Thoughts About Grief – Dan Regan Hypnotherapy Vlog:

This is the transcript page to my hypnotherapy vlog where I share some of my thoughts about grief. You can watch the video here (click on image):

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Thoughts About Grief

Hi, it’s Dan here and I just want to say a few words about something, perhaps the most personal kind of stuff I’ve talked about in these videos. Because in this kind of week and you can see I’m already struggling to get those words out. In this coming week that’s just gone it’s the 5th anniversary of the passing of my dad and it’s tough when we lose someone who we love very much. When they’re no longer part of our lives, when there are those kind of reminders, certain things, certain songs, certain events, certain things get mentioned that we associate with them. It brings back some of that kind of mix, if you like, of pain, the pain and the kind of sadness, but also I like to think an element of a kind of happiness and joy that those times were there. I can remember as clearly as if it was yesterday those final days in the hospital when he was slowly fading from us. If I spend too long thinking back on those years, it upsets me, it can bring me to tears.

Certainly I try to deliberately remember some of the other times, the stuff that went on before that, the good times, the happy times, it’s particularly in my mind at the moment because one of the things my Dad and I would regularly talk about is when Wales played in the rugby, we went to a few games, we would sit and watch them on telly together, when we lived together, and it was one of the main topics of conversation when they played. So when Wales do play it always brings that kind of bitter/sweet element to it all if you like.

I just wanted to say that often people think that you shouldn’t get upset, that they shouldn’t have any emotion about people in the past and I think it’s OK, it’s OK to have those kind of emotions, it’s OK to miss people who were part of our lives, particularly when we’re reminded of key dates and all those kind of things and, as long as it’s not something that’s taken over our lives, certainly in the days, weeks following the loss of a loved one, it can take over your mental and physical well-being.  but if you’re functioning OK and time has past, it’s still OK to have that kind of emotion, to remember happy times and feel happy, to remember some of the elements and potentially feel that loss, that kind of ‘sink’ inside when you think back to those moments.

Certainly, like I say, I deliberately keep in my mind that last week or so when we went to the hospital until he did pass, that’s only a small element of many years of his life. Obviously a large part of it I wasn’t there, but there are thousands of memories, millions, thousands of moments shall we say of being a part of his life, mundane things, having a cup of tea, standing outside shops waiting for people, all those kinds of things that a son and a father do.

And there are lots of other memories. I can remember lots of lovely moments. So it’s important to remember that not only is it OK to express emotion about these things but also keep in mind that those last moments, those last days, how they panned out, that’s just a final page of a chapter of their life. There are many, many chapters, many, many moments, many twists, turns, plots, however you want to describe it all the way through their lives, things we were part of, things we heard about, things they would tell us about, moments when we’re there, there are always other moments. and we really need to, when someone is no longer alive, we need to deliberately do all we can to treasure those moments still. I like to think that my father lives on within me in a sense that he’s a large part of my values, my approach, things that are important to me, would have come from him. Whether I realise it deliberately or whether it was consciously, whether non-consciously, I picked them up in my youth.

So I like to think that in my life I can honour him, hopefully he would be proud, and so it’s not like he’s totally gone. In my view he’s still kind of a part of me, he still lives on, he still influences my life, those in my close family, in how I raise my kids, and how I seek to emulate a lot of the good stuff that he did and I take some comfort from that. I was going to record this video on the day but to be honest we wouldn’t have got very far without me really getting into it because it’s still part of the tapestry of life.

But certainly it’s OK to feel emotion but certainly please do remember that those moments, there are other moments, it’s a final page in the novel of their life. We want to kind of flick through the pages of some of those other moments and really kind of hold on to that and live those kind of values. So I’m going to leave it there. I just wanted to share those kind of thoughts, those views with you and I will speak to you soon. You take care now.

Dan Regan

12 November 2018

Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket