 Good morning. Good morning to everybody. Thank you for being on time for those of you who were on time. Thank you. Thank you for the rest of you who've waited for a couple of minutes. I just want to welcome all those who are at the e-learning portal as well for your diligence and for ensuring that you keep in tune with the course. We are at our second last week of our course. Next week would be our last and final lesson. The assessment will be put up by the end of today. So kindly ensure that you complete it by the 28th of April. And all the questions for your assessment will be up until today's class. It will not include what we are doing next week. But all things that we discussed up until today's lesson, today's lecture, the whole two lectures. So the assessment will be put up. Please ensure that you complete it because without that you may not be able to complete your program. So please do ensure that you do it. You have time till the 28th. Beyond that, that would also close with closing all assessment and even being able to take on the course. So please ensure that you plan your time ahead and do so. All right. Okay. I hope all of you are doing well. We'll just start with a word of prayer and then we can get started. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for your faithfulness. Over the last three months, even as we have looked into the subject, Father, we thank you for the insights you've bought in, Lord, for helping us, for giving us the wisdom and the knowledge to know how to deal with those who are hurting, who may need help, who may need assistance. Thank you, God, that you are our greatest counsellor, Lord. Lord, the one who gives us direction and guidance for every issue of our life. Father, even as you've entrusted us, Lord, in the midst of people, the people who we may minister to, those in our families, our friends, our church members, God, we just pray that in everything, God, that we will continue to only speak what you would desire us to. Fill us, Lord, with wisdom and knowledge and give us the right words, even as we minister. Or even as we look at a difficult topic today, I pray that you will equip us, Father, to be a blessing to others. Thank you. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. All right, so the last couple of weeks we've been doing particular issues in counselling and we looked at mental health, we looked at marriage and family, we saw suicide and depression, we did see abuse. And one of the last topics that we are going to be looking at is grief and grief counselling. You know, this is something that grief is something that all of us may have at some point of our lives experienced. We've also seen our loved ones experiencing grief, maybe it's family, it's friends, there are members within our own church who experienced this and this is a very sensitive but extremely and important area for us to know how do we minister and especially when it comes to counselling, what do we say, how do we minister, what is it that really encourages people is something that we hope to look at today. Okay, at in your notes, I'm just turning to the page, we are at page 51. So there are some of this that that we've been, we've tried to put into the notes, but there may be a few things outside of it that, you know, it's just for our understanding, our learning that I may add in a couple more of things. So, and it's basically just for us to keep listening and maybe, you know, ask questions as a right. So before we get started, I think maybe the first question that I probably do want to ask you is I'm sure that we may have gone through grief ourselves, or we have seen others experience grief. So just just what would like to open the question out to to those of us who are here, what, you know, when when when you've seen someone in grief, what were what have been your personal reflections or personal thoughts, where were you at or, you know, what did how did you respond to someone who was experiencing grief, it's just to understand and for us to, you know, just hold each other's hand through this, because sometimes I remember in the, you know, before maybe in my early, early days of, you know, my studies, I would avoid going to homes where someone has lost somebody because you're so lost on words that you're more embarrassed or you're more, you're you find it extremely difficult to face the situation. And so you feel that just by not going there, you know, things may be sorted out. But then I think as years have gone by, you know, comforted people in grief, I've understood better and you made them through learning and knowing what we are called to do is because it's definitely changes our mind. So I just would like to hear from you all as to what do you all, did you all notice or evaluate as your personal responses to someone who's undergone grief, if you could, you know, discuss, it'll be nice for all of us to hear. Go ahead, at least two or three of you please, because this is not something new. Each of us would have faced it at some point of time. So I remember once when my mom lost her best friend. So I was, I was kind of very young that time. And even though I was young, I was able to know that mom is going through a lot. So I didn't even go to her for a few days, I think I was not at all speaking with her, because I don't know what to speak. And whoever comes to home, they used to encourage my mom to say something. And I'll be there in a corner just looking at all those things. And it affected my mom a lot. She became mentally affected. So many things were happening. So I remember once they were calling, calling my mom, an invitation came for the funeral service or something after the funeral service. I was young. I was so much frustrated. I threw the invitation into the garbage and I never told my mom. So I think that's one of the things that I did. Yeah, I just didn't want to see her like that. And I was trying my level best to make sure nothing reminds her of her best friend. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Justina. Thanks for that. Yeah, somebody else? Somebody else? Anything you could share anything that you've noticed, you've seen other people, any difficulties that you faced, or maybe you have a lot of comfort in dealing with the situation. Is there anything that I'd like you to just open up so that we have a framework even as we are going forward? Yeah, come on. Yeah, as you said, it's a very hard situation when we have to, when we are faced with something like that, especially someone whom we love, they are going through a grief. Yeah, it's just that spent time with them. Not sure like what to say, but yeah, to just to be there for them at that time, like they need that support. So just to be by their side could be like I fondly remember one of my friends who would, it's not particularly in a grief situation, but whatever difficulties the friends would share with her, she would just be so much involved in what they are speaking. She would be so attentive. And as if she is going through that pain, that's how she reacts. And that really helps the other person to be comforted. So I was really remembering my friend who used to do that. Yeah, and maybe it's a gift, I believe, to do that, to be really involved and empathize and just be there for them, even though you don't have any words or any answers, but just be there. Thank you. Thank you. The grief becomes a lot more bearable when you have people responding in an empathetic way, that someone grieves alongside with you. Yeah, so thank you for that. One more person? Anybody else? Anybody else? One more person? Okay, all right. We'll move forward and just present it on my screen. Okay, all right. So I think what we need to do is basically find or talk about, you know, just begin with the basics of understanding what is grief and what happens and what are, maybe some definitions of a few words over here as we go along, so that we have maybe something like a context to frame up. So when we're looking at grief, we see that grief is a natural response to loss. Okay, now loss just doesn't have to mean death, loss can mean many things and we'll probably look at it a little later. So it's the emotional response someone feels or the response that happens when something or someone, you really love and hold really close is taken away. This pain or the loss, the pain of this loss can often be feel extremely overwhelming. So there are many, many different experiences that you could have as a result of grief that could be all kinds of difficult and unexpected emotions that come ranging from shock, to anger, to disbelief, to guilt, to profound sadness. So we also see that this kind of a grief, the pain of this grief could also disrupt one's physical health, making them difficult to sleep, eat, even concentrate to be able to pay attention to think straight. So these are all normal physiological responses towards grief. So these are normal reactions, any kind of physical reactions you'd see, emotional responses you'd see, they're normal reactions to loss. And you would find that the more significant the loss, the more intense the grief will be. So coping with the loss of someone or maybe even something is one of actually life's biggest challenges. So in a list of stress, the death of a loved one has the highest measure of stress. So often grieving is generally associated with the death of a loved one, which is often generally the cause of the most intense type of grief. But any kind of loss could also cause grief. So when we're looking at grief, we're also including things like maybe it's a grief of a breakup of a relationship or maybe a divorce. It is a loss of health, or it's a loss of a job, or it's a loss of stability in finances. It could be a miscarriage. It could be a retirement, just the loss of productive years. It could be the death of a pet or something like an animal or a pet. It could be a loss of a brain that somebody cherished something that they thought that they could have, but because of some instance that's happened, the grieving happens. It could be a serious illness, like a terminal illness. It could be a loss of a friendship. It could be loss of safety, personal safety, even after some kind of an entire trauma. It could also be moving away from homes or households. The selling of a home or a household could also cause that sense of grief. So even these subtle smaller losses can actually trigger a sense of grief. Like I said, for example, someone moving away from the home or changing jobs or moving away from the city, whatever the loss is, grief is extremely personal. What you would want to help or maybe build an understanding for, it's not to bring about shame about the way someone feels or even personally or even for others to believe that it's not appropriate to grieve for certain things. Whatever, like we said, maybe it's a grieving of a pet or a relationship or a situation, grief comes in because it's something significant has been taken away from them and it's normal to grieve that loss funds experience. So whatever the cause of the grief, there are ways to ensure and work and cope with that pain. And this is what eases the sadness or the hopelessness and helps the person come in terms with the loss and begin to find new meaning and thereafter to be able to move on on with life. So that's just a basic understanding of when we are looking at grief in itself. So one of the terms that we have over here in which maybe we would like to also look about is the word maybe