Coping with sudden loss  updated May 13, 2008
Sudden or traumatic losses due to events like crimes, accidents, or suicides are heart scalding traumas. They happen without any kind of forewarning. This life changing unexpected loss strips you from the opportunity to prepare. It challenges your sense of security and faith in the certainty of life.

A Grief Fit  updated May 13, 2008
I’m always reminding people to seek out the small miracles of the day. A brightly colored bird singing, a bud ready to blossom, the sound of the ocean - actually anything and everything that brings a smile to your day is worthy as being cherished. With every cloud of doubt about getting through the day, there is always a rainbow of promise that life will get better.

Today, I was looking for my small miracle of the day.

Defining Your Grief  updated May 13, 2008
Grief puts its thumbprint on all who experience it. It adds a layer to who you are and changes everything you thought you knew about life. Wouldn’t it be spectacular to find the silver magic bullet that would tackle the misery and pain that comes with grief? Yet, the only way to cure grief is to wade through its heavy fog and come out the other end with a changed perspective.

Workplace Grief
The phrase “leave your problems at the doorstep” refers to tossing off the work troubles before you enter the home and shedding the home problems before you enter the work place. Sounds like practical advice; yet, it isn't tailor made for the wounded heart. When a loved one dies, most work places are gracious for approximately three to five days. Then the heart founded compassion skips out the proficient HR window. Unfortunately, the grief experience doesn't come in one size fits all and three to five days isn't adequate to deal with the life change.

All-around Trauma
As I’m getting ready to do my tour of duty, so to speak, for the weary souls who weathered Katrina and Rita, I look around at my own neighborhood. Homes are still wearing blue tarps for roofs, houses are waiting to be demolished, and broken people from last year’s double bout of hurricanes. I watch the weather station with dread as they explain that three more “nothing to worry about this moment” blobs invade the radar off the coast of Africa. All I can do is hang my head in awe of nature’s power and ponder if there will be any more heart scalding events this hurricane season.

Finding Good Mental Health in Devastating Disasters
Wouldn’t it be fantastic if good mental health was as simple as filling a prescription at our local pharmacy? Mental health like physical health comes in a wide range from excellent to uh oh, need some work to diseased. Mental health is more than just the absence of mental illness. Mental health includes a person feeling good about themselves, their life, how they think, feel and behave. It has an impact on what we do, how we cope, react and adjust to life experiences. The National Institute of Mental Health states that one in ten Americans experience some disability from a diagnosable mental illness in the course of a year.

Recovered living in problematical times
During a traumatic experience, physiological changes in the brain and hormones help a person survive the immediate threat. A person adjusts by using coping skills and emotions. Shock and denial are typical responses to trauma, especially shortly after the event. Both shock and denial are normal protective reactions. The duo has a Novocain affect and will leave you feeling dazed and disconnected. Traumatic events are so extreme and fierce in their impact that they may crush a person's ability to cope.

Grief and After Death Communication
There is a new controversial concept for helping those in grief. The notion is that by reconnecting a person with a deceased loved one, it will result in the healing of the profound sorrow associated with grief. This methodology was discovered in 1995 by Allan Botkin, Doctor of Psychology specializing in post traumatic stress syndrome. He successfully determined the components necessary to bring about an after death communication. The psychotherapists trained in this method utilize the concept of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing to induce the after-death contact.

What To Do When The Sting Of Grief Won’t Subside
Every change in life brings a new challenge. When we lose a loved one, the challenge of the transition to a new normal is all-embracing. Creating the new normal cannot happen effectively if there isn’t an evolution in our perspective. When we lose a loved one, it is an end to how we lived our daily lives. It is an end to the way we knew life to be, the way we believed our life was secure, and the way we were familiar with going about our daily tasks. The death of our loved one hurls us into a busy intersection of big rig emotions. Feeling defenseless in the middle of the road is ominous. We can become so busy dodging obstacles that we can’t get on a direct path to creating a new beginning.

Chronic Pain = Grief
After spending almost 12 hours in a tizzy of running to make connections, only to find the flights to be delayed, and then sitting for hours, the pain from an aggravated sciatica was pushing my sanity button. I commenced assessing the throbbing, the fear of the pain not subsiding and the grief those two factors were creating.

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