#this is why david is 'denial' in the five stages of grief

[asurrogateblog]

just because you two are the blue ones to your red counterparts does not mean you're the normal ones

[passingbypainfullyaware]

Your girl just binge watched all of Good omens season two. I’m so fragile rn.

[leafinthebreeze]

“The road that is recovery from a childhood without a mother’s love, support, and attunement is long and complicated. One aspect of healing that is rarely touched upon is mourning the mother you needed, sought, and — yes — deserved. The word deserved is key to understanding why this remains elusive for many women (and men): They simply don’t see themselves as deserving, because they’ve internalized what their mothers said and did as self-criticism and have wrongly concluded that they’re lacking, worthless, or simply unlovable.

When I learned that my mother was failing 16 years ago, I did not go to see her, even though everyone in my life — including my therapist — thought I should go for “closure.” But I was wise enough to realize that they hadn’t walked my path, and their vision of closure was based on novels and Hollywood movies in which a-ha! moments flourish and mothers always love. In real life, I would ask the question I always wanted to be answered — “Why didn’t you love me?" — and she would refuse to answer, as always, but this time her silence would stretch out into eternity. I didn’t attend her funeral, either. But I did grieve — not for her, but for me and my unmet needs. And the mother I deserved.

"As I started finally to see her for what she was and how she will never be the mother I need and want, I started standing up for myself and setting boundaries, and her anger and insults got worse. Finally, I put my foot down and told her I would no longer tolerate her behavior and stopped all contact. And, NOW, I am really in mourning. I finally acknowledged the truth, and it hurts like hell. And I’m at the age where some of my friends are starting to lose their moms to old age and their stories, of times with their moms, are heartbreaking to me… I guess I just started this mourning process, and I’m still in it." —Annie

Grieving the mother you needed is impeded by both feeling unworthy of love and, more important, what I call the core conflict. This conflict is between the daughter’s growing awareness of how her mother wounded her in childhood and still does, and her continuing need for maternal love and support, even in adulthood. This pits the need to save and protect herself against the continuing hope that, somehow, she can figure out what she can do to get her mother to love her.

This tug-of-war can go on for literally decades, with the daughter retreating and perhaps going no-contact for a period of time and then being pulled back into the maelstrom by the combination of her neediness, hopefulness, and denial. She may paper over her pain and make excuses for her mother’s behavior because her eyes are on the prize: Her mother’s love. She puts herself on an ever-turning Ferris wheel, unable to dismount.

Those who concede the battle — going no contact, or limiting communication with their mothers and usually other family members — experience great loss along with relief. For the daughter to heal, this loss — the death of the hope that this essential relationship can be salvaged — needs to be mourned along with the mother she deserved.

The depth of the core conflict can be glimpsed in the anguish of those daughters who stay in the relationship precisely because they fear they will feel worse when their mothers die.

The stages of grief echo a daughter’s recovery from childhood.

In their book On Grief and Grieving, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler point out that the five stages of loss for which Kübler-Ross is famous — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — aren’t meant “to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages.” They instead emphasize that everyone experiences grief in a unique and individual way. Not everyone will go through each stage, for example, and the stages may not necessarily follow in the expected sequence. That said, the stages are still illuminating, especially when seen in the context of an unloved daughter’s journey out of childhood, and they make it clear why mourning is an essential part of healing.

Denial: As the authors write, “It is nature’s way of letting in as much as we can handle.” With the experience of great loss, denial helps cushion the immediate blow, allowing the person to pace the absorption of the reality. That’s true for death, but it also applies to the daughter’s recognition of her woundedness. That’s why it can take years or decades for the daughter to actually see her mother’s behavior with clarity. Counterintuitively, some women actually only see it in hindsight, after their mothers’ deaths.

Anger: In the wake of death, anger is the most accessible of emotions, directed at targets as various as the deceased for abandoning the loved one, God or the forces of the universe, the unfairness of life, doctors and the healthcare system, and more. Kübler-Ross and Kessler stress that beneath the anger lie other, more complex emotions, especially the raw pain of loss, and that the power of the grieving person’s anger may actually feel overwhelming at times.

Unloved daughters, too, go through a stage or even stages of anger as they work through their emotions toward recovery. Their anger may be directed squarely at their mothers for their treatment, at other family members who stood by and failed to protect them, and also at themselves for not recognizing the toxic treatment sooner.

Anger at the self, alas, can get in the way of the daughter’s ability to feel self-compassion; once again, it is the act of mourning the mother you deserved that permits self-compassion to take root and flower.

Bargaining: This stage has to do with impending death most usually — bargaining with God or making promises to change, thinking that “if only” we’d done x or y, we’d be spared the pain of loss. With death, this is a stage to be passed through toward acceptance of the reality. The unloved daughter’s journey is marked by years of bargaining, spoken or unspoken entreaties in the belief that if some condition is met, her mother will love and support her. She may embark on a course of pleasing and appeasing her mother or make changes to her behavior, looking in vain for the solution that will bring the desired end: Her mother’s love. Just as in the process of grief, it’s only when the daughter ceases to bargain that she can begin to accept the reality that she’s powerless to wrest what she needs from her mother.

Depression: In the context of a major loss, Kübler-Ross and Kessler are quick to point out that we are often impatient with the deep sadness or depression that accompanies it. As a society, we want people to snap out of it, or are quick to insist that if sadness persists, it deserves treatment. They write instead that in grief, “Depression is a way for nature to keep us protected by shutting down the nervous system so that we can adapt to something we feel we cannot handle. They see it as a necessary step in the process of healing.

Acceptance: Most importantly, Kübler-Ross and Kessler are quick to say that acceptance of the reality isn’t a synonym for being all right or even okay with that reality. That’s a key point. It’s about acknowledging the loss, identifying the permanent and even endlessly painful aspects of it, the permanent changes it’s made to your life and you, and learning to live with all of that from this day forward. In their view, acceptance permits us “to withdraw our energy from the loss and begin to invest in life.” Acceptance permits the mourner to forge new relationships and connections as part of their recovery.

What does it mean to mourn the mother you deserved?

Just what it sounds like — to grieve the absence of a mother who listened to you, took pride in you, who needed you to understand her as well as she understood you, a woman willing to own up to her mistakes and not excoriate you for yours, and — yes — someone to laugh and cry with.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tech-support/201703/daughters-unloving-mothers-mourning-the-mom-you-deserved

[itsalycenotalice]

Five-0 Redux: Seeking retribution a painful task for McGarrett, team

By Wendie Burbridge, Special to the Star-Advertiser January 5, 2019 Updated January 5, 2019 12:56pm

Usually, after someone has experienced the death of a loved one, people tend to go through the proverbial stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. They may skip a step, linger on one for a long time, and sometimes add a few extra stages of their own. More often than not, anger tends to stick around the longest and sometimes it is what fuels the rest of the steps into action. In this week’s episode of “Hawaii Five-0,” McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) is dealing with the loss of his father figure Joe White (Terry O’Quinn) and going through his own version of the stages of grief.

Written by Matt Wheeler and David Wolkove, this week’s episode was a wrap-up of the fall finale, “Pio ke Kukui, Po‘ele ka Hale” (“When the Light Goes Out, the House Is Dark”), in which Joe and four other members of their former SEAL team, were targeted and killed. The episode starts with Danny (Scott Caan) traveling to Montana where McGarrett has been holed up for a month with Catherine (Michelle Borth), who has come to help him devise a plan to avenge Joe’s death. Directed by the legendary Carl Weathers, who also guest-starred on “Magnum P.I.” in the second episode of the show’s freshman season, a very angry McGarrett basically tosses out the other stages of grief and has added one of his own — retribution. Perhaps seeking to avenge the death of Joe and his SEAL brothers can be seen as a type of acceptance, which is supposed to be the last stage of the grieving process.

The title of this episode, “Hala i ka ala hoʻi ʻole mai” (the Hawaiian phrase is misspelled in the CBS press release), means, “gone on the road from which there is no returning.” It is a olelo noeau, or Hawaiian proverb and poetical saying, and to Hawaiians, the saying is a metaphor that simply means, “death.” In both the main plotline (McGarrett’s plan to avenge Joe) and in the case of the week (a silly story about bones being found in a public storage space) every guilty party faces that road. For “Hawaii Five-0” the title also seems to imply the idea that once a person heads down a certain path — like murder or vengeance for instance — there is no turning back.

