Specialization: Healing Grief
Grief, grieving, bereavement, sorrow, mourning, loss, anger, heartbreak and forgiveness

In my work with people who are suffering from loss, we focus on integration and healing in ways that honor and preserve the sacred while reducing the pain of grief.

Grief may be experienced around the loss of dear people through death, estrangement, loss of trust, physical absence, or loss of intimacy. Grief is not limited to the loss of people, however. It can also be about the loss of a pet, a place, a capability or a dream.

Many who experience grief hesitate at the prospect of healing because of what it might mean. None of us would want "healing" to mean devaluing the memory of our loved one or violating our core values. Certainly, the last thing any of us would ever want would be to become or stay like the Oscar Wilde character, Dorian Gray:

SCENE: Breakfast in the garden courtyard of Dorian Gray's mansion the morning after the woman he was going to marry, Sibyl, committed suicide. Dorian's friend, Basil, comes to visit and offer his condolences. But he finds Dorian oddly indifferent.

BASIL: You went to the opera last night while Sibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging???

DORIAN: What is past is past.

BASIL: You call yesterday the past?

DORIAN: It's only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, enjoy them, and dominate them.

BASIL: Something has changed you completely, Dorian. You look exactly the same. But you talk as if you had no heart, no pity.

DORIAN: You've come too late. If you had come in yesterday at a particular moment, about half past five or a quarter to six, you would have seen how deeply I was affected. I suffered immensely. Then it passed away.

If such an attitude were the solution to grief, it would be no solution at all. Rather, it would be something far worse than any grief could ever be. Dorian's response is completely unfeeling. His is the solution of cutting himself off from an inner part of himself, and from anyone or anything outside, past or present, for whom love and attachment might yield pain.

NLP's Approach

NLP's approach to healing grief is exactly the opposite of Dorian Gray's "solution." Instead of pushing away thoughts of a lost loved one because the pain of thinking of them is too great, or cutting ourselves off from our emotions, in NLP we use the natural abilities of the mind to vividly represent what it so dearly longs for -- the undeniable, positive sense of presence of one who has been lost. This is not magical thinking or self-deception but a compassionate recognition of how the brain works, and how it can help us heal.

With guided NLP, you can give yourself a tremendous gift -- the feeling of closeness to lost ones, places, dreams and abilities you treasure -- so you can honor them, preserve what was important or sacred about them, and have them with you always in a positive, life affirming way.

Effectively, NLP does not heal grief -- it eliminates the need for it. The pain vanishes. The love stays. The closeness increases. And Dorian Gray's problem never arises.

If you are grieving now, you might consider how NLP can help you heal, appropriately and compassionately.

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Copyright © 2024 John David Hoag. All rights reserved.
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john@nlpls.com , 1-650-223-1777
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