A Meditation on Grief

“Grief can result in a variety of types of losses. Some of these losses are well-recognized such as divorce, the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a job. Other types of losses can be just as difficult to deal with and sometimes less understood, such as moving, illness, or any other unexpected life changes. Loss can be experienced with both negative and positive events.

An event may be positive overall, such as getting a promotion at work but can still be associated with loss. It’s a loss of what is familiar—a loss of living in the old way.

Change can be associated with these feeling of loss. So perhaps today you are dealing with a change that is relatively positive and your grief is relatively mild. You may be coping with a significant loss and are going through a challenging grief process. Or you may have experienced a huge loss that’s profoundly 

changed your life, and you’re having difficulty dealing with grief.

Whatever your situation is, grief is real.”

Traumatic Grief

Grieving is often all-consuming and extremely painful, but overall, it is a normal and healthy experience. It can become unhealthy, however, when the symptoms of grief — such as yearning for the deceased, feeling angry about the loss, feeling that life is meaningless or feeling unable to move on — last for six months or more.

Researchers have tied traumatic grief, also known as prolonged grief of Complicated Grief Disorder, to an increase in the risk of suicidal thoughts, heart problems, and cancer. Studies have also shown that grief may trigger depression in the same ways being physically or sexually assaulted or losing a job can trigger the sometimes debilitating condition.

Though traumatic grief may share similar symptoms as clinical depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), many scientists believe that these disorders and Complicated Grief Disorder affect different circuits of the brain. Some also think there’s a possibility that traumatic grief may predict more severe outcomes than depression or PTSD.

 

Healing From Grief and Loss

During “Healing Heartache: A Grief and Loss Workshop” at the Rio Retreat Center at The Meadows, a safe, sacred space is created in order for participants to lean into the grief, which helps to facilitate healing.

Those who attend the workshop also will learn about basic psychological concepts related to grief and loss with an emphasis on recognizing emotional reactions to loss, trauma, and broken dreams. They will also dispel myths and inaccurate messages about grief and learn how to break free from or avoid patterns of destructive behavior that tend to follow trauma and other losses. Read More

Helping Therapists Healing from Their Own Trauma

The Meadows has been facilitating its signature workshop, Survivors, for more than 30 years. Many people’s lives have been changed by the opportunity to confront the deep emotional impact of their childhood trauma.

Therapists, clinicians, and treatment providers often refer patients to our intensive workshops when they need to do some deeper work in an emotional nurturing and safe place. And, sometimes, professionals come to us to do their own healing.

A little over one year ago, The Meadows workshop department grew and took up residence at the new Rio Retreat Center in Wickenburg, Arizona. We were able to greatly expand our workshop offerings to the general public and provide an even more comfortable, peaceful and beautiful setting in which to heal.

We are now pleased to expand our workshop schedule even further by responding to the request we’ve got from many professionals to host a Survivors workshop that is open only to them. Our hope is that this will allow participants to take a step back from their professional responsibilities and focus on themselves and their own healing. Here are a few frequently asked questions about the upcoming workshops:

What is Survivors I: Healing Childhood Relational Trauma for Professionals?
Survivors I: Healing Childhood Relational Trauma for Professionals is our standard Survivors workshop but will be limited to participants who are professionals in the field of behavioral health. Some feedback that we received from professionals who attended Survivors I before included concerns about being placed in groups with other participants who could potentially be former or future clients. Many professionals also felt it was difficult to take off their therapist hats during Survivors Workshop. When we asked professionals what we could do to improve their experiences, they said that they wanted to be in groups with their peers and they wanted to be able to use at least the psycho-educational portion of the workshop to receive continuing education credit. We are happy to say that we are able to now accommodate both of these requests.

Let’s face it, there is no such thing as a perfect childhood. Some people have overt or obvious trauma from their childhoods while others have less obvious struggles. Regardless of the type of childhood trauma; most therapists (at least those who tend to refer clients to The Meadows) agree that the messages we receive in childhood about ourselves, our relationships, and the world we live in continue to impact us long into adulthood. This continues to be true even if we are already on a healing journey! Read More

6 Ways to Improve Mental Health Treatment for Men

By Dan Griffin, MA, Senior Fellow at The Meadows

• Address the ways that men’s socialization prevents them from connecting.
  
  The behaviors that are required of men in therapy and in recovery are contrary to what I refer to as “The Man Rules.” The Man Rules, the messages we learn as boys about how to be men, say don’t ask for help, don’t show feelings, don’t be vulnerable, don’t be weak, and whatever you do, don’t cry! And then we put men in therapeutic settings and ask – and even expect – them to do the opposite!

1. Create a culture of safety.
   
   No matter how a man acts when he first comes into your treatment program—apathetic, belligerent, sarcastic, or overly enthusiastic—you should think in terms of creating a safe environment for him. Men are unlikely to tell you that they are concerned about their emotional safety, but it is something that will be on their minds— if not consciously, then subconsciously. The lens through which you view his behavior will influence the way that you respond to him, which will, in turn, help him to behave differently. The entire culture of your treatment program or practice may begin to change as everyone; including staff in the organization begins to feel safer.
   
2. Speaking of trauma…
   
   Men are socialized not to see their experiences as trauma, and treatment providers also tend not to see their experiences as trauma. This is because at the heart of so much trauma-informed care lurks the idea of the male as perpetrator—and we don’t care about the trauma or healing of perpetrators.
   