JAMES BOND, A GENTLEMAN AND AN OLD FLAME

Once Danny arrives in Montana and finds McGarrett a bit hardened and in combat mode, he inquires how his friend has been doing since Joe died. When McGarrett says he didn’t have to come, Danny tells him that is what family does — they are there for each other. When he sees Catherine, he seems happy that she seems to be helping McGarrett through his grieving process.

But McGarrett tells him that it is not what Danny thinks, it’s not what any of us thought really. They are not playing house. They have been busy forcibly extracting information from Omar Hassan’s (Ben Youcef) lawyer, Gregers Thomsen (Andrew Grant), who set up the hit squad who came for Joe and McGarrett. Catherine might be McGarrett’s old flame, but she certainly has used her CIA ties to help him. She seems to be able to stomach the force McGarrett has to use to persuade Gregers to give up Hassan’s location. It’s bloody and brutal, and a bit out of the ordinary for Five-0.

But this is not a Five-0 op as McGarrett makes it clear to Danny, and they are not going to be alone. Perhaps he knows this will be more brutal, more dangerous than anything they have done before. He seems to want to protect Danny — not because Danny can’t hold his own in this fight — but because McGarrett has already lost so much, and to lose Danny would probably push him over the edge.

So it makes sense that McGarrett called in other backup. Sure, he knows Danny will come and support him like his SEAL brothers, Junior (Beulah Koale) and Wade Gutches, played by recurring cast member David Keith of “The Officer and Gentleman” fame. But maybe in the back of McGarrett’s mind, he doesn’t want to take that chance. He just lost a father — he doesn’t want to lose a brother.

Junior and Gutch join McGarrett, Catherine and Danny in Montana and they take off with Lucia Bama (Kristen Dalton), daughter of Frank Bama, for Vientiane, Laos, where Omar is hiding. They meet up with their former British intelligence friend Harry Langford (played by recurring cast member Chris Vance), who does some excellent reconnaissance for the team. Before we can say “007,” McGarrett is in a tux, Catherine in an evening gown, and armed with matching wedding bands as their cover, they are headed for a baccarat table. They are tasked to get Omar’s money launderer Dimitri (Theo Coumbis) to drink some sort of radioactive concoction so they can follow him from the Vientiane casino undetected. They know he will take the laundered money back to Omar and the team can then execute the rest of their plan.

RETRIBUTION OR REVENGE

This week’s episode really is a part two, as similar themes spillover from the fall finale. The hit men who came for McGarrett and Joe’s SEAL team were sent to avenge the death of Omar’s father, a high-value target the team killed in Morocco in 2002. Omar as a young boy confronted the SEAL team before their extraction and Joe disarmed him and basically saved his life. But Omar grew up and used his wealth and power to exact revenge on the team for his father’s death.

In a sense, McGarrett is doing the same thing — only he does’t want to kill Omar, he wants to actually find former CIA agent Greer (Rochelle Aytes), who sold their names and locations to Omar. Besides himself, Greer is really who he blames for Joe’s death. McGarrett and Omar may want the same thing — retribution, revenge, whatever you want to call it — but McGarrett wants it in answers rather than dead bodies. He wants to know why Greer betrayed her country and then turned on her former lover, McGarrett, and sought to torture him, kill his friends, his mentor and then end his life.

JUST DESSERTS

Yes, it does seem as if they are planning to assassinate Omar for killing Joe. McGarrett even asks Gutch if he’s going to be alright with basically running a rogue mission. Gutch says it’s worth it if they can put the man who killed Joe in the ground. And they do find Omar, raid his luxury digs and confront him. McGarrett tells him his revenge plan failed — as he killed everyone on the team except the one who actually shot his father. McGarrett was the shooter, and Omar tells McGarrett to shoot him because he will not stop until McGarrett is dead. But McGarrett won’t kill him in front of his son and let the boy “relive the same cycle all over again.”

Instead, he wants to know where Greer is. It is really all he wanted in the first place. They find her hiding out in China, and when McGarrett and Catherine confront her — he asks Greer what amount of money would make selling out human lives worth it. She says there were other factors, and the look in her face makes us think that perhaps it is because she could not have McGarrett that made her turn.

All during Greer’s storyline, we saw little flashbacks to when she and McGarrett first met. She was the girl before Catherine, but after Morocco, and after McGarrett almost died in Afghanistan, he decided it was Catherine he wanted to start a relationship with — not Greer. It seemed that Greer took that personally, and when McGarrett remembered a pillow-talk conversation they had before the mission to assassinate Hassan went down in Morocco, they had made plans to be near each other and perhaps continue their relationship. But once the Morocco mission went sour, that plan never came to fruition.

Perhaps Greer pined away for McGarrett, and when she learned he was seeing Catherine, she decided there was nothing left except her drive for power and money. So it seemed a little ironic that when Greer pulls a gun on McGarrett — it is Catherine who takes her out.

ONE LAST NOD TO JOE

When the team returns to Montana, and they say goodbye to Gutch and Catherine, Gutch — like Joe — tells McGarrett to find a good woman, a boring hobby and retire. McGarrett tells Gutch he is going to think about it, but Gutch tells him he knows he won’t. He also tells McGarrett that Joe would be really proud of him and that he is too. It’s a sweet moment, perhaps there are a few more father figures in McGarrett’s life for him to look up to.

Before McGarrett says aloha to Catherine, she says they both owe Joe a lot. He tells her it is Joe who brought her into his life. It is why he took the plunge and asked her out. It was Joe who told him that Catherine was a keeper and that McGarrett should take the leap. Catherine and McGarrett both seem grateful to their friend for their relationship.

While they are no longer together at least they were brave enough to take that road that led them to each other. And they have one more thing to be grateful to Joe for, even if he has gone on the road from which there is no returning.

SOURCE: https://www.staradvertiser.com/2019/01/05/features/five-0-redux/five-0-redux-seeking-retribution-a-painful-task-for-mcgarrett-team/

[natehoodreviews]

Beautiful Boy ★★★★

[This review was originally written for the newsletter for First Presbyterian Church of Del Ray in south Florida.]

It shouldn’t—it couldn’t—have happened to them. They might not have been wealthy, but they were well off. The father was a writer, one of the few who could afford a comfortable living off his work with a book here, a Rolling Stones article there. They had a beautiful house on the California coast, far removed from the scuzzy streets and slums of nearby San Francisco. Theirs was a cozy life of books, music, and finger paints floating through an endless Indian summer; in short, the perfect environment to raise healthy, happy children. They were affluent, intelligent, loving, and to put an uncomfortable point to it, white. So why, then, was their eldest son, their precious Nic Sheff—aspiring writer and artist, lover of F. Scott Fitzgerald and David Bowie, teenage prodigy accepted to six colleges—found in an alley with a needle in his arm?

This incredulity lurks at the heart of Felix Van Groeningen’s astonishing Beautiful Boy, an adaption of David Sheff’s real-life memoir Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction. There have been many incredible films about addiction, but few have ever turned such a knowing gaze towards not just the addict, but the people who love them, specifically the emotional and psychological toll of caring for somebody they know they can’t truly help. In fact, the addicted son Nic, brilliantly played by Timothée Chalamet, is merely a supporting character, drifting in and out of the film, stealing the POV for maybe 5-10 minutes at a time before returning it to the actual protagonist, his father David. If Chalamet dazzles with his portrayal of a self-loathing addict, then Steve Carrell gives the performance of his career as a father perpetually cycling through the five stages of grief. We see his initial denial when he interrogates his son after he goes missing for two days and returns withdrawn and shivering. We see his anger as he explodes at Nic for being stupid, his ex-wife in Los Angeles for not being present in his life, at himself for not being a better father. We see him bargaining with his son, agreeing to pay for his college if he attends a detox clinic and spends half a year in a halfway house. We see his depression as Nic relapses and OD’s again and again, breaking promise after promise. And finally, tragically, horrifically, we see his acceptance that he will never cure Nic and that the son, the beautiful boy he held in his arms as a newborn and raised to manhood with his own two hands, may have been dead this entire time.

