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Healthy & Redeemed | Is This Normal? Exploring the Difficult Journey of Grief - Part 1 · Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk

• 0:23
  Welcome to the Healthy and Redeemed podcast hosted by Healy
• 0:26
  Eicherd. Healy is a licensed counselor
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  with a passion for helping Christians live healthier lives
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  emotionally and spiritually. Each episode combines the truth
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  of God's Word with practical advice to help you in your
• 0:38
  everyday life. Whether you want to grow
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  emotionally, strengthen your faith, or handle life challenges
• 0:44
  with more peace, this podcast is for you.
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  We're so glad you joined us. Let's get started.
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  Welcome to the Healthy and Redeemed podcast.
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  I am your host Healy. Thank you so much for joining
• 0:58
  me. Have you ever experienced a loss
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  in your life of some sort? Maybe a loss of a job?
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  Maybe a friend moved away, Maybe you lost the opportunity to
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  fulfill a dream or desire that you had.
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  Maybe you lost a relationship, Maybe you lost your health or a
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  loss of finances, or maybe you've experienced a death of
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  someone, the loss of an actual person.
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  That's what we're going to talk about today specifically is this
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  process of grief. Grief is a natural response to a
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  loss and can happen anytime that we experience a loss.
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  But today we're going to talk specifically about when someone
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  we love dies. The title of this episode is
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  called Is this Normal? Exploring the Difficult journey
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  of grief. I wanted to title it Is This
• 1:55
  Normal? Because oftentimes in my
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  counseling office, most of the people that come in that are
• 2:02
  experiencing the death of someone close to them, that is
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  always one of their first questions.
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  Is this normal? Because the feelings are just so
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  powerful, they're not sure that it's it doesn't actually feel
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  normal. So the term grief, as I
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  mentioned, it's a natural response that we have to loss.
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  It can be defined as an emotional suffering caused by
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  the loss of someone or something.
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  So again, any loss that we have in our life.
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  And although grief is just part of being human and no one is
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  exempt, so any of those I mentioned earlier, probably all
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  of you had had that at some point in your life, even if
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  you're young, the grief process is unique to each person.
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  There is no right or wrong way to think or to feel in response
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  to the grief that you have. And that's good news, but it
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  also can be somewhat overwhelming because again, we
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  think this isn't normal. As we look at others and how
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  they've experienced it and how they've walked through that, we
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  can start feeling like, Oh my goodness, what am I?
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  What am I going through over here?
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  So it's important to know the stages of grief.
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  And that kind of helps us know what we're going to be going
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  through. So there are these five stages
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  denial, anger, bargaining, depression in acceptance.
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  So let me. Just briefly talk about what
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  these stages look like and things that we might be saying
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  to ourself. So in this stage of denial, we
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  may be feeling shocked or disbelief.
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  Maybe we don't believe that it's actually happening.
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  We cannot take it all in. It might feel like a dream.
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  Our mind may shut down and the loss just does not feel real.
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  We might be saying to ourselves, this can't be happening in the
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  stage of anger. We may feel some resentment.
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  Anger may be at the situation, at people involved.
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  We may be mad at ourselves. We may be mad at God.
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  We may be mad at the person who has died in the anger.
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  Stage we may be. Feeling resentment Anger may be
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  at the situation or at God, or toward the person who has died
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  or other people that have been involved, or maybe even at
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  ourself but when we express anger that.
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  Is a positive. Sign because it means we are
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  going through the healing processes because each stage of
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  this is part of the healing process.
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  We will be bouncing around in these, so it's not like.
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  OK. I'm done with anger.
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  Once we've experienced it, we we will continue to bounce around
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  in this, but it is a positive sign.
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  As long as you don't stay in one stage, you're good.
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  So what we might be saying to herself in this stage is why me?
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  It's not fair. Why them?
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  Why did you leave me? Why did you let this happen?
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  In the negotiating or bargaining stage, we may try to bargain our
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  way out of the death by making promises to God, to ourselves,
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  to the person. About how?
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  Things will be different. We may be saying things like I
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  will be good if I'm praying fervently.
