An Update on Helpful, Effective Thinking for 2023

March 20, 2023 by

Please fill in the blanks with the first thought that comes to mind.

I. Become aware of one’s thinking about life.

“Life should provide __________. Life should have __________. If life doesn’t provide or have __________, life is not as valuable as it would otherwise have been.”

Become aware of the interrelationship between what happens, thoughts that are belief-based or wish-based, thoughts that are fact-based, and feelings.

“When __________ happened, I thought it shouldn’t have happened because life shouldn’t be that way. I shouldn’t have to __________. Since life should have __________and should provide __________. I felt betrayed because I trusted life to be the way I believed it was and should be. I felt disappointed in myself, in others, and in my life.”

II. Become aware of one’s thinking about one’s self.

“I should (circle) feel/think/do/have __________. If I don’t, I am not as valuable as I would otherwise have been. If I am not as valuable as I could be, I will not be adequately appreciated or loved. If I am not adequately appreciated or loved, I experience unbearable pain.”

Again, become aware of the interrelationship between what happens, thoughts that are belief-based or wish-based, thoughts that are fact-based, and feelings.

“When ______ happened to me, I thought it shouldn’t have happened. I thought that if I had said or done something different, or were different, it wouldn’t have happened. I believe I am responsible for how people feel, think, act, and are doing and, thus, I failed. This made it my fault and I was to blame. I judged myself as incorrect, incompetent, and inadequate. I felt ashamed of myself. From these reprimands, I felt overwhelmed with pain.”

III. Are the thoughts realistic?

“Reality is complex. Some aspects of my thoughts are realistic; some aspects aren’t. If I imagine a pie chart:

In January 2020, I estimate ____% of my thoughts were realistic and _____% were unrealistic.

Today, in 2023, I estimate ____% of my thoughts are realistic and _____% are unrealistic.”

IV. How can I help myself?

  • I can see reality as it is.
  • Within reality, realism gives me power. I neither idealize nor vilify, not myself, others, institutions, or the world.
  • I am real. I am not composed of other people’s beliefs, expectations, needs, and wants. I am not the victim of life, of how I was born, of how I was raised, or of what’s happened to me. I co-travel with my traits and my history.
  • As a result of making heroic, conscious choices to see reality as it is, I can identify problems and create solutions. I can adjust, adapt, and accept as needed.
  • I can become aware of self-judgment and replace it with
    self-kindness. Prolonged, inner states of activated intensity, and of under-activated despondency, frequently result from two sources: harsh self-judgment and envisioning being harshly judged by others.
  • As a result of awareness and self-kindness, I can use my inner dialogue to regulate my emotions at will.
  • Although I wish I had one or more people to appreciate and love me adequately, I see that, even if I did, during most of the 168 hours of each week, I’m on the job solo. I’m responsible for my inner state.
  • I may have some influence but cannot cause what human adults feel, think, want, say, or do. I am not causal. Why not? Human adults are separate, independent, autonomous beings who choose their own words and actions.
  • Unless I attempt to violate their independence by using emotional, relational, financial, and/or sexual favors, or persuasion, manipulation, shame, coercion, and/or force, I co-travel with the decisions other humans make.
  • I appreciate and love myself for handling the joys and sorrows of the human condition. I can feel compassion for everyone, everywhere, for having to handle the same.

V. My primary tasks are:

  1. to discover and understand my values, strengths, preferences, interests, and priorities;
  2. to become aware of what I need and want;
  3. to identify unmet needs and unfulfilled aspirations;
  4. to estimate what’s likely and unlikely;
  5. to see that opposites can both be true, that most factors occur within the context of a continuum, not as all good or all bad;
  6. to derive strategies to help myself precisely with what
    I want to do, not with a) what I wish or want others to do, or
    b) what others want from me;
  7. to shift and re-shift my attention to my values and priorities;
  8. to do what I define as mine to do in the time I have.

VI. How else?

Given the broad goals of making a life for myself and being of service to others, given the constraints of 2023 and the uncertainties of the future, how else might I help myself?

VII. Clarity

To the tasks of being myself, of navigating the opportunities and hardships inherent to the human condition, in my situation, in these times:

The primary personal strength I bring is __________________.

