ahead, daydream

Daydreaming about a future that cannot be is a way of remembering. Remembering your loved one. Living a relationship, learning to be in a new relationship when the kind of relationship we would have wanted to live is no longer possible.

Whoever came up with the notion ‘not to grow up the child/baby who died’ (I remember it was a therapist 🤦🏽‍♀️ – not me though) was wrong. It is completely normal and natural to do so, at least in my experience and the experience of her surviving twin.

Thank you for being right here and now with me 🕊

The Purpose of Grief

September 8, 2021 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Anniversaries, as you know, have a way of being remembered in the body way before they get consciously registered in the mind. It is as if our body remembers first.

And, most important of all, EVERY BODY remembers differently because every body IS different.

Is there a purpose in grieving 10 years later?

… I asked myself. I like to think there is. I don’t know what the purpose might be but I do trust the body is doing its best to integrate loss into life.

What are your thoughts? Why do you think we grieve, why grieving might be necessary?

Grief 10 years later

You might have read in my last newsletter, you will have read that last week was my twin daughter’s birthday and also my younger daughter’s 10th death anniversary.

The following is what I wrote this year on the anniversary:

It’s been 10 years and it still hurts. Most of the time, I’m not actively grieving. But then there are times when it overcomes me. This was today, the 10th anniversary of A’Mya’s death.

This week where birthday and death anniversary collide is usually the most intense in the whole year.

So, what happens after death, after grief no longer runs your life on a daily or regular basis?

Grief triggers will bring up memories

The following I wrote yesterday:

Today, as I watched the Grey’s Anatomy series, the tiny premmie in the NICU died. I watched the mother in the scene hold her baby for the first, last, and only time… “I’m not ready yet”, the uttered through tears streaming down her face, as he stopped breathing. That was me, 10 years ago.
And I remember with every fiber of my being the gut-wrenching pain as well as the honor to hold her as she drew her last breath.

Triggers will come up, no matter the time that has passed since the death. For me, it isn’t about avoiding triggers. It is about riding the waves and letting them wash up the shore until the sea has calmed down again.

And then there is life, continuing

The week of birth and death anniversaries has come to an end… and life goes on… and continues… turning and turning like the big Ferris wheel 🎡 currently in our village.

The hardest part of grief is learning to go on living without them.

The Relationship Between Trauma & Grief

August 24, 2021 By Nathalie Himmelrich 2 Comments

Many of the people I have been working with have shown signs of Trauma & Grief intertwined. So, you might wonder, what is the difference and how do I know whether I or someone else is experience grief, trauma, or both?

Defining experiences

Normal Grief, as defined by MedicineNet, is: The normal process of reacting to a loss. The loss may be physical (such as a death), social (such as divorce), or occupational (such as a job). Segen’s Medical Dictionary says: Grief over the loss of a loved one begins to fade into adequate coping mechanisms within six months. This is obviously a very general definition. It leaves me wondering what they define as adequate coping mechanisms. It also does not incorporate the fact that it is highly dependent on which loved one it is (child, parent, partner, or friend?) or through what circumstances the loss occurred (old age, illness, accident, or, for example, murder?)

There is no such thing as ‘normal’ grief. Grievers know that there is nothing that feels normal in their experience. Grief makes them feel like they are going crazy. Normal Grief is grief that follows expected reactions and responses (check out Chapter 2 – Understanding Grief and the Bereaved in the book Bridging the Grief Gap). From a therapeutic point of view, grief progresses in a normal way when the bereaved gradually moves towards acceptance of the loss, and, as time goes by, they are able to re-enter life and engage in daily activities. It can also be called Uncomplicated Grief.

Traumatic Grief is a normal grief response to a loved one’s death that is perceived to be horrifying, unexpected, violent, or traumatic. This includes accidents, murder, abduction, abuse, or cruelty happening to the loved one. Trauma needs to be treated as well as the grief response. The distress experienced may be severe enough to impair daily functioning.

Trauma isn’t what happens to you
It is what happens inside of you as a result of that.
Gabor Mate

Grief, trauma or both?

If you or someone else is experiencing a loss that is paired with horror, violence, or happened suddenly, out of order, or unexpected there is also trauma involved.

Trauma is stored in the body, in the tissue, in the muscles, bones, ligaments. It leads to people’s responses that can be classified into four categories:

fight
flight
freeze or
submission

Most often we are used to or have heard of the fight or flight reaction to trauma. In the event of traumatic loss, freeze is more often the case. Traumatic loss often leaves people helpless, hopeless, overwhelmed, and in despair.

It is important to be aware of the trauma aspect and have support in treating not just the grief, but also the trauma.

Permanent change

Grief changes people. They see life in a different light and speak a different language. One sentence I hear from grievers over and over: “I will never be the same again.” And even though they can’t know for sure what happens until the end of their life, they express the immensity of the effects of the life-altering experience: a significant loss.

Having studied trauma and the effects on human beings, I’ve come to realise that even though not all losses are experienced as traumatic many grievers grapple with the effects of the trauma related to their loss. The following paragraph is a summary of the effect of trauma in relation to loss, and its neuroscientific effect on the brain.

Following the death of her dad, journalist Amy Paturel wrote a story which appeared in the Discover magazine called The Traumatic Loss of a Loved One Is Like Experiencing a Brain Injury. “According to a 2019 study published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, grievers minimize awareness of thoughts related to their loss. The result: heightened anxiety and an inability to think straight” wrote Paturel. Additionally, Paturel shares scientists increasingly view the experience of traumatic loss as a type of brain injury.

Grief affects the brain. The loss of someone meaningful is a stressor that triggers the pituitary gland to release adrenocorticotrohin (ACTH). This sends a signal to the adrenal glands to release cortisone, a stress hormone. Given that the stressor isn’t temporary but intense, the body remains flooded by cortisone. This can cause your immune system to falter which leads to a run-down feeling. A traumatized brain leads to the primitive areas (including the fear centre) being overactive adding to feelings of stress and despair. Higher cortical areas are underactive, for example, the area that regulates emotions.

“The problem isn’t sorrow; it’s a fog of confusion, disorientation, and delusions of magical thinking,” writes Lisa Shulman, a neurologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, in a blog post for Johns Hopkins University Press about her book Before and After Loss: A Neurologist’s Perspective on Loss, Grief, and Our Brain. Shulman also explained that the emotional trauma of loss results in serious changes in brain function that endure.

References:

Paturel, Amy (2020). The Traumatic Loss of a Loved One Is Like Experiencing a Brain Injury,

https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-traumatic-loss-of-a-loved-one-is-like-experiencing-a-brain-injury

Shulman, Lisa (2018). Before and After Loss: A Neurologist’s Perspective on Loss, Grief, and Our Brain, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press

Photo by Shifaaz shamoon on Unsplash