Coming to grips with life's body blows
APRIL SAUL / Staff Photographer
Sharon Roth-Lichtenfeld (left) and Pat Obst. They wanted to offer help beyond the initial grieving process. "You're still left with, 'What am I going to do?' " Roth-Lichtenfeld said.
Roth-Lichtenfeld, a former art director who is now a life coach, lived through a friend's rape and murder, her mother's death when Roth-Lichtenfeld was 34, divorce, a child with special needs, and, last summer, a preventive double mastectomy. Nine women in her mother's family have had breast or ovarian cancer.
Obst, a social worker and therapist, dealt with her parents' divorce when she was 17, her mother's death when she was 24, her own divorce, the death of her newborn child in 2002, and, in November, breast cancer.
The women, who both live in Washington Township, Gloucester County, wanted to put their personal and professional experience to good use as a team. They could see there were plenty of programs to help people through the intense emotions of new grief, but little for the really hard part: creating a new life, a new, imagined future, after world-shaking loss.
The two called their new eight-week program Afterwards. Its first session, at the Starting Point in Westmont, attracted 13 people trying to move on after divorce, the deaths of sons and husbands, and financial collapse.
The program, described at www.afterwardsprogram.com and which will be offered next in the fall, costs $354 to $380, and includes two one-on-one sessions with Obst, 50, and Roth-Lichtenfeld, 52.
If you find a lot of talk about self-empowerment and the like grating, the program might not be for you. But early reviews of its combination of new-agey therapy techniques, supportive talk, and coaching have been positive.
"I needed to redefine myself and figure out where to go from here," said Theresa Malone, a 51-year-old Gloucester County woman whose husband committed suicide in January 2012. "It's an awesome program, and it has been helping me."
Maggie Keller, 55, of Newtown, said the program was filling a need for her, too. She and her husband lost their house in Florida during the recession and are starting over.
"There was no support group for people that had lost their dreams," she said.
Participants said they went because they were feeling stuck, shut down, or withdrawn.
Roth-Lichtenfeld said many want to stop feeling sad. That won't happen, but she said people could reach a point where they could feel those stabs of grief and let them go in just a few minutes.
Some of the group members have found they needed to face the pain of earlier losses rather than their more immediate crises.
Keller, for instance, grew up in foster homes. She discovered that the loss of her home was so painful to her because the house represented family.
Barbara Stokley of Hainesport is still struggling with how to go on since her husband's death in 2007, but the classes have made her realize that she never really grieved her grandmother's death when she was a child.
Obst and Roth-Lichtenfeld see support groups as a good way to work through and normalize grief, but said they wanted to do more. Obst said Afterwards was for people who can see the light at the end of the tunnel but don't know what they'll do when they step outside. The two spend some time helping people identify what's holding them back, but also teaching thinking techniques that could help them move forward.
During their fifth meeting, for example, the group talked about the "I am" statements they'd written earlier to highlight their strengths. They'd chosen words like calm, brave, and deserving. They explored emotional triggers that reopened old hurts. They discussed the difference between being MindFULL and MindFUL, and they talked about cultivating gratitude.
Keller finds it easier to drive through neighborhoods now without feeling jealous of people who own their own homes.
"I can just see that it's not consuming me as much," she said, "and I'm really starting to focus on the loss of growing up without a family."
Malone said she had gotten a full-time job and was feeling stronger.
Homework she did for the group - writing a goodbye letter to her ex-husband - helped her get back in touch with the good memories. She's writing in her journal about herself now, not him.
Seeing how Obst and Roth-Lichtenfeld have gone on after their losses has given her hope.
"I'm still here and my kids are here," Malone said. "We're still going to live our lives and enjoy a happy life."
Contact Stacey Burling at 215-854-4944 or sburling@phillynews.com.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/health/20130609_Coming_to_grips_with_life_s_body_blows.html#u5hAXMxCqDOgT0MK.99
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