Relationships Archives - Heal Heart and Soul

Five ways to comfort someone who is grieving

by Wendy | Feb 28, 2021 | Depression, Grief, Mental Health, Relationships

When someone has suffered a tragic loss, it can be hard to know what to do to help.

If someone close to you is grieving, God has put you beside that person for a
special purpose – to walk alongside them while they grieve.

Grief can come from all types of loss – some, more severe than others, for example:

Death of a loved one
Divorce
Job loss
Fertility issues – inability to have a baby
A loved one having a serious addiction, such as drugs and alcohol
Death of a treasured family pet
Severe or long-term illness, such a Cancer

I learned a lot about grief when my son was born with special needs.

It was such a shock; something we had never contemplated happening.

The doctor who told us the news handled it very badly, making it much worse than it needed to be.

The hardest thing for us was that many people didn’t understand why we were grieving. The effectively ‘rejected’ our grieving. It’s as if the situation wasn’t bad enough to warrant grieving over.

There is a name for this. It is called ‘Disenfranchised Grief and Loss’.

Every parent hopes for a perfectly healthy child. Most parents don’t expect something to be wrong with their child.

When a child is born with special needs, the parents suffer the loss of the perfect child they had hoped for.

The future is now full of the unknown.

What does the child’s future hold?

What if they have medical complications?

What if they die?

Will they be able to study and get a job?

Will they be able to live independently when they grow up?

Will they be teased and rejected by their peers? The questions go on and on.

Here are 5 ways to help someone who is grieving:

1. Don’t judge their response to the situation. Accept it.

There is no right or wrong way to grieve.

Everyone is different. Everyone will react differently. Everyone comes from a different background and with different life experiences.

Some people may have learned how to process difficult emotions as they grew up, but others may never have learned this, so they just spiral out of control.

Never judge a grieving person.

Completely accept however they are responding to their grief. It is normal for them.

Romans 12:15 “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”

2. Do reach out to them even if they don’t respond to you

Even if you are afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing, still reach out to them.

They need to know you are there and that you care about what they are going through.

Let them know that you are there just to listen anytime.

Even if they don’t return your call or thank you for a card or a meal, know that they appreciate it anyway.

I remember when I was in a Mother-Baby unit in hospital with Post-natal depression when my son was 10 weeks old. Quite a few people rang or sent cards, but I was so unwell that I wasn’t able to respond to most of them.

Some people got very offended that I didn’t get back to them. When I got out of hospital, they made it clear how much I had ‘hurt their feelings’ by not getting back to them.

When you are the one suffering a loss, it’s about your feelings, not theirs.

But they didn’t understand that it’s not that I was rude or ungrateful, I was simply unable to respond. But hearing from them, getting a message that they had called, getting some flowers or a card – it all helped tremendously. It was so encouraging to know that they cared.

When you are grieving, it saps you of every bit of strength you have. You have no energy left to make other people feel appreciated.

Whether you hear back from the grieving person or not, keep gently reaching out to show that you are there if they need you.

Offer to do something practical such as baby sit their kids or clean their house so they can have some time to themselves.

Just be there. If you get the impression that they don’t want you there in person, still show up in other ways, such as with cards, emails and flowers.

Be there for them for the long haul. Don’t just be supportive until the funeral is over and then leave the grieving person alone. Their grief doesn’t just stop now that the funeral is over.

They are just taking their first few fledgling steps through the grief process and towards healing. They need to know you are there for them for as long as it takes.

3. Don’t try and cheer them up

When someone is grieving, you desperately wish you could help them feel better, but trying to ‘cheer them up’ or tell them to ‘snap out of it’ are completely unhelpful.

It will probably result in them withdrawing from you as the things you are saying are actually hurting more than they are helping. This leaves the person grieving with less support just when they need it the most.

Our son’s disability is mainly physical. It was so painful when he was born and people all around us said ‘what are you worried about? At least his brain is all right’.

This was not helpful!

My husband and I had both had a terrible time with being teased in school and we were sincerely concerned, knowing that our son’s physical disability meant he was obviously very different to his peers and he might get teased. And yes, we were allowed to feel sad about this!

4. Don’t give them platitudes

Platitudes are ‘meaningless sayings’.

When someone’s child has passed away, for example, don’t say:

Oh Jesus needed him in heaven more than you needed him here; or
It’s all part of God’s plan

The person doesn’t want the person to be in Heaven right now, they want them here with them.