Noted film critic Matt Zoller Seitz commented that the film Beautiful Boy reminded him of the most was William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973), as both center on parents struggling to save a child who seems possessed by evil forces, and indeed it’s easy to see otherworldly, supernatural horror in David’s eyes as Nic melts into a demonic gargoyle of hatred whenever he refuses to lend him money or demands he clean himself up. But in writing his memoir, David Sheff realized was that addiction does more than turn addicts into monsters, it strips the humanity from their support group as well. In one of the most telling scenes in the movie, a tearful Nic calls his dad and asks if he can come home for the umpteenth time after robbing their house for drug money and watching a friend overdose in an alley. An exhausted David gives him a flat, dead-eyed no. He can’t take it anymore. He’s not strong enough to survive watching his son kill himself and betray his family again.

Miraculously, in real life Nic survived his ordeal and has been sober for several years, even writing his own memoir from which Van Groeningen borrowed heavily. But let’s not kid ourselves—as residents of one of the national epicenters of the opioid crisis, we know the day-to-day reality of living with and around addicts and that the success rate for recovery is minuscule. The catharsis in Beautiful Boy, then, comes less from the triumph of Nic’s recovery (which is in fact largely glossed over at the end), and more in recognition of the emotional exhaustion addiction leaves behind on bystanders. Knowing and loving an addict is difficult, superhuman work. But you don’t have to do it alone.

Consider one of the many scenes in the film where David attends an An-Anon meeting with Nic. Hanging above the empty auditorium is a banner emphasizing the three C’s of recovery: you didn’t CAUSE it, you can’t CONTROL it, and you can’t CURE it. The key is understanding that the banner speaks for both patient and sponsors alike. It’s not your fault. It’s not their fault. Remember: acceptance is the first step in recovery.

[heather-in-heels]

Sam

This is a love story, but it is only love in the sense of meeting a person who changes you forever. You meet them at a time in your life when you need their fresh set of eyes the most. As a result, you wind up in love with them. Not a romantic love, but a thoughtful love where you know you left an imprint on their heart and they left one on yours, too.

Sam was a New Yorker, I live in the Los Angeles Valley. East Coast. West Coast. Over 2000 miles in between. That has all the trappings for a romcom waiting to happen, but in reality it doesn’t pan out as meet cute as you imagine. 

We met on Tinder. Another setback. This is the end all, be all, of the apps for hookups. Swiping and uploading your best photos — voila, maybe you find your true love because an algorithm and narcissism said it should be so!

I’ve always liked to read the captions. His read, “If you have a good world view and you enjoy movies, candy, wine, and adventures... I think we would get along just fine.”

Swipe right. Hard right.

So I gotta ask what you do for work cause you clearly have more than the rest of us :-)

Also... hi :-)

That was his first message to me. I had to dig far into the recesses of my Tinder profile to find it. The message made sense if you know me. Most of my online dating photos are me with brand mascots. I write about characters and they’re in 70%, if not more, of my iPhone’s photos.

Hi Sam. Winking emoji.

That was my first message back to him.

Sam was staying in Canoga Park, a part of the San Fernando Valley I knew well(ish). It was a little more foreign to him. Kind of like how I felt about Brooklyn, where he lived and I had never been.

We talked for several days, on and off the app. He asked me out. I said yes and our first date was on March 12th. Sunday. I never go out on Sunday nights. That’s because I am boring. I go to bed early. There was something about him, though. If the conversation in person was half as good as the one through text,  I had to meet him. This could either work for or against me, but that’s the bet you take on any date. 

When Sam walked into the restaurant/bar, my eyes felt like a row of jackpot symbols at a casino. He looked like the actor Patrick Wilson. He dressed well. He was funny and thoughtful and witty. I felt like I won some kind of lottery I didn’t know existed. We all put our best foot forward on the first date, but this wasn’t the best version of him. This was him. I was seeing every bright part right now. The color gold in a world gone gray. 

This was exactly the kind of person I wanted to be with when I saw my future. Previously in this episode of Heather’s Life, I had dated nothing but scrubs as my girlfriends liked to call them. I didn’t know what it was like to date a good guy.

I went to the bathroom at one point and when I came out, he was chatting with the people at the table behind us. He had also hung up my coat, that I had carelessly tossed onto my chair, onto a hook. I stood and watched him speaking with these people for a moment, smiling. It was so him. Charming the whole room and everyone in it.

I’m leaving out my favorite detail. He came bearing a gift. We had been talking about our favorite candy before we met and I said mine were Twizzlers. He brought a pack with him. 

I never ate the Twizzlers. It was such an unspeakably simple, kind act that I wanted to hang on to them.

We talked about our lives and selves and dreams. He told me about how he saw Daft Punk live at their Alive tour. We talked about our mutual love for EDM. He talked about his DJ’ing he had done before. Rick and Morty, and how he identified as Rick. Anne Hathaway, his celebrity crush. His dream of becoming a late night talk show host. How he hated missing the turn exits on the freeway and having to drive further out.

Sam was a man of spontaneity, something I, as a person, have never been able to do. No, wait. I was spontaneous once. I used to take trips, even though I had debt and little money to spend. Then I turned 30 and stopped doing a lot of things. Sam insisted that this was no excuse. No way to live. He had debt too, but it didn’t stop him from showing up or living life. 

Hours later, we got ready to leave. He offered to give me a ride home. I never say yes to these kinds of offers. But, I felt safe with Sam. I knew it would be okay. 

We drove the short distance back to my place, singing along to Taylor Swift on his Apple Music. Full blast to “Style.” We missed an exit on the way, but he laughed it off. 

A good first date. An even better first kiss.

Life went on. He went home and I stayed put. Both of us worked a lot. I should add here that he worked so much. Rivaling myself, and that is not a good thing either.

A few months later, some texts in between, me going on dud dates with other guys, Sam texts me to say he’s coming back to California. “Let’s hang out!”

I jumped at the chance to see him again. 

See, it happened. A second date. We weren’t supposed to get another, but we did and the catching up was even better the second time around. Things were changing for the both of us, on the up and up. I was getting my student loans paid off. He was interviewing for new design clients in San Diego.

Another drive back to my place together, and then we decided to go out again the next night.

Three dates? Inconceivable! He had a surprise for me this time. We were going to a carnival. He was the driver and I was the passenger. But, even though I had no idea where this carnival was, I still directed him to the right place. I had a feeling I knew where it was when he mentioned seeing certain landmarks and it wasn’t in Van Nuys. I won a stuffed otter as a prize. 

Later that night (well, it was more like later that morning), we drove back to my place. I had a thought on the way there. Why go home at all? He had always wanted to go to Malibu and I live close enough. It was a beautiful night and I suggested that we drive down to the ocean. 

Sam was so excited to do it. The drive was a straight shot down one road. The top to the car was down, the wind was blowing, and Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” was blasting on his Apple Music. It reminded me of that moment in the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower when the main characters are driving through a tunnel listening to David Bowie and feeling, as the protagonist Charlie called it, infinite. Every time I turned to look at Sam, he was grinning from ear to ear. He was having the time of his life. And even though I was a mess, with my hair everywhere and no makeup on, I was too.

Life and time went on after that night and we went back to our respective worlds. October approached and with it the New York trip I was going on. I had been working myself to the bone every night after work for months and was exhausted and excited for it to finally come together. Sam had mentioned we could hang out when I got to New York. We FaceTimed a few times together and he, somewhat begrudgingly, admitted he would go with me to Katz’s Deli. There were way better food places than Katz’s to go to, he said.

What was our last conversation about? The last conversation I had no idea would be the last one? Bob Ross. He loved Bob Ross and I found a game on some website that you could play and told Sam about it. We admitted that it did look a little challenging to play and maybe it could be played by someone else later on.

That was the last time I talked to him.

I found out about Sam’s death on Friday September 28th. I was packing my suitcase for the New York trip. Then, I saw a Facebook post about him. He had died.

The five stages of grief rolled out fairly quickly. Denial, because it felt like a sick joke. Anger, because I could not understand. Bargaining, because all I could see was this beautiful, living, laughing boy. Why did he die when so many horrible men get to live? Depression. Acceptance.

I haven’t gone through the fifth stage yet. I think I’m still stuck in the fourth.  

I put a black dress in my suitcase first, rolled into a tight ball. The Twizzlers occupied their own side pocket. I gradually packed throughout the night in between taking calls and answering texts from concerned friends and family. Sometimes I would pause while packing and stare off into space. Or I would pack while crying because my brain kept telling me to move forward.