The primary value powering my efforts is __________________.

The primary priority giving me direction is __________________.

. . . . .

Therapy protocols derived before 2020 held a fundamental premise. People were free to take independent action on their own behalf.

In particular, cognitive theory celebrated human capability. Once individuals became aware of what they were feeling and thinking and directed their attention to reality-based thoughts, they could then build lives and relationships based on reality as perceived by logic, reason, and evidence.

For the past three years, I have heard an on-going note of distress in the narratives of many of the clients I met with online, in the thousands of voices I heard in the listening, watching, and reading I did during these years of isolation, and in my own inner experience.

Indeed, awareness, itself, can ease distress, regardless of the situation, even the most dire. This is the core of existential therapist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s premise. During the pandemic, surely, we had the time to become aware.

However, engagement in action and engagement with others are the mechanisms by which awareness is directed toward effective, skillful living. With limited opportunities to leave our dwellings and connect with people, the limits of current therapy protocols were exposed.

I posit that cognitive theory-based protocols need an update that emphasizes self-reliance. Why? Our ability to take action and to connect with others was truncated. The external was impossible. The internal was possible.

This post is an an imagining of the pandemic-informed worksheet that would be added to updated, 2023 editions of cognitive theory-based manuals, such as  Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD: A Comprehensive Manual by Patricia A. Resick, Candice M. Monson, and Kathleen M. Chard, Guillford Press, 2016.

At essence, this worksheet champions and fosters the powerfully kind and determined inner dialogue that sustains and guides when one is on one’s own.

. . . . .

To explore and discover tools and insights related to the tasks, I use the term “awareness skills” and have them outlined in about 3,000 words here.

Image: iStock

All content on this site is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical, professional, and/or legal advice. Consult a qualified professional for personalized medical, professional, and legal advice.

Filed Under: CBT, CPT, DBT

Surviving and Thriving in a Post-Apocalyptic Novel

February 15, 2023 by

I asked ChatGPT this question:

“What are the traits of characters in post-apocalyptic novels that help them survive and thrive?”

The software replied:

“Characters in post-apocalyptic novels often possess a combination of traits that help them survive and thrive in the harsh and uncertain environments they find themselves in. Here are some of the key traits that tend to be common among such characters:

1. Resilience: Characters in post-apocalyptic novels must be able to bounce back from adversity and keep going despite the many challenges they face.

2. Adaptability: Survivors in a post-apocalyptic world must be able to adapt to new circumstances and environments as they arise, often without access to many of the resources they were used to before the apocalypse.

3. Resourcefulness: With many of the traditional systems and structures of society gone, post-apocalyptic survivors must be able to find and create their own resources and solutions to the challenges they face.

4. Self-reliance: The characters in post-apocalyptic novels often cannot depend on others to help them, and must be self-sufficient in order to survive.

5. Courage: In a world where danger lurks around every corner, characters in post-apocalyptic novels must be able to face their fears and act courageously in order to survive.

6. Strong social bonds: Although self-reliance is important, post-apocalyptic survivors also need strong social bonds and relationships to help them navigate the challenges of their new world.

7. Willingness to take risks: Survivors in a post-apocalyptic world must be willing to take risks in order to find food, shelter, and other necessary resources, as well as to defend themselves against potential threats.

These are just a few of the traits that tend to be common among characters in post-apocalyptic novels. Different characters may exhibit these traits in varying degrees, and other traits may also be important depending on the specific post-apocalyptic scenario portrayed in the book.”

– Paraphrase from OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI language model, personal communication, February 15, 2023.*

For inspiration and guidance in these challenging times, I have looked to the creative artists who have imagined humans or human-like beings meeting challenges in alternative or post-apocalyptic worlds. Having felt alarmed and helpless in the face of real and distant violence, and having experienced the recent deaths of my father and former boyfriend, I currently seek out stories that, simply put, are not too dark.

The novels below are listed in rank order based on my subjective view of the extent to which the main characters meet the synthesized criteria offered by ChatGPT, plus have awareness and skill, acknowledge errors and learn from them, and survive and thrive.

