Article by adjunct faculty, Dalma Heyn, Pet-Loss Grief Specialist, Psychotherapist

When practice doesn’t make perfect…

Last time I spoke about some of the ancient Stoics’ ideas for having a better life. Dr. Jeff and I were taken by, among other good things, their focus on lessening the pain of loss by consciously, deliberately, planning for it well in advance.

We cannot control events—like hurricanes, or death—but, they believe, we can prepare for them and thus control our emotional response to them when they do happen.

Most of us tend to be averse to thinking about the future’s scary things – particularly, in our culture, death and dying. This aversion holds true even though we who have companion animals know, intellectually anyway, that we’ll likely be around at the end of their lives. Even so, we hate to think about it too much. Stoics advise us to look it right in the eye and, instead of running from it, plan for it.

As I looked more deeply into their thinking, I noticed something in me that I wanted to share here. I realized that, unless one has practiced this kind of disciplined mind-control for many years, we’re likely to fall short of success in the case of pet loss.

We may know that our beloved pets’ lives are shorter than our own, and we may even plan for it as well as we know how. But, in my experience, we cannot imagine how desperately unhappy their deaths are likely to make us; we just can’t comprehend, in the abstract, this onslaught of emotion.

The theory and practice of doing what we can to anticipate this loss may be healthy, and is probably the most we can do to prepare for the pain. But the stunning force of the loss when it happens can simply knock the wind out of us.

It’s this gut punch, the sudden immersion in a sea of emotion, that my clients say overwhelms them. I share this not to dismiss an important and helpful ancient practice, but to offset any shame and guilt that may crop up when doing all that homework, all that hopeful acceptance of the inevitable, fails us anyway.

Think of the years-long preparations to shore up levy systems, strengthen power grids, and build competent flood walls, in southwestern Florida, before Hurricane Ian smashed everything to bits. As careful as their planning was; as hard and long as they worked to prepare; who can deny that the storm’s devastation simply defied all preparations? 

Does this mean Florida shouldn’t have prepared for the storm? Of course not. Does it mean that the Stoics’ techniques for offsetting pain are useless? Not at all. But it does mean that sometimes, try as we might to insure against our own devastation, physical or emotional, when what we planned for comes to pass, we have no idea what hit us.

If and when that happens, dear pet parents, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Emotion is a wild thing, not easily controlled. And the really good news is that there is a whole community right here that understands and will support you in every way possible.

Until next time….

Dalma

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Article by adjunct faculty, Dalma Heyn, Pet-Loss Grief Specialist, Psychotherapist

“Don’t complain about what was taken away; be thankful for what you were given, and how long you were given it,” – A teaching of Stoicism

“Let’s talk about Stoicism,” Dr. Jeff wrote to me one day in an email.

“You mean the ancient one—like, Marcus Aurelius?” 

“Yes. And Epictetus.”

“Epictetus?” I wrote back. “Who is he?”

So, I asked Dr. Jeff to give me a little time before we talked, so I could bone up on this ancient philosophy about which I knew very little. And on Epictetus.

What did I discover? What does this ancient philosophy have to tell us about grief and grieving?

By the way, we’re not referring to the famously ultra-controlled response to pain illustrated by people we would call stoic, with a lower-case “s”. My response to a client greeting the death of a beloved pet with a stiff upper lip is usually to wonder, “What is he holding in? What is he afraid to let out—and why?” I usually say, “Come, let’s explore these difficult emotions together, so you don’t have to feign braveness.”

This, I believe, is what Dr. Jeff was onto: Stoics’ idea—their ideal, really– of achieving a better life by ridding themselves of unnecessary anxiety and pain. They urge followers to control that which is in their power to control, while completely letting go of that which is not.  In many ways, this is like Zen Buddhism—strange as that seems—in that the goal is to achieve a contentment in life that can only come from within. A Zen practice uses meditation to achieve inner harmony; A Stoic practice uses a variety of coping strategies to achieve it: Daily gratitude. Planning ahead for negative events.