When I arrived to the airport on Saturday, I felt like I was walking through JELL-O. Everything was a dull roar. I stared off aimlessly into space for about an hour before I decided to go sit at a bar. I drank at a rock and roll themed bar and talked to a stranger sitting next to me about what had happened. I don’t know how we stumbled into this conversation. He was a VP for a banking firm in New York. Had 500 employees under him. Knew what it was like to lose someone and shared his own story with me. I felt less alone.

The turning point, which I tell everyone about, happened at 12:30 AM on a Sunday morning. I had arrived to my hotel by then and didn’t know what to do with myself. I was hungry and went to the pizza place next door. In front of me was a couple from Australia. Behind me was a guy from Atlanta. Behind him was a woman from Fort Lauderdale. Everyone was from a different place in the world, all gathered together for pizza.

It changed everything for me, this moment. This was the first time in years where I felt a connection. I haven’t gone out or done much in awhile now. I sleep, I work, I go home, and work some more so I can pay my student loan off. This loan has taken over my life and it totally shows.

I don’t live, and I am trying very hard to get better about that. This is something Sam, in the little time I knew him, told me I needed to do. I used to fight him on this. Everything is too expensive. He would counter that he also had debt. I need to be working during this time. He told me you can work at any age. Finally, I would get to the bottom of it all and admit that everything was so fragile. My life is like a carpet that is always close to getting yanked out from underneath me. I don’t have a husband or children or a house or anything that a lot of people have at my age. I’ve gotten to the point where I am grabbing this carpet and refusing to let go because I am too afraid of what happens when there is no more carpet. 

At the core of myself, this kind of behavior infuriates me. The me that I am and have always been. The me that Sam saw. She sees me doing this and knows it’s actually childish behavior. She is a person who tells me to be kinder, keep doing more, and do not believe one state or city or country can stop you. She keeps the faith that it will all work out even though she doesn’t know how.

That Sunday morning was the first time in awhile I felt connected.

Several hours later, I prepared to say goodbye. I had asked his cousin in advance if I could go to his service, out of concern that it would not be appropriate since I knew so little about him. She graciously said I could go. The outfit I had to wear, the drive into Brooklyn, the absolute feeling that this was concrete and final. He was gone.

The drive to Brooklyn was my first one there. As the car got closer to the building, I saw all of the cop cars blocking off the streets and everyone heading into the building. There were so many people. Every single one impacted by him. Most of them were crying.

I had never been to a funeral for an Orthodox Jewish family before. The actual burial would take place off-site. No cremation. No flowers or wake. A shiva would be held on Wednesday. The men and women sat on opposite sides of the room with folding tables standing in place between us. We may have been separated, but grief held everyone together like a nasty cobweb we were all trapped inside. 

The first moment I heard the fine print details behind Sam’s debt was when his brother delivered his speech. I knew Sam had debt, of course. Knew how much and how he had incurred this debt. 

What I didn’t know that even in debt Sam kept giving to everyone he knew. He continued to financially support his family. He paid for everything he could with the little he had. He gave what a reasonable person would not or what they would try to excuse themselves from doing. When I told him I was coming to New York, he offered to let me stay at his place. I laughed when I heard that. Part of it was because it was funny, since I assured him I already had a hotel room. The other part was that I could not imagine making an offer to a person I barely knew.

In retrospect, I saw that every action, every decision, came from a place where kindness and love were put forth first. Give, and maybe ask questions later. He loved you for who you were and wanted to be there to support you at every turn.

I cried a lot.

When I left, a monarch butterfly flew in front of my Lyft car. That butterfly was completely Sam’s spirit. I just knew it. He would not want me to go back to the hotel and cry. This was a big week for my career and my dreams. Months of hard work went into this week. I could not disappoint the people involved. This meant just as much to me as it did to them.

What followed, in light of a deeply dark day, was a beautiful week. The gala was a hit, I walked up to the NASDAQ stage instead of crawling this year (young me crawled so I could walk... I get it now!), and the panel was amazing. 

“Great minds unthink alike.” It was the company 15th anniversary theme and one I felt throughout the entire week. Connection remained a personal running theme for myself. I felt myself connect in New York City. This was a city that used to scare me during previous visits because I didn’t think I had a place there. It was different this time. I have friends, I have work. I have a network that I did not have years ago. I can walk anywhere. Everything is open 24/7, there’s something new to explore, and new faces just waiting to be met.

I saw a similar monarch butterfly a week ago. It made me smile. I knew it was him. Don’t ask me how I knew something like this. I just do.

Sam came into my life at a time when I needed a new perspective. He taught me that there are men out there that will love me for who I am. He also taught me to go out there and chase adventure. I’m 30. I’ll be 31 soon. It sounds like it’s a little late in life to learn lessons like these, but I don’t think it is. 

I wonder if this is just the beginning.

For the rest of my life, I will be thankful to have known him. A little bit of time is better than no time at all and he was, and will always be, a teenage dream to me.

[ear-worthy]

New Podcast On Grief “Healing with David Kessler” Available

Grief is one of the most personal and private emotions we feel. Its pain can last for decades or a lifetime, and it can radically change our lives. It was a breakthrough in 1969 when Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. She went on to co-author several books with David Kessler on the subject of grief and how to cope.

Now that same David Kessler is hosting a Spotify podcast.

Parcast, a Spotify Studio, has premiered their latest new series Healing with David Kessler, a new podcast exclusively on Spotify. The podcast’s host, David Kessler, is an international best-selling author of six books, including Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief and founder of Grief.com.

Every Tuesday, David Kessler will provide listeners a guide to healing through starting conversations, allowing people to heal by pulling wisdom from within themselves. David’s experience dealing with grief and trauma since he was young lends to his impeccable ability to heal through conversation. Whether it be trauma, abuse, grief, disappointments or estrangements, he will provide a time, place and platform to help people find their healing.

Healing with David Kessler will be a space to share wisdom and hope and ultimately answer the questions: when is healing possible, and what does it look like? If you’ve ever thought healing was not possible, David will show that there is always hope, no matter what you’ve been through. This season will cover stories of facing difficult life challenges from job loss, divorce, betrayal and death of a loved one, with guests including actor William Shatner, GMA Correspondent Will Reeve, Medium Tyler Henry, Holocaust Survivor and author of “The Gift,” Dr. Edith Eger and bestselling author, political activist and spiritual thought leader Marianne Williamson.

In the first episode, David opens up about his experience with grief and loss, and explains why it is so important to communicate emotions.

Listen to the episode HERE.

● Episode Title: Why Talk About Grief?

● Episode Description: Confronting grief can be messy, painful, and a lot of times, it can feel optional. Why provoke your deepest, wildest emotions — the ones that make you feel like you’ve lost control? In his very first episode, David Kessler sets the stage for why talking about grief is so vital. He opens up about his own tragic experiences with loss, and details the transformative encounters with psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross that led him deeper into this work. If you’re carrying grief with you, know this: There are no rules here. But there’s always hope.

In the second episode, Kessler is joined by actor William Shatner to discuss life’s meaning, and William gives insights into his own journey of dealing with grief.

Listen to the episode HERE.

● Episode Title: William Shatner on Grief, Growth and Going to Space

● Episode Description: David Kessler sits down with William Shatner to talk about job loss, addiction, divorce, and — because this is the legendary Captain Kirk, after all — outer space. Bill is no stranger to loss and trauma. Today, he shares deep reflections on the ways’ grief sticks with us, no matter how much time has passed, and why that can be ok. Together, he and Kessler discuss the meaning of a “full” life, preparing for the final voyage, and Shatner’s incredible experience of going to space. Finally, Kessler shares five insights to hold near when grief threatens to overwhelm.

Check out Healing with David Kessler, especially now as our nation grieves for the victims of gun violence.

[moodboardinthecloud]

That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief

Scott Berinato

March 23, 2020

Some of the HBR edit staff met virtually the other day — a screen full of faces in a scene becoming more common everywhere. We talked about the content we’re commissioning in this harrowing time of a pandemic and how we can help people. But we also talked about how we were feeling. One colleague mentioned that what she felt was grief. Heads nodded in all the panes.