bereavement. Bereavement is a type of grief that we look specifically involving the death of a loved one. So that's when we call it bereavement, but grief is generally a broader it is a loss in any form. So as we said, it's an emotional response, it's an emotional suffering one feels and it is something that is a normal reaction. It's something that everyone goes through and in fact it's healthy for people to grieve through situations. So when we're looking at grief, what are we basically looking for or what do we see? This is largely we're talking about when it comes to coping with death, bereavement, but it is definitely acceptable applicable to when you're looking at other kinds of issues or other kinds of losses as well. So what we are going to look at is when we're looking at a model, let's say it's just to understand some kind of a model of coping, how do we lead somebody through a process of grief. So there are specifically for when we say tasks, it's not like we take it all off, but in general we have in our minds that the person is moving from this stage to another stage to the next stage. So there are basically these four stages or tasks that someone would help create that place for coping with the death of a loved one. So the first and foremost is to come to a place of accepting and come to a place of reality that the person that they've lost is no more, that the death of the individual is a reality is something that is in front of their eyes, that is something that they to come to that place of acceptance. The next one is through to also work through that pain of grief, to be able to process that pain, the lacunae that they feel as a result of that grief, the many things that they feel they have lost as a result of it. The next one is to adjust to the life without the person without the one who they've lost, to move on, to keep living, to keep hope, to begin to see how they can reorder, refunction their lives without the deceased person. And the last is to be able to maintain a healthy connection to the memory of the deceased while moving on with life. Now it is to be able to think over, yes, maybe at points of time experience that sense of loss and sadness, but being able to move on. So to build that healthy connection with the memory of the person who they've lost. So moving on, I think something that we need to understand is that grief can affect everyone very, very differently. So it is, you may see or you may have noticed how different people cope very differently. For some, they take good amount periods of time to really talk about the one who they've lost, revisit these experiences of the other person, continue really sharing about the other, the person they've lost or whatever the situation is. But whereas others may not bring it up at all, they may have a very personal, private time of grieving and not something that's more, more publicly shown. So it's basically, it's very unique the way that everyone grieves and each is different. Now this could also be based on the way that they react, could also be based on the kind of relationship they had with the person who they have lost. And so the connections of how it is, so the closer it may be, the grief may be harder. The coping also may be very different. So because each person is different and every relationship is different, even the way that grief is dealt with could also be very, very different in itself. Now to just probably understand a little bit to really have an idea about what is it that we see as normal or what do we call is the signs and the symptoms of grief. And so even as we're taking through this, this is to build our awareness that a lot of these responses that we see are in itself quite normal. It's something that is commonly seen among those who may be grieving. So let's just go through this list so that we have an idea. So the first one that you probably see is something like shock and numbness, especially if the loss has been very sudden, it's been traumatic, there's been it's unexpected, there can be extreme shock and numbness, a sense of not being in reality, as if it's a dream, the general disbelief of it, the fact that there is so much of confusion because not being able to come to the realistic picture of, you may have heard people saying just yesterday or just this morning, this is what happened and now there isn't anyone or this person isn't there. So this could lead to extremely very unexplainable, strange and painful thoughts and feelings. And even even the articulation of some of these thoughts could seem very disconnected. There'd be one certain point of time that is shock when there could be brief periods of normalcy and there can be sudden periods of disbelief where you can actually see the confusion will come over. So these are especially in the initial hours to probably days, this is probably something that is quite common. And the common questions of why? Why did this happen? How could this happen? Attempting to find answers to why the loss actually took place? So the questions are quite clear. The emotional part of it is what seems more stronger, where you would have multiple mixed kinds of emotions. There could be sadness, anger, guilt, loneliness, bitterness, fear, a sense of huge anxiety, nervousness, being shock tempered, just feeling a sense of underconfidence to carrying things forward. Or there could even be a point of blaming. In order to find some sense of a closure, there could be, it's because of this, this, this, that this happened. It's because these things took place is why this happened. So there could be a lot of those associations, a lot of blaming that can happen. Sometimes depending on how the person passed away, they could also suddenly experience the same problems as