Sandy's Trauma and Beginning of Grief
Every One of us go Through Grief
OK, so I was on this journey – you can imagine. I loved the journey. And then, the next thing that happened was that tragedy in my life whereby my 3 daughters and their friend were murdered. I want to tell you about my journey of grief during this time. There may be some things there that can help. There are certainly some positive aspects that come out of it, so I’ll tell you about my journey of grief … and you know what? Every one of us here are going to have to go through grief.
Learning Through Adversity
Maybe many of us have already been through grief, and there’s going to be more. We’re all going to go through some adversity at some time. The key thing out of adversity and out of trauma is learning. What is there that you can learn from this event, because you know, those learning experiences are experiences for our soul and it’s the soul that needs the experience.
I’m so Glad I Spoke to my Girls That Night
So, Jenny and Kirsty, they were twins at 19 and Lexie, she was 16 – the next day. And the date was 23rd January 1987. They were living with their mum in the northern Sydney suburb of Pymble and a friend of theirs, Lisa was there as well, so there were 4 of them in the house. I was living about 5 kilometres away in Lindfield, married to Sandra and at that time we had a little 5 year old girl, Lara and a little 3 year old boy, Ian. At about 7 o’clock that Friday night I rang and spoke to Lexie and also spoke to Jenny and Kirsty and I tell you, the mirth and joy in that household was fantastic. They were all preparing to go camping for the Australia Day long weekend. And we taught them about camping, so I was really pleased about that. They were going to be joined by a group of friends to go camping. In retrospect I am so glad I was able to speak to the girls at that time, because at 10 past 9 that night Richard Madrell arrived at the door and professed his love for Jenny who of course had not had anything to do with him for 12 months and all of them wanted to keep him away with their mother even trying unsuccessful to take out an AVO on him. But he arrived at the door and shot her. He then shot Kirsty, then Lisa and then shot Lexie. All over in ten minutes.
My First Reaction
The police hammered on my door at about 2 o’clock in the morning and told me what had happened. My first reaction was that this was impossible … I mean I had only spoken to them several hours earlier. For me it was complete disbelief and I questioned about being shot with a shotgun as I knew something about guns from the army. I questioned the fact that it must have been impossible because with a shotgun you have to load it, fire and then re-load it, re-load it again …. Surely one or two of them are going to be able to get away. Surely not all 4 of them, not all 3 of my girls.
I Still Couldn’t Believe it.
On the way to their home in the police car I was still arguing with the police and I was asking if they had seen their bodies. “Oh, so you haven’t seen their bodies … you haven’t actually been there …. You’ve only been told about this over the radio … so you don’t really know this for sure.” Always thinking and hoping that it’s not true.
My Denial Phase
And then a little bit of doubt would come in and it would be like this: “God, how could you let this happen. No, no no, you haven’t let it happen. But …. If you have … what have the girls done? What have they done to deserve this for goodness sake? There is no God.” And so that’s where my denial phase started.
By Sandy MacGregor – http://www.selfimprovementdeals.com
See it on Video – 09 of 16 Sandy's Trauma and Beginning of Grief
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Science of Tears and Emotion
The Start of Brain Research
So Lydia Cassone said that they all went back to their respective scientists and asked what on earth this had to do with memory. And do you know that since about the late 1960s and early 1970s we have learned more about the mind, more about the subconscious mind, more about the body, more about the mind/body connection than in any previous 2000 years in our history. Look at just what we’ve learned.
Genome and Proteins
Look at the genome stuff that we’ve learned. Do you know that proteins are being investigated. They say that there are 6 million proteins in the body and when we know all the proteins in the body, we will be able to cure anything in humans. It’s frightening isn’t it, but that’s where it’s going. We’ve learned a lot in the last 40 or so years.
Tears – a Different Chemical Composition
One of the things that we’ve learned, I use in seminars and I think it’s really interesting. You know tears that we have. We can have tears of sadness and we can also have tears of happiness. Well do you know that they have a different chemical composition? So in other words we’re doing something different to our body when we have tears of sadness and tears of joy. Now that coupled with another research scientist, Rappaport, is fantastic information.
Emotion is Memory for the Subconscious Mind
You see, Rappaport showed emotion is memory for the subconscious mind. Emotion is memory and this was proved in 1971. What was actually proved was that emotion is not only involved with memory, it is the very basis on which memory takes place.
A Quick Demonstration
Now, when you think about that, a quick demonstration is that you could go back in your mind right now to something that you didn’t like – something that was an adversity, a trauma ….. OK, no need to go any further as you’ve probably got it already. Don’t think about it any more. But you go there easily, you know what the occasion was, you know what hurt – all that sort of thing.
Another Demonstration
And I could also ask you to go back to a really fantastic event in your life. You might for example go back to when you were riding your two-wheeler bike for the first time, or maybe your first kiss, or maybe a fantastic result at sport or in school, or something like that. We have so many good, joyous occasions in our mind and they will come up.
How Did You Remember
Now, how did you remember them? That’s the key – how did you remember them? To remember either the negative event or the joyous event, did you have to tell other people about it? Did you have to write about it again and again? Did you have to make a mind map about it? Did you have to do all those sorts of things to remember it? No, it just stuck fast didn’t it. It’s right there. So, in other words, the emotion of the event made it stay in your memory.
Remembering With Only Positive Emotion
So now, if we can remember with both negative emotion and positive emotion, do we use negative emotion to enhance imprinting on our memory? The answer is no, because of the tear stuff. Tears of sadness, tears of joy – different chemical constitution. We know we’re doing something different to our body with negative stuff and the negative stuff doesn’t make us feel good. So therefore we only use positive, joyous memory connections to enhance memory within the subconscious mind. So that’s something that came out of this science a long time ago.
By Sandy MacGregor – http://www.selfimprovementdeals.com
See it on Video – 08 of 16 Science of Tears and Emotion
Next Video – 09 Sandy's Trauma and Beginning of Grief
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Images of struggles, grief, and compassion as a result of the onslaught by the Typhoon Ondoy Images of Emotions, Grief, Compassion, and Brotherhood during the onslaught brought baout by the Typhoon Ondoy On Metro Manila, Philippines. http://www.clipmoon.com/videos/188776a/typhoon-ondoy-stories-of-grief-compassion-and-heart.html
