For many of us who struggle with excess body weight, “success” in losing weight is soon followed by regaining those pounds and then some. Just now, at the age of 64, I am recognizing why this has been happening to me and perhaps to many others. I have long suspected that the answer that would break me free of this yo-yo pattern is psychological rather than a matter of finding the right diet. We are told that fat serves as a protection. I found that it was not the fat that I was using to protect myself, but rather my food addictions were my method of protection. Obesity was a byproduct.
Since self-judgment only adds fuel to the fire, I choose to view this issue with curiosity and without judgment. To support myself in figuring out what I was doing to sabotage my ability to maintain a healthy weight, I have worked for 2 ½ years with a practitioner of NET (Neuro-Emotional Technique). According to www.net.com, “NET is a mind-body technique that uses a methodology of finding and removing neurological imbalances related to the physiology of unresolved stress.” For me, NET offers an amazing way to bypass conscious and unconscious defense mechanisms to get at the originating cause of an issue that is currently manifesting in my body and my life.
I began working with NET for the sole purpose of finding out why I had been unable to remove and keep off my excess body weight. Essentially what I found was that the repression of emotions is a survival mechanism held in place through addiction. In my case, since my addiction of unconscious choice was food, the byproduct of this pattern was obesity.
Here’s how it worked for me – from my infancy until my father’s death, the psychological message I consistently received from him and internalized was that I was somehow fundamentally unacceptable. This same message came from one of my siblings as well and continues to this day. As an adult, I have done everything possible to heal these relationships but whenever coming face to face with this rejection, and the absence of love from them it hurt at the core of my being. While I am able to cope with the occasional, yet always unpleasant, encounter as an adult, as a child they were a devastating and constant barrage. As a matter of survival, I repressed my feelings and fears about being deemed essentially unworthy, unlovable, and unacceptable. Over time, I accumulated an enormous reserve of repressed, unmanageable emotions. No matter how I worked on myself as an adult and how well I learned to cope with current encounters, I never recognized or acknowledged the emotional pain and stress I had been unable to endure as a child nor the fact that I was carrying this trauma around with me like a beach ball held under water. Apparently, not being aware of this nor feeling safe to feel what had been emotionally life-threatening to me as a child, I unconsciously held it below the surface. What I have come to realize is that I accomplished this in two important ways through my addictions. First, they were my way of numbing the pain and keeping it on an unconscious level until I was ready to deal with opening Pandora’s box. No wonder I would regain the weight whenever I lost it – I had been depriving myself of my addictions which were my protection – my repression mechanism! Secondly, I had been embodying the message of my unworthiness through obesity – perhaps the most shameful and socially visible of all unacceptable, albeit taboo, ways of being. Other addictions you can hide, while obesity is in your face.
So, here’s an irony to this – if my sibling had not continued to treat me with such distain, I might never have put this pattern together and found my path to freedom. So, thank you to all those who have pushed this button to get me to this point of liberation!
You might wonder, how do I know I have broken free of this pattern? The answer is simple. First, for three months now, I have not experienced any food compulsions. I have been to a wedding reception attended by my sibling and on vacation for a week recently and neither one triggered the usual desires or excuses for “treating myself.” Secondly, I am steadily and easily losing weight without the fear of regaining it. For the first time, I am confident that I will be able to sustain a healthy weight. Third, I am going through an emotional release very similar to grieving where weeping simply rises to the surface and spills out of me seemingly unprovoked. The tension and stress of holding down this childhood trauma is finding expression and finally being replaced by a profound sense of inner peace.
If you can relate to my story and suspect that something similar might be going on inside of you with whatever your addiction(s) of choice might be, here are some suggestions:
-Set the intention of compassionately understanding and freeing yourself.
-Make time for introspection to explore your own situation and to get below your storyline. Be a non-judgmental, curious detective and ask yourself questions like: “What awful truth do I suspect is true about me?” and “How did I get the idea that that was true about me?” “How did I cope with this as a child?”
-Believe and affirm to yourself that it is possible for you to be free from your addictions. Don’t tell yourself that you are an addictive personality, or that you are too far gone but rather be open to the idea that your addictions have been serving and protecting you in some way until you can get to the place where you don’t need them anymore. See them as a survival mechanism rather than as your downfall.
