I’m your host, Dr. Jennifer Levin. I am a grief therapist and the founder of From Grief to Growth, the host of the podcast, Untethered: Healing the Pain from a Sudden Death, and I am the creator and author of the Growing After Traumatic Loss course. I provide support, guidance, and teachings to help you with the aftermath of chaos, trauma, and grief.
Hi everyone and welcome to Untethered: Healing the pain from a sudden death. I am Dr. Jennifer Levin, and I specialize in traumatic death and helping individuals through the struggles, pain, trauma, and chaos of an unexpected death.
Today we are going to talk about healing from a Sudden Death. Now let me say right now, I don’t think you ever truly heal after someone you love dearly dies, but I do believe that you are constantly moving towards healing. Healing is a never-ending process and, as you grieve, you are constantly getting better and growing stronger. No matter how you may feel each and every day, the process of healing is moving in a forward motion. Yes, you are even healing on your worst grief days when you do not want to get out of bed, and it feels like you are sliding backwards. However, just like a deep scar never truly disappears, neither will your pain. The feelings you have about your loved one, the pain of their absence and your love will always remain, it just won’t always hurt this bad. Any there will even be days, perhaps even weeks when you won’t feel the pain at all.
So, if that is the case, what does it mean to heal from a sudden death? Well today’s podcast is going to help you develop a working definition of healing after your loss. I am also going to introduce the concept the post traumatic growth, a phenomenon that some people experience after a sudden death. Finally, I am going to talk about some of the factors known to facilitate post traumatic growth and share with you what you can do to move towards healing in your own grief experience.
At the end of today’s podcast, I am also going to announce an exciting change to our podcast format so be sure to stay tune to the very end of this episode.
Defining healing
Let’s start off by talking about what it means to heal from a sudden loss.
The concept of healing can be defined in so many ways. To feel better, to feel stronger, to have less pain, to be more resilient, to hurt less, or to experience more peace. There is no right or wrong way to define healing. And like everything in grief, it’s a fluid process - one day you might feel closer to healing and on other days it might feel so far away.
As I said before, I don’t believe you will ever fully heal from the death of someone you love who suddenly dies. How could you – someone very very important in your life was abruptly taken and you probably feel like you have been left with a huge, gaping hole in your heart and in your world. On some days the hole can swallow and consume you. You can’t get anything done and you are overwhelmed by pain, sadness and maybe trauma symptoms. On other days the hole may be completely different. You may be able to put some space between you and the hole and you may be able to function at a higher level and feel more like yourself.
In 1996 Dr. Lois Tonkin developed a model about how we grow around grief that is often referred to as the “fried egg model of grief.” According to Dr. Tonkin, our grief does not really change in size, but our world does. In other words, as time continues, you grow, and your world gets bigger and grows around your grief. Think of your grief as the egg, or the yolk of the egg, and the yolk doesn’t get any bigger or smaller…it stays the same. But the weight of the egg grows and that is what gets bigger and bigger. That is why it’s called the Fried Egg Model. I find this model helpful because it challenges the notion that time heals all wounds. It doesn’t. Time will not heal your grief, but instead time will allow other things to grow around your grief.
I am often asked how will I know when I am better? This is a great question and one that I encourage you to answer for yourself. The best way to do so, is to start off by asking yourself what are some of the negative changes that grief has brought about in your life that you would like to see disappear? For example, since your loved one has died, have you stopped doing things that you liked to do such as spending time with people who are important to you, going to the gym or participating in hobbies such as drawing or art? Or, since your loved one has died, have you started engaging in behaviors that are not in your best interest like drinking, watching too much TV, or spending too much time by yourself?
One of the ways you can determine if you are moving towards healing is by noticing changes in behaviors that you have either started or stopped doing. You don’t necessarily have to go back to the gym but perhaps you can start doing other things like taking walks outside or meeting up with new groups of people for hikes or other activities. Similarly, you don’t have to give up TV, but instead perhaps you can make a conscious effort to reduce the amount you are watching or introduce other activities into your day.
Another way to gauge if you are moving towards healing is to assess how much your grief or trauma is impacting your daily life and functioning. Can you remember back to your initial experience with grief, or perhaps you are there now, immediately after your loved one died? You may recall being able to do nothing but existing within your pain and your grief. Your world was, and may still be, numb, and the immediate experience of the loss clouded every moment of your day. It was impossible to do anything without feeling the pain of your loss and just existing took effort. With time, patience, and love, slowly you began, or are beginning, to function at a higher level and your healing began progressing. The more and more you are able to do on a day-to-day basis without carrying your grief front and center, the more and more you are moving towards healing. As I said earlier, there will be days, weeks, and perhaps longer periods of time when you will not feel your grief as your healing grows stronger.
Post traumatic Growth
Some people heal or grow from grief in a remarkable manner. In the mid 1990s Drs. Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun began researching and coined the term Post Traumatic Growth (PTG) which refers to a positive change that individuals experience in their life beyond just recovering after a crisis or a traumatic event. In other words, after the death of a loved one, some people not only move towards healing but find themselves in a state that exceeds their level of existence prior to the death. Now, this is more than just death, their experience of post traumatic growth can be with lots of different traumas, but here I am just talking about sudden loss. Tedeschi and Calhoun found that individuals are most likely to experience positive changes or post traumatic growth in 5 domains in their lives.
The first domain is new possibilities. Individuals who experience post traumatic growth (PTG) are more likely to be open to new possibilities such as trying new things, exploring new interests, hobbies, or activities. I have had clients make major career shifts and pursue major changes in their lives they never thought would be possible after they have moved into a stronger place in their healing.
Second, individuals who experience PTG also report relating to others in different ways. They experience closer relationships and increased connections with people in their lives because they now understand the importance of support. Clients report increased empathy for others, the helpfulness of disclosure and the need for true relationships.
The third domain is a greater appreciation for life. Individuals who experience PTG in this area truly value what life has to offer. They may be able to slow down their life pace and notice the small things in life that really matter. I often see clients who have a huge shift in their priorities. They may be committed to a work life balance, and they may take more time off. There is an ability to value life and everything it has to offer and to feel gratitude for the things in life that they still have.
The fourth domain is increased personal strength. Individuals who experience PTG here may exhibit increased self-confidence and feel resiliency for getting through something so traumatic. Tedeschi and Calhoun also use the term psychological toughness. I see clients who start to feel proud of themselves for what they have accomplished, who feel like they have “come out the other side”, and all of the sudden, things seem more manageable and doable. There is just a greater sense of peace knowing they are going to be okay because if they can get through this loss of a loved one who died suddenly, they can get through anything that life throws at them.
The final domain is a deepening of spiritual life or religious belief. Tedeschi and Calhoun state that you do not have to have a religious belief system to experience PTG in this domain. Individuals also experience growth by altering their belief systems in general and reflecting on existential questions and meaning in life, mortality, and interconnections with others. I see clients here with and without religious backgrounds who move towards healing by taking deeper looks at their place in the world, questioning their existence, their time on earth and the impact and meaning they want to leave behind.
It is hard to tell who is going to experience Post traumatic growth after the loss of a loved one just as it is hard to tell who is going to develop post traumatic stress disorder after a traumatic experience. Tedeschi and Calhoun have identified various factors that may contribute to post traumatic growth.
The first is education. You need to know what happened and the impact it has had on your world. Examples include – knowing that traumatic grief is different, knowing how trauma impacts your body and how to regulate your emotions. Other examples include understanding the core assumptions in your world and that they have been shattered and now that you need to rethink who you are, the world you live in, and when you are ready, what you are going to do in a situation you never thought you would have to be in. These are scary and difficult things to think about but by educating yourself you are going to be able to make the best decisions for yourself.