  1. Burn for Me, Ilona Andrews, pseudonym for a wife-and-husband team. First in the stellar Hidden Legacy series with main characters who are aware of their feelings and thoughts, do cost-benefit analyses with rank ordering when faced with choices, devise strategies, engage in understandable self-blame when things don’t go well, then move ahead based on their values and priorities. First series I have listened to twice since Harry Potter.
  2. When Women Were Dragons, Kelly Barnhill. First book I have broadly recommended since Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House. (The Dutch House link is to Audible version narrated by Tom Hanks.)
  3. Shanghai Immortal, by A. Y. Chao, released June 1, 2023. Link is to the brilliant Audible recording. Lady Jing is aware of the need to regulate her emotions and uses skills to do so. (Added 7/4/2023).
  4. Graceling, by Kristin Kashore. Link is to The New York Times book review. (Added 7/4/2023). Katsa lives her values in astronomically extreme circumstances.
  5. A Magic Steeped in Poison, Judy I. Lin. Link is to exquisitely read Audible version. A gift to people who treasure finding meaning from the surprise of related things and times.
  6. The Liar’s Crown, Abigail Owen. Her world is inexplicable to us, then to her, then she bravely sees reality as it is.
  7. Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes, Travis Baldree. Link is to Audible version, brilliantly read by the author. An odd title for a startlingly imaginative archetypal heroine’s journey story.
  8. The House Witch: A Humorous, Romantic Fantasy, Delemhach. A creative, kind treatise on carrying on after trauma.
  9. Joan Is Okay, Weike Wang. Without support, with opposition, a neuroatypical inner life movingly handles the beginning of the atypical, apocalyptic beginning of this pandemic.
  10. The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune. The characters work hard to champion their own humanity against powerfully held beliefs about how people should be.

Noteworthy

  • Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse. Astonishingly powerful, on the edge of too graphic for me. Link is to Kirkus Reviews. Tried second book but a little too dark, at least for now.

Other recommended books are here.

*Guidance on the citation style for ChatGPT came from The University of Queensland, Australia: “Content from generative AI is a nonrecoverable source as it can’t be retrieved or linked.”

Last updated 2023/07/04

All content on this page is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical, professional, and/or legal advice. Consult a qualified professional for personalized medical, professional, and legal advice.

Filed Under: Books

Mandarin Chinese Meetup

January 14, 2023 by

If you are an adult living in the Blacksburg, Virginia area, are studying Mandarin Chinese, or are a native speaker interested in offering support, you are invited to attend this gathering.

We have devised activities that give people the opportunity to use the words they know and, thus, experience success, engage pleasantly with others, and enter a Mandarin Chinese-only world for an hour.

What? Mandarin Chinese Meetup
Why? To practice speaking Mandarin Chinese on a meaningful level. For our purposes, “meaningful” is defined as “the ability to speak, listen, write, think, feel, work, present, relate, collaborate, and connect in Mandarin Chinese.”
How? For an hour, we enter the Chinese-speaking world and live Mandarin Chinese!
Where? Lobby of 102 Hubbard Street, Blacksburg, Virginia
When? Friday, February 10, 2023, 5:15 – 6:15 PM
Cost? None. Attending the meetup is free.
For whom? Adults who are learning Mandarin Chinese and native speakers of Mandarin Chinese. Learners who know a minimum of 200 words can help keep the conversation flowing.
How do I sign up? Walk-ins are welcome.
How can I track my progress? You are invited to take the HSKlevel before you attend your first meetup. You can take it again at any time and track your progress over time.

Participants are asked to make this pledge:

“To optimize the learning of all, I agree to willingly use Mandarin Chinese only for the entirety of the meeting. I understand that interjecting English into the conversation may harm the learning of others. I understand that, if I use English once, I will be expected to correct myself immediately. If I persist, I will have broken my agreement.”

(For other examples of language speaking agreements, please see the language pledges from Middlebury College, Princeton, Georgetown and Auburn. Brandeis’s All Language Lunch requires a language pledge. Here is a 2010 presentation on language pledges.)

