How to find Gratitude in Grief

Happy Thanksgiving Week
I’m finishing up the grief series and so I’m pulling myself together and talking about gratefulness in grief. We're going into Thanksgiving and then the holiday season and you know, finding that gratefulness and what does gratefulness do to our mental health and our mental strength? Being grateful in the midst of difficulty and pain, is a choice. And I'm not saying, to go around being fake and pretending to be grateful when you're really angry or hurting. You have to go through this process so that it's genuine and real. I probably cannot stop the DRPLA in my family. So how can I be grateful? How can I take this and find happiness and joy? That doesn't mean I'm grateful for DRPLA. Definitely not. But I am grateful for the time I had with Reggie and his purpose here. He touched so many people, there was a time for a whole year We did what we called Reggie Therapy, which was this hands-on therapy, and he touched the lives of so many of my nursing students. They still follow me today. I am grateful for Miah. I struggled with, “what is her purpose?”. She didn't have this big following like Reggie did. And you know people that meet her they think oh, she's so sweet, but there's not like this huge amount of people following her, but there was this one person outside of my family that fell in love with Miah. And that's Tatiana. And I'll tell you, I truly believe that Miah saved Tatiana’s life, and if you don't know her story, but it's wrapped up in a lot of really hard decisions and trauma and substance use. You know she fell in love with Miah, and she has this bond that is saving Tatiana’s life. So, if Miah’s only purpose. on this earth is to save Tatiana’s Life, it's worth it. So, I'm grateful for that relationship. I am grateful for, if it wasn't for DRPLA, I wouldn't have moved to Colorado, been able to start my own business and share the Mentally STRONG Method with everyone. I wouldn't have even created the Mentally STRONG Method. So, there are ways to actually find gratitude in grief. And in trauma. And I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying to ignore the pain because in my previous videos about grief, I'm I talk a lot about Controlled Grief. You have to feel that pain. But let's find some gratitude in it. Take your pain and make a gratitude list specifically around that pain, and it's going to be difficult. Because the pain is greater than this feeling of gratitude, but you can do it and that's how we keep moving forward. That's how we find that strength. That's how we help other people when we can find that it's easy to say I’m grateful I'm from the US. I'm grateful I have a house, I'm grateful I have a car. We almost expect those things, but it's really hard when we've been through pain that that we feel like no one else has been through to find gratefulness. And I am not happy that my family has DRPLA, but I am grateful for the lives that are being changed because of it. I am finding my mental strength every day. You can find your mental strength in this gratitude because you are Mentally STRONG.
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Dr. Cristi Bundukamara, Ed.D, PMHNP-BC --- A Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and a Doctor of Healthcare Education has experienced unimaginable trials that have caused many feelings such as depression, anxiety, anger, & overwhelming stress. 
However, she has developed a new pathway to becoming Mentally Strong & Choosing to be Happy.  With purpose, Dr. B has developed the phases that were refined within the Mentally STRONG Method that she created and wants to share with you.

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