HEALING THE GRIEVING HEART
New Year?s Resolutions for the Healing Heart
Host: Dr. Gloria Horsley
With guest: Sharon Greenlee
December 29, 2005

G: Hello. I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley. Welcome to Healing the Grieving Heart, the show that gives you the opportunity to hear stories and ideas from others who, like you, have dealt with unbearable loss. My amazing guests are here weekly with tips and advice on how we have moved through their grief with courage and hope. We know that this isn?t the life that you planned and that at the moment your loved one died, you started a journey through unmapped territory. We know that others have been there, but this is your journey, and how you travel it is unique to you. My guests and I can only be, as we hope, your trusted advisors who have trod the path. As we begin a new calendar year, it is an opportunity for you to take a moment to look at where you are now, not where you have been or where you would like to be, but where you are now and think about the detour you?ve taken from the main road. You may even want to look at the lessons of grief and make some simple resolutions that will help you to continue your journey down the path of peace and forgiveness. Our topic today is New Year?s Resolutions for the Healing Heart, and my guest is Sharon Greenlee, licensed professional counselor, educator, and consultant. Sharon is the bereaved mother of two children who died in separate accidents on the same day and she is a bereaved grandmother of two. Sharon has written a beautiful book for children of all ages called When Someone Dies. Sharon lives outside of Laramie, Wyoming, where she facilitates workshops and seminars for small businesses and does team building, communication, and stress reduction. She also facilitates workshops on women?s issues and writing therapy. Please join us today on our show by calling our toll free number, 1-866-369-3742 with questions or comments regarding the losses in your life. You can also email me through my website at www.healingthegrievingheart.org. These shows are archived on www.thecompassionatefriends.org website as well as www.voiceamerica.com website. Well, today our topic is New Year?s Resolutions for the Healing Heart and my guest is Sharon Greenlee. Sharon, welcome to Healing the Grieving Heart.
S: Thank you, Gloria, it?s really nice to be with you. I do need to tell you that when we were talking before we went on line, there was no static and now there is a tiny bit and I don?t know if you?re hearing it from me.
G: Oh, I don?t hear it from my side so hopefully our engineer will hear that and get on it.
S: Yeah, it?s your voice right now that cuts out in and out. I hope it isn?t my phone. If it is, I can go to another phone, but I?ll have to call you back.
G: Welcome back to Healing the Grieving Heart. I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, and our topic today is New Year?s Resolutions for the Healing Heart, and my guest is Sharon Greenlee, licensed professional counselor, educator, and consultant. Sharon is the bereaved mother of two children who died in separate accidents on the same day and she is a bereaved grandmother of two. Sharon has written a beautiful book for children of all ages called When Someone Dies. Sharon lives outside of Laramie, Wyoming, where she facilitates workshops and seminars for small businesses and office groups in team building, communication, and stress reduction. She also facilitates workshops on women?s issues and writing. Well, Sharon, welcome back to the show. We?ve had a little AV stuff that certainly goes on with the internet, but we?re happy to have you back on the show and welcome back.
S: Oh, thank you, and it?s nice to be here. Now you need to confess, Gloria, that part of this is because you?re skiing in Utah and your phone connection isn?t as good as if you were in the studio.
G: That is exactly right.
S: But you deserve that and thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
G: Well, could you talk to our audience about your experiences and what happened to you? I guess it was what, 21 years ago?
S: Yes, it was, 1984. November 3rd. We had just moved to Wyoming and I was going back and forth to Nebraska really to still teach college classes and my husband had come with me that weekend to teach and when we came back our phone was ringing when we came in and it was from my husband?s daughter. This is our second marriage even though we?ve been married thirty-one years. And she had called to say that my stepson, my husband?s son, had been killed in an auto train accident in Texas. I can remember thinking to myself, how do I comfort Linda at this moment, swallow what I have just heard in my own grief, and prepare myself to tell my husband in about 20 seconds when he comes to the door. I remember that and saying to Linda, ?I just need to hang up now and I?ll call you right back.? And so, of course, we were devastated and I had just called Iowa to tell our other children about, we call him Butch, about Butch?s tragedy, and within an hour and fifteen minutes, the same daughter I had talked to called me back to say, ?Mom, you have to sit down.? And there was the news that my son, Dave, had been killed in an automobile accident in Iowa, and it was just like a big Mack truck had just hit you was the only way I know to describe it. Actually, I didn?t tell this story for five years. I never said out loud that this had happened to me in my life. People knew about it because we had just moved here. I never told the story to strangers. It was just too dramatic at the time and I think it probably took five years to heal enough to put the words out there because if someone said to you, Gloria, ?I?ve lost my son or I?ve lost my daughter,? then would you ever respond, ?Oh, we lost two.? It just never sounded right.
