[Applause]
five losses in one September to
September year it was about ten years
ago and in December I lost my good
friend and in February I got a phone
call from my mother that my grandmother
Rebecca had died and in April I lost
another close friend stuff to leukemia
in June I went through my own heartbreak
my romantic relationship ended and then
the next September that following
September I was standing with my mother
as we watched my father take his last
breath I could barely catch my own
breath that year it was it took me
months actually to move through that
grief when we talk about grief which I
generally consider sadness helplessness
anger and disappointment
most of us think of the losses I just
described but I want to talk about a
different kind of grief one of us but
one that most of us don’t really even
consider that we experience we don’t
realize it’s even taking place instead
it’s disguised in front of us as this
kind of grief leftover anger bitterness
plain cynicism grudges hostility
negativity regret resentment sarcasm
self-hate and long-standing hurt that’s
all disguised grief is disguised inside
of you buried piled head or even from
adulthood the difference between what
you experienced between what you needed
what you wanted what you dreamed of and
what really occurred both
if when you move through grief and
really heal the grief including
disguised grief you open yourself up to
forgiveness to happiness to a healthier
life and much more joy in my 30 years as
a psychologist and going through my
multiple losses what I’ve realized is
that there’s there’s not only a process
but there’s a healing nature to grief
and it’s that healing process that I
want to talk about that I’ve developed
to help people reclaim their lives it’s
what I call grief reset protocol the
first is to grieve unspoken dimensions
the second is to reflect on the memory
itself the third is to inquire more
deeply the fourth is to extract the good
and the fifth is to forgive yourself and
others let’s start with the G then how
do you uncover grief it takes knowing
what you’re grieving about it involves
grieving over what you got and didn’t
deserve it’s all forms of abuse it’s
chaos it might be a Buddhist ISM it’s
grieving over what you deserved and
didn’t get that’s the good stuff the
first ones the bad stuff the second ones
the good stuff and that means grieving
over the consistent support love
nurturance or praise that we may not
have received it’s grieving over what
never was think of that as the facts and
circumstances of your early life so that
might be the education or the
opportunities you had when you were
young it’s also grieving over what is
not now those are the facts and
circumstances of your current life and
grieving over what may never be that
might be support from someone or someone
saying something to you that you wish
they’d say it just never comes
the next then is to reflect on the
memory how do you reflect on the memory
that means going into the memory
spending some time with the memory now
you can do that all sorts of ways and
shift into memory itself by being in
nature by taking a walk or a hike you
could read you could write you could
journal listen to music play music
engage with in a conversation with a
close friend or a loved one know that
when you take time with the memory that
more details and more memories may come
the next step then is I to inquire more
deeply making sense of the memory so how
do we make sense of the memory what that
really involves is understanding how the
experience impacted you when when they
occur the experience itself occurred or
when many experiences occurred it’s to
understand the impact the second is to
understand the relevance how have those
experience has been relevant to you as
you’ve aged and the third is to
understand what significance these
experiences have on your life today so
really in this is digging deepening the
experience of what we’re doing here I
was at a conference lunch a few years
ago with a man who was in his 70s that I
will call Paul now Paul was very very
gracious he turned to me and asked what
I did professional and when I took the
time to describe what I did he ended up
within moments telling me about it
something that happened to him in high
school that involves singing it was
during his senior year in high school
now remember I’m a psychologist people
tell their stories like that a lot
so we’re sitting and he tells me that he
was singing his last senior highschool
concert in front of 2,000 people two
solos after the performance one of his
close friends came up to me said Paul
you sang so flat you should be so
embarrassed never seen solos again in
front of people and you know what Paul
followed that advice he accept he took
it one step further
he never sang publicly again what’s
interesting here is that he carried the
grief of what never was what is not now
and what may never be because he made a
decision to stop singing had he dealt
with that grief and resolved that
experience it’s possible that he could
have brought singing back into his life
something that brought him much joy I
can only imagine what his life would
have been like if he had reclaimed that
but if he made a different decision in
his 20s 30s 40s or even later to bring
that joyful experience back into his
life what’s challenging here is that
when we go through experiences
especially painful ones we hold
attitudes we hold beliefs and we make
decisions that sometimes cause us even
more pain so these are the questions
then to deepen our inquiry even further
and that is how did these experiences
change what I believed how did these
experiences change the attitudes that I
hold and how did these experiences
change the decisions I made
that takes us to e which is to extract
the good when I was a young child I was
bullied as many kids go through and well
the teasing and a taunting and the
mocking all hurt it was being left out
being excluded that actually was the one
that affected me the most because when I
thought about that it felt like I would
never fit in I’d never belong and then I
would be all alone I would be with my
mom and sitting at the kitchen table and
she kind of grabbed my hands and hers
