Episode 96 A Holistic Perspective On Treating Grief: Interview with AnnE O’Neil

Jan 4, 2023

What are the many levels of grief? Why is it so important to define what grief is for you in order to heal?

MEET AnnE O’Neil

I am an LCSWA / LCASA whose primary focus is on the intersection of grief and substance use – how grief/loss impacts people’s use. Before this, I worked as a grief counselor, spiritual counselor, energy healer, and chaplain. In addition to grief and substance use, I work with clients around corollary issues such as anxiety, trauma, self-esteem, and relationship challenges. I am the author of the memoir, “If You Want the Rainbow, Welcome the Rain: A Memoir of Grief and Recovery.”

Find out more about Ann at Your Soul Path and connect with her on Facebook

IN THIS PODCAST:

  • Understanding the many levels of grief 3:48
  • What are the different types of grief counseling? 13:52
  • What is the H.E.R.E Process? 19:18

Understanding The Many Levels Of Grief

  • Understanding that grief comes in many different forms
  • Learning to invite and accept the transformation process with grief
  • The importance of finding flexibility in dealing with grief
  • Finding freedom in dealing with grief

What Are The Different Types Of Grief Counseling?

  • Integrating a holistic approach to dealing with grief
  • What is Companioning Grief?
  • What role does spirituality play in grief counseling?
  • Providing the space for spirituality in grief counseling

What Is The H.E.R.E Process?

  • How is grief impacting you on an emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual level?
  • Taking time to work through the grief process
  • Not letting your grief define you
  • The impact of grief on substance use

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Find out more about Ann at Your Soul Path and connect with her on Facebook

Transcript

Chris McDonald: This is holistic counseling, the podcast for mental health therapists who want to deepen their knowledge of holistic modalities and build their practice with confidence. I'm your host Chris McDonald, licensed therapist. I am so glad you're here for the journey. Welcome to today's episode of the holistic counseling podcast. I'm your host Chris McDonald. I want to start today's episode with a quote from the poet Ghalib. He says held back unvoiced grief bruises the heart. Grief is something we all experience in our lifetime. Today's guest is here to talk about a holistic perspective on grief. And O'Neill is an LCSW a and an L Kasei, whose primary focus is on the intersection of grief and substance use, how grief and loss impacts people's use. Prior to this, she worked as a grief counselor, spiritual counselor, energy, healer and Chaplin. In addition to grief and substance use, she works with clients around issues such as anxiety, trauma, self esteem, and relationship challenges. She is also the author of the memoir, if you want the rainbow welcome the rain, a memoir of grief and recovery and a fun fact about an in a healing session after her mother's death. Aboard like the childhood light bright boards appear that demonstrated how her soul interacted with her brother and her mother's over many lifetimes. Sounds like an amazing visualization. This full story was recently published in a book entitled ancestors published by common sentience. Welcome to the podcast. And

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

thank you, Chris, it's great to be here with you today.

Chris McDonald

I was so excited about that light, bright board. That vision. That sounds so cool.

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

It was pretty amazing. It was actually after my brother's death. And I went to a healer that I'd done a lot of work with that does a lot of shamanic healing, and I was in this very, very deep state. And out of nowhere, this big board have a bunch of different different lights coming up three different light colors coming up. And every once in a while, another one would come in like I think my husband came in for a while man came in for a while, but they only stayed for a little while. But so the thread though, was how my life had interacted with my brothers and my mother's and at the end of it, and I'm giving away the whole story. So you're not going to have to read it but read it anyhow. We will ask the end of that what came as that started to the light started to like slow down and everything. A message that came that it felt like it was from all of the souls that had participated that day. And the message was, everything is more perfect than you can possibly imagine.

Chris McDonald

Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

Go back to office.

Chris McDonald

That is powerful. Wow, that's just like, life changing, isn't it?

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

It really was. Yeah. And you know, like any human being, I lose the thread of the big messages. Sometimes I have to go back to what if everything is more perfect than I can possibly imagine. Anyone that can can help me to reframe a day.

Chris McDonald

That takes some reflection to to really process. That'd be good journal prompts.

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

A great one. Yeah.

Chris McDonald

Yeah. Well, it sounds like your brother and your mother. So they are interconnected with you over lifetime.

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

Yeah, yeah. A long time ago. It's called The One Brian Weiss only love is real. And in it, he shared a couple and how their lives have interconnected over many, many lifetimes. And it made a whole lot of sense to me. It was the book actually, I was introduced to shortly before my own husband passed. So it was very helpful claims.

Chris McDonald

Oh, thanks for sharing that. And that's great. Well, before we get started, can you share with my listeners a little bit more about yourself and your work?