the person who has died, that sense of the feeling that even something drastic like that could happen to oneself. And also difficulty in being able to function normally, which means the sleep is being disturbed or appetite gets disturbed, then even work functioning all gets disturbed. So this is, this is what you would see as some of the signs and symptoms. Now before I move on to part of the certain emotional responses, I just, I think I just would like to highlight on some couple of things about the process of treating. So as I said, you know, grieving is a very, it's an individual experience and often there isn't a right or a wrong way to grieve. It all depends on certain factors, including one's personality, their coping style, their life experience, the faith that they have and how significant the loss was. So inevitably, what we do understand is that a grieving process definitely takes time. Healing happens gradually. It's something you do not force or something you do not hurry. And when you look at it, there isn't a, there isn't a time table for grieving. So some people begin to feel better within some weeks or months for others it may take a longer period of time. Whatever the grief experience, it's important to show patience and also allow that process to unfold. Now before we go, excuse me, so before we go ahead, I just would like to just discuss a couple of myths that may be there, you know, with grief and grieving. One is, you know, the myth that the pain will go way faster if you just ignore it. So I think we understand and through these counseling sessions, you know, this course we've understood that just attempting to ignore some emotional response or keeping it from coming up forward only makes it, makes matters really difficult and makes it really worse over a long time. So in order for real healing to take place, it is necessary for people to face their grief and come to a place of actively dealing with that grief. Another myth that we often see is that, and this is what you will hear, very often in funeral services, you know, you go up to people and say, be strong. You know, it's important to be strong for your children, be strong for others. Now feeling, so I think we need to be able to delineate this, that feeling sad or scared or lonely is definitely a normal, it's a normal reaction to a certain loss and crying or showing one's grief does not mean a person is weak. Okay. And something that we encourage is that you just, you don't need to protect others by putting on a brave front, actually showing the feelings which are really within not just helps you, but it also helps others to, you know, especially, let's say, if it is a family and it helps others also to grieve, help others also to see that it's normal to grieve, that, you know, it is a process of grieving. So to be strong is something that, you know, you be careful not to put that across because it may tend to show that if they are grieved, if they're crying, that means they're weak. Okay. But so there's absolutely no need to protect anyone and being able to show that sense of sadness. The next is the myth that you say is if you don't cry, it means you aren't sorry about the loss, right? So, you know, if there isn't someone crying isn't okay, maybe they're fine with that, right? But again, just as any other emotional response, crying is also a normal response to sadness. But that's not the only way that one expresses sadness. So those who don't cry can feel the pain just as deeply as others. They may just not express it that way. They may express it in other ways, right? So that shouldn't be like an evidence of the fact that they are sorry or they're not sorry. Okay. So then the next thing is about grieving that, you know, so there are often things that are said about what is the timeframe for grieving. So generally, there isn't a specific timeframe for grieving. And it generally differs from person to person. But there is another part that I will discuss maybe later on in the class about pathology grief. The next one is the myth about moving on with somebody's with the person with your life means that you've forgotten about your loss. So moving on only means you've accepted your loss. But that's not the same as forgetting. Okay. So moving is accepting and not about forgetting. One can move on with their life and keep the memory of that thing that they've lost as an important or integral part of them. In fact, as a person moves through life, these memories can become more and more integral in defining, you know, their world and their understanding of things. So it's important to ensure that we have different mindsets as we help or as we understand this part of grief. Okay. So let's move on. Okay. So I'd like to take you all through what we call as, as we understand as certain stages of grief. Okay. And this is important to understand because it gives us an idea about about what's what people generally go through, even as they go through a sense of a sense of grief or a sense of loss that that actually happens. Okay. Now this person by name, Kubler Ross is the one who bought about these, this, this stages of her name was, she was a psychiatrist, her name was Elizabeth Kubler Ross. And this what she introduced became the stages of grief or the five stages of grief. Now these stages of grief were basically based on her studies of the feelings of people who faced dominant loss. But, but many have generalized them to even other types of, you know, life, life changes, life events, life losses, such as the death of a loved one or even a breakup. So, but nevertheless, you know, you would see that it's, it's pretty consistent in, in how anyone would probably deal with, with this loss. So, okay. Yeah. So let's just look at each