and she she want to soothe me and say oh
Joan it’ll be okay
now while it helped me feel a little bit
better in the moment I would go back to
school and it would happen again what
what it involved for me was to take the
time to resolve and make meaning or make
sense of what those experiences did to
me and who I wanted to become as a
result of that and I did take that time
in my mid-20s and as I did that I
realized that I never wanted to hurt
someone the way I’d been hurt so I made
a decision to hold kindness as one of my
highest values and it’s something that I
practice living into every day now most
people don’t necessarily dig into the
benefit and try to understand the
benefit of painful experiences yet doing
this is such an important element of the
whole brief reset protocol it really is
important to try to tease out what it is
that benefited me who I became as a
result of that so what is it that you
can extract for good
and then that brings us to F to forgive
here’s the deal to really move through
disguised grief you have to know and
accept that you can never do what was
undone nor undo what was done
you can never do what was undone and you
can never undo what was done for
instance you can never do praise you
never gave and you can never undo mean
words you may have said
now forgiveness doesn’t mean that you
agree and you condone what happened all
it means is that you accept the truth
that the experiences occurred here then
is what to forgive and it’s again it
takes us deeper into the process it’s
forgiving yourself for what you did or
did not know it’s forgiving also
yourself for what you did or did not do
it’s forgiving others for what they did
or did not know and it’s forgiving
others for what they did or did not do
understand this too takes very conscious
practice over time
so that in essence is the grief reset
protocol the first is to grieve unspoken
dimensions the second is to reflect on
the memory itself the third is to
inquire more deeply the fourth is to
extract the good and the fifth is to
forgive yourself and others when you
walk this framework all the way through
to the end to forgiveness you give
yourself a chance to free yourself from
your old life story which means that you
can make different decisions you can
hold different attitudes and beliefs who
do you want to become what new story do
you want to live into and create I knew
that I needed to heal those five losses
that I experienced that September to
September year my friend Dan my
grandmother my friend staff my partner
and also my dad I did take the time to
grieve that to make sense of what took
place
I want you to do the same use this grief
reset protocol take some time with it
do it soon I know how it changes people
for the better when they allow
themselves to move through but make
sense and clear that grief the beauty of
it is that grief opens to laughter and
joy forgiveness opens to deeper
connections
and also know that the more you stay
present to the truth of what your life
was the more you free yourself to create
what you want your life to be
[Applause]
five losses in one September to
September year it was about ten years
ago and in December I lost my good
friend and in February I got a phone
call from my mother that my grandmother
Rebecca had died and in April I lost
another close friend stuff to leukemia
in June I went through my own heartbreak
my romantic relationship ended and then
the next September that following
September I was standing with my mother
as we watched my father take his last
breath I could barely catch my own
breath that year it was it took me
months actually to move through that
grief when we talk about grief which I
generally consider sadness helplessness
anger and disappointment
most of us think of the losses I just
described but I want to talk about a
different kind of grief one of us but
one that most of us don’t really even
consider that we experience we don’t
realize it’s even taking place instead
it’s disguised in front of us as this
kind of grief leftover anger bitterness
plain cynicism grudges hostility
negativity regret resentment sarcasm
self-hate and long-standing hurt that’s
all disguised grief is disguised inside
of you buried piled head or even from
adulthood the difference between what
you experienced between what you needed
what you wanted what you dreamed of and
what really occurred both
if when you move through grief and
really heal the grief including
disguised grief you open yourself up to
forgiveness to happiness to a healthier
life and much more joy in my 30 years as
a psychologist and going through my
multiple losses what I’ve realized is
that there’s there’s not only a process
but there’s a healing nature to grief
and it’s that healing process that I
want to talk about that I’ve developed
to help people reclaim their lives it’s
what I call grief reset protocol the
first is to grieve unspoken dimensions
the second is to reflect on the memory
itself the third is to inquire more
deeply the fourth is to extract the good
and the fifth is to forgive yourself and
others let’s start with the G then how
do you uncover grief it takes knowing
what you’re grieving about it involves
grieving over what you got and didn’t
deserve it’s all forms of abuse it’s
chaos it might be a Buddhist ISM it’s
grieving over what you deserved and
didn’t get that’s the good stuff the
first ones the bad stuff the second ones
the good stuff and that means grieving
over the consistent support love
nurturance or praise that we may not
have received it’s grieving over what
never was think of that as the facts and
circumstances of your early life so that
might be the education or the
opportunities you had when you were
young it’s also grieving over what is
not now those are the facts and
circumstances of your current life and
grieving over what may never be that
might be support from someone or someone
saying something to you that you wish
they’d say it just never comes
the next then is to reflect on the
memory how do you reflect on the memory
that means going into the memory
spending some time with the memory now
you can do that all sorts of ways and
shift into memory itself by being in
nature by taking a walk or a hike you