For the next meetup on Friday, February 10, 2023:

  1. Please write an open-ended, conversation-fostering question that invites engagement, belonging, and connection. Examples include these, these, these, and these (podcast in Mandarin Chinese with transcript of questions).
  2. Translate your question into simple, plain language, Mandarin Chinese.
  3. Bring 6 copies of the question in Chinese characters, pinyin, and English.

To begin, this is the first question we will take turns asking and answering:

如果你要临时纹身一个汉字，你会选择哪个汉字？为什么？
Rúguǒ nǐ yào línshí wénshēn yīgè hànzì, nǐ huì xuǎnzé nǎge hànzì? Wèishéme?
If you were to get a temporary tattoo of a Chinese character, what character would you choose? Why?

What is the format of the meeting?

1. At the start of the meeting, instructions will be given in English.

2. We engage in Mandarin Chinese-only conversation activities in large and small groups.

3. We return to English. To close the meeting, participants are asked to take turns sharing what they observed about their own process and the insights they gained.

In case of inclement weather or public health requirements, the Mandarin Chinese meetup will meet via Zoom. The link will be posted on this page on the day of the meetup.

Please note: The intent of this meetup is to enrich, rather than replace, an individual’s study plan. The meetup is not a class and the facilitator is not an instructor.

Why is speaking only in Mandarin Chinese so hard?!

People experience two levels of vulnerability. Any human conversation requires letting down one’s guard a bit. Then to use a language with which one is not confident or expert? Doubly difficult!

At a conversation table, people experience the vulnerability and complexity of conversations. They ask a question and see if anyone thinks it’s interesting enough to answer. They need to experience – and tolerate – the unease that comes from the uncertainty of not knowing what to say, of not knowing if someone understands what they mean, and if they understand what someone else means. Some attempts at starting conversations succeed. Some fail. Some result in lively sharing. Some don’t. These are the normal challenges with human conversations. To the table, participants bring themselves, their conversational skills – such as they are! – and their second language knowledge and just try!

Here is a guide to being a good conversationalist from Indeed.com.

Context

Adults who begin studying Mandarin Chinese are generally enthusiastic, determined and skilled at learning. They are willing to reorder their lives’ priorities – such as work, relationships, and families – to include time to study Mandarin Chinese in their already-full schedules.

However, case study data about adults and research data about primary and secondary school students suggest that the vast majority of students who begin learning Mandarin Chinese quit.

To attempt to address high attrition rates among adults, I am attempting to derive a replicable protocol for adults to learn Mandarin Chinese optimally and efficiently.

This gathering is an attempt to contribute to the learning of Mandarin Chinese by busy adults. We experiment with a variety of activities designed for efficient learning. To optimize learning, the activities are designed to synthesize and apply the latest research on cognitive neuroscience, memory, language learning, and the psychology of language learning.

Highlights include these findings:

  1. Gains from interaction exceed those from solo study.
  2. In non-beginners, gains from speaking the target language only exceed those from speaking both the native and the target languages.
  3. In adults, when intentionally engaging in the target language, thinking and speaking in the native language is a risk factor for impairing acquisition.

Why is no English spoken?

  1. ROI. Our return on investment (ROI) will be greater towards our end in mind from an hour spent speaking only Mandarin Chinese than speaking a mix of our native languages and our target language.
  2. Do no harm/altruism. We’re trying to help, not hurt, each other.
  3. Global citizenry and humanity. At the conversation table, we are not teachers and students, nor natives and non-natives. We are people speaking Mandarin Chinese together – however inaccurately and imperfectly – to try to communicate and connect with each other, person to person.

“I am neither an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”
– attributed to Socrates by Plutarch

Based on the way the adult human brain works, adult learners of Mandarin Chinese need to attempt to directly use Mandarin Chinese – to “think” in Mandarin Chinese – because translating back and forth between languages hurts retention and mastery. Linguists have a ghastly term for this phenomenon – parasitism! In fact, according to Li and Jeong, 2020, thinking in English, then translating into Mandarin Chinese, is a major risk factor for preventing “adults from acquiring a foreign language to native competence.”

Although the use of a learner’s native language – rather than the language they are trying to learn – may be well-intended, the result may be experienced as othering, an indication of not belonging and a form of exclusion. Our primary goal is to connect!