While the promise of Heaven can bring some comfort in time, it does little to reduce grief when it is very raw.

5. Don’t try to hurry up in the grieving process

There is no right or wrong length of time for someone to grieve. This will vary considerably from person to person.

Of course, if it’s 12 months down the track and the person still cries all day every day and has not been able to begin getting on with their life, perhaps they need some extra support to move forward.

But generally, people will move through the grieving process at their own pace and it is not your job to judge that pace or try to hurry them along.

Conclusion

Everyone grieves differently and for different lengths of time. The main thing is to let them know that you are there to support them in any way that helps. If you don’t hear back from them, don’t be offended, just pull back a little and continue to support them with cards, flowers, a meal etc. Even if the person grieving doesn’t have the strength to respond to you reaching out to them, it will mean the world to them that you did.

What is ‘Detachment with love’?

by Wendy | Oct 11, 2020 | Loving an alcoholic, Relationships

One of the most important lessons I ever learned from Al-Anon, is a concept called ‘Detachment with Love’. (Al-Anon is a support group for people with family or friends who are alcoholics).

At its heart, ‘detachment with love’ means allowing someone to learn from their own mistakes – to experience the natural consequences of their own choices and behavior.

The trouble is, that many of us who love an alcoholic, are in a co-dependent relationship with them – that means that our identify, our happiness and our general emotions are entwined with the other person. It’s hard to know where the other person ends and you start – your emotions are enmeshed together.

So what we think of as ‘love’ is often an unhealthy love. It is not the mature love that people are meant to have with each other, where each person takes responsibility for their own decisions, actions and happiness.

So if our loved one makes a poor choice eg. getting drunk and falling down, because of our
co-dependency, we tend to rush in and try to ‘rescue’ them.

We don’t want them to feel any pain or discomfort.

We want to make everything smooth and easy for them. This is partly because of our unhealthy ‘love’ for them, but it’s also because we believe that if they are stressed, unhappy or in pain, they will drink more. This is the last thing that we want.

So we try to control the situation.

This is why the first step in the 12 step process is “we admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable” – meaning, that we are unable to control it, no matter how hard we try.

When we rush in and ‘rescue’ our loved one, they do not have the opportunity to learn from their own mistakes.

We think we are ‘loving’ our spouse, child or other family member, but actually our behaviour is allowing them to remain comfortable drinking.

Only when we allow the alcoholic to experience the natural consequences of their drinking, is there any hope of them making a decision to stop.

I remember one night, my husband stumbled to bed, drunk as usual, and when he tried to get up to go to the bathroom, he fell out of bed with a tremendous crash and with the sound of breaking glass.

I got up in a panic, to see what on earth had happened. My husband had fallen out of bed onto a large picture frame and it had smashed to pieces. The picture frame had been sitting next to his side of the bed, waiting for him to put it up on the wall.

There was glass everywhere. He was so drunk that he could not get up. Every time he tried to get up, he would fall back down and smash more glass.

It got to the place where he was lying on a pile of broken glass and he was also covered with broken glass. He was rolling around in it and every time he moved, he cut himself more and made it worse.

I got up and desperately tried to lift him up, but he was too heavy. He is a big guy, and I just didn’t have the strength to hold up his body weight. After about 5 or 6 attempts, with no success, I just had to let him stay on the floor, on the glass. I didn’t know what to do.

Then I remembered what I have been learning in Al-Anon about ‘Detachment with Love’.

I realised that, while I loved my husband, there was nothing I could do to help him, so I just had to go back to bed and go to sleep, leaving him on the floor, rolling around in the glass, cutting himself more and more.

Does this mean I didn’t care about him? Not at all!

I cared about him deeply and was very sad to see the mess he had got himself into, but there was nothing more I could do but go back to sleep and wait for the morning.

After trying over and over to get up, he finally collapsed and went to asleep on the floor.

At that moment, I finally, truly understood the meaning of the term ‘detachment with love’.

I loved my husband with all my heart and I wanted to help him, but at the end of the day, it was his choice to get drunk and this is why he ended up in the mess he was in.

Even though I knew his body was cut and was getting worse every time he moved, I had to be at peace with this and allow myself to go back to sleep.

‘Detachment with love’ is actually a tool that we can use with many people, not just a loved one who is an alcoholic. Anyone who is making unwise choices and doesn’t like the natural consequences and expects us to bail them out, needs a good dose of ‘Detachment with love’.