could read you could write you could
journal listen to music play music
engage with in a conversation with a
close friend or a loved one know that
when you take time with the memory that
more details and more memories may come
the next step then is I to inquire more
deeply making sense of the memory so how
do we make sense of the memory what that
really involves is understanding how the
experience impacted you when when they
occur the experience itself occurred or
when many experiences occurred it’s to
understand the impact the second is to
understand the relevance how have those
experience has been relevant to you as
you’ve aged and the third is to
understand what significance these
experiences have on your life today so
really in this is digging deepening the
experience of what we’re doing here I
was at a conference lunch a few years
ago with a man who was in his 70s that I
will call Paul now Paul was very very
gracious he turned to me and asked what
I did professional and when I took the
time to describe what I did he ended up
within moments telling me about it
something that happened to him in high
school that involves singing it was
during his senior year in high school
now remember I’m a psychologist people
tell their stories like that a lot
so we’re sitting and he tells me that he
was singing his last senior highschool
concert in front of 2,000 people two
solos after the performance one of his
close friends came up to me said Paul
you sang so flat you should be so
embarrassed never seen solos again in
front of people and you know what Paul
followed that advice he accept he took
it one step further
he never sang publicly again what’s
interesting here is that he carried the
grief of what never was what is not now
and what may never be because he made a
decision to stop singing had he dealt
with that grief and resolved that
experience it’s possible that he could
have brought singing back into his life
something that brought him much joy I
can only imagine what his life would
have been like if he had reclaimed that
but if he made a different decision in
his 20s 30s 40s or even later to bring
that joyful experience back into his
life what’s challenging here is that
when we go through experiences
especially painful ones we hold
attitudes we hold beliefs and we make
decisions that sometimes cause us even
more pain so these are the questions
then to deepen our inquiry even further
and that is how did these experiences
change what I believed how did these
experiences change the attitudes that I
hold and how did these experiences
change the decisions I made
that takes us to e which is to extract
the good when I was a young child I was
bullied as many kids go through and well
the teasing and a taunting and the
mocking all hurt it was being left out
being excluded that actually was the one
that affected me the most because when I
thought about that it felt like I would
never fit in I’d never belong and then I
would be all alone I would be with my
mom and sitting at the kitchen table and
she kind of grabbed my hands and hers
and she she want to soothe me and say oh
Joan it’ll be okay
now while it helped me feel a little bit
better in the moment I would go back to
school and it would happen again what
what it involved for me was to take the
time to resolve and make meaning or make
sense of what those experiences did to
me and who I wanted to become as a
result of that and I did take that time
in my mid-20s and as I did that I
realized that I never wanted to hurt
someone the way I’d been hurt so I made
a decision to hold kindness as one of my
highest values and it’s something that I
practice living into every day now most
people don’t necessarily dig into the
benefit and try to understand the
benefit of painful experiences yet doing
this is such an important element of the
whole brief reset protocol it really is
important to try to tease out what it is
that benefited me who I became as a
result of that so what is it that you
can extract for good
and then that brings us to F to forgive
here’s the deal to really move through
disguised grief you have to know and
accept that you can never do what was
undone nor undo what was done
you can never do what was undone and you
can never undo what was done for
instance you can never do praise you
never gave and you can never undo mean
words you may have said
now forgiveness doesn’t mean that you
agree and you condone what happened all
it means is that you accept the truth
that the experiences occurred here then
is what to forgive and it’s again it
takes us deeper into the process it’s
forgiving yourself for what you did or
did not know it’s forgiving also
yourself for what you did or did not do
it’s forgiving others for what they did
or did not know and it’s forgiving
others for what they did or did not do
understand this too takes very conscious
practice over time
so that in essence is the grief reset
protocol the first is to grieve unspoken
dimensions the second is to reflect on
the memory itself the third is to
inquire more deeply the fourth is to
extract the good and the fifth is to
forgive yourself and others when you
walk this framework all the way through
to the end to forgiveness you give
yourself a chance to free yourself from
your old life story which means that you
can make different decisions you can
hold different attitudes and beliefs who
do you want to become what new story do
you want to live into and create I knew
that I needed to heal those five losses
that I experienced that September to
September year my friend Dan my
grandmother my friend staff my partner
and also my dad I did take the time to
grieve that to make sense of what took
place
I want you to do the same use this grief
reset protocol take some time with it
do it soon I know how it changes people
for the better when they allow
themselves to move through but make
sense and clear that grief the beauty of
it is that grief opens to laughter and
joy forgiveness opens to deeper
connections
and also know that the more you stay
present to the truth of what your life
was the more you free yourself to create
what you want your life to be
[Applause]
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