-Find someone wonderful to facilitate and bear witness to your journey. This might be a personal coach, therapist, NET practitioner, etc. Just be sure it is someone you feel emotionally safe with and whose skill impresses you.
-Be patient. This may take longer than you would like, but know that it is possible. On the way, avoid judging yourself and the ongoing expression of your addictions. The healing process can often be invisible at times, but trust that it is happening.
When we are children, we don’t have the psychological resources to protect ourselves from the atrocities that others may inflict upon us. This trauma is often stored somehow in our bodies. Repression and other defense mechanisms help us to survive until we can hold our own in the world. However, the damage done to us while children must itself be healed and released in addition to understanding and freeing ourselves from the related difficulties experienced in adulthood.
Obesity, Repression, and Addiction – Part One
For many of us who struggle with excess body weight, “success” in losing weight is soon followed by regaining those pounds and then some. Just now, at the age of 64, I am recognizing why this has been happening to me and perhaps to many others. I have long suspected that the answer that would break me free of this yo-yo pattern is psychological rather than a matter of finding the right diet. We are told that fat serves as a protection. I found that it was not the fat that I was using to protect myself, but rather my food addictions were my method of protection. Obesity was a byproduct.
Since self-judgment only adds fuel to the fire, I choose to view this issue with curiosity and without judgment. To support myself in figuring out what I was doing to sabotage my ability to maintain a healthy weight, I have worked for 2 ½ years with a practitioner of NET (Neuro-Emotional Technique). According to www.net.com, “NET is a mind-body technique that uses a methodology of finding and removing neurological imbalances related to the physiology of unresolved stress.” For me, NET offers an amazing way to bypass conscious and unconscious defense mechanisms to get at the originating cause of an issue that is currently manifesting in my body and my life.
I began working with NET for the sole purpose of finding out why I had been unable to remove and keep off my excess body weight. Essentially what I found was that the repression of emotions is a survival mechanism held in place through addiction. In my case, since my addiction of unconscious choice was food, the byproduct of this pattern was obesity.
Here’s how it worked for me – from my infancy until my father’s death, the psychological message I consistently received from him and internalized was that I was somehow fundamentally unacceptable. This same message came from one of my siblings as well and continues to this day. As an adult, I have done everything possible to heal these relationships but whenever coming face to face with this rejection, and the absence of love from them it hurt at the core of my being. While I am able to cope with the occasional, yet always unpleasant, encounter as an adult, as a child they were a devastating and constant barrage. As a matter of survival, I repressed my feelings and fears about being deemed essentially unworthy, unlovable, and unacceptable. Over time, I accumulated an enormous reserve of repressed, unmanageable emotions. No matter how I worked on myself as an adult and how well I learned to cope with current encounters, I never recognized or acknowledged the emotional pain and stress I had been unable to endure as a child nor the fact that I was carrying this trauma around with me like a beach ball held under water. Apparently, not being aware of this nor feeling safe to feel what had been emotionally life-threatening to me as a child, I unconsciously held it below the surface. What I have come to realize is that I accomplished this in two important ways through my addictions. First, they were my way of numbing the pain and keeping it on an unconscious level until I was ready to deal with opening Pandora’s box. No wonder I would regain the weight whenever I lost it – I had been depriving myself of my addictions which were my protection – my repression mechanism! Secondly, I had been embodying the message of my unworthiness through obesity – perhaps the most shameful and socially visible of all unacceptable, albeit taboo, ways of being. Other addictions you can hide, while obesity is in your face.
So, here’s an irony to this – if my sibling had not continued to treat me with such distain, I might never have put this pattern together and found my path to freedom. So, thank you to all those who have pushed this button to get me to this point of liberation!
You might wonder, how do I know I have broken free of this pattern? The answer is simple. First, for three months now, I have not experienced any food compulsions. I have been to a wedding reception attended by my sibling and on vacation for a week recently and neither one triggered the usual desires or excuses for “treating myself.” Secondly, I am steadily and easily losing weight without the fear of regaining it. For the first time, I am confident that I will be able to sustain a healthy weight. Third, I am going through an emotional release very similar to grieving where weeping simply rises to the surface and spills out of me seemingly unprovoked. The tension and stress of holding down this childhood trauma is finding expression and finally being replaced by a profound sense of inner peace.
