What Happened to the Compassion in The Compassionate Friends?

The Compassionate Friends National office has grown from a grass roots kitchen table idea to a bureaucratic ego driven top heavy Non-Profit that is simply not sustainable in the new Millennium as it is run today.  The top will fall if the foundation cannot support it. It is falling. The real sustainable foundation of The Compassionate Friends was started over 50 years ago by a weary band of the broken hearted; beggars sharing bread at the kitchen table of broken dreams. 50 years ago, they created a dream, a good one and together they created what TCF has become today and all they said was; we need not walk alone.

So, what has changed in 50 years?  From 1969 to 2019? Too much to list right? We have cellular phones and the internet to problem solve for us 24/7/365. Who sits at the kitchen table anymore? There is more on-line chapter bereavement support websites, forums, groups, foundations, and chat rooms that bereaved can access easily and may find themselves gravitating to similar circumstance groups or groups with similar ideologies on faith, continuing connections, legacy building, and networking for survival etc.  Many chapters are experiencing less and less attendance every year, and some chapters closing with lack of new volunteers to replace existing leaders, and steering team members, some just plain tired, too old, or too busy to keep up with huge demands that it takes to run a successful chapter.

When chapter groups were formed it was akin to real live internet for grievers, a safety net with breathing human beings like AA or ALANON, a group who had each other on a regular basis and it had results, great results, people found sustainable healing by going to a place and feel embraced.  For some it was not accessible which was a problem which exists to this day. But now with the internet geographical logistics is not a problem and we don’t have to set up cold hard folding chairs in a drafty basement and tell our story every month; a crap shoot if I would be better or feel worse.  When you start looking for an excuse not to go it is time to reassess why you go.

When I worked at the Catholic church for almost 20 years, I saw the many devoted followers who attending mass every day. I saw the many who came every Sunday and every single Holy Day or holiday celebration/devotion. I saw the once- a -month Sunday mass goers who usually left the church walking back from communion, my dad called them pew warmers. Then there were the folks who my dad called the Chreasters who only attended mass on Christmas and Easter.

I have been with The Compassionate friends for almost as long and I see the same thing. We have the devoted followers who show up every meeting for years, every candle lighting, balloon release, special event or fund raiser, as well as every national conference since the child in their life died.  There are those who show up every couple of months or so and maybe some special events. There are those who only come just to the candle lighting every year. Many who go to just the Candle lighting and the National Conference only but do so religiously. People do what works for them, we have choices.

We are at a crossroads of sorts with The Compassionate Friends. We can no longer be effective with the old top-heavy model of a Non-Profit. The cost and use of a brick and mortar office building with paid salaries, benefits, BOD expenses and office operating close to 1.5 million a year is just not sustainable, it surely is not the best bang for our buck with that amount being close to the amount the TCF Foundation endowment provides to the national office every year.

Conferences are becoming less affordable as costs continuing to rise and passed on to attendees and what once was a fundraiser is barely breaking even to operate. It has gotten so large its intimidating to many newly bereaved. Too many work shop choices, early bereaved have difficulty with a restaurant menu much less 125 workshops to choose from. Less is more. Provide meaningful useful tools for all attendees. Welcome diversity with efficiency but not confusion and lugubrious attempts to hit all form of loss and social strata.  Provide more family mentoring for the younger siblings whose recognition is lost among the older siblings who are now young adults. I did not attend many sibling functions because of my presentations with parental loss.  It has grown so much I would suggest a separate conference just for teen and young adult sibs and a broader focus on the younger kids lost in the shuffle.

TCF has to accommodate to the times not just with the technology it brings, but a new strategy for serving our baby boomers and our millennials into the future or I fear all will be lost. We see it and feel it now. Give the control back to the membership at the local level. Use foundation money to supply programs, information and strategies for more local chapter control and regional conferences with large volunteer base. Reduce the size with two bi coastal annual events or every other year. The annual conference was the organizations biggest fundraiser, now it is lucky to break even, plus the trickle down cost increase to the attendees.

If we do not accommodate to the times, people will find help elsewhere, ultimately our goal is to provide help and healing, so that is okay wherever they find it.  I see TCF as a first responder and a catch and release program; be there in need, provide the tools, lend an ear and a comforting word and release them; they can choose to come back or bring the tools with them. Our biggest onus is to be available as a hostile for their soul not a permanent residence for their brokenness.

