Wherever you are in the process. If your angry, grief is anger. If your broken, grief is the devastation. If your disgusted, grief is disgust. If your shaken, grief is the moment that shook you. It takes forms in foods we taste, scents we smell, things we feel and touch, what we see and sounds we hear. Grief is different for you than it is for me. Regardless, grief piles itself. It manifests itself in people, overtime. If we allow it, it will build endlessly. And we too often allow it to. People are often taught that when we lose someone, whether it be a human or an animal, in life or in death, that we need to be strong for others. We need to be strong for their children or wives or brothers and sisters. In a sense, we do. But when you get stuck being strong every time you experience loss, you don't allow yourself to experience or overcome grief. You simply pile it on the last loss and you allow it to manifest itself into unpleasant emotions and utter devastation that will ultimately present in day-to-day functioning.

I probably spend one session or more a week with my little clients showing them the anger volcano. I start off by asking, 'What causes volcanos to erupt?' Nine times out of ten we end up reading a story or a diagram of volcano eruptions and we dwindle it down to the very core foundation of the earth's melting mantle (tectonic plates pulling and pushing, if we want to get technical) and a build up of pressure. Eventually, the pressure causes magma to come to surface and eruptions occur spontaneously. Following this, I do a visual. The old baking soda and white vinegar with red dye. They still go crazy over it as old as the experiment may be. And then we talk. When we talk, we draw. "What causes your volcano to erupt?" "How is a volcano like getting angry or sad or feeling really deeply?" I never fail to see gears grinding in their little minds. At this moment, they're thinking about their own behavior, temper flares, sadness, and anger. Sometimes they avoid because that pain is so uncomfortable for them to wrap their mind around, it's time to move onto something less painful for now until next week, and that's okay. And sometimes, they cry. I get this breakthrough, absolutely vulnerable moment. Kids start to talk about THAT thing that has caused damage to their foundation. It never fails to cause me to tear up when I talk to parents afterwards about this moment. Typically, behaviors start to lessen and deteriorate following this moment and kiddos are able to open up. Not to say that it's always smooth sailing from here, that's best case scenario, but working with these little ones' always sparked an interest in the way people are naturally prone to handle trauma, loss, and grief versus the way we handle behaviors caused by the difficult trifecta.

One Saturday, I had a session with a little one who struggled to express emotions effectively. She never cried, but she internalized EVERYTHING she experienced or heard. Her lack of ability to express this anxious energy resulted in difficulties self regulating and low self-esteem. The heavy emotions presented as behavioral concerns and hyperactivity. I see this too often. At the time, her parent apologized because she, herself, was feeling so overwhelmed and angry that she cried in front of her child and had a breakdown. I responded to her apology explaining that if adults never express emotions effectively- they never cry or get angry or show joy in the right moments- kids will never learn to express them either, and not only will they never learn to express emotions, but they will think it's not acceptable to express emotions. They will internalize, build up, and create the pressure until they explode. Children feel anxiety in their households. They can feel energy of adults and it can effect their functioning and thoughts about their world immensely. If we teach children to be emotionally strong at all times- in times of pain and sorrow or loss- we are teaching them to put their mental health on the back burner.

We handle trauma, loss, and grief by being strong for others and moving forward in the most positive light (publicly). We handle behavior caused by deep emotions through consequences and punishment. We never actually tackle the loss. We never tackle the trauma. And we never touch the grief.

Mind you, I teach this lesson regularly in classrooms and in sessions. It has and will always be my favorite activity for explaining the 'iceberg' to kids. You know, the one with what we see above water frozen into ice versus what lies below the water? (If you're not familiar, google images has your back). Although I could probably teach this blindfolded, for 27 (nearly 28) years, I never been able to grasp it for myself.

My grief sits in a saucepan on the stove every holiday stirring 4 banana cream pies for 50 very long minutes each. And sometimes, it sits on missed 21st birthdays and dates of passings, major milestones like graduations and cross-country moves or finishing my first marathon to Metallica's Sandman. It sits in old pictures that I will always find hard to look at. It sits in old memories and stories that I realize other people are super strong to tell around me but I'm way too much of a cryer to tell out loud myself. It shows up in old jewelry boxes in my closet with broaches and pieces of clothes. And for me, uniquely, my grief shows up at work. All the time.

I listen to 10–20 children and parents tell me their stories weekly. I love this and I know I make a difference in their lives by providing coping skills and grounding techniques and someone to finally listen to them about their pain. I love my job and I have the biggest heart in the world for every kiddo that comes my way. After sessions are done and my brain has racked itself to the DSM-V maximum, I sit pretty quietly with my own loss, trauma, and grief.