If you can relate to my story and suspect that something similar might be going on inside of you with whatever your addiction(s) of choice might be, here are some suggestions:
-Set the intention of compassionately understanding and freeing yourself.
-Make time for introspection to explore your own situation and to get below your storyline. Be a non-judgmental, curious detective and ask yourself questions like: “What awful truth do I suspect is true about me?” and “How did I get the idea that that was true about me?” “How did I cope with this as a child?”
-Believe and affirm to yourself that it is possible for you to be free from your addictions. Don’t tell yourself that you are an addictive personality, or that you are too far gone but rather be open to the idea that your addictions have been serving and protecting you in some way until you can get to the place where you don’t need them anymore. See them as a survival mechanism rather than as your downfall.
-Find someone wonderful to facilitate and bear witness to your journey. This might be a personal coach, therapist, NET practitioner, etc. Just be sure it is someone you feel emotionally safe with and whose skill impresses you.
-Be patient. This may take longer than you would like, but know that it is possible. On the way, avoid judging yourself and the ongoing expression of your addictions. The healing process can often be invisible at times, but trust that it is happening.
When we are children, we don’t have the psychological resources to protect ourselves from the atrocities that others may inflict upon us. This trauma is often stored somehow in our bodies. Repression and other defense mechanisms help us to survive until we can hold our own in the world. However, the damage done to us while children must itself be healed and released in addition to understanding and freeing ourselves from the related difficulties experienced in adulthood.
Don’t Be Afraid to Touch Death
The centerpiece of the American culture of death is a taboo that inhibits our ability to encounter the territory of dying, death, and bereavement with wisdom, competency, and discernment. We are acculturated to fear and resist death. However, this inhibition also deprives us of some of the greatest intimacy, tenderness, and depth of connection available in the human experience.
Our culture sanitizes dying and death, not only by diverting our attention to the technological medical gymnastics that just might avert death’s approach, but by juxtaposing death to life as though one is inherently bad and the other intrinsically good. We live in a polarity consciousness of good versus bad, right versus wrong, rather than both/and. While there is a place for optimism, there is also a place for reality where death is concerned.
All too often we flee into the illusionary safety of denial rather than accepting that we, or one we love, is dying. Under the influence of the death taboo, we are far more likely to enter the room of a dying loved one with a cheerful “your color looks good today, honey” than to express our unbridled truth of “I think you are dying and I’m scared and don’t want to lose you.”
We assume the truth would be too unbearable. Under the guise of protecting one another (or perhaps ourselves) we silently comply with the overriding belief that it is better not to give voice to death. However, when we don’t tell the truth to each other about death’s presence, we buy into a kind of dishonesty that contaminates our relationship and fosters a gulf of separation and isolation even between the most loving partners.
Why underestimate each other? What if the other person doesn’t want to be protected? What if our statements of false hope, intended to protect the other person from our truth, instead tell them that we can’t handle the truth? What if that prevents them from fulfilling their need to draw closer, in deference to our apparent inability to cope? What if buying into our fear is depriving us of a depth of loving we have never known before? What if this is our last chance to bridge a gap between us, to make room for greater honesty and intimacy? What if this is our last chance for forgiveness or learning about truths previously withheld that will die with our loved one? What if a brave step into the vulnerable land of honesty in the face of death would open the door to unimaginable treasures? How sad to live in a lie at the end of one’s life. How sad to risk regrets, not realizing the blessings that come with the alternative – a depth of intimacy that we may never have experienced before and that will never be available again.
Being vulnerable at these times and willing to go where we have never been before allows us to be of service to one another in handling unfinished business such as saying goodbyes, extending or asking for forgiveness, letting go of secrets, asking for answers, expressing our love, putting our affairs in order, and tending to whatever we feel the need to attend to before death comes. I remember how my mother and I consciously embraced her dying process by giving each other the freedom to express whatever was present for us. We drew our hearts together rather than letting a wall of withholding come between us. We had profound conversations about the meaning of life and death and our respective beliefs about God. She filled in the blanks about pieces of her history that never quite made sense to me. She told me what mattered to her most and whom she wanted to see. I got to know dimensions of her that I never noticed before. We dropped all masks and pretenses and shared an intimacy we had never broached before in those final months. I am so bountiful with her love and was left with no regrets.
