5 things that may help us in our grief and trauma

 

There are a plethora of resources and therapies in grief and trauma.

These offerings are given in the spirit of addition, that there may be a nugget of wisdom for one of us.

For me, here are some of the strategies I’ve discovered and adopted:

1.           Memories are a possession that can never be taken from us – whilst there are some memories in trauma we would love to put behind us, our memories of loved ones and of wonderful times are something that can never be taken from us.  Spending time activating these memories and reliving them keeps our lost loved ones and past incredible times alive, and if there is sorrow, we welcome it and are healed by going there.

2.           Practice plain acceptance as we would accept another – sometimes we judge our own responses harshly, especially those that come out of our triggering – those automatic reactions that we don’t even have time to think about or control over.  If only we can extend to ourselves the grace we extend so easily to another people.  If somebody else had done what we’d done, maybe we might empathise with their regret.  We can therefore extend compassion toward ourselves (self-compassion) and forgive ourselves. Seriously, we can let go of those thoughts of anger toward ourselves that so easily rebound and vacillate as anger toward others.

3.           Practice slowing down – especially when we’re prone to being triggered, anger reactions and fear reactions especially, we can just slow down.  When we slow down, we give our minds the chance to catch up.  Slowing down, being more mindful, taking the pressure off ourselves, we give ourselves more poise, more of a chance to respond the right way when challenged.

4.           Nothing is terminal, hold to hope of recovery – there have been times, especially in deep trauma or deep grief, where I’ve lost hope of recovery; it’s a total lack of insight that I’ve sadly seen as so common.  Nothing is a forever thing in grief and trauma, even if we won’t ever shake them completely.  There’s a lot of life to be lived in future iterations of ourselves, even if at times we cannot see it.  That version of you that you may hope for may well not only be achievable, but you may also well exceed such modest goals.

5.           Joy, hope, and peace all coalesce – where you have one of them, you have all three.  Amazingly, when we hit that halcyon of spiritual places, we experience all three in abundance.  The beauty of this is when we’re at peace, we feel hopeful and joyful.  When we experience joy, an abiding peace and a heart full of hope are also there.  When we recognise we’re full of hope, we sense the fullness of a flourishing joy and the prevalence of shalom.

Carry On, Rewardless

How does life work?  How are we to operate in this life?

I’m preaching on Psalm 37 tomorrow, and it seems to me, like always, God is reading my heart and causing me to ‘live’ this message as much as I want to extend it out to others.

Not everyone is against us in this life,
and much of the time it’s nobody.

We might feel like there’s this person or that person who ‘exist’ to make our life tough.  We give them far too much credit.  Their reality is far more in themselves than we realise.

And then there’s the situation of ‘life’ itself making our life hard, or perhaps it’s ‘God’ or ‘the universe’, that seems hellbent on blocking our goals, making our life a misery.

How are we to reconcile all these matters,
to live peacefully and peaceably in this world?

We could simply
carry on, rewardless.

I first learned of this concept this past week.  “Carry on, rewardless” is a humorous, tongue in cheek, way of twisting “Carry on, regardless.”  I chuckled when I first heard it from one of the firefighters I have the privilege of working with.  I enjoy firey humour.

Beyond the intention of the humour (the insinuation that there isn’t ever reward), there is so much to be gained in this life, pondering and living such wisdom.

Rewardlessness is a golden and unbeatable concept.

We are held to ransom by the concept of reward.

What if we work and we miss the goal?  We work for a particular reward, and that reward eludes us.  We are left disappointed.

There is power for life beyond disappointment, to a place where we are beyond being disappointed.  Where despondency is no longer possible.  Where every sense for entitlement to happiness (striving to be happy) is relegated as an insufficient wisdom.

Or perhaps there’s the opportunity
to reframe the concept of reward.

At its most basic level, if we can imagine the concept of life itself as the only reward we’d ever want, we already HAVE our reward.  

Do you see the wisdom in being content in what we already have? 

Especially in that which cannot be taken from us.  As a Christian, nobody and nothing can take my salvation from me, and indeed we can see how, from the Christian worldview, it’s all any of us needs. 

If we can be happy without needing to be ‘rewarded’
for anything or with anything,
that right there is the wisdom that’s possible in this life.

Carrying on rewardless is an attitude carried in our heart and in the front of our mind, with joy, with hope, and with much peace.  Nothing can truly disappoint us in this mindset.

Relationship, Leadership, Success, Life… it is ALL Service

 

For the past year, for the first time in my life, I’m constantly in conversations about relationships, leadership, success, and life that reveal a solitary theme: service for the win.

