BEING HUMAN: SHARING GRIEF IN A CIRCLE OF PRESENCE

The uses of psychological research and strategies to address the stress of performance for musicians is well known in that community. Classes in reducing performance stress are featured in many conservatories today and YouTubes and podcasts abound on the topic.

I've blogged about Noa Kagayama's effective and enjoyable five-session zoom class I attended some years ago, then repeated one year later at no charge. It's called "The Psychology of Performance." Noa, a violinist and psychologist, teaches online, but also at Julliard.

His class positively changed my mindset and physical practice strategies as a late-life returning piano student. However, I will admit I gained substantially more from included lessons on "how to practice" than perform for my friends at home or in any public situation. I'd still rather play for my partner and my cat, or write poetry.

I'm not unfamiliar with therapy since my mom in mid-life became a high school counselor of great popularity and fame for the twenty years she was practicing her profession. Periodically in my life I sought out individual, and sometimes couple's therapy, and found both beneficial. I learned to think of therapy as a type of adult or continuing education to address a focused, time limited issue or problem, such as how to reduce anxiety and hand trembling so I did not waste time in front of my piano teacher.

This fall I discovered a new beneficial application of psychology. It might provide another model for musicians to use.

A few months after the new US administration of № 47 took office on January 20, 2025, I noted that some days I would feel overwhelmed by grief. This typically ended in a few moments of tears despite the fact I had no life-threatening diagnoses or personal trauma to deal with such as accident or divorce.

I was puzzled. I mentioned the concern to my cognitive behavioral therapist to ask why? After ruling out disease, accident, or personal trauma, she asked “could it be that you’re experiencing another round of political grief?” 

A light bulb went off. The previous June when the run up began to the November 4, 2024 election, I had had the same odd experience, but at that time it did not result in tears. I had asked her the same question with the same answer. In addition, at that earlier time my gut had clutched, spasmed, belched, and stopped, then for a few months the problem cycled on and off for no reason that I could ascertain. About a year later I now saw signs of the same problem.

A few months later at my annual exam my primary care doctor confirmed that some of her patients were experiencing substantial grief related to the election results and what had transpired during the first half of the year after the new president came to office.

When I asked if Kaiser had a therapy group focused on political grief, she took a day to inquire and reported back: “no.” 

I was stunned. 

An online search and questioning my therapist revealed the same. Nowhere in the U.S. could I find a political grief support group conducted on zoom or in person.

I found a few therapists who facilitated support groups for both people suffering from environmental grief and those suffering grief from losing a specific loved one. However, if I joined those groups I would have been the only person grieving the day-by-day loss of civil rights I had fought for over 50 years ago. 

As a retired lawyer I felt deeply saddened by the evident dismantling of The Rule of Law in under one year. I wondered what my struggle through law school in the early ’70s had been about (looking back, it was the worst, most stressful three consistent years of my life) if Constitutional and legal principles were so quickly disappearing? I had not kept in close touch with any legal friends and I had connected for a few months mid-year to only one local activist group. However, that group did not fit what I was looking for. I felt alone in my political grief...and I certainly did not need to join a group where I might feel even more “out in left field!”

I remembered that in 2013 after my mom died, I had suffered greatly, and eventually joined a weekly grief support group. Within months that had helped relieve my deep, unexpressed sadness.

So I decided not to wait but to create my own support group focused solely on political grief and suffering. 

I contacted Katie Lousie Cooper, a death doula experienced in counseling those aging and dying, and their families. Katie who was an associate of a Bay Area Doula program that I had just learned about. 

On our first phone call I learned she was experienced in facilitating support groups regarding environmental grief over separation from nature and destruction of the environment. She had led such groups based on the model developed by environmentalist Joanna Macy and on the theories of Macy and psychologist Francis Weller.

I had no other facilitator or support group model on which to rely, nor did Katie. She confirmed that she, too, felt grief at the political directions of the new administration, so we agreed to establish a once-per-week group of 1.5 hours in length with a maximum of ten participants. 

We drafted a description of our group, she set up a webpage, and both posted the “Circle of Grief” notice as widely as we could. Eight people registered for the first series of eight sessions commencing last September--and the group continues to this very day. 

Amazingly and despite me urging that she collect a modest donation for professional efforts, Katie does not charge. At least until the date of this blog, she is able to graciously contribute her skills gratis in order to advance the cause of resilience and re-energizing of participants.

From six to eight participants seems to be the average who attended each meeting. In the ten groups I attended, participants could drop in and out or attend all eight sessions, then re-enroll after a short break for another eight sessions. 

Groups operate with a standard procedure based on Macy’s work. One guideline that is repeated at the beginning of each session is that participants speak from their hearts and top of minds, expressing how they feel in the moment of their "share." Another is that the rest of us listen and refrain from commenting or criticizing what anyone else says. We simply witness and listen, but do not offer solutions or options. This is a sound, if aspirational, guideline that helps build trust with others; participants come to speak more freely as time goes by. Somehow and seemingly with a bit of magic, merely sharing our feelings seems to diminish the negatives and rebalance our emotions.

However, responses can sometimes occur because feelings often run strong. At one meeting after my four-minute share, a participant burst out with “Don’t say that!” when I had said that I was feeling like this country had entered Hitler’s Germany. I was expressing my personal observations and feelings in that moment. Any facilitator should be skilled in managing these deviations from the agreed-upon meeting protocol, but it was never specifically addressed in the group setting; fortunately for me, it did not happen again.

Operational procedures for political grief support groups can differ and be more or less flexible. In choosing to establish such a support group, I learned it was critical to establish what constitutes an acceptable “share” by group members, and do so in advance of beginning a group, not during it.

After attending about four sessions I wanted to share an impactful musical video of a heartwarming YouTube presentation on love, but Katie thought it was not appropriate because it fell outside of the protocol used by Joanne Macy. 

On another occasion I asked if I could read a poem I had written, one that expressed my then-current grief, and again I was discouraged from doing so. Since I’m a poet, I was disappointed; my poems are often expressions of my deepest feelings and observations in life.

Additionally, I saw no harm in speaking through poetry in what I envisioned as an experimental new type of support group. I had assumed — but without asking in advance of setting up the group — that some experimentation would be possible as we went along, but I was disappointed that it was not to be.

By that time I had attended ten sessions and the good news was that I had substantially recovered my waning sanity and a moderate energy level. I decided it was time to move on, write more poetry, and take to the streets again in focused protest. 

My tears had abated and I felt more emotionally balanced because I had learned that I was not the only one suffering from political grief. I felt heard and accepted (except on the one noted occasion), and I offered the same to others.

Today I am continuing the process of joining or implementing action-oriented, thoughtful, strategic groups and specific projects like the Lament Walks, ones that reflect my principal values. I am exceedingly grateful that the worst of my cutting grief has passed and that happened not by looking away and avoiding, but by facing my feelings head on and expressing them.

I wish the same relief for my readers whom I hope will find the right resources to support and soften their political grief--if they also experience it. 

I hope such resources will reduce our distrust of others in the political arena, and open up our ears and hearts to learn how we all experience the world and need to feel safe and loved. 

I also hope that many more of us than evident in the past year, work to restore at least the major elements of our former democracy. I hope that we will work to rebuild public courtesy and compromise leading to a government with laws, policies, and programs even better than in the past, with more justice for all.

And in the meantime--there is always music!

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