Often we don't want to deal with our grief so we push the feelings and emotions down. We pretend we are "fine" and we wait for the pain to go away. But we don't heal.
There is a Solution
The Grief Recovery Method is an action oriented program that helps the griever move beyond the pain and isolation a loss can bring. We explore the old, ineffective tools that you have been using which cause more harm than good, then we discover new tools that will enable you to grow and heal.
It was the summer before my junior year in college. A bunch of my college friends and I decided to spend the freedom given to us by going water skiing. On the way there, we stopped to wait for a friend at a gas station, and the suggestion was made to build a human pyramid - one of those exercises cheerleaders do, certainly not for untrained adults on hard concrete ground. It’s amazing how a tiny shift in the bottom of a structure can result in a massive movement at the top: one which made me hurtle down towards the solid, jagged pavement.
When I awoke, I was in the hospital with what I would later know to be called a Traumatic Brain Injury, or TBI. I had amnesia and I didn’t know who I was or who my parents were. After 3 days in the ICU, when the brain swelling reduced, they let me go home, as back then the full consequences of head injuries were not known. Upon returning to college, however, I found that I couldn’t understand what I was reading, and simple memories such as who my college roommate was the year before eluded me. I wasn’t in control of my life anymore: I had been forced to change and I didn’t understand who I was. I was struggling to connect with other people and to comprehend the things around me. I felt misunderstood, isolated, and adrift without a friend in the world. While others' lives continued, mine became unnecessarily frozen. I had to retrain and rewire my brain in order to learn, and I felt myself becoming lost in the process of reworking my entire identity - if it hadn’t been for my mom.
Kelli is an Advanced Certified Grief Recovery Method Specialist® certified by Grief Recovery Institute™ She is not a licensed therapist or counselor and does not provide those services. She is certified to facilitate and present the Grief Recovery Method® which is an action oriented educational program.
At every step, you will be heard, respected, and will never be judged or criticized, all the while giving voice to the emotions that are accompanied with loss. Here, not only will you learn how to deal with past losses, you will be given tools to handle any new ones that may come your way.
Here, you will find a voice for the loss that has been tearing you down. And you will grow stronger because of it. Start your journey today!
Throughout it all, my mother was my hero, who helped me mentally and supported me emotionally. But what is it like when one loses their rock, the one who kept them stable? I had to answer that question four years after my TBI, when my mother died from cancer. I was devastated. I felt alone and abandoned. She was my mother, but more than that, she was my friend. Who would I lean on now? At the time, I was a flight attendant, which left me only three days to feel the effect of her loss, before I went back to work, where I had to force smiles over a broken heart. Why couldn’t I just grieve my loss?
Years after my mom died, but still living with the pain of her loss, a friend introduced me to the Grief Recovery Method and it helped me to live again. It helped me to live in the present, to hope for the future, and to stop living in the pain of the past. I was able to move beyond the pain of loss to enjoy my memories and to strive to make new ones. I knew it was something the world needed.
The Method also taught me that other things, besides death and divorce, are losses too: even things that seemed little or unimportant. It helped me to realize that my head injury was a major loss not only physically, but emotionally - a loss I needed to move on from. In fact, there are over 40 different types of loss a person can experience that never get resolved because we believe time can heal! But time doesn’t heal; action does.
I invite you to take action against your losses today. But don’t worry, you don’t have to do it alone. I would be honored to walk with you, hand-in-hand, through your journey of moving beyond the pain of your past to bask in the memories of yesterday, and to help guide you into the joy of tomorrow.
