What is it about difficult situations, difficult relationships, difficult feelings that makes us want to eradicate our discomfort and turn toward what is easy?

#Grief is not a monster in the darkness that we should fear and flee from, or battle and fight against so that we will ultimately #prevail over it to regain control. Grief is actually the brain/body/soul’s natural, necessary, healthy response to this universal wound. #healing

What is it about difficult situations, difficult relationships, difficult feelings that makes us want to eradicate our discomfort and turn toward what is easy?

Shock is a form of extreme surprise. A sense of unreality. A feeling that what’s happening can’t possibly be real. Shock can show up as numbness, forgetfulness, extreme fatigue, zoning out, distractibility. Shock can come and go. And shock can last much longer that you’d think.

Curiosity and openness in the face of difficulty cause the ripples of transformation to manifest in a number of significant ways. Hardened fear, rage, paralysis, and reactivity give way to feelings altogether different.

#Words Matter In the face of grief, then, terms like resilience, overcome, recover, and control counterintuitively reveal a disempowering underlying story that perpetuates #fear of #grief itself.

I don’t know if life circumstances will end up being okay or not, for me and for lots of people I love. So I’m not saying I trust that everything will be okay. That kind of reassurance sounds false and hollow to me. Things really could be not okay in a lot of ways. Yet the calm arises from trust.

I just know that if [my clients] #deepest selves could viscerally sense that another human truly sees and values them the way I do, then they would blossom and flourish and know that they could bear all of their sorrows and pains. Because they are valued, worthy and #real.

The parents who come to me worried whether they are good parents are good parents, by virtue of the facts that it matters to them that they do a good job, and that they’re engaging in self-reflection by asking the question.

When a parent can support and help their child deal with intense emotions, the result is secure attachment, reflecting the capacity to “feel and deal.” #safety #capacity #attachmenttheory #mindfulparenting

When our #reactions are distressing while occurring in a #society that judges and denigrates long-lasting and intense #grief responses, the #stories we create are often self-judging: “Something’s wrong with me. I need to make this stop.” “If I were resilient, I...

There’s a myth in our culture that a goal during times of difficulty — like grief, illness etc. — is a state of acceptance & that acceptance looks like a constant, unruffled state of serenity. You’ll never be upset or hurt by the difficult circumstances again. That’s FALSE!

Grieving people don’t need the extra weight of feeling bad about feeling pain. #yourgriefisvalid #deeptherapist

When my therapist or friends met me in the depths of my sadness or rage or confusion and didn’t try to fix me, the connection we shared in those dark places deepened our relationships with each other. Bearing to witness the anguish of life together is a spiritual act. #grief

It is possible (and useful) to feel all of the #emotions at once—your own pain, compassion and resonant pain for others, AND the natural gratitude that arises for your own good fortune even in the midst of your #pain when you allow yourself to suffer-with others.

Words Matter In the face of grief, then, terms like resilience, overcome, recover, and control counterintuitively reveal a disempowering underlying story that perpetuates fear of grief itself.

Accurate information about working with grief from a perspective of nonjudgmental acceptance is almost impossible to find. #accurateinformationaboutgrief #grief #information #nonjudgmental #acceptance

If you have support to move through your emotions, their intensity and duration will decrease over time. But the imprint left behind by the person you loved is indelibly pressed upon your innards and remains intact forever. #griefsupport #emotions #love #time #grieftherapy

A therapist’s offering of a secure #attachment through warmth, engagement, & encouragement within the context of moment-to-moment experiential work undoes the client’s aloneness and shows that the #therapist sees the client as worthy of respect, care, and identity. #Repair

If you have support to move through your emotions, their intensity and duration will decrease over time. But the imprint left behind by the person you loved is indelibly pressed upon your innards and remains intact forever. #griefsupport #emotions #love #time #grieftherapy

Once again, sending my sincerest appreciation for your likes, repost, follows and continuous engagement with our online community.

When helping friends greive, it’s also okay to hold hope for your friend’s future, but inside yourself. Your friend will NOT want to hear about how much you believe that he will eventually heal. But within your heart, you can hold a gentle confidence

Loss is brutal... Grief is agonizing ... and when you’re grieving, everyone has an opinion about how you’re supposed to make your way through the experience of loss.

Softness in the face of difficulty leads to transformation, and transformation most often hurts. To trust softness as a response to difficulty’s hardness requires strength, courage, and awareness. This trust is much easier to come by when I have support and holding from others.

Understanding what emotions are about is an important part of fully acknowledging, expressing, and soothing them. In my current state, It’s interesting to explore what these quieter feelings are about.