The Grieving Process: from Kent Allen at the LDS W/W Conference

I had the privilege of attending an LDS widows conference this month.  It was the most amazing event I have ever attended.  I had heard a lot of hype before it and some even claimed that it was better than General Conference.

I highly doubt that, I thought.

But I was wrong!  It was BETTER than General Conference and I REALLY love General Conference.

Anyways, I felt prompted to share some of my notes.

So, here are my notes from Kent Allen's workshop, "The Grieving Process."

Definition of Hope: hope is looking forward with anticipation to something you think you will have.

Definition of Loss: loss is when we lose hopes and dreams that are core to our existence.

Definition of Grieving: the process we go through that helps us let go of old hopes and dreams that we can no longer have and helps us establish NEW HOPES AND DREAMS that are more attainable.  It is an unlearned process and is a FEELING PROCESS not a thinking process.

-no logic to it.

-nothing prepares you for the loss of a spouse

-TO HEAL YOU HAVE TO FEEL.

When you experience trauma, you either resolve it (99% of people won't) or it turns to shock/stress.  Too much stress causes the brain to go numb.  (The front lobe goes numb, the rest is speckled with memories. If your brain didn't do this, the trauma would kill you.)
Then there are triggers which are emotional memories...memories jogged by your senses: touch, sight, sound, taste, smell.  Triggers will come at any point in the day or night.  This causes pain/anxiety causing you to fight (get angry), take flight (run away), or freeze (zone out).  If you have a high level of anxiety, it means you have a higher level of adrenaline in your system.  Relax, calm your breathing, clear your mind of stress and painful memories.  Think about peaceful experiences.  When you're in pain or anxious you tend to misread life cues which creates more stress and thus the cycle repeats itself.

*Ask and allow God to help you feel peace and hope, He will comfort you.

*The moment your spouse died, you lost your agency.

*48-72 hours (3-4 days) after, you're not thinking any new thoughts, just the same ones over and over.

6 Steps to Gaining your Agency Back

1. Recognize (tune into your body, recognize your feelings: lonely, abandoned, sad...)
2. Choose how long you want to feel that way:
    a. allow yourself to feel: angry, lonely, bad
    b. choose the amount of time you want to feel bad
    c. the time you choose needs to be in real time (minutes, hours, weeks...)
3. Cut the time in half (Life is composed of positive and negative moments.  The negative are 11 times more powerful.)
4. Set a timer.** (SUPER IMPORTANT!!)
      Allow yourself to feel negative until the timer goes off.
5. Think a totally different positive thought (things that you love, make you happy)

   -Kent told about a little boy who would think about hamburgers as his positive thought, whatever works for you!!
6. As soon as you can, DO something different.

*it only takes 2 1/2 weeks to drain the [I can't remember which one he said] dam.
*It takes two months to fill it.
*write down a list of "fillers," things that make you feel good.

*you need to write down the list so when you do have five minutes, you will know what to do!  Put your lists on your phone!


All these ideas/notes are not my own, they are from Kent Allen, LMFT!!

To Lie or not to Lie?

I have found that I don't like to tell people that Bucky is dead.

Okay, now that I said that, it sounds incredibly stupid.

I mean, I don't like to tell strangers.  Not because I don't want to talk about him, but because I don't want to hear all of the "I'm so sorry..." and then they always want to know HOW and WHEN.

It's always awkward when someone you just met finds out your husband is dead.  It's like going to the viewing and funeral all over again.

I was at the dentist's the other day and the hygienist was making friendly conversation.  (I don't think I have ever been a fan of the conversations at the dentist office.)

The hygienist does her best to start a conversation with me by asking, "So, are you married?  Do you have any kids?"
Reluctantly I reply, "I have four kids."

Notice, I did not say I was married.  That's just a lie of omission, right?  So not a real flat out lie.

We talk about the kids for a bit and then she says...

She looks at some charts.

I have come to the conclusion that I either need to resign myself to the life of a pathological liar or buck up, tell the truth, and just bask in the awkwardness of it all.

Yeah...  I think I'm going to go google "How to become better at lying."

The Tornado of Grief and Loss

Sometimes words escape me and I can't really describe how I feel and yet I have this need to get it out of me.  At times like that, I turn to drawing, albeit terrible drawings, to try to sort out how I feel.

