Supporting Teachers & Students During Quarantine

PUC Clinical Counseling Program

The Unique Grief We are Experiencing

• In order to get through the months ahead, it’s important to validate your students and your own feelings and work them through. Especially those related to feeling out of control, sadness about lost lives and opportunities, and real, authentic grief. Regardless of how “big” or “small” your personal losses feel, they are all important.

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The Unique Grief We are Experiencing�Here are some rough categories of loss:�

• Object Loss
• Relational Loss
• Role/Identity Loss
• Physical Loss
• Personal or Invisible Loss

The Unique Grief We are Experiencing�Object Loss

• Object Loss: Losing tangible things involves its own kind of grief. When a home is lost to foreclosure or fire, feelings of insecurity often result. Similar feelings are raised with loss by theft or accident of any number of objects to which we are attached.
• The loss of money and financial stability also fits here. These losses are often very personal and are often minimized by others. Remember what it was like to lose a beloved toy as a child and you’ll know what I mean.
• During the time of COVID-19, object may mean:
• Loss of income and financial security
• The threat of losing one's home (for those who are losing jobs)
• Loss of physical vocational or educational spaces to work within
• Loss of ability to procure desired objects easily
• Loss of autonomy in our objective spaces (if we work from home and now have others in our space)

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The Unique Grief We are Experiencing�Relational Loss

• These losses are the kinds we identify most traditionally with grief. The death of those we love fits here, as do losses related to separations and/or divorces in romantic relationships or friendships.
• During the time of COVID-19, relational loss means:
• Emotional distance in relationships due to increased physical separation 
• Fear of death (of self or others)
• The actual death of loved ones related to the virus

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The Unique Grief We are Experiencing�Role or Identity Loss

•  Losses that fit here are those related to ways in which we identify ourselves. Seeing ourselves as healthy, fit, or a part of a specific community are examples. Titles that help us clarify our role in our communities also fall into this category. By this, I mean helpers, leaders, on-the-ground-get-things-done-ers, and all the roles needed to keep life going.
• Roles related to professional and family life are also relevant. Even the idea of being a free and independent person is core to our sense of identity. Losses in this realm are often deeply felt and frequently go unacknowledged.
• During the time of COVID-19, role/identity loss means: 
• Reduction of our scope of influence down to what can be achieved from home or technological means due to sheltering in place, thereby changing our sense of identity and some of our placeholder roles in the community
• Loss of independence and freedom in how one’s time is spent
• Loss of any feelings of security that were based on wealth or position 

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The Unique Grief We are Experiencing�Physical Loss

• When we experience a change to what our bodies can or cannot do, we experience a unique form of grief. When others respond to these changes with pity or infantilizing behaviors we often stuff or deny our sense of loss, scrambling to compensate and find confidence in the capabilities that remain. This actually hurts us deeply. We need to feel and work with our feelings of limitations in order to move to a place of strength.
• During the time of COVID-19, physical loss means:
• A decrease in options for moving about physically in the world
• An increase in awareness of physical symptoms
• The possible introduction of panic symptoms in response to ambient anxiety (loss of control of physical manifestations of emotions)
• A real fear of death

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The Unique Grief We are Experiencing�Deeply Personal and Often Times Invisible Loss

• This category includes everything from the loss of security to the loss of control. It also includes the loss of dreams and wishes. Losses relating to events we’ve been planning, or experiences we’ve been looking forward to, fall into this domain as well.
• During the time of COVID-19, personal loss means:
• A major disruption of personal plans and experiences
• Actual losses of plans and experiences that can’t be rescheduled (e.g: graduations, celebrations, baby deliveries without partners, etc),
• A major shift in autonomy and personal agency in moving about in the world
• Loss of the idea that we are invincible
• Loss of the (false but commonly held) belief that we can control our lives and surroundings

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Weathering the Storm…

• And so… to weather the physical isolation, loss of human life, and loss of freedom in how we exist in the world that the next weeks will hold, it is imperative that we face our losses… no matter their size. We must own and work through our grief. It is crucial that we name our big feelings and do what we can to work them through. Once we’ve done so, it’s compassionate of us to help inspire those around us, especially our students, to do the same. Together, we can weather this storm…the one on the inside of ourselves and the one facing the world.