On the podcast called The Daily Stoic, I learned that this is called the “dichotomy of control.” You ask, “Is it up to me? Then I’ll think about it. If it is NOT up to me, then I won’t!”  Solve a problem if you can, let it go entirely if you cannot.

The idea is that life throws you many curveballs that you can’t control. But Stoics believe your decisions, actions, thoughts, and even emotions are up to you — and that you can choose how to respond to these curveballs. And as Epictetus, who turns out to have once been a slave but who became one of Stoicism’s first great leaders, put it (and I paraphrase):

“Circumstances sometimes cannot be changed. But your mind can.  Which means you have power.”  

Okay, so how does this power inform our response to pet-loss grief? I believe it is this: We know our companion animals have shorter lifespans than we do (that’s the we-cannot-control part). So, we should plan on the inevitability of the death of our pets–because it’s our lack of preparation that makes terrible surprises hurt even more.  Stoics teach us to face, process and deal with grief immediately, instead of running from it with delaying tactics, like blame and guilt and anger.  

Find the positive in a pet’s death if you can, but then sit with your pain and accept it, remembering that it’s a part of life. 

What do you think about this interesting strategy? My next blog will be about whether I believe this equanimity can possibly be achieved without years of practice. I have many thoughts on this….and I hope you do, too. Please write to me at [email protected] if you want to weigh in! I always welcome your input.

Until next time….

Dalma

Click here to see all Dalma’s posts.

Article by adjunct faculty, Dalma Heyn, Pet-Loss Grief Specialist, Psychotherapist

“If I hadn’t taken Scout on that hike in the heat, she wouldn’t have died.” — Sarah, pet-parent

This is the first thing Sarah told me when we met, two days after the death of her beloved Corgi, Scout. I knew we had to take action against this pernicious second-guessing, her guilt.  While guilt is not included in Elisabeth Kubler Ross’s five stages of grief (which do include, but not necessarily in this order, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), it is prevalent among grieving pet-parents. 

Why? Well, after all, we were in total control of our pet’s life: feeding, training, walking, playing with, and loving her. Suddenly, she is gone. How could we have had no control over that? “You could have, but you blew it!”, our subconscious says. So we ruminate as Sarah did: Should we have given her chemo? Should we not have given her chemo? Was euthanasia really called for?  Could we have arranged to pay for those medical bills if we’d tried harder?  Did we arrange the timing of her death for her or for our own convenience? The self-doubt goes on and on.

I want to say, first, that usually, guilt is unwarranted. In most cases, nothing we could have done or not done could have prevented our darling companion animal’s demise. But our minds race to self -blame like the proverbial moth to a flame.  And there, in the fire, it invents an imaginary control we wish we’d had and are convinced we should have had.  And it won’t budge (“I shouldn’t have taken my dog for that last walk;”  “I shouldn’t have given her that last bite of meat”…etc.). If only; if only…..

And this is most important: Guilt prevents grieving. 

If we don’t work through self-blame, we stay stuck, sometimes for years, covering and delaying all the emotions inherent in the grieving process. We must see guilt as a mind game in this context: a tool ostensibly to protect us from pain, but really inhibiting the healing offered by facing the revitalizing emotional journey ahead.

Until next time….

Dalma

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Article by adjunct faculty, Dalma Heyn, Pet-Loss Grief Specialist, Psychotherapist

“Marriage is a great institution, but I’m not ready for an institution.” –Mae West

Early in my career, I was struck by the difference between a young woman’s strong sense of herself before marriage, and her surprising loss of self after. How could this be? Why were my clients coming to me saying “I don’t feel like ME anymore?” a year after entering an institution they desired to be in? Where did their “me” go?

To grossly oversimplify, the answer lies in a clash between what society tells us to be (in the case of married women, they “should” be endlessly loving and giving and selfless) and who we really are. 