G: Right. And the other thing was if you just moved that you didn?t have the opportunity to have the kids that knew him and the family around you that knew these kids, right?
S: Which, actually, I need to say was helpful because we had enough of support and comfort from home and from Nebraska and Iowa that we felt the love. We felt the compassion. It almost was helpful to me that I didn?t have to face it every day with people on the street in Wyoming because they didn?t know.
G: Now you had just moved when it happened?
S: We had been here just two months.
G: Oh my goodness now that?s very interesting because you could look at it one of two ways. Both of my daughters who went back to college after my son was killed had problems because nobody knew their brother. So it could cut either way.
S: I think you definitely need that. What was helpful to me was I was still trying to maintain some form of sanity in my mind and I think if I would have had everyone around me knowing, it wouldn?t have given me that almost time to breathe respite that I got because I was in such deep grief that I?m also a very private griever and so when I was by myself, I could grieve, then I could kind of take this gasp of breath and go out and even though I would go out and I would feel the deepest sorrow, it wasn?t that I was meeting everyone in the grocery store.
G: It?s interesting because when you go to the grocery store, people run the other way.
S: That?s exactly what happened to me, too. But also I?m thinking of your college-age children. They are still children. They still needed the love and support of a lot of community around them, and I?m sure that that was a big loss for them.
G: So the interesting thing about grief is that there?s a right or wrong way and this absolutely talks about that. Having you say, ?I moved two months earlier,? if I put on my therapy hat, I would say, ?Wow, that made it really a lot harder,? and here you are telling us it didn?t make it a lot harder. So it?s interesting how we go different ways and have it work.
S: Actually, the change of the move was horrendous for me because we did three moves in a year and a half. I was in the throws of change. I thought it could get no worse. I was already in grief from the three moves and then this happened, and it just stopped me in my tracks, and I realized that nothing else mattered. All of those three moves, all of that other change, upheaval of my work, my job, everything, it was nothing compared to this. And so it just sat me down and sat me still, and it allowed me to kind of stop spinning and to see what was important in life.
G: And do you have the feeling it was kind of then and now. Now what was your son?s name?
S: My son was Dave and Butch was my stepson.
G: How long were you married? Did you have a close relationship with Butch?
S: Yeah, the boys were good friends. Butch and Dave were very good friends.
G: Now do you relate Dave?s accident in anything with your stepson?
S: No, in fact people wondered had Dave heard about it? Was he in grief?
G: Yeah, that?s what I was wondering.
S: No. He had not heard. Nobody did.
G: This total irony.
S: Total irony. The other part of the irony is that night as we were coming through Saville Canyon which is very dark and kind of eerie back into Laramie, I was listening to the radio and there was a radio news report about a mother who had lost two sons on the railroad tracks. They had been playing on the railroad tracks in the dark and they had been killed. And I remember thinking to myself, what a devastating thing. I just said a prayer for them, for that mother. I thought, ?How would anyone stand losing one and then two sons?? Afterwards I thought, was that just kind of a beginning preparation? You know how you go back and you look at something and was that an accident? I think now.
G: Yes, those synchronicities. Those things that happen in our lives that seem to help us to be able to cope with things. Now you?ve lost two grandchildren also.
S: Yeah. My son, Dave, had two children, Anna and Andy, and Andy was killed in the summer of 2001 in a four-wheeler accident.
G: How old was he?
S: He was seventeen.
G: Wow.
S: Yeah. It was like, you know, when you get these kind of calls and you probably remember if the phone rang and that?s how you heard it, for so long afterwards, you just can?t stand to hear a phone ring. I remember telling myself, ?I have to tell myself that this isn?t necessarily going to happen again. This doesn?t mean it?s going to happen again. It?s not going to happen again.? And then when we got that phone call and it did happen again, I thought, ?Oh, well, thank goodness. I had how many years of not thinking it?s going to happen again.? Because we just have to trust that life is going to be basically good and yet there are going to be interventions.
