~Grief Workshop-1

A friend asked me if I would like to go to this Grief Workshop with her on February 8th and 9th. I said I would.. The Early Bird date to get your money in was January 29th, and on the 28th I talked with her making sure she was still going. So I sent my money on the 29th and about an hour after my mailman came, she called and said she changed her mind.. Great Timing huh? I would of never chose to do this Workshop alone..

So I went…. I wanted to go for the purpose that I wanted to KNOW what they *Thought* they could teach ME, so I was sort of Critiquing them. And I hoped that through this Gathering, It would enable me to be more Effective some how in my Work I do Online. There was a total of 23 Workshops to choose from and you could pick 3.. I wanted to pick MORE!

There was a Speaker on Thursday night and one Friday Morning. The one on Friday morning talked about Hospice Care. Her 17 y/o died of Cancer almost 3 years ago. The woman said that everyday Hospice asked them *What were the Goals for today? Hospice helped them to find Joys in each day. She said they woke up everyday with the Possibilities that in each new day, that something Great could happen. She said it was important to talk about one’s death like her Daughter asked her Dad what he would wear to her funeral. He was took back by that at first. But then he went into his room and came out with articles of Clothing, asking if this was ok. She was happy to know what he would wear. The Mom said they went out and did various things that her daughter wanted to do. Like she wanted to go to New York and see some Play. She got invited to the White House when Bush Senior was in Office. (that was early on in her cancer). She said her daughter wanted to go to the Beach near the end.. but her daughter was too sick to make it so they brought the Beach to the house. And pretended to have a Beach Party.. She said it was such a wonderful trip! She said that some of their Best Church Services were in their home. Her two daughters would plan the service. She said that her daughter loved to go places and so she put her Daughter’s picture on a Key Ring and takes her wherever she goes in the car. She said that she found Writing Poetry helps her.

The Workshops I took was:
GRIEF 101- This workshop was a basic description of the grief process. It talked about Myths and Common Problems during the Grief Process. I was just really curious about what they had to say. A few things I found Interesting was that they say to Forget about the Stages, that they don’t use the Stages anymore. That Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote the Stages for Terminally ill Kids to be able to grasp on to something and to know what was normal. And from that peopole were given this list of things they had to experience in their grief. It made it appear that you had to experience them all. Someone asked me early on if I had experienced Anger. I said no and they said I needed to.. I said Why? Because a Book of Stages said?

Several people said and it was much agreed on that when a child’s Parent had died, and they were told that they needed to take care of the remaining parent and or siblings that it put such a big responsiblity on that child.. even if the Child was an Adult. They felt that they had to hold it together for everyone and were not able to do their own grieving until the other parent died, or the siblings moved out of the house… You know I never would of thought of that and being such a burden on someone.. But I can see how it would now.

They did say that People who have alot of Baggage (like depression, problems in the home, etc.) tend to not deal with Grief as well as those who have little to no Baggage and were pretty Happy before all this. Plus people who have many Friends Supporting them tend to do better. They also said that people who lean on a Faith tend to do better. They said that Extroverts tend to do better than Introverts.. But we know that all this said is not 100% of the time. And of course there is a whole list of things that determines also How we do in this Grief Journey. It was said that we don’t enough screaming.. We stifle our emotions and don’t allow our self to feel it. We should scream more often. I related to this cause as much as I wanted to scream and it just wouldn’t come out.

Grief Is:The work you must do after any major loss in your life to regain your balance and a sense of Joy.

Moving Through Grief:
We react to our loss with shock, numbness, and disbelief.
We begin the difficult journey of understanding that our loss is real.
We allow ourselves to experienced the pain of our Grief in all it’s forms.
We identify how our environment has changed and begin to develop new roles, routines, and skills in response to changes.
We eventually come to a point where we choose to say *Yes* to life again.