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February 11 - February 14, 2024
The sneaky problem with rumination is that while one is ruminating, it feels as though you are seeking out the truth of the matter.
Sometimes the subconscious motivation for engaging in an activity is that it allows us to avoid whatever else we might do, often because it feels better.
Are we engaging in rumination because it feels better than what we would be doing otherwise?
telling the story again and again in this way is not the same as discovering what the loss means. Discovering what the loss of this person means to us, on the other hand, and learning to find a way to live without them, would create strong feelings in us but also help us to grieve and to fit that loss into our ongoing lives.
co-rumination to describe the repetitive, extensive discussion of personal problems between two close friends, an intimate and intense form of disclosure, often about negative feelings.
When negative feelings are by far the most common topic you talk about, however, or when it feels that the whole world is against the two of you, it begins to slide into co-rumination.
She suggested we only discuss a particular situation three times, and if nothing had changed by then, we would try something new before we discussed it again.
accepting for one’s response to what happens in the moment, rather than acceptance, which suggests a permanent change in how a situation is viewed.
when accepting comes, it brings a certain sort of peace with it. It is like setting down something heavy, even with the full knowledge that you may have to pick it up again.
there is a distinction between accepting someone’s death and resigning oneself to their death.
Accepting is focusing on life as it is now without the deceased, without forgetting the deceased.
The key to accepting is not doing anything with what you are experiencing; not asking what your feelings mean, or how long they will last.
noticing how it feels at that moment, letting your tears come, and then letting them go.
Yearning is not only for the past, for something that was. Yearning also means that there is something we do not like about the present.
Social contact leads to the release of opioids in the distressed animal, which functions both to soothe and to teach.
Human beings have the capacity to override all sorts of behavioral patterns that evolution has set in motion.
Human beings cannot choose to ignore only unpleasant feelings. If you are numb to your momentary experience, you are numb to it all, the good and the bad.
our brain is smart enough to give us what we absolutely need, by taking a slice of each of the stages of sleep.
“The Sleepless Ones,” by Lawrence Tirnauer,
feeling grief at some point is one of the rules of being human.
As soon as we focus on how grief is manifested in ourselves, as soon as we become fixated on our own experience, we are disconnected from those around us.
Early on, many grieving people are unable to do much productively, as our mind, our brain, and our body are too dysregulated to function properly without our loved one.
Because our brains generate thoughts at a persistent rate, we are not likely to stay in the present for very long.
bring the client’s attention to specific places in the body, in order to enable them to relax their own muscles.
So, the more they tried to avoid thinking about the person, the more they thought about them unintentionally during mind wandering.
higher avoidance also goes along with a higher number of intrusive thoughts.
while the conscious thoughts distracting you may not be helpful (although possibly unavoidable), the unconscious thoughts during mind wandering do seem helpful.
really listening to what a bereaved person is feeling and where they are that day is important. Even saying that you don’t know what to say to them, but that you love them and will be with them through this, is vulnerable and powerful.
Restoring a fulfilling life may be a better definition, pointing to adaptation, which I think is more accurate than thinking of grief as being “over.”
Second, when people have difficulty remembering events in the past that happened to them, they also tend to have difficulty imagining the future and what they might do.
those who have the most difficulty with grief also have difficulty remembering specific details about their own past, unless the memories include the deceased loved one.
The inability to generate possible future events is at the heart of hopelessness. We have to be able to imagine the future sufficiently enough at least to make plans, even if only for next weekend.
the ritual nature of holiday events brings memories to mind, and the social nature of them emphasizes the absence of those we used to celebrate with.
becoming professionals, becoming mothers or fathers, and gaining life experience changed their relationships with their living mothers. I saw my friends become more compassionate toward their mothers’ moods and idiosyncrasies.
the discipline of practicing the piano every single day and seeing the long-term improvement that comes from incremental hard work.
cultural standards of thank-you notes, appropriate footwear, and how to make small talk,
my mother was interested in any skills that could give me an advantage in this world, and she was willing to make sacrifices to make sure I learned them.
Although they can no longer benefit from our kindness and care directly, their absence from our physical world does not make our relationship to them any less valuable.
Bringing someone new into your life can lead to an eruption of grief, even after a period of relative calm.
human beings find losses to be twice as powerful as gains.
We may not feel as good as we had hoped we would.
the point of new roles and new relationships is not to fill the hole. Expecting that they will can only lead to disappointment.
The only way to enjoy a fulfilling relationship in the future, however, is to start one in the present.
If our boss quits, or we no longer see a teacher after a class ends, there is another person who can fill that role. We share a deep commitment with our partner, our child, our parent, our best friend. If an attachment figure is lost, then the great trust invested in that person over many years and through many shared adventures is lost as well. There will not be another person available who can easily fill that role.
great trust must be built over time and through shared experiences.
coming of age and leaving home coincide with a specific transitional period. The hormones that motivate us to take risks, to explore the world, and to have sex are in full effect.
What society calls them is much less important than the role they play in your life.
Holding your breath is not the same as never having breathed.
grieving is a form of learning. Acute grief insists that we learn new habits, since our old habits automatically involved our loved one.
Grief changes the rules of the game, rules that you thought you knew and had been using until this point.
