GriefShare Support Group

<<<Sidenote First>>>...The night before the support group meeting Jen appeared in my dreams again.  We were back at high school age.  I sat down with her at a lunch table, but it felt like we hadn't 'officially' met yet.  Awkward stares and moments of silence.  I started to talk and then she was standing, staring, concerned.  It had a feeling like, "How dare you talk to me, you don't know me."  Well, maybe not that harsh, but definitely a guarded body language.  I began again, almost in a pleading fashion, but do not recall the exact words...or any words for that matter.  Not sure if I was asking for her to return, asking for forgiveness over 'yelling' at her and saying I was done with the spirit-hijinx, or trying to get out the elusive message that has bothered me for so long.

Additionally, I have started reading the book Radical Forgiveness.  It is a strange way of reframing the issue with the deceased (in my specific case).  Strange in that it is not forgiveness so much as viewing the hurt through a different set of assumptions.  I have just started, so I need to complete the book to fully work the process, but at a high level, we (our souls) all begin as energy, one with God, and connected.  We come to Earth in human form to experience the pain of being separated from God and the collective, and to learn a (pre-determined) set of lessons.  We sign up for the specific and individual experience.  We develop an (or possibly many) assumption from an early experience, likely our lesson that we signed up for, and usually an incorrect conclusion based on flawed assumptions that we developed.  Patterns of hurt continue to repeat in various ways until we work through the flawed assumption.  Other souls are tuned into our soul needs and even provide the hurts and situations we need to correct and learn our lesson.  So we are not actually looking to learn to forgive these souls, but rather to thank them for pushing us to find the solutions that we are here to learn and experience.  At least that is what I think that I have read so far.

So I need to figure out my hurt and the incorrect assumptions that have lead me to keep embracing them and encountering them and then I can see how Jen's accident contributed to the lesson that I need to learn.  Hopefully, later chapters help to identify the underlying bad assumption and hurt.  The ideas that I have bouncing around in my head include, "I matter/My needs matter/I am important enough (at least to the collective)", something around feeling Lost or Destabilized, and/or "I am allowed to be happy", or ???

It is an interesting way to reframe the situation(s), and has lightened my spirits, so I feel it is going in a positive path forward.

Now back to the regularly scheduled program...I went to my first support group meeting, GriefShare.  Upon introducing myself, I only mentioned Jen's death, as that is the one that I keep reliving.  Most others were sharing a multitude of tragedies, so I did feel blessed in a way that waves of death and grief are not my derailment scenario.  The format is one of a video lesson compiled by experts and peppered with first hand accounts of the grief journey, followed by a sharing of reactions and experiences to what we were just exposed to.  It has only been one meeting (of 12 or 13 weeks), but I think the format works and I am very much willing to continue down the path.  There were a few interesting nuggets in video that will warrant further exploration.

• The experience of being numb right after and not recalling much in the first days (even to the point of someone on the video wishing that they had videotaped the funeral).
• That grief is a consequence of Love - where more Love means more hurt upon death.

And while not necessarily called out in specifics, I wanted to dive into more of the notion of

• How to rebuild or recreate relationships and the feeling of connection lost when these important people in our lives are ripped away from us.

I missed the next meeting and got back on track for the third session.  This one went a little sideways...The volunteer leader was not there (out from a surgery) and the group was left to her second in command.  A combination of maybe not explaining myself well in my comments within the group (trying to share that each journey is unique) and this second in command liking to talk, I didn't feel like I was allowed to feel the way I do or the actions that I have taken need to change.  Seemed contrary to the video message and all of the experts' opinions.  This may be one of the downsides to volunteer led groups, someone with a therapy background and experience may be needed to fully realize the benefits of this type of group therapy.  Perhaps I am being too sensitive and need to hear these critiques...I just left feeling, not angry, but disrupted.

I'll give it a couple more weeks before pulling the rip cord and we will see.

Read more...

The Art of Racing in the Rain • Garth Stein

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein is the first of two books that I very recently finished, but before the 50 in 2012 project began.  I finished the book recent enough and I liked it enough that I wanted to include a write-up, but it will not count as one of the 50.

The Art of Racing in the Rain caught my eye initially through a newsletter or recommendation on PaperbackSwap.com.  The story is told by Enzo, the faithful and loving, but very old, dog of a semi-professional race car driver.  Like I said Enzo is old and is very close to dying, but this is okay to him as he fully believes that a dog’s next step in the living cycle is to come back as a man, and Enzo desperately longs for thumbs.  He is convinced of this return to the world as a human from documentaries that he watches through the day when his master is at work.

So Enzo narrates the story of his master’s life, Denny, that he has had the privilege to experience.  It is a gut-wrenching story of Denny’s wife getting sick and ultimately dying, of Denny having his only daughter stripped from him by his (possibly well-meaning, but very manipulative) parents-in-law.  The fight to recapture and rebuild what he can of his family, all while juggling work and his other love, racing.   Intermixed though the story are tales of racing, Denny and Enzo’s many hours spent watch racing videos (both of Denny and of professional races), Denny’s wisdom in racing situations and how that same wisdom can translate into real-life situations so easily and appropriately.

This book really hooked me in with so many connections.  The love of dogs, as a father of kids about the same age as Zoë, Denny’s daughter, and the racing wisdom really spoke to an inner me.  I have raced cars, and while a back condition has kept me from the track for several years now, I still hold on to the possibility that I can climb back into my Formula Ford soon.  Garth Stein’s ability to take these track sayings, sayings that I used to hear or even use, and cast them over life itself was remarkable.  I feel that I learned about myself, how my mind operates, through the experiences, example, and thoughts of Denny.  For an author, that I am presuming does not have racing experience, to weave that world into the book in a way that I learn about myself…gifted writing.

Sayings like “No race has even been won in the first corner – but plenty of races have been lost there.”  Showing how being aggressive, launching hard (even showing off) early, or being so wrapped up in the excitement of the start of the event, can yield disastrous results, especially in an endurance race.  Or “Your car goes where your eyes go.”  A truism that is translated to life several times by both Enzo and Denny as, “That which we manifest is before us.”  Even talking about the selfishness of a racer and then seeing those same examples in me.  These are connections that the non-racer may not be as impacted by, and as such, may not have the same love and respect of this story as I have.  I would be interested in other’s thoughts as they read these in the book and if you experience similar understanding or impact.

The other reason that I like this book so much was how Garth Stein was able to take a situation like a dog dying (served up to us on page 2), and then get the reader so wrapped up in the story that when Enzo does actually die, it feels shocking!  It is a tear-jerker that you forget about as you are reading and when it does finally happen, the author is still able to draw out that much emotion from the reader.

When I was reading this book, I immediately wanted to give it to my father.  He had done some racing of various kinds in the past (and with me), and I thought that he would connect in a similar way as I did.  He is also a serious dog-lover, and I thought that the connection to Enzo would be strong.  As I was finishing the book though, one of his dogs died, and suddenly.  I debated actually giving it to him, torn between the thought of pouring orange juice on an open wound or could the book offering some healing and happiness to the situation, as you really end up loving Enzo and I felt that he was going to get what he believed was coming to him.

In the end, I did give him the book, but I am not sure if he has read it (or will).  I can only hope that it offers healing.

Read more...