“Love, where it ever existed before, doesn’t cease to exist. To speak of love in the past tense is not to know love at all. Love goes on, being always a continuation and an extension of love. Your grief is but the continuation of the love you once experienced, and will always experience. Grief is another name for Love.”(Jennifer Williamson)
Western culture has always had a very uneasy relationship with grief. Where other cultures and ethnic groups have integrated the inevitability of loss into the fabric of their society, providing structure and support for a grieving process, in the West we are given but weeks to attend to the emotions and details of the loss, such as planning and attending the funeral if a death was involved, and then encouraged to “move on,” whatever that entails, depending on what it is that you have actually lost (a relationship, home, job, person, or pet, for example).When losing a loved one, this may look like planning and attending a funeral with the minimal bereavement time allotted by your employer. When losing a home or job, this may look like encouraging words from well meaning family and friends that typically end with, “it’s time to move on.”
The COVID 19 pandemic afforded us many opportunities to experience grief. These included routines and activities we were accustomed to, like our gym workout, dining out, popcorn and a good laugh or cry at the movie theater, hugging friends and family, and attending live events like church, school, work, concerts and other outings that we used to take for granted.Amidst toilet paper, mask and laundry soap shortages, other things were also in short supply: concise, trustworthy information and reliable leadership.We became fearful of the future, and even each other.Breathing the air and touching each other became potentially dangerous. Many of us lost loved ones.Some of us lost livelihoods, a sustainable income, our health or our home. We all lost a sense of safety and security.
We are now emerging from a time of uncertainty and upheaval in different ways depending upon our particular experience of the pandemic, and need to develop fresh pathways to engage in the necessary grief process of adjusting to “a new normal.”
According to Stephen Jenkinson, Creator and Principle Instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School, (and keynote speaker at our conference this year!!)grief is “a way of loving that which has slipped from view, and love is a way of grieving that which has not yet done so.” He believes that grief is not a feeling, but a state of being that holds true throughout our lifetime, and that we must become “practitioners of grief” in order to truly participate in the experience of deeply loving another.
Grief acknowledges the impermanence of love, a recognition of its temporariness:the baby we are rocking and holding today becomes the adolescent who rebuffs a hug, a beloved canine companion on our daily walks becomes crippled with arthritis and lies on his bed watching us lace up our shoes to go without him, a long awaited trip ends in a series of photographs that barely do it justice, a loved one’s spirit nestles in our heart rather than on the couch as a physical body next to us at the end of the day.
Grief does not necessarily need to be a traumatic experience, but becomes so when experienced in isolation, without understanding and support in the context of connected relationships.
Grief becomes embodied as trauma when we walk its path alone.
Jenkins asserts that if your love includes another being, grief is part of love.They are twins that reveal each other, two sides of the same precious coin. One does not and cannot exist without the other.Just as we need other beings to experience love, we also need other beings to help us navigate grief.He concludes:“You don’t get invited to many parties if you become a practitioner of grief, but your understanding of love is renovated for all time.”
In the upcoming virtual Natural Lifemanship Conference,A Natural Life:Love and Grief are Connected, a community of helpers and healers from all over the world will provide us with many rich opportunities to become better practitioners of the inevitable intertwined experiences of love and grief that accompany us on our life’s journey.
Those who participate in this conference will embark on ajourney that we have carefully and artfully designed.Each presentation will prepare you for the next as the conference culminates in a very special community Rite of Passage to honor change with ceremonialist Katie Asmus.It is our intention to create a sacred space for you to navigate the challenging road of grief while experiencing the vast love that is, indeed, grief’s twin.
Our upcoming conference was purposefully designed to give you the education and the experience needed as you travel the path upon which you hope to accompany your clients.
Grief, love, and life is a journey to be walked in the company of others.
We know that Interconnected 2020 will take place online.
We also know that too many hours spent online without a break could cause serious mental fatigue.
So, we put together this playlist of videos and resources to give your mind and body the rhythm and connection needed to regulate and learn. They are intended to be watched as “Brain Breaks” during the conference—to ensure the conference experience is rejuvenating and FUN.