Finally, we are attempting to simulate total, 100% immersion and gain the “native-like brain processing” benefits it can offer to adults.

Why is speaking only Mandarin Chinese difficult?

When adults search for words in a second language, they experience vulnerability and ambiguity, the latter of which Wang, 2021, defines as “uncertainty of meaning, kinds of complexity, novelty, unexpectedness, or a lack of clear-cut solutions.” Ambiguity naturally creates stress and distress. Our activities are designed to help participants use what they know, thus reducing ambiguity and stress, and increasing ambiguity tolerance.

Interaction with open-ended questions

Since, as Li and Jeong put it, “[L]anguage serves a social communicative purpose and is fundamentally a social behavior,” our meetup will be interactive and we will attempt to ask open-ended questions.

Why ask open-ended questions?

Open-ended questions allow participants to use vocabulary they know, in both questions and answers, rather than struggle to answer specific questions using vocabulary they may not know. Further, open-ended questions invite exploration and discovery. Close-ended questions require only a yes-no or single-word answer. Being asked a series of close-ended questions can sometimes feel threatening, like enduring a test or interrogation, rather than engaging in a social interaction. The adult human brain seems to learn and remember best in a modulated state of safety and calm.

open-ended question
kāifàng shì wèntí
开放式问题

close-ended question (yes or no, this or that)
fēngbì shì wèntí (shì huò fǒu, zhè huò nà)
封闭式问题（是或否，这或那）

Mandarin Chinese learners

  • To foster conversational flow, if you wish to ask questions about the language, please wait until after the meetup ends.
  • Please follow the 4-second rule. Sì miǎo fǎzé. 四秒法则。A typical pause in speech lasts only about a quarter to half a second. If, within about 4 seconds, you can’t quite find what you want to say, please say:
    Qǐng xià yīgè rén.
    请下一个人.
    Next person, please.

Native speakers

  • If you wish to talk about the language or teach someone something about the language, please wait until after the meetup ends.
  • To foster conversation, please speak at normal volume and at a standard conversational speech rate, between 130-150 words per minute.

The facilitator fosters a structured, supportive, safe, non-judgmental environment.

“Advice, without invitation, can feel like criticism.”
– David Kessler

This meeting is part of a larger effort to create synergy and community among local Mandarin Chinese learners and speakers. In particular, this is an attempt to find or create daily, in-person opportunities for adults learning Mandarin Chinese in the Blacksburg, Virginia area to practice speaking, listening, and interacting on a meaningful level.

If you have a local, in-person, Mandarin Chinese conversation opportunity to recommend, please contact Anne Giles.

If you study Mandarin Chinese using Mandarin Blueprint and are interested in a Blacksburg, Virginia area meetup, please contact Anne Giles.

Local, additional attempts to use the findings of research to help support adults learning Mandarin Chinese have included a 90-day workshop and a 30-day workshop.

This gathering is co-listed on Meetup.

About the facilitator

Anne Giles, M.A., M.S., L.P.C., is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the Commonwealth of Virginia, U.S.A., and a student of Mandarin Chinese. She has passed the HSK 1 and HSK 2 exams. She took the pre-2021 HSK 3, passed the listening portion, but not the full exam because she cannot yet read characters well enough. She holds master’s degrees in curriculum and instruction and mental health counseling, and a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certificate. As an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, she studied Chinese history. She took one semester of Mandarin Chinese at the University of Connecticut in 1981. She attended the National Chinese Language Conference virtually in 2021 and 2022. She has taught English at the middle school, high school, and college levels.

Last updated 2/2/2023

All content on this page is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical, professional, and/or legal advice. Consult a qualified professional for personalized medical, professional, and legal advice.

Filed Under: Chinese

My Philosophy of Life and Death

December 30, 2022 by

Today, I am will-you-still-love-me 64.

As I anticipate facilitating a local grief support group, I have became aware that addressing grief requires a deep, existential dive, not just into the meaning of life, but into the meaning of death.

When I was in my 30s, 40s, and 50s, I wrote philosophies of life. This past year, the death of my father, the death of a dear friend, my own potential death from a fall and concussion, plus over 6 million deaths from COVID-19, all call me to break a taboo and speak of death.