3. Focus on relational competence
   
   The majority of the Man Rules are not about connection. In fact, they are about disconnection – from self and from others. Men who are affected by childhood trauma have even more trouble forming and maintaining intimate relationships. This is partly due to the fact that The Man Rules they are taught as boys do not provide a context in which they can learn to value connection, intimacy, and reciprocal relationships. Interpersonal skills like cooperation, seeing another’s perspective, expressing vulnerability, sharing feelings, and empathy do not tend to be part of what boys and men are encouraged to value and practice in their daily lives. As Brené Brown has beautifully pointed out, men can never be seen—or even experience themselves—as weak at any time. That mandate lives deeply inside so many men. That makes creating and staying in truly healthy relationships quite a challenge.
4. Break into small groups.
   
   Something I learned from my professional partner of many years, Rick Dauer: If you want men to open up, put them in small groups. I mean small groups, breaking the men out into sets of threes. The effect is transformative. Men who normally would fly under the radar or simply present as though they are less emotionally engaged will show up in a completely different way. The number three is important – two is too easily turned into a conversation and four can split into pairs or even easily leave one person out. But three? There is just something magical about that number.
5. Address Sex and Sexuality.
   
   Let’s not just talk about sex but talk about sexuality – the whole thing. A large percentage of men’s relapses are directly related to sex. Men commonly struggle with not feeling comfortable engaging in sex while sober, fear of sex, discomfort with themselves sexually, pain from sexual trauma, issues with body image. And, let’s not fail to mention men’s often problematic and unhealthy use of pornography while they are in treatment. As a practitioner, it’s important that you maintain an awareness of the impact that sex and love addiction have on men and all of their relationships. The Man Rules are deeply connected to sex serving as men’s primary – if not sole – vehicle for connection and intimacy. How can we NOT spend extensive time helping men create a healthy sense of their sex and sexuality?

Source Link- Rio Retreat Center

How to (Finally) Find Love in the New Year

 

By Tracy Harder, MSC, LAC, Workshop Therapist and Andrea Sauceda

Do you find yourself ending up in one painful, damaging, and disastrous relationship after another? Do you feel like a failure because you haven’t yet found true love?

Do you want to know the secret to finding your soul mate? Do you want to know how to find a person with whom you can live happily ever after in a perfect and blissfully all-consuming romantic relationship that books, songs, and movies have told us since we were kids that we are supposed to have?

The secret is… There is no secret. Those kinds of relationships don’t exist.

Intense and overwhelming feelings of “love at first sight” and the belief that the other person “completes you,” may actually just be delusions brought on by Love Addiction.

That sounds terribly cynical, doesn’t it? I don’t mean to say that true love—mature love—does not exist. It just means that you might have to do a little work to break through your addictive cycle before you can find it.

What is Love Addiction?

Love Addiction is characterized by feeling “high” during the initial phases of the relationship. Love Addicts often describe the feelings that come after a person has triggered their fantasy of an ideal mate as intensely pleasurable. They often make statements to the effect that this person is their “soulmate” or “love at first sight.” This person becomes the sole focus in their life, to the detriment of other relationships with children, friends, work, and self-care. Love Addicts will tolerate almost anything in the relationship due to a fear of being left.

Breaking Down the Wall of Seduction

Love Addicts are often drawn to people who are Love Avoidant. A Love Avoidant is drawn to a Love Addict’s neediness due to a belief that their role in a relationship is to take care of the other person. The Love Avoidant begins the relationship with a Wall of Seduction. In other words, they present as a “Super Woman” or “Super Man.” This Wall of Seduction impedes true intimacy.

Eventually, the Love Avoidant will become overwhelmed by the Love Addict’s neediness and will withdraw from the relationship by creating intensity outside of it, perhaps with work, a drug addiction, or another person.

Shattering the Fantasy

During the Love Addiction / Love Avoidant cycle, there typically is what Meadows Senior Fellow Pia Mellody describes as a “shattering event.” This event destroys the Love Addict’s fantasy about the Love Avoidant, throwing the Love Addict into withdrawal. The withdrawal results in extreme pain, fear, panic or even rage. Eventually, the Love Avoidant’s guilt or their own fear of abandonment may bring them back into the relationship with the Love Addict, and the cycle begins all over again.

This unhealthy cycle of behavior is unfortunately what often passes for “romance” and “love” in our society, but in reality, it is neither. It is addiction, relationship compulsivity, and a fear of love and intimacy.

A “healthy” relationship after recovery from love addiction and/or love avoidance (and yes, there can be recovery) involves what Pia refers to as “mature love.” Mature love involves loving a person “warts and all” and not leaving them or punishing them because they cannot fully embody your fantasy. A healthy relationship requires realistic expectations that are discussed openly and honestly, especially at the initial stages of the relationship.

For the Love Addict in recovery, it involves getting rid of their fantasy of the ideal mate and not demanding unconditional positive regard, self-sacrifice, and care at all times from the other person. For the Love Avoidant, it begins with coming out from behind their walls and letting their partner see who they really are.

Love addiction and Love Avoidance can occur not only with romantic partners but also with friends, children, bosses, etc.

Source Link:- Rio Retreat Center