Ring Theory: a grief tool for understanding your place in crisis, conflict or loss.

Kathe Kollwitz, In Memoriam Karl Liebnecht

The world is grieving in a huge way right now for so many different things… But let’s zero in on one big one today... Black lives and black bodies.

The black community is grieving, and they have every right to. How can you be a good support to these grievers? If you are an ally or support person, this is not about you in this moment and DO NOT turn to these grievers to make yourself feel better. Suck it up buttercup! (More resources for understanding privilege and systemic racism at the end of this post.)

After my own losses, many people wanted me or my siblings to comfort them. Just writing that just now sounds crazy! They wanted me to be strong, educate them, and be compassionate for them so they could grieve and move on. While my family and I were, well, GRIEVING. This only left us extra tired and lonely. Honestly, I was angry at people who put my mother’s grief for my father and brother behind their own.

One of the best tools any ally can understand about grief is Ring Theory. This concept was written about by psychologist Susan Silk and her friend Barry Goldman. This simple tool will help determine what part you play in the loss, conflict or crisis.

This is just the basic gest of Ring Theory:

1. Draw a circle. In this circle, write the name of the person or people at the center of the event.

2. Now draw a larger circle around the first one. In this ring, put the name of the person next closest to the event.

3. In each larger ring, put the next closest people involved in the event.

The rules are as follows:

1. Anyone in the center of the ring can say anything they want to anyone, anywhere. Kvetching, moaning, complaining, whining, cursing and fist in the air like Bender from The Breakfast Club.

2. This is KEY. Everyone else can use the above list also, but only to people in a larger ring!

3. If you are talking to a person in a ring smaller than yours or someone closer to the center of circle your role is to HELP, LISTEN, and COMFORT ONLY. Before you open your mouth, think is this going to provide comfort and support. If the answer is no. Let it go. People in the center need comfort and support not your advice or opinion. Things of comfort sound like: “Tell me what happened?” “Can I bring you dinner?” “How can I support you?” Then you really listen, and you commit to doing what you say you will do. You sit right in that moment with them and you hold that vessel of safety so they can take a breath, feel safe and supported. Most of the time people just want to be heard and acknowledged. By doing this their grief will begin to shift.

4.  Don’t change the subject to you and your feelings, advice or this is a bummer. Just don’t be that person. And if you do, then maybe you should admit you’re the wrong person to be here in this moment without more tools on board to help. Fair enough, own that. But if you are the only person there close your mouth, open your heart, and just LISTEN.

5.  If you are anywhere in the circle and you want to scream, cry, complain, whine, or feel the feels, totally cool. Just DO IT with someone in the bigger ring!

The whole point of this ring is to provide comfort to those inside the circle and ripple the dumping to the outside of the circle so everyone along the way is heard and can heal while finding collaborative solutions.

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/promoting-hope-preventing-suicide/201705/ring-theory-helps-us-bring-comfort-in

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-xpm-2013-apr-07-la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407-story.html

This is just a start for understanding privilege and systemic racism:

White Fragility – Robin Diangelo

Good Talk – Mira Jacob

So, you want to talk about race – Ijeoma Olou

Me and white supremacy – Layla F. Saad

In this time of great loss...

"Pieta" Michelangelo
1499, St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican, Italy  High Renaissance

Learning to see like an artist can enhance creative solutions to the problems of everyday life, especially during loss or conflict. Looking at examples from art history can sharpen the inherent ability to "see" as humans while unlocking our potential for change.

For 8 weeks, you'll develop skills for noticing elements in art that engages the senses surrounding loss.  I will share rich examples from the art world, simple drawing exercises, creative writing, journaling, and artistic prompts to allow participates to "see" and explore grief differently. Through looking at these images you will find examples of comfort, pain, and inspiration. We will discuss these elements to develop your visual language, perception, and knowledge of art history. Then each week you will have the opportunity to create and share your own reflection while taking away possible inspiration for your own artwork or artist practice.

Send a note to Beth@robinpress.com with your questions or requests and I'll get you signed up.

Please indicate which option you would like to sign up for:

1. 8 week E-course on your own:

At this time, I feel it is important that people have these TOOLS! Pay what you can afford! Seriously, take me up on this... there are great tools, wonderful artwork and history to be discovered. I often charge around $145.00 for this e-course.