The day before my husband was diagnosed with leukemia was a perfect day.  (Okay, maybe not perfect.)  But the months leading up to his diagnosis were perfect.  He had just come home from his second twelve month deployment to Afghanistan.  We were moving to a new duty station from which he would not deploy for at least three years.

We watched an episode of Monk most nights together.

We were finally enjoying time together without the angst of another deployment hanging over our heads.

In short, life was good.

And then he was diagnosed with leukemia and it seemed as though a tornado had begun to rip through our lives.

I was shocked and the tornado only seemed to grow larger.

And once the tornado was done ripping apart the fabric of our very lives, I was left alone still wondering what had just happened.

And I still wonder.

And then people asked me how I am doing, and I still could not believe what I had just seen and what remained of my life, this awful terrible mess.

And I can see the mess, but I don't think anyone else can see it because they say things like, "You're over this now, right?" and "You should be okay by now."

And then they leave and I see this life that was once so beautiful and now just a terrible mess, and I wonder, "How could you even say that to me?"

How can you not see this mess?!

How could you think that everything would be okay by now, just a few months afterward?

Why can't you see that my life has been irrevocably changed?

Why can't you see that it takes more than a few months to rebuild a lifetime of dreams?

Why can't you see that I can't just sweep this under the rug?

Why can't you see what I see?

Soooo tired

I sent the boys to church early to save us a darn pew.  15 minutes before church starts and all the pews are reserved...drives me crazy that no matter how early we get to church it seems like we can never get a pew anymore.
So, 40 minutes before church starts I sent the boys off with the iPad to play with to save us a spot.  (This used to be Bucky's job, since he had to be there for meetings anyway...of course there were always the people who just sit on top of your stuff anyway...I have mixed feelings about this since I have been on both ends of it...how about they just make the chapel bigger? Problem solved.)

Anyway, Mr. Jumping Bean (7) had been up since....oh, 6:45, so he had no problem getting ready to go.

As soon as the meeting starts, Jumping Bean looks at me and says, in a rather unquiet voice, "I am sooooo tired. Did you bring my bed?"
"Umm, no," I whisper back.
"Did you bring Jelly Bean's bed?"
"No..."

I must lie on this bench and take up all of the room...

"Can I use Cocoa's blanket?"
Please just stop talking...Of course if I ignore him, he just says it louder.
He proceeds to talk about how he is so tired and how he just wants to sleep RIGHT NOW.

"Mom, I can't help but fall over, I am SO tired..."

Eventually he won't quit talking about it and starts flopping around...and being a general pain all around. I take him out of the chapel and find a quiet area of the church to talk to him.  I pray for inspiration on how to teach my child that it is better to be bored in church sitting on a comfy pew than sitting on a hard chair with a mom that won't talk to you...nothing. I got nothing.  One day Jumping Bean will be the best example in the family...but that day was not today, or last week...or the past seven years...

It reminded me of this Mr. Bean clip (at about 3 minutes, that's where this starts resembling the floppy Jumping Bean, if only Jumping Bean could be quiet about falling asleep...)

If you need a good laugh, you should watch it, I certainly needed to laugh after a meeting like that!

Where I'm At

As I was making oatmeal this morning, the water boiled and popped, splashing hot oatmeal on my forearm.  I quickly ran it under cold water and the pain passed rather quickly.  I continued with the breakfast preparations and forgot about the incident.

An hour later, as I was preparing the bathtub for the baby, I stuck my arm under the running water.  The temperature was fine but as the water trickled down my forearm the intense pain came back.  I pulled my arm out as quickly as I could.  It took a moment for me to remember and figure out why my arm was hurting.

That is where I'm at in the process of healing.  I'm okay.  My days aren't incredibly bad, nor are they over joyous.  They're just okay.

But every once in a while I will see something or hear something that will bring back the searing pain.

And then I have to run to the bathroom and run my forearm under cold water again.

I can't think of any examples as of late, but quite a few weeks ago I took Jumping Bean-7 to the baptism open house that our stake was putting on for all of the children that will turn eight this year.

We looked at the white baptismal suits and I told Jumping Bean how he would wear that when he was baptized.  And then I overheard the woman standing next to us talking to her daughter, "You'll wear one and Daddy will wear one too..."

Can we go home now?  I thought.  "Let's go look at the baptismal font and then we can go.  Okay?"

I guess I needed to rush home to put some cold water on my forearm.

I'm okay now.