Coping...

Beginning Experience Coping is a six-week series designed to help individuals work through the trauma of losing their spouse, whether by divorce, separation or death and who are seeking mutual support of others who understand, through personal experience, the feelings of hurt, failure and alienation suffered by those who have lost their partner. Participants are introduced to the Stages of Grief, a normal response to any significant loss.

This program, run by a local Beginning Experience group, does not aim to solve your personal problems, but to provide a means by which you can explore your feelings about the ending of your marriage, relationship, or the death of your partner, and seek new meaning, happiness and spiritual growth in your life.

Those who conduct the program have also been widowed, separated or divorced, and therefore are able to bring an understanding of what others have been through, or are going through, as they struggle to adjust to a new life, and they have received some training to help facilitate. This program is a peer ministry of people caring for people.

Each night of the program involves a presentation by one or two of the BE team, on a topic relevant to being a single person again. This is followed by a period of private reflection and writing on the subject covered in the presentation. The emphasis in this period is on your feelings, past or present, and on your personal experience of widowhood, separation or divorce. After the writing period, participants and team members move into small groups, where an invitation is extended to share feelings. The expression of feelings through writing and sharing offers the means for identifying and accepting feelings, and provides mutual support.

• Week 1 - Dealing with being alone, loneliness, and stress
• Week 2 - Adjusting to being single again
• Week 3 - Discovering and trusting yourself
• Week 4 - Dealing with your former spouse or the memory of your deceased spouse
• Week 5 - Accepting changes in your relationship with others and your social activities
• Week 6 - Growth through divorce, separation, or death

The class fee is $25 for six sessions, but no one is excluded because of inability to pay. This class will be offered when interest is sufficient.