Sadly, if the approach of death is not acknowledged then the dying and his or her loved ones are denied access to the very resources, such as Hospice care, that can provide maximum physical and emotional comfort. Hospice and palliative care workers are skilled in supporting and mentoring us through to the end of life, showing us the path to the very wisdom, competency, and discernment that our death taboo stifles in us. Ironically, there are blessings at death’s door that are only available to those who accept death’s presence. So, don’t be afraid to touch death – enter this territory with your heart wide open and partake of the full range of its sweetness and its sorrow, its wisdom and its blessings.
Do challenges devastate you or define you?
As a life coach, I spend a lot of time helping clients to pay close attention to their autopilot reaction to challenges in their lives. What you consider to be challenges and how you respond to them are defining factors in the quality of your life.
Next time your sense of well-being is disturbed, try the following 5-step process and see if it leads you in a better direction. Don’t be surprised if you get stuck on the first step. This is profound work and doesn’t happen overnight. The key is to keep practicing with deep personal honesty until this response comes naturally to you.
1. Attitude: Your attitude will pre-determine your ability to work with and learn from life’s challenges each and every time they show up. If you tend to think of them as ‘wrong’ and as ‘things that shouldn’t happen’ then you will automatically be thrown into a defensive and confrontational posture. On the other hand, if you receive them as simply calling you or the situation into question, a more relaxed, self-trusting, and open response is possible. If the same pattern happens again and again, rather than going into high drama defensive victim mode with such thoughts as ‘here we go again,’ ‘this always happens to me,’ ‘everyone else . . . ’ or ‘what’s wrong with me?’ try another point of view. Rather than suffering through the challenges that come your way, consider embracing your life as a perfectly customized journey of learning, growing and healing. Give yourself permission to be vulnerable and to explore your own behavior without trying to justify it as ‘right.’
2. Feel It, Name It, and Rename It: Once you have opened up your attitude and are ready to learn from your experience, take a few deep breaths and focus inward to what it feels like inside of you meeting this unexpected and perhaps undesired experience. Are you scared? Mad? In shock? Be really honest with yourself and name your feelings and name the challenge. For example, I am working through a challenge with my downstairs neighbor. She complains about things like the fact that she can hear my cats running down the hall. This triggers anger in me and I tend to fly into judgment of her as a small-minded person with a princess complex. My mind reels with anger at her choice to make an issue of everything and anything I do that she doesn’t like, rather than choosing to acknowledge all the things that are good about having me for a neighbor and/or choosing to contribute to creating a harmonious shared living environment.
When I look below the surface I see that this trigger relates to a much deeper issue I am working on that has to do with feeling profound sadness when I encounter all the big and little ways that we choose less than the goodness, kindness, and caring that is available to us in our relationships with one another. When I see any presenting irritation in that context, I am better able to respond in a way that encourages my own learning and growth rather than falling into the same old pattern of judgment and self-preservation. When I redefine the true issue at hand in this way, I take ownership of it by recognizing the difference between the deeper issue and the outer trigger of the situation at hand. By renaming the true issue, I can respond more appropriately.
3. Neutral Observation: Neutrality means not belonging to or favoring either side in a challenge. It is the opposite of analyzing and judging the behavior of others as a way to feel righteous or good about yourself. Neutral observation occurs when we choose to activate that part of ourselves that is not IN the situation involved, but rather is able to move around it and look at it and ourselves from many points of view, free of our triggered feelings and thoughts. This is how we gain insight instead of just running the same old reactions from our past. When we are open to a new point of view rather than automatically making the situation, other person, or ourselves ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ our imagination and deeper insights can lead to entirely new and more rewarding ways of seeing what is really going on.
4. Inner Work: Always do your inner work as described in steps 1-3 above before deciding how to respond to the outer situation. Think of the outer situation as merely the hook or trigger that is calling you to finding greater inner freedom. When you have done your inner work, rename the challenge as your own personal learning opportunity as in the example in #2 above. Trust that what comes your way in life is FOR YOU not against you.