This causes understandable anxiety.

100 billion humans

I am not alone. For the nearly 8 billion people alive on the planet today, anxiety – unease about things that may be ahead – may be legitimate. Indeed, global rates of anxiety have risen. According to some researchers, anxiety is considered useful and motivating, an indicator of threat, that something’s not right. In January, 2023, death may well be more likely than it was in January 2020.

I considered the deaths of my father and friend devastating losses. I felt hit, bereft, disoriented. Then, a home pull-up bar failed and I truly got hit in the head. I began to wonder. What is the ground beneath my feet? I’m already among the one-third of Americans over 60 who – if I didn’t rent rooms to international scholars – would live alone, no partner, no children, with a small extended family. What would hold me up if I were to lose everyone and everything? What holds me up when I realize that I, ultimately, will lose everyone and everything – including my own life – when I die?

Iverach et al. tell us, “Awareness of mortality and fear of death have been part of the human condition throughout recorded history. According to [Irvin] Yalom, human beings are ‘forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and inevitably, diminish and die.”

Death anxiety is considered a central cause of human distress.

What is the ground beneath my feet? What is real? What is true? How are those terms even defined? What can I count on? How do I make sense of all this? What is my philosophy of life and death?

In the 300,000 year history of Homo sapiens, in the story of the 100 billion people estimated to have ever lived, I have a paragraph.

In the photo album of the 100 billion, turn enough pages – past the photos of the famous and the infamous, your loved ones and mine – there is a glossy shot of you, then of me. Paragraphs and photos came before us and, for an unknowable amount of time in the future, will come after us.

I am human and humans die – maybe now, definitely later. I may not like it, but I accept it. People important to me have died and will die. Pets die. Death is a fact.

Right this moment, I am alive.

  • I will, at times, validly feel powerless and helpless about the biological fact of my inevitable death.
  • I may often have some level of anxiety and sadness about the anticipated end of my life, both for myself and those I care about who will have to do without me.
  • Significant anxiety-buffering factors – such as reliable, shared world views and social interaction – have been compromised by the pandemic.
  • I might believe things should be different, and longingly wish they were, but, given the complexity of reality, I can’t know if a difference would have made things better, worse, or had no impact.
  • I am astonished by my belief that I could accurately read and predict another person’s mind and heart, given the human brain holds an estimated 100 billion neurons and perhaps a similar number of glial cells.
  • I am astonished by my belief that, if I felt something ardently enough, or believed it fervently enough, it was a fact.
  • I am astonished by the amount of influence, power, and control I believed I had and how little I ended up having. I thought the extent to which I could control my life would determine its quality. I didn’t know that, again, given the complexity of reality, uncertainty would be natural and normal, a condition to be navigated, not fought.
  • But I long for certainty! In his poem, “Noreen,” Peter Meinke writes, “How much we need reasons! How reasons make us feel better!” Probabilities and possibilities can be estimated. Certainties cannot be determined.
  • What’s done cannot be undone. What happened cannot be made to un-happen.
  • I did my best to help things go in ways I thought would be best for everyone.
  • I did not realize how exhaustingly I tried to be all things, to all people, at all times, and secretly feared I was nothing, to anyone, at any time. Oh, my! Neither is possible.
  • I did not realize how much thinking I, they, things should be different has caused my suffering.
  • I might sometimes get frantic trying to prevent what I interpret as disaster, however much what’s happening results from facts and reality as they are.
  • I thought I was helping myself when I recoiled from inevitabilities. It brought a bit of relief in the short-term, but caused more suffering than bravely leaning forward and seeing things as they might be, are, or were.
  • I didn’t know that, paradoxically, seeking reassurance can actually escalate anxiety. For many realities of the human condition and human life, there are no reassurances.
  • I believed reprimanding myself was corrective and motivating. I didn’t mean to turn into my own predator and forsaker. Now I keep close to myself. I meticulously help myself with challenges.
  • The personnel changes. People come and people go: neighbors, co-workers, family members, partners, bosses, on and on. Beings come and go: the family dog, the beloved cat, on and on.
  • I acknowledge whom and what I’ve lost irreversibly.
  • I acknowledge whom I can’t see and what I can’t do.
  • I acknowledge with whom I will not get to continue.
  • I can fret over possessions if I wish, but, ultimately, I don’t get to keep them. When I’m gone, boxes of my things will join the boxes in my basement of my grandparents’ and parents’ things. Lovingly, my family members were trying to protect me and help me. Items, however held to be valuable, can become useless.
  • I acknowledge that I can write an advance directive, attempting to narrate how my dying must go and not go, but I am a biological organism and biology will unfold as it will.
  • I may be in such unbearable psychological, physical, mental, or existential pain that I may take action to end my own life, or take actions that might risk or hasten my death. Others cannot know what it is like to be me or to see what I see. I will not consider these acts of illness or brokenness, but of self-love, mercy, and humanity.
  • I did not realize that seeing and acknowledging reality as it is, seeing the reality of what I can and cannot do, and accepting what is mine and not mine to do, all bring me a sense of the way things are that, in turn, bring me a sense of some peace and freedom.
  • I can co-travel with loving my life and grieving it at the same time.