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

Yeah, I, as you have heard from the intro, I come by this workwave very eclectic path. And to me, grief is absolutely positively one of the things that requires a holistic approach. It hits us at every level. It certainly hits us at the emotional level, but it also hits at the spiritual, mental, physical, social, relational financial, every level, we get hit out with grief. So it is an approach that we absolutely have to have to meet it every day. Although grief is of course one of the most devastating things that we have to face in our lifetime. I also believe it's one of the few times that we are really invited to full transformation. We are not the same person after we've had a major loss whether it's a death or whether it's a major loss of a marriage or any other loss of identity. After we after we go through a process like that we are a different person. And the point is we get to work with how do we be a different person. So I I have developed a program called here which stands for heal, explore, refine emerge to walk through a person through the transformational steps of grief. And it's it's a loose framework, there is a more structured program that I rarely use because it's a little too too structured. It's a little too structured and too condensed framework certainly serves.

Chris McDonald

Yeah. Well, I think you're right about your you really touched on something that, in my experience with any kind of grief work, I've worked with clients that it has to be flexible. Because you never know where the person is going to be that day or wherever they are in the process. It I don't know. That's just something that I've learned to

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

be very, very, very, very true. Yes, I say that grief requires a lot of spaciousness and permission,

Chris McDonald

spaciousness and permission. Yeah, totally agreeing. Well, before we get into more about working with clients, so what is your journey with grief? What have you experienced that's been really difficult losses in your life,

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

I have endured a whole lot of losses in my life. And my book, if you want the rainbow, welcome the rain, a memoir of grief and recovery goes into most of them in grade. A, my first significant loss was when I was six years old, and my cousin who was my number one playmate drowned. And that was my first experience, my family was not one that made a lot of space for emotions, and maybe even less space for grief. So that was where I got the message to camp it down, you know everything about everything, but feel it and go through it, which is what I know now know, is the way to heal. And then when my mother died when I was 25 years old, she had wanted, she said she wanted no service whatsoever. So my dad honored that. And I went from her being in intensive care for a respirator for like seven and a half weeks, and me visiting her most days to her dying one day, and there being no marking way of honor. Yeah. And, and I carried that for another 10 years. And it was basically when I myself got sober, that I went through the process of learning how to deal with grief. And then my husband died just about six years after that. And, you know, it was another opportunity where I knew that I had to, I had to take the deep dive into grief in order to find the freedom that could be on the other side. And since then, I mentioned my brother's death as well. And a nephew died to overdose, and I've had friends die. And yeah, it's been a journey. And I also have to say, in a weird, weird, weird way, I am grateful that it's been a part of my life the entire time. I was in a bereavement group, after my husband died, and there was a woman present there, who she was in her 50s. And her mom and her sister died 18 months apart, but they were the first losses I've ever had. So she had no framework for how to hold this. Oh, my God. Yeah, it made me realize that I was grateful that I've had, that I have known that life and death are inextricably linked since a very young age.

Chris McDonald

Yeah. And I know you brought up a couple of really good points is grief isn't always death of someone. Right? Yeah. So there's so many, I think forms of grief that people forget about so many losses, and I talked to clients about this too. And they're kind of like, Oh, so that's considered grief too often Americans like you said, or, you know, what I found is a a grief that I've gone through is moving.

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

It's difficult. Yeah. Yeah. No, my

Chris McDonald

lowered having just

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

moved here about a year ago. Yeah.

Chris McDonald

Yeah. You get it? Yeah. No, I think that we can't minimize these, these other griefs that come to us these other losses,

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

absolutely not. And one of my teachers is Francis Weller, who wrote the book, wild edge of sorrow. And he talks about there being five gates to grief. The first is everything we love, we will lose, which is what society traditionally thinks of as grief. He also talks about grief are the parts of us that have not known love in including our own love holding the world. Syros is the third gate to grief, the fourth gate to grief being things that we needed and did not receive. And that is everything from a recognition of who we are as individuals and to be honored in that way, you know, neglect that might have happened. And then the fifth date to grief is ancestral grief. So those are very, very broad swaths. And I also very much appreciate his statement that, you know, in the days in the world that we're living in today, particularly in light of COVID, you know, we think, society and what's happening to Mother Nature, we're all living in grief, some absolutely see more closely than others. So it's really just a matter. It's a matter of getting used to the fact just noticing how closely am I dancing to proof today? And how do I need to be with that?