5. Outer Work: Having stepped free of your autopilot, knee-jerk reaction to a given challenge by doing your inner work, it becomes fairly easy to choose how you want to respond to or engage in the situation at hand. As tempting as it is, for example, for me to say something judgmental and unkind to my neighbor like ‘get a life,’ or ‘you better be careful or your mind is going to get so small that you’ll lose it altogether,” I have learned that it serves me far better to say something like, ‘yes, isn’t it a happy sound when my cats run down the hall,’ or to quietly say a prayer for the highest good in the situation and to go do my own inner work.
I know these steps seem simple when you read them. I’ve heard many a client dismiss or become irritated by my guidance towards one of these steps, defensively thinking they already know this. But, the name of the game here is not intellectual knowledge, but application. It is in the doing that we learn. Practice, practice, practice and then challenge yourself to take this process deeper and deeper until you really get free.
What Kind of Relationship Do You Have With God?
I was recently on a panel discussion on HuffPost Live about the reality of death and how it can test our faith. We were discussing a post by a teenager named Alice who eloquently expressed her mental and emotional reaction to death and her rage at God for the death of people she cared about. It reminded me how essential it is to take a look at our own assumptions and demands about God and what kind of relationship we have with God.
Our fundamental assumptions and beliefs about the existence or nonexistence of God and what kind of god we imagine informs how we live our life. Like Alice, people of all ages rage at God for not conforming to their expectations of what and how God should be. Alice said “…but there’s something about sitting at the funerals of people who were close to me that makes me want to kill God.”
So, how do we kill God? And then what happens? This kind of rage at God is essentially a mental construct. Let’s use the example of turning against God when someone you love dies. The typical sequence of events goes something like this: We attribute the occurrence that we did not like or understand to God. We then decide that the intensity of the grief or hurt we experience is incompatible with the actions of a loving God. We conclude that God therefore cannot be loving or worthy of our belief. We resolve the tension between reality and our beliefs by rejecting God. The only thing this really accomplishes is to make us feel more in control of the situation. We fire the inadequate god of our imagination and take on the job of god ourselves. But what “god” are we getting rid of: God or the god of our imagination?
When we demand that “God” make sense to us we are dealing with a very small god. This is a god limited by the human mind, imagination and perceptual capabilities. It is a god in our image. In the grander scheme of the vast and complex universe we inhabit and those that lie beyond our knowledge, that’s a very puny god.
What if God were so beyond our capacity to comprehend or talk about that the only valid response was what Rudolf Otto, author of “The Mysterium Tremendum,” refers to as drop jaw awe? What if everything that happens is somehow perfect for all involved? What if God is really worthy of our awe, gratitude and love? What if the real problem is not God, but rather our limited thinking?
The questions of God’s existence or nature and the spiritual dimension of life are the most profound inquiries we can explore. It is an adventure of the heart, body, mind and soul in a maze filled with shortcuts and dead ends. Many reach the dead end of demanding satisfactory proof of God’s existence and perceiving none conclude that God does not exist. Others, like myself, can’t get past the glory and beauty and wonder of a tree and spend a lifetime seeking a deeper attunement with God. This is not a quest for the faint of heart, but for me, the blessings have been magnificent.
I like telling people that I don’t believe in God. The truth is that after many years of intentionally focusing on building my awareness of God, a life-threatening car accident in 1997 brought me over the threshold from belief in God to knowing God’s existence and presence in my life. My knowledge of God is beyond words, or my mind, and is not transferable to others. I consider it a blessing beyond anything else I could imagine receiving in my life. My primary identity has transitioned from that of a woman with certain mental, emotional and physical characteristics to knowing myself as a divine being having a human experience as that woman.
I don’t think any of us should settle for a god that is unworthy of our love and awe. So, if your god seems too small for you, consider exploring the following questions:
I don’t think anyone is “right” or “wrong” based on what they believe or don’t believe about God. Each of us is wherever we are on these matters and that is our personal truth. However, I do think the question of God’s existence and nature is worthy of our personal attention and exploration. We owe it to each other to respect our differences in this regard for indeed, if I stood in your shoes or you stood in mine we each would see what the other sees — that’s the irony of it all.
Please feel free to leave a comment below or to email me at judithjohnson@hvc.rr.com.
