TIC Take Five: Navigating through Grief: Supports for Ourselves and Others

Here's another in a little series we're posting over on the Lancaster County (PA) ACES & Resilience Connection site to promote a regular practice to "take five" (minutes) for self-care.  Sharing with the wider ACES Connection community in case it's helpful. Peace. Be well, everyone.

In an article last week in Harvard Business Review, titled “That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief”, grief expert David Kessler names the multiple types of losses we’re experiencing in the midst of the current global COVID 19 pandemic: loss of normalcy, loss of a sense of safety, loss of work (for some), financial losses, loss of connection. As a result, many of us are going through stages of grief, individually and collectively.

“There’s denial, which we say a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us.

There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities. 

There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right? 

There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end. 

And finally there’s acceptance. This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed.”

Kessler has added a sixth stage of grief as well: meaning. He explains, “After acceptance, we will find meaning in the hard-to-fathom events and we will be stronger for it.”

It's important for us to be able to acknowledge and name the grief we're feeling, as tempting as it may be to "stuff it down."

In the article, Kessler also articulates some practical steps we can take to navigate through all of this, including finding a balance between our negative and positive thoughts, staying present in the moment, letting go of what we can’t control, and amping up our level of compassion, for ourselves and for everyone around us.

You can find the full article here:  https://hbr.org/2020/03/that-d...ure-feeling-is-grief

In addition, here are two additional resources for navigating through our own grief and supporting others in these very troubling times.

1. VIDEO: a helpful 4 minute video on the simple, yet most powerful thing we can do to help someone who is grieving:

https://laughingsquid.com/how-...p-a-grieving-friend/

OR you can view it on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2zLCCRT-nE

2. HANDOUT: (attached below) from Refuge in Grief containing tips for navigating through our own grief and helping others who are grieving. 

(PHOTO: Courtesy of Bruce G. Snyder Photography, Eastern Shore, MD) - https://brucesnyderphoto.smugmug.com/)