Service as in serving… as in giving… as in sacrificing… as in reflecting over one’s thoughts, attitudes, behaviours, and deeds.  Those who have great relationships, who are great leaders, who enjoy great success, they are all deeply committed to service.

What do I mean by “service”?

Those who are deeply committed to service would prefer to do the work than have others do the work for them.  Those who serve would prefer to be accountable than hold others accountable.  Those who serve expect little from others, but they expect a lot from themselves—but importantly, they don’t punish themselves for failures, they strive to do better.

Service is the opposite of entitlement. 
Service is the opposite of privilege.

Those who serve motivate others to kindness through their acts of service.  They serve with joy for the blessing they can be in doing simple things to make others’ lives better.

Marriages go better when husbands serve their wives.  Why not the other way around?  The default is wives already serve their husbands.  There is no better way to woo a wife than to do loving things, give time generously, give thoughtful gifts, give loving compliments, give warmth and affection.  Husbands who expect to be served will have unhappier wives.

Leaders are inspiring when they’re thoughtful, anticipating ways of giving to those in their care.  Leadership is not about the ‘privilege’ of being the ‘boss’.  There’s no service in lording it over people.  But when leaders serve, they provide a cogent example of teamwork, and their humility shines forth as inspiration.

Serving provides success through the willingness to get one’s hands dirty in a way that the person serving expects little if no reward.

Relationships, leadership, and success are not in viewing ourselves as right and others as wrong, imagining we have all the answers and others don’t.  It’s the complete opposite; it’s when we affirm others when they’re performing well, and just as much it’s when we admit we’ve missed the mark. 

None of us have the market cornered in wisdom;
when we think we do, we’re conceited.

The more we can demonstrate the emotional intelligence of being flexible and connected, the more inspirational we become.

Relationships, leadership, success, and life no less, is all procured through service.

Awareness for Gratitude

INSIGHT is one of the keys to mental health.  Another is motivation.  Insight is crucial for mental health, because without insight we cannot search for and see truth—given the general biblical premise that, “the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)  

Another term for insight is awareness. 

Motivation is of course needed
to convert awareness to action.

In the context of awareness, gratitude is the key to a plethora of mental health resources, not least perspective and resilience.  But few of us are inherently grateful; it doesn’t usually come naturally.

No matter how grateful we tend to be, there are always times in our lives when we struggle for gratitude.  Awareness of our lack of gratitude is the key.  It may be that we struggle for it long enough that others are giving us feedback of our lack (“Why are you complaining all the time?”), or perhaps better so, we see within ourselves the slide into trouble that we’re on (“Why are I complaining all the time?”).

Without gratitude we slide
into many varietals of malady.

But with gratitude, many blessings
of insight become possible, even realised.

Life without gratitude is a life made for complaint, and not all complaints are justified.  Indeed, most complaints are not, though there is even a biblical case for complaint in many circumstances in life—for example, loss and grief.  The key biblical imperative, however, is we are not to STAY in complaint, even if it can last a long while or we meander back and forth through it.  We are meant to traverse through it, eventually. 

Awareness for gratitude (or lack thereof) is pivotal in the mental health maintenance journey.

Reading this, you could say:

“Well, how am I going?” 
“Am I appropriately grateful right now?” 
“How’s my awareness right now?”

These are crucial questions to ponder, for we alone are masters and mistresses of our own destiny.  It’s okay if we’re not grateful and realise our gap, and even our desire to transform our thinking is a movement toward it. 

I would argue that we can’t tussle for gratitude if we aren’t aware of our lack of it.  But when we are grateful, we might be aware how easy we can slide out of it.

Awareness for gratitude is what promotes the maintenance of our mental health.  It’s the demonstration of a growth mindset.  It’s what separates those who live productive lives from those who don’t or can’t.  Awareness for gratitude is, I think, a gift of emotional intelligence.  Those with it are a gift to those around them. 

Just one goal for the successful life

Success is determined by one thing: taking responsibility for our life.

In sum, this is the internal locus of control.

It is staying within our sphere of influence.  It is accepting and embracing the limitations of our control.  It is accepting that we can do what we can do, that we should do what we can.

What I think, say, and do – all of it – is MY responsibility.  Nobody else can be accountable for it.

Just the same, I’m not accountable for what another person thinks, says, or does.  That’s their choice. I cannot control what you think, say, or do, but you can.

When we stay within our control, we master the moment, and we live our best life in the moment.

Does it simplify life too much to say that there is one main goal and that this is it?  I don’t think so.

