Stuff You Should Know About Therapy

The world is slowly beginning to open again, and some of us will be returning to old patterns in bits and pieces. Change is always hard, even if it is the change that you were hoping for. Some of us are beginning to face the realities of our new situations, economic or otherwise, and I want to remind everyone to process and feel. Don’t brush past your emotions, because they always find a way out.

Today we are going to dive into coping skills, and how they help us in the short term and in the long term. Both methods have their place in our lives, and the key to overcoming grief is knowing how and when to use each of them. Ultimately, as we will see, having a long-term mindset when it comes to grief, along with almost anything in life, is the fastest way to recovery.

I want to do a more practical overview of the 5 stages of grief, as they are commonly understood, so that we can have a better grasp of what to expect as grief unfolds. While not all stages will always manifest (sometimes quickly or subconsciously), it can be a good tool and guide to understanding how you or your loved ones are unfolding in their reactions to trauma.

Grief is the experience of loss. A lot of times when we think of grief, we think of the loss of a loved one. While that is common, and a lot of us might be dealing with that very thing, it can also be the loss of a job, a role in life, a time in our lives (like college) or anything that comes to an end. Since everything in life comes to an end, grief is an inescapable part of life.

Our focus for today, which is coping. As fear and panic melt into monotony and new routines, it is important that we set ourselves up to deal with more subtle versions of stress; such as household tension, boredom, loneliness, guilt, and even being triggered into depression, or having our depression worsen. There are tested and proven ways to help us avoid the worst of these more negative feelings, and I want to talk about some of them and how to most easily incorporate them into our lives.

A lot of the country has been asked to stay indoors and to practice social distancing and there is a lot of uncertainty. I hope this podcast can service as a voice in the dark or just comforting sense of normalcy during all of this. Today we're going to be talking about collective trauma. It's a unique time, a historic time, in which we're all experiencing the same disruption. I want to talk about how every tragedy is an opportunity for beauty and strength. Collective trauma gives us an especially clear opportunity to handle the trauma, not only for our own sake, but for the sake those we love and everyone we associate with. We can choose to focus on things we can control, we can see this as a reminder of the inherent uncertainty of life, and we can see it as an opportunity to step up and be strong for those who may be struggling.

I want to dive more into stress and how we all have stress in our lives. Stress isn’t something to get rid of or be angry at; in fact, that will only tighten its hold on your life. The purpose of stress for all of us is to keep us away from danger and make sure that we are safe. It comes out differently for everyone, and learning to recognize the way it manifests in you can be the different between suffering from too much stress, or letting an occasional bout of stress inform you. Let’s talk about the difference.

I want to talk about how to deal with trauma when it comes to sharing it with other people. I will discuss what the differences between empathy and sympathy are, what it takes to share with others--trust and courage--and how that relates to understanding, but not necessarily agreeing. It’s not about fixing people, or having others try to fix us, rather it’s about having someone be there and be present as we work through these things on our own. Some of the greatest healing can happen almost on its own in the calm presence of a good listener.

Today I want to talk about things that can trigger our stress and what we can do to recognize it, and how to deal with it. Often our stress triggers go totally unnoticed, and being mindful of them is the first and biggest step in making sure that stress does not dominate our days and lives.

I'd like to talk this week about healthy ways to cope with and work through our trauma. As I mentioned last week everyone experiences trauma differently, so naturally, everyone heals differently. Because of this, there is no one right way to heal from and overcome trauma. Rather, what is important is that we do heal.