Second, emotional regulation is important because this gives you the ability to understand and manage your emotions and behaviors. In order to be able to experience growth you have to be in a good state of mind and able utilize tools to help you regulate complex emotions associated with traumatic loss.
Third, disclosure – Being able to talk about your experiences with family, friends, mental health professionals or other people on your social support team. Choosing people who can hear your struggles and your pain without the need to fix them is an important part of finding the right people to disclose to.
Fourth, narrative development – Tedeschi and Calhoun encourage people to produce an authentic narrative about the trauma and your life afterwards so you can accept the chapters already written and write the next one in a meaningful way. In other words, your narrative is going to include the death of your loved one and the way it helped you recalibrate your priorities or the new paths and opportunities that have emerged from it.
Finally, service. Tedeschi and Calhoun found that most people do better in the aftermath of trauma if they engage in meaningful work that benefits others especially if it is work in your community or work related to a similar trauma that you have experienced.
What can you do?
Depending on where you are in your healing process it may be so hard to envision that you will ever experience PTG. Tedeschi and Calhoun also state that not everyone who experiences a traumatic event will experience post traumatic growth. And that’s okay, but there are certain things that you can still do to facilitate moving towards healing and that’s also going to facilitate you moving towards post traumatic growth.
I want to start off by recommending a book The Posttraumatic Growth Workbook by Richard Tedeschi and Bret Moore for anyone who has any interest in this subject. I really like this workbook because it has exercises that are targeted to each of the 5 domains that I explained above.
Also, I recommend that you pick a domain that you would like to grow in. Pick a goal and set goals in one of those domains and develop ways that you would like to improve your life in that domain. There are lots of internet resources on PTG that are available to you if you are interested in learning more.
In addition to what has already been discussed, I recommend that you keep the 5 domains in mind when you think about your healing and your day to day living.
* Don’t be afraid to try new things and explore new interests. You can’t go wrong.
* Invest in your social support, and particularly focus on deepening relationships with a few good friends. Not everyone, just find one or two people and focus on deepening your relationships with them.
* Keep a gratitude journal. I have been doing that myself lately. Every night I write down five things that I am grateful for. I am finding it very helpful. And finally…
* Talk about your experiences, disclose to others what you are feeling – you are not only helping yourself, but you might be helping others as well.
Podcast Review
Today’s podcast was about the ability to move towards healing from what you are experiencing after the sudden death of a loved one. We looked at how to define healing and we explored the “fried egg model of grief” which states that grief does not get smaller, but instead we grow around our grief. We also explored the concept of post traumatic growth, and I gave you 5 domains that you may experience growth in. I also explored factors that may contribute to the development of PTG.
Before signing off today I promised you an announcement about a big change in the format of our podcast. We’ve now had ten episodes of this podcast Untethered: Healing the Pain From a Sudden Loss, and these ten episodes have been designed to provide you with a foundation about sudden and unexpected loss. Moving forward I am excited to announce I am going to be interviewing professionals and experts who work in the field of sudden loss about their experiences – what they do, and what type of clients they work and what they have learned. But I am also going to be interviewing individuals who have experienced a sudden loss as well so you can hear their stories and learn directly from their experiences, and I am hoping this is going to help you with what you are going through. I am really excited about this next phase of our podcast and excited to share this with you.
Our next podcast will be Wednesday October 12, 2022. I have a wonderful and an exciting guest lined up for you. Stay tuned for social media announcements about who this podcast guest is going to be.
Thank you so much for joining today’s episode of Untethered Healing the Pain After a Sudden Death. For help with a sudden and unexpected loss, sign up for my free mini course, where I will teach you about the 3 Truths About Living With A Sudden and Unexpected Loss. Please visit my website www.fromgrieftogrowth.com. Take care and bye for now.
Thank you for listening today. Be sure to subscribe to my podcast so that you never miss an episode. For help with a sudden and unexpected loss, sign up for my free mini course, where I will teach you about the 3 Truths About Living With A Sudden and Unexpected Loss. Please visit www.fromgrieftogrowth.com to sign up.