2. 8 week Zoom course with me:

8 weekly one-on-one meetings for about an hour. This is $655.00. I provide content, conversation and coaching. You provide your own snacks, open-mind and heart. Also, during COVID, let me know if you want to add one thoughtful and really supportive friend and I will reduce the price to $500.00 each. I believe grievers need community.

March: A Long and Winding Road

Many folks often ask me about my creative practice and how I continue to advocate for mourning well. A lot of the time, I am not literally "making" artwork, I am "filling the well" for when I do "make." Largely, my artwork records expressions of grief and loss. While my part time mediations and facilitations help to companion people through the issues conflict and loss cause. I take these experiences in comparison with my own, lots of visual and written research, walking my dogs and the simple day to day of being a human. This includes a lot of lemon, honey and hot water. Often there are deep talks or silly nonsense with my friends, things that happen while working part time at an art museum, or sarcasm with my NJ pedigree husband and family. Also, I am pretty terrible at caring for myself and try to put in place lots of reminders. Even with parts of reconciliation, being a griever continues, it just changes. People are forever changed by loss, therefore, it becomes the new reality.

A reoccurring theme this month was people asking what I thought about the "long stages of grief."

First, I define:

Grief as the internal normal & natural reaction to loss.

Grief as the internal conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior. While mourning is the external expression of loss.

This can be very complex.

A problem for many people is that even though grief is the normal & natural reaction to a loss the vast majority of what we learn in our society about dealing with loss is not normal, not natural or helpful. We learn more about how to mend a broken arm, then we do about how to support people grieving.

Stages of grief:

The "stages" of grief originate from an incredible lady named Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. As a Swiss psychiatrist, she revolutionized the way people treat terminally ill patients while promoting compassion and more empathic care methods. In 1969, she introduced the 5 stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Unfortunately, her theory has been largely misunderstood. Her model was created while working with people dying of cancer. Therefore, "the stages" refer to the phases of grief a DYING person goes through, not a guide for grieving the death of another person. Even Dr. Kubler-Ross later stated she "never meant the 5 stages to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages." 

I want to acknowledge that if you are grieving, your relationship with your loss is unique and individual therefore your process of grief will also be. For one example, the relationship with the person you lost might not have been a positive one.

"Sailing Home"

I think of my grief as waves, at times, closer together or further apart. Sometimes big or small. These waves work their way into my artwork a lot. I am fascinated by large ships moving across large bodies of water, sunken ships and objects. Not to mention, "hold tight." 

Taking the time to acknowledge it by naming the grief, I feel helps to record and then process bereavement. Grievers are navigating between two circle, one prior to the loss and the new one beside it, the one with the loss. "Long stages of grief," for me refer to unresolved grief. Grief is like a game of dominoes. Each loss can fall one on top of another back to the behavior you learned at your very first experience. This can create a very complex mixture of different events you're grieving. Remember, grief is the conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior. This can include death, illness, divorce, job changes, moves and many more. Yet, death provides a no questions reality of change.

Unresolved grief is often about the things we wish we'd said or done differently, better or more. It is also about unrealized hopes, dreams, and experiences we had for the relationship after a loss. Even in the best relationships, we are often left with plans that never got to happen. In negative relationships, the death or loss robs of the possibility of repair, therefore, preventing the relationship from becoming positive.

Unresolved grief then becomes about undelivered communications of an emotional nature and how to work through the process of grief. These can become projections into your current course or you may keep wanting to redo this relationship within other relationships or reenact the responsibilities and frustrations. It is great to acknowledge this, name it to be able to change it and then, if possible, take action to make it better even if it is a hard decision to move unresolved grief forward. I can tell you how I do my own process and know you each have your own unique path to take. I hope that through your own grief work you will find a process that supports you completely while being able to reconcile well.

Your INVITE to the NEW SHOW!

Mimesis and Mourning: 

A record of emotional responses to the 

process of bereavement through 

the creation of collage and book structures

September 4 - September 30, 2015

Piacentini Studio & Gallery

1293 Third Street, Bend, OR

Artist reception: First Friday, Sept. 4, 4-8 pm

Artist Talk at 5:30 pm

Hours for Gallery: Thurs. - Sat. 1 - 4
and by appointment

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

Beth

You're invited to my masters thesis events!