G: So one of the things that we?re going to say to you and the audience over the New Year is trust.
S: Trust. I have a mantra and it is love, forgive, trust, let go.
G: Oh, that?s wonderful because you do have to surrender in these situations. You just cannot keep going. There?s a level.
S: That?s exactly right.
G: Eventually your body just is not going to let you keep going for it at the same intensity.
S: And I think if we live in that spot, it will diminish our own physical life, our own emotional life. It?s a big part of the beginning part of grief but it cannot be what we identify and live with forever.
G: If you?re out there and you?re in your first year, it?s tough.
S: It?s horrible. It?s the worst of worst.
G: And the second year. Very very tough. Very very difficult. Well, and then, what about your other grandchild that died?
S: This was a beautiful little girl and she was a stepgranddaughter, and she was born with a birth defect. Our last grandchild. She died in surgery at the University hospital in Iowa and they kept her on life support until we got there and we got to hold her.
G: Aw, how old was she?
S: Four.
G: And what did she die of?
S: She died of problems from the surgery. They were trying to do bone fusion and she just didn?t make it. But we felt very fortunate to have her the four years because her life was so fragile and it was probably not destined that she would become an adult.
G: Yeah, I had a little nephew that died. Same kind of thing. Do you think that having that is, I?ve had this discussion before with different professionals and different people about, do you think the preparation and knowing that you have a disabled child or whatever makes it less traumatic for you than the sudden death or, I know we can?t compare losses, but it?s a good point of discussion.
S: No. It is a good discussion point, but from my point of view and from my husband?s, she was a precious little light, absolutely priceless, and she taught all of us so many things in that time. We missed her just like we would miss any normal four-year-old child, and I think what we were able to take away is because we are fairly optimistic thinkers is what a blessing to have her and her lessons in our life for four years, but her mother, she is Dick?s youngest daughter and she and I are very close and actually the death of Claire brought Debbie and I even closer because she knew I knew what it was like to lose a child.
G: And I still hear, and I know our audience does, that little break in your voice about losing our children. We were talking about it a little bit on break how it doesn?t matter if it?s been 22 years, 21 years.
S: And then with the holidays, you know, we?re more fragile during the holiday time. It does make a difference.
G: Can you talk about that fragility?
S: The fragileness. Well, there is just a connectedness of the spirit to two people who love each other and when it?s a child, that connectedness of the spirit is even more fragile and so when that?s severed, there?s something that if you allow your feelings and emotions to go back and connect with that spirit, it scares you.
G: I love that idea, the connection.
S: I don?t apologize for that. Even though I?m a professional, sometimes when I?m talking with people, I?m usually able to stay pretty well together and I stay cognitive when I?m working with professionals in the medical staff because I get a lot of calls from nurses to help in bereavement or hospice people and so on, and I usually take them. I start back with what were their own first grief issues and where are they now because we can facilitate another person no higher than where we are. I truly believe that.
G: Oh, that?s a wonderful point, if you haven?t been there, it?s hard to facilitate them beyond that.
S: And if you haven?t resolved some of it or at least know where you are. My mother died when I was eleven and you?re talking to a person now that?s known as a grief therapist but I used to be known as the counselor who didn?t do grief because I really did not resolve my mother?s death actually until the boys were killed. I had so much unresolved childhood grief and when I wrote the book, I wrote it through the voice of the grieving child and the voice of the grieving mother, and this is why a lot of people say, a lot of adults say, ?This isn?t just a child?s book.?
G: That?s what I said, it was a book for children of all ages because by the way, it is a wonderful book when someone dies. The pictures are beautiful. There aren?t that many words, but the words that are there are tremendously powerful. It?s a wonderful book to have in your house. How would our audience get a hold of it?
S: It?s on amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, you can get it on the internet or you can order it through your local book store and it?s already at some book stores, but they always order it. It?s through Peachtree Publishing.
G: Great, it would be a wonderful book for you to get and look at with this New Year. So what got you into writing?
