DAVID KESSLER

GRIEF EDUCATOR
CERTIFICATION
NOTES
Week 2
 WEEK 2
How to be with Others in Grief

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 WITNESSING GRIEF
When we are with others in grief, it’s important to witness their grief.

People need and want to be seen, know they matter as well as have
their loss affirmed by others. Their loved one was important, and their
loss has significance.

We so often see when people address a person in grief with

judgment or even well-intended advice, it exacerbates the pain.
When someone tells someone in grief to “move on” it alienates the
griever. The loss is not reflected. The experience of the griever is
denied or diminished, and the pain of the grief is not reflected.

When someone dies, the life of those left behind change forever. And
yet, it would seem the world goes on. The sun still rises and sets.
People go about their days. The intensity, gravity, and depth of the
life-changing moments can feel isolating and concealed from the
rest of your world. Grief can feel like a painful secret. We become
isolated little islands of grief.

Witnessing grief has the power to make someone feel supported,

safe, and seen. It’s reassuring to have one’s grief seen and to know
that it is a normal part of the human experience, and it doesn't have
to be secretive nor solitary.

Remember that grief doesn’t follow a timeline. You can’t rush grief. I
always say that if you have 1000 tears to shed, you can’t stop at 500.
There is no right or wrong way to grieve. And the person in grief is
their own expert on what they feel and where they are in their grief
journey at the moment.

Sometimes the best thing we can do for someone is to be with them,

to be patient, and to truly see them.

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 AVOID PLATITUDES
It’s human nature to want to help and console those who are in pain.
It’s hard to see others suffering. But, advice such as, “Your loved one
wouldn’t want you to be sad,’ Or anything that begins with, “At
least…” is neither helpful nor validating. We don’t want to help those
in grief look for a silver lining. Instead consider validating responses
such as, “Of course you feel that way!” Normalize strong feelings of
loss as a natural and meaningful response to grief.

Practice patience, acceptance, and compassion.

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 HOW TO BE WITH PEOPLE
IN GRIEF
Let go of expectations
Listen
Allow them to be who they are and
where they are
Allow them to feel what they feel
If they are lost. Allow them to feel
lost. Only they can find their way
out
Their grief is not about you
Validate their thoughts and feelings
Validate the magnitude of their loss
Validate their story
Validate their timing
Be present
Be patient
Be willing to sit with their pain
Let go of your own discomfort and
awkwardness
Let go of your own need to think of
something comforting or clever to
say
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Mirror their tone
Follow their lead
Honor their timing
Honor their need for space
Remember that thoughts and
feelings aren’t always rational
You don’t need to make them feel
better
Be comfortable with silence
Ask directly how you can support
them
Don’t judge
Commenting on how well they are
doing is judging
Don’t compare
Don’t imagine how you would feel
Don’t try to fix
Don’t pressure them to talk about it
if they don’t want to
Don’t project your beliefs onto
them
STILL FACE EXPERIMENT -
DR. EDWARD TRONICK
We built for connection. In the 1970s, experiments led by Dr.
Edward Tronick show how a parent’s reaction can impact the
development of a baby. In this experiment, a mother and a
baby face each other. The mother plays with the baby and the
baby reacts. Then, the mother stops reacting and meets the
baby’s coos and reaches with a still face. The baby becomes
upset. When the mother reacts again, the baby is reassured
and responds with pleasure and relief. We are all former
babies. Mirroring makes us feel safe, valued, connected, and
seen.

Click on the link below to watch the experiment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0

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 MIRRORING
Mirroring can be important in our social world. We are social animals,
and we look for reactions of approval from others.

We mirror others subconsciously. We mirror each other’s gestures,

language, and expressions.
I was walking down the street and people greeted me with “howdy”. I
am not generally someone who says “howdy”. And yet, when people
around me used this greeting, I found that I adapted it as well, I was
mirroring a regional expression of acknowledgment and greeting.

Mirroring is a sign of acceptance. It shows that we are present, that

we’re listening, and that we’re tuned in to the conversation or social
situation.

When you’re with someone who is experiencing loss, meet them

where they are.

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 DISCONNECTION OF
FEELINGS
So often people don’t fully feel their feelings, especially negative
feelings. We naturally want to avoid pain. We’re programmed to
have an aversion to discomfort. So often people don’t experience
their true feelings. They may think they do. They may say they do.
But when I dig into their experience with them, I often find that
they have quickly labeled their negative feelings and are doing all
that they can to avoid them.

Our feelings must have life. They are not right or wrong, they just
are.