“Find meaning and purpose” is advice often given to those asking existential questions. However, researchers have found that “meaning in life” may not do the trick.

When I was explaining what a triathlon was to my 101-year-old grandmother, she said, “Run while you can!”

Surrounded at our school by frightened students after we learned of attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11, I asked our head of school, Gordon MacLeod, what we should do. He answered, “Carry on!”

After all that’s happened, all that’s lost, all these feelings, all these limits, all these risks, and the certainty of my life ending, might I carry on? If so, how?

To start? Kindly. I got born into the human condition with “the wound of mortality” without being consulted and without warning. My Homo sapiens-ism, my DNA, got meaninglessly, randomly assigned to my family, in my country, in my birth year. I have made the best of things, the best I can. I scrutinize my past efforts and conclude that, if I could have done better, I would have. Altruism is as old as humaniy itself.

Logic holds that reality-based strategies are more likely to produce desired outcomes than belief-based strategies.

Given reality as it is, my feelings and thoughts, my values and priorities, my strengths and preferences – after all that’s gone down – what will be my strategies for living in the time I have left? Shall I run? Take next steps?

Such questions! Such tasks! Kindness is merited.

image: iStock

All content on this site is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical, professional, and/or legal advice. Consult a qualified professional for personalized medical, professional, and legal advice.

Filed Under: Autobiography, Grief

Grief Support Group in Blacksburg, Virginia

December 14, 2022 by

UPDATE: March 29, 2023

We were delighted to facilitate this group for the first three months of 2023. We thank all the attendees for their candor and bravery. Due to low attendance, we are ending the group.

Those seeking local, in-person support may wish to consider the grief support groups offered by Good Samaritan Hospice for residents of the Montgomery County and Roanoke, Virginia areas. Please contact Good Samaritan Hospice for more information.

Those seeking online support may wish to consider David Kessler’s Tender Hearts Grief Support Community, which includes an online course and support group participation. Attendees pay $34 per month. Kessler’s Grief Educator Certification program may also be of interest.

Many people need professional support after experiencing a loss.

What seemed to offer most comfort to most people was the definitions of grief and grieving offered by Mary Frances O’Connor, author of The Grieving Brain. Here are insights from her book. We used these paraphrases:

  • Grief is the complex, anguished, yearning feeling associated with love, attachment, bonding, connection, and belonging.
  • Grieving is the process by which the heart, mind, and brain adjust and adapt to the absence.

The group’s description is left intact below if of interest.

I am very open to offering phone support to people who have experienced a loss. Please contact me if I can be of assistance.

Pax.

. . . . .

After the loss of a person important to you, you may have found yourself asking questions such as these:

  • How can I possibly do without this person?
  • How do I endure this painful, heavy grief?
  • If I have ambivalent feelings about the person, what does their absence mean to me? What am I feeling and why?
  • Why am I experiencing such extremes in feeling?
  • How do I make sense of what happened? Does the world even work the way I thought it did?!
  • Who am I without this person? Am I still me?
  • What is the meaning of my life – of life itself – without this person?
  • How and why do I go on? With whom?
  • The World Health Organization reported a 25% global increase in anxiety and depression since the pandemic began. How am I to navigate grief in such times and in the wake of such hardship and uncertainty?

If you are an adult living in the Blacksburg, Virginia area and wish to address these and related questions in the supportive company of others, you are invited to attend our in-person, weekly, grief support group.

What? Grief Support Group
Where? Lobby of 102 Hubbard Street, Blacksburg, Virginia
When? Sorry, this group is no longer meeting. 
Cost? None. Attending the group is free.
For whom? Adults who have experienced the loss of a person important to them, of any age, in any way, whether they are newly bereaved, are continuing to have concerns after a year, or after many years.
How do I sign up? Filling out this contact form is preferred. Walk-ins, however, are welcome.

Please note:

Meeting format

  • We start and end promptly.
  • We use a group sharing protocol designed to offer people the opportunity to speak and listen in a safe way.
  • We’ll do our best not to say the worst things people can say to people in grief and not to exhibit the worst traits of people who try to help. (Please scroll to the bottom of that page to view the list.) Most importantly, we will not give unsolicited advice, nor “bright side” each other, i.e. say, “Look on the bright side. At least the person _____,” nor imply, “You should be over this by now.”
  • Our goals are to learn about grief, to become aware of our individual experiences with grief, and to explore ways to co-travel with what has happened.

Prior to attending, participants are encouraged to do two things.

1. Take a well-being assessment.

  • The “Flourish” measure is described as “a measurement approach to human flourishing, based around five central domains: happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships. Each of these is nearly universally desired, and each constitutes an end in and of itself.” Here’s a link to a printable .pdf.
  • The Well-being Assessment is described as “a concise, freely available tool for communities to measure the many aspects of health and well-being.”
  • Take either or both of these assessments, or a well-being assessment of your choice. You are encouraged to return to these assessments, take them again at any time you wish, and compare scores over time. Your score is private and you will not be asked to share it.

2. Prepare what David Kessler terms “a loss inventory.”

  • In chronological order, make a list of approximately 10 losses you have experienced in your life.
  • Losses are not limited to deaths of loved ones, friends, or pets, and may include relationships ending, job losses, moves, loss of physical health or abilities, and others. The losses may have been sudden or expected.
  • Your list is private and you will not be asked to share it.
  • The purpose of the exercise is to become aware of the context of personal loss in which a recent or profound loss occurred.

Recommended reading

The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss, Mary-Frances O’Connor, 2022

The Grieving Brain: 5 Key Insights

“Grief will always be part of me, not as a superpower nor a thorn in my side but as a reminder that only a love so staggering in its intensity could produce an equivalent amount of sadness.”
– Rachel Daum

Important: Although attending the group may be therapeutic, attending cannot be construed as receiving therapy and cannot take the place of therapy. Many people need professional support after experiencing a loss.

About the facilitator

Anne Giles, M.A., M.S., L.P.C., is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the Commonwealth of Virginia, U.S.A., and a student of Mandarin Chinese. She comes to the work of trauma, loss, and grief through what is clinically termed Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE), infertility, student-on-teacher violence, university shootings, the death of her mother, the death of her father – who suffered profoundly from symptoms of dementia – and the unexpected death of a beloved friend. Anne has done extensive reviews of the current research literature on grief, trauma, caregiving, and end-of-life concerns, is trained in Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD (CPT), and  completed the Grief Educator Certificate Program with David Kessler in January, 2023. She participates in the Tender Hearts Grief Support Community.

To have your pain witnessed
To express your feelings
To release the burden of guilt
To be free of old wounds
To integrate the pain and the loss
To find meaning in life after loss
– “Six Needs of the Grieving” from work by David Kessler

For more information, please contact Anne Giles.

Good Samaritan Hospice offers grief support groups for residents of the Montgomery County and Roanoke, Virginia areas. Please contact Good Samaritan Hospice for more information.

Update on 12/30/22: I have become aware that addressing grief may require a deep existential dive, not just into the meaning of life, but into the meaning of death as well. I explore those subjects here.

Image: iStock

All content on this site is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical, professional, and/or legal advice. Consult a qualified professional for personalized medical, professional, and legal advice.

Filed Under: Grief
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