I had a wonderful conversation about grief and shame with someone really smart a few weeks ago (yes, I’m funny like that – I love to talk about grief and shame!). She shared with me a distinction that really pulled together a few of the different paths of research, reflection and practice that I’ve been…
Tag Archive: shame
A Griever’s Guide To Freeing Yourself From Double-binds
“A double bind is an emotionally distressing dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more conflicting messages, in which one message negates the other. This creates a situation in which a successful response to one message results in a failed response to the other (and vice versa), so that the person will be…
Do You Need Your Friends & Family To Approve Of The Way You’re Grieving?
Last week I posted my “How Can I Heal?” article on Facebook and two of my wonderful friends commented in response to the article. Here’s what Rebekah said… And then Dana said this… Seeking approval in our grieving Do you find yourself seeking approval in your grieving, and wanting your friends and family to validate…
How To Release Guilt & Regret When You Didn’t Get To Say What You Wanted To Say Before They Died.
The idea of “closure” has been popular idea in the world of grief counseling in the modern Western world for some time. The traditional belief is that our relationships end when someone dies and that, in order to find peace with that ending, we ideally need to have had all the conversations we would have…
Who’s The Biggest Loser?
There’s a really interesting article at Psychology Today about the way that we look at each other’s lives and compare our grief. My thoughts… hierarchies of loss are inaccurate inventions Because of the work I do, I end up having a lot of conversations with people about loss and grief. I guess they intuitively sense that…
