Six Healing Questions

By Madonna Treadway

Best Selling Guide to Overcoming Grief & Loss
Readers of Embracing Life After Loss and The Grief Recovery Handbook will find comfort and inspiration as well as gentle tools for walking a healing path toward grief, recovery, and wholeness.

Winner of: Eric Hoffer Non-Fiction E-book Award, Eric Hoffer First Horizon Award, Kops-Fetherling Phoenix Gold Award, Short List Eric Hoffer Grand Prize, Finalist Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal, Foreword Indies Finalist, and Amazon Best Seller.

Sooner or later, we all experience grief and can find ourselves feeling shattered and heartbroken. The question: Is it possible to survive and thrive after the death of someone we love?

Moving beyond grief after losing a loved one is possible. Madonna Treadway knows this first-hand: she experienced the childhood loss of both her parents when she was only eight years old. As an adult, she discovered that she never processed her grief and that its lingering effects had a hold on her life. She had a limited connection to her emotions and struggled with intimate relationships. Something inside felt empty and disconnected. She knew there was more to this life.

Madonna entered therapy and explored the long-buried pain of her multiple losses. Years of rich and meaningful discovery followed.

Grief recovery tools are waiting for you: After much research and inner exploration, Madonna began to see patterns in her healing. She discovered that grief recovery did not happen in stages, but as movements along an upward spiral.

In Six Healing Questions, A Gentle Path to Healing Childhood Loss of a Parent, Madonna will travel up that spiral with you, offering tools and insight along the way as she offers answers to the questions:

How do I Become Aware?
How do I Get Curious?
How do I Dive In?
How do I Seek Resources?
How do I Forgive (Myself and Others)?
How do I Release (and Repeat as Needed)?

Overcoming grief is a journey: If you’ve ever wondered if grief recovery or moving beyond loss is possible, then you’ve already taken the first step. Six Healing Questions explores how to heal from any kind of loss, helps with grieving, and ultimately shows how overcoming grief can uncover a more whole and resilient you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Madonna Treadway
• Release date: Feb 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9780988888227

Madonna Treadway

Madonna was born in a rural area in North Dakota, the youngest of four children. Being the only girl with three older brothers and loving parents, she felt life was near perfect. However, by the age of eight, her young life would be turned upside down. At six, her mother died of breast cancer, and just two years later, her father took his own life after struggling with the effects of a massive stroke. The family moved on the only way they knew how. They never looked back. They tucked away all of their grief in order to find the strength to move on.In her forties, Madonna was a successful corporate executive, yet she found herself struggling with intimate relationships and a sense of deep disconnection to her life. It was at this time that she began to explore what happened to her as a child. She began to look at what had been tucked away so many years earlier to see the impact it had on her adult life.Researching and writing about early loss led her to a path of understanding and connection to her rich inner life. She found new ways of connecting to her emotions which allowed her to connect with others in new and profound ways. Soon, Madonna began to offer hope and community to others who had walked a similar path. She was able to see in them, what she herself had locked away for years—the potential for a full and vibrant life. Today, Madonna is a guide who has truly walked the unusual and difficult path of healing her grief and can offer unique insight for anyone on this journey seeking hope, growth, or healing.For the last twenty years, Madonna (BS, MBA) has owned an ongoing speaking and consulting business with her husband, Bob. Her career includes teaching at the high school and university level and time spent as an executive who managed both clients and acquisitions and sales nationally before joining Bob in their current venture. Madonna is an author and artist. She continues to look for ways for her writing and creativity to support others who have experienced early traumatic loss.Madonna was a winner of the San Diego Memoir Writers Association’s 2018 Memoir Showcase, which featured her story entitled “Secrets.” She is a guest blogger for The Feisty Writer. Her work will be featured in the 2019 anthology Shaking the Tree Volume Two: brazen. short. memoir. She was featured on a panel at the San Diego Writers Festival in 2018.Madonna is a member of the San Diego Memoir Writers Association and plays an active role in the writing community. She also leads workshops on grief and healing while continuing exploration of the role of artistic expression in this process.She lives in San Diego with her husband along with several fluffy and adorable canine companions.

