Grief & Loss and the Holidays

When Angels Call - Coping with Grief and Loss

The holidays are upon us again. The US also celebrates Thanksgiving at this time of year, after which the big focus will be Christmas and New Years. Holidays are always difficult for persons in Grief.

The loss of someone important to us comes boldly to the fore at this time.  We feel their absence more intensely than at any other time of the year.  The tendency is to want to withdraw from all the merry making and  celebrating when we are feeling so low about our loved one.

It is necessary to push at times like these. And be prepared to cry more than usual. This would be a good time to write a letter to your loved one, letting them know how much you miss them and whatever else you're feeling at the moment. This is for you, to help reduce the stress, to acknowledge how much you miss them and how it hurts to be without them. This is not a permanent condition. It too will pass.

For those of you engaged in the How to Cope with Grief and Loss strategies, you will be turning to your journal more often at this time. It's been working for you so far so just ramp it up as much as you need.  Listen to the relaxation program. Read and listen to your favorite passages in the book. And let yourself feel. Although this may be intense, when you come out the other side, you will be greatly relieved and your recovery process will have taken a giant leap forward.

For those of you struggling without guidance, we wish you well. Your tendency as already mentioned will be to distance yourself from activity in order to try and avoid what you're feeling. That'll just make it worse. Be with friends and family at this time, especially if you are sharing this

loss with others. There should be some comfort there for you.

Feeling Connected

Sometimes when we are feeling lost and alone we don’t know which way to
turn to possibly renew a friendship.

That pal we had so long ago is lost to us now. They have faded away like
so many things from our earlier life.

Are we to believe that we can no longer sustain such relationships? Are we
to let go of all those sources of comfort that once enjoined us and caused
us great pride.

Our affections for others are what keep us alive. That is, our connection
to each other invites us to live again, to breathe, and to satisfy those
cravings for friendship we once carried around and dismissed.

It’s not true that we have to let go of all this as time marches on. It
is true however, that we have a greater need for each other as the years
speed on by.

When we’re alone, we’re alone, but not in the factual sense. We are
alone because we feel alone. And we are together because we feel connected.

Connected means enjoined. It means we are happy to be in the service of
the Lord. He/She is our Creator and Guide. She/He is our Source of constant
comfort. Without the Creator we wouldn’t have each other, given that we all
sprang from the same “Source.”

Now we are ready to move on, to join with each other once again and to
share what we know and cherish. The twilight of life is a better place if
our lessons to this point have taught us about the value of having good
companions while marching on this pilgrimage toward home.

Home is where the heart is, and that is where we are all joined together,
isn’t it?

When Angels Call - Coping with Grief and Loss

Grief and Loss Overview

Grief and Loss Overview

When Angels Call - Coping with Grief and Loss

Maurice Turmel PhD

An overview of grief and loss shows us that this is a broad category of life experience. We usually associate it with death and dying, but it can include losing your employment and broken relationships as additional categories that generate the grief experience. Grief and loss comes in a multiplicity of dimensions that affect our daily lives.

Losing a loved one is what we typically associate with grief and loss. But losses of many types can also generate powerful grief reactions. We include here broken relationships, loss of a pet and loss of employment. When the loss experience strikes we immediately want relief and begin seeking some kind of recovery help.

Today we can see grief and loss associated with divorce, relationship breakup, pet grief and loss of employment. We can also see associations with the loss of ones home, place of business and career aspirations as some hopes and dreams never materialize. We tend not to see these as grief and loss categories, but in fact they are losses that affect us in similar ways as losing a loved one.

The main point of this article is that dealing with grief and loss has a lot of common dimensions over all of its related categories. We mourn the loss of a loved one. We grieve the loss of a pet. We agonize over a broken relationship. We become depressed at the loss of our job.

What is the central point here? Why do we examine grief and loss from all these points of view? Because at the heart of every crisis is an emotional wound. We feel hurt, depressed and sad. We feel lost and afraid. Something we valued has been taken away. We feel pain associated with any loss and that usually elicits anger as a first response. These reactions are typical in every type of grief and loss experience.

Grief and loss, as a life experience, emerges in many aspects of our lives. Learning to relieve ourselves of stress via relevant grief recovery programs can have far reaching benefits. Recovering our usual bounce and drive is a worthy goal and significant benefit in grief recovery. Whatever we learn about dealing with grief and loss can be applied across its many dimensions and occurences.

Growing, expanding and losing are part of the life cycle. A snake crawls into the tall grass in order to shed its old skin. Why? Because the new underneath is pressing for release. Each cyle of our life presents circumstances in which we lose something to gain something better. Letting go is a tough life lesson, but essential to our growth. The old must die so that the new can be born.

Losing a loved one is a powerful and devastating experience and one we never solicit consciously. This is the most difficult of all losses and we acknowledge that it is hard to see any benefit in it. But losing and gaining are with us everyday in a great variety of forms. Learning to cope with all types of loss will help us when the big losses strike. Finding the right resources is essential to managing our grief and loss experience.

Dealing with our emotions is central to the recovery process, no matter what type of loss you encounter. Turning to each other for comfort and solace can bring peace and new found friendships. All times of trial have their secret benefits. That is the main lesson from grief and loss. Life does go on.

When Angels Call - Coping with Grief and Loss

Managing Bereavement II

When Angels Call - Coping with Grief and Loss

Managing Bereavement

by Maurice Turmel PhD

Bereavement has a definite beginning but no predictable end. How you manage your bereavement recovery will determine how long it takes to regain your former composure. Avoiding, or repressing the feelings of sadness and the need to cry will sabotage your recovery efforts.