S: Well, I started writing, journaling, when I was about eighteen, and I think it was probably because my own emotional load got too heavy. It was a way of releasing, a way of unloading, a way of sorting, and it became a catharsis. I kind of got addicted to it. When I teach journaling classes now, I say, ?In the beginning, I used to staple the pages of my journal together because I was so ashamed at some of my thoughts.? And that?s even more reason to journal. So now when I teach journaling class, I teach them to use a legal pad or a three-ring notebook or a spiral of some sort and we have what we call dump pages. And you just dump. You write whatever you want to write and you just get it out and you release and then you throw those away. And then I have people keep what I call a beauty book and that?s the really nice journals that you can find everywhere, you know, they?re beautiful, and here?s where you put your lessons.
G: That?s interesting because Sinclair Lewis, the famous writer that wrote Main Street, said when he died he had a whole bunch of his journals burned. Those must have been his dump pages.
S: Those were his dump pages. Well, this is why I say, and what I said to my three daughters is, ?Now, if you run across any dump books that I haven?t torn out of, just realize my life really wasn?t horrible. That?s where I got rid of it.? But if you look through my journals, my life wasn?t always a bed of roses either, because that?s where I put what I?ve learned and I keep beautiful poems there and just little nice things that happen and it?s just a nice way for me to do it.
G: So you?d suggest that our audience, maybe during the New Year if they haven?t tried it, may try doing. How would they start? What would you suggest?
S: Well, one of the things I?d suggest is start on a dump book and I think one of the things is to pour out your sorrow. It isn?t unusual to feel sorry for oneself in grief, and I think a lot of people don?t really connect that. We feel sorry that we?ve lost this person. We feel sorry that we cannot parent in the way we used to parent. We feel sorry that they?re not going to be here. And nobody likes to kind of look at that as feeling sorry for one?s self. But it?s okay, it?s just there. And so I think to pour that sorrow out, I won?t have any more of this, I?ll never be able to do this again.
G: Right. And I?m angry with
S: Yes.
G: You can be angry with a dead person. You can be angry with somebody who was driving the car. You can be angry with anybody you want to be angry with.
S: And you can just have any feeling. Guilt is the big one. You know that. It kind of goes with why didn?t I? And so I think the more we pour that out, but then I think also, I always say, ?If you got sick at your stomach and you had to up chuck in a bucket, you wouldn?t keep it.? And so, I use the same analogy with a dump book. Just get rid of it.
G: Yes, and tell your family members if they nose in your diary that this is a dump book and to stay out of it.
S: Yeah, well, that?s why I keep the dump book in the diary. That?s why I do them in legal pages or a three-ring spiral because you can just pull them out and throw them away.
G: Great. We?re coming up on break and I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, and please stay tuned to hear more on New Year?s Resolutions for the Healing Heart with my guest Sharon Greenlee, licensed professional counselor, educator, and consultant. Sharon has written a beautiful book for children of all ages called When Someone Dies. Please stay tuned for more from Gloria Horsley and Sharon Greenlee.
Welcome back to Healing the Grieving Heart. I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, and our topic today is New Year?s Resolutions for the Healing Heart, and my guest is Sharon Greenlee, licensed professional counselor, educator, and consultant. Sharon is the bereaved mother of two children who died in separate accidents on the same day and a bereaved grandmother of two. Sharon has written a beautiful book for children of all ages called When Someone Dies. Sharon lives outside of Laramie, Wyoming, where she facilitates workshops and seminars for small businesses and office groups in team building, communication, and stress reduction. Sharon also facilitates workshops on women?s issues and writing. Welcome back to the show, Sharon.
S: Thank you, Gloria, it?s been wonderful being with you.
G: It?s great having you on and talking about the New Year coming up and coping and trying to help our folks out there. We have a caller who has called in. Sylvia, I believe, from Salt Lake City. Sylvia, welcome to Healing the Grieving Heart.
Sylvia: Thank you very much. Thank you for hearing my question.
S: Hi, Sylvia, this is Sharon.
Sylvia: I?ve just been so impressed with the show this morning, and I think it?s proof perfect that the grieving heart does heal. I just have a question from a religious point of view. How did you deal with your loss from a spiritual point of view, from a religious point of view? Did you ever feel abandoned by God? Do you feel abandoned by God?