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  So they will live. Please change this situation and
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  I will do better. In the stage of depression we
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  may exhibit symptoms of great sadness.
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  We may shut ourselves off and go into a shell or become super
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  active and need to be with others.
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  We will be feeling the pain of the loss.
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  We may be crying or laughing. Tears and laughter are closely
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  related. We might be saying to ourself, I
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  am so sad, why bother with anything?
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  Lord, just take me. I don't want to feel this way.
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  The last stage is acceptance or peace.
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  That is a point where we accept the loss and we're able to move
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  on to a healthy way. We can say ourself it's going to
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  be OK. I miss them but I will get
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  through this. In these five stages, just to
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  know they're not really like, you hit one, boom, you hit one.
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  They're not like levels. We're not just going to go
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  through them like they're typical stages.
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  They don't fall into neat little categories.
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  We're going to fluctuate between the stages very often and very
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  frequent, and that is completely normal.
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  But it can also feel very frustrating.
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  So yes, it is very normal to go through, to pop in and out of
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  these stages quite a lot. The most important phase of this
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  is acceptance or peace. And that basically is the final
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  stage. Not saying that you won't have
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  these others at times still, but they but you'll have a sense of
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  peace about it. Because in this peace or
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  acceptance stage, it means that you've learned to live your life
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  without that loved one anymore or without the thing that you've
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  lost. So it could be a job or maybe a
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  changing of church or relationship.
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  You learn how to do life without that person or without that
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  thing. So it doesn't mean that you
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  forget them or don't. You don't miss them, but just
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  that you're able to continue living in a healthy way without
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  them. It means things that the death
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  in your life has found a place. It's found a place.
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  Trying to ignore the pain of grief will not make it go away.
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  And oftentimes this is one thing that people don't like, all
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  these feelings, because there's something very unique about the
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  process of grief. It can literally pull up all
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  your feelings, like all the emotions that you have, you can,
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  they can just be all in like this tangled ball of emotions.
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  And that is foreign to a lot of people and not something that
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  we're used to. And it's very difficult to
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  articulate. So just know that trying to
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  ignore that, trying to ignore those emotions or that pain that
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  you're experiencing, it's not going to make it go away.
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  It only delays it. And at some point, you're going
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  to have to deal with it. Healing comes from feeling the
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  emotions as they come. It means going through the pain,
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  even if it's difficult. And that is healing will always
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  mean going through. Healing is never around.
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  It's never under, it's never over.
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  It's never take some other detour.
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  It Healing always comes from walking through whatever you're
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  experiencing. Doesn't really matter what it is
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  in life, whether it's trauma, whether it's anxiety or
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  depression, healing's going to come as you walk through the
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  tough stuff. And that's the only way that it
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  comes. Unless it's a miracle that God
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  just, you know, gives to you. I mean, that's great, but most
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  of the time God calls us to walk through things because that's
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  good for us to build. Our character does lots of
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  things in our life. So it's not a bad thing when God
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  calls us to walk through stuff. Jesus knows the pain that we
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  have and He is going to help us through it.
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  It is OK to experience those hard emotions and it's OK to cry
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  or not to cry. We don't want to hold back our
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  crying, but it's OK. Whatever we feel at that moment
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  is OK. As usual.
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  I will say we don't want to get all overwhelmed by our emotions
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  in the sense that we're just going to give in to Him.
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  We don't feel like doing anything, therefore we don't.
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  We're not going to get into that place.
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  We're going to stay healthy in the midst of our grief.
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  Death and loss is something that all of us have to experience at
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  some point, and although it might feel lonely and that no
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  one understands, it is important to process through the emotions
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  with God, with others, and with yourself.
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  What grief do we see in the Bible here?
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  Just some people that come to the top of my mind.
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  Remember Jacob? He lost his wife.
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  She died in the midst of childbirth or shortly
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  thereafter. Jacob also lost his favorite
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  son, Joseph. He thought Joseph had died.
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  Joseph had not died, but Jacob grieved as if he had because he
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  saw the code that was covered in blood, so he thought he had
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  died. Remember Naomi?
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  She experienced the loss of her husband.
