If You Each Had a Broken Leg, How Would Life Be?

Once again, a surprise email arrived Monday morning from a colleague who has a grieving client.

My colleague asked some pointed questions.

How do I support her (my client that I have referred to you)?

How do you support someone(spouse) that is grieving in a way you might not approve??  ( drinking, not eating, closed off, etc.)

How do you support someone when you are both grieving?

(meaning how does she support him in grief but she’s grieving too).  

When you are both in the trenches gripped with the agony of grief how do they “not kill each other”?? 

It sounds like the answer to these questions could be my next book. Certainly more than one blog. Of course, the first thing to say is: “If you each had a broken leg, how would life be?” In essence, they are IN the process of grief and not fully themselves.

In Real Life Practice

Recently I worked with a couple wanting help because grief was tearing them apart.

The couple arrived grateful to have found “someone to keep us from killing each other”.

First I invited each person to answer the question: What would you like to have happen as an outcome of us being together today?

Next I invited the woman to tell “the story” because it was her sibling and mother who had died in the past two and a half years.

Then I invited each to complete the Grief Assessment. WOW! Was that ever an eye opener. She was at the high end of the scale and he was at the low. Click  and scroll down the page to take the Asscessment.

LINK TO GRIEF ASSESSMENT

And their deep love for one another became evident in how they completed the question, “My biggest fear is__________.”

So To Answer the Question

So, to answer my colleague’s question:

How do I support my client in her grief?

* Since she is a client, boundaries are already established.

* Email her. Ask her to answer the question: If someone arrived at your door with a gift, what would lighten your heart and brighten your day?

* Then make that happen.

* Follow through by sending her an Audio Meditations  Click here for Audio Meditations.

* At her next session, ask her to tell you the story of falling in love with her partner. As you listen, stop her two or three times to ask: What are you noticing in your body in this moment?

  * Allow her to complete the story. Retell to her the part that was most poignant for you. Engage her in expanding that part of the story because you can be authentically present and curious. (Remember curiosity activates the nucleus accumbens in the brain to lift the energy in the body.)

* Invite her to return home to her beloved partner and share what the two of you did today. A  simple “Remember when…..?” shifts them back to the beginning of falling in love.

It did for my clients.

All my blessings to you as you support friends, clients, and loved ones in their grief journey.

Send the Audio Meditations today by clicking here.