of them. And, you know, we just just probably gain and understand. So the first place is what we look at is denial. So denial is the, it's that stage that can initially help someone survive the loss. Okay. So you might think that especially when someone is, is in a place of denial, they, they are not able to make sense of the life around them. That means, you know, life has, has no meaning. It becomes to be too overwhelming. Sometimes the denial is even denying the news. And that sense of numbness that is there, that sense of shock that is there. So it's common in this stage to wonder how life will go on in this different state. Okay, because a person is in a state of shock, because suddenly life has changed from the way they once knew, once they knew, they knew it, the way that they knew it. Okay. And something has occurred, it's changed in an instant. Okay. Like, for example, if a person was diagnosed with, with some kind of an illness, they might believe that the news is incorrect. Or, you know, there must have been a mistake that's occurred somewhere in, maybe in the tests or things that, or they, you know, mixed up some blood reports or something or if, if one receives the death, the news of the death of a loved one, you're the person may cling on to the hope that, you know, it must have something, it may not be true. Right. It's probably the wrong person that they're talking about. So in this stage, they are not living in actual, actual reality. The person who's going through that sense is not living in actual reality, rather than living in a preferable reality, something that they wish that they had happened. Interestingly, you know, it is this denial and shock that actually helps people to cope and survive that grief event. Right. This place of being in shock and in denial gets them through those initial stages of that, that event. So denial aids in, in facing the person's feelings of grief, instead of becoming completely overwhelmed with grief, they denied, they do not accept it. And, you know, the, the full impact of it becomes staggered one at a time. So, you know, think of it as, as maybe the, the way that God's made our defense mechanism, the body's natural defense mechanism, you know, it's almost saying like, you know, it's only this much you can handle at once. So once the denial and shock starts to fade, then the healing process begins. So at this point, these feelings that, that were being suppressed, then begins to surface. So in denial, you will see avoidance, you will see confusion, you will see shock, you will see elation, you may see very many different things. Okay. Next comes the phase of anger. Once, once the person grieving, the grieving person lives in actual reality again, and not in that preferable reality, anger begins to set in. Now, this is a common stage where, where people begin to think, whining, life is not fair. This is a place where they may begin to, might look to blame others for the cause of the grief that they are, that they are, the cause of the grief that they are experiencing. So it's, it's also again, the place that there are, there are extremely, you find that there are, there are huge questions that come about. Okay. They begin to feel that everything is incomprehensible of how something like this could, could happen. For those who may be strong in the faith, they may begin to start to question their belief in God, you know, or, or the existence of God, where is God? Why didn't God do this? I mean, I was standing on this and why, why didn't all of that? So this is that place where you would see this kind of emotions that come up. So the, the, you know, science or research has shown that this anger is a necessary stage of grief. And in fact, you should be encouraging the anger. Now, when I mean by encouraging the anger, it's to help them feel the anger rather than not when you say encourage and it's okay, don't be angry, continue being angry. That's not the meaning of that encouragement. It's, it's important to, for them to feel and experience that anger. So it's, it's, because it's thought that even though one might seem like they are in that cycle of anger, in time, it will go down, it will dissipate. And the more, you know, someone is in that place of anger, the more quickly it will dissipate and the more quickly it will heal. So it is not, and that's why, you know, we understand that it may not be healthy to suppress those feelings of anger because it's a natural response. And it's a necessary one. So now, why is this this confusion there? Because in our everyday life, we are, we are normally told to control our anger towards any situation or towards others. So when we, but when we experience a grief event, when you're feeling disconnected from reality, you have absolutely no grounding anymore. So the, you know, person's life has shattered and there's nothing solid to hold on to. So often you think of anger as a strength to bind you to reality. So it's, the person may feel deserted, may feel abandoned during a grief moment that nobody's there, that they're alone. And the direction of anger towards something or somebody is what might actually bridge them back to reality and connect them to people again. So it's something to grasp onto and it's, it's a natural step in healing. So anger being the next one is a natural step in healing. The third one that we see is bar gaining. Now, when something bad happens, you know, think of, you know, you would have probably talked about or talked about, you know, or you must have found that you, you're making a deal with God. You're saying, please God, if you do this, then I will do this, right? If you bring this back, then I will do this, right? That place where there is that huge place of loss, there is a sense