How does this clash affect pet parents? One way shows up is when we lose our companion animals. Even when our families support our profound grief and accept our outpouring of emotion, societal messages do not. Instead, these messages offer heartless, futile advice: Buck up. Be strong. Get over it. Move on. Get another dog. Don’t take it so hard.

Oh really? I think of so many clients who say they covered intense feelings of loss for years because they tried so hard to follow this military-style advice to be strong. They hid their pain, forced themselves to go back to work—and now, years later, still cry at the thought of their beloved animal. Constrained by cultural messages that didn’t validate either their love for their pet or their feelings of intense loss when it died, they couldn’t express their grief openly.  

So I say to pet parents what I said years ago to married women:

What do institutions know about pleasure or pain? What does our society know about your profound love and agonizing loss? Society doesn’t think about us as individuals, so it’s best not to adhere to its “rules” when it comes to something so personal as how deeply and how long you mourn your pet loss.

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Article by adjunct faculty, Dalma Heyn, Pet-Loss Grief Specialist, Psychotherapist

QUESTION: Why is grieving the loss of a beloved pet different from grieving the loss of a beloved relative or friend?

The answers lie largely in our culture’s perception of whom we should love; whom we should honor when they die; and how much pain we should be in when they do. 

No one questions the importance of the loss of our human loved ones. We have rituals that honor them; a grace period to allow us to mourn. And, even if that grace period proves insufficient for the mourner (and I will go on record here saying it IS insufficient), it at least validates the process and sanctions the pain.

Not so for those who lose a companion animal. Family members and friends often question the importance of the pet, and so, discount the depth of the grief the pet parent goes through.

“Hey, it’s just a cat! Get another one!”, they say. Or,“it’s been a month. Time to move on.”

This lack of understanding of our bond with our pets is not only undermining, it leaves us feeling misunderstood and alienated.  (We’ll talk more about this phenomenon—known as “disenfranchised grief”–in other blog posts.) No one means to be cruel, but invalidating both the object of our grief, our connection to him or her, and the depth of our pain, can make us reluctant and ashamed to express that pain.

And therein lies a huge problem.

It’s a psychological truth that burying feelings only intensifies them.

Unprocessed, they will return and return and return. I know people who, having swallowed their pain for years, still weep uncontrollably at a mention of a pet they buried decades ago. So please, remember: No one has the right to belittle either the worthiness of your pet to receive so much emotion, nor to belittle you for feeling so much emotion. Grieving is a process of healing, and healing requires that you process your feelings so you can “move on.”

Until next time,

Dalma

Click here to see all Dalma’s posts.

Article by adjunct faculty, Dalma Heyn, Pet-Loss Grief Specialist, Psychotherapist

I’m fascinated by a study, reported not long ago in The New York Times, in which 40 percent of women respondents felt their pets offer more emotional support than their spouses do.  When I relay this to women pet-parents, they laugh, and nod their understanding. 

So, what is it that feels like “more emotional support” than a spouse gives? In my random and admittedly small study (like, five such friends who agreed with the study’s findings), here is one interesting response: 

“I often talk to my cat about what I’m feeling. He looks at me intently—which right there is already more than I usually can elicit from my family! – with those wide green eyes, and doesn’t signal to me that he’d like to talk me out of it. I never feel I’m being a jerk, or am being overly dramatic, or inappropriate, silly, or whatever.  How nice to have a being bear witness to my tears or rage without judging me; without being afraid of my feelings; or wanting to change me. He just watches and listens.  Does he understand my concerns? Probably not (although other studies suggest that possibility), but he takes in my sadness. And often he comes and rubs his soft body against my leg as proof that he’s with me. And, of course, for all these reasons I feel less sad or mad.”

Granted, companion animals have learned, over thousands of years of domestication, to be there for us, in body and—I believe—in spirit, no matter the circumstance, no matter our mood. And it’s not just they who have been altered by these years of togetherness and adjustment, we have been, too.  As much as they hear, see and feel us, so do we hear, see and—with some serious attention to them—feel them, as well.

