Episode Details

#253: Sadness as Celebration, Part 2

In today's podcast, Rhonda and David present Part 2 of their work with a young woman named Rose who has been struggling with profound feelings of grief since learning of a discouraging update on her father's struggles with multiple forms of cancer.

A = Assessment of Resistance

At the end of the moving and tearful empathy phase, Rhonda asked Rose if she felt ready to do some work, or needed more time to talk and share her thoughts and feelings.

She said she was ready to do some work, and described her goals for the session:

I know I cannot change the facts, and I would not want to eliminate the grieving, but I would like to dial down the intensity of some of my emotions, particularly when I'm triggered.

Next, we did some Positive Reframing to highlight what was positive about Rose's feelings. You can click here review the list of positives that we generated.

Rose's Positive Reframing Table*

Thought or Feeling

List your negative thoughts or feelings, one by one, in this column.

Advantages and Core Values--Ask yourself

• What are some advantages of this thought or feeling? How might it help, protect, or benefit me?
• What does this negative thought or feeling show about me that is positive and awesome? How does it reflect my core values?

Sadness, depression Shows my deep love for my dad and honors the contribution and impact he's made in my life Shows the strength of our relationship Anxiety The anxiety is warranted in this situation, shows that I'm being realistic with the situation It shows my love for my dad, being worried is a way of showing care and concern It shows that I don't want him to suffer It motivates me to connect with him and to make every moment count It makes me vigilant so I explore every possible treatment option It motivates us to think about moving to be closer to him It has motivated us to schedule another visit again in July Guilt Shows my connection to our family Drives us to visit as much as possible Shows that I don't want to live with regret Feeling defective Shows that I'm honest about my flaws Shows I feel that I'm not doing a good job supporting others, so it means I have high standards in my relationships Shows that I'm vulnerable Lonely Shows my love for my dad and the important role he plays in my children's life Shows how strongly that I value relationships Motivates me Hopelessness Shows I am being realistic Prevents me from getting my hopes up too high Prepares me for the inevitable Makes me value and make each moment count Might decide to discontinue the chemo if it causes problems and isn't helpful Makes me more vigilant Frustration Shows I haven't given up or thrown in the towel

Anger

I will fight and contest this!

Now you can review Rose's Emotions table at the end of Positive Reframing, showing her goals for each emotion when we used the Magic Dial. The idea is to dial each feeling down to a lower level that would reduce your suffering, while still allowing you to preserve all the awesome things about you!

Emotions % Now % Goal % After Emotions % Now % Goal % After Sad, depressed, down, unhappy 100 50-60 Lonely, alone 80 10 Anxious, worried, frightened 100 30 Hopeless, discouraged, pessimistic, despairing 90 10 Guilty 80 15 Defeated 70 20 Defective 70 10 Angry 80 25

As you can see, she wanted to dial all of her feelings down to low levels, with the exception of her sadness, which was an expression of her love for her dad.

M = Methods

We used Explain the Distortions, the Double Standard Technique, and