We see this when we raise children and why we have to discipline them when they misbehave. When our child experiences our discipline, they may react with tears or anger. They may scream ‘you don’t love me’.

But you know that you love them deeply and you need to allow them to their mistakes. This can either be learning by experiencing the natural consequences of their choices or it can be experiencing consequences that you decide are appropriate to the situation.

Your motivation is love.

You want them to mature and grow up responsible citizens.

If we continually come to their rescue, they will never feel the consequences of their bad choices.

In the Bible, in Hebrews 12:11, it says “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

And in Proverbs 3:12 “because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.”

And in Galatians 6:5 “each one should carry their own load”.

As adults, each one of us has “our own load” of responsibilities to carry. When we ‘rescue’ our alcoholic loved one, we are trying to carry “their load” of responsibilities as well as our own. This is exhausting for us can soon lead to burn out, and it does not actually help the alcoholic. We need to allow them to learn to carry their own responsibilities.

So ‘Detachment with love’ is two-fold:

1. We lovingly allow the alcoholic to carry their own responsibilities; and

2. We lovingly allow them to learn from their own mistakes and to experience the consequences of their own choices and actions.

The life changing power of gratitude

by Wendy | Aug 1, 2020 | Faith and Spirituality, Mental Health, Relationships

In the challenging times we are living in, it is more important than ever to deliberately look for things to be grateful for; to focus on what we do have, rather than what we don’t have.

I’m saying this to remind myself as much as anyone else.

I have to admit, I have struggled to be content about some things lately. But I know from past experience, that no matter what you are going through, being grateful for what you do have can be truly life changing.

As we begin to focus on the positive things in our life, it tends to lift us up out of depression and pain and give us hope for the future.

One of my favorite people on You Tube, has recently purchased a 14th century mansion in the English country side. Now they are completely redecorating it and purchasing luxury furniture to fit it out.

I have to admit, I have found it a bit hard to watch lately. I live in a small, old, run down house on a main road and we still have quite a decent size mortgage.

But when I choose to be thankful on purpose, it changes my mindset completely.

I am so grateful that we have our own home. It’s warm and cozy and it’s enough.

I especially love how the sunshine streams in our bedroom window all day long – the sunshine is so healing.

As my husband has said many times:

‘it’s not much, but it’s ours and it’s full of love’.

I have to admit this is true. It helps you to see beyond the cracks in the walls, the flaking paint on the window sills and the broken tiles around the fire place.

But it is ours, and it is full of love.

This is something to be very grateful for. And it reminds me of the miracle God has done in our

For many, many years, our home was full of drunkenness, fighting, sadness, depression, anxiety and apathy. We have been on the brink of divorce more than once.

It is truly a miracle that God has completely restored our marriage. So much healing has come to our home. It is now filled with peace, calm, laughter and love. We love each other more now than we did, when we got married 30 years ago.

Many, many years ago, when things were at their worst in our marriage, I started to wish I had a different life partner. I really thought it would be easier to start over. Only the Grace of God stopped me from doing the unthinkable and betraying our sacred marriage vows.

I will be forever grateful for one special person, who advised me:

Next time you feel like walking away, I want you to sit down and write down all the things you love about your husband.

This wasn’t easy and I really didn’t want to do it. It felt like it would have been a lot easier to just walk away, but I followed their advice and before I knew it, I had written a list of more than 20 things I loved about my husband. And I can tell you, it really helped.

It reminded me of the man I had fallen in love with and married.

Knowing that he was still in there, somewhere, buried deep within his own pain and numbed every night with large quantities of alcohol.

Writing this list of things I loved about my husband; things I was grateful for, really worked. It was one of the things that helped me to stay the course, for well over fifteen years of heartache, when it looked like things would never change.

I am ever so glad that we stuck it out. God has completely restored our marriage. We love each other now more than ever.

Now our house truly is ‘full of love’.

I am forever grateful to the person who told me to write down all the things I loved about my husband; all the things I was grateful for about him, when I was right at the point of walking away.

I know that many of you are facing the seemingly impossible right now. Perhaps, like me, your marriage feels like it’s on the brink of break down; perhaps you have lost your job or you have had to close your business down; perhaps you have a child who has gone off the rails and is caught up in drug addiction.

No matter what is going on in your life, there is always things you can
be grateful for.

I want to encourage you to take time today, and every day, to be grateful on purpose.

Write down what you do have, rather than focusing on what you don’t have. You might be really surprised just how many things are still good in your life; things to be truly thankful for.

