September 2024
Welcome, 2023 and 2024 have been a very busy for me. I finished an 80-page book proposal, and I created a website. I attended a two-day authors’ workshop with Jack Canfield, the co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul who sold five hundred million copies worldwide! In November 2023 Jack interviewed me, and you can find it on my website. He not only interviewed me and praised the book, but he is going to endorse the front of the book. I am also working with Steve Harrison, Jack’s colleague who owns Author’s Success. Together we will develop a marketing strategy for A Grief Postponed. Jack Canfield’s former CEO, Patty Aubery, has also referred me to Erin Saxton, a producer of The View and Good Morning America to see if she can assist me in getting the word out about delayed grief. I am also putting together an application to do a TEDX talk. I hope you enjoy the following topic. Remember you can email me with questions and post a comment or question in the forum.
There is a silent epidemic of delayed grief in this country. A Grief Postponed pulls back the curtain on this widely experienced phenomenon. Delayed grief, or unresolved grief, as it is sometimes referred to, is intergenerational. I had to unlearn what I was taught about grief to heal. When Ian died, no one in my family spoke his name except once by my father. He said, “At first, you’ll think of Ian every minute, then every other minute, and so on until eventually you won’t think about him.” I took this to heart even though it was not entirely helpful.
From the Greatest Generation we learned that the passage of time would heal us. Because of this we baby boomers didn’t know what to do with our grief, and our lack of effective coping skills were passed down to Generation Xers and Millennials. The cycle goes on and on because we inherit our family’s dysfunctional methods of communication and coping mechanisms.
The field of epigenetics informs us that unresolved trauma in our parents is inherited. If we choose to change our behavior and do our grief work, we can turn off the expression of those trauma genes and will not pass them down to the next generation. A Grief Postponed aims to help readers do just that.
If we don’t grieve, our unacknowledged grief is sequestered, and along with it, a part of ourselves. This unattended grief limits our ability to bond with another human being because we aren’t whole. We live in bondage to it as it siphons life-giving energy from us and limits our capacity not only to feel sorrow but to feel joy. This must stop.
After Ian’s funeral I went home and put Ian’s clothes and toys in boxes and gave them away. When my uncle died, Mother and I boxed up his belongings and Mother got rid of them. Society seemed to agree. “Do away with painful reminders, move on, get busy. This is how you survive.” So, as I packed up Ian’s boxes, I ignored the contradiction in my heart. What I didn’t realize was Ian’s belongings could be a comfort and would have served as cues to facilitate my grief.
My goal became to forget Ian, but it seemed like an impossibility to me. This goal led me down a path where I suppressed my grief and ultimately became physically ill.
What did you learn from your family about grief? What have you learned from society? Remember you can post anonymously.