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Community Circle Question�Breakout Room

• Share a loss that you recognized during this presentation that you had not realized was contributing to your sense of grief.

A Simple Tool To Have:�Box Breathing

• Calm
• Clarity
• Focus

How to do it……

Supporting Teachers & Students During Quarantine�Part II

Developmentally Appropriate Ways to Support Teens that are Grieving

• In our last presentation we discussed the myriad of ways we are all now experiencing grief. We discussed different types of grief…
• Object Loss
• Relational Loss
• Role/Identity Loss
• Physical Loss
• Personal or Invisible Loss

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Now let’s discuss the unique ways that your students may be processing grief…

How to Support Our Students with Grief

• Be understanding and tolerant of common grief reactions which include: decreased appetite, difficulty sleeping, a decreased ability to concentrate, increased sadness, and social withdrawal. Students sometimes also feel anger.
• Be brief and patient. Remember that you may have to answer the same question multiple times and repeat key information to ensure understanding.
• Listen, acknowledge feelings, and be nonjudgmental.
• Avoid making assumptions and imposing your own beliefs on students.
• A variety of feelings are normal. Be sensitive to each student’s experience, as there is no one right way to respond to a loss. Feelings and behaviors will vary across students and will change throughout the bereavement process.
• Normalize expressed feelings by telling students such are common. However, if their expressions include risk to self (e.g. suicidal thoughts) or others, refer immediately to clinical counseling
• Be sensitive to cultural differences of students and their families in expressing grief.

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How to Support Our Students with Grief

• Consider a student’s intellectual abilities, behavior, and conceptual understanding. For children with developmental disabilities. Their limited communication skills do not mean they are unaffected by the death. Behaviors such as increased frustration and compulsivity, somatic complaints, relationship difficulties, and increased self-stimulatory behaviors may be expressions of grief.
• Maintain a normal routine in your classroom and engage students in activities they previously enjoyed.
• Provide the opportunity to talk and ask questions and use these questions to guide further discussion. Encourage students to share feelings, but in ways that are not disruptive to the class or hurtful to other students.

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How to Support Our Students with Grief

Developmentally Specific Ways Teens Cope with Grief

• Do not force students to share their feelings with others, including their peers if they do not feel comfortable. Provide them with opportunities to share their feelings privately.
• Students often seek support via social media. Be aware of what is being posted and shared. Encourage students to seek support from a trusted adult if they are nervous about a peer’s post.
• Possible reactions include:
• Poor school performance
• Anxiety Depression
• High risk behaviors or substance use
• Emotional numbing
• Suicidal thoughts

IF YOU HAVE A STUDENT EXPERIENCING ANY OF THESE REACTIONS PLEASE REFER TO CLINICAL COUNSELING

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Emotional First Aid

• When I talk about Emotional First Aid I mean simple, body-based practices that can help us shift from triggered, reactive states, into centered, creative states. I’ve put together a “kit” of these portable, easy-to-learn tools to soothe us when we are in crisis-mode, so we can make better choices.

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Automatic Survival Strategies: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Appease & Dissociate�

