Becoming a Grief Care educator

Since July, I started learning to become a grief educator. It is helpful for my lectures and a future learning project for children. The teacher, David Kessler’s approach is profound and impressive. Through learning new information, as if I am getting a retreat myself. His words reach very deep in my heart. Emptiness in life finally began to be filled. And now, I know some contentment of my life.

Below is the last part of the first lecture: introduction of grief care.

7月よりグリーフケアエデュケーター養成の講座を受け始めました。将来の自分の講義や、また子供たちに企画しているラーニングプロジェクトに有意義な学びです。講師のデイビッド・ケッセラーの講義はとても洗練されまた印象深いものです。新しいインフォメーションを学び愛ながら、あたかも自分がリトリートのセッションを受け続けているようです。彼の言葉は、心の深いところまで響きます。生きていた中での空虚さがようやく埋められてゆく感じがあります。そして、私の人生の中の充実というものも初めてじったような気がします。

以下は、最初のレッスン、グリーフケアについてのイントロダクションの最後に、彼が語った言葉です。

River of Grief - David Kessler

〜哀しみの河〜

A river of grief will take us to heal.

A river of grief knows where to take us.

Society tells us to fight a river, swim upstream, not to go down the river.

But a river of grief takes us to heal.

A river of grief takes us where to go.

If there is a small branch falls to a river,

That can be a complicated grief,

Water hits the small branch of complication,

And the river flows right away.

What if a big branch falls in a river?

Imagine a big branch falling in a river,

The water hits it, goes in a circle,

A fisherman calls it 'eddy.'

In that, when they call it eddy,

It goes in a circle.

It is not going down the river,

What is a big complication of grief!

-death by suicide, death of child etc.-

What we need to do is that

We need to examine it,

To move it out of the way,

so that the river whirl again begin to flow.