loss

Guest Post on Still Standing Magazine: Having Lost and Being Lost

June 5, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

grief-quote-on-background — Grief Support

A couple of days ago, I’ve been published on the online magazine called Still Standing Magazine:

I have lost…
I am lost…

I say ‘I lost my child’ or ‘I lost my mother’ but the fact is that really
I have lost trust in the world, as I knew it before I became acquainted with death.
I say ‘I lost my child’ or ‘I lost my mother’ but the fact is that really I am lost. Grief makes me feel lost again and again.

[Tweet “What is really lost, besides the person who died? “] [Read more…] about Guest Post on Still Standing Magazine: Having Lost and Being Lost

What You Need To Know About Grief

February 26, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

This article will cover and explain many of the terms used in relation to grief. Understanding these will help you accept what you or a person close to you is going through in this process.

Abbreviated Grief is a short-lived grief response in the way that the grieving process seems shorter because the role of the deceased is immediately filled by someone/something else.

Absent Grief is a response when the bereaved shows no signs of grief whatsoever and acts as if nothing has happened.

Anticipatory Grief is the normal mourning a person feels when they are anticipating the death of a loved one.

Chronic Grief is a response that displays as strong grief reactions, which do not subside over a long period of time.

Collective Grief is a response felt by a collective group such as a society, village, community or nation leading to mass causality. [Tweet “Do you know your Grief?”]

Being With a Grieving Parent

September 25, 2012 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Grief – A Very Personal Experience

November 5, 2011 By Nathalie Himmelrich 2 Comments

Today marks 2 months since Amya Mirica passed away.

Yesterday Chris and I went out for the first time in the evening and left Ananda Mae with my sister. We went to the classical concert of the Brandenburg Orchestra of which we have season’s tickets. The previous concert was exactly 2 months ago, the evening of Amya Mirica’s passing and the music gently reminded me of the presence of angels in the room as the beautiful angelic voice of the soloist soprano filled the concert hall serendipitously called ‘Angel’s place’. I was once again reminded that grief is a very personal experience and will be experienced in any unexpected moment and location.

This week we also went back to the hospital, where I gave birth, where we said good-bye to Amya Mirica and from where we took Ananda Mae home with us. The hospital will always hold an interesting energy and importance for me – both joy and bliss as overriding emotions associated with the birth and sadness and despair of losing my child. This time we went back to join a Bereavement Group.

It was a deep and intense morning as we shared with couples who also lost their babies. Each and every one of us is grieving. When I listened to their stories I felt connected in sharing a similar experience. In my career as a counsellor working with clients experiencing grief I was, according to their feedback, really able to support them in their process. Now however, I doubt that I was ever able to REALLY be there for them without fully understanding the depth of their experience. I think now that this is only really possible now that I gained access to this experience on a very personal level.

A few weeks ago I met my banker, who I have been talking to frequently before the birth of the twins. When I told her my story she said: I’m so sorry, I know what you’re going through. My first reaction inside was ‘I doubt you know what I’m going through’. She then however shared with me that she lost her second child through cot death at 3 months. This statement total y changed the meaning of her empathy. I have to say that I couldn’t imagine what she must have gone through in her personal experience and even though we share the part of losing one’s own child at a very young age, it’s still a very personal story and experience. She then said: ‘It will get easier’ and, in comparison to other people who could have said the same, coming from her it was founded in her personal experience and therefore I took it on board.

I also learnt this week that there are two fundamentally different ways people feel and deal with grief: the instrumental griever and the intuitive griever. The instrumental griever, historically the man, feels better by doing things as they feel unable to fix this. The intuitive griever, usually the woman, grieve through experiencing all the emotions and crying frequently. This can cause discordance in a relationship between an intuitive and an instrumental griever as they are rarely in the same place. Grieving has given our relationship a totally different level of understanding of each other, as well as ability to be with the other’s way of dealing with it.

Grief – Supporting People Who Are Grieving

February 23, 2010 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Grief is a process that most people have experienced in their lives. It is an interesting fact that even though many of us have gone through it before we seem to forget how it was for us and lack knowledge on how to be with people who are in it.

Experiences with clients have shown that there are really only a few simple guidelines to follow to support people who are grieving. The grief cycle, which was put forward by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, contains the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Depending on where the person in grief is there might be slightly different approaches needed. The best way to find out which of the following suggestions would work, is to ask them.

Being there with them

As simple as it may sound, being there with the grieving person is the first and most important suggestions. It is true that [Read more…] about Grief – Supporting People Who Are Grieving