And the most surprising thing is how much better you feel, when you approach life through a lens of gratitude.

I guess this comes a little easier to me as I’m naturally a ‘glass half full’ kind of person, but even if you are a ‘glass half empty’ kind of person, you will be amazed at how much better you will feel, by choosing to be grateful on purpose.

In Philippians 4:11–13 the Bible says “I have learned to be content, whatever
the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry; whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him (God) who gives me strength”.

And if you are in need, as so many people are at this terrible time of the Coronavirus pandemic, God says in Philippians 4:6-7

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace which is beyond our understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”.

In the challenging times we are living in, it is more important than ever to deliberately look for things to be grateful for; to focus on what we do have, rather than what we don’t have.

I’m saying this to remind myself as much as anyone else.

I have to admit, I have struggled to be content about some things lately. But I know from past experience, that no matter what you are going through, being grateful for what you do have can be truly life changing.

As we begin to focus on the positive things in our life, it tends to lift us up out of depression and pain and give us hope for the future.

One of my favorite people on You Tube, has recently purchased a 14th century mansion in the English country side. Now they are completely redecorating it and purchasing luxury furniture to fit it out.

I have to admit, I have found it a bit hard to watch lately. I live in a small, old, run down house on a main road and we still have quite a decent size mortgage.

But when I choose to be thankful on purpose, it changes my mindset completely.

I am so grateful that we have our own home. It’s warm and cozy and it’s enough.

I especially love how the sunshine streams in our bedroom window all day long – the sunshine is so healing.

As my husband has said many times:

‘it’s not much, but it’s ours and it’s full of love’.

I have to admit this is true. It helps you to see beyond the cracks in the walls, the flaking paint on the window sills and the broken tiles around the fire place.

But it is ours, and it is full of love.

This is something to be very grateful for. And it reminds me of the miracle God has done in our marriage.

Our house wasn’t always full of love.

For many, many years, our home was full of drunkenness, fighting, sadness, depression, anxiety and apathy. We have been on the brink of divorce more than once.

It is truly a miracle that God has completely restored our marriage. So much healing has come to our home. It is now filled with peace, calm, laughter and love. We love each other more now than we did, when we got married 30 years ago.

Many, many years ago, when things were at their worst in our marriage, I started to wish I had a different life partner. I really thought it would be easier to start over. Only the Grace of God stopped me from doing the unthinkable and betraying our sacred marriage vows.

I will be forever grateful for one special person, who advised me:

‘next time you feel like walking away, I want you to sit down and write down all the things you love about your husband’.

This wasn’t easy and I really didn’t want to do it. It felt like it would have been a lot easier to just walk away, but I followed their advice and before I knew it, I had written a list of more than 20 things I loved about my husband. And I can tell you, it really helped.

It reminded me of the man I had fallen in love with and married.

Knowing that he was still in there, somewhere, buried deep within his own pain and numbed every night with large quantities of alcohol.

Writing this list of things I loved about my husband; things I was grateful for, really worked. It was one of the things that helped me to stay the course, for well over fifteen years of heart ache, when it looked like things would never change.

I am ever so glad that we stuck it out. God has completely restored our marriage. We love each other now more than ever.

Now our house truly is ‘full of love’.

I am forever grateful to the person who told me to write down all the things I loved about my husband; all the things I was grateful for about him, when I was right at the point of walking away.

I know that many of you are facing the seemingly impossible right now. Perhaps, like me, your marriage feels like it’s on the brink of break down; perhaps you have lost your job or you have had to close your business down; perhaps you have a child who has gone off the rails and is caught up in drug addiction.

No matter what is going on in your life, there is always things you can be grateful for.

I want to encourage you to take time today, and every day, to be grateful on purpose.

Write down what you do have, rather than focusing on what you don’t have. You might be really surprised just how many things are still good in your life; things to be truly thankful for.

And the most surprising thing is how much better you feel, when you approach life through a lens of gratitude.

I guess this comes a little easier to me as I’m naturally a ‘glass half full’ kind of person, but even if you are a ‘glass half empty’ kind of person, you will be amazed at how much better you will feel, by choosing to be grateful on purpose.

In Philippians 4: 11 – 13 the Bible says “I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry; whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him (God) who gives me strength”.

And if you are in need, as so many people are at this terrible time of the Coronavirus pandemic, God says in Philippians 4:6-7.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace which is beyond our understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”.