In too many respects, we make life more complicated than it needs to be.  If we truly want to succeed in any endeavour in life, it is good to come back to this unchanging truth:

Be responsible for what we are responsible for.

The challenge is to live out of this paradigm to test its power.  When we stay in this paradigm, we soon find the cogency of its power.  When we stay in this, we find the freedom of having been freed of needing to control what we cannot change and of accepting the control we have.

If we can see that this one thing leads to the successful life, we redefine for ourselves what true success looks like — as a spiritual truth.  Then we realise there’s nothing more powerful.  This simple truth sets us free, and it is the key to gratitude, hope, joy, and peace.

Post grief growth — resilience from adversity

The experience of loss is the paradox of life; life that becomes death. Loss is suffering in one word; to have someone or something we value taken away. 

The experience of loss would be hard enough if it only happened once. But the fact is it happens several times, perhaps many times, and sometimes too many times to count, over one lifetime.

One thing I’ve often thought about is whether we have the potential to master loss.

It is only been recently that I’ve come to discover that loss, as a general and overall concept, cannot be mastered. We may master a certain kind of loss, accepting the grief as part and parcel of life. But that doesn’t mean we master every kind of loss. And I think God can teach us something in this; not least of which, this reality prevents us from becoming conceited (this aligns with what the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10). He was given something painful that had to be endured to prevent him from becoming conceited.

What makes being human so hard is that none of us at any time can predict just when loss will occur. It comes like a thief in the night. And only when it arrives do we comprehend that it was ever present as a potential reality from our very beginning.

Loss is impossibly hard. Anyone who has been touched by this suffering of having had someone beloved or something valuable taken away from us knows that grief is a pain that never truly leaves during the entire season we experience it. And in most cases, closure for grief is a myth. It never happens that way. It just so happens that we learn to live a new normal, which on the surface of it is a sad and stark reality.

I have found personally that the greatest gift of loss is learning to die to self. It is never an easy lesson to learn, but it is always worth learning.

I call this the Revenant Blessing. It is a broad and general lesson; once loss has swept our hope away on a torrent to oblivion, loss may not blindside us to that degree again.

We are given some gift of resilience that I liken better to a hopeful resignation. Nothing unimportant wins our covetous hearts over again.

But this doesn’t mean we won’t experience grief again. Losses will continue to occur. The bigger and more complicated our families and lives are, for instance, the more susceptible we are to loss.

We may well have been broken by loss, and we may have learned the lessons of Christ in dying to self; this doesn’t mean that we are fortified against every form of loss, for different losses bring different costs and requirements of us.

There is a wisdom in life that helps us as losses come. This is not about imagining that being human can be made easy. On the contrary, as we accept that being human is hard, we are given to a deeper, more gifted, experience of life. We are matured as we come to accept there are many things we cannot change.

What makes being human so hard is that this life is so unpredictable, and we cannot exercise supreme control over our thoughts, our emotions, and others’ thoughts and emotions. If only we could! But then if we could we wouldn’t live a life capable of love.

Perhaps we have suffered many losses already. Maybe there are some losses yet to be experienced. What stands us in good stead is our acceptance of the day; to take each day as it comes, gratefully, as the mystery each day is. And whether the day involves trial or tribulation or a mix of both matters less than the fact that the universe spins the same way every day.

What makes being human easier is when we finally arrive in that place where we don’t need to control the day, other people, our circumstances, the weather, or anything else.

This is an ‘arrival’ to strive for, and that gives enduring loss meaning, which fuels hope.

I know this one thing for sure, however. I’m so glad of the person I’ve become because — in spite — of the grief I’ve endured. I would not be the person I am today had it not been for the things I’ve suffered.

Empathy and compassion are the gifts borne of great suffering.

Let’s agree on our differences

 

We will—all of us—disagree with anyone else (literally, everyone) at some point.  It’s true also that none of us even agrees with ourselves all the time.  Think about indecision and regret.  

We would all decide differently at times
if we were reflecting on different information.

The fact is we change our minds.  We also have set views on things.  And we have biases, including confirmation bias, which explains why we prefer certain information, and intentionality bias, which explains how we tend to judge others but are lenient on ourselves.

When differences become a problem for us our whole attitude zeroes in on the difference and how the other person is a problem—they are being obstinate.

But if we ACCEPT that there will be differences, we hold the difference we have with another person and resist the temptation of putting them in the naughty corner.

There often isn’t enough time or opportunity or relational tolerance to flesh matters out.  Sometimes people have set opposite views, and we find it frustrating when we can’t change a person’s mind.  Think about that from their viewpoint.  Who lacks tolerance?