In 2004, I lost my Pop-Pop and in the same year my brother was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes and it changed my family's world to this day. Just when we thought the storm was over, we tragically lost of my 15-year-old cousin in 2007, another was deployed to Iraq in 2009. I lost my second Pop, and my uncle and godfather lost his battle to Esophageal Cancer in 2010. My absolute saint of a Nana passed in 2011. My once very large, loud family shattered after these losses and most parted ways. This is when I learned grief wasn't just death, it was living too. Because I had to grieve for aunts and uncles and cousins that still lived and breathed minutes away and chose to cut ties. Intertwined in between this, my dad lost friends who were so close I'd consider them uncles. He lost his sister in 2014. My parents can, unfortunately, top the list each for themselves as I'm sure some of you can.

For each loss, I stayed strong for everyone that I possibly I could- for my cousins, my parents, and extended family and friends. I had deep empathy for everyone involved in any capacity of loss and trauma. I stayed with my cousins and took it upon myself to take them under my wing. I held people when they were completely broken, and I did that for everyone except myself for nearly a decade.

I run everyday. I stretch and do yoga. I have an oil diffuser and I write in a journal. I cook and do things to occupy my mind outside of work and writing papers for a Ph.D. I've done 5k to Marathon status in one weekend in Disney once (not recommended Dopey people), I will have exceeded 10 letters after my name by this time next year. I moved 7 times in a three-year span at my worst moments.

I have admittedly been a pretty ugly person inside at my worst moments- to others and to myself. I allowed a lot of pain to fester into anger and I lashed A LOT. I allowed the language of anxiety and depression to take over my whole being. I made lame excuses to avoid and run from conflicts and difficult decisions. The truth is, not everyone is cut out to survive those ugly years with you. People come and go and it seems like it's added pain at the time, but there's a reason that people come into our lives and leave. Losing people in the ugliness was, for me, a huge part of healing.

Being a therapist and applying it to your own life is equally difficult and interesting. After analyzing myself for eight years, I realized I became an overachiever because I mask the things I can't control that sit boiling at my tectonic plates with the things I can control. I'm actually a master at this. And I run from my problems, but it turns out my dad was correct- wherever you go, there you are. Mind you, it wouldn't have taken all that time to analyze myself if I'd listened to him in the first place, but hindsight.

If we don't address the foundation, the magma boils. The lava erupts. And that was the ugly years. Which, looking back, I'm thankful for because they were a life lesson that made me a better human and therapist and able to share this, but yikes.

Over ten years later, I was recently drinking my coffee and getting ready for work listening to The Today's Show. Oddly enough, Maria Shriver opened up about grief. She talked about the importance of understanding that when loss and trauma and grief goes ignored, the next loss or event to follow triggers the previous loss and exasperates the response. If untreated, it manifests. Every loss thereafter triggers each prior loss. I thought about how many losses and moments of sadness and grief I've pushed under the surface and the pressure I felt boiling after sessions with my families. This reached a point where I could simply hear about someone's death that I barely knew or didn't know at all and the waterworks would come haunt me at night, and my mind creatively manifested this into a game of 'What Tragedy is Next?' and I'd think about what if something happens to…with every family member left. I would tell myself that bad things always come in threes and wait for the second and third news. I'd emotionally prepare myself to be strong again and shove the last one under the rug. I did that from 2004-2019 for a double-digit number of losses. There were moments I’d look up and ask the big man if he was done yet. And I remember thinking, I wonder how many people do this too.

Eventually, I learned to manage this in a somewhat better fashion. I got into a routine and recognized how important my whole healthy self really was to healing. This meant slowing down and not overachieving for a minute.

When I look around at the majority of my immediate friends and family, and the larger population in today's society, more than ever, I realize that so little people remember to take care of themselves in times of trauma, grief, and loss. We're running and planning, penciling in and driving, we're on our phones and laptops but no one is dealing with that foundation that's boiling underneath.

The oldest saying in the therapist book- you cannot pour from an empty cup, is true. If we want to be strong for others, we need to keep refilling our own cup with things that make us each whole again. Read that book. Take that hike. Have that conversation. Go on that trip. Work can wait. Hop off social media. There is no excuse to put yourself on the back burner for anyone else. If you do, you won't have anyone left.

There is no better time in this life to preach to you that your mental health will impact your physically, emotionally, and behaviorally. It will impact your friends and family, your grades, your career, your hobbies and your goals.

In light of all of the tragic news bustling, know that if you hurt now, you can simultaneously prepare to heal now. Stop comparing one definition of trauma to another. Stop teaching your kids to hide from their emotions and be strong all the time. It's actually not healthy to be positive and happy 100% of the time, or even 90% of the time. If we didn't feel, we would all be questionable sociopaths. Stop responding to people that are struggling and telling them 'It could be worse'. If you don't innately have empathy, work harder to use it with others. Life is painful and unpredictable but equally memorable and beautiful. Be kinder and more gentle. Turn off the TV and phones. Take a deep breath and find ways to take care of yourself in your routine.

Refill your cup.