Step out of the Dark, Step into the Light; Proactive Grieving

Being born a twin or multiple is a unique experience not afforded most of the population. Although it has been on the rise for the last 30 years, it still only represents 3% of live births in the nation. I was born a twin with my twin sister in 1955 the last of 7 children that my mother gave birth to. I was born a twin, that is all I knew. I was born with a buddy; a relationship I took for granted; I had no idea no one else shared this wondrous kinship which was our world. That is until she died and I was untwinned. As in the lyrics from the old Joni Mitchell song Big Yellow Taxi :…you don’t know what you have till it gone…

On March 23rd of 1984, eleven days after my twin sister Sandy and I celebrated our 29th birthday together; she and her two boys were killed in a terrible auto accident. She left behind a very distraught husband and a set of thirteen-month-old boy/girl twins. This event took the whole family by shock;  We had three caskets in front of the altar. I was devastated and could barely breathe. A short time later my 9 year old son is diagnosed with terminal cancer; I had to breathe; I had to put the grief for my twin and her boys on the back shelf…where it stayed for a long, long, time.

My son Kelly died in 1987 after two years of fighting cancer; it won. I was exhausted and on grief overload and I retreated from the world. Lost for awhile lost in excessive work and alcohol I functioned at a base level. A level where there is no joy, no zest, no initiative, no anticipation, just getting done what had to be done. Apathy ruled the day;tears ruled the night. The alarm clock my nemesis. I was not alright.

Eventually I found my path out the darkness of nights and  processed the grief for my son proactively and shared it with the world publically with a book about our journey. Published in 2002 it propelled me into a world of grief and loss I was unaware even existed. I eventually became a national speaker on grief and loss, presenting Proactive Grieving seminars in almost every major US city with for grief support groups, non profits and foundations.

In 2015 I was asked to speak at the Twinless Twins National conference held in Nashville. This was 30 years following the Death of my twin sister. Most of my presentations in those years were with bereaved parents, as my sisters loss was overshadowed by my son’s loss. My grief for my sister was still on the back shelf. Not forgotten; not denied; but postponed, and delayed. Imprisoned by survival in a purgatory of forgotten dreams and nightmares my grief was filed deeply away in the amygdala of my brain…waiting.

I keynoted about my twin, our life, her death, my life before, my life after, my life today, my hopes for tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shift Happens, a New Normal?

 

I find it fascinating how many new terms, words, phrases that label or identify social constructs/ behaviors that are created every day, phrases that go viral and become mainstream. Viral a word gone viral in and of itself. Right?  You don’t say! See ya, Eh, LOL, OMG, drain the swamp, bless your heart, get out of Dodge, brown nose, red neck, avatar, tree hugger, freel, woke etc., memes/emojis/emoticons,  images as well as created portmanteaus like brunch (breakfast/lunch) Brexit (Britain/Exit);  words blending the sounds and combining the meanings. This happens worldwide but some phrases may be endemic to a geographic area and/or specific to an activity, emotion or defined issue. But all are created shorthand; communication gone viral; good or bad its contemporary vernacular that delivers a message.

Many phrases eventually fall out of use, or change meaning as many words do. Gay was once just happy, queer was odd, just as many other slang, derogatory, and racist terms were created changing the etymology of the word forever. We find that with the internet many of these catch phrases, created labels, and words cross over to another group’s lexicon of terms and becomes part of their vernacular expression.

When one is thrust into the grief journey, most are unprepared for powerful life altering event it can be. When we lose someone we love, especially an out of sequence death it changes our perspective, our world view changes. We are born again into a whole new world, scary and uncharted and many have applied the phrase “the new normal” to describe the grief journey.  I have never liked the word normal as an adjective to describe human behaviors; normal is a setting on a dryer. There is nothing normal about losing a child at any age. It is an out of sequence death where true comprehension of the loss becomes surreal. When negotiating day to day realities we may feel like we are in a fog, a time warp, or bubble of confusing duplicitous perceptions. This cocoon of protection that insulates us from the overwhelming horror of the reality is autonomic and biologic; it lasts as long as it lasts which is different for everyone.

The “New Normal” is a pithy aphorism originated as a term in business and economics that refers to financial conditions following the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and the aftermath of the 2008–2012 global recession. The term has since been used in a variety of other contexts to imply that something which was previously abnormal has become commonplace.  Soon thereafter I saw it applied to grievers and it socially went viral in the grief community and the horse was out of the barn.

In my 30 years of working with the bereaved I have seen the language of grief and loss change in many ways as grievers try to articulate the depth and breadth of their soul wounds. During that period of time I have seen new words created, old words negated, and many words deleted from conversational use.

People are becoming more cognizant of the power of words that can help to heal or ones that can haplessly hurt or are disrespectful.  We innately can respond in a different manner and more compassionate manner, but it takes practice. For example, in response to someone who has taken their own life I previously have said that they had committed suicide. I soon although realized how hurtful that can be to family survivors, as it layers their loved one’s act of desperation with a penumbra a shame, which only perpetuates the stigma surrounding death by suicide.  I started to say “completed suicide” instead because my lips still wanted to say committed but I could easily turn committed into completed. However, I changed my vernacular again to relay just the facts. Died by suicide. Died from heart failure. Died from cancer, auto accident, overdose, murder i.e. just the facts, no judgement, no labels, no shame or stigma attached.  Fortunately, I have seen this changing but not fast enough.