If we can name it, perhaps we can manage it. We turned to David Kessler for ideas on how to do that. Kessler is the world’s foremost expert on grief. He co-wrote with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief through the Five Stages of Loss. His new book adds another stage to the process, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. Kessler also has worked for a decade in a three-hospital system in Los Angeles. He served on their biohazards team. His volunteer work includes being an LAPD Specialist Reserve for traumatic events as well as having served on the Red Cross’s disaster services team. He is the founder of www.grief.com, which has over 5 million visits yearly from 167 countries.

Kessler shared his thoughts on why it’s important to acknowledge the grief you may be feeling, how to manage it, and how he believes we will find meaning in it. The conversation is lightly edited for clarity.

HBR: People are feeling any number of things right now. Is it right to call some of what they’re feeling grief?

Kessler: Yes, and we’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different. Just as going to the airport is forever different from how it was before 9/11, things will change and this is the point at which they changed. The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air.

You said we’re feeling more than one kind of grief?

Yes, we’re also feeling anticipatory grief. Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain. Usually it centers on death. We feel it when someone gets a dire diagnosis or when we have the normal thought that we’ll lose a parent someday. Anticipatory grief is also more broadly imagined futures. There is a storm coming. There’s something bad out there. With a virus, this kind of grief is so confusing for people. Our primitive mind knows something bad is happening, but you can’t see it. This breaks our sense of safety. We’re feeling that loss of safety. I don’t think we’ve collectively lost our sense of general safety like this. Individually or as smaller groups, people have felt this. But all together, this is new. We are grieving on a micro and a macro level.

What can individuals do to manage all this grief?

Understanding the stages of grief is a start. But whenever I talk about the stages of grief, I have to remind people that the stages aren’t linear and may not happen in this order. It’s not a map but it provides some scaffolding for this unknown world. There’s denial, which we say a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us. There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities. There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right? There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end. And finally there’s acceptance. This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed.

Acceptance, as you might imagine, is where the power lies. We find control in acceptance. I can wash my hands. I can keep a safe distance. I can learn how to work virtually.

When we’re feeling grief there’s that physical pain. And the racing mind. Are there techniques to deal with that to make it less intense?

Let’s go back to anticipatory grief. Unhealthy anticipatory grief is really anxiety, and that’s the feeling you’re talking about. Our mind begins to show us images. My parents getting sick. We see the worst scenarios. That’s our minds being protective. Our goal is not to ignore those images or to try to make them go away — your mind won’t let you do that and it can be painful to try and force it. The goal is to find balance in the things you’re thinking. If you feel the worst image taking shape, make yourself think of the best image. We all get a little sick and the world continues. Not everyone I love dies. Maybe no one does because we’re all taking the right steps. Neither scenario should be ignored but neither should dominate either.

Anticipatory grief is the mind going to the future and imagining the worst. To calm yourself, you want to come into the present. This will be familiar advice to anyone who has meditated or practiced mindfulness but people are always surprised at how prosaic this can be. You can name five things in the room. There’s a computer, a chair, a picture of the dog, an old rug, and a coffee mug. It’s that simple. Breathe. Realize that in the present moment, nothing you’ve anticipated has happened. In this moment, you’re okay. You have food. You are not sick. Use your senses and think about what they feel. The desk is hard. The blanket is soft. I can feel the breath coming into my nose. This really will work to dampen some of that pain.

You can also think about how to let go of what you can’t control. What your neighbor is doing is out of your control. What is in your control is staying six feet away from them and washing your hands. Focus on that.

Finally, it’s a good time to stock up on compassion. Everyone will have different levels of fear and grief and it manifests in different ways. A coworker got very snippy with me the other day and I thought, That’s not like this person; that’s how they’re dealing with this. I’m seeing their fear and anxiety. So be patient. Think about who someone usually is and not who they seem to be in this moment.

One particularly troubling aspect of this pandemic is the open-endedness of it.

This is a temporary state. It helps to say it. I worked for 10 years in the hospital system. I’ve been trained for situations like this. I’ve also studied the 1918 flu pandemic. The precautions we’re taking are the right ones. History tells us that. This is survivable. We will survive. This is a time to overprotect but not overreact.

And, I believe we will find meaning in it. I’ve been honored that Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s family has given me permission to add a sixth stage to grief: Meaning. I had talked to Elisabeth quite a bit about what came after acceptance. I did not want to stop at acceptance when I experienced some personal grief. I wanted meaning in those darkest hours. And I do believe we find light in those times. Even now people are realizing they can connect through technology. They are not as remote as they thought. They are realizing they can use their phones for long conversations. They’re appreciating walks. I believe we will continue to find meaning now and when this is over.

What do you say to someone who’s read all this and is still feeling overwhelmed with grief?

Keep trying. There is something powerful about naming this as grief. It helps us feel what’s inside of us. So many have told me in the past week, “I’m telling my coworkers I’m having a hard time,” or “I cried last night.” When you name it, you feel it and it moves through you. Emotions need motion. It’s important we acknowledge what we go through. One unfortunate byproduct of the self-help movement is we’re the first generation to have feelings about our feelings. We tell ourselves things like, I feel sad, but I shouldn’t feel that; other people have it worse. We can — we should — stop at the first feeling. I feel sad. Let me go for five minutes to feel sad. Your work is to feel your sadness and fear and anger whether or not someone else is feeling something. Fighting it doesn’t help because your body is producing the feeling. If we allow the feelings to happen, they’ll happen in an orderly way, and it empowers us. Then we’re not victims.

In an orderly way?

Yes. Sometimes we try not to feel what we’re feeling because we have this image of a “gang of feelings.” If I feel sad and let that in, it’ll never go away. The gang of bad feelings will overrun me. The truth is a feeling that moves through us. We feel it and it goes and then we go to the next feeling. There’s no gang out to get us. It’s absurd to think we shouldn’t feel grief right now. Let yourself feel the grief and keep going.

Scott Berinato is a senior editor at Harvard Business Review and the author of Good Charts Workbook: Tips Tools, and Exercises for Making Better Data Visualizations and Good Charts: The HBR Guide to Making Smarter, More Persuasive Data Visualizations.

[we-are-richmond]

No Rest E2 C3

OH. MY. GERD.

