Loss and Grief

Hi, this is Lori Miller. And I'm Bernie Dake. Thanks for joining us, and welcome to The Salvation Army's Wonderful Words of Life. Well, welcome back, everybody. I'm so glad you're here, Lori. Thank you for having me, Bernie. I'm having fun. I'm having fun too, really. 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. No.

But she and her husband are doing great up there in Knoxville, Tennessee. Enjoying the beautiful fall in the mountains. Yeah. Yes, they are.

I'm going to say that. It's fall here in the USA, and it's so beautiful as the trees start changing colors. We take on all the different foliage. That's pretty cool. I hope that our listeners from all over the world get a chance to see pictures of the fall in the United States. Yeah, absolutely. That's a good excuse for them to maybe send pictures of what their falls look like. That is a fabulous idea.

That is a great idea. You know, for the last four weeks in our series on mental health, we focused on depression. And Aliata did a great job describing the difference between periods of sadness and depression. And now we're going to discuss tragedy and grief and how real traumatic life events can lead to depression. But Aliata gives us some beautiful encouragement on how to get through whatever it is that you are going through. Yeah.

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. Right. It could be divorce, loss of a job, a pet.

Relocation. Yeah. Yeah, 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 where I just could not get out of a funk in my brain.

I wasn't feeling happy and overjoyed to just be. You know, somebody told me one time that life is not what we want it to be, which would be smooth sailing and kind of that flat line. And she said to me, that flat line in the medical community means death, but life is the ups and downs that you would see on a heart monitor. That's interesting. So that reminder to me was really good that when I get into a place like that, that that's a signal of life, really.

Well, and one of the quotes that 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 and acceptance. But you said something pretty neat when I said that before. Well, I think I think that those stages are really important and I do think that those are stages that occur in grief. But I don't believe personally, this is my opinion, that grief is necessarily linear.

I think it comes and it ebbs and it flows. And sometimes we go through one stage at one time and then we go through the next stage and we skip a stage and we 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. And to remember that grief is not something that necessarily ends, right? It doesn't have a time limit.

No, it doesn't have a time limit. It's kind of something that we move on with instead of moving on from. That's good. And one of the things that I discovered I think that we landed at together when I was doing the conversation with Aliada was that the church should be the place that anyone can turn to when they're 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. You know, if you're currently struggling with a 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 home, I really want to encourage you to reach out to your local Salvation Army or visit salvationarmy.org to find the church nearest to you. There's no one else like you, God. Lord, you've searched my heart, you know me well, my words, my thoughts, even from afar. Lord, you've placed your hand upon me, the thought is infinitely such that it's too hard for me to touch. You won't let me go, you won't let me go. Through all our lives, you've been by our side, to where could I go from your spirit, to where could I flee from your presence. If I go on to the heavens or down to the depths, I know that you are there, I know that you're near. You've always been near, so why should we fear, you always are here. You won't let us go, you won't let us go. Through all our lives, you've been by our side, you've been by our side. You formed me from the dirt, lit me in my mother, wonderful are your words, like you there is no other, how precious are your thoughts for me. Oh God, I can't begin to come from the isle under the sand, we shot your hand, lead me in the everlasting wave.

There's no one else like you, God, no one else like you, God, no one else like you, God, no one else like you, God. Today in particular, we're on week six of this series. It's gone by so fast. It's gone by really fast. It feels like we've only been together one day.

I know. Isn't that how, that's the magic of showbiz. We're going to 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 know our listeners, we have a varied age group and we could be dealing with any number of things. But Aliata, when you think about mental health and particularly when there are a tragedy of some sort, what comes to your mind? When I think about mental health and a tragedy, you know, I first think about PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, and particularly that can be developed by anyone.

And it's an occurrence in where you experience a traumatic event and then at some point in your life as you move on or you believe that you move on, you encounter something else that re-triggers that. Tragedy can also be the loss of a parent, the death of someone, or through a relationship. But I think the thing that I want to point out about when tragedy strikes is that 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.

Yeah. You know, because most times when we experience a death in a family, our job gives us a few days off, we might take some additional time off. And individuals are very familiar with the five stages of grief, you know, where you go through denial, anger, you're kind of bargaining, wish you would have done things a little bit different with that individual. And then there's a period of where there's depression and acceptance, and somewhat we think that that should happen in a fishbowl, but it doesn't, it's life.

And so when someone experiences a tragedy, regardless of what it is, I just want them to know that it's okay. Take time to be okay with yourself. 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 for us.

But he did promise us that there will be a comforter, that he would send the Holy Spirit. So whenever tragedy strikes and we're dealing with loss, regardless of whatever phase you find yourself in, whether you angry, express that anger out. It's when we hold it in that can have other psychological effects on our well-being, our inability 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, then give yourself permission to do that. We are all different. We're all set up different. Our experiences craft us into being different individuals. So we adjust to 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 time frame for it. You are fearfully and wonderfully made uniquely in the image of Jesus Christ.

I firmly believe what you've just said. And 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 going to blow. Something's going to go wrong. And actually in practice when I'm working with individuals talking about how life experiences tend to pile up, I use Jenga.

Everybody knows the Jenga game because that's how we're built. We pull it out and we think about it for a little bit, whatever the issue is, and then we put it back on top of all the other issues. But as soon as you pull on that one important piece, and sometimes it can be the loss of a parent or a significant other, then everything comes crashing. Yeah. There's a recurring theme in a week to week I'm picking up and a lot of it keeps coming back to take time. It's okay.

It's okay. Breathe. Breathe.

I love that idea. I heard someone speak this weekend who was talking about breath and how photosynthesis works even. We take in the air and when we exhale that's carbon dioxide, but then the plants turn that into some form of energy or sugar of some sort. I mean really God designed us in an incredible way, but we need breath.

Yes. And it's in that breath that we find life. And in this case the idea is when we take that breath, when we take a break and get some perspective. Adriana, I'm 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 this 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, a church, someone that you trust, or if you don't have a church home, call the Salvation Army.

Let them help you. And if nothing else, come on back and listen to us at Wonderful Words of Life. The 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 salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support. And we would love to hear from you. Email us at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org, call 1-800-229-9965, or write us at P.O.

Box 29972, Atlanta, Georgia, 30359. When you contact us, we'll send you our gift for this series. It's totally free for listeners like you, one per household while supplies last. You can also subscribe to our show on iTunes or your favorite podcast store and be sure to give us a rating. Just search for Wonderful Words of Life. Follow us on social media for the latest episodes, extended interviews, and more. And if you don't have a church home, we invite you to visit your local Salvation Army worship center. They'll be glad to see you. This is Bernie Dake inviting you to join us next time for the Salvation Army's Wonderful Words of Life. Music