The French writer, Nobel prizewinner Anatole France, was, in his day, one of the busiest writers ever, with a stunning output of novels and poetry. Something struck me about this literary man, one wonderful observation of his that’s not literary at all:

“Until one has loved an animal,” he wrote, “a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” 

And when we do love an animal, and do feel our souls awaken in an astonishing and powerful way, we experience that mutual love as so much more life-changing than it might seem from the outside.

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Article by adjunct faculty, Dalma Heyn, Pet-Loss Grief Specialist, Psychotherapist

On Anticipatory Grief

One of our greatest poets, Billy Collins, US poet laureate, has a wonderful habit of writing poems from a dog’s point of view. In his 2012 poem,  A Dog on His Master, he wrote, 

                           As young as I look,

                          I am growing older faster than he,

                          seven to one

                          is the ratio they tend to say.

                          Whatever the number,

                          I will pass him one day

                          and take the lead

                          the way I do on our walks in the woods.

                           And if this ever manages

                           to cross his mind,

                           it would be the sweetest

                           shadow I have ever cast on snow or grass.

 

It is painful to know that our dogs—most of our companion animals, in fact—will die before we do. It’s so soon after we began loving them! It’s not fair!

But as it is the way of the world, many pet-parents start a process of “anticipatory grief” once their dog’s age hits the double digits. This “grieving” is just what it says: It hasn’t happened yet. It’s a jumping-the-gun sadness. We almost can’t help it. 

Similarly, older pet parents can be reluctant to take on a young pup or kitty, lest the pets outlive them. This decision, like anticipatory grief, is anticipatory guilt: worrying about not meeting the responsibilities of pet parenting; of leaving pets behind, bereft of their parent’s love. (Queen Elizabeth reportedly decided to stop breeding Pembroke Welsh Corgis in 2015, because, according to a famous dog trainer who had worked with her for decades, Monty Roberts, “she didn’t want to leave any young dog behind.”)

Clearly, “jumping the gun” on what might happen to us, or to our animals, is just one illustration of how central and deep the bond is between us. The queen’s dogs would clearly be taken care of brilliantly but, she knew, not taken care of by her. 

We’ll revisit anticipatory grief, because it can be a different experience altogether when a pet’s death really is expected and imminent. Meanwhile, though, when we simply sense that someday we’re going to lose our beloved dogs and cats, we can take our feelings as a wakeup call to love them even more than we already do, and to let them know it every day of their lives.

Click here to see all Dalma’s posts. 

Article by adjunct faculty, Dalma Heyn, Pet-Loss Grief Specialist, Psychotherapist

I know that the last thing in the world most of us need is another blogger writing another blog.

But on this site, in the company of Dr. Jeff, Dr.Christina, Dr.Sara, Dr. Jean, Amy, Gail and Jennifer — and so many other of the most caring and loving professionals, it’s hard not to revel in the extraordinary, life-changing feelings we have for our companion animals. As a pet-loss grief therapist, I also encounter true heartbreak among those who have lost their companion animals.

Unlike the grief we feel when we lose family and friends, this grief seems to me to be distinctly different (in ways we’ll discuss in this blog). And we rarely think to get professional help for the grief we feel for a dog who dies at age 15, or a cat who runs away.

Family members say, “Rover lived a long life! Be grateful!” and “Puffy must have found a happy home by now.” I believe that’s not good enough. Because, for many of us who’ve just lost our best friend, being told to get over it not only misses the point, but being misunderstood and emotionally abandoned in this way can leave us feeling all alone with our misery.

Heartbreak needs help. There’s no way to attend to the overwhelming sorrow of pet loss if you do nothing. Sorrow will simply stay put, overwhelming you, even turning in time into something worse and even longer lasting. So this blog will, I hope, share what I’ve learned about pet love and pet loss, in the hope that it awakens some readers to the power of this extraordinary bond and the importance of honoring it.

I hope this blog proves to worthy of your attention! Until next time.

Dalma

Click here to see all Dalma’s posts.