When in Amsterdam this February of 2019 I had what I call a click in my stargate, an epiphany drawn from immersion into something that pulls you in. Seeing the Van Gogh Museum as a portrait artist took me by surprise, seeing such transparency Vincent portrayed in his different self-portraits I could almost hear his story as I do when I stare into the faces of the bereaved, I hear their story not so much in words but from the countenance of their face and being in their space.

Secondly, I visited the Dutch Resistance Museum, dedicated to those Dutch Nationals and others who resisted the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands.  Over and over three words they were faced with every day was flashed before our eyes.  Comply, Collaborate, Resist.  Comply to get by, collaborate if you agree, resist if you do not.  Even the best of good-hearted people will do what they need to do to survive.  We do not know what we would have done if we were in their wooden shoes. They were forced by gunpoint to have to make a decision and not an easy one.

In our grief and in major life decisions we are faced with the same hard questions.  Comply by our level of tolerance, compromise, or fear.  Collaborate by our level of belief in a process that provides relief, or just comply from the fear of punishment/ridicule for non-collaboration. We can also resist to an unfair immoral mandate imposed by others.  Silence is not an option out; it is compliant. The only other choice is removal. Remove yourself or be removed if not compliant.  Taking the high road, the low road or the road less traveled we need to move forward, but we need not walk alone. You can crush one’s bones, crush one’s spirit, brain wash one’s mind, but our soul still makes the decision to comply, collaborate, resist or remove. We become our choice, shine by example or be swallowed by darkness.

My dear Compassionate Friends,

I feel I must make a public statement, not to would be collaboration.  The removal of Debbie Rambis from her position as Executive Director in the manner in which it was done is shameless, unprofessional and against everything that compassion represents.  Unless she embezzled funds or intentionally caused harm to someone, any issue could be resolved without sudden termination especially less than 6 months before the national conference.

Possibly what the BOD did was within their legal rights as a nonprofit in Illinois but certainly not how we would treat the bereaved morally.

Almost 20 years ago I discovered The Compassionate Friends; I was ten years old as a bereaved dad still discovering myself in this dark and scary world of the grief journey for my son. I wrote a book to help bereaved parents like myself and I applied to conduct a workshop to talk about hope. I was accepted and the rest is history, albeit a colorful one, it brought us to this day of reckoning I never could never have foreseen.

When I did my first workshop “A journey Through Grief” I spoke of a sign I received from my son with the word DAD on a cornstalk.  Workshop attendees were extremely animated in their response and the concept of a workshop on signs was born and I planned one for the next conference. I was turned down by the ED for 3 years running because of its “woo woo” nature.  We finally compromised on a title “Whispers of Love” but was admonished not speak of mediums or psychics and it opened the door for the topic of continuing connection to this day. The ED was Pat L and we were not the best of friends as I challenged her quite a bit, but I respected her role as ED. She too was removed from her position in a shameless manner.

A new management model was created when Pat was dethroned and a 50/50 leadership role was installed with a new Executive Director Alan P. as the friendly face of TCF and a newly created behind the scenes leadership role COO position with Lisa C.  Both were given salaries over $100,000 annually with the aid of five full time staff positions.

A new era that was created that did not last long nor did it work well or was it  cost effective and proved to be poor fiduciary responsibly of organizations funds and Lisa was canned.  Alan P. left the position a year or so later and Debbie R. was hired to clean up the mess. In doing so discovered much inefficiency that needed to be addressed and must have uncovered more than she bargained fore and was canned.

The Oakbrook office has been dysfunctional for many years and has not served its members with the services they need, want and require. BOD members come and go, Board Presidents come and go,  EDs are hired and fired.  Some RCs and chapter leaders are still in the trenches for over 20 years doing what they love and to honor the child in their life who died. They want to serve the bereaved regardless of the actions of a dysfunctional executive branch and will continue to do so while over a million dollars a year comes from the TCF foundation to support a failing model of leadership and the board games continue.

I have served TCF and its members faithfully for almost 20 years.  I was urged to be on the BOD for many years, and I finally agreed and was voted in. I went to my first BOD meeting which was at the conference and found out that not only was I supposed to do active fund raising but was expected to donate a large contribution every year as a board member and mandatory travel for quarterly meetings was expected.  I was willing to do that but when the existing BOD created a new policy that prevented me from taking any funds from any chapter while serving on the BOD I was forced to resign. I provide a service and accept donations for that service just as Alan P. has done for years even when he was ED he continued to do so.

