A short Zen video on learning to let go.

http://anti-deprime.com/2016/11/12/court-metrage-magnifique-comprendre-lacher-prise/

Dr. Pierre Milot, Ph.D., Ph.D. (tc)

Therapeutic Counsellor - Author

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Rising From The Ashes of Loss, My Voyage Through Grief: excerpt # 16

Chapter 5
Post-Loss
January 10, 2011
Experiencing deep pain, frustration, resentment and great feelings of loss.
It's 12 noon and I feel a strong urge to get drunk again.  It has been my pattern for the past week now, uselessly messing around on my computer , tying up loose ends all morning and drinking Scotch at midday.  The intoxicating liquid always helps me to escape the dark grips of grief that resurface the very minute I attempt to relax my mind.  No wonder I like it so much!  As hard as I try, I can only manage to stay pain-free for a couple of hours at a time and again and again I need support from 'Glenfiddich' my best friend and favorite single-malt scotch.  But every time the numbing effect of the alcohol dissipates, the painful reality shows up it's ugly head again and I sink once more into darkness.  When that happens, I suffocate and I need air, lots of it.  Every single time it's the same: run out to escape the confines of my prison, ignore every ounce of logic I may have, and, still boozed up significantly, jump into my car and take of for a long ride by the river, my second-best means of escape at this point.
Driving under the influence has always been against my principles and I feel guilty every time I do it, but the pain is so unbearable that I can't help myself.  Day after day it's the same scenario and even the few close calls I have by narrowly escaping police barrages do not deter me from my recklessness.  I am so miserable and out of it at times that I don't even care if I lose my driver's license, or get into an accident and hurt someone.  Grief is a horrible thing; it changes people and it surely has brought up the worst in me at times...
...After painfully witnessing Louise dying of freaking cancer in spite of doing everything that was humanly possible to do to be healthy, I've lost faith in life.  I am pissed off and frustrated at the sight of brutal gangsters and grossly fat and reckless individuals living to be 90 years old decrepit, while caring and and beautiful young souls are savagely taken away from this world.  What's the point of taking care of oneself if it doesn't even make a damn difference?  Hardship will happen regardless of what one does.  Que sera sera as the song says.  Whatever will be will be, and I'll die when I die, I scream mentally.  To hell with the world, I don't give a damn anymore.

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Dr. Pierre Milot, Ph.D., Ph.D. (tc)

Therapeutic Counsellor - Author

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Don't Let Fear Stop You From Attaining Your Goals

http://mindbodynetwork.com/article/the-path-of-fearlessness

Dr. Pierre Milot, Ph.D., Ph.D. (tc)

Therapeutic Counsellor - Author

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Info or free evaluation: 613.703.9237

Website: http://www.drpierremilotphdtherapeuticounselling.com

Guided Imagery for Stress Management

https://www.verywell.com/using-guided-imagery-for-stress-management-3144610

Dr. Pierre Milot, Ph.D., Ph.D. (tc)

Therapeutic Counsellor - Author

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Info or free evaluation: 613.703.9237

Website: http://www.drpierremilotphdtherapeuticounselling.com

Cortisol & Stress

https://www.verywell.com/cortisol-and-stress-how-to-stay-healthy-3145080

Dr. Pierre Milot, Ph.D., Ph.D. (tc)

Therapeutic Counsellor - Author

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Info or free evaluation: 613.703.9237

Website: http://www.drpierremilotphdtherapeuticounselling.com

Rising From The Ashes of Loss, My Voyage Through Grief: excerpt # 15

Pre-Loss

...Louise is kicked out of her private room...I have to sleep in the patient's lounge...
A funny moment to break the tension...

...So here I went, holding sheets and pillow, en route to my improvised bedroom.  Mumbling all the way my dissatisfaction, I set the sheets up on the cot assigned to me, closed the door, put out the lights and proceeded to lie on my bed of fortune.  Try to imagine this ridiculous scene: I'm a 5 feet 11 inches tall adult and the cot was one of those folding beds that must have been made to accommodate a small child.  It was a joke.  When I sat my butt in the middle of the mattress and stretched, my feet hung out of the end of the contraption and my head stuck out in empty space like a scary puppet.  The only way I could fit in was in some kind of fetal position or on my back, legs bent upwards at the knees.  Any position I tried to contort myself into was unbearable and the night was going to be long, very long.  Little did I know also that this little inconvenience was nothing compare to the heart-stopping shock that was about to scare the crap out of me.

It was about 3 a.m. and after tossing and turning like a wiggling warm, I finally fell asleep and slipped into a light dreamy state.  My reverie was short-lived though as I was slowly awakened by a soft shuffling sound and became progressively aware of a presence near me.  Still in a sleepy haze, I hesitantly turned around to investigate the disturbance.  I just could not believe what my inquisitive eyes were seeing.  With mounting trepidation, as my vision was slowly adapting to the darkness of the room, I was beginning to see the outline of a misty shadow taking shape.  My skin was crawling as if an army of ants was invading my whole body and my pounding heart was menacing to burst through my chest as the ghostly image was becoming more and more defined.  Barely able to contain myself and in a panic, I clumsily tried to throw my sorry ass out of that stupid bed, but my rickety legs, numbed from being contorted all that time, could not hold me and, like a sack of sand, I collapsed to the floor ready to scream like a scared puppy.  Terrorized, I could not keep myself from staring at the invader, when all of sudden the mysterious enigma was solved:  it was Louise, who with head and shoulders covered by a white sheet to keep warm, was sitting in a chair quietly observing me sleeping...

