Creating Healing Connection Vulnerability

[Music]

sometimes you have to sit in the mud

at times alone and at times together

i’m going to recite part of an essay a

grieving teen wrote

while the content is unique to this kid

the feelings are not

the alarm sounded at 7 30 am sharp

and my mother and i got up eager for the

days beginning

while getting ready to take a shower the

doorbell rang

and my mother went downstairs with my

aunt and uncle to see who was calling at

such an early hour

silence overtook the house then shrieks

and cries that sent shivers down my

spine

slowly i crept down the hall i heard sob

after sob

what was happening i was dazed

people huddled around each other my

stomach tightened

my father held my mother my brother rick

grasped my father why were they here

my aunt and uncle sat in the corner

tears ran down their eyes

yet they were silent their silence

rampaged in my heart

jeffrey was gone her poor baby her poor

helpless baby

he was a liar i knew my father was a

liar

he said it was true he was sorry

but he couldn’t find his baby he

disappeared

his brother just vanished my heart ached

how could it be true it was true

he said it was true i wished it weren’t

it hurt it really hurt i just wanted to

scream and hit my father

and he told until he told me the truth

i stopped crying i stopped shouting

my body stopped shaking i swallowed a

huge bubble

it encompassed my entire being my

breathing slowed

my body went numb i entered the world

that would now become my own

so this is an excerpt taken from my

college essay

that i wrote when i was a senior in high

school

it was in response to the quote hope is

the will to struggle against obstacles

even when they appear insuperable

this is what i remember about my brother

jeff’s death

my body holds those memories forever

imprinted in my heart

even though my cognitive memories from

that time in my life are very few

funny i can’t remember what i did

yesterday

but i remember every detail of that

tragic day

i was 13 when jeff died i was told that

i needed to be strong for my parents

but i didn’t know how i was an introvert

by nature

i put a lot of pressure on myself to do

well in school and

not make trouble at home like most

bereaved kids

i didn’t want to make anyone around me

family or friends

uncomfortable with my grief or add to

theirs especially my parents

i felt like my grief wasn’t as important

because i was just a kid

my poor parents had lost their son my

brother lost his best friend

sure jeff loved me but i was just the

little sister

my grief was nothing compared to theirs

that was how my story played in my head

obviously unconsciously i tried to stuff

down those feelings

but like all feelings when they get

bigger than us

they control us rather than us them

my family and friends often make fun of

me because i once tried explaining that

a coach for my son’s

team got really angry and got himself

kicked out of the game

because his feelings got bigger than him

and my friend kate started laughing and

said

you mean he lost his yep

our feelings are really powerful and

that impacts our behavior

because i took on the role of good girl

in my family who seemingly kept it all

together

i worked really hard to close off my

pain and confusion

and i tried to safely tuck it away alone

you see that’s the key word alone

as human beings we’re not wired to live

or experience life alone

we’re wired to live in relation to

others there’s a tremendous amount of

research

social behavioral and neurobiological

studies

that supports the importance of human

connection to facilitate well-being

so it’s no surprise that it leaked out

my pain leaked out

and it’s no surprise that it happened in

my teens and early twenties

bulimia and depression it needed to come

out

those were dark years for me but

thankfully my close friends recognized

it

and a dear friend had the strength and

courage to stand outside my door

and say that either i had to go tell my

mom or she would

that was the beginning of my next

chapter

years of therapy and creating a new

narrative

opening myself to vulnerability by

sharing myself more openly

something very powerful happened in one

session

i realized that my family i

was still whole just different

after becoming a social worker i spent

the next 20 years building programs that

foster resiliency

empower kids and families to sit in the

mud together

to know that while each of their

experiences are unique

even if they both experience the same

death of a parent or sibling

their grief is their own because their

relationship was their own

and at the same time being with others

who truly get it

allows them to feel less alone and

normalizes their feelings

together they can challenge their

natural and developmentally appropriate

beliefs

of feeling like the only one in the

world who gets it

i believe that the sense of being alone

in your pain whatever that pain stems

from

is one’s greatest health risk factor

emotionally and physically

i think the way to preventatively combat

vulnerability

is through human connections

vulnerability is often perceived as a

bad

thing i believe that it’s necessary to

thrive

through shared vulnerability we connect

and when we connect

we’re not alone jeff’s place is

committed to being a voice for the

prevalence and need for similar

prevention programs