Alan and I worked together closely during the years he was ED, I may have seen or heard too much which only validated more something was rotten in Denmark. BOD members had alliances and subversive agendas for control of the organization but lost sight of its inherent goal of puddle sitting with the broken hearted. For many reasons I will not elucidate here Alan and I no longer work together or will we in the future. We served thousands upon thousands of bereaved together and I have no regrets but I cannot collaborate where our hearts differ and we have moved on.

I have devoted every summer for over 17 years to attend National Conferences of TCF, BPUSA, TAPS and other grief organizations using all my vacation time from a full time job to do so, all at my own expense. My grandchildren are close to the age my son was when he died.  I will not miss out on any summertime activities with them, I am retired and living the dream to be the best grandpa I can be.

I will continue to reach out to the bereaved, travel to chapters if they want to bring me in to do a workshop and I will work with any organization that serves the bereaved as long as it can fit into the calendar of prioritized events with my family.

If TCF has helped you survive, please help them survive to continue to served the bereaved as they have for 50 years write to the BOD, contact your chapter leader, your RC , your friend you may know on the board and ask for full disclosure of the this shameful, irrational act that has hurt a family only 8 years out on their journey so badly they may  never recover.  I would hope they will issue a formal apology and get their act together to do the right thing for Debbie and her family and to save the conference from ruin. So many have planned to go, and many are backing out because off this debacle.  Contact the national office with your heart and words.  They need new board members, with elections soon, if you want to make a difference and want to be on the board, if you have the wherewith all to serve and can help the organization rise from its fall from grace please do so.  TCF is in trouble and the newly bereaved more confused than ever. It’s not too late. Silence is compliance.

Peace, love and light

Mitch Carmody

Kelly’s Dad

Much is gained, and much healing takes place when the bereaved gather together to compassion each other at a conference or group meeting. In the hundreds of workshops and thousands of individuals I have had to the honor to serve over the past 30 years I have seen folks companioning each other; grievers of all ages, with different demographics and different circumstances surrounding the death of their loved ones. The greatest healing phenomenon that I have discovered among those who grieve is the power of synergy that is created when companioning someone (listening) with an open heart. Synergy happens between to people who are fully engaged and a very real oscillation of energy takes place.

Aristotle described synergy best by saying “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. It is an algorithm for healing that we share, whether in conversation, in the arts, or in procreation, we can create something larger than ourselves than we ever could have done independently. When we share our story and share our life with another compassionate heart, synergy happens. Our brains are built with mirror neurons; we cannot help it; if we hear it, see it, feel it, dream it, think it, smell it, or taste it our brain experiences it. We are built for empathy, we are wired for compassion; it’s in our nature.

In our modern society of today, we tend to intellectualize and not actualize our grief. We often discount what our body, spirit, and soul are urging us to do to survive. We hope there is a pill we can take for it. We intellectualize our grief for a quick fix and ignore all the cues we are receiving from our body and spirit who are already processing the trauma stemming from the loss and know all too well there is no quick fix. We are built with all the neurological response resources we need to survive trauma; we heal from the inside out.

The most important psychosocial skill we have is being an active listener. To actively listen to others and be engaged, is to listen with our corporate brain located in the cerebellum. It is our supraphysical inner ear, and just as our physical inner ear does, it will strive to maintain balance. Unplug ego and simply listen to body, spirit and that wee voice within; nurture ways to become still and mono-focused; this calms intellect and fosters neuropathic listening skills for providing balance. Recognize that feeling your body experiences when it is in balance, foster the feeling, and use it to heal.

We without any effort or conscious thought maintain our balance, our blood pressure, our temperature, our heart rate and a million other things without direct thought. We are built to maintain equilibrium, hormonal balance, homeostasis; the yin/yang in action. Imbalance and friction consume energy; balance maintains energy efficiency and restores vital energies that are needed for survival.

With our intellect, we can research and we can provide the best possible means to assist our being in achieving overall balance or wholeness but yet not let it override the supraphysical inkles that we get from our higher (spiritual) and lower (physical) selves. We have choices, we have voices, and we have discernment. In being vulnerable in our decision making we can help build our resiliency in surviving loss; being vulnerable is the greatest act of courage one can experience.

If you feel stuck in your grief, seek a support group that works for you. If you cannot find a support group that works for you, reach out to a good friend and or family member; let them know you need more than a friend; you need a good listener. It does not matter how long it has been or for that matter who listens, as long as they are engaged. Seek counsel at church, civic groups; go to a counselor or seek a therapist. Read books, watch YouTube’s/ Netflix on loss, surf the web for forums and websites dedicated to serving the bereaved. Be good to yourself, find ways that work for you to mourn lament and process your loss.