of bargaining. It's, it's, it's that stage, it's either in a way, this stage is called the false hope that falsely, you're making yourself believe that you can avoid the grief through some type of negotiation that, you know, if you change this, then I'll change that. So it's almost the, I have, it's a, it's a desperation to get the life back to how it was before the event of grief, that the, that the person may be even willing to make some kind of a major life change in an attempt to bring about that normality. Okay, so guilt is a very common, you know, common extension of that bargaining. This is, this is when one endures the endless, you know, what if that, you know, they keep asking themselves the what if statements, what if I had left the house five minutes before, what if, you know, I had, I had gone instead of the person, what if I had encouraged them to go to the doctor before all the what ifs come about. Okay, so that's that place of bargaining. The next stage that we look into is depression. Depression is generally and often a commonly accepted form of grief that this is probably one place that people look and say, okay, you know, I'm sure they're feeling sad because someone's lost in and you kind of, many people associate depression immediately with grief as it is a, you know, it's a very present emotion. And, and what does this represent? It represents the emptiness one feels when they're living in reality and realize the situation or the person is gone forever. And in this stage, one may withdraw from life, they may feel numb, they may feel like as if they're living in a big fault and really not want to do anything, just stay withdrawn, maybe in bed. The world may seem too much and very overwhelming for the person to face. Now they may refuse to go out, don't want to be around with others, don't feel like talking, experience that feelings of hopelessness or even sometimes can experience suicidal thoughts thinking, you know, what's the point of all of this going on? So that's the place of depression. Then comes the last stage of grief that she identified is acceptance. Now, this acceptance is not in the sense that it's okay. But rather it is this person has passed away, but I am going to be okay. It's not that it's okay that someone has passed away. No, it isn't okay. But it's more someone has passed away, but I will be okay. This is where the place where emotions begin to stabilize. You come back or re-enter reality. You come to terms with the fact that the new reality is that whatever you've lost is not coming back or that, or maybe it is that, you know, there is this kind of an illness that's there and that's something that they need to live with or a reality that they have certain months to live in. That's all that there is. And they begin to experience feeling okay with it. So it's not a good thing, but it's something that they have coped and learned to live with. So it's definitely a time where the person adjusts and readjustment takes place. There could be good days, there can be bad days, and then they, you know, there can be good days again. But in this stage, it does not mean that the person may not never have a bad day or they may not feel depressed again. But they outnumber, the good days often outnumber the bad days. And in this stage, a person may feel, may lift from that place of heaviness or that place of darkness or cloudiness that they feel. And they begin to start engaging with life again, begin to start engaging with friends with things that are more real to them. They may build new relationships. They begin to understand that they need to grow and that they need to move on. Now, that's the place that they are in as they move to the space. Now, even as you see these five stages or these five phases, what you need to remember is, these are not, they're not, what do you say, not watertight compartments. It's not that they will go one by one and then, you know, they're done. So it can move up and down this way, that way, till a point of time that you will begin to see that there is a lot more acceptance. So even Kugler Ross, when she bought this out, she never intended that these stages were to be a rigid framework that applies to those who actually are grieving. They were not meant to be tucked away. Generally, you see responses that many people have, but they may not be a typical response. But generally, you would definitely see this kind of a stick. So looking at the five stages of grief, generally, if you want to clearly remember it, in the denial phase, the active responses, this can't be happening to me. This is unreal. The phase of anger is, why is this happening? Who is to blame for this? The phase of bargaining is, let this, I will do this. If you can do this or make this not happen and in return, I will do this. In depression, I'm too sad to do anything. And in acceptance, I'm at peace with what has happened. So these are the five stages of grief. People do go through this. There is this place where it can be a roller coaster. Sometimes, instead of a series of stages, this grieving process can be like a roller coaster full of ups and downs. And it becomes rougher at some points of time. It becomes better. But the difficult periods tends to become less intense, shorter in time as time goes by. But it takes time to work through a loss. So even as we're looking and grieving, let's not look at it as it should follow this process. But let's have a broader guideline about how that happens. Okay. All right. I'd like to stop here for a one minute of questions. If not, we'll just take a 10 minute break and we can come back. Any questions here? All right. Okay, we'll take a break and we'll come back in 10 minutes. It's 10.51 on my clock. We'll be back by 11 o'clock.