Still need a ticket to the conference? Get it now!
This playlist was carefully chosen to deepen your experience at Interconnected 2020.
All of these things bring us rhythm––visual and auditory rhythm, specifically––which helps to regulate, organize, and integrate the entire brain. These videos are intended to regulate the most lower regions of the brain so that our brain and body can connect with self and others and are capable of concrete and abstract learning and thought. With so many options you can “choose your flavor” – we hope you enjoy!
This year, our Interconnected 2020 conference will be virtual. This means that the speakers you watch and the workshops you participate in will be done on a computer monitor or screen.
While this makes attending the conference more convenient, it may cause you to experience symptoms related to Zoom Fatigue—exhaustion that comes with focusing intently on a computer screen for too long.
Don’t worry…we’ve got a plan for that!
This entire conference was designed with you in mind, and that includes avoiding Zoom Fatigue. We’re going to keep you moving, engaged, and connected the entire time! Here’s how.
Keep Moving
Many of the presentations were designed to keep your body and mind flowing through rhythm and regulation. So we highly encourage you to participate as if you were right there standing in front of each live presenter. Stand up, sit down, and keep moving! This will allow you to stay engaged and invigorated throughout the conference.
Unplug
This is YOUR time. Therefore we advise you to unplug from outside distractions during conference hours. As we would in person, we are asking you to turn off/ silence your cell phone. The more you treat your environment as you would a conference hall, the more you will receive from this life-changing experience.
Get Grounded
Our Daily Healing Practices provide you with an opportunity to move, stretch, and connect deeper to yourself and those participating in the conference with you. We encourage you to attend each morning and evening to SHIFT your mind and body’s focus from the computer screen, inward.
Connect with Living Beings
If possible spend time with other living beings! A person, an animal, a tree––we need others to regulate. Co-regulation is a biological imperative and will absolutely combat Zoom fatigue! If you can, take moments for physical closeness with a friend, an animal companion, or in nature. A plant, a tree, your God…these connections matter so much.
Bonus Tip
Turn off your video or use your speaker view during the conference. Only “be seen” when you want to see your body. This can help you to shift your focus away from watching yourself, to healing yourself.
You can turn off “self view” – turn on your camera to ensure your lighting is good, and then hide “self-view”.
Together, we will transform the virtual experience into one of greater mindfulness, connectedness, and transcendence.
There is still time to register for Interconnected 2020! I hope you can join us!
One of my now-favorite yoga instructors leads her students through a series of poses several times at the beginning of each class, both by demonstration and verbal cueing, and then falls silent as she continues to move through the sequence without calling out the poses as we go forward. At intervals, she reminds us, “Trust your body. You know the way.”
At first, I would become confused about which pose to do next without her spoken directions, and found myself constantly checking to see if I was doing the same pose as she was (which sometimes involved awkwardly craning my neck and twisting my body to observe her next move. Yes, I did fall over a few times. This is less painful than falling off a horse but no less embarrassing). Over time, however, I began to trust my muscle memory, realizing that after a few passes through the sequence, my body truly did “know the way.” I could close my eyes and allow myself to flow through the series from one pose to the next without having to constantly glance over at the instructor.
I also accepted that sometimes I was out of sequence or off the pace but that this really didn’t matter so long as I was matching my breath to my movements and staying centered and grounded in my own practice of being mindfully present in my own body and in my own space on my yoga mat.
Something about this phrase “you know the way,” caught my attention early on and kept me coming back to her class despite the initial awkwardness involved in her lack of cueing (I am a rule follower and want to “get things right.”)
As a young immigrant with Dutch parents, I often found myself ignorant of the customs, idioms, and cultural knowledge that my American peers took for granted. Halloween was a mystery (but a fun one. Who can beat the combination of costumes and candy?) We opened presents on the 5th of December (Sinterklaas) instead of the 25th. We put mayonnaise on our French Fries and chocolate sprinkles on our sandwiches (both are delicious, by the way). I often found myself looking around to see how others were behaving, speaking, or dressing to try to fit in and not inadvertently relegate myself to social Siberia.