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Dr. Pierre Milot, Ph.D., Ph.D. (tc)

Therapeutic Counsellor - Author

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Info or free evaluation: 613.703.9237

Website: http://www.drpierremilotphdtherapeuticounselling.com

25 Ways to Reduce Stress

https://www.verywell.com/tips-to-reduce-stress-3145195

Dr. Pierre Milot, Ph.D., Ph.D. (tc)

Therapeutic Counsellor - Author

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Have Obsessive Thoughts About Your Parents Dying?

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/apr/07/obsessed-thoughts-about-parents-dying

Dr. Pierre Milot, Ph.D., Ph.D. (tc)

Therapeutic Counsellor - Author

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Info or free evaluation: 613.703.9237

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How Does Caffeine Affect Your Stress Level

https://www.verywell.com/caffeine-stress-and-your-health-3145078

Dr. Pierre Milot, Ph.D., Ph.D. (tc)

Therapeutic Counsellor - Author

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Power Up Your Life & Make Stress Work 4 You: excerpt # 8

Chapter 3
Recognizing the negative effects of stress.

It is now time to increase your knowledge of the negative effects of stress.  As any good military strategist would say, "to win the war, we must know our enemy".

According to Hans Selye, the dean of stress, the complete absence of stress is death.  We need to find a healthy balance between acceptance and control of this stress.

In the early 1960's, researchers asked serious questions regarding stress and came to very interesting conclusions.

For exemple, they established that a person experiencing an intense life stress must go through six stages before disease appears.  Firstly, the individual tries to identify the state of his stress by associating it with passed experiences, which can ease or increase the effects of stress.  For example, the fact that a person has been fired from a job once can facilitate or make more difficult the acceptance of being fired one more time.

Secondly, it is the psychological defence mechanism such as projection (I showed the supervisor how incompetent he is and as a consequence, he fired me) or the refusal (I was not fired, I quit) that act as filters (filters are actions or behaviours that people adopt to protect themselves).

The third stage occurs when stress increases to penetrate the physiological defences of a person.  It is then that reactions such as accelerated breathing and heart rate occurs.

Following this comes the fourth stage, learning to control stress by implementing methods such as relaxation, dynamic breathings, etc., to keep the metabolism from over-reacting.

Fifthly, after many unsuccessful attempts to manage stress, a person can decide to talk to a doctor about his symptoms, and in a sixth stage, the doctor finally diagnoses the person's symptoms as a sign of physical diseases...

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Dr. Pierre Milot, Ph.D., Ph.D. (tc)

Therapeutic Counsellor - Author

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Info or free evaluation: 613.703.9237

Website: http://www.drpierremilotphdtherapeuticounselling.com

Rising From The Ashes of Loss, My Voyage Through Grief: excerpt # 14

Pre-Loss
Back in Louise's room after the surgery...
... The hours and days somehow passed by quickly as the routine tests and exams were continually performed.  From time to time an important looking doctor with pen in hand and carrying a bunch of medical files would come for a visit to monitor Louise's progress.  The usual feelings of insecurity and anxiety were at the party, but the professional and patient attitude of the nursing staff helped us somehow to cope better with these difficult circumstances.  Aside from a few bumps and scary moments, the events were unfolding as they should and Louise was making the expected hoped-for progress,
Her targeted release date from the hospital was rapidly approaching and we could not wait to get out of that place.  But, there were a few hurdles to jump before we got there as we would soon learn.  For instance, the importance of not removing her bladder shunt too soon, otherwise it would have to be reinserted a second time as it was a painful procedure when done after the surgery.  The other source of concern was the evacuation of gases and fecal matter.  This was a 'biggy' for Louise as she always had been chronically constipated.  The farting part was not a problem for her, or so she thought, and she was surprised to learn that the massive amount of medication ingested had blocked her pipes and had rendered her kind of 'silent' and 'tight ass' so to speak.  "Never mind the hard stuff" she said to me, "that will come later.  For now, let's get some wind going".
The solution to counter this problem according to the nurses was to walk endlessly in order to stimulate the peristaltic movement and get the bowels moving again.  So, enriched with that knowledge, Louise, looking a little funny dressed in the traditional hospital gown and hooked up to her mobile serum stand, proceeded to endlessly haunt the hospital corridors in the hopes that the gas factory would soon open its doors again.  As for me, like a faithful puppy, I accompanied her around and around the eight floor of the hospital's convoluted passageways, smiling and discretely waving here and there at the oncoming walking patients, wondering in amusement if they needed to fart too.  While Louise was in a continuous struggle to keep her naked derriere from showing through the rear opening of her hospital gown, I, on the other hand, was on constant alert for any possible sound, and as disheartening as it may have been, nothing was happening and we bravely kept up the scenario...

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Dr. Pierre Milot, Ph.D., Ph.D. (tc)

Therapeutic Counsellor - Author

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Info or free evaluation: 613.703.9237

Website: http://www.drpierremilotphdtherapeuticounselling.com

Adult Loss of a Parent

https://www.trucare.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/adult-loss-of-a-parent.pdf

Dr. Pierre Milot, Ph.D., Ph.D. (tc)

Therapeutic Counsellor - Author

Online - Phone - One-on-one consultations

Info or free evaluation: 613.703.9237

Website: http://www.drpierremilotphdtherapeuticounselling.com