Nedra S Koenig, MA, LMFT

01/05/2025

It’s been a few years since I created a VisionBoard. I needed to stir up my creative parts as I walk gently into this new year. I look at this board & know it’s not yet finished. Too much white space tells me there is more space to envision possibilities for the year. Exciting to look forward to the unfolding of the year. Ever growing 🩷 Happy New Year!

11/14/2024

10/18/2024

My friend and peer, Jenn Fieldman, posted this from her friend and peer in NC. Guilt and Grief ~ emotions that pull us in when we allow ourselves to experience and sit with them. All emotions have value, yet all are not ones we want to experience. All are a part of the human experience, no one is exempt from guilt and grief in their lives. False guilt, real guilt, survivors guilt are places to stay stuck if we take no action, internally and/or externally. Underneath, may be an avoidance of as well as an answer for emotional action to grieve.
Context is the heartbreaking suffering in NC following the hurricane damage within this state. Probably resonants, regardless of context, for all of us. I know it did for me. ❤️

Survivors Guilt vs Survivors Grief

Guilt implies something Done or Not Done
culpability, responsibility that therefore
requires accountability

But you did not bring this storm. You simply survived it.

We address guilt with judgment, sentencing, consequences, and amends. And in a guilty system if we can't restore justice we remain implicated and blamed.

Eyes of comparison invite the unconscious in us to raise defenses and spin justifications and deflect the blame somewhere–anywhere–else because guilt implies choice. It implies control.

Or guilt will spin us into furtive action to anesthetize our internal and external pain.

Guilt constricts and cuts us off from ourselves and each other. Guilt leaves no room for us to have a place of belonging in this story, and that is the home we lose.

But in the daunting expanse of GRIEF there is room for everyone.

Everything matters if we can be brave enough to allow Grief to take us in her arms.

Grief invites us to let go of the shredded illusion altogether–that distracting falsehood which keeps us from things bigger than control.

Guilt is a swirling eddy of shoulda, coulda, wouldas…the shame of luck and privilege that was no more our choosing.

Guilt will silence our feelings saying they need to stay smaller than others because we survived. But Grief leads us deeper through our individual sorrow and if we have the courage to let her do her work in us she leads us to our deepest human longings:

I wish this had been different…
I wish this never had to happen to anyone…
I wish death, destruction, and loss didn't happen to anyone..
I wish we always took better care of each other and the Land.

We lament the discomfort of our guilt when in fact it may be easier--possibly more comfortable and certainly more convenient than the Grief whose powerful force will bring even more of the change we ardently resist.

She will strip us of our certainty, poke holes in all our beliefs about fair and blessed and deserving. She will take us down to the unrecognizable studs of our very identity--questioned, unraveled, lost.

But she will not leave us there!

No, unlike guilt which is a dead end road to the washed away bridge to nowhere, Grief extends promises if we partner with her on this new path.

She will give us new eyes of clarity: what really matters.
Time is precious.
Divisions are pointless.
We are more alike than we are different.
We are here to love and be loved.

If we are willing to release comparrison's separation, we can wade into the waters that surround us all. Grief will tenderize our hearts and stretch our skin to hold so much more compassion for ourselves, for others, for paradox and complexity and non-duality.

Grief will transform us. And if we dare to learn to grieve well and grieve WITH each other it could change the world.

We will never get that from guilt.

So let us change the language that builds the prisons of our hearts and minds, and instead hold out a lantern for this dark, sacred journey of being human together.

Tamara Hanna, LCMHC
Love & Loss Counseling
Black Mountain, NC
10.11.24 Post Helene

07/18/2024

My journey to Kenya as a member of a team of 20 to bring Safe Conversations begins. I will be out of the office beginning July 18 and returning to see clients on August 5. I will be offline during this time while in Kenya. I will not be responding to phone messages or emails until I return. Be well and take care.

05/17/2024

Jambo (hello in Swahili)
I hope you will take a few moments to read about an extraordinary experience I will be actively participating in this July...and invite you to be a part of it.
Asante, thank you

Jambo ~ I am sharing something deeply personal and significant to me. I'm reaching out because I believe it might resonate with you, too. I am partnering with Village Impact to support AND actively participate in the "e;Empower Kids in Kenya One Conversation At a Time"e; project. This initia...

05/16/2024

Lessons from nature ~ Noticing. I knew the tree outside office window was a tulip tree, the state tree of Indiana. I figured the name came from the shape of the leaves. Yesterday, after living in Indiana now for 11+ years, I finally noticed the gorgeous blooms on the tulip tree, flowering blooms that look like tulips. Look up, look out, notice ~ what is outside and also importantly, notice what is being felt and experienced inside of you, too. The tulip tree blossoms will fade and fall ~ what is happening inside of you is fleeting as well, so take the time to notice.

04/24/2024

Annie has become a regular presence in my office over these past months. It is time to officially introduce her to current and future clients. Annie came into my life in February, 2014. She arrived at Hamilton Humane as a stray. They named her Annie, guessed her to be about 10 months old, and ran her through their temperament testing criteria. She scored high in every level ~ sweetest dog EVER! Annie is a Beagle mix, about 18 lbs of pure love, and fools people that she’s still a puppy because of her size. Annie greets clients warmly, kind of in your face on the couch warmly, then curls up either on the couch or the floor for a nap. She’s a natural, uncertified therapy dog, sensitive to the emotions happening in the room. Annie is here to offer unconditional love and acceptance to everyone. She knows everyone isn’t living a “dog’s best life”, and understands, when she hears me say, “it’s time to go to work,” that people are coming who need what she has to offer. Annie knows, too the sweet words, the pets, and snuggling with clients make her day amazing. The magical moments of connection and love are healing.

