Digesting Losses

Abstract

Psychiatric rehabilitation aims to promote health recovery from significant losses that have derailed the lives of adults and young adults in order for them to actively participate in rebuilding and recreating themselves. Most of the mind-body, rehabilitation interventions I design and teach utilize music to boost mood and motivation, meditation (sometimes combined with nature sounds) to elicit the relaxation response, and a variety of mindfulness practices to cultivate attention and awareness, acceptance, compassion, an expanded perspective, accurate perceptions, and optimism. 

The poem Digesting Losses was inspired primarily by my 14-week, mindful eating intervention entitled Eat, Drink & Be Merry the Mindful. The participants were adults with a comorbidity of mental illness (trauma- and stressor related disorders, anxiety, depression, eating disorders,) and a physical health condition(s) (obesity, diabetes, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and/or metabolic syndrome). I wrote Digesting Acrid Losses in the first-person plural narrative to express the experiences of my students.  It is about their engaging in walking meditation, singing, listening to calming sounds (a gong and recorded ocean breakers), and mindful eating to help process and transform significant losses.  The poem alludes to the connection between the gut microbiome and health.