i spent the last 10 years developing the

inventory of youth adaptation to loss

a strength-based resiliency-focused

outcome measure

to understand the feelings and social

supports experienced by bereaved youth

to develop an evidence base for

bereavement interventions

our hope is that the inventory will

highlight the need

to better address the overall well-being

of grieving youth

and to impact public policy change so

that prevention programs like jeff’s

place

are sustainable one out of 15 kids in

massachusetts will experience the death

of a parent or sibling before the age of

nationally one in 14 kids or 5.2 million

will experience that death based on the

2020

childhood bereavement estimation model

results

by age 25 that number more than doubled

to

13.2 million these kids are at risk for

negative health outcomes

including traumatic grief substance

abuse

lower self-esteem dropping out of school

and making unhealthy choices

and at a higher risk for mental health

disorders such as depression and anxiety

childhood bereavement is a major health

issue that matters

and it impacts all of us there are a lot

of grieving kids

and adults too who need support

and coping strategies to recognize the

grief

and growth factors related to loss

grief theory has evolved from early

psychodynamic and attachment theorists

who focused on grief in terms of

pathology within the individual

to more contemporary theories such as

the conceptual frameworks we ascribed to

at jeff’s place

strobe and shu introduced the dual

process model of adaptive coping with

bereavement

as a way to understand the differences

between what they term two stressors

loss oriented such as focusing on the

deceased and death events

and restoration oriented such as

learning new skills to adapt to the loss

their underlying belief is that

oscillation between both

is needed for healthy adaptation in

coping with bereavement

dpm marked a huge theoretical shift in

bereavement theory

by moving away from solely thinking

about the lost experience

and incorporating restoration-oriented

thoughts and activities

as part of the grief process while the

popular stage theory presented by dr

elizabeth kubler-ross

has become the pop culture way of

knowing about the grief process in the

united states

contemporary theorists predominantly

recognize

that grief is not linear or task

restricted

but rather healthy grieving is seen as

internalizing the loss and maintaining a

connection

i’ll be at a different one while the

death of my brother shaped every aspect

of my personal and professional

trajectory

it’s never defined me it took me many

decades to recognize

that we all have stories of pain none of

us are free from loss

we all experience the myriad of human

emotions

the joys fears heartache and hope

true change i believe comes from looking

within

and connecting with our innermost selves

as well as risking

our insecurities and trusting others to

accompany us

trust empowers us to be vulnerable and

connect

both with ourselves and with others

this fosters gratitude and i believe

transformation

i know sounds easy right i’m sorry to

tell you

it’s not one and done we sometimes have

this belief

that if we want change or something

badly enough

we’ll somehow just get it and if we get

it once

we’ll always get it believe me i’ve

tried this for example

last spring i gave up caffeine i was so

proud of myself

but more than satisfying my ego i

actually felt better

my stomach aches were gone i had more

energy than ever before

and i slept well for the first time in

ages

one night recently i didn’t sleep well

so i had tea in the afternoon

it tasted so good can i tell you i was

shocked the next day

that i had slept fitfully and i woke up

feeling exhausted and dragged much of

the day

now i’m fully aware that my body and

mind

don’t mix well with caffeine yet i made

the choice to drink the tea

the key is choice

and being mindful that i we are always

in choice

our belief systems create our life

narratives which in turn

shape our actions only if we choose to

alter the story

can we do so authentically and in a

lasting way

it’s freaking hard every

single day this is a lifelong practice

but the good news is that the more you

practice

the more habit forming it becomes these

programs that i’ve had the privilege to

help build

are simply models of how we can thrive

when we sit in the mud together

sometimes we need to sit reflectively in

the mud by ourselves

sometimes together but we need to sit in

the mud

we need to feel its thickness the weight

of it as we trudge through it

and we need to get dirty who can sit in

the mud with you

if you don’t have anyone i promise you

there are others who will sit with you

use your community resources find a

group or a therapist

or ask your doctor or a healthcare

professional your clergy

a colleague or a friend sitting in the

mud

sucks and at the same time

it’s the greatest gift i continue to

give myself that i never seem to fully

master

my relationship with grief healing and

vulnerability

has evolved since jeff’s death and it’s

brought meaningful connections

personally and professionally all of

these experiences

have enabled me to clarify my vision

that we

create healing through connection and

vulnerability

thank you for inviting me to share some

of my story

please come sit in the mud

you