• Being stressed out or triggered starts when our animal body perceives a threat coming our way. Our reptilian brain (or brain stem) and limbic brain respond swiftly together to restore us to safety. Before we know it, before we know why, we react. You may know this swift reaction as the “fight or flight” response.
• These survival responses are swift and automatic. We cannot stop them. That’s a good thing—survival strategies have kept our species alive by overriding slower brain/body functions. When a predator is chasing you, it’s not the time for strategy and reflection. The goal is to stay alive to strategize and reflect later.�In a crisis, survival responses will kick in faster than anything else.
• It’s important to accept that fact, especially when we feel hijacked by our survival strategies. When we see ourselves automatically placating (appease) others, or staying silent (freeze) when it’s time to speak up about injustice, it is easy to blame ourselves.
• It may seem counterintuitive to accept and appreciate our survival responses, but if we judge ourselves for our automatic survival reactions, that “I am bad!” message keeps our reptilian brain in reactive mode. If instead we can notice when we are in our survival responses, we can gradually reduce the length of time we spend in these reactive states. Learning how to soothe our brains and bodies with compassion and patience is key.
• Emotional first aid practices can help us notice early on when we are triggered or reactive, and help us soothe and re-center ourselves.

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Automatic Survival Strategies: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Appease & Dissociate�

• By the same token, a freeze response can mean silence, holding our breath, feeling paralyzed. On the outside, we may seem poker-faced or extremely calm.
• The appease response can look like smiling, submissive body language, or letting others invade our physical space. It can also show up as caretaking others, “making nice” or trying to smooth things over.
• The dissociate response involves “checking out” from our experience, not noticing our sensations and feelings. This can show up as a faraway look in our eyes, or a feeling that we are not “all there.” It looks like emotional detachment, forgetfulness, being caught up in our thoughts, or trying to figure out everything.

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Automatic Survival Strategies: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Appease & Dissociate�

Principles & Practices of Emotional First Aid: GRASP�GROUND * RESTORE * AWARENESS * SAFETY * PRACTICE�

• I like to sum up Emotional First Aid principles and practices with the acronym GRASP, or Ground, Restore, Awareness, Safety, and Practice.
• GRASP reminds me that when I get really “wound up” or “shut down,” I am/my body is grasping onto something. My reactions may be unconscious and automatic, but they are mine. In other words, when I freak out or shut down, no one is doing this to me—it is my body reacting to stress by tightening itself up. I am the one doing it. This means I can learn to ungrasp. Emotional first aid practices help us notice we are grasping, and give us ways to soften our grip and create options

GROUND

• To ground is to feel connected to and rooted in the earth. This means being present and alive in your lower body, legs and feet.
• Here are some simple grounding practices:

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RESTORE

• To restore is to return to a state of hope, connection and balance. Here are some simple restoring practices:
• • Appreciations— speak aloud or write down 1-3 things you appreciate or feel grateful for; slow down and savor the feelings.
• • Recreating resilience: think about an activity or being that makes you feel really good, or hopeful. This may include creative or athletic expression (drawing, singing, dancing, knitting, running, swimming etc) connecting to Spirit, animals, nature, or loved ones or community. Stay with this feeling for a few minutes; gain, really savor the feelings and sensations in your muscles and skin as you remember this experience.
• • Try this energy healing balancing breath (This practice is nice to do as you are falling asleep):�Repeat each step 3 times:
• • Imagine as you inhale that you are bringing breath into the sole of your left foot and up your leg, into your buttock; as you exhale, send the exhalation through your right buttock, down your right leg, and out your right foot.�• Reverse this, inhaling into the right foot, up through the right leg, and out the left leg and foot.�• Breathe in through the left foot/leg and out the right shoulder, arm and hand.�• Breathe in through the right leg and out the left arm.�• Breathe in through the left arm, and out the right arm.�• Reverse.�• Breathe in through the left hand/arm, out the right leg.�• Breathe in through the right hand/arm, out through the left leg Remember to do each side three times.

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AWARENESS

• Awareness means being grounded in “what is” by feeling the sensations in your body.�Here are some simple Awareness practices:
• • Practice feeling and identifying the sensations in your body (sensations can include temperature, movement or stillness, blankness or numbness, a sense of contact or pressure, or imagery (for example, your arms may feel like wings or your knees like bowling balls). Spend a few seconds being right inside the heart of each sensation.
• • Community Circle ? Name the mood in your body (if my body was a person, what would their mood be?)