In other words, I did not learn to trust myself to “know the way.” Developing an eating disorder early in life further disrupted my ability to listen to and trust my body or my brain. It has taken me years of healing and recovery to discover that I can know what I need and want and have enough value to take steps to seek for those needs and wants to be met.
Many of us are finding that we currently do not “know the way” forward due to conflicting information and differing opinions on how and even whether to re-open the economy and resume activities previously banned due to the coronavirus restrictions. People are passionately divided over how to best pursue safety and sanity during these uncertain times. The news coverage is full of angry confrontations between those with conflicting belief systems. The confusion, chaos, and lack of clear direction can lead us to feelings of overwhelm, hopelessness, powerless, and even despair. No matter where you land in this ongoing debate about the collective good vs. individual rights and freedoms, however, there are certain principles that can help us “know the way” during this challenging time:
Compassionfor ourselves and others. Chronic stress can overwhelm our coping mechanisms and cause us to behave and speak in ways we normally wouldn’t. Be quick to apologize and quick to forgive both ourselves and others.
Kindness towards ourselves and others. Now, more than ever, we need to have patience and grace as we all struggle to adjust to a new normal that we don’t always understand how to navigate successfully.
Patience towards ourselves and others. Learning new skills and alternate ways of doing tasks takes time. We learn everything new by trial and error, from walking to multiplication to riding a bicycle. We learn more from our mistakes than our successes. Learning to ask for help and to laugh at ourselves can help defuse a potentially frustrating or defeating situation.
Acceptance of ourselves, others, and our new circumstances. Acceptance is sometimes mistaken for liking or wanting or being “ok” with someone or something. Actually, acceptance is simply acknowledging that the current situation “is what it is.” It doesn’t mean we like it or want it that way, just that it is that way. Until we accept that something is currently true, we cannot put any energy or attention towards trying to make any changes, because all of our energy is being channeled into defense mechanisms like denial, or minimization, or avoidance (my three favorites, personally). Only once we accept, or acknowledge a problem, can we begin to consider ways to tackle it and make things better. This extends to accepting ourselves, as we currently are, and others as well. Acceptance is not resignation. It is the beginning of empowerment for change.
I had to learn to stop looking around to see what everyone else was doing in order to fit in. I realized my nervous system was designed to keep me safe and help me make decisions and take actions congruent with my own values, beliefs, needs, and wants. While it is important to consult trusted sources for guidance in areas outside of our area of expertise, is it also important to check in with yourself to see what feels right for your particular wiring, personality, moral compass, and situation, as well as considering your emotional, mental and physical capacity.
Turn off the news, find a quiet place, close your eyes, and check-in with yourself (and your Higher Power if this is part of your belief system). Don’t just look outward. Look inward. You know the way.
Kathleen Choe is an LPC-S and NL Trainer. Learn more with her at the Natural Lifemanship Conference, Interconnected 2020!
Across the country, across the globe, we are starting to make decisions about “opening up” and getting back to “normal”.It is contentious!The complicated decision pendulum swings from “it is way too early,” to “it is way too late.” Every state, county, city, and rural area has to decide if it is time. With ALL that must be weighed, looked at, deciphered, considered and understood, it is easy to see how the decision process breaks down in frustration, anger, name-calling and total lack of empathy for the groups that see things differently than your group.
But what happens when that frustration and anger enters your own home? What happens when the folks living inside those quarantined walls are looking at the same data, having the same discussions turned arguments and come up with totally different answers?
Yep, that happened.
A simple and lovely party invitation was the final straw.Conversation over breakfast quickly turned into what felt like a feral cat thrown into a pillowcase with another feral cat.There was nothing but teeth and claws and no way to get out.