S: That?s such an interesting questions. You know, I was wondering if Gloria was even going to talk about this on the show because when I do workshops, I need to really pay respect to that and I pay respect to that now but I will be very, very honest. I could not have handled what I handled without a belief in God, and I usually say a higher power, but I don?t know how people do it without it because I felt God?s comfort all the time. I can remember sitting and writing thank yous and I would sip herb tea and I would play beautiful classical music and I had a candle, and I actually felt held and loved by the people who wrote and called that I felt like that was God?s love coming through all these people around me. So without that, and actually by having a close spiritual connection, I felt like I was comforted continually and at one time, I hesitate to say this, but I?m just going to go ahead and say it. One time when I was in the deepest, deepest, deepest throes of grief over my son?s death and asking, help me understand this, I actually, I heard a response. That was so comforting to me that it was at a complete turn in my healing.
G: How long was that?
S: Two years.
G: Do you want to share with us what you heard?
S: Well, my son had a drug problem, a really big drug problem, and he tried and tried to get away from it, and he had been really doing a good job after he became a parent and he had a backslide and I worried about that because I thought whatever will happen to him as a father. Anyway, when he was killed, they found no alcohol. There was no alcohol at all, but I always felt that if they would have tested for drugs, they would have found drugs in his blood. And the answer that I heard when I was in the deepest throes and this was two years afterwards, was when I was saying, ?Why, why is this happening?? And the response came so calming and so loving, and what I heard was, ?I took him because he could not help himself any longer. He is with me. Do not be concerned. He is fine.? And I heard that as clearly as anything. But you see why I hesitate to say it.
G: Well, thank you so much for sharing that with us, Sharon, and Sylvia, thanks for calling in on the show.
Sylvia: That was such a beautiful response. Thank you so much.
G: I didn?t want to keep her on the show too long, but I want to say Sharon, thank you for saying that, because I believe that there are so many people. I had someone on, or I will be having someone on, that I had to pre-record on dreams. We have appearances in dreams, we have voices, we have all sorts of things that are going on now. I am not here to tell you where they come from. All I know is there are experiences in life that move us to a different plane in our healing if we?re open to hearing.
S: Thank you for respecting that because you know, you can see why I?m reticent.
G: Absolutely and I think it?s wonderful. I like us to come forward with what we?ve had happen to us, real things, because that?s how we can help other people who are in this process and if they haven?t had that happen, you know, then they?ve had other things happen.
S: That?s right. And it?s not that it?s going to happen every day and it?s not that it?s going to happen to everyone, but I study and teach intuition a lot also and I do know that the more that we allow ourselves to be open to this, the more that we can receive it.
G: And you were saying that this happened to you after a couple of years. I also want our audience to hear that. It?s hard to hear anything but your own agonies for the first couple of years, I think, isn?t it.
S: Yeah. But I never did blame God. I never blamed Him. See I don?t feel God causes bad things to happen. I think sometimes he chooses not to intervene, and it?s difficult for us sometimes to understand that lesson or to understand why.
G: Yes, absolutely, and yes, why do things happen. We never know that. I think some of our early searching is trying to figure why that happened. There?s a lot of searching for that early on, wouldn?t you think?
S: I think there is and maybe that isn?t the place to focus on why at the beginning. Just to respect the grief, kind of have the courage to go through it and just be quiet and listen.
G: Could you talk about the courage to talk about the person who?s died?
S: Well, it does take courage to talk about it. First of all, just like what happened to me today is you don?t know when you?re going to stay together and when you?re not going to stay together. Sometimes it?s easier not to talk about it, just like I said with being here in the Laramie and Wyoming community because I was doing consulting right away within probably four weeks, five weeks after my loss. It made it easier not to talk about it, but it takes courage because it?s such a sad event in your life and yet if you have the courage to talk about it, I think you?ll find that other people are not only warmed by your words, they?re given courage to face what they have to face.
G: Yes, it?s interesting. When I?ve talked a little bit about the show or something, I?ll get into why, you know, what happened to me, why I?m doing the show, and I?ll have people who have all sorts of different things, like one woman?s son had MS and she said that gives me the courage to feel like I can help him. Even the smaller losses knowing the bigger losses help people to cope knowing that you can survive. Even the smaller losses, if we haven?t had larger ones we feel that we may not survive.