You are cordially invited to attend the terminal project defense of

Beth I. Robinson, M.S. candidate

in Conflict and Dispute Resolution Program

"Mimesis & Mourning: Insights for Conflict Specialist from Art Practices"

Friday, May 15th at 10:00 am

Knight Law Center, Room 282

Also, please come to the opening art exhibition and artist talk for my terminal project exploring creative process within the context of grief and mourning.

Date: 5/29/15

Location: 3rd Floor of the John E. Jaqua Law Library

Time: 6 - 7 pm

The Stars are Not: Put Out Every One    

Artist Statement for 

Mimesis & Mourning: Insights for Conflict Specialist from Art Practices

Crow's Shadow

What can conflict specialists learn from artists about grief?  Certainly both professions deal with grief on a regular basis: many mediators work with clients who are dealing with losses and painful issues; many artists recount trauma and conflict in their narrative output. Often confused, grief is the internal feelings of loss, while mourning is the outward expression of grief. What happens if a conflict specialist is working with parties who are grieving and unable to express mourning through verbal communication? I believe that conflict specialists can learn more about the grieving process by examining how artists process grief through visual means of expression. I am a professional artist who decided two years ago to pursue a master’s degree in conflict dispute resolution at the University of Oregon.  Through my thesis project, I have created a research paper with a companion collection of original artwork that attempts to explore the creative process within the context of grief and mourning and its effect in and during conflicts.

One of the Lost Foolish Virgins

Through my artwork, I record emotional responses to the process of bereavement by creating collages and book structures. This recording of mourning started when I was eight. My grandfather, who was my best friend, died unexpectedly. The adults around me were heartbroken at his unexpected death. Even in their shock and awkwardness, they had the forethought to provide me with magazines, glue, and scissors. I learned to be fully present in those sobering moments of youthful innocence about death and refused to lose my sense of wonder. In those moments, I also rejected the dominant narratives about how to act regarding mourning, and I remained open to react in the way that was natural to the way I was feeling. Making meaning out of this bereavement allowed me to reconcile my conflicting feelings about loss and the rippling impacts of harm and confusion from the avoidance culture around me. 

The Gaze of the White Wolf

I had no idea how well these skills would serve me.  Years later, over a five-year period starting in 2005, my father, youngest brother, and mother died. These consecutive deaths gave a deeper awareness of a dominant incomplete loss mechanism leading me to further pursue how bereavement can be facilitated using visual methods and creative thought in mediation with the viewer. Bereavement made me focus on creating more artwork and showing it in a public sphere. Over the years presenting this work, grieving people continually come up to me during my shows, confused by trying to intellectualize their experiences and incomplete relationships with loss and not finding relief. Grief deals with the internal emotion of the heart and the reality of change, this first step is scary to many. Dr. Wolfelt wrote in his 2003 book, Understanding Your Grief, “Our society, western culture, has slowly converted into a mourning-avoiding culture, a culture that attempts to think of death as optional.”  Desiring deeper study of the subject, I entered the University of Oregon’s Law School in Conflict and Dispute Resolution program. 

Diagram: 282

During these last two years of study, my art and bereavement practice included obsessively collecting data, images, and information for the creation of collaged images. On completing my degree, I will have gathered 10,000 images, the largest amount I have ever collected throughout my career. During this process, I was trying to make sense and order of the universe through objects and the collection of data, information and ephemera in an effort to make bereavement visible. By making loss visible, it allows me to emotionally and intellectually continue to self determine new meaning and resolution of experienced change created from loss. This practice supplies a foundation for abstract and intellectual understanding of true self, place and the direct experience of being human, at times a substantial essence being covered over by social conditioning and anxiety surrounding grief.

I see my artwork as a portal for the viewer to witness and experience this collection or cabinet of curiosity about grief and mourning. Though this analysis and reflection, I hope looking at this work allows the conflict specialist to consider the unspoken and hidden part grief plays within conflicts in a prevailing cultural norm of grief avoidance.

All the Best,

          Beth

The May Queen