Book preview

Six Healing Questions

MCM Publishing

2801 B Street, Ste. 111

San Diego, CA 92102-2208

MCMPublishing.com

Copyright © 2020 Madonna Treadway

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Requests for permission should be directed to [e-mail]

Book Cover and Interior Design by Monkey C Media

Content Editing by Marni Freedman

Indexing by Katherine Barr

Proofreading by All My Best

Author photo by Julia Alicia Photography

First Edition

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-0-9888882-2-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019910436

For anyone who thinks it’s too late to heal

or is not sure how to begin,

this book is direct from my heart to yours.

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Question One: How Do I Develop Awareness?

Question Two: How Do I Get Curious?

Question Three: How Do I Dive In?

Question Four: How Do I Seek Resources?

Question Five: How Do I Forgive (Myself and Others)?

Question Six: How Do I Release (and Repeat as Needed)?

Conclusion

Let’s Be a Community

Acknowledgments

Reader’s Guide

How to Create a Grief Circle of Support

About the Author

Foreword

As a practicing psychotherapist of over forty years, I have met many patients whose core pain involved some form of unhealed grief. When people avoid processing their grief from the past, they often limit their ability to be happy in the present. Loss of a parent or both parents at a young age affects the very foundation of a child’s development. It is like the rug beneath your feet is pulled out from under you when you are still learning to walk. Madonna Treadway suffered the loss of both parents at a young age. She weaves her poignant personal story, including her sorrows, fears, and coping mechanisms, into the pages of this compelling book. Madonna combines her own learning experiences with current theories on grief dynamics to create an original method for processing grief called the Upward Spiral of Grief.

The book explores six healing questions on the Upward Spiral of Grief, offers solid expert research, and provides creative action steps. Here is what I like about Madonna’s spiral method: She explores the concept that you may revisit your pain but you get through it with more awareness, more acceptance, and more ease. Furthermore, Madonna offers the good news that your grief can shrink.

I am inspired by this quote from the author: You are not alone. Even if I do not know you or your story, I know the cold and too-smooth feeling of detachment. I know being left as a child, for whatever reason, feels like being abandoned. I also know there is much comfort to be found, and that a solid community of support is available when you are ready to reach out.

Madonna Treadway is a wise and sensitive woman who has learned to overcome nearly unbearable loss and come out stronger. In these pages she gently leads you to a land of fresh fruit for your suffering soul—fruits of self-forgiveness, self-compassion, self-mercy, self-healing, and self-love.

Vincentia Schroeter, PhD

Psychotherapy Consultant

Introduction

The Transformational Upward Spiral of Grief

How Do I Develop Awareness?

How Do I Get Curious?

How Do I Dive In?

How Do I Seek Resources?

How Do I Forgive (Myself and Others)?

How Do I Release (and Repeat as Needed)?

The Theory of the Upward Spiral of Grief (USG)

Why am I still feeling this way? Shouldn’t I be over this yet?

A few years back, I found myself asking these questions with a good friend. I had, after all, completed years of internal work on my grief—in fact, I was writing a book about the grieving process. Yet I could feel some growing (and all-too-familiar) sadness tugging at me. It made me wonder if I would ever fully heal. I wondered how I could feel so bereft after so much time. Was it possible that losing two parents before the age of eight was just too big a wound? Yet at the same time, I could also state that I did feel better overall. I knew I loved my life and that I lived it fully. I knew I was much more emotionally open and engaged with the world than I had once been.

So, what exactly was going on? Over the next few years, I talked to experts and studied the research of the leading thinkers on grief and loss. I was hoping to find a concrete path, a clear line from grief to healing. What I found was interesting but confusing. First, there simply wasn’t a consensus about the healing journey. Some saw the grieving process as a series of steps, some saw it as tasks or seasons, and some argued over the very definition of ongoing bereavement. In the end, I found varying approaches, but no clear guidelines.

I therefore turned inward and began to study my own healing process. I read all the books I could get my hands on and looked back upon the various approaches I had tried, such as grief counseling, traditional talk therapy, dream work, meditation, and art therapy, among others. At the same time, I began interviewing many others about their experiences with grief. I discovered some clear, common threads for people who had experienced tragic childhood loss yet had found their way toward healing.