01/03/2024

Brand new year. Time to reflect on what we need to let go of. It is a gift we give ourselves in our ever healing. It is as simple as focusing on the possible, though not easy, as the pull is to hold on tight. Go on….LET GO. You are so worth it!

Go on, try it ...let go!
Letting go doesn’t mean we don’t care. Letting go doesn’t
mean we shut down. Letting go means we stop trying
to force outcomes and make people behave. It means
we give up resistance to the way things are, for the
moment. It means we stop trying to do the impossible–
controlling that which we cannot–and instead, focus on
what is possible–which usually means taking care of
ourselves. And we do this in gentleness, kindness,
and love, as much as possible.
~ Melody Beattie

12/22/2023

Not just for a day ~ repeat, repeat, repeat. Begin the practice for yourself, your heart, and humanity. ❤️ Always healing.

11/21/2023

Taken from the posting of a peer ~ Whatever our brokenness, we are resilient. We can do hard things. The holiday season holds much brokenness for me as I know it also does for so many. Know you are not alone. We rebuild ourselves a thousand times over the course of our life ~ that is no small thing. We are resilient. We do hard things.

10/23/2023

Took this from page of a peer I have great respect. I have often said to couples and individuals, “at the end of life, the only thing that matters is that you loved and allowed yourself to be loved.”
Einstein’s letter speaks to all of us!

A letter from Albert Einstein to his daughter seems so relevant today more than ever in these unsettling times:

In the late 1980s, Lieserl, the daughter of the famous genius, donated 1,400 letters, written by Einstein, to the Hebrew University, with orders not to publish their contents until two decades after his death.

This is one of them, for Lieserl Einstein:

"When I proposed the theory of relativity, very few understood me, and what I will reveal now to transmit to mankind will also collide with the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world.

I ask you to guard the letters as long as necessary, years, decades, until society is advanced enough to accept what I will explain below.

There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us.

This universal force is LOVE.

When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe they forgot the most powerful unseen force. Love is Light, that enlightens those who give and receive it. Love is gravity, because it makes some people feel attracted to others. Love is power, because it multiplies the best we have, and allows humanity not to be extinguished in their blind selfishness.
Love unfolds and reveals. For love we live and die. Love is God and God is Love.

This force explains everything and gives meaning to life. This is the variable that we have ignored for too long, maybe because we are afraid of love

because it is the only energy in the universe that man has not learned to drive at will.
To give visibility to love, I made a simple substitution in my most famous equation. If instead of E = mc2, we accept that the energy to heal the world can be obtained through love multiplied by the speed of light squared, we arrive at the conclusion that love is the most powerful force there is, because it has no limits.

After the failure of humanity in the use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish ourselves with another kind of energy...

If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, love is the one and only answer.

Perhaps we are not yet ready to make a bomb of love, a device powerful enough to entirely destroy the hate, selfishness and greed that devastate the planet.

However, each individual carries within them a small but powerful generator of love whose energy is waiting to be released.

When we learn to give and receive this universal energy, dear Lieserl, we will have affirmed that love conquers all, is able to transcend everything and anything, because love is the quintessence of life.

I deeply regret not having been able to express what is in my heart, which has quietly beaten for you all my life. Maybe it's too late to apologize, but as time is relative, I need to tell you that I love you and thanks to you I have reached the ultimate answer!"

Your father,

Albert Einstein

10/11/2023

Great literature is about its timelessness. Winnie the Pooh has a meaning to us as a little person having the story read to us at bedtime. This exchange between Pooh and Piglet can be heard between friends in the coffee shop or standing in line at the grocery or texting as one listens to the news…”I don’t feel like things are getting any better. If anything, I feel like they might be getting worse.”Read all the way to the bottom and take in the wisdom of Piglet as he talks with his friend Pooh.

“Piglet?" said Pooh.
"Yes?" said Piglet.

"I'm scared," said Pooh.
For a moment, there was silence.

"Would you like to talk about it?" asked Piglet, when Pooh didn't appear to be saying anything further.

"I'm just so scared," blurted out Pooh.

"So anxious. Because I don't feel like things are getting any better. If anything, I feel like they might be getting worse. People are angry, because they're so scared, and they're turning on one another, and there seems to be no clear plan out of here, and I worry about my friends and the people I love, and I wish SO much that I could give them all a hug, and oh, Piglet! I am so scared, and I cannot tell you how much I wish it wasn't so."

Piglet was thoughtful, as he looked out at the blue of the skies, peeping between the branches of the trees in the Hundred Acre Wood, and listened to his friend.

"I'm here," he said, simply. "I hear you, Pooh. And I'm here."

For a moment, Pooh was perplexed.

"But... aren't you going to tell me not to be so silly? That I should stop getting myself into a state and pull myself together? That it's hard for everyone right now?"

"No," said Piglet, quite decisively. "No, I am very much not going to do any of those things."

“But - " said Pooh.

"I can't change the world right now," continued Piglet. "And I am not going to patronise you with platitudes about how everything will be okay, because I don't know that.

"What I can do, though, Pooh, is that I can make sure that you know that I am here. And that I will always be here, to listen; and to support you; and for you to know that you are heard.

"I can't make those Anxious Feelings go away, not really.

"But I can promise you that, all the time I have breath left in my body...you won't ever need to feel those Anxious Feelings alone."

And it was a strange thing, because even as Piglet said that, Pooh could feel some of those Anxious Feelings start to loosen their grip on him and could feel one or two of them start to slither away into the forest, cowed by his friend, who sat there stolidly next to him.

Pooh thought he had never been more grateful to have Piglet in his life.