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  He died and her two sons died. Remember David?
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  He lost his best friend in death.
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  He lost his child to death, and he also experienced many losses
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  through his family, specifically through his sons as they
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  betrayed him in many different ways.
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  Remember Job? He probably had the most losses
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  that we know of that he lost all of his children.
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  They all died. He lost his wealth.
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  He lost his reputation. He lost all his animals and many
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  of the homes that his children lived in.
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  I would say even at some level he lost the trust of his
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  friends. You remember Aaron, Moses
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  brother, he lost his two sons when they were killed because
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  they offered sacrifices in an unholy way.
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  You remember the Apostle John, He was exiled to the island of
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  Patmos, and I presume that he lost everything in that exile.
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  I don't know that, I'm just guessing.
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  Benjamin, that was Jacob's son. He never knew his mom because
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  she died, as I said, shortly after giving birth.
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  So although he may not have experienced the actual loss of
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  her, he grew up with her memory and I'm sure his dad conveying
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  to him his great loss too. Do you want to teach your
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  children godly traits such as kindness, gratitude, and
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  forgiveness? The Red Ball is a story of
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  Renata, a young girl who receives a special gift.
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  When that gift goes missing, she is left to figure out what to
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  do. Through her journey, she learns
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  a lot about herself and what forgiveness really means.
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  The lessons found in the book can be made even more meaningful
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  with The Red Ball Companion Activity Book, featuring over 30
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  activities. Both books are the perfect
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  addition to any homeschool curriculum or as a thoughtful
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  anytime story. Get your copy today and help
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  your child build a heart that reflects Jesus.
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  What are some common physical effects of grief?
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  So the things that we feel physically when we're grieving,
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  Fatigue or exhaustion, headaches, dizziness, nausea, we
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  might have digestive problems, we might have an increased
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  startle response, we might have a decreased appetite, a reduced
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  immune response, we might have problems with our sleep or
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  increased physical pain. The interesting thing about
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  physical effects of grief, these are often effects that we also
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  have similar ones to when we have excessive stress, which of
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  course, this is what we're going through if we're experiencing
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  the loss of someone, right? Remember the episode that I
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  talked about Nephesh, our Soul, and how it's all integrated,
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  Everything is integrated. Our mind, our body is all
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  integrated as one. This is one of those times that
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  you can see this integration as we're feeling all these emotions
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  and they're overwhelming. We're actually having physical
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  side effects. Also, we also had some cognitive
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  effects. We might have a hard time making
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  decisions. We might have a hard time
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  concentrating or remembering things.
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  We might worry. We might even disassociate or be
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  confused about things. We might blame ourselves for
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  things spiritual effects that we have.
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  We might feel disconnected from God.
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  We might question God or be angry at Him.
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  We might feel a spiritual emptiness.
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  We might even withdraw from the faith community or just feel
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  separate from them. We might feel disconnected from
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  people or have this feeling like no one understands us or what
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  we're going through. We might have an increased
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  awareness of mortality, and we might.
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  Experience guilt. So those are some physical
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  effects, some cognitive effects, some spiritual effects we might
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  have. What are the emotions that we
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  might experience? Here are just some.
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  But I will say, normally in grief, there's such a wide range
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  of different emotions depending on the context that it's hard to
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  get them all in one little list. But here are some common ones.
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  Shock, numbness, a sense of anguish, anxiousness, blame or
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  guilt, fear, irritability, anger, sadness, depression,
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  despair. You might even have feelings of
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  relief or gladness. That's why I'm saying like all
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  these, there's so many different emotions.
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  They can be all tangled up together.
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  So maybe you're thinking if you haven't experienced a big loss
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  in your life or a certain kind of loss, relief might be a weird
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  emotion to have or gladness. But sometimes if you've been
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  caregiving for a very long time and you're a believer and the
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  person that you've been caring for was a believer, and if they
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  were suffering a lot, you can feel the sense of relief that
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  they are no longer suffering, that you know, that they were
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  rejoicing in the arms of our Savior, that that can bring a
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  sense of relief and gladness and like holding hands at the same
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  time with sadness. So yes, all the emotions that we
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  have around grief can be very tangled up and hard to define.
