This month I sat down with Jacky Sorensen. We met recently while both working in the Raglan retail world and I love her energy and insight.
She moved here permanently before the second lockdown in August 2020 to return to the New Zealand small town lifestyle. We met up after work one day to talk about Jacky’s experiences with grief and how it has shaped her life.
What has been the biggest challenge for your mental health in your life?
I struggled for a long time, especially because I experienced so many deaths in my early life. From the age of 14 to 30, there were about 15 years of intense grief. Bang, bang, bang, one after the other. There was a lot of anger with God and not understanding why all this stuff was happening. When you experience massive grief, it is life changing and you start looking at coincidences to make sense of it all. It helped me go on a soul searching journey. It all comes back to the same thing, ‘The Oneness’. After my late husband died in 1991, I went into therapy. I just had to. I was on this path of destruction and I really didn’t know if I was going to make it out. I wasn’t even 30 and I just thought, “my God, how can I live another 15 years?” I had experienced so much that I ended up befriending the 80 year old women in my yoga class because they understood. It was so painful that I just couldn’t imagine living any more. There was a lot of addiction involved. From the age of 14 to 30, that’s how I managed. I started with painkillers as a young girl going to school, and that led to this path of addiction. I’d been through a windscreen so I was scarred and maimed and had massive trauma, but no one knew what PTSD was and no one knew how to help me. I didn’t even know how to reach out. In the end, by about 1992, I thought, “wow a whole year has gone since my late husband died.” I do believe I lost that whole year. I don’t remember it. It was like being in a blackout. I was just attempting to feed myself and my baby. By then he was six and he had lost two dads. But he was like my lungs. I wouldn’t have made it without him.
How did starting therapy impact your life?
I looked at rehabilitation in the South Island and they used Kubler-Ross methods (Five Stages of Grief) in their therapy. I had to wait 18 months to get in. I had been struggling with my grief with addiction. I ended up thinking if I go down to Hanmer Springs, I’ll get to have all this intensive therapy. I’ll be isolated and the bonus of it is that I’m going to have some addiction treatment as well. Best decision I made in my life. I was an inpatient for six weeks and it changed everything. We had group therapy and other interventions, but I was introduced to the 12 Step Programme. It is probably the most spiritual programme I have ever come across. I did my first eight steps down there which is quite incredible. A lot of people in recovery can’t even get to step one, which is admitting the powerlessness to addiction. The first three steps are, admitting powerlessness, believing in a power greater than yourself, and then handing your life over to that power. In life, it’s understanding that we are powerless.
With all of these things that you’ve learned, do you still incorporate them into your life, and what is your relationship to your mental health like now?
I like to use ‘mind health’. I find it is a softer and more open way to approach it. My mind health is a practice. I still use medication. I’ve been diagnosed with acute stress and acute complicated grief. I am 30 years clean. That’s the only way I can really manage. Having that higher power and really being grateful for my mind health. I even embrace the grief. It’s such a big part of me and it’s helped me be
who I am, and there’s no way that I could be in such a privileged place of sobriety, living a good life and having a beautiful family without it. Gratitude is a big part of my practice but I also try to practice joyfulness. I try to lift up my vibrations. That’s what it’s about. Some people think you’re wacky, but that’s okay! I think for me, having a higher vibration is about connecting with my higher power. The higher we raise our vibration, the easier it is to connect.
Are you afraid of death?
No, not at all. I did lose my younger brother in 2008, my darling of my life, so there’s a lot of emotion with him. That changed my whole perspective of death even though I thought I had it figured out. I think it’s more about knowing how privileged we are to have experienced these beautiful people that we meet. When they go, we don’t actually lose them. I really get that now. They are a part of us, they are within us. They are closer to us now in spirit than we’ve ever been. My brother’s death taught me that it is all about our experience as spirit. Aren’t we lucky to have this body and be able to talk to each other and see and touch each other? Life is about experiencing other people. Grief opens you up. It’s about deepening the soul and having that understanding.
What are some of the lessons that you’ve learned?
Well, I suppose believing in miracles, believing in that higher power. Being in the now. Living with joyfulness. Don’t give up. Act as if. Let it go. Hand it over. Surrendering is a really big part of surviving. Trusting life even if it’s shit. You’ve gotta trust your angels; they are really pointing you in the right direction. Even if it’s the worst thing that has happened in your whole life, there is something that will come out of that. Sometimes it’s just one moment at a time. Really be kind to yourself and if you’re having a bad day, let it be bad, as it’s only temporary and it will change.
What are some of the tools in your toolbox?
It would be to reach out and just let someone know how you are. Go and do something really good for yourself, whatever that might be. It might be to sit in the sun, or play a great piece of music. Something to lift your spirit back up. Joyfulness and balance are really important. I would definitely recommend finding that power of your understanding. Find a higher power and hand your will and your life over to that power. When I say God, it’s just a describing word for something. I don’t even know what it is, but that power is big. The spirit of the universe.
