Tools to Help with Grief

We are coming up on a year since my dad died. I am in my mid 40s with a young family and my father passed away from frontotemporal dementia almost a year ago. My mother passed away when I was 11 years old, so losing a parent is not new to me but a totally different experience at this age. I have always said, losing a parent is hard, it doesn’t matter what age you are. Why are we always comparing anyways, why can’t we all just hurt? Why do we have to hurt more than someone else? I learned as an adult that comparison is cause for suffering, even when we are on the right side of the coin.

So, here is a list of what I did over the last year that helped me survive the death of my father. Let me begin with that my father was my hero, he was my one and only for so long. He stepped in when I was 11 years old and even before that, since my mother was sick for so long - and he was my person for everything. I didn’t meet my husband until I was 37 years old and when I look back now, the dementia had already set in but we just didn’t know it yet. There were clues but he did not get a diagnosis for another two and half years. He was ready to hand me off to my husband but he didn’t leave until he saw us stable as a small family.

Back to what helped me survive this year.

1. My husband - Alan - while we are on the subject - he was my rock to get through this tough time, by my side, allowing my feelings to be present, heard and supporting me to access the activities that refueled me. I went through a very angry period where I would yell/raise my voice at both my four year old son and mostly my husband. Then I would retreat to my office and just cry and cry. Through self-awareness I realized I was so angry at the loss of my father and I was unleashing it on those closest to me. I was angry a lot. Once I realized this, I understood why it was happening and it slowly dissipated. I apologized every time.

2. Self - awareness. This is H-U-G-E and can be a hard practice. I try to practice meditation daily which has helped me develop self-awareness among other things. Of course there are days here and there that I miss but I have had a pretty strong practice since January 2014. A New Year’s Resolution I kept! I notice that when I miss several days or the practice falls to the wayside, my patience, my awareness and my peace decrease. As they say it is a practice that must be kept up - it’s the journey.

3. 5AM Club. I wake up at 5:30am most days to meditate, say protections and blessings, and then move into a 30 minute workout before anyone else is awake. This is the only time during the day that I really get just me time and it helps me. This routine S-A-V-E-D me this year. I am not sure how I would have survived this year without this routine. The year was hard and I mean hard but this made it bearable, survivable. For a period of time, this was my favorite part of the day, the only part I felt at peace and calm.

4. Learning. To finish off the 5AM Club, I listened to audiobooks and podcasts on my way to work for about 15 - 20 minutes daily. I listened to several audiobooks on grief that I researched to find. Here they are in no particular order:
   • The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
     1. It’s OK to Laugh by Nora Mcinerny Purmort
     2. For You When I Am Gone by Steve Leder
     3. Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty
     4. Your Second Life Begins When you Realize You Only Have One by Raphaelle Giordano
     5. The Five Invitations by Frank Ostaseski
     6. Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg
     7. Chatter by Ethan Kross
     8. The Ritual Effect by Michael Norton
     9. Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe by Laura Lynne Jackson
        
        

5. Avoid distractions. The first five months we did not do much. I am a pretty social human and I turned inward, stayed at home, didn’t see or communicate with any more people than I needed to make it through the day. It was true survival mode again (like when we had a baby). Make sure we are eating, have clean clothes to wear, the house is clean, and going to our work/childcare for the day. I was exhausted at night and really Alan did most of the daily house and childcare items, I was just making sure I got to work, did my morning routine and made it home. Going to bed early, lots of TV and even talked way less on the phone with my brother which up until right before my dad died, we were talking most mornings. Slowly, we started to make plans on the weekends but never more than one thing. That is all I could handle. I truly believe this helped me to process the death or transition of my father. I was ready to do this, I was probably rushing the grieving process and we all know when it comes to grief, it will move on its own time. At the end of June we traveled to Europe for a three week trip. We visited my dad’s family in England for the first week and I noticed that I was starting to return to my body and the joys in life. There were also a lot of distractions now, traveling, new environments and a lot to think about everyday. I no longer was thinking about my dad all the time - distractions came up in my daily life. I wonder about this - how to continue the grieving process and have distractions?

6. Spiritual inquiry. I attended a grief ritual, a session with a healer, and I was in the middle of a year-long class on developing my own ritual and spiritual practice. Elements from each of these practices helped me to figure out what I was holding onto, let go of what I was holding onto, and call in my desires. I learned to notice connections with nature and signs that my dad is still connecting with me.

Grief is a personal path and everyone experiences it differently. Talking about it, allowing your emotions to be present, and doing the processing work can help you get through it. With everything, there can only be ups with downs, this is a part of the journey, there is no end destination and then you’ve made it or the grief has passed. It is cyclical, it can go dormant for many years and then just reappear like it happened yesterday. How we choose to respond can help make us stronger and make the ups that much better.

Sending love and peace to all experiencing grief. May you be filled with joy, may you be filled with peace and may you have ease of suffering.