Chris McDonald

I got to think about that. So how closely am I dancing with grief today? That's a great question. I think for Yeah, for us as practitioners and for clients. Absolutely. Yeah, I can feel that because I'm just thinking about when you said worldwide, I'm thinking about like, us, too, with all the shootings. I mean, it's so difficult. I feel like every day I look at the news, and there's like another shooting somewhere. It's just so hard to process. And

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

yeah, it really is. And, you know, when we don't process it, what happens is that life just becomes really brittle. We become kind of detached from it from situations like this. And life, like I said, just becomes brittle. And it loses its fluidity and his buoyancy, which is where the joy is

Chris McDonald

more of the joy. Yeah, so that's the important part is being able to process it and work through it. Absolutely. And I know you brought on you talked about another thing with messages right from society with grief, and it's in my impression, from my experience, and from clients I've worked with, it's like, a limited amount of time, right? Okay. It's been a couple of months, you should be alright, you're good to go.

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

Which is ludicrous. Especially a big loss,

Chris McDonald

right? Or it's God's plan, which can be very hurtful to some people, too. It's

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

I, when I was in seminary, I learned the term spiritual bypass. Oh, yeah, notion of where we use the spiritual preceptor belief to go around emotions. And I think grief may very well be the one that would do that the most.

Chris McDonald

Because I wonder cuz I'm thinking about a client, I have to that's had a lot of religious quotes, like that spiritual bypass. And I wonder if that's hindering her grief process, in some

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

ways with suspect it might be because remember, the notion of permission and spaciousness and a statement like that gives neither of those.

Chris McDonald

Yeah, so that just kind of causes the grief to be more difficult, I would think, to manage?

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

Well, the reason that, I think the reason it makes it more difficult to manage in a situation like that is again, not feeling like you have the permission to do things, you know, we need permission from our soul and from others in order to undertake especially the big things in life,

Chris McDonald

right, or he's in a better place to like, that's going to make you feel all better.

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

Right, but one of the things that I do, too, another thing that I consider a holistic approach is in traditional psychology, too often, it's only looking at the four tasks of grief and the five stages of grief. So a very structured, limited perspective on processing emotion. And it doesn't tend to make any space for a continued spiritual and emotional connection with the person which I very much believe we have. And conversely, there are spiritual with religions and practices that focus all on the continued connection and don't make any space for the very real loss. And the fact that you will, you know, get a hug from this person or hear their laugh ever again, when I'm working with somebody around a big loss. I work with them from both standpoints from honoring a completely making space for the emotions that are hard that are coming up, but also looking at the connections of the souls that will continue. And how do you want that this relationship to continue? What role do you want them to play in your life? How are you wanting to honor your continued connection? And that resonates with most people? Because Absolutely, a lot of our society doesn't. It's amazing to me the number of people and how tentative it is, when I'm in a group of people. And I asked if they feel a continued connection with somebody on the other side, the hands go up so slowly, and so tentatively, and it's all that sounds weird. How could I possibly have a connection with somebody on the other side? But the reality is, a lot of us do?

Chris McDonald

Yes. I know. You mentioned a little bit about like regular grief counseling. Can you share? What are the differences between more of a holistic perspective or some kind of therapy with holistic counseling or regular grief counseling? Is there a different

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

there's different packages of grief counseling, if you will, there's one that's very popular that that I find very formulaic. And that's the Grief Recovery System. And I much prefer ones that have a lot of spaciousness and individuality. To me, one of the people who I really like to follow his work is Alan wolfelt, who talks about companioning. And the fact that when we companion somebody in grief, we go into the wilderness with them, but it's not our job to help to direct them back out. It's our job to continue to be at their side as they find their own way back out. And it's not our job to give them guidance on how what's going to work for them. It's our job to, you know, be with them and maybe ask some questions that might help them find out what's true for them but a spiritual kind So any work that I do even I love the notion of companioning. But I think the importance of it gets taken to a really exponential level when it comes to grace.

Chris McDonald

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. It's because it is their path. So I just picture like walking side by side with with a client that's experiencing that and helping them through and, and I know you mentioned spirituality. So can you talk more about that? What kind of role that plays in helping clients heal from grief,

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

you know, I have a very broad definition of spirituality. I am interfaith and inter spiritual Minister, what that means is that all paths to the Divine and all expressions of the Divine are equally valid. So, when one person's expression of the divine may be music, another person's may be time and nature and other persons might be time in church. So I don't think it's important as to what the sense of spirituality and right but to start to develop, that there is something beyond yourself, and something that can offer both a trust in the process and a sense of meaning that comes from the process. Another perspective that I appreciate from another grief facilitator is David Kessler wrote a book called finding meaning the sixth stage of grief. He worked with Elisabeth Kubler Ross, when she identified the first initial five, and he actually went to her family for permission to call it the sixth stage. And I believe it came to him and he actually lost his sight. And it was in the losing of his son, that he was able to identify how important finding,

Chris McDonald

yeah, that can be so healing to to find the meaning and, and I feel like when I've used spirituality with clients with grief, that they're able to process it more. And as they make that connection and find their meaning with it more than those that don't have a spiritual practice. If that makes sense. That makes

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's the whole notion of being connected to something beyond, it's so much more accessible to those of us that do have a belief in spirit.