Include if you can activities in your life that help creates joy in your heart. Be not afraid to celebrate life, yours and the living memory of your loved one. Climb a mountain, start a foundation, give blood, go for walk, forgive an old wound, volunteer time for a worthy cause. Change up vacations and holidays; create a new ritual of mourning, if only for a day or annually. Attend a national conference of The Compassionate Friends or the Bereaved Parents USA national gathering, a conference of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors of Military loss (TAPS), the TwinlessTwins conference, Alive Alone, SOS, POMC et al; look for retreats, seminars that represent similar losses. Grief does not have to be a lonely journey or a life unfinished; joy is our birthright, reclaim your joy and you reclaim your life.

With everything in our body, brain and spirit demanding equilibrium, we can find strength in yielding to its power to survive trauma and loss. Just as equally important in grief and maybe equally as challenging is accessing our vulnerability to experience joy. Joy neurologically excites our endocrine system to reduce pain levels and provides an analgesic calming effect on our body, mind, and spirit.  Be vulnerable to the pain to process your loss, be vulnerable to the joy and celebrate their life. Be Vulnerable to your direction. Be good to yourself.

Come on grief cruise with us, we are all in the same boat but we can choose our own direction. Own your grief; reclaim your Joy, reclaim your life.

In March of 2019, Proactive Grieving is going to sea with Journeys of Hope, Healing and Health presenting Proactive Grieving workshops on board as well 20 other fabulous presenters and light carriers with a focus on healing body, mind, soul, and spirit to empower resiliency and hope in grief.

For more information on this unique opportunity and to register to go to:  https://journeysofhopehealingandhealth.com/form/mitch-carmody

MC 11/16/18

Planes Trains and Automobiles to Planet Grief and Back

It has been 26 years since our son Kelly died, and what a ride it has been. He had just turned nine in 1987 and was actively dying of cancer with only a few short weeks to experience his life. In those last 8 months of his life, we flew to Disney world, Disney land, Denver, North Carolina, Hawaii, Mexico; we took the train to Chicago and a taxi to “Ripley’s Believe or Not Museum”. We drove to see Paul Bunyan, the Jolly Green Giant and the giant ball of twine. We cashed in our savings and did what Kelly wanted to do; we were proactively living and learning to proactively die at the same time and seemingly for the most part we did it in planes, trains, and automobiles.

Then the movie came out on the big screen and Kelly absolutely loved John Candy movies. Although very weak and frail, the day before he died we took him to see “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”. He laughed until it hurt, and despite the small doses of morphine -it did hurt; that was the last time I heard him laugh or smile.

Kelly’s sister Meagan was only six years old when she saw this movie and when her brother died. Today she is 33 years old and the mother of two girls ages four and seven. She is the same age I was when my child died and it’s impossible for her to conceive of this happening to her, yet she has witnessed it in us. We are bereaved parents and will always be bereaved parents as she will always be a bereaved sibling. She wanted to come with us to participate in the conference for the first time…and for us all to take the train to Chicago; the last time she was on this train was with her brother.

We made plans early, purchased train tickets to Chicago on the Empire Builder and we had good friends in Chicago who would drive us around when we got there. We would then catch a plane back on Sunday. It was our own Planes, Trains and Automobiles adventure, which it turned out to be. The evening before we were to depart we drove to our daughter’s house in Red Wing Minnesota. She lives only blocks from the small train depot where we would catch it in the morning. Later that evening checking my email I saw one from Amtrak stating that the train had been canceled and that they had made arrangements with their bussing service to provide us with an 8 hour bus ride to Chicago. We all screamed no way! There is no Bus in the title of the movie and busses make me car sick. We asked for a refund and I bought the last three flights on American Airlines to Chicago. I know Kelly is laughing his butt off, we should have known, that’s what the movie was about on the surface -a traveling fiasco. It was a hilarious movie but we also see someone (John Candy) who is grieving deeply for his loss but keeping it a dark secret and is the really the most important tenet of the movie.

In his role Steve Martin clearly had no idea about the man’s loss; he knows only that he is stuck with a very odd fellow who irritates him to no end. He tolerates him as many do with us in our grief, and we wear masks or practice avoidance to cover up our aching heart, becoming clever at faking it until we make it. The movie clearly shows how sometimes we as the bereaved relate to the world with unique survival strategies and the fortunate others seemingly have no clue to our inner pain. At the very end of the movie Steve Martin’s character starts reflecting in an almost whimsical way; not out of anger or irritation but with honest love and compassion; then and only then does he see the clues of the grief beneath the surface.