The two of us walked down the tracks silently, not speaking a single word. I glanced at Clementine in concern. The girl's lips were twisted into a frown as she lead us. AJ resting in her tired arms.  "Clem..." My voice wavered. What could I tell her honestly? What could I even say? Hearing that confession, it was insane honestly. Eleanor being pregnant. It was crazy. Though, the more I thought on it, the more I thought of how obvious the symptoms were. Clem mentioning how ill she felt. It just, felt awful to think she would bring a baby into this world. Especially after Tripp was just killed.  "Gabriel...let's just keep walking please..." Clem murmuered, quickening her pace a bit. Biting my lip softly I continued after her.  "Do, you want me at least to carry something? Help you out by any chance?" I stated, looking over her. She held AJ and multiple weapons, it looked a bit uncomfortable. Clem paused, looking at me. I stared back nervously, a bit flustered by her gaze. With a exaggerated roll of the eyes, she walked over to me, and put AJ in my arms.  Woah woah woah! I expected the gun not the baby!  Clementine smiled sadly at my expression as I held her. "Never held a baby before or something?" She questioned, raising an eyebrow. AJ looked up at me tiredly, confused by him being in my arms suddenly. Defiantely Clem's kid after all.  "I haven't held one this heavy before. Isn't he like three or something?" I asked, looking at the small boy. AJ cooed, reaching out for my face. I hissed softly in pain as he touched my nose, causing Clem to look in concern. I shrugged her off, looking at the boy. AJ continued to reach up, before he gently tugged at my beanie. The corners of my lips turned down as I felt him mess with my beanie.  "This my favorite set of beanies Gabriel, I trust you will take amazing care of them little guy." My moms voiced rung in my mind. "Alexa come on! You've been kissed and smooching him for the past five minutes. He already own ten of your special beanies. Hurry up, we're gonna miss the plane." Dad scoffed. Mom rolled his eyes at him, snickering as she shoved the red beanie onto my nappy hair. "I'll buy you a brush from Spain."  Carefully I pushed the babies hands away from the beanie, pulling it down. The itchy worn down tag in the back itched my neck. Clem continued to keep her gaze on me. I forced a smile on my face, and walked ahead. She sighed softly, following me down the road.  The city of Richmond finally came back into view, sending a chill down my spine. Didn't help that I spotted the bridge in the distance. My heart tightened and breathing became difficult.  "Don't look Gabe. It's over." Clem exclaimed, heading onto the streets.  "We don't know that...maybe...maybe he got out." I whispered following her. Clem paused, looking back at me with a solm expression.  "What?"  "The way you were talking about him escaping. It just reminded me of someone I knew...it's... just don't get your hopes up to high Gabe...I don't want to see you here." Clementine continued her way into the city, sighing heavily. I looked at her sadly, frowning a bit. Why was she acting like this? W-We never saw a body. He had to be alive. There was no way dad was dead right?  "Five stages of grief, denial..." I faintly heard Clem whisper she remained ahead of me.  "I am not in denial." I grumbled. There was no way dad died. There had to have been a way for him to escape. Dad wasa soldier. This wasn't the first time he'd be in a dangerous situation like this...right?   I faintly bit my lip, continuing to walk after Clementine. The girl kept a firm grip on Tripp's assualt riffle in her arms, looking around for any muertos. As we walked, I didn't notice the dark figure watching us from a far.  AJ clung to me whining a bit, while I began to investigate the area around us. "Arid and ruined just like we left it." I thought out loud. My thoughts remained on the destruction surrounding us. Only when a clink came to my ears, did I come back to reality. Taking a moment to redjust, I soon noticed I had stepped onto something.  A bit surprised, I looked down to the ground. To my shock something silver shone underneath my sneaker. My eyebrows furrowed together in curiosity, as I casted a mere glance to Clementine. The girl was to focused on making sure the area was clear.   Swallowing my nervousness, I let my curiousity take over. With a forced grunt, I moved AJ into one arm, and knelt down towards the object. The small child whined, causing me to pause and glance at him. A sigh of relief escaped me as AJ relaxed in my arm. Not wasting another second, I grabbed the silver object from the ground, and observed it.  "Are these...dog tags-" My eyes widened reading the dog, my breathe hitching immedaitely.  "Garcia, David R. 329-21-1436. A Pos. Catholic."  "Dad..?"

[ageloire]

7 Cover Letter Examples That Got Something Right

Let’s face it: A job search is, typically, anything but fun.

It’s almost as if it carries its own five stages of grief. At first, there’s denial of its demoralizing nature. Then comes the anger over either radio silence or rejection from prospective employers. Of course, there’s bargaining -- “I promise to never complain about work again, if I can find a new job!”

That’s often followed by depression, and the idea that one is simply just unhireable. Then, there’s acceptance: “This is awful, but I have to keep trying, anyway.”

But we have good news. It is possible to have a little fun with your job search -- and maybe even make yourself a better candidate in the process. The magic, it turns out, could be in your cover letter.

It may be true that only 26% of recruiters have deemed cover letters important, but that doesn't mean yours has to contribute to that statistic. In fact, it might be that cover letters are deemed insignificant because so few of them stand out. Here's an opportunity for you to exercise your creativity at the earliest stage of the recruitment process.

Personalization, after all, goes beyond replacing the title and company name in each letter you send to recruiters.

What does that look like in practice, and how can you make your cover letter stand out? We found six examples from job seekers who decided to do things a bit differently.

Note: Some of these cover letters contain real company names and NSFW language that we've covered up.

7 Creative Cover Letter Examples

1. The Short-and-Sweet Cover Letter

In 2009, David Silverman penned an article for Harvard Business Review titled, “The Best Cover Letter I Ever Received.” That letter contained three complete sentences, as follows:

Source: Harvard Business Review

One might argue that this particular letter is less than outstanding. It’s brief, to say the least, and the author doesn’t go into a ton of detail about what makes him or her qualified for the job in question. But that’s what Silverman likes about it -- the fact that the applicant only included the pieces of information that would matter the most to the recipient.

“The writer of this letter took the time to think through what would be relevant to me,” writes Silverman. “Instead of scattering lots of facts in hopes that one was relevant, the candidate offered up an opinion as to which experiences I should focus on.”

When you apply for a job, start by determining two things:

Who might oversee the role -- that’s often included in the description, under “reports to.” Address your letter to that individual.

Figure out what problems this role is meant to solve for that person. Then, concisely phrase in your cover letter how and why your experience can and will resolve those problems.

The key here is research -- by looking into who you’ll be reporting to and learning more about that person’s leadership style, you’ll be better prepared to tailor your cover letter to focus on how you provide solutions for her. Not sure how to learn more about a leader’s personality? Check out any content she shares on social media, or use Growthbot’s Personality Profile feature.

2. The Brutally Honest Cover Letter

Then, there are the occasions when your future boss might appreciate honesty -- in its purest form. Livestream CEO Jesse Hertzberg, by his own admission, is one of those people, which might be why he called this example “the best cover letter” (which he received while he was with Squarespace):

Source: Title Needed

As Hertzberg says in the blog post elaborating on this excerpt -- it’s not appropriate for every job or company. But if you happen to be sure that the corporate culture of this prospective employer gets a kick out of a complete lack of filter, then there’s a chance that the hiring manager might appreciate your candor.

“Remember that I'm reading these all day long,” Hertzberg writes. “You need to quickly convince me I should keep reading. You need to stand out.”

3. The Cover Letter That Explains 'Why,' Not Just 'How'

We’ve already covered the importance of addressing how you’ll best execute a certain role in your cover letter. But there’s another question you might want to answer: Why the heck do you want to work here?

The Muse, a career guidance site, says that it’s often best to lead with the why -- especially if it makes a good story. We advise against blathering on and on, but a brief tale that illuminates your desire to work for that particular employer can really make you stand out.

Source: The Muse

Here’s another instance of the power of personalization. The author of this cover letter clearly has a passion for this prospective employer -- the Chicago Cubs -- and if she’s lying about it, well, that probably would eventually be revealed in an interview.

Make sure your story is nonfiction, and relatable according to each job. While we love a good tale of childhood baseball games, an introduction like this one probably wouldn’t be fitting in a cover letter for, say, a software company. But a story of how the hours you spent playing with DOS games as a kid led to your passion for coding? Sure, we’d find that fitting.

If you’re really passionate about a particular job opening, think about where that deep interest is rooted. Then, tell your hiring manager about it in a few sentences.

4. The Straw (Wo)man Cover Letter

When I was in the throes of my own job search and reached one of the later stages, a friend said to me, “For the next job you apply for, you should just submit a picture of yourself a stick figure that somehow represents you working there.”

Et voilà:

I never did end up working for the recipient of this particular piece of art, but it did result in an interview. Again, be careful where you send a cover letter like this one -- if it doesn’t match the company’s culture, it might be interpreted as you not taking the opportunity seriously.

Be sure to pair it with a little bit of explanatory text, too. For example, when I submitted this picture-as-a-cover letter, I also wrote, “Perhaps I took the ‘sense of humor’ alluded to in your job description a bit too seriously.”

5. The Overconfident Cover Letter

I’ll admit that I considered leaving out this example. It’s rife with profanity, vanity, and arrogance. But maybe, in some settings, that’s the right way to do a cover letter.

A few years ago, Huffington Post published this note as an example of how to “get noticed” and “get hired for your dream job”:

Source: Huffington Post

Here’s the thing: if the Aviary cited in this letter is the same Aviary I researched upon discovering it, then, well, I’m not sure this tone was the best approach. I read the company’s blog and looked at the careers site, and neither one indicates that the culture encourages this -- or lowercasing proper nouns like "Google," for which I personally cannot forgive the applicant ...

However, Aviary was acquired by Adobe in 2014, and this letter was written in 2011. So while it’s possible that the brand was a bit more relaxed at that time, we wouldn’t suggest submitting a letter with that tone to the company today. That’s not to say it would go unappreciated elsewhere -- Doug Kessler frequently discusses the marketers and brands that value colorful language, for example.

The point is, this example further illustrates the importance of research. Make sure you understand the culture of the company to which you’re applying before you send a completely unfiltered cover letter -- if you don’t, there’s a good chance it’ll completely miss the mark.