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If you would like to suggest a topic for a future blog or ask me to address a particular situation or issue, please email at the address above and I will see what I can do.
Gay Marriage – The Heart of the Matter
When I was ordained as an interfaith minister in 1985, I was charged with the responsibility of ministering to all regardless of race, creed, color, situation, circumstance, or environment — in other words, to serve without prejudice. Isn’t this what we should really be asking of our “public servants” — i.e. politicians and elected officials who are seeking to influence the laws of “our” land? I am personally delighted that the issue of gay marriage is challenging how our social norms and laws attempt to disempower and limit the freedom of those who are being marginalized — i.e. rejected instead of respected as fellow members of our society.
By ruling on the gay marriage, our Supreme Court is being asked to honor a higher authority than the personal preferences of those who are most influential in getting our elected officials re-elected. In fact the agenda is twofold. First is to legitimize the legal right for gay couples to have access to all the mental, emotional, spiritual, legal, financial, and social benefits of marriage. In addition, it also challenges the authority previously held by lawmakers and social norms to legalize prejudice against a group of citizens who are not considered representative of the preferences of the power brokers of our society. This is simultaneously an issue of the legal rights of a marginalized group and a matter of serving notice to our public servants that they are responsible for serving all of us — not just those they prefer.
The bottom line issue here is not whether or not gay marriage should be recognized, but whether or not our system should condone and legalize prejudice. I believe that nothing is more important here than loving, honoring, respecting, and serving one another. It is time for us to turn this issue inside out and ask ourselves what right do we have to marginalize one another?
Consider these words from Sample Ceremony #3: Celebrating Our Oneness While Honoring Our Differences in the second edition of my book, The Wedding Ceremony Planner: The Essential Guide to the Most Important Part of Your Wedding Day:
May we rise to the best that is within us in responding to this challenge.
The Dying and Death Series – Part 1: How Do You Relate to Death?
This is the first in a series of posts on the topic of death that will be published over the next several weeks.
We don’t do death well in this country which results in a lot of unnecessary suffering. Most of us do not talk about death and are terribly uncomfortable being in death’s presence. Yet, death is normal. By treating death like an invisible elephant sitting in the room, we deprive ourselves of making peace with our mortality, of deeply communicating with and comforting each other in the face of death and of taking the opportunity to make meaningful plans for the end of our life’s journey.
Talking about and dealing with death is our last great social taboo. We all know that we will die someday as will our beloved ones and cherished pets and everybody else. Yet, most of us relate to death as wrong — as something that shouldn’t happen.
The taboo against talking about or dealing with death runs deep in our culture. As a result, most of us relate to death much like children squeezing our eyes shut behind our covering hands, as though what we were looking at has disappeared because we aren’t seeing it. According to a 2011 Associated Press-LifeGoesStrong poll, Americans are typically unwilling to face their own mortality and many fear that the mere act of planning for the end of life will somehow hasten their demise.
Despite our difficulty in dealing with death, its presence as our one certainty begs the question of our relationship to death and how that informs the quality of our lives. Treating death as bad and life as good puts us in the position of resisting and avoiding death as though we could somehow beat the 100 to 1 odds that we will indeed die. This polarized view of life and death deprives us of developing a better understanding of the meaning, wisdom and blessings that the full cycle of life and death bring to our lives. Those who have the courage to accept the reality of death and to observe and experience it with their eyes wide open have access to this deeper understanding.
Social taboos take time to lose their grip on us. Typically, a few brave souls recognize a need to swim upstream against the current, and little by little a momentum builds until an alternative way of being becomes an option. Breaking through a taboo happens one person at a time, one situation at a time as a result of conscious and determined effort. The really good news is that we are living in very exciting times in terms of the prospects for disempowering the taboo against death in America. We are seeing more and more hospice and other palliative care programs that are teaching us a kinder and gentler approach to the end of life. Doctors and other health care workers are being challenged to reframe how they view death from seeing it as a professional failure to accepting the limitations of medicine and technology and the wisdom of passing the baton to a palliative care program as a way to comfort patients who are dying.