Finding closure. God help us why this deplorable aphorism is still used mainstream. We close a casket; we don’t find closure with their life or their death. We don’t say “we had a child who died, their name was”. We say “our child died their name is “not was. Keeping them in the present tense is part of proactive grieving; they can still co-exist in our lives and in our conversations with others. Our children die a second time when no one speaks their name.

We don’t move on, we move forward; we don’t deny, we postpone; we don’t get over, we transmogrify; we don’t put it behind us, we walk with it; we don’t get on with our life, we explore our new landscape. We recognize that shift happens; a shift of seismic proportions has happened in our life. Recognizing that a permanent shift has occurred, and that life will never be the same empowers forward movement and healing. Grief is a lifelong journey to take as it comes, day by day; if we look too much in the rear view window, we may miss the signs on the road. The road forward has choices with many directions and being present is critical; being retrospective creates wisdom; be hopeful creates intention; being aware creates trust; trust the journey.

Peace love n light
Mitch Carmody

 

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. “                    -Viktor Frankl

In grieving the loss of a loved one, often many things are spoken that are reactionary, spouted most often by rote and not by reason. People may say “I am sorry” for nothing they had any real control over, as in someone else’s loss. We tend to recite some embedded aphorism in a weak attempt to provide consolation to the inconsolable or we throw out a religious quote or two that is expected to provide some modicum of comfort. Most do not. In grief we often find that so many things that we took for granted are completely back-assward. We are thrust into an unknown multi-dimensional world of chaos accompanied by very real but often non-recognizable neuropathic responses beyond our conscious awareness.

Our foray into madness is fueled by the body’s own autonomic reaction to survive and we find that we are at war with our intellect. In a vain attempt to restore order to a system undone and attempt to make a reality out of surrealality we find we are caught in the web of cognitive dissonance; believe/deny? revenge/reconcile? comply/retaliate ? hyperventilate/hibernate ? flight or fight/rest and digest ? anger/apathy ? compassion/collaboration? defensive/defeated? self-care/or self-absorbed? running from/running with? On and on ad nauseum…our psyche is traumatized. How is it possible to forgive and forget? How does one move beyond the hatred and the horror and forgive? With the intensity and sustainability of these emotions, is it even possible? In the case of death from murder and assault this is never more evident. Can we forgive and forget?

Your child goes to school one day, never to return, shot in the head point blank while coloring in her Dora the Explorer coloring book at her kindergarten desk.   A madman shooter ended her life and forever changed her circle of influence.

A terrorist sets a backpack down in a crowd of people, it explodes, and shrapnel sheers the head from your husband’s body, you wake up from a coma a month later and hear both your children are dead.

Following his testimony on clergy abuse for several priests who had sexually abused him as a young boy, this 42-year-old father of two hangs himself in a cheap motel.

Almost 3,000 people died on 9/11 in 2001, just as many orphans left behind. Almost 20 years later the number of 9/11 fallout exposure related deaths of first-responders, firefighters, residents and clean-up workers/volunteers has exceeded that number.

You husband is a Rabbi and is convicted by a group of nefarious zealots for being a Jew and shot to death in the synagogue with other worshipers that were attending service. Your brother was dragged behind a truck and lynched by a mob for smiling at a white woman. Your son is innocently shot in the front yard by a zealous police officer.

Four students on their way to prom killed are instantly killed by a 3-time convicted drunk driver who survived. Bullied for years for being gay your best friend is beaten to death in the school locker room.

Your 9-year-old son never comes home; his bike haplessly left on the side of road, never to be heard of again. Almost 30 years later his body is found, the sexual predator/murderer is forensically tracked down, found and convicted.

Forgive and Forget?

Yeah right. That’s really going to fly.

Almost everywhere in the world linguistically two negatives equal a positive but nowhere in the world does a double positive equal a negative until recently. “Yeah Right” is a double positive.   Yeah right as used here means… highly unlikely. Forgive and forget in many cases is highly unlikely. For one thing neurologically it is impossible to forget especially when you add your own modifier to it as “this is something I need to forget” as it is compartmentalized and placed in a safe spot within the brain for use as a selective quantifier for future survival needs.

Nothing is forgotten. We may lose the keys, our password and cannot gain access but nothing we have experienced is ever forgotten.  We have unlimited storage like RAM on a supercomputer, but we may have emotionally shitty software; our brain is a junk drawer; many things get lost…but not truly forgotten.

It’s easy to say the words “Forgive and Forget” without realizing how ridiculous it really sounds.  It comes out more like goodnight and God bless.  Read the first few paragraphs again and say you could say “I forgive you, and I will forget this ever happened”. This is singularly the biggest crock to come down the pike since the Flat Earth Society was born. It has been propagated, nurtured, promulgated and blindly espoused to since God was a small child. This is pure gastric emulsion of a very large bovine. This is not even a religious construct or unsolicited propaganda, but an autonomic by rote neuropathic response we say from the brain wrinkles that were created our whole life. Forgive, and forget. What does that really mean? Why do we say it?