6. The Interactive Cover Letter

When designer Rachel McBee applied for a job with the Denver Broncos, she didn’t just write a personalized cover letter -- she designed an entire digital, interactive microsite:

Source: Rachel McBee

This cover letter -- if you can even call it that -- checks off all of the boxes we’ve discussed here in a remarkable way. It concisely addresses and organizes what many hiring managers hope to see in any cover letter: how her skills lend themselves to the role, why she wants the job, and how to contact her.

She even includes a “traditional” body of text at the bottom, with a form that allows the reader to easily get in touch with her.

7. The 'We're Meant for Each Other' Cover Letter

This last cover letter example is a special one because it was submitted to us here at HubSpot. What does the letter do well? It makes a connection with us before we've even met the letter's author.

"Content Marketing Certified" indicates the applicant has taken the content marketing certification course in our HubSpot Academy (you can take the same course here). Our "records" indicate he/she did indeed give an interview with us before -- and was a HubSpot customer. 

The cover letter sang references to a relationship we didn't even know we had with the candidate.

The letter ends with a charming pitch for why, despite him/her not getting hired previously, our interests complement each other this time around.

(Yes, the applicant was hired). 

Take Cover

We’d like to add a sixth stage to the job search: experimentation.

In today’s competitive landscape, it’s so easy to feel defeated, less-than-good-enough, or like giving up your job search. But don’t let the process become so monotonous. Have fun discovering the qualitative data we’ve discussed here -- then, have even more by getting creative with your cover letter composition.

We certainly can’t guarantee that every prospective employer will respond positively -- or at all -- to even the most unique, compelling cover letter. But the one that’s right for you will. That’s why it’s important not to copy these examples. That defeats the purpose of personalization.

So get creative. And, by the way -- we’re hiring.

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-cover-letter-examples

[duiillinois]

Five stages of grief: Is that all there is?

“I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope”.

Jeremiah 29:11

I have always been fascinated with the work of Elizabeth Kubler Ross even before I became a Christian. She devoted her life to researching the grief process and described these five stages that we go through when grieving.

1.Denial:” This cannot possibly happen to me.”

2.Anger: Blaming others, ourselves, and God and being on edge.

3.Bargaining: God, if you heal my child, I will quit drinking.

4.Depression: sadness about the situation and hopelessness.

5.Acceptance: coming to peace with the loss and asking, What do I do now?

I first read her book “On death and dying” in 2004 when I encountered a new client, a middle-aged woman who attempted a suicide. It was not her first attempt to see a therapist or to attempt suicide and she came to see me only because she was referred by her primary physician.

She did not want to see me and did not want to live, and she was blatantly honest about it.

Here I was in the fourth year of my private practice and frantically searching my brain for ways of helping her and instilling some hope in her.

I was also a new believer thinking that God wants to save everyone, even those who do not want to be saved.

I remember reading about the work of Kubler Ross while still in graduate school and I knew that I had to read her book in order to help this woman live even if she did not want to live.

The book gave me something to talk about with my client especially because she herself was an avid reader but the analysis of her life and the stages of grief never went further than mere intellectual surface.

Our sessions were painful for both of us.

I was trying to understand her and her life situation but no matter what I said she told me that I could not change her mind about dying.

She explained that she had lost her husband and her best friend a few years prior but stated that she grieved their losses and was currently in the acceptance stage regarding their departure.

She also told me that she accepted her own decision regarding suicide.

I attempted to ask her questions about her spiritual life but she would get angry with me and say that she was an atheist and “Did not believe in that crap.”

Needless to say that she only attended a few sessions, and I never saw her again.

I tried to contact her and her physician, but neither of them ever responded to my emails. I felt sad and defeated.

I have to say that I was also very disappointed with the stages of grief and not very convinced that this is all that there is about a response to death and dying, especially when we are believers.

For me, the stages are a template of feelings that we oscillate around, but not all of us go through them in the same manner and not all of us reach true acceptance.

Elizabeth Kubler Ross who was the mastermind behind this research never reached the acceptance stage herself and spent 8 years in the stage of anger before she died.

She was asking, Why me? for many years and caused a lot of pain for her loved ones.They could not fathom how she could possibly have so much trouble accepting her own death when she was considered an expert on the subject of death and dying.

Is it possible that her research was just an experiment on lives of other people and she had never asked herself the very same questions she was asking her research subjects until her very death?

Would it be different if she were a believer?

Would the stages of change be different if she researched believers?

There is no research that I know of regarding Christians and grief but we can read the scripture and observe other Christians.

If you are a believer, ask yourself this question.

How do you experience grief?

From my observation of other Christians and biblical characters such as Job, David, etc. we see that the stages of grief are pretty much the same for everyone, whether you are Christian or not. The important difference for Christians is that at each stage we pray to God for his direction.

We ask why, and we listen to his answers.

We get mad, and we ask for his mercy.

We bargain, and we ask for his clarification.

We are depressed, and we ask for his help.

We are not alone at each stage because God is with us, and we feel his presence. We do not rely on ourselves but on his wisdom and support.

It might not be easier for a Christian to go through the stages of grief but there is hope throughout the entire process and a spiritual presence that gives grieving a divine purpose.

If you are grieving, please refer to the Bible verses that give you meaning and reach out to other believers to help you grieve.

“We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose for them“.Romans 8:28

from Counseling Center of Illinois https://www.duiillinois.com/five-stages-of-grief-is-that-all-there-is/

[asrarblog]

Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #309. Pharma Veterans shares the wealth of knowledge and wisdom of Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on WordPress, the top blog site. If you wish to share your stories, ideas and thoughts, please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here.

Continued from Previous……

GRIEF by Celeste Roberge

I am a subscriber to Harvard Business Review which gives me access to its publications. I have always admired Harvard for generating some of the most creative, purposeful, useful and Insightful content. I received the weekly Editor’s mail from Maureen Hoch which showcases some of the most recent content.

COVID19 is affecting everyone in multiple ways. There is a physical aspect due to getting restricted at home; there are economic worries; there are fears about contracting the disease; there is a sense of helplessness in the face of unseen enemy; and there is anxiety about future. For those, who have lost a dear one, grief may be overshadowing all other emotions for the time being.

There is a great need at this time to remain calm and upbeat ourselves, and spread the positivity around.

I am giving below excerpts from an article published in HBR on March 23. You can find the link at the bottom if you wish to read the full article. It is compiled by Scott Berinato, Senior Editor at HBR.

The emotions related to current scenario of COVID19 are diverse. However, if we look at it deeply, it all leads to a sense of loss. We have lost freedom to move, to work, to interact, to be close and even to help. We are losing income and may lose even more. We are despairing, we are fearful, and we are anxious.

HBR team suggests naming it Grief. And they got in touch with David Kessler for his thoughts on handling grief. Note. I have deleted some portions in the interest of brevity. Rest of the text is original.

[Quote]

David Kessler is the world’s foremost expert on grief. He co-wrote with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief through the Five Stages of Loss. His new book adds another stage to the process, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. Kessler also has worked for a decade in a three-hospital system in Los Angeles. He served on their biohazards team. His volunteer work includes being an LAPD Specialist Reserve for traumatic events as well as having served on the Red Cross’s disaster services team. He is the founder of http://www.grief.com/, which has over 5 million visits yearly from 167 countries.

Kessler shared his thoughts on why it’s important to acknowledge the grief you may be feeling, how to manage it, and how he believes we will find meaning in it.

HBR: People are feeling any number of things right now. Is it right to call some of what they’re feeling grief? 

Kessler: Yes, and we’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different. The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air.

You said we’re feeling more than one kind of grief?

Yes, we’re also feeling anticipatory grief. Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain. With a virus, this kind of grief is so confusing for people. Our primitive mind knows something bad is happening, but you can’t see it. This breaks our sense of safety. We’re feeling that loss of safety. I don’t think we’ve collectively lost our sense of general safety like this. We are grieving on a micro and a macro level.

What can individuals do to manage all this grief?

Understanding the stages of grief is a start. But whenever I talk about the stages of grief, I have to remind people that the stages aren’t linear and may not happen in this order. There’s denial, which we say a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us. There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities. There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right? There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end. And finally there’s acceptance. This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed.

Acceptance, as you might imagine, is where the power lies. We find control in acceptance. I can wash my hands. I can keep a safe distance. I can learn how to work virtually. 

When we’re feeling grief there’s that physical pain. And the racing mind. Are there techniques to deal with that to make it less intense?

