Hi,
I’m Freda Marie, and I came to the Grief Recovery Institute while re-wiring my Life after retirement from the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. I have served in some form of pastoral ministry for many years, including Life as a hospice and palliative care chaplain, and all of the intellect and compassion in the world for others did not heal my own broken heart. I am so grateful for the Grief Recovery Method!
I had been unable to honestly acknowledge the death of my Dad some 10 years previously due to my husband’s early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and his eventual death from those complications. I really could handle only one thing at a time, and even then, I felt like I was living mostly underwater.
Fortuitously, I encountered the Grief Recovery Method through the Institute, where I discovered a raw and open wound still existed from my Mom’s death almost twenty years prior! I never realized how much grief and suffering I suppressed in an attempt to keep going, and isn’t that what we do? We keep going, hoping that the pain will lessen and finally disappear.
Through GRM, I learned that the pain goes underground and affects so many other relationships in different ways. Completing the grief cycle over my Mom’s departure opened a space within me to honestly acknowledge and express the significant emotional moments and statements I wish I’d had the chance to express and thereby close that chapter of my and my Mom’s Life together. Later, I was able to do the same for both my Dad and my husband. I am so grateful for the Grief Recovery Institute’s research and work, and I’m happy to participate in its ongoing service to our community.