HOLLAND (WHTC) — For more than a week, tragedies of all sizes have dominated West Michigan news — a Kalamazoo-area truck-bike crash that killed five and injured four; the Orlando shooting deaths, which left 49 people dead, plus the gunman — along with local tragedies, such as the deaths of Holland residents Jordon Gillespie, 22, and Nichole Rector, 17, in a car crash.
Those stories, and the deaths of such sports icons as Muhammad Ali and Gordie Howe have filled social media feeds with “RIP” and messages of sympathy. Familiar faces are sober.
The grief can seem overwhelming. WHTC asked clinical psychologist Jean C. Russner, who manages Holland Hospital’s outpatient behavioral health services clinic, for tips on dealing with what can feel like overwhelming grief.
It’s normal to try to “make sense of” tragedies, she said. that’s human nature, but “things happen for reasons we can’t understand or don’t agree with and are out of our control. We often don’t know why people do what they do.”
She said strong negative emotions, like anger, sadness, hopelessness, despair, panic or worry call for a N.E.R.D. response:
- N = Now “Pay attention to your emotions NOW if you can, especially if they are keeping you from functioning/doing what you need to do in life.”
- E = Express Emotion “Name the emotion you’re feeling — this helps you understand yourself and feel (a little) more in control of what’s happening.” Helpful ways of expressing emotion include drawing, writing or journaling, talking with others or even, she said, “talking to the mirror.”
- R = Relax “Negative emotions often trigger our muscles to tense, increasing our feelings of distress,” she said, suggesting several ways to aid relaxation including deep breathing; walking; taking a bath or shower; listening to soothing music; exercising, rocking in a hammock or rocking chair; or doing yardwork. “Whatever helps you relax,” she said.
- D = Distract “Grief and negative emotions tend to keep your mind’s focus on the stressful event,” she said. “Give yourself a break by doing something that requires you to shift your focus to something else — something positive.” Her examples included working on a hobby, like crafting or a crossword puzzles; getting back to nature and your normal routine; writing a list of what makes you feel grateful or even a love note to someone in your life. She suggests taking a break from a steady stream of news or electronics.
Generally speaking, she said, “whatever helps you cope through any stressful time, you can use to cope with this tragic news.”
And she cautioned against characterizing feelings as “good” or “bad,” because all feelings are part of a person’s typical internal life.
“It’s how you handle (feelings or) express them,” she said, explaining that how a person expresses their feelins is outward behavior, which can be helpful or not helpful at all.
An example, she said, is “it’s ok to feel angry toward the shooter; it’s not ok to try to hurt his family (or others) of his same religion or belief system in retaliation.”
Her other tips, include some drawn from behavioralist Marsha Linehan’s dialectical behavior therapy (DBT):
- Practice mindfulness: Focus on the here and now without judging the experience. It OK to block out negative feelings during this kind of exercise to get a mental break, she said, but also important to be in a safe place and aware of what you need to do in the next few minutes.
- Get busy: Physical activity will help disperse cloudy feelings.
- Practice “radical acceptance” which is accepting a situation without needing to agree with the circumstances. “Things happen outside of our control,” she said, “but I CAN control how I respond to the situation.” It can help to feel more in control by taking some kind of action, she said, whether it’s donating to a trusted fundraiser, listening to a friend’s feelings or contacting elected officials to let them know what you’d like them to do.