In this household, we know how to use regulation skills.We understand what happens to the brain and body when old patterns of fear, control, and anxiety take over. And here we were, in our own kitchen, living out the state and national paradigm of figuring out how to move on. Literally, the following thoughts and ideas were either said or implied:
You are an idiot
You do not understand what is happening
You do not see what is happening
You do not care what has happened
You are too fearful
You are not a risk-taker
You are a risk-taker
We need to get over this
We need to move on
It is too soon to move on
We can’t live in constant fear forever
Clearly this was not about the party invitation.Over the past months of lockdown, we have expressed our thoughts and concerns. We share, mostly, similar political beliefs and have followed the national, state, and local safety guidelines.
But somewhere in our breakfast “bag of cats conversation” it became clear that we had not HEARD the depth of each other’s concerns.What we did hear was filtered by our own internal fears, and righteous thoughts about pandemics, shut-downs, and even the “American way”.
The foundation of our work at Windows To My Soul is deeply rooted in the Trauma Focused Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (TF-EAP) process of Natural Lifemanship, which is based on contemporary trauma research and greatly influenced by the work of Dr. Bruce Perry and many other experts in the trauma field.We believe the path to healing the effects of trauma is through healthy, good for both, relationships.This is because trauma and toxic stress can cause very real biological changes to our nervous system and brain.Inherent in these changes is the loss of connection to self and others limiting our ability to have healthy relationships.Building healthy relationships mandates that we maintain regulation (calm during stress) and causes us to rebuild or reorganize healthy neural pathways in our brain.
The question of good for both gets tricky when you are learning to communicate your thoughts or needs and/or are fighting to be heard.
That personal struggle makes it even harder for us to HEAR what the other person is fighting to communicate.Pretty soon both are frustrated and find themselves in a bag of feral cats.Many have said it – this is a traumatic time across the globe.To many, our very personal economic and professional survival is being questioned.This is trauma.In this state, we are only using the parts of the brain that are geared towards keeping us safe and protected. We are in fight or flight mode and may not have full access to the parts of the brain that allow us to empathize with others or think logically and thoroughly through issues.We may only hear our own scattered and fearful thoughts screaming through our head.Or, there is nothing at all. There are no thoughts, no fears, and no feelings. We are completely checked out.
When survival is at stake there are no easy answers.Even if the prescription for moving forward is given by others, we still must make decisions for ourselves, find our own answers and yes, find a way to move forward both individually and collectively. To do this, we are required to release ourselves from that bag of teeth and claws.But how?
STOP!
Slow down.
Feel your activated nervous system.
Feel your heartbeat.
Feel the tingles or tightness in your stomach.
Notice your feet touching the ground.
Start to see the details of your surrounding environment.
Hear the sounds.
Search for physical sensations.
Feel the need for a deep breath and then take one.
This is the moment when the cats in the bag realize that nobody is getting out alive unless another path is chosen. This is the moment when we start to feel connection with ourselves.
The journey from this point is clear, but not easy. It goes something like this:
In order to stay calm in stressful situations, I must learn regulation skills. In order to get good at regulation, I must practice those skills regularly so just like muscle memory, they kick in automatically when things start to get rough.Because I am able to stay calmer for longer periods of time, I can now stay present in this current moment without fear from my past or fear for the future.Presence in the moment allows me to better connect with my thoughts and feelings.
This connection breeds confidence in self and allows me to ask for what I need and stay committed to being heard. With that confidence, my need to control lessens and I am able to HEAR others without fear of losing myself or not being HEARD. When I can really HEAR others, I start to attune to their needs and concerns and our connection grows.Together we can start to consider what is good for both.In this moment we have created a new healthy neural pathway that allows us to consider more than just ourselves without losing ourselves.We are working on our healthy, good for both, relationship.
Of course, it doesn’t happen fluidly like that. This is why a trauma-informed trainer of Natural Lifemanship and Founder of Windows To My Soul and her husband end up like two feral cats in a bag.
Trauma happens to all of us. Our past and current circumstances determine how we react and what we need to heal.The process is bumpy and requires choosing a new path and sometimes it is just easier and more comfortable to stay on the current path. Sometimes we can’t even see that a new path is necessary or possible.
