People often ask about a follow-up to the 12-Week evening course. So we created the 4-WEEK INTENSIVE. Scroll down for more information!
Text Box: People often ask about a follow-up to the 12-Week evening course. So we created the 4-WEEK INTENSIVE. Scroll down for more information!

Joy Juices
Did you know there are 40,000 people over the age of 100 in America? A study of this group found that all were involved in life, not spectators. They enjoyed simple pleasures, and all had had serious losses and grieved. Some had seen their grandchildren and children die. They cried and laughed easily. They grieved but liked to feel the "joy juices" of laughter and sadness.

Thank You! Thank You!
We are grateful for so much community support: to Lexus of Valencia for sponsoring the 12-Week Grief Program, to Valencia Counseling Center for office space for personal counseling, and to the City of Santa Clarita for hosting the free community presentations in the Century Room.
Text Box: Joy Juices Did you know there are 40,000 people over the age of 100 in America? A study of this group found that all were involved in life, not spectators. They enjoyed simple pleasures, and all had had serious losses and grieved. Some had seen their grandchildren and children die. They cried and laughed easily. They grieved but liked to feel the "joy juices" of laughter and sadness. Thank You! Thank You! We are grateful for so much community support: to Lexus of Valencia for sponsoring the 12-Week Grief Program, to Valencia Counseling Center for office space for personal counseling, and to the City of Santa Clarita for hosting the free community presentations in the Century Room.

By Jeff Zhorne, Director of The Grief Program

What a privilege and an honor to see the growth of everyone in the 12-Week Grief Program! I hope you will refer your friends and family as you have opportunity.

Remember, that in ongoing relationships you will experience hurt and pain, you will feel your buttons being pushed. Maintenance skills give you the ability to choose your reactions in such situations. Tell yourself, "That's old, I'm new, Good-bye." Try it. It works. It gives you the ability to retain your choice. I still get angry at people, but I know it's me choosing that reaction.

How often have you felt hurt by someone and wished they would recognize your pain and simply say, "I'm sorry." How often have you longed for their change of heart or for some reconciliation? But the energy of healing begins with us.

It is our willingness to make amends and offer forgiveness that gives us the freedom to live at 100 percent and participate fully in our own lives again.

All without the weight of unresolved grief! Making amends, remember, are apologies for anything you did or did not do that might have hurt someone.

Forgiveness is giving up the hope of a different or better yesterday. Making amends and forgiving opens the door to love and healing. Negative feelings are released and positive energy flows back into our lives. The greatest block to our giving and receiving this kind of love? Our own hard-heartedness. But if we're willing to swallow our ego and our defenses, for just a minute, then we enjoy better relationships with ourselves, with others and, it's my belief, even with God.

Making amends gives us freedom. And it all centers on telling the truth about yourself . . .  all the time.

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Text Box: Maintenance: Don’t Leave Things Unsaid

 

 

Everyone can be 100 percent complete with a loved one, alive or dead, whether that loss is a child, sibling, spouse, parent or any other loss including divorce, breakup or end of a relationship. The way to get current is to learn to finish unfinished emotional business as soon as possible. Don’t leave things unsaid.

We need to normalize the part of our feelings that deal with sad, painful or negative events. That’s what makes us feel broken. In the 12-Week we learned that we pay a heavy price when we keep our emotions underground. It’s truthful to say what you feel when you feel it, and to be heard for that.

To be sad doesn’t mean you’re going backward. Heartbreak is not necessarily incompleteness. Don’t confuse normal healthy memories, which will be joyful or sad, with pain. We don’t need to justify, explain or fear sad feelings. We just need to acknowledge them.

Remember, the only emotion that can hurt you is the emotion that’s not acknowledged. Feelings are not necessarily reality. I am hopeless is different from I’m feeling hopeless.

Let it be OK with you that some of your memories make you happy and some make you sad, maybe around holidays, anniversaries, birthdays or at other times. That’s participating in your humanity, experiencing both happy times and sad times.

Memories are normal and natural. Don’t fight them. If these sad memories are consistent or if they turn painful, then you can always write another a P.S. to determine what still might be incomplete. And remember to read it to your grief partner or call my office at 661-810-9157.

Not having or experiencing sad, negative or painful emotions takes away our humanity, which is the sum of our experiences and our emotional responses to them.  

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the 12-Week, Then What?

In the immediate four weeks following the 12-Week Grief Recovery Program, groups of four will have the unique opportunity of continuing the work of completion by attending the Four-Week Intensive. If you decide the Intensive is for you, not only can you finish another unfinished loss but actually practice the maintenance skills you heard about on the last night. Life continues to dish out painful stimuli, so how can we take care of ourselves? How to properly ask for what you need is sometimes life’s greatest task. The program will guide you in learning to accept people for how they are instead of trying to get them to change. Using the Present Moment Formula, you will master “That’s old, I’m new, Good-bye” principles. The Intensive will also shed light on distinguishing sad feelings from painful ones, getting in touch with your newfound nd the “attentive presence” that allow us to see how many blessings there are for us to receive including gratitude, encouragement, affection and love. Join us, call 810-9157.

 
Text Box: After the 12-Week, Then What? In the immediate four weeks following the 12-Week Grief Recovery Program, groups of four will have the unique opportunity of continuing the work of completion by attending the Four-Week Intensive. If you decide the Intensive is for you, not only can you finish another unfinished loss but actually practice the maintenance skills you heard about on the last night. Life continues to dish out painful stimuli, so how can we take care of ourselves? How to properly ask for what you need is sometimes life’s greatest task. The program will guide you in learning to accept people for how they are instead of trying to get them to change. Using the Present Moment Formula, you will master “That’s old, I’m new, Good-bye” principles. The Intensive will also shed light on distinguishing sad feelings from painful ones, getting in touch with your newfound nd the “attentive presence” that allow us to see how many blessings there are for us to receive including gratitude, encouragement, affection and love. Join us, call 810-9157.  

 

 

 

You Can’t Feel It Till You Do It

 One of the most powerful ways to put love back into a relationship is to realize that love, like forgiveness, is a verb. It’s an action. “To love” requires you do things that a loving person would do. You can actually act your way back into loving the person you have fallen out of love with. We can actually act ourselves into a better way of feeling because feelings follow action. It’s not your partner’s job to be lovable. It’s your job to love! 

 

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Photos courtesy Microsoft Office Clip Art.