The baby boomers, now ages 47-65, are becoming elder boomers. Beginning Jan. 1, 2011, an average of 10,000 boomers will turn 65 each day. Thus, death is becoming a much more familiar part of the landscape of our lives as boomers care for aging and dying parents, and watch more and more of their peers face chronic and terminal illnesses and death.
Buddhist teachings advise us to avoid attachments and aversions as they block our ability to be present in the true reality of our lives. With both attachments and aversions we attempt to play God, saying “I must have this” or “I must never have that.” When we resist death, not only are we engaging in a statistically losing battle, but we exhaust our precious energy trying to avoid the inevitable rather than accepting and working with what is truly present. By resisting and avoiding death, while holding on for dear life to life, we end up with a life filled with always trying to second guess what is coming and grabbing hold of whatever we like that comes our way while pushing away that which we do not want.
The result of avoiding talking about or dealing with death is that when we are forced to experience death either as a spectator or as the one who is dying, most of us are woefully ill-prepared mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Death shocks and disturbs us not because it is some awful occurrence but because we have made it so. In reality, death is quite normal. Each of us is born, has a life and then dies. Life and death are inexorably paired — we don’t get to have one without the other. That is not negotiable. However, our attitude and beliefs about death and how we relate to life and death are both socially and individually negotiable.
As a life coach, minister and grief counselor I have encountered an enormous range of beliefs and behaviors regarding death and have seen how profoundly these points of view inform the lives of my clients. At one extreme, I have worked with people who are so terrified by the fact that they will someday die that they are unable to function in their daily lives. At the other extreme are those who have either intentionally explored their fear of death or those who have had a life experience that brought them to a place of peace and acceptance of their mortality. Some among this later group have shared that by changing their perspective on death, they have also changed how they view humanity and they find themselves more deeply compassionate and understanding of themselves and others.
I would love to know your thoughts on this subject. Please leave a comment below or send me an email at: judithjohnson@hvc.rr.com. Here are some questions to think about:
If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.
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The Dying and Death Series – Part 2: Grief in the American Workplace
Can you imagine “getting over” the death of someone you love deeply in four days? That’s the average paid leave given by American businesses according to “Grief Index: The ‘Hidden’ Annual Costs of Grief in America’s Workplace.” The truth is there is no “getting over” the death of a loved one in either our business or private life. Rather, it takes time for us to find a new normalcy and to restore our ability to function effectively.
Grief can take its toll in all areas of our lives. In terms of the workplace, “Grief Index” provides an eye-opening perspective on the mental, emotional and financial costs of grief incurred by American businesses. It estimates that one in four employees is grieving at any given time. Defining grief as “the normal and natural emotional reaction to the change or end in any familiar pattern of behavior,” the study estimates an average annual cost in lost productivity, lost business and poor performance of more than $75 billion for all grief-inducing experiences. $46.9 billion is attributed to the death of a family member, colleague, friend, or animal companion alone.
Consider the following findings from the “Grief Index” study. Among the 25,000 participants:
In these stressful financial times, it can be challenging for a grieving employee to acknowledge their vulnerability and loss for fear of losing their job. Yet the denial of our grief in order to carry on as expected is far more dangerous than acknowledging that grief is typically a devastating experience that is best healed with time, compassion and reduced expectations of productivity. When we suppress our grief, it expresses itself in other ways such as depression, anger, addiction, substance abuse and physical illness. Consider a very dear friend of mine, with no prior history of heart disease, who suddenly needed heart bypass surgery just five months after his mother died.
The love that connects us is powerful, profound and for most of us, our most treasured possession. So, when someone we love dies, it is quite normal to be torn asunder. Just as our physical resources are diverted to the healing process after a serious illness or injury, so is our mental and emotional energy redirected to the grieving process or the avoidance of this natural process, whether we like it or not.
Grief is an equal-opportunity employer — whether you are a CEO or an assembly line worker, when you are grieving you are a human being with a broken heart. While there are predictable responses to grief, each of us will have our own unique journey through the grieving process. Grief has a life of its own and cannot be neatly compartmentalized on your calendar.
Until now, we have been living in a culture where grief is largely misunderstood, unsupported and silenced by the taboo against talking about or dealing with death in our country. Grieving has been largely a private matter that isolated us from others. The good news is that things are beginning to change in this regard.
