A Grief Support Blog

This blog will allow you the opportunity to acquire both support and guidance after experiencing a significant loss.

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Talking to your children about 9/11

HOW TO ADDRESS YOUR CHILDREN

September 11, 2001 now enters our language in the same emotional way as December 7, 1941 and November 22, 1963. Most people remember where they were when they found out about Pearl Harbor and about the shooting of John F. Kennedy. For most people, their first awareness of those events came on the radio. As photo images trickled in from Pearl Harbor, and televised images filtered in from Dallas, the tragic news we had heard was matched by visual pictures.

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  • Oct 23, 2001
  • Russell Friedman
  • 0 comments

Death of a long term spouse. Legacy of love or monument to misery.

When long-term relationships end due to death of one of the partners, there is an inevitable adjustment to the new reality of life without someone who has always been there. Adaptation to the radical changes in life following the death of a loved one is either enhanced or limited by the ideas that we have learned over our lifetimes about dealing with loss.

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  • Jul 26, 1994
  • Russell Friedman
  • 5 comments

Losing a pet: Grieving the loss of a friend

Losing a pet can be one of the most painful experiences a person can have. There is much talk in today's world about unconditional love. It would be wonderful if human beings were capable of such a thing. The sad truth is that we fall short of the mark. While unconditional love is probably impossible, it is a wonderful goal and we should continue to strive for it.

Unconditional Love

Loss of Pet Grief.jpg

In reality, the closest thing to unconditional love we ever perceive is that which we sense from our pets. Even then, there are a few conditions. After we have fed them and their other basic needs have been met, animals are unconditional. We have yet to hear that someone's dog, cat, parakeet or hamster judged them or criticized them or called them stupid.

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  • Jun 29, 1994
  • Russell Friedman
  • 31 comments

Pay me now or pay me later. The high cost of unresolved Grief

You might recognize the title of this article from an advertising slogan for an automotive product several years ago. The idea was that if you spend a little bit of money on maintenance now, you might save a tremendous amount of money, replacing an entire engine, later. Let's take a look at how unresolved grief relates to this slogan.

Unresolved Grief

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  • May 16, 1994
  • Russell Friedman
  • 2 comments

Grief affects concentration. Emotional jet lag.

Working with grieving people for more than thirty years has given us a wealth of practical experience. Amongst the many observations we've made is the fact that grieving people often seem to be slower to respond to even the simplest of questions, and to be baffled by tasks that are normally routine. Imagine that your brain has been filled up with three quarts of molasses. That is pretty much the effect that a major loss event can have on your capacity to think, feel, and participate in life.

Grief affects concentration

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  • Feb 03, 1994
  • Russell Friedman
  • 14 comments

Grief Recovery: Intellect can't fix Grief - heart vs. smart!

Throughout this series of articles we make constant reference to the fact that understanding does not equal completion,  and that knowledge or intellectual awareness does not create resolution of the emotional incompleteness caused by loss. An incredible amount of our time is consumed in undoing the damage done by mixing intellect and emotions.

Intellect can't fix grief

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  • Jan 03, 1994
  • Russell Friedman
  • 3 comments

Is it ever too soon to recover from grief?

The question of when to begin a process of completing relationships that have ended or changed, due to death or divorce, is confused by conflicting opinions from a wide variety of sources. Medical, psychological, societal and family experts all approach the issue from differing perspectives.

It is not at all uncommon for us to hear of people being told, by their Professional, "it's Too Soon to begin your grief work, you're not ready yet." We grit our teeth every time we hear that comment.

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  • Dec 31, 1993
  • Russell Friedman
  • 7 comments

Grief: Right or happy...pick one. The trap in rightness

What we believe usually dictates how we feel. Our attitudes about people and events will generate our emotional responses to them. We all think our beliefs are always right, otherwise we would believe something else. Since we have practiced our beliefs over a lifetime, we are very loyal to them. 

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  • Nov 16, 1993
  • Russell Friedman
  • 1 comments

Grief: Exploring the "F" words #3 - Familiarity

What you practice is what you get good at! The Grief Recovery Handbook makes constant reference to the fact that you must grieve and complete your relationship to your pain. Lacking grief recovery skills, grievers often begin to identify themselves by the pain they have experienced. In a relatively short time, the griever becomes familiar with that painful identity. The griever may also develop a very strong loyalty to the now familiar pain. No one wants to give up things they own or feel very familiar with.

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  • Oct 27, 1993
  • Russell Friedman
  • 0 comments

Exploring the "F" words #2 - Fear

In our last article we explored the impact that lack of forgiveness might have on our hearts, our minds, and our bodies. In this one we are going to focus our emotional microscope on the possible consequences of using FEAR to guide our recovery from significant emotional loss.

Retained FEAR is cumulative and cumulatively negative. If the griever does not feel safe enough to communicate about their fears, then the fears themselves appear to be real and begin to define and limit the griever. In a play on that old phrase, "you are what you eat" and "you create what you fear."

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  • Sep 17, 1993
  • Russell Friedman
  • 0 comments

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