We don't have a broken head, we have a broken heart. Yet we stay

in our head. We over-think our feelings. We create stories around
our feelings. We judge our feelings. We have feelings about our
feelings.

In order to witness grief, we need to get to the true feelings.

You have to feel your feelings from the inside

You can’t heal what you don’t feel
No feeling is final

The only way out of the pain is through the pain and this has to
happen in their own time.

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SEE THE ENORMITY OF WHAT
THEY’RE GOING THROUGH
I remember in the ’80s, during the AIDS crisis people would come to
me after a loved one died. Instead of seeing their friend, brother,
mentor, partner as a number, I saw the individual enormity of what
they were going through even though. I saw their person. We have
recently seen this with COVID as well. Worldwide the number of
people who have died is staggering. We can become numb to the
unimaginable loss with such a large number. And yet, when we see
each person, each mother, each father, each friend, or sister as an
individual it’s powerful.

Your loss is always the worst loss.

When we reflect and mirror their loss, our individual biases disappear.
Sometimes we don't realize when we are adding our take. We bring
our own experiences and story to the loss of others. We are tempted
to say things like, “Mothers are complicated,” or, “I can't imagine
losing a child.” Our story gets layered onto their experience.
Witnessing is about reflecting the specificity and emotional impact of
their loss and being present with and for their experience.

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 WORKING WITH OTHERS -
MEETING THEM WHERE THEY ARE
We’re not as good at being actors as we think we are. Humans excel
at picking up the nuances of irritation, impatience, distraction, and all
of the myriads of other social cues we subconsciously present to
others. And when we have an agenda for someone, they sense it.

In order to work with someone in grief, we need to truly meet others

where they are. Be present. Be accepting. Let them be real with you.
They can subtly feel you think they should be somewhere different or
more evolved.

I tell people that they are doing grief perfectly

Don’t have an agenda or a timeline
Let them tell you where they are
Let them share with you how they feel
If they say they are lost - meet them at lost

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 UNDERSTAND EVENTS VS.
STORIES

Stories shape our lives, our cultures, and our beliefs. We define
ourselves by the stories we tell about ourselves and sometimes we
are defined by the stories that others have created for us. Our minds
want to find patterns and arcs and create stories about what
happened to us.

People in grief, create stories around their loss. This is neither good
nor bad. But when they connect to a story that is not true and is not
helpful, they can get stuck in the narrative.

Very often, we can sense when this has happened. The story sounds
rehearsed or maybe even untrue.

In my work with people, I often find that they connect to a story

around the specifics of the death itself. It becomes their reality and
they have trouble getting past the repetition of it.

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There is an event that happened. There’s a death. That’s the event.
But we tend to create stories around it. It was a good death. A
peaceful death. A bad death. A painful death.

I have people do an exercise where they list only the facts of what
happened. They find this very difficult. You might consider trying this
with the people you are working with to help them untangle what is
a story and what happened.

When someone holds on to their story, they are just telling me that
they are really committed to the story.
Confabulation is when stories fill in gaps in memory. That can happen
too. These stories are often misinterpreted or distorted.

We want to make sense of things. Death just can’t be random, we

need a story.

We also tell ourselves stories about ourselves. A widow might say, “I

can never take care of the house on my own.” Someone whose child
died might say, “There is no way I can ever smile again.”

It’s also important to note that sometimes the story can be true. We
have to realize it’s still a story.

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 CARL JUNG
Carl Jung talked about the idea of archetypes that are derived from a
collective unconsciousness. Jung believed that humans have an
innate drive to define themselves around these stories. These
archetypes and stories transcend culture, language, and origin.
Wherever you find humans, you find these stories. This is not so much
to define people and stories by types but the point out the
prevalence and pervasiveness of human nature to organize our lives
and communities around these universal stories.

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 JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Joseph Campbell’s work and writing combine comparative

mythology and psychology to reveal the idea of a monomyth
- the hero’s journey. He talks about the way one story - “A man
goes out on a journey...” becomes the most compelling driver
of the human condition. We are drawn to this story as
repeated across cultures. In addition to being compelled by
the telling of the hero’s journey, Campbell’s theory is that it is
our nature to construct our own lives around the idea of the
hero’s journey.

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 THANK YOU
Thank you for being here for Week 2.

If you have ever had a loss, you know that being there for one another
is easier being said than done.

Learning what to say and how to be is so important. You will also find
learning the difference between the story and the event is going to
help you so much not only in your work but in your life.

I look forward to practicing some of these concepts with you in the

lab!

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