Loss and Grief

Hi this is Lori Miller and I Bernie, Dick, thanks for joining us and welcome to the Salvation Army's wonderful words of life will welcome back everybody. I'm so glad you're here.

Lori, thank you for having me Bonnie. I'm having fun. I don't think we really discussed it but you know our friend Sarah is no longer with us at wonderful words of life. Anyway, now that she and her husband are doing great up there in Knoxville, Tennessee, enjoying the beautiful fall yes and I was just gonna say that it is all here in the USA that's so beautiful. As the tree start changing colors take on all the different foliage is pretty cool. I hope that our listeners from all over the world get a chance to see pictures of fall United States and that's a good excuse for them to maybe send pictures of what their false look like that is a fabulous idea that is a great idea for the last four weeks in our series on mental health. We focused on depression and Atlanta did a great job describing the difference between periods of sadness and depression discuss tragedy and grief and how real traumatic life events can lead to depression that IATA gives us some beautiful encouragement on how to get through whatever it is that you are going through. I like to give credit where credit is due, and the production team here at wonderful words of life have done a good job at giving us some information. There's something that they've read that says grief doesn't always involve death rate, it could be divorce, loss of a job, a pet relocation and there's so many things I don't even take that into consideration.

Sometimes I just feel like we go go go and sometimes even this week for me. I had a moment or just could not get out of a funk arena wasn't feeling happy and you know over Gober was overjoyed to be in some he told me one time that life is not what we want to be, which would be smooth sailing flatline and she said to me that flatline in the medical community means staff but life's ups and downs that you would see on a heart monitor that reminder to me was really good that when I get into a place like that that that's that's a signal of life really will want to quote so they gave us to share with our listeners is from 1969. Someone named Elizabeth Kubler Ross identified five linear stages of grief as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance but you said something pretty neat. When I said that before.

I think that those stages are really important and I do think that those are stages that occur in Greek but I don't believe. Personally this is my opinion that grief is necessarily linear. I think it comes in ebbs and flows, and sometimes we go through one stage at one time and then we got in the next stage we skip stage and go back to the first stage and so I think we need to be gentle when we talk about grief and loss. In regards to checking off the boxes on and to remember that grief is not something that necessarily ends right right now it doesn't 10 minutes. It's kind of something that we move on with instead of moving on from what's good and one of the things that I discovered. I think that we landed at together when I was doing the conversation with Eliana was that the church should be the place that anyone can turn to when there in the middle of a mental health crisis. Absolutely togetherness is one of the best tools for healing and there are support groups for all types of circumstances absolutely know if you're currently struggling with the loss of any kind. Finding a support group that you can connect with is a really great step in your process of finding a new normal. If you don't have a church who I really want to encourage you to reach out to local Salvation Army or visit Salvation Army.org to find the church nearest to you know you will use all will all you you you will will today.

In particular, we are on week six of the series gone by so fast.

I really feel like we've only been together one day. Now is the hell the that's the magic magic show business out talk about how to get through. When tragedy strikes in particular or you know when life events happen and mental health can come into question.

For sure, I can only talk about my own experience, but I and I know our listeners.

We have a varied age group that we could be doing with a number of things Eliana when you think about mental health and particularly when there are tragedy of some sort.

What comes to your mind think about mental health and tragedy. No, I first think about PTSD, posttraumatic stress disorder and particulate that can be developed by anyone innocent is an occurrence in where you experience a traumatic event, then at some point in your life as you move on or you believe that you move I you encounter something asked every triggers tragedy can also be the loss of a parent. The death of someone out to a relationship but I think the thing that I want to point out about when tragedy strikes is that I'm from two different perspectives. It's okay and there's no time limit on being able to adjust and I say the word adjust and not get over you, you know, because most times a week spans a death in the family. Our job gives us a few days off, we might take some additional time off and individuals are very familiar with this five stages of grief you know where you go through denial, anger, you kind of bargaining.

Wish you would've done things a little bit different with that individual.

And then there's a period of wedded depression, and acceptance and somewhat.

We think that that should happen in a fishbowl but it doesn't is life.

And so when someone experienced a tragedy regardless of what it is.

I just want them to know that it's okay to take time to be okay which is self it's okay to feel good one day and not feel good.

The next day that is a part of the healing process. We are not perfect. We will not have it together. That's one of the reasons God sent his son Jesus us, but he did promise us that they'll be a comforter, that he was send the Holy Spirit. So whenever tragedy strikes and were dealing with loss. Regardless of whatever phase you find yourself man where the angry experience that anger is when we whole dating in deck and have other psychological effects on our well-being, our ability and ability to interact with family but know who you are and go at a pace that is comfortable for you. If you want to be around people be around people. If you choose not to be didn't give yourself permission to do that we are all different, were all set up different experiences craft us into being different individuals so we adjusted tragedy and loss in our life very differently so I think the main thing that we want to understand when dealing with tragedy is that there is no timeframe for you are fearfully and wonderfully made uniquely in the image of Jesus Christ. I firmly believe what you just said that I like to think of it as a pressure cooker where when you're keeping things inside. It's like the pressure just builds up and eventually it's gonna blow son of going to go wrong and actually went and practice when I'm working when individuals talking about how life experiences tend to pile up. I use jingo everybody knows the gene because that's how we built we pull it out and we think about it for a little bit whatever the issue isn't, and we put it back on top of all the other issues but as soon as you pull on that one important piece and sometimes they can be the loss of a parent or significant other than everything come crashing. There's a recurring theme in a week to week. I'm picking up a lot of keeps coming back to take time. It's okay. It's okay breeze free.

I love that idea. I heard someone speak this weekend who was talking about breath and how photosynthesis works we take in the air and we when we exhale. That's carbon dioxide with them. The plants turn that into some form of energy or sugar of some sort. I mean really God designed us an incredible way, but we need breath and it's in that breath that we find life and in this case the ideas when we take that breath when we take a break and get some perspective on the I am so glad that you're here. Thank you for having me.

I know we've got some more to learn and I hope that you're enjoying the series on mental health. I just pray that if there's something that you need help with, you'll find it either by reaching out to your own faith community somewhere church someone that you trust, or if you don't have a church home, call the Salvation Army. Let them help you. If nothing else, back and listen to us, that wonderful Salvation Army's mission doing the most good means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army visit Salvation Army USA.org to offer your support and we would love to hear from you.

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And if you don't have a church home. We invite you to visit your local Salvation Army warships are glad to see this is Bernie day inviting you to join us next time. Salvation Army wonderful words of life