As for this cat and her husband, we had that STOP moment.We reengaged our regulation skills and we started to HEAR each other. We learned that both of us have very real concerns for mental health, professional and physical survival.We decided not to attend the party.But we will get to have the conversation of moving forward in the world of Covid-19 many more times, hopefully, a little more regulated and attuned to each other.We have a family reunion scheduled in June. ☺
After weeks of seeming stasis, were sheltering in place, physical distancing, online learning, working remotely, wearing masks in public, and other heretofore unheard of phrases and behaviors were becoming the norm, we are receiving conflicting messages about the restrictions lifting, businesses opening (at reduced capacity) and the possibility of life returning to some semblance of “normalcy.” Whether one agrees with the timing or structure of this shift or not, we seem to be on the threshold of tip-toeing out of our homes and into a world that looks vastly different from the one we knew prior to the pandemic.
What does it meant to be “on the threshold?” The word itself has some interesting definitions: a point of entry or beginning; the magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, phenomenon, or condition to occur or be manifested; the level at which one starts to feel or react to something or at which something comes into effect.
In other words, a threshold is that moment right before the change actually happens, when we are standing in the doorway looking out at an unfamiliar landscape, wondering if we are prepared for whatever we are about to encounter on the other side. Change is difficult for most of us. Even for those who thrive on adventure and new experiences, feeling a bit of anxiety in the face of uncertainty is common. In that moment when the training wheels come off and we are wobbling this way and that, frantically peddling while trying to adjust to the novelty of trusting our bodies to hold us in balance instead of relying on the machinery of the training wheels or the strong arm of a parent figure holding our bicycle upright from behind, we struggle to have confidence that we can fly instead of falling to the ground. It is the space between the trapeze bars, when we have let go of the one and not yet grasped hold of the other, suspended in mid-air, hoping we have stretched far enough to reach the safety of the handle swinging before us. It is the unknown territory we have not yet traversed, and it is . . . scary.
Brandan J. Robertson, in his article, On the Threshold of Tomorrow, writes, “What are we to do at such a threshold moment? . . . In moments of transition, we are simply to be. We are to pause and acknowledge that a transition is taking place. Instead of seeking to abruptly pass through a threshold, we are to tarry. . . . A new reality is emerging, but we cannot see beyond the threshold. All we know is that we exist in this moment, where everything is in transition. We may experience a new way of being, but we cannot yet sense what it will look like.”
After the end of World War II, all the Dutch citizens living in Indonesia were expelled and sent “home” to their native country, the Netherlands. My mother, along with many of her fellow expats, was born in Indonesia, and up until that point, had never even lived in the Netherlands. At the age of 15, my mother went “home” to a place that was entirely foreign to her. Worse yet, the Dutch citizens already living there did not welcome these returnees back into the fold as terrible shortages of food, fuel, and housing were compounded by the return of these refugees, who were awarded double ration cards due to the starvation and hardship they experienced in the concentration camps during the war. She remembers feeling lost, alone, and afraid in this country where she was supposed to belong but whose customs, climate and conditions were unfamiliar to her. Her mother’s sister, Tante Truce, took in the battered and bedraggled family of five and fed them, cared for them, and helped them over this threshold to adjust to their new life.
It is ok not to know what’s next. It is ok not to know how to feel, what to think, or how to behave in this new landscape we are finding ourselves in. It is ok to ask for help, to turn to each other for connection and comfort, and to find our way forward together, with uncertain, even wobbly steps. We may fall off our bicycle (or horse, as I did last week. Twice!) We may miss the trapeze bar. The important thing is that we allow ourselves to be helped back up by others who are traveling this new road with us and that we don’t try to figure this out alone. We may linger on the threshold and decide we are not quite ready to cross over it yet even though we see others doing so. And that’s ok too.
Because you are not alone. We are all in this together.
Kathleen is a licensed professional counselor and practices in the Austin, Texas area. More info can be found here. She is also a member of the NL team, and a Natural Lifemanship trainer.
The Natural Lifemanship Institute is offering a variety of low to no cost support for you during this time!
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