Twice the expected crowd

From Rachel Bridgewater, MA ‘10…

The weather couldn’t be better - it has been about 70 degrees since we got here.  All the spring flowers are already blooming and the air smells clean and fresh.  Charlotte is not overly crowded or busy.  I haven’t gotten the chance to see much of the city, but from what I can tell it is a very friendly and laid back place. I hope that I get to see a little more before I leave, but the conference is hopping and there are hundreds of people starting to arrive.

We finished our workshop yesterday-and I haven’t had time to write until now because we were completely exhausted last night!  Our presentation went very, very well; and it also seemed that the audience was pleased.  With a topic such as Grief & Loss, you never know what the audience is actually hoping to learn-and it certainly can be a very uncomfortable realm to explore.  We were told that we were only going to have 27 attendees… and there ended up being 54!  So, it was clear that
many were interested in this topic.  We asked for people to share what they hoped to learn and some of the reasons they were interested in grief and loss. It was intriguing to hear such a variety of perspectives-there were loss concerns for specific issues like brain trauma, dementia and end-of-life care, death, foster care, abuse/neglect, families of deployed soldiers, etc.-and then there was a more general interest in loss as a specialty of its own.

One thing is clear, however. There are many people with questions about how to deal with grief-in their clients and also in their own lives.  So we addressed both aspects in depth, because the critical point is that you cannot help anyone else deal with their losses until you have learned how to deal with your own.  And since there are so many different types of loss, there is no perfect formula and no straight answer for such questions. The key is to learn how to make sense of your own losses, by exploring the unique meanings it has for your life-and what you, yourself, have learned from your losses.  And there are many, many ways to go about doing this.

One reason I think our audience enjoyed the workshop so much is because we spent the entire afternoon doing reflective experiential exercises that allowed for each member to explore their own meanings.  The results were fascinating and powerful, and many people gained immense insight into their own loss experiences. That is what we were going for, so I guess that means it was successful!  Not to mention… I learned a lot from Dr. Lori about how to present a full-day workshop.  What a
priceless experience for me!  She is truly a talented professional in this field. I couldn’t have had a better example to learn from.

So now I can relax a little bit and enjoy attending my first national conference. All weekend will be full of hour-long workshops and displays on every counseling topic that one could possibly think of. Tomorrow is the grand opening event, and I plan to attend as many workshops as I can.  I will let you know how it goes!