Chris McDonald

And I think a lot of therapists are hesitant to use spirituality and traditional counseling. I don't know if you can talk to that a little

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

bit. Well, I was surprised, I actually recently had gone back from my MSW to go the clinical route I had previously, as you heard on the energy healing, the spiritual counseling. And so it's a recent that I was in an MSW program. And one, unfortunately, I did not have this professor and I was the one who was often bringing up spirituality, which professors generally appreciated, they didn't usually bring it up, but they brought it up when I did, and the students really appreciate it. But apparently, there was one professor who outright said, spirituality has absolutely no place in social work. Social work about meeting the whole being. Exactly. So yeah, there is a wide range. And to me, I attribute people's discomfort with spirituality, similar to people's discomfort with grief, you know, they have gotten the message that either directly or they developed it for themselves, that for some reason, it needs to be pushed off to the side, that somehow going through the process is actually going to cause more damage than good, which is a message that a lot of people get about spirituality and religion, and definitely a message that people get about grief. And, you know, neither, in my experience, either for myself are winning with what I've seen with clients is anywhere close to truth.

Chris McDonald

And I find that clients are relieved that we can talk about it and such and providing that space. And I don't know if it's because they're afraid that you know, if we were not supposed to put our values on them, but I always come from the perspective it's if the client, if that's something that's important to them, and they want to talk about it, then we can provide that space.

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

Absolutely. And, you know, as long as you're meeting them where they are in that press luteinising Your own beliefs, which I know you're not doing, but I'm saying no, I think it's really Yes. You said it goes back to the permission to talk about something that otherwise society wants us to whisper about.

Chris McDonald

So true. And I know you mentioned the here the heel, explore, refine, emerge. Can you talk a little bit more about that and what that recovery process looks like? And yeah,

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

so it's in that sounds very linear, and that has ended, it actually has a lot of back and forth. But the first thing in order for someone to, to be able to heal is to look at what needs to be healed. So I help people to see how grief is impacting not only at their emotional level, but also at the physical, mental and spiritual levels. And we start to work at how that needs to be addressed. And we also look at how this is in the context of a death that person that was in your life, what roles did they play, and not just the most obvious one, but all of the roles that they played, because what we want to do is look to make sure that that the person's needs are still being met. Now, obviously, that couldn't be met in the exact same way, because the different the person is gone. But so a spouse ideally, hopefully, provides a lot of love in one's life. So where else can a person get there, get that love, a lot of times person has lost their confidant. So where can where else can a person can find so that the needs, the person's needs are not undermined? Because of the loss? Yeah, another thing that's important to look at, so that's a lot of the healing process. And since I do have an energy healing background, how is grief showing up in your body and how to work through that. So that's kind of the healing process. And as that starting to wind down a little bit, feel a little more comfortable, at least, people innately start to go into an exploration, they start to look at, okay, this is who I've been in the past. This is what I believe this is where I've come from, this is what I've always done. These are the vacations I've taken, the people I hang around with, and blah, blah, blah, is this really still true for me? Does this still fit me. So they start to innately go into that exploration mode, and then after some time, and it usually is a good chunk of time, like at least six months to a year in the exploration mode, they start to let go, the things that they found don't fit them and they start to cement, the things that they found really fit them in their life. And then the eMERGE process isn't obviously a one a one time event. But I often do recommend that people do a ritual to note the emergence, there's a writer Elizabeth Harper, Neil, who wrote a book called seven choices, and she talks about the final choice or the final stage being integration. And I love that notion, the way I describe it with clients is at right after we've had a loss, that loss is going to be the thing that defines us for a while. And as we heal, we still make space for the loss to be a part of us and to, you know, impact us and all that other kind of stuff. But it doesn't have to define us the definition of of healing of really getting to the other side of grief is where you can have the loss to be a part of you. But that you can still find joy and purpose and meaning and fun and all of the blessings of life as well, that they have even more space.

