72: Processing Loss (with Sarah Fine)

Sarah Fine brings her experiences and training as a licensed social worker to this conversation about how we can process loss - big or small - in a patient, gentle, and healthy way.

• MK is short for missionary kid, and TCK is short for Third Culture Kids.  To hear more about TCKs, listen to Episode 22 with Michele Phoenix and Episode 61 with Lauren Wells
• “No matter what type of loss or disappointment, we are often interacting with some form of grief in our lives all the time.”
• “There’s something in us that recognizes the wrongness of saying goodbye.”
• “Grief makes people uncomfortable. It brings out the fixer in people.”
• “[Grief] is a process and not a single event.”
• “Sometimes we avoid the grief because we’re afraid it will overwhelm us.”
• “We want to go through the grief and not around it. Deferred grief doesn’t really get any easier to experience, it just tends to muddy life up with other emotions, like anxiety and anger, until we get a chance to work through the grief.”
• “Really important to the process is making some space to acknowledge and validate the loss.”
• “You didn’t want that to happen.” -Dr. Becky
• “It’s really important to remember that this is a process and not an event, so opening yourself up to your own grief might take longer than you imagine it should. The word ‘should’ is a pretty dangerous word when it comes to this sort of topic.”
• “It is absolutely a time when God and other people can minister to you if you let them into the process [...] Letting other people into the process can be really powerful.”
• Internalizers: tend to hold things inside, work on externalizing (journaling, therapy, art, prayer)
• Externalizers: tend to let it all out, work on internalizing (quiet reflection, silence)
• “Giving yourself a lot of grace in the moment with what is happening can be really important.”

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Facebook Marketplace
• Heather: Olive and June Manicure Set
• Sarah: Sunshine

Weekly Spotlight: Bingham Academy

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