S: I know. Well, and again, just like that woman you just mentioned, the courage to use your own pain to help others. It takes courage to do that because sometimes it?s easier to sit in your own pain even though that doesn?t sound very healthy. I?m sure a lot of people understand the words I?ve just said because we sit in our own pain and some people will tell me in counseling I just can?t move from it. I can?t get away from it. And the truth is that once we begin to change our internal dialogue, kind of listen to what our self talk is and to realize, is it helping us? Is it helping those around us? Is it helping us move away from the grief? Then I think answering that and changing that internal dialogue a bit.
G: Which, by the way, maybe that will be one of your New Year?s resolutions is to think about changing your internal dialogue a little bit. One of the ways to do it is the way Sharon was talking about, write a dump book.
S: Yeah because when you write, Gloria, you?ll hear what your internal dialogue is, and it?s not saying that it?s wrong. It isn?t wrong. It?s what?s there and it?s what needs to get out, but what we need to ask ourselves then is, if I keep thinking the same things over and over and over, you know we?re kind of in a rut in our thinking, then we have to kind of jump that up. I always every time I work with kids talk about getting it up off that track and onto another track of thinking. And when we can do that, that can move us that next step and actually into the healing process of moving out of self and into others.
G: Another thing you can do, if you?re not a writer, you can go to something like Compassionate Friends or find another group where you can talk about it and actually do an oral story.
S: Yes, that?s wonderful. I love that idea. Yeah, sharing the story is very important.
G: Because sharing your story changes your story.
S: Yes, exactly. The only other thing I would say and we kind of touched on this before we went online is, I would urge people not to become their story. Not to so identify with your loss that you become the bereaved parent and that?s how you see yourself. I talk about sense of identity as being one of the things that cause us to get stuck in grief. Knowing who we are before. If I?m only Dave?s mom before, then I?m going to have a lot harder, a lot more problems in the grief process. But I wasn?t just Dave?s mom before. I was Sharon, I was a wife, I was a mother of three daughters, I was a grandmother, I was whatever I was, and so in going into that grief process, I had to realize that I can?t live in the space of being the mother of a son who had died.
G: How long do you think it takes before you realize that? Did you realize it early on?
S: In the beginning, all you have is that deep seat of grief and so I don?t think you can even think anywhere outside of that, but I guess I never, one of the things I didn?t want people to do was feel sorry for me through this. I knew they were going to feel empathy but I didn?t want to be pitied because of it. Maybe I was just uncomfortable with that.
G: I don?t think any of us want to be pitied. That?s one of the issues and I know you were talking about how you went back to work after four weeks. So did I. You?re so determined to look competent because you don?t want to be pitied, but the reality is, it is pretty sad.
S: Oh, it?s horrible. It?s horrible.
G: And they will pity us and we try to keep ourselves looking competent and it?s tough at first. As my husband always says, fake it until you make it.
S: Yes, well, that?s the truth and I guess it would just make it worse if I was feeling all that constant remorse from other people.
G: We?re coming up on break and I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, and please stay tuned to hear more on New Year?s Resolutions for the Healing Heart from my guest today, Sharon Greenlee, licensed professional counselor, educator, and consultant. Sharon is the bereaved mother of two children who died in separate accidents on the same day and she is a bereaved grandmother. Sharon has written a beautiful book for children of all ages When Someone Dies. Sharon lives in Laramie, Wyoming, where she facilitates workshops. Please stay tuned and join us on our show by calling 1-866-369-3742 or you can email me through my website www.healingthegrievingheart.org. Stay tuned for more.
Welcome back to Healing the Grieving Heart. I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley. Our topic today is New Year?s Resolutions for the Healing Heart, and my guest is Sharon Greenlee, licensed professional counselor, educator, and consultant. Sharon is the bereaved mother of two children who died in separate accidents on the same day and a bereaved grandmother. Sharon has written a beautiful book for children of all ages called When Someone Dies. Sharon lives outside of Laramie, Wyoming, where she facilitates workshops and seminars for small businesses and office groups in team building, communication, and stress reduction. She also facilitates workshops in women?s issues and writing. Sharon, welcome back to the show.