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  These emotions can also be like a steady stream of water, or
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  they can be like waves crashing into the shore, pulling back,
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  crashing again, pulling back. So he might be going through the
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  day just fine and then the wave crashes and suddenly we're
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  crying or angry and we don't understand why.
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  But that's how grief works. It's really hard to just have it
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  in a simple little explanation because it's it's a different
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  for each person and different on each type of grief that they may
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  be going through. But sometimes people can get to
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  a place of peace relatively easy, but they just kind of feel
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  those emotions underlying all the time.
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  As I mentioned at the beginning, I said, well, is this normal?
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  I'm feeling this way? Yes, it is normal to feel that
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  way. It is part of the grief process.
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  It looks different for each person, and although the
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  emotions can feel very abnormal, most of the time what you're
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  feeling is normal. Sometimes that in and of itself
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  is helpful for people. I did have a person come in one
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  time. I just saw them once and that's
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  all they wanted to know is what I'm going through a normal
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  response. I feel like I'm going crazy.
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  And I said it is normal. And it hadn't even been that
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  long since that person had died. Of course that's normal.
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  Yes, you're going to go through all these emotions like 50 times
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  a day, especially in the beginning.
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  The other question a lot of people ask is how long does
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  grief last? And really the duration of
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  grief, it varies for each person and for each person that they're
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  grieving. There's no set timeline.
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  Of course. There's no set timeline for when
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  a person should feel all better. Sometimes you just have to think
• 19:24
  of it as it takes as long as it takes.
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  Here's a few things that I tell people.
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  Once everybody else in your life kind of moves on and they get
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  back to normal and there's no more casseroles coming and
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  there's no more cards in the mail and no one asking how you
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  are, there is an extra hardness in that period because you're
• 19:50
  still grieving and everybody else has gone on with their
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  normal life, which they have to. However, that can be an
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  especially hard process in this journey.
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  But you'll get through that, that that will pass.
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  Also, I like to warn people that that first year is also going to
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  be harder. Whatever harder in this
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  particular moment looks like the first year, you have to
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  experience certain days and holidays that are going to be
• 20:27
  difficult. You have to go through the
• 20:29
  birthday. You have to go through the
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  Mother's Day or Father's Day or anniversary days or Christmas or
• 20:37
  Thanksgiving or Easter or whatever those holidays that
• 20:41
  were important to your loved 1 was.
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  You have to go through those. You have to figure out what that
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  looks like, and that's hard that first year.
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  But I'm going to provide some tips at the end to help you get
• 20:57
  through that. Here is what I like to tell
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  people. If your intensity of grief and
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  the emotions in that grief don't change from that first month
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  through the many months following, if it doesn't change
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  at all, that intensity is still the same as it was at the
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  beginning, then that might be a sign that you need to go to a
• 21:26
  counselor and work through something else.
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  It might just mean you need to go to a support Group, A grief
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  support group or talk to your pastor or talk to someone else
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  that you might need a little extra assistance.
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  But normally all that hard stuff is completely normal.
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  It is a part that you just have to work through.
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  But if you notice, and that's the that's the keyword, I just
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  want you to remember intensity. If the intensity is the same, if
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  that doesn't change at all, that's what you need to pay
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  attention to. OK, And we'll look at prolonged
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  and complicated grief also. So you can kind of just be aware
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  of that. What is the difference between
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  grief and mourning? Grief is the internal experience
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  of the loss. It just is what involves all the
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  emotions and your thoughts regarding the loss.
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  And mourning is the external expressions or rituals
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  associated with the loss. So you'll often see mourning in
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  the Bible that there's a set time of mourning and then
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  there's certain things that they do.
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  So to mourn in the Bible, it may mean you wear a sackcloth or you
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  fast, or you shed tears. For us, it might be we are
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  taking the time off work. We're pulling back a bit from
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  something. It means going to the funeral.
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  It means maybe wearing black there or whatever you do in the
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  external expression of that grief.
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  How can you support someone who is grieving?
