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Dr. Angela Schaffner

Psychologist. Author. Black Belt.

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grief · May 15, 2019

Grief and Running the Course

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I’m about to do some focused editing.

I’m about to do some focused editing.

It’s my birthday!!!

It’s my birthday!!!

Happy Birthday, Revealed!

Happy Birthday, Revealed!

Here it is...the cover for book 2!!! I was so exci

Here it is...the cover for book 2!!! I was so excited to receive the final version from Joanna Bradley Kennedy at Upper Room Books today. It will be released on July 1, 2020 and I am looking forward to sharing it with you! #writersofinstagram #urbooks #psychology #grouptherapy #ministry #smallgroups

Happy New Year! It's 2020, and hopefully the new y

Happy New Year! It's 2020, and hopefully the new year will bring all of us an opportunity to see things more clearly than we have in the past decade. I hope we can go deeper- within our selves, in our friendships, in all of our relationships. I hope we can collectively pursue radical honesty and make space for even the most eccentric and questionable expressions of our authentic selves.
We stayed in Atlanta for the holidays, and I am currently navigating some sort of late holiday abyss, no longer oriented to time or day of the week. There's a notable, relieving absence of the typical pace of responsibilities, activities and events. Space opens up to reflect and plan. I have spent a lot of time sitting by the fire and feel like I could do a lot more of that for at least the next year. I'm tired of reading, tired of resolutions, and tired of planning my next project. I think for awhile I just want to be. I want to listen better, be more available, but also honor when I want to do nothing, without providing an explanation to myself or anyone else. In 2020, I foresee meaningful work, focus, and a lot of love. I think it's going to be a good one for me, and I hope it will be for you, too!

We escaped the room with one minute to spare! So f

We escaped the room with one minute to spare! So fun. Happy bday Michelle!

Doc school mini-reunion in Anderson, IN! ❤️

Doc school mini-reunion in Anderson, IN! ❤️

I went car shopping recently with Dusty and we sto

I went car shopping recently with Dusty and we stopped by a Tesla dealership. We sat inside a car that functioned like an iPhone, and marveled at the touch-screen technology and impressive design. When we stepped out, we encountered a Tesla owner who was happy to tell us all about owning a Tesla. In his most helpful tone, he suggested that we might really like a different model, the one with the knobs. He said people who are older and less tech-savvy tend to like it.
We nodded appreciatively, but as we walked away I leaned over to Dusty and asked, “Did he just call us old and not tech-savvy?”
“Yep.”
We have been laughing about it ever since. I settled on a Tacoma, and I have to say I really love the simplicity of the knobs. Anything else would likely overwhelm my Gen-X cognitive processing deficits.
As another year comes to a close, I hope we can laugh freely at the passing of time as much as we grieve. I hope we can love the ages we are, knowing that numbers and years cannot contain us. Embrace the holidays this year as they are, finding what and who you can celebrate now. Try not to get lost in what Christmas used to be or in the perfect ideals of what you try to make it.

We're encouraged to practice gratitude this week,

We're encouraged to practice gratitude this week, and in past Thanksgivings my default gratitude practice was externally focused for the most part. I've named people, things and experiences for which I'm grateful. I'm doing that again and I hope you will, too. But I am also aware this year that I need to approach my internal self with gratitude as well, including and especially the wide range of feelings that surface within me throughout the holidays. Someone recently told me that her pastor said we should not trust our feelings. I was saddened to hear such blatant disregard for an entire realm of the human experience, one of our most important and reliable sources of wisdom about ourselves. So many of us are so quick to pathologize our emotional selves. We are so easily scared by our feelings so we attempt to numb ourselves or distract and distance ourselves from them. I've been a licensed psychologist since 2005 and I still approach my own emotional states with doubt and disbelief at times, readily dismissing what I know to be true when confronted with opposing ideas and values. We need to bring our tears, our grief, our sadness, our joy, our fear, and our anger to Thanksgiving with us for Thanksgiving to feel like a meaningful and relevant experience. We don't necessarily need to express all our feelings at the dinner table in order to honor them. By all means, please leave room to distract yourself with a football game, or drink some wine, or leave the room when horrifying political statements surface among relatives. But find a way to honor what is there for you emotionally. Journal about it, text a friend, or talk it out with your trusted person. Let yourself miss people, and embrace the ones you love a little longer. Tell them what they mean to you. Turn your emotional energy into radical self-care, and go for a walk rather than a compulsive run, or experience a damn dessert without an apology, compensation, or rationalization. Choose to value your whole self with gratitude, even the parts that hurt. Make space for the waves of emotion that surface, welcome them, and ask yourself what you need. You can get what you need, and you're going to be okay.

My reading plans for a holiday week...we will see

My reading plans for a holiday week...we will see how it plays out. Richard Rohr is amazing! I highly recommend checking out Yes, And as a daily devotional. When I read his wisdom I feel a mixture of relief, amazement, gratitude, wonder, and grief that I did not discover his writing earlier in life, though I am not sure I’d have been ready for it if I did.

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