S: Thank you, Gloria, it?s been fun being here.
G: It?s great having you on. This is our final break and so before we end the show, I wanted to ask you if there?s anything that you felt we missed or anything
In particular that you?d like to talk about.
S: Well, I was trying to think of it from the point of view of the listener and possibly that early bereaved parent, and during holiday time, as these people know who have just been through it and still going into the new year ? do we talk about the person we?ve lost? Do we not talk about it? Do we just create a sadness or is it awful to laugh? I think people got confused about that and so one of the things that I suggested to my bereaved clients and friends is to find ways to honor the one who died. Sometimes we?re not ready to move out and do something for someone else. We?re still into our grief and we need it. But honoring the person can take on many forms and one of the things that I did with each of my losses is I made a scrapbook and this was really helpful to me. It was a quiet opportunity to just be quiet alone, sip tea, again light the candle, put on some pretty music. Kind of a ritual of sorts it became. But it was very healing for me and I would take pictures at all different ages and write little vignettes about it and this was also helpful to other family members.
G: That is funny you should bring that up. My daughter just did it for us this year. She was fourteen when her brother died and she did it through the internet with shutterbug and sent everybody an album of Scott.
S: And see what I think is even more beautiful about that is that how many years has gone by for you?
G: Twenty-two, right?
S: That?s right and still there. It?s never, ever. It?s not something that you have to say, oh, I can?t forget him. I have to do this. I have to do that. It was just this gift of love that you?re forever honoring that person, but what it shows me again is it?s showing that we have integrated that person back into our lives and we want to keep them, and to me that?s what healthy grief is. Taking the loss and being able to integrate the love of that person and the memories with them right back with us.
G: And Sharon that?s so wonderful that you say that, I mean, here you are, bereaved child at age eleven, having two sons die, two grandchildren, and you see the picture of bringing them into your life. It?s really very inspiring.
S: Thank you. The thing I would say is the bereaved child. I could do a whole thing on that one, too, because I think of how long it took me to heal from that and I could have had, if people would have just known how to help me and here I would say also if you have other children in your family and you?ve lost a child, remember that your children are grieving.
G: Absolutely, and we?ve done some shows on siblings and I?m going to promise my audience right now that we?ll do something on a child losing a parent and we?ll have Sharon on because you?d be wonderful at that. Well, let me ask you a question, during this new year, if you have one piece of advice you could give to a newly bereaved person, what would it be?
S: One piece of advice. Oh, that?s always such a hard one. I think it would be possibly to be as honest with yourself about where you are in your thinking and feeling right now and whether that?s through talking to someone or to writing it down. Where you are.
G: And it?s hard to figure out where you are sometimes on your own. You may need to talk to somebody about it to find out where you are.
S: And not where you?re expected to be, just where you are.
G: And how about somebody who is bereaved out there maybe after three or four years? What would your piece of advice to them be?
S: I would say if they are still deeply bereaved after three or four years, they have what I call a grief entanglement, and they are going to probably need professional help in finding out what that is. I just identified six entanglements that caused people to get stuck in the grief process, and if they wanted to email me, I could talk to them. I?d be happy to do that. But I think they need to get help because my guess is that they are stuck in grief due to one of those six things.
G: And grief is, I was thinking about it the other day, it?s like a river. It moves along slowly but you can get stuck in some little side paths.
S: That?s a good metaphor. That?s beautiful. And that?s exactly how it is.
G: The grief goes on, but there?s some of your energy stuck off in other areas and you need to bring it all into the same moving flow.
S: If we have time, I could give an example of what an entanglement does.
G: Sure, that would be great.
S: An entanglement is, let?s just say this is the example. You have an unmet need because of the loss of the person. Now I?m going to give you one that is just unbelievable. But this woman came to me and after four years she said I cannot get over this grief. I still mourn Fred every day. I can?t stop it. Through talking I found out the things they used to love to do. One of the things they had loved to do the most was to go dancing. She was in grief because she wasn?t dancing any more. So when we get to about the middle of the first session, she starts crying and she said, ?Don?t tell me you think I?m only missing Fred because I?m not dancing,? and she looked up at me, and I said, ?Of course not, of course not. But don?t you see that every time you think of Fred, one of the things you think about is I never get to go dancing any more.? Now this is what I call an entanglement. When we get tangled up in the earthliness of the person and something that is in this case, an unmet need. Another one was a man whose wife paid all the bills and so every month at bill-paying time he went into the deepest grief. Entanglement.
