KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
A Santa Clarita grief counseling expert is talking about her belief that grief isn’t something that needs to be “fixed” in your head, it’s a broken heart that must be worked through.
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“We know for a fact that grief happens here in the heart, it doesn’t happen in your head,” said Sharon Brubaker, a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist. “And that’s where I think a lot of people get confused.”
Brubaker defined a broken heart as a term “used in a reference to state extreme grief or sorrow that happens in our heart,” adding that many people who are grieving try to “fix what’s broken in our head” rather than mend their broken heart.
Related: Santa Clarita Grief Counseling Expert: Guilt After A Loss
“We as grievers are not broken,” she said. “Grief is a normal and natural reaction to a loss of any kind.”
Part of the reason those experiencing grief think they have a “head issue” instead of a “heart issue” is because society doesn’t know how to deal with grief, according to Brubaker.
“They don’t know what to tell us, they don’t know what to say, they don’t know how to help us,” she explained. “Society doesn’t want us to cry, they don’t want us to hurt, they don’t want us to tell our truth, and so we don’t go to that heart part, and so we go to our head.”
Brubaker continued, “I normally describe the initial feeling of grief as if someone took a knife and just stabbed me in the heart with it… That knife is just there, it’s just in my heart and no matter what way you turn, that knife is digging in there and it’s burning and it’s hurting. And yet people all around are talking to you, but no one is talking about the knife that’s sticking out of your heart, and they’re not mentioning it, they’re not referring to it, and you’re screaming inside, ‘But what about this knife? But what about this knife?’, and you’re not getting much of a response from it. That’s what it felt like to me.”
A griever may try to bury what they’re feeling in their heart by focusing on a “head” question instead: the why — why did this happen, or could they have done anything differently to change it.
But Brubaker cautioned that by doing this, the griever turns themselves into a detective or a police officer, so focused on searching out the facts that they are preventing themselves from healing.
“For me, that letting go of the ‘why’ at that point was when the real healing for me started,” she said. “(That’s) when I was really able to get in there and start to do some of the work.”
She continued, “What happens in Grief Recovery is that you’ve got to go through it, right? You’ve got to go through it, and it’s dark and it’s ominous and it is not easy, and having a partner or someone to guide you and lead you on the way really helps.”
Ed. Note: This article is a KHTS Community Spotlight based on a recent radio interview with Sharon Brubaker, a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist.Santa Clarita grief counseling expert Sharon Brubaker has over 11 years of experience as a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist. The grief counseling expert specializes in the Grief Recovery Method in Santa Clarita, and offers an 8-week education program that she teaches in person, utilizing her free eBook titled “Grief Recovery.” As a grief counseling expert, Santa Clarita residents dealing with loss or other unfinished business who desire a lasting change can be guided on their journey of pain to find healing in their lives.
Certified Grief Recovery Specialist
27772 Avenue Scott
Valencia, CA 91355
661-212-0720
Sharon Brubaker, Valencia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-nqk8MoYbI
Grief, Santa Clarita Grief Counseling, Grief Counseling, Grief Recovery, Recovery, Sharon Brubaker, Dealing with Loss, Unfinished Business
To me grief was more of a “soul issue”, like my very soul had two broken legs from an attack with a baseball bat. You are right, no one will address it, yet they speak and you just feel numb from their words as you are screaming inside.