When You Are Holding So Much
A COMMUNITY RESOURCE FOR HELPING US HOLD THE MAGNITUDE OF TRAGEDY
In the wake of the heartbreaking tragedy in Bend, many of us are carrying an overwhelming combination of grief, fear, anger, helplessness, and uncertainty.
When You Are Holding So Much is a free, 12-page resource designed to help individuals better understand how their nervous systems may be responding to tragedy, recognize what their bodies might be needing, and explore gentle, practical strategies for navigating difficult moments.
This resource includes:
An accessible explanation of how our bodies respond to trauma, grief, and perceived threats to safety.
Foundational exercises to help tolerate and navigate overwhelming emotions and physical sensations.
Practical strategies for working with anger and the urge to fight back, the desire to escape, numbness or disconnection, emotional flooding, and hypervigilance.
Tools for developing greater distress tolerance, self-compassion, flexibility, and a sense of choice when so much feels outside our control.
Gentle reminders that stepping away, resting, laughing, and experiencing moments of joy do not diminish the depth of our grief or how much we care.
This resource cannot remove what has happened, repair the loss, or make an unjust event acceptable.
Nothing can.
You are not asked to be calm in the face of something heartbreaking. Heartbreak is a sign of humanity and the appropriate response to devastation and tragedy. The aim is not to be calm in the face of something terrifying. Panic and fear are the appropriate, protective, inescapably human responses to trauma and literal unsafety.
You get to be human. In fact, you need to be.
This resource simply offers small ways to hold yourself, and possibly increase your capacity for what you hold, while continuing to carry an impossible amount of aching grief, valid anger, indescribable love, gutting fear, and unresolvable uncertainty.
The goal is not to stop experiencing these feelings.
The goal is to have more say in how you meet them, and a little more support as you carry them.
This resource is offered freely to anyone in our community who may find it helpful.