BACKGROUND MUSIC PLAYING IS "ONE DAY AT A TIME"
Reverend and Mrs. Bill Campbell
of
The First Christian Church
Flora, Illinois
August 28, 2007,
honored were we,
"THE YANA
BEREAVEMENT SUPPORT GROUP,"
to welcome, as our guest speaker,
REVEREND BILL CAMPBELL,
of
The First Chirstian Church
Flora, Illinois,
giving his synopsis of May 11, 2007,
""THE DR. ALAN WOLFELT SEMINAR""
DR. ALAN WOLFELT PH. D
AUTHOR, EDUCATOR
AND GRIEVANCE COUNSELOR,
sponsored by
Gary and Barb Bright of
""FRANK AND BRIGHT FUNERAL HOME""
Flora, Illinois,
an all day 'SEMINAR" in which
Reverend Bill Campbell,
among many from all walks of life.
attended,
including YANA GROUP members.
Reverend Bill Campbell has written
his synopsis,
and we are so very
thankful to him as we
can now add a webpage which
sums up, very well,
"THE DR. ALAN WOLFELT SEMINAR"
We,
YANA MEMBERS,
recognize the significance
of
Reverend Bill Campbell's synopsis
in that those who were not
in attendance for this
wonderful seminar
will now have the opportunity
to learn from the Wolfelt Seminar
and hopefully this wonderful synopsis
will be a major guide for those of us to follow,
those who are
grieving and mourning
a loss,
whether it be of a job, divorce, our family pet,
the death of a loved one or ones
or
""ANY MAJOR PAINFUL LOSS,""
Bill's synopsis,
sustaining us,
as we each, during our healing process,
individually walk
"OUR OWN JOURNEY OF GRIEF"
REVEREND BILL CAMPBELL'S SYNOPSIS
OF MAY 11TH, 2007
THE DR. ALAN WOLFELT SEMINAR.
Written by Reverend Bill Campbell
and
thank you
As I share with you regarding grief
I'm not speaking to you out of an ivory tower.
I understand loss as
I've experienced several losses myself.
These losses have included two dogs;
a brother; a mother; and my father.
But what is grief?
To grieve is to go through a
time of deep sorrow.
It's an intense emotional suffering
that's
brought on by a troubling loss.
We live in a culture,
however,
that endeavors to prevent us
from
grieving and mourning.
We seek to ignore and close out
grief and mourning
within peoples lives in our culture,
or,
we seek to work our way
around
it in
subtle ways.
Yet, we need to position our lives
to move
toward the pain of loss,
not evade it, or,
seek to work our way around it.
Choosing to work through our grief
is an important
means
toward experiencing the healing
we
both
need and deeply desire.
Allow me
to share some important reasons
why one needs to work
his or her
way through their
experience of
grief.
First of all,
it relieves you from a
negative
outlook on life.
Grief has a way of making us
and keeping us
negative.
And until we
confront the actual
pain of
grief
we will never experience
victory over it.
A few weeks
ago
I stepped on a small piece
of broken glass
in our
house.
It created a
continual nagging pain.
I kept thinking it would
take care of itself
and
would automatically
go away.
But the pain continued
until I went
directly to the toe
and
sought to remove the
small piece
of glass there that
was bringing about
my agony.
One couple of which
I'm aware
would never
accept the fact that
their son
died in the Viet Nam War.
As a result they lived in
perpetual
anger and denial.
Their pain never went
away because
they failed to work through
their pain.
Like me with my toe,
they tried to go
around the pain through denial.
The result is a
perpetual negative
outlook on life.
There is a second reason
you need to work
through
your grief.
Unless you do the
refusal to do so is most
apt to spawn a host
of abnormal behaviors.
For example:
addictive alcoholic and drug abuse;
gambling disorders;
and
even sexual perversions,
among others.
A neighbor failed to work through
his grief of losing his wife.
The result was a turning toward a very
abusive alcoholic lifestyle.
He was not the same man
he had been.
There's one final reason
we need to work through our grief.
If you don't
there will be some
overall
bad effects
that will be unleashed
in the totality of your life.
You will continue to be
hurt
physically; cognitively;
emotionally; socially;
and spiritually.
But how do we develop some
handles in order to work
through our grief?
In the following ways:
*By recognizing that everything
here is temporary.
*By recongnizing that everything in
the afterlife is permanent.
*By keeping our Christian hope ever
alive through spiritual development.
*By staying with our grief group.
*By helping others who are grieving.
*And by having a
responsible accountability partner.
Dr Alan Wolfelt offers these two
important insights in closing:
*"You die while your alive unless
you integrate pain into your life."
*"Failure to not bring forth what
is in you will cause your destruction.
If you don't mourn well you won't live well."
Talk by Bill Campbell on
August 28th, 2007, at
Flora Banking to the
YANA
group meeting