Imagine if we lived in a world where we as people readily accepted that others think differently and that that doesn’t make them wrong—just different. Imagine the peace.

To make that world a reality in our own life we must accept it starts and ends with us.  We must work on our own attitude to others, we can’t expect them to do any of that work for us.  We can only impact our own behaviour and attitudes.

Imagine the relief in others when they relate with us where our acceptance takes the pressure off them to align to our views about things.  We all want to be treated with respect, and that actually needs to start with us.  Most people respond in kind.  Respect begets respect.

If we feel a person is judging us, we can ask ourselves if we’re doing anything to put division between us.

But if we’re honest, it’s hard.  Our differences with others create a lot of turmoil, for us and for them and for others as well, especially when we or they feel there is a need to influence change.

Agreeing on the presence of difference in our lives is important for a content life.

Accepting we have limited control over certain circumstances and others is the larger part of personal maturity and prosperity. It is peace for us, and that is peace for others, too.

Wellness or Illness – what is it to be?

 

Remember the old adage, “there is no ‘I’ in TEAM”?

It’s the same with our mental health: “I” or “WE”?

“I” ought to remind us of ILLNESS, whereas
“WE” ought to remind us of WELLNESS.

Healing and wholeness are not rocket science. 

It’s the careful attention to connecting with a caring, compassionate world — the world of WE.  It is better to live harmoniously together than to struggle alone.

But it does take courage, it takes risk, to thrust ourselves into an often-unknown world, so we do understand the fear innate in shrinking, isolating, withdrawing — it feels safer.  Indeed, these forces are often too compelling to overcome. 

But when we are ready, we can take a plunge, especially when we give what we feel might be a safe space a chance.

Safe spaces of community are a boost for wellness.  But safe spaces are only safe when we feel safe, and others feel safe.  There is a shared responsibility to ensure a safe place. 

Safe spaces are places where a person can suffer and be comforted, where their primary emotions of sadness and fear find acceptance, but not a place where secondary emotions like anger and rage are allowed to boil over to damage and traumatise.  The former is ownership of their emotional landscape, whereas the latter is a blaming of others.  Bearing and facing sadness and fear, not judging either, is the path to healing.  We all experience sadness and fear.

Being honest about our sadness and fear will always pave a way to healing.  But unmerited anger just festers.

Anger contributes to illness
but safe expressions of sadness and fear
reveal acceptance and lead to wellness.

The holding pattern growth purpose in suffering

Against our modern-day proclivity in desiring the easy life (compare how ‘easy’ life was 70-100 years ago) there is one thing that suffering gives us hope for: growth. 

I’ve seen this firsthand in my life: first in suffering the loss of my first marriage and second in the loss of the career of my calling.  No matter what I tried and no matter what ‘work’ I did to recover, I could not escape the holding pattern of suffering that gripped my life.

There were forces in my life that conspired against my comfort; yet these same forces conspired against the escape I wanted that would have impeded my recovery.

There is a classic but painful irony in suffering.  What is true in ‘what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger’ turns out to be the acquisition of a growth mindset as a compensation for what we’ve been through.  The only caveat: if only we respond to the ignominy of suffering with humility, poise, and grace.

We lament the growing pains of grief, but if we can only hold onto hope enduring it; that it will produce perseverance, character, maturity, and wisdom, eventually.  Because it will.

The Drinker’s Dilemma

I lived the drinker’s dilemma from about my eighteenth birthday until about six weeks after my thirty-sixth birthday — 18 years, and though there weren’t many black outs, there were many seedy hangovers.  

The way I feel about alcohol now is balanced.  Having been a non-drinker for over twenty years now, I commend anyone to drink if they can enjoy it in moderation.  But as soon as the drink becomes a pattern for coping a person is in trouble.

2,900 years ago these words were penned:

“It is not for kings, Lemuel –
    it is not for kings to drink wine,
    not for rulers to crave beer,
lest they drink and forget what has been decreed,
    and deprive all the oppressed of their rights.
Let beer be for those who are perishing,
    wine for those who are in anguish!
Let them drink and forget their poverty
    and remember their misery no more.”  (Proverbs 31:4-7)

As a counsellor I know it’s not as simple as someone giving up the grog cold turkey.  For many people, drinking is a coping mechanism and there needs to be the right supports in place to help a person make their journey clear and free of alcoholism.