There are more and more grief counseling services being made available. If you can’t find any in your community, consider calling Good Grief Center for Bereavement Support . They offer free support to any part of the English-speaking world over the phone toll free at 1-888-474-3388, as well as through their website. If you or someone you love is grieving, consider taking any of the following actions:
Some of the specific services you might ask your employer about include:
If these services are not available through your employer, but you think any of them would be a good idea, suggest them to your Human Services department. Good Grief Bereavement Support also has a program called “Grief in the Workplace” that will work with your company to develop a customized program that fits the culture of your organization.
Remember, grief is normal and if you think you need some help and compassion, you don’t have to be alone in your grief. But you do have to reach out for help. You might be surprised by the resources available.
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The Dying and Death Series – Part 3: Transforming the Culture of Death in America
“For most of human history, people died fast.
Now suddenly, we have the opportunity to grow old,
to have an illness for a long period of time,
and to know what’s coming.
We could make this an important phase of life.”
— Joanne Lynn, M.D., “Americans for Better Care of the Dying”
It may sound peculiar, but there are some very exciting things happening where death is concerned in America. The momentum of change in how we view and respond to death is building in many sectors of society as we transform our culture of death. For example, consider the following changes:
Unfortunately, in our personal lives, death is still largely a taboo topic. Most of us are not comfortable talking to each other about our thoughts and fears about the uncertainties surrounding dying and death. The irrational fear that preparing for death will hasten its arrival or cause medical personnel to “pull the plug” stops many of us from putting our affairs in order in advance of need. It’s been reported 30-40 percent of us still do not have advance health care directives to instruct medical personnel and loved ones about personal preferences for emergency and/or end-of-life medical care. Instead, we tend to just let these things happen and be dealt with while in crisis mode.
The deeper and more profound conversation about the meaning and mysteries of death and how our view of death informs how we live our life has not yet reached public discourse. The prevailing belief remains that life is good and death is bad. When someone dies, most think of it as a tragedy rather than seeing it for what it is — the normal course of events. Yet, dying comes with living. No one gets to live without dying. So, death is every bit as normal as birth is, yet we still shroud it in stigma, fear and rejection. Next week’s article will discuss the potential available to us all, both individually and collectively, in making our peace with death.
If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.
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The Dying and Death Series – Part 4: Keys for Making Peace With Death
There are those among us who are leading the way in demonstrating how to break free of society’s taboo around death. While most of us might be likely to awkwardly say “your color looks good today” to a dying loved one, someone who has made peace with death would be more likely to take his or her hand and say, “I love you and am going to miss you so much.”
For most of us, being around dying and death evokes a visceral response of fear and avoidance. We basically view life as good and death as bad. Our fear makes us contract and respond in fight or flight or freeze mode. We react against death and try to keep it away from us precisely because we have been taught that it is bad. People who have made peace with death have a completely different mindset. They tend to see death as normal as birth and are as open to its wonders and mysteries as they are to those of birth. This doesn’t mean that they are exempt from the sorrow and grief of losing a loved one. However, they have learned how to bring their loving, caring, kindness, compassion and even humor to the bedside of the dying.
Next time you find yourself in the presence of a dying loved one while hiding your tears and
sorrow behind a fragile masked smile, consider the following keys to how people who have made peace with death behave:
To read the full text go to: http://community.opentohope.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=107#p190
It is entirely up to each and every one of us whether we stay frozen in fear in the face of dying, death and bereavement or break free and make peace with the normalcy of death. I invite you to try some of the suggestions given above and to share other ideas through comments below.
If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.
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7 Tips for Talking About Health and Money With Elderly Parents
Not since your conversation about the birds and the bees have you and your parents faced such a difficult conversation. Sooner or later, adult children and their elderly parents need to talk about the parents’ medical, financial and legal affairs. The inescapable truth is that at some point the responsibility will fall upon the children to ensure the quality of the parents’ care, to carry out their wishes and to finalize their personal affairs. Having an effective dialogue about this will depend on the family’s unique circumstances, the parent’s mental, emotional and physical condition and the quality of family relationships. Here are seven tips for successfully discussing these sensitive private matters.
Above all else, be gentle, kind, loving and supportive – treat your parents as you would wish to be treated.
I welcome your comments.
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