In the past several weeks, I’ve spoken with various mental health professionals, as well as church leaders, hospice workers, etc., who’ve shared their experiences with grief support groups with me. In some instances, they were the grief support group organizers and facilitators.
After sharing about what grief recovery is and how it moves a hurting heart from emotional stuck-ness to freedom, we discussed how the two support group options differ. In nearly all instances, those I spoke with expressed how the grief recovery method sounds different from traditional support groups they’re accustomed to – in a good way. Simply put – it is different.
So, I felt it was time I share how GRM (grief recovery method) differs from traditional grief support groups on the blog.
As you can see, there are some differences that stand out. Above, are four of the main ones. I believe traditional grief support groups have their place. Typically, however, it’s the death of a loved one that brings someone to a grief support group because, in society, when people talk about grief, people assume someone must’ve died.
Considering there are more than forty losses one can experience, then I feel, people who may benefit from a grief support group, don’t look into it because perhaps their loss isn’t due to a death. Maybe an individual experiences bankruptcy and financial ruin. Or, perhaps the individual has been estranged from family and they feel alone. No one died, but that person is still a grieving heart with nowhere to turn.
Grief: Who Died?
So, just as people correlate grief to death, so too, people correlate grief support groups to death. That is actually an aspect of misinformation I share when I talk about grief. And, it’s something I want to reiterate that the grief recovery method is not only for those who’ve experienced the death of a loved one. There are many instances where someone will come to grief recovery and believe they will work on the death of a loved one, when in fact, they end up working on emotionally completing a relationship to someone living.
Living people in our lives cause us grief as well. Millions of adults everywhere are walking around with their hearts wounded from childhood. Grief starts in childhood and it accumulates and it’s accumulatively negative.
So, although grief support groups often help individuals after a loss in their lives due to death, help the griever not to isolate and to feel supported; what traditional grief support groups don’t do is help people to process their emotions and give all of their pain a voice in a healthy, well-formatted way.
What the GRM Experience Looks Like
In grief recovery, we’re not meeting weekly for 8 weeks and sharing in a circle all of our pain and suffering; quite the opposite. Safety in sharing is the number one priority in grief recovery, so a bond of trust and confidentiality is established first before anyone shares (unless they choose to early on). From there, each week there is action required that work on giving all of the incomplete communications and feelings a voice. Traditional grief support groups do not do this for grievers. Yes, they are free. But, if being an entrepreneur for over 10 years has taught me anything it’s that people simply don’t value free. And, if the work that is required to become emotionally free were offered with traditional support groups, very very few would ever complete it. It is the personal investment in one’s self that aids in one’s ability to heal.
How Much is the Rest of Your Life Worth to You?
When you have a toothache, you go to the dentist. And, if you’re told you need a root canal, you have the root canal and you pay for it. When you break a leg, you go to the doctor to seek treatment – again, you pay for it. But yet, when your heart is broken, you apply bandaid after bandaid and hope to God that something eventually sticks. Or, worse – you do what society has taught you and you buck up, stuff it down, replace the loss, grieve alone, try your damndest to pretend you’re fine, try to be strong for yourself and others, keep yourself busy, and just accept that grief just takes time; it’ll get better – eventually. You just need to hold on for one more day. And, before you know it, that one more day becomes three decades. And, when you experience loss after loss during that time, finally there is one that causes you to reach your grieving heart’s breaking point. You realize therapy hasn’t helped, antidepressants make you feel like crap and don’t feel like what you need, other holistic approaches felt good for a time but life moves on around you and you can’t sit in meditation for 18 hours a day. And, although praying brings you solace, and you feel like you’ve given it all to God, you continue to find your eyes well up with tears, growing more emotionally and physically drained by the day. You continue to feel like a hamster on the wheel of life and you know if something doesn’t work soon, this life is over for you as you know it.
Despair.
I’ve felt it.
There is hope. It’s grief R-E-C-O-V-E-R-Y. Recovery.
The word recovery has never sounded so good to me. And the word grief has never meant more to me than it does today. It’s taken on a whole new meaning for me, too. I bring people H-O-P-E. Hope.
Hope & Recovery. Two words I use to describe the Grief Recovery Method.
Does your grief support group give you that?
P.S. Are you ready to start a new chapter in your life? One where you finally sit in the driver’s seat, roll the windows down, feel the breeze on your face, and see the past you in the rearview (along with the grief that kept you there). I’m working on locking in locations for groups to start in Wishek/Bismarck (hopefully late August/early Sept.). If you want to be sure not to miss the announcement, “Like” my FB Page, sign up for my weekly newsletter, or contact me via email at victoria [at] theunleashedheart [dot] com or phone at 701.336.7720. Spots are limited!
–