That support for me two decades ago was a tremendous body of believers in recovery, unity, and service — the rooms of AA, shout out to the Mandurah Steps group, Coolbellup, Fremantle, Rockingham groups, and the Kwinana Town Group (where I was Secretary for a short time before I received my call to become a minister of God).  In the grips of grief with my first marriage in tatters, so many men and a few women gathered me and encouraged me to go deep into my own pain to own it, to deal with my resentments and anxieties, to invest in my recovery by looking at ME, not blaming others.  AA gave me so much at the time I committed myself to a lifetime of recovery, unity, and service.  It is a constant reminder that my life — all our lives — has enormous purpose, much bigger than many of us contemplate or dare to imagine.

The fact is life wasn’t meant to be lived off our faces.  It is meant to be lived sober.  Life is its best when we are stone cold sober.

Recovery is worth every bit of the sacrifice it takes to get and stay sober.

Unity is HOW we get through and STAY sober, the mutual love and support of brothers and sisters of the same faith.

Service is what keeps us humble and fortifies us against the inevitable threads of disappointment, regret, betrayal, bitterness, unforgiveness, and resentment that remain ever present threats to our sobriety.  Truth is, these snares are everywhere in life, and we must get to a place where we’re girded beyond them, to save us when we might otherwise slip into the haze of a drunken spree.  Service is an offensive strategy to ensure we are blessed in being a blessing.  A person who serves simply for the joy of it, because they can, cannot be swayed by addiction.

Get this: sobriety is a state of mind, and less so much about whether we drink or not.  But it is also about being and staying sober.  Sobriety is the wisdom of maturity that contemplates that life is a bruising affair, that there are too many temptations and stumbles along the way, and that the only way through is the preemptive perspective that prevents us getting stuck in the salty mangrove swamps where there is no spiritual life.

The drinker’s dilemma is to drink to cope with the pains of life that could be resolved if only the drink were replaced with facing scary feelings which threaten to overwhelm but can be faced and can be tamed.

The drinker’s dilemma is a short-term solution that involves considerable consequences.  Alcohol always complicates things.  It is not only a physical carcinogen, it’s an emotional and a spiritual carcinogen as well.  It destroys lives and never builds.  And to think we still allow it to be advertised so much that young lives continue to be conditioned to think it’s part of a good life.  Trouble is the drinker’s dilemma, because for every person who partakes in moderation there is potential for another to tie on a bender.

We don’t need alcohol like we need food, water, and shelter.  Alcohol contributes nothing to our needs.  For nine who can ‘enjoy a quiet one’ there is one or two who will drink themselves to oblivion.  Theirs is the drinker’s dilemma, ten thousand regrets with the hair of the dog combined with another ten thousand on top — the daily drive to drink for 55 years.  The drinker’s dilemma is damned if one drinks and damned if one does not drink (for the fact that the drink is missed).

You can do it.  You can rid it from your life if you relate to the drinker’s dilemma.

Get support around you.  Go and face those emotions that beg to be met.  Commit yourself to the steps of recovery and be blessed to find your purpose in service.

What do I do with this crippling grief?

A polarising question to loss: “What do I do with this crippling grief?”

There is a simple answer to a question that is an eternal conundrum.  The answer is there is no answer.  Contemplating this leads us to a place of contemplation.  It leads to silence.  From silence comes respect for all things that do not have answers, for there are many problems of life that leave us without words or capacity of response.

To loss, there is no answer.  

And yet what is come of crippling grief?  

Silence.  Stillness.  Surrender.  

Acceptance as a response and goal of arrival.

~

In the discombobulating reality of loss, grief invades as an ever-present foe, stealing all semblance of peace, hope and joy.  It causes us to distrust both present and future as we pine for the past.  It annihilates all confidence that happiness is possible again.  It’s like we’ve travelled through a portal to hell.  We envy what we once had.  It’s like a parallel universe where we disconnect from others who are untouched by loss, getting on with ‘their happy lives’.  It leaves us mystified and dread-filled.  In loss, a series of blows is meted out in a season of unparalleled injustice that seems to last beyond forever.

There is no making sense of it.  There are no words.  Anything ventured is a waste of space and energy.  And yet, somehow the answer is closer than ever before.  

In a topic that makes no sense, sense is finally made when we agree that searching is senseless.  When we sit in the pain agreeing to hope when the presence of hope is a void we find a way of putting one foot in front of another, even if that’s a dream of the hope we cannot let go of.

At least we can know that someone sees us in the crippling grief.  We connect to a world we hardly knew existed.  Strangely we feel home in places that were previously foreign.  

In your crippling grief know that there is a purpose in all things, and that that purpose may not reveal itself for some time; yet, surely as I’ve heard it countless times, that purpose will come.