Chris McDonald

Yeah, that's beautiful. And I can see how clients can be healed just by that. Just hearing that and understanding it. Yeah,

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

it's really interesting. When I when I talk to people about believing in the possibility of healing, the number of people that kind of hold like a badge, their belief that they can never heal from grief. I think a lot of people are under the misnomer that somehow it's being disloyal, if you heal from a loss, and that is so natural, you know, we are put on this earth, I believe, to live as fully as we can, during all of our time here. And certainly there are times where we are not living at 100% Like like in grief. But through healing. From those times, we can indeed come back to living more fully again,

Chris McDonald

what have you noticed with the impact of grief on substance use,

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

so I it's interesting, because my my book is called A Memoir of grief and recovery. And I do know that my own alcoholism was fed by the the good, don't grieve, I should have been more aware should have quote unquote, how prevalent it was. But it was when I started working as a chaplain, I was at chaplain at a hospital that had both a detox and a rehab unit. And I was already a certified grief counselor. And when they one of the counselors there found that out is like, Oh, are we going to put you at ease. And this is something it was astonishing to me that almost every single client I worked at, in that capacity, and it was hundreds, almost every single one of them said that no one had ever talked to them about this before. Wow, it was really I had 122 year old guy say I knew that my use and hat started the minute my dad died. And I tried to talk to my counselor and they said that that's not what we're here to talk about. And that was it was I think it may have been that very moment that I decided that this was the focus because this is another thing. There's not a lot of focus on the link out there.

Chris McDonald

Yeah, you know what, I honestly have not heard anything other than when I read your info about this. I was like, ah,

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

even a lot of treatment centers if they do any grief work at all. It's grief related to stop at using which is significant. I'm not diminishing that. But there's so much more grief that people are carrying, you know The stories that I've worked with people around had a lot of needs for forgiveness for others self forgiveness for themselves, just devastating circumstances that people are able to find space for on the other side, and the number of people who can understand that how their loved ones were with them on earth that may have caused harm, I'm probably not, we're very unlikely to be the soul of the person, and the soul of the person is what still exists. So are able to find, you know, that healing of the earthly connection, and that possibility for the spirit, the ongoing spiritual connection,

Chris McDonald

I appreciate you sharing that, well, what's the impact of grief on those who are in recovery,

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

when grief is not met, the recovery doesn't seem to be as full. And I think also is always in danger of sneaking up and taking us out, too. I am actually working on a book right now called healing and recovery beyond eight invitations to soulful living for those of those who have danced with grief and addictions. So it's a very deep dive into the healing at both levels, in order to be able to fully get on the other side of a person's addiction. I imagine

Chris McDonald

it would be difficult to stay sober when you're not processing the grief.

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

It is it is if there's sobriety, it tends to be more dryness than real emotional sobriety. And yet again, there's not a lot of support for processing the grief in the context of recovery as well.

Chris McDonald

Yeah. Sounds like that's a great resource then that you're creating.

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

Yeah, I'm hoping lots of people take advantage but

Chris McDonald

so was that a takeaway you could share today that could help listeners who may be just starting to integrate some grief counseling into their practice.

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

So I'm going to go back to the words spaciousness and permission and also add the word gentleness. You know, this is, this is not a thing that we check off a to do list and our society doesn't generally live outside the to do list, you know, we are much better at doing than we are about being and grief is all about. It's all about being whether you're the person who is in the grief, or whether you're the person who's being with the person agree, so gentleness, be really, really gentle with yourself. Give yourself as much spaciousness as you possibly can. And also give yourself permission to be wherever you are in the process.

Chris McDonald

I think that's so important.

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

I also want to say at the back of my book, I had originally written the book if you want the rainbow, welcome to rain, only as a memoir, and somehow towards the end, I couldn't help but have a chapter and tips. So there's a chapter.

Chris McDonald

Appreciate that was the best way for listeners to find you and learn more about you.

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

My website is your soul path. And you can reach me through that my email is am dot O Neill 60 one@gmail.com. I also have a Facebook page called grief and recovery. And it deals with grief in general, but it really specifically deals with grief for for people that are dealing with substance use issues as well.

Chris McDonald

Thank you so much, and for coming on the podcast. This has been a great discussion.

Ann Elizabeth O'Neil

Thank you so much. I've enjoyed it.

Chris McDonald

Are you ready to connect with other holistic therapists listeners, come on over to the Facebook group, the holistic counseling and self care group and connect today. And again, this is Chris McDonald, sending each one of you much lighting love. Until next time, take care. Thanks for listening to the holistic counseling podcast, ready to engage with other holistic counselors. Head on over to my Facebook group, the holistic counseling and self care group, where you'll be able to connect with other holistic counselors just like you. You'll also gain invaluable resources on holistic practices daily, and connect with others in a fun, drama free environment. Remember to tune in next Wednesday for another episode.

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