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SAFETY�HOLDING * ESCAPE * YES

• Safety means giving your body experiences of feeling safe, where your body feels protected and/or able to take care of itself.
• There are three safety principles that I find to be helpful. I gave them the acronym HEY, which represents Holding, Escape, and Yes.

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SAFETY�HOLDING

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• Holding means giving your body a feeling of being held, of having a sense of boundary, of beginning and end. You can give yourself this feeling with or without props. Here are some holding practices:�With props: you can use blankets, pillows, eyebags or sandbags, a wall, the floor, or water to give your body a sense of being held. You could put a sandbag on your chest, or hide under a pile of pillows, get in a warm bath and feel the water holding your skin, or wrap yourself in blankets. You can wear a thick scarf or hoodie and feel the coziness. Notice which parts of your body like being held the most, and notice how you feel when you allow yourself to really rest inside that holding.
• You can also give yourself a sense of holding without props.

A Simple Holding Exercise

SAFETY�ESCAPE

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• Escape means checking out or shutting down consciously. Here is how it works:
• We all have habits that we use to soothe or distract ourselves. Eating ice cream, drinking caffeine, sleeping too much, watching TV, self-medicating, working too much, etc. While they have unpleasant side effects that limit our lives and our ability to be in relationship with others, these habits are survival strategies that have successfully gotten us through hard times.
• The first part of Escape is bringing an appreciative attitude toward your habit. When a habit is so automatic, it means that we have practiced this strategy thousands of times (because at some point we had good reason to). As a result of all this practice, this habit is now a highly developed skill. For example, if I find myself constantly daydreaming during stressful situations, it means I am an accomplished, world-class daydreamer. I deserve a gold medal in dissociation! At some point it was a smart thing to do (otherwise I wouldn’t have practiced it so much), and now I am really good at it!
• The second part of Escape is to view your habits pragmatically. Think of each habit or survival strategy as one of your tools. See them as reliable back up practices. Give yourself permission to use them when you need to, and use them consciously. If you practice this way, eventually you will own and operate your survival strategies as tools (instead of being owned by them). You will be able to choose when and how you use (or don’t use) these tools.
• The third part of Escape is to choose and practice healthy and sustainable tools (ones without unpleasant side effects), so that you have a sense of options. Eventually you might not need to use the unhealthy tools except when they are the best tools for the situation.

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SAFETY�YES

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• YES means collaborating with whatever your body is doing. Here is how it works:
• When you find areas of contraction or tension in your body, say “yes” to them. Give them the benefit of the doubt, and tell you trust they are working hard to take care of you. Tell them they are doing a good job! As you say yes, gently increase the tension or holding for a few seconds. Act like you and your body are a team, doing something important together. See what happens when you join with your body appreciatively instead of fighting it…the body always feels safer when we appreciate and support its efforts. Often with safety comes softening.

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PRACTICE

• PRACTICE
• The principle of practice encompasses both action and attitude. Practice as action involves doing something over and over until it “comes naturally.” Practice as attitude means practicing is the focus (not achievement).
• You need to practice something at least 300 times for it to become familiar, and 3000 times for the practice to become part of you.
• If this seems like a lot, ask yourself how many times you have practiced putting on your shoes. How many times have you practiced criticizing yourself (yet another thing that stimulates the fight or flight response)?
• Try out the above practices briefly and often. Brief, daily practices are more effective than long, occasional practice. The key is repetition over time The more we practice, the more these practices become speed dial buttons that allow us to recover our grounding and sense of safety very quickly. Keep your practice light.
• Bring curiosity and exploration into your practice. Practice to discover what practices your body likes best, and then give your body these gifts as often as possible.
• Practice is an ordinary, often unconscious part of life that you can turn into a conscious choice.

Clinical Counseling is Grateful to You!

• None of us counselors would be a counselor if it weren’t for a special teacher in our life who inspired and encouraged us. We are so grateful to you!
• Please let us know what we can do to support you.
• In closing would anyone else like to do a shout out of gratitude?