by Sandy Wolkoff | May 29, 2022 | Uncategorized
Click here to read: Your Brain on Grief, Your Heart on Healing
“Grief is a heart-wrenchingly painful problem for the brain to solve… to live in the world with the absence of someone… ingrained in your understanding of the world… For the brain, [they are] simultaneously gone and also everlasting, and you are walking through two worlds at the same time.”
From themarginalian.org (may require subscription)
by Adam Rabinovitch | Feb 21, 2022 | Uncategorized
Grief Stole My Love of Reading. Here’s How I Got It Back.
I want to tell a story about a love lost and found again. In 2017, I moved across the country, lost my father to heart disease, had a miscarriage and then a complicated pregnancy that ended in another miscarriage. During this time of sorrow and doubt, I was, as I write in my book “Prayer in the Night,” “a priest who could not pray.” But there was something else I loved that suddenly seemed impossible: I was also a reader who could not read.
Click here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/20/opinion/reading-grief.html?referringSource=articleShare
(May require subscription)
If the death of someone you love has left you feeling angry or bitter, you might find it helpful to try the following techniques.
Consider it. Is anger a stand-in for more painful emotions, or does the situation warrant it? Do you feel abandoned or afraid? If so, could you enlist support from others or spend some time thinking about your fears and putting them to rest? It might help to share your feelings in a grief support group and learn how others have dealt with similar feelings.
Express it. Set aside a safe time and place each day to defuse angry feelings. Some people yell in the car with the windows rolled up. Some find stress-relief techniques like meditation or yoga helpful. Others find release in punching pillows or in spurts of strenuous activity. Think about options for releasing anger, and plan how to express it safely when it crops up. Sometimes writing about situations that make you feel angry can help you focus on what you are really feeling beneath your anger.
Explain it. Tell others how short-fused you are right now. If you know you stepped over the line, apologize. Most people will make allowances.
For more information on preparing for and mourning the death of a loved one, check out Grief and Loss, a Special Health Reprt from Harvard Medical School.
(Available to purchase from Harvard Medical School)
by Adam Rabinovitch | Feb 1, 2022 | Uncategorized
COPE offers meaningful ways to connect with your loved one and keep them close to your heart and to those that that love them, including:
A beautiful sterling silver COPE
pendant ($85 donation)
A perfect-for-all-seasons COPE
tote bag ($75 donation)
Plus…
A virtual plaque on our website’s
memory wall ($250 donation)
An engraved brick at our
labyrinth on Long Island ($300 donation)
A memorial bench at our
labyrinth ($3500 donation)
by Adam Rabinovitch | Jan 19, 2022 | Uncategorized
Check out this podcast on PsychCentral titled “Grieving the Loss of a Child (First Hand Experience)”
Episode Description
Disney Channel star Cameron Boyce died over two years ago, but his parents are very much keeping his memory – and his legacy – alive. Join us as the grieving parents candidly share their healing process and what they wish the people in their lives would do differently.
They also discuss what people can do to manage their own grief. An illuminating first hand look at what parents who lose a child go through.
Click here: https://psychcentral.com/blog/podcast-grieving-the-loss-of-a-child-first-hand-experience
by Claire Sharkey | Dec 29, 2021 | Uncategorized
We are hiring Bereavement Support Group Facilitators.
Please contact COPE’s Clinical Director Claire Sharkey, LCSW with any questions and to learn more:
Phone: (516) 274-0540
by Adam Rabinovitch | Dec 17, 2021 | Uncategorized
As Covid Deaths Rise, Lingering Grief Gets a New Name
Prolonged grief disorder was recently added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, just as experts are predicting a coming wave of severe bereavement.
Click here to link to article