G: And so people need to figure out how to meet those needs? Is that what you suggested, other ways?
S: That?s right. Find the way to meet the needs in a healthy way, untangle it from the earthly loss of the person. I always say the grief road is it?s own road to hell. It?s black and deep and full of ruts. And so just doing it alone but then to put an entanglement with it, you never get out of it. I don?t know if I?ve explained it well enough.
G: No, you have, yes, every time that comes up, but if you take a dance class or if you get yourself an accountant or if you try to find out because you?re amazed at the things when you?ve lost that child or parent or whatever the things that they did for you that you have to find out how to meet those needs. And you don?t have to meet all your needs. Other people can help you. You can hire. You can go to the city and find out who?s got a dance class going and sign up for it and let the dance teacher meet that need.
S: Right. Identifying the unmet need. So with parents, it?s usually the entanglement is the personal sense of identity of who they were before and who they see themselves as now and the unmet needs. Those are the two of the six I usually find with parents but there?s four others and I?m doing a manuscript on it right now and so I hope that it can be used as a self help or it can be used by a therapist, either one.
G: Great. And you were telling me that your new year?s resolution is to get you an editor. We?re going to get your new year?s resolution on the show so it will be written in stone.
S: Yes, so I have to do it. Yes, my new year?s resolution is to obtain an agent and I have the person. I?m just positive she will say yes. I?m just going to be that optimistic. If not, I have a backup and then I?m going to get my manuscript out.
G: Great. So for all of you out there, think about your new year?s resolutions, and I remember one of my early resolutions the first year was that I was going to exercise, and not huge. Walk around the block, drink more water, try to get more sleep. Those are good resolutions for the first year, wouldn?t you say?
S: They are perfect resolutions for every year because the mind-body connection is absolutely it goes in an infinity loop if you know what that looks that if you were to draw. And so as we behave, as we think, as we exercise, so we become. Keep your mind and heart as healthy as possible.
G: Absolutely, which is a wonderful thing for the new year and then as time goes on, you may want to make a bigger plan for maybe changing your life. Sometimes we?re ready for a change too. Change of job or to write a book or think about what things you might want to do for yourself this coming year. Let?s see, I guess my new year?s resolution for this year is I just signed a new contract with VoiceAmerica to be on the show for a whole year.
S: Congratulations. That?s wonderful.
G: So that was a big resolution for me because I was kind of taking it a bit at a time so doing a year of the show will be an interesting resolution for me this year.
S: What that reminds me of when you say that is to remember that there?s a lot of energy in pain and sorrow. A lot of energy. And what you?ve done is you?ve taken that energy and that pain and sorrow and you?ve turned it into something that is a beautiful help for other people. So that?s wonderful, Gloria.
G: Well, thank you, and Sharon, thank you so much for being on the show. It?s been great to have you on and please get Sharon?s book, When Someone Dies. It?s a wonderfully-written book. And if people want to get a hold of you, they could do it through?
S: If they google Sharon Greenlee, it comes up.
G: Okay, great, or you can get in touch with me through www.healingthegrievingheart.org, and remember all of these shows are archived on www.thecompassionatefriends.org website as well as www.VoiveAmerica.com website. Please stay tuned again next week and our topic will be The Healing Power of Dreams and on this show, Carla Blowey, author of Dreaming Kevin, the Path to Healing, will discuss the use of dreams for spiritual growth and healing. Carla who is a bereaved mom, will introduce us to basic dream work including techniques and resources. Carla has an on-line chat room as well as a quarterly newsletter. This show is archived on the website www.healingthegrievingheart.org as well www.thrcompassionatefriends.org website. This is Dr. Gloria Horsley. Please stay tuned again next Thursday at 9:00 Pacific Standard Time, 12:00 Eastern, for more of Healing the Grieving Heart, a show of hope, renewal and support. Remember others have been there before you and made it, and you can too. You need not walk alone. Thanks for listening. I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley.

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