Let’s go back to anticipatory grief. Unhealthy anticipatory grief is really anxiety, and that’s the feeling you’re talking about. Our mind begins to show us images. We see the worst scenarios. That’s our minds being protective. Our goal is not to ignore those images or to try to make them go away — your mind won’t let you do that and it can be painful to try and force it. The goal is to find balance in the things you’re thinking. If you feel the worst image taking shape, make yourself think of the best image.

Anticipatory grief is the mind going to the future and imagining the worst. To calm yourself, you want to come into the present. This will be familiar advice to anyone who has meditated or practiced mindfulness but people are always surprised at how prosaic this can be. You can name five things in the room. There’s a computer, a chair, a picture of the dog, an old rug, and a coffee mug. It’s that simple. Breathe. Realize that in the present moment, nothing you’ve anticipated has happened. In this moment, you’re okay. This really will work to dampen some of that pain.

You can also think about how to let go of what you can’t control. What your neighbor is doing is out of your control. What is in your control is staying six feet away from them and washing your hands. Focus on that.

Finally, it’s a good time to stock up on compassion. Everyone will have different levels of fear and grief and it manifests in different ways. So be patient. Think about who someone usually is and not who they seem to be in this moment.

One particularly troubling aspect of this pandemic is the open-endedness of it. 

This is a temporary state. It helps to say it. I’ve also studied the 1918 flu pandemic. The precautions we’re taking are the right ones. History tells us that. This is survivable. We will survive. This is a time to overprotect but not overreact.

What do you say to someone who’s read all this and is still feeling overwhelmed with grief?

Keep trying. There is something powerful about naming this as grief. It helps us feel what’s inside of us. Emotions need motion. It’s important we acknowledge what we go through. I feel sad. Let me go for five minutes to feel sad. Your work is to feel your sadness and fear and anger whether or not someone else is feeling something. Fighting it doesn’t help because your body is producing the feeling. If we allow the feelings to happen, they’ll happen in an orderly way, and it empowers us. Then we’re not victims.

In an orderly way?

Yes. Sometimes we try not to feel what we’re feeling because we have this image of a “gang of feelings.” If I feel sad and let that in, it’ll never go away. The gang of bad feelings will overrun me. The truth is a feeling that moves through us. We feel it and it goes and then we go to the next feeling. There’s no gang out to get us. It’s absurd to think we shouldn’t feel grief right now. Let yourself feel the grief and keep going.

[Unquote]

It is no doubt, a brilliant and timely article. As the pandemic continues, we shall continue to put it in perspective and discuss about handling it logically.

Continued……

https://hbr.org/2020/03/that-discomfort-youre-feeling-is-grief/

COVID19 – Part IV; the Emotional Aspect – Blog Post #309 by Asrar Qureshi Dear Colleagues!  This is Pharma Veterans Blog Post #309. Pharma Veterans shares the wealth of knowledge and wisdom of Veterans for the benefit of Community at large…

[trudeau-loic-blog]

Recherche théorique 5 : “Grief”

J’ai eu beaucoup de difficulté a trouver des significations pour les masques que je vais produire mais je crois avoir trouver. Mon intention principale est de faire une mural avec des masques et des projections qui représente une forme d’horreur. Alors j’ai trouver un sujet qui ma toujours intriguer, les 5 étapes d’acceptation de la mort.

1. “Denial is the first of the five stages of grief. It helps us to survive the loss. In this stage, the world becomes meaningless and overwhelming. Life makes no sense. We are in a state of shock and denial. We go numb. We wonder how we can go on, if we can go on, why we should go on. We try to find a way to simply get through each day. Denial and shock help us to cope and make survival possible. Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle. As you accept the reality of the loss and start to ask yourself questions, you are unknowingly beginning the healing process. You are becoming stronger, and the denial is beginning to fade. But as you proceed, all the feelings you were denying begin to surface.

Anger is a necessary stage of the healing process. Be willing to feel your anger, even though it may seem endless. The more you truly feel it, the more it will begin to dissipate and the more you will heal. There are many other emotions under the anger and you will get to them in time, but anger is the emotion we are most used to managing. The truth is that anger has no limits. It can extend not only to your friends, the doctors, your family, yourself and your loved one who died, but also to God. You may ask, “Where is God in this? Underneath anger is pain, your pain. It is natural to feel deserted and abandoned, but we live in a society that fears anger. Anger is strength and it can be an anchor, giving temporary structure to the nothingness of loss. At first grief feels like being lost at sea: no connection to anything. Then you get angry at someone, maybe a person who didn’t attend the funeral, maybe a person who isn’t around, maybe a person who is different now that your loved one has died. Suddenly you have a structure – – your anger toward them. The anger becomes a bridge over the open sea, a connection from you to them. It is something to hold onto; and a connection made from the strength of anger feels better than nothing.We usually know more about suppressing anger than feeling it. The anger is just another indication of the intensity of your love.

Before a loss, it seems like you will do anything if only your loved one would be spared. “Please God, ” you bargain, “I will never be angry at my wife again if you’ll just let her live.” After a loss, bargaining may take the form of a temporary truce. “What if I devote the rest of my life to helping others. Then can I wake up and realize this has all been a bad dream?” We become lost in a maze of “If only…” or “What if…” statements. We want life returned to what is was; we want our loved one restored. We want to go back in time: find the tumor sooner, recognize the illness more quickly, stop the accident from happening…if only, if only, if only. Guilt is often bargaining’s companion. The “if onlys” cause us to find fault in ourselves and what we “think” we could have done differently. We may even bargain with the pain. We will do anything not to feel the pain of this loss. We remain in the past, trying to negotiate our way out of the hurt. People often think of the stages as lasting weeks or months. They forget that the stages are responses to feelings that can last for minutes or hours as we flip in and out of one and then another. We do not enter and leave each individual stage in a linear fashion. We may feel one, then another and back again to the first one.

After bargaining, our attention moves squarely into the present. Empty feelings present themselves, and grief enters our lives on a deeper level, deeper than we ever imagined. This depressive stage feels as though it will last forever. It’s important to understand that this depression is not a sign of mental illness. It is the appropriate response to a great loss. We withdraw from life, left in a fog of intense sadness, wondering, perhaps, if there is any point in going on alone? Why go on at all? Depression after a loss is too often seen as unnatural: a state to be fixed, something to snap out of. The first question to ask yourself is whether or not the situation you’re in is actually depressing. The loss of a loved one is a very depressing situation, and depression is a normal and appropriate response. To not experience depression after a loved one dies would be unusual. When a loss fully settles in your soul, the realization that your loved one didn’t get better this time and is not coming back is understandably depressing. If grief is a process of healing, then depression is one of the many necessary steps along the way.

Acceptance is often confused with the notion of being “all right” or “OK” with what has happened. This is not the case. Most people don’t ever feel OK or all right about the loss of a loved one. This stage is about accepting the reality that our loved one is physically gone and recognizing that this new reality is the permanent reality. We will never like this reality or make it OK, but eventually we accept it. We learn to live with it. It is the new norm with which we must learn to live. We must try to live now in a world where our loved one is missing. In resisting this new norm, at first many people want to maintain life as it was before a loved one died. In time, through bits and pieces of acceptance, however, we see that we cannot maintain the past intact. It has been forever changed and we must readjust. We must learn to reorganize roles, re-assign them to others or take them on ourselves. Finding acceptance may be just having more good days than bad ones. As we begin to live again and enjoy our life, we often feel that in doing so, we are betraying our loved one. We can never replace what has been lost, but we can make new connections, new meaningful relationships, new inter-dependencies. Instead of denying our feelings, we listen to our needs; we move, we change, we grow, we evolve. We may start to reach out to others and become involved in their lives. We invest in our friendships and in our relationship with ourselves. We begin to live again, but we cannot do so until we have given grief its time.”

Je veut faire 5 masques principales ( les plus gros ) qui vont représenter : “denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance” et avec les projecteurs j’aimerais aussi faire des masques qui n’appartiennent pas au 5 étapes officiel mais des masques qui représentes des exagérations qui n’accepte pas la mort.

https://grief.com/the-five-stages-of-grief/

1. KESSLER, David, «the five stages of grief», Grief.com, https://grief.com/the-five-stages-of-grief/