Brad Sibille, MA, LPC-S

Counselor at Blumrich Counseling

Tag: acceptance

Grief and Loss

The pain of grief is just as much part of life as the joy of love: it is perhaps the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment. To ignore this fact, or to pretend that it is not so, is to put on emotional blinkers which leave us unprepared for the losses that will inevitably occur in our own lives and unprepared to help others cope with losses in theirs.” – Dr. Colin Murray Parkes

I recently asked a client who has been struggling for years with the loss of his wife this question: If I had a machine that could take away your memories of your wife would you do it?  If you didn’t have those memories, then you wouldn’t be missing her and be in pain. He of course said no. I would imagine this would be the answer we would all give.

Why do we grieve? It is because we have lost someone near to our hearts.  When you care about someone deeply, you are never ready to give them up. The people that have had little or no impact on our lives give us limited grief when they pass away. When we are in the midst of grief we can take consolation in the fact that we have had a special person in our lives that has changed us and had an impact on us. We can celebrate their memories and what they have taught us in life.  There are many people in this world who would be jealous to have those moment with someone that we have been privileged to experience with this person.

Many of us do this already. We tell stories about our loved ones and things they have taught us. We use their recipes and talk about how they used to make these foods on certain occasions. (For my family, it is my grandmother’s tea cookies and we always laugh about how she always burnt the bottoms of them.) We tell their jokes and laugh at their craziness. We are bringing them back into our lives and allowing them to live through us. We recognize how our lives have been changed and been better because of them. We acknowledge ways that they made us a better person through their knowledge and example.

Now do not get me wrong I am not saying that grief is easy or we need to feel bad for experiencing it. This is about helping us get a new perspective of our grief to help us get through it a little easier. If we can see things in a new light maybe it will be a little more tolerable. We all experience grief and we all struggle through it. It is part of life. We grieve because a space in our lives is empty and no one else can replace it.  We grieve because that person we counted on for so many things is no longer there and we must find the strength and courage to keep going.

Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some people move our souls to dance. They awaken us to a new understanding with the passing whisper of their wisdom. Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon. They stay in our lives for awhile, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same.”
― Flavia Weedn

Do not be afraid to take risks of loving someone. We can play it safe and never get hurt but then we would miss out on the joys, laughter, wisdom, and growth.

Learning from Mistakes vs. Beating Yourself Up Over Them

It’s okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are our teachers – they help us to learn.   -John Bradshaw

               How much of our time and energy goes towards learning from our mistakes and faults and how much of it is wasted by our negative self-talk and beating ourselves up over them? Why do we do this to ourselves?  We do this to “punish” ourselves. We think that if we hurt ourselves maybe we will learn our lesson the same way we try to punish others to teach them to change their ways. I have never known this to work. If we know we did wrong, we don’t need to hurt ourselves to change our ways. We say things to ourselves like “Oh I am so stupid” “I never do this right” “I am a failure and worthless” “I am a horrible human being” This only leads to feelings of guilt, shame, anxiety, anger, depression, and low self-esteem.  This is us defining ourselves by our past and this labeling of ourselves saying “I am …” which means we are not capable of being any different. We may end up withdrawing or quit working on whatever it is we are trying to do. How is this helpful? It makes things worse and takes away our capability for growth and improvement. This puts our focus is on the behaviors that have already happened. They cannot be undone. In doing this we are holding on to the past and being held hostage by it which prevents us from moving forward.  Our focus is more on hurting ourselves than solving the problem.

               Instead we need to learn to forgive ourselves for our mistakes. It is important to realize that we are not perfect nor will we ever be. It is about accepting our mistakes and give ourselves permission to make them. This does not mean we actively seek them out or quit trying to improve ourselves. This means we love ourselves and understand that mistakes are part of life. When we do this, it becomes easier for us to reflect on what happened and what changes we need to make in ourselves and our lives to be the person we want to be. If it is a failed business, then what can we learn from this experience that can help us prepare for and overcome similar challenges in the future. If we are working on our anger and we ended up yelling at someone, we can look at what led up to this outburst that we can alter or avoid next time. Maybe this is a reoccurring problem. Most problems are because making changes within yourself can take a long time and lots of work.

               This is about turning our focus to current and future behaviors and less on those in the past. We are not defining ourselves by what we have done but instead on what we would like to be. We are letting go of the past for the hopes of a better future. This is about growth and wisdom.  We can allow our mistakes to contain us and keep us from living life or we can use them as learning tools to see ways we can improve.  If we can’t give ourselves permission to fail, we will stop taking the risks in life that will call us into greatness. Risks mean stepping out and trying things that may not work.

 

“We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.” ― Rick Warren

Accepting Compliments

We are prepared for insults, but compliments leave us baffled. –Mason Cooley

 

                One of the many things I find strange is how terrible many of us are at taking compliments. I realized a couple of years ago, that I am horrible when it comes to receiving compliments and it is important for me to learn to be better at accepting them. We all have heard someone get complimented on what they are wearing and the response is, “Oh this old thing.” Or “This is just a cheap….” Somebody else gets a compliment on their hair and the response it “Oh it is such a mess today.” or “I haven’t even washed it in ….”  Why do we feel the need to make excuses for positive statements regarding our looks, behaviors, or attitudes? It is as if we can’t stand to have someone say something positive about us and so we must reject it. This is not humility but instead it is rejecting the good that we have in us. It is preventing us from being nurtured and encouraged by others. We have just passed on an opportunity to increase our self-worth and see positive things in ourselves.  I don’t think we realize how destructive this is. 

               When we do this, we are also insulting the person by saying they do not know what they are talking about, their opinion is wrong, or they have poor tastes. We manage to turn something very positive into something negative. There is a reason they said it to you and taking a compliment graciously tells them you respect their opinion.

                It doesn’t even matter the motives behind a compliment because unless you can read mind (which you can’t) you won’t really know them. Just because someone is trying to get something from you doesn’t mean that what they say is not true.  Even people who have ulterior motives will generally look for real things to compliment in a person.  It does not mean that we need to give into what they want but we can still take the compliment and use them for our own benefit.   

                The appropriate response to a compliment is “Thank you” or “I appreciate that” or even “I am glad to know that you like it.” I believe this is very important for us to implement in our lives. Take a compliment and let them nourish and uplift you. Acknowledge it and try to believe it. Allow yourself to feel good about it and know that someone saw something good in you that you just have difficulty seeing right now (it doesn’t mean it is not there).

               When you receive a compliment well, it brings positive feelings not only to you but also to the person giving the compliment. They feel good knowing that they said something nice to you and it encourages them to be more generous with their compliments to both you and others. We need more positivity in this world and we need to encourage it. We are very good at taking insults and criticism to heart why can’t we take compliments to heart in the very same way.

 

I make it a rule always to believe compliments implicitly for five minutes, and to simmer gently for twenty more.  – Alice James

 

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