The first commonalities involved allowing oneself to be curious about the healing process itself and to be ready to look at buried emotions. The next involved being willing to seek out resources from the community and explore the concept of forgiving. The final commonality was being willing to return to one of these threads if further healing in a certain area needed to take place.

I discovered that, rather than moving in a straight line, the process looked more like a spiral. Like me, many found themselves returning to issues they thought were healed. At times, they felt as if they were right back in the heart of all their initial pain. Yet each time they returned to that pain, they traveled through it with more ease and an ability to understand deeper truths about themselves and their loss. Overall, they spent less time in a state of pain, sadness, or angst. Their healing was ongoing, complex, and real. But their grief was shrinking. And their emotional connectedness to life was growing.

This is the essence of the Transformational Upward Spiral of Grief and the six healing questions.

I took what I learned and transformed it into questions, because questions allow for openings. These questions prompt exploration. These questions invite participation. These questions allow for faith in you, my reader, to discover your own unique solutions.

As an overview, I am going to take you through the six questions. Each one of these questions represents a resting spot on the spiral. Take as long as you need on each question. You may find that you want to stay on a question for a period of time or skip around from one question to the next. You may find that you want to move faster through one question, over another, or backward. All of this is fine too, because you set the pace and the direction.

One concept you will hear me repeat is that there no right way or one way to travel through the grieving process.

Here is a brief outline of what you will experience as we travel together through each of the questions.

Question One: How Do I Become

More Aware?

Developing awareness means taking time (on purpose) to pay attention to your state of being. Developing awareness also means cultivating an understanding that external events have made an impact on who you are and how you live. It means becoming aware of what these events have meant in your life. There is no judgment in awareness. We are just calling attention to what already exists.

Question Two: How Do I Get Curious?

In this chapter, I will encourage you to learn more about the nature of grief and the healing process itself. I will gently nudge you to get curious about your own responses to grief, both healthy and unhealthy. It’s time to put on your detective hat and ask a lot of questions, such as these:

What are the various types ofgrief?

What are the typical and not-so-typical responses togrief?

How does healinghappen?

What are the treatments and practices that have worked for others in similar situations?

We will also discuss what the grief researchers have found while studying the nature of grief and loss.

Question Three: How Do I Dive In?

In this chapter, I will ask you to gather your courage. Why? Because together we are going to actively explore any difficult thoughts or feelings that may be going on inside you. We will look at triggers or hot spots that might be causing you pain or discomfort. I will walk beside you as you open up to the places that for years you may have been scared to look at. Know that you can move at your own pace, and that you may require some extra love and self-care as you travel these unknown waters. There is incredible relief to be had by facing what may have previously seemed un-faceable. You will most likely encounter courage you didn’t know you had. You may also experience a sense of lightness after you allow what has been aching to be felt to rise to the surface.

Question Four: How Do I Seek Resources?

Asking for help is hard for many of us. Yet it’s important to know that you are not all alone, and that by engaging with others, the journey can be less scary or painful. In this chapter, I will discuss the many ways in which assistance is available (and desirable) to help you on your healing path. In my experience, the more you choose to seek help from trusted professionals, and the more you allow a community of caring others to surround you, the more rewarding the healing experience can be. Even if you are reluctant, the comfort of this type of support may surprise you. You may find that you have gained a mentor or companion, or that you have become part of a community that is a healing home.

Question Five: How Do I Forgive (Myself and Others)?

In this chapter, we will look at the sticky issue of forgiveness. Researchers have found many benefits surrounding the practice of forgiving; that granting forgiveness is associated with lower levels of stress, a better sense of health and well-being, and an increase in relationship satisfaction. We will discuss what forgiving is and what it is not. We will discuss that releasing anger, understanding the error or flaw, or accepting what happened does not relieve the offender of moral responsibility. We will also walk through the ideas of readiness and boundaries. Know that there is no one universally accepted right time and place to practice forgiveness. The goal here is to be open to the idea of what forgiveness can bring to your life as you travel your path to healing.

Question Six: How Do I Release (and Repeat as Needed)?

In this chapter we will look at the all-too-common question that troubles most people facing grief: Am I done grieving yet? We will walk through what we know for sure and what we simply can’t know about the grieving process. We will discuss what it means to let go of unnecessary pain and/or heartache. The goal of this chapter is to