A good recovery program for bereavement requires that you face and accept uncomfortable feelings. Following such a plan will shorten the bereavement time period. What we mean here is that a well laid out approach will net results in weeks, or just a few short months. In this day and age, bereavement recovery should never be measured in years.

I instructed my clients to read specified material and journal about their feelings as we proceeded with their bereavement recovery. These assignments were to be completed between meetings because the importance of work done outside the consulting room needed to be emphasized. Clients would complete their homework and report at the next session. Taking responsibility for their feelings grew in proportion to this work and was spurred on by a noticeable diminishment in pain.

My bereavement recovery program came out of these experiences. After hundreds of cases of grief, loss and bereavement, I noticed a particular group of strategies began to emerge as essential to the recovery process. Taking these lessons and adapting them to mythical stories and poetry, along with the more literal instructions, helped drive the lessons home.

Supporting the written word with audio narration puts feeling into the words and helps reinforce many important points for bereavement sufferers. Most good books that aim to help individuals navigate this thorny emotional experience emerge this way. The writer's training and consulting experience helps extract the important themes from the client's experiences and turn them into a recovery program. Adding a poetic flair strengthens the impact of the narration and provides even better results.

Today we know more about grief recovery and bereavement than at any other time in our human evolution. Generations ago mythology served the purpose of guiding individuals through important life lessons by couching them into stories that were passed along verbatim. Every culture had them and every period of our human history reveals their presence. Todays psychology was yesterdays mythology and actually rests on that foundation.

Even in mythology, it becomes clear that a feeling based approach to bereavement recovery is the treatment of choice. With today's understanding of emotional dynamics, defense mechanisms and other survival strategies the point is driven home. A heart-centered and feeling based approach will deliver the best results in the shortest amount of time. The debilitating effects of grieving and bereavement can be turned around in a few short weeks.

Stories, poems, reflections and music selections are designed to put you in touch with your feelings. As each piece is read, listened to and digested, you are ready to start journaling and put those feelings down on paper. This is where grief recovery begins in earnest.

Your heart, your feelings, and your growing self-awareness are the keys to helping you heal your broken heart. You will travel this path with significantly less stress as a result of this detailed approach. No, it's not easy, but it is a journey that can be won. Many have done so using these strategies and so can You!

When Angels Call - Coping with Grief and Loss

Grief, The Holidays, And You

The following press release was put out to several hundred media sources across North America. Here we are facing another holiday season with thousands, if not millions of you, dealing with the experience of Grief and Loss.

This is the time of year when I think about my mother, my friend Bruce and my favorite brother-in-law Frank. I miss them all dearly. Now I get to add my dad to this list, and several more friends who passed away since 2015. I will likely shed a few tears. But I will also be celebrating their lives and what they each meant to me. There will be laughter and tears of joy. That's how I remember these loved ones and keep them in my heart forever. Because my grief for each of them is healed, I can easily call them to mind, speak to my family about them, and appreciate what a great benefit they were to me and my life while they were here.

How are you going to deal with this Holiday Season? Are you going to recall your lost loved ones, or are you going to try and avoid any reference to them? That would be sad. Your hurt and pain are testimony to how much they meant to you. Isn't it better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all? What are you waiting for? You don't have to do this alone. Help is readily available.

When Angels Call - Coping with Grief and Loss

PRESS RELEASE:Veteran Therapist Creates New Grief Recovery Book Teaching Individuals How to Cope with Grief and Loss and Start Feeling Better in 3 Months or Less. St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Maurice Turmel PhD points out that our feelings lie at the heart of the grief and grieving process, and addressing these with the right tools offers the quickest path to recovery. By dealing with this core component, we temper the shock and trauma associated with grieving process while placing ourselves on a path of genuine healing.

The grief and grieving process is a subjective emotional experience. It cuts to the core of our being and becomes the emotional wound in our heart that we must now address. This is where the damage lies and where grief healing needs be applied. Understood in this context, we can see why platitudes like “It’s God’s Will” or “Time Heals All” continuously fail and leave sufferers feeling confused, guilty and inadequate.

Emotions and feelings need to be expressed openly with kind receptive supporters, and privately through the process of journaling for the grief and grieving process to have healing take place. The answer to “How to Cope with the Grief and Grieving Process” lies with modern psychology and the lessons of psychotherapy.

When people are encouraged to talk about their feelings, they heal more quickly than through all other methods combined. Honest self-relating is required here. Defenses, emotional blockages, addictions and other strategies of denial block the flow of feeling energy and cripple our attempts to engage the grief and grieving process. These common forms of escape prevail until we learn that connecting with feelings and expressing our emotions does in fact promote healing.

Wars have taught us that repression of feelings and emotions becomes manifested in a condition called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Once the experts identified it, they found a way treat it. They engaged PTSD sufferers in group therapy, one on one counseling and journaling, all part of a newly emerging grief and grieving process approach to recovery. These strategies stand out as the best ways for accepting and releasing feelings associated with any trauma, including the loss of a loved one through death, suicide or broken relationship.

We have also learned through study of the grief and grieving process that addiction distracts us from feelings we want to avoid. Recovery from addiction, oddly enough, is not much different than dealing with grief and grieving. Expressing feelings in a safe and receptive environment is the key to breaking the back of any addiction and denial process.


This approach deals effectively with the grief and grieving process at its feeling core. There are many losses to be dealt with in a lifetime. Whether it’s the loss of a job, a broken relationship or the death of a loved one, this feeling-based approach to grief and grieving leads to a healthy recovery in the shortest possible time.


Let this approach to the grief and grieving process be your short cut to a full and complete recovery where your departed loved one remains in your heart as a loving and positive reminder of who you were together.

When Angels Call - Coping with Grief and Loss