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  This is going to look different for each person who's grieving,
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  though. I think one of the things we
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  really have to know the relationship we have with
• 23:20
  someone. So that's going to look
• 23:21
  different, like I'm going to provide support differently for
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  one person than I may like my best friend or my mom or someone
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  like that, you know, because I know them differently.
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  But normally the ministry of presence is a good thing.
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  I'm just being present with someone, hearing them, listening
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  to them showing up with lunch or cup of coffee might be something
• 23:49
  that that would be helpful to them.
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  But again, if you remember in Job when he was grieving the
• 23:57
  loss of his health, I didn't even mention that earlier, that
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  was a big one, the loss of his health and his friends, they sat
• 24:05
  with him for seven days and didn't say a word.
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  I mean, that is the Ministry of Presence right there.
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  They would have been better if they would have kept on doing
• 24:16
  that. It was sometimes when they
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  talked that turned out they weren't all that helpful, and
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  that's typically the same with us.
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  Normally I can say for the most part that people are trying to
• 24:29
  be helpful when they say things. Often they aren't though, and I
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  hear people say this a lot, that they don't find help when people
• 24:41
  try to say certain words to encourage them.
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  Usually we don't try to fix or offer cliches to the person.
• 24:52
  Things like the Lord needed another Angel or God needed them
• 24:56
  there. Those statements, those two
• 24:59
  statements aren't even theologically correct anyway,
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  and they're kind of insensitive. Well, they are insensitive.
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  Even little things like God's going to bring good from this.
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  At least they're not in pain anymore to might be true, but
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  they're not helpful. I normally just stick with I'm
• 25:19
  sorry. A hug might be helpful for them,
• 25:24
  but if you don't know someone well, just saying I'm sorry.
• 25:29
  Normally if we ask the person some questions about their loved
• 25:34
  one, that can be helpful to them, or if we have something
• 25:39
  that their loved one did for us or a special memory, it might be
• 25:42
  appropriate to share. Stories are really helpful for
• 25:47
  them who are grieving to share. Sometimes it may be too fresh to
• 25:52
  do that, but that's why it's really important to know your
• 25:56
  relationship and know what is appropriate to offer and what's
• 25:59
  not and praying for them whether they know it or not.
• 26:03
  It is important to pray for people who are grieving.
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  It's hard and not everybody knows how to do it well.
• 26:09
  I know people that had just, they just go over and do things
• 26:13
  for the person. Again, I think that depends on
• 26:16
  relationship. I can't, I can't go over to just
• 26:19
  person's house. I don't know that well and just,
• 26:21
  you know, offer to do something. Maybe I could.
• 26:24
  I don't know. That's not really my
• 26:25
  personality, but but for someone I knew well, I probably could,
• 26:32
  although that would still be pretty awesome, my personality.
• 26:35
  But I try to stay consistent to who I am.
• 26:38
  I do care about people and I will either provide a resource
• 26:42
  for them. I will tell them I'm sorry.
• 26:45
  I will pray for them and, you know, ask them how they're doing
• 26:52
  because I know those things are hard.
• 26:55
  We're not always going to have the right things to say.
• 26:58
  And I try not to get caught up in saying the exact right thing.
• 27:02
  I'm a counselor and I know facts that I have not said the right
• 27:07
  things a lot of the times. And people don't say the right
• 27:11
  things to me either. And people forget way too fast.
• 27:15
  I mean, according to me, but you know, this is life.
• 27:20
  This is not everybody's going to be sensitive to our needs.
• 27:25
  This episode was longer than I had planned.
• 27:28
  So next time please join me for the remaining part of the
• 27:31
  episode. I will talk about prolonged or
• 27:33
  complicated grief, what that looks like, as well as practical
• 27:37
  steps for a healthy grieving process.
• 27:41
  Now let's go out and live healthy and redeemed, reflecting
• 27:44
  Jesus Christ rightly and all that we do.
• 27:47
  Lord willing, I'll see you next time.
• 27:50
  Thank you for listening. The information provided is to
• 27:52
  be used as a resource. If you have a serious mental
• 27:56
  issue, we would encourage you to contact the therapist in your
• 27:58
  state.