We all have those same mirror neurons that fire in our consciousness that makes compassion a physical reality and empathy a healing tool. It is the love that neutralizes the defense neurons and changes the neuro-pathways and our system is flooded with the hormone oxytocin. This is when our heart takes control and we feel that lump in our throat, our eyes mist up and our mind takes the back seat; we get it. When that happened to Steve Martin at the end of the movie on the city train in Chicago is what most would call an epiphany; a confirmed hormonal response that drives the need to do the right thing without regard to self (hero); changing both their lives in an instant when he responded to the revelation.

In many ways this is what happens at The National Conference of The Compassionate Friends it brings out the hero in us. We become heroes when we provide light in the darkness; we become heroes when we get it; we become heroes when we validate; we become heroes when we listen; we become heroes when we hold the elevator, we become heroes when we speak their loved ones name; so many opportunities to be a hero at the conference. When we save someone else we save ourselves, its hormonal we cannot help it.

So many come to the conference scared, apprehensive, even begrudgingly but the love and authenticity of so many attendees is almost overwhelming and it can be felt physically in many ways; it is palpable and very real. It can enervate you, as well as wipe you out. One must realize that with the group energy level of so many people and the extremes of hormonal and emotional responses it can be chaotic, unpredictable and even painful. Emotions will be all over the map, but we find unification and validation that we are not alone; we are not crazy, and we are not over it. We are doing the best we can to discover how to live with our loss and still have a meaningful life. Coming to a Compassionate Friends National conference can help us do that.

I want to conclude with an article below that I had penned following The Compassionate Friends National Conference held in Costa Mesa California in 2012.

                                            Traveling to Planet Grief and Back

I am continually amazed at the choreography of the dance that I experience at a TCF national conference and the huge impact is has on my body, mind and spirit when I walk off the dance floor and return home. From spending 3 or 4 days on “planet grief” we return home to the mundane realities of the real world and try to blend in with its preoccupied inhabitants who for the most part know nothing of our secret planet. They don’t wear buttons of a dead child pinned to their clothing; they don’t wear name tags around their neck identifying their loss, and for most part don’t wear butterfly clothing or shirts with a broken red heart.

When I return to work I get surprised looks from people who are caught off guard when I hug them good morning without thinking. I feel a deep separation anxiety for my fellow travelers to planet grief with its honest hugs, cathartic kisses, and deep seated dialogues. The heart I wore on my sleeve now feels vulnerable and exposed to the harsh elements of the daily routine and the machine of the workaday world. I am jonesing for my friends, my family of wounded survivors who succor my soul and I theirs in our dance of the broken hearted. In a word I feel “drifty” and lost for a few days; like getting your land legs back slowly after a week at sea I feel unsteady and unbalanced and I weep easily. I miss my family from planet grief and feel the impact of its loss for another year.

Today I am decompressing, degriefing so to speak, remembering and cherishing the magic moments of the weekend and thanking God for the privilege to be there and serve the bereaved with every quark of my being. I help to facilitate healing in the most sacred of places, the human heart and sou. I am always humbled and healed myself by the experience. Cost Mesa California with its oceans of love and mountains of memories was an incredible experience and I had a lot of quality time with my family of the heart. I met many newly bereaved and made new friendships wish I will cherish as much as the old.

We all come to planet grief from many different worlds. Worlds of all kinds; a plethora of differences in race, age, religion, occupation, economic class, intellect and political views, yet we congregate as one family and find a common ground in compassion; finding common ground in love. It is in helping to heal that we are healed ourselves, like one beggar sharing his bread with another beggar both are sustained for another day.

On the walk a few years ago held in Washington D.C. it was revealed to us that TCF had to register our Sunday TCF walk as a protest if we were to walk as a group on the streets of our nation’s capital. First I was surprised and then I thought about it…and you know that’s quite alright -we are protestors. We have our signs, our banners, our bibs, our T-shirts, our name tags and buttons. We all arrived from a network of paths and losses as varied as the stars and together on common ground we protest society’s ignorance of our forever journey and the injustice to our hearts.

Together we are changing the world views of grief and loss. We are educating the fortunate others of our journey and how we survive. We are intentional survivors who are working on our grief proactively, living our loss, not letting go, not get over, not becoming bitter, but becoming better and turning loss to legacy and honoring of loved one.

God bless you all and until we meet again…like Brigadoon “planet grief” appears for a few days in the summer and for a short time we find the camaraderie of hope, hugs and heart to sustain us for another year.

Peace, love and light
Mitch Carmody