We have already determined that with our brain it is impossible to forget, granted it can almost be impossible to retrieve much of that data. For example, trying to remember our own birth experience or someone’s phone number from grade school, we cannot recall it, but does not mean the information is not on file. This may happen as well in trauma, and incidences that are emotionally charged with graphic horrific visual/visceral data. Dependent on an individual’s age, physical wounds, resiliency skills, their intellectual ability, their experiential comprehension, and trauma response/ training preparation these memories are stored in different areas of the brain.

We don’t forget it, we de-energize it and put it on a shelf until we can address and process. In cases of heavy trauma and extreme pain the memories of often covered with a veil of forgetfulness. We can remember having a horrific toothache but not the actual intensity of the “just please let me die pain” that we were experiencing. We have trauma receptors to negotiate and store painful memories.

Now let’s move on to the biggest misnomer the verb “Forgive”:    for·give    /fərˈɡiv/

Verb: stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake.

Again, please read the first few paragraphs and say you have stopped feeling resentful towards evil doers. They deserve our anger, they hurt us forever and changed our lives. We are a victim. Let them absorb our anger, let them carry it, it’s not gone, give it up to them to carry. We did not choose to become a victim, it chose us. We become either a victim who is a survivor, or a victim who is a casualty. We will always be a victim when a someone takes our loved one’s life or has assaulted ours. What we do with that victimization is our choice; how we store the trauma is not. It’s a synaptic algorithm based on our personal experiences.

As a victim of a horrible crime, how do we forgive those who assaulted us? In many cases the perpetrator has died with his victims, do we offer them a posthumous reconciliation? Do we pray for their soul’s salvation?   I don’t think so.  For the most part we hope they rot in hell.  A clerical quote states “To err is human to forgive is divine”.  Dahhh.  That is so right on. It is not our job to offer forgiveness for their diabolical acts. That is relegated to a divine responsibility. Our propensity is to err, we are human. People make mistakes easily and most reconcile them. Some humans have no conscious, feel no remorse and will recidivate. Do they deserve forgiveness?

Forgiveness is not meant for assholes, rapists and murderers but is reserved for when someone inadvertently steps on your toes, hurts your feelings or tells a white lie.  Do we let someone off the hook who blatantly took the life of our loved one?

Forgiveness is very complicated; complicated as we are. Language is complicated, words have the power to adequately define and differentiate a feeling or interpretation of events. Forgiveness is a double entendre with two different meanings. One is bestowed by a higher power (on this earth or off earth) known as Charizomai which cancels all debts, wipes the slate clean. This is akin to filing chapter 13 in finances where all debts are forgiven through the power of grace, i.e. a grace period or debt forgiven.  The other is Aphiemi or liberation, a release from bondage, to give up, let go, let free, release its hold. This is where human choice comes in when discerning if or when to provide forgiveness to another human being.

In this case it’s not providing absolution from a victim’s standpoint, as much as it is to release the victim from the clutch of hatred that may keep a victim tethered to the past. It is not forgiveness as much as finding resolution that there is no possible vindication for our loss. Nothing will make it right. Active loathing will destroy us, and we become collateral damage.

We reserve the right not to provide grace and absolution but merely to compartmentalize its angst and anxiety for safe keeping. I am not saying we must bury and fetter our emotions/memories deep within our psyche but conversely to process them fully. To experience, legitimately label, file, and allow them to be stored in areas of the brain to provide us with liberation from the all-consuming hatred, but not necessarily provide forgiveness.

I respect, love and have faith in a higher power, a divinity beyond my comprehension who I know exists because I do. We can forgive others for being ignorant, medicated, stupid, angry, impetuous, mean, greedy, evil, on and on ad infinitum for our own liberation but not for their absolution. That is a job for a higher power, on terra firma or a celestial judge. We have a choice to provide forgiveness or not. You are not a bad person for not forgiving evil and forgiving evil does not make you divine. We have no control over an evil doer’s soul, only our own.

Why is it we are urged to forgive and forget or that we the assume role either as victim or martyr? If we are assaulted, we don’t have to play victim here, we have been victimized, we don’t play martyr, we have been hurt, we suffer. We recognize not pathologize that a shift happens; we remember, we do not forget. We release, but not necessarily provide forgiveness. We rally, or we wither. We are resilient by nature and can rally.  Be your nature. Survival is innate, to thrive is a choice. Experience is our only teacher; living is learning. Ignorance is also a choice; choice is our destiny.

Forgive and Forget? Forgetting is impossible; Forgiveness a choice.

In the case of assault, victim and martyr are both human conditions as a result of malaise and evil intent. This is not a role one takes on; we have been victimized and we suffer.

Post-Traumatic Stress or Post -Traumatic Growth?  Both are possible.

Shift happens regardless.

Peace, love n light

Mitch  Carmody

 

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