Family Therapists Ashley Graber and Maria Evans on How to Navigate Grief and Loss of Control When a Natural Disaster Strikes

As a licensed marriage and family therapist, Maria Evans has helped countless patients make their way through traumatic events. She knows well that when faced with potential danger, the body goes into fight, flight, or freeze, and she teaches tactics to help people navigate the tricky emotions that often accompany this nervous system state.

Yet this week, Evans—who works and lives in Los Angeles and had to evacuate her home—had to use these tactics herself. “There was a five-minute window where I experienced a jolt of anxiety, wondering if I really needed to leave my home,” Evans tells The Sunday Paper. “And then I thought, ‘Okay, before I decide, let me ground my nervous system so that I can make the right decision and pack what I need to pack.’”

This week, we sat down with Evans and her colleague, Ashley Graber—co-authors of the forthcoming book from The Open Field, Raising Calm Kids in a World of Worry—to learn more about how to get grounded and find a sense of calm during these scary and uncertain times. Their insights have helped us stay present with our sadness and talk about it with our loved ones. 

A CONVERSATION WITH MARIA EVANS AND ASHLEY GRABER

We are living in a world of worry, and our collective grief is intense right now. Where do we start when it comes to navigating this? 

Maria: Where do we even begin in terms of facing this? We turn to the people that are right next to us and connect with them. We find belonging. We find connection and make touch points, heart to heart, with the people we love and who we know are there. This is the core and essence of humanity, and that’s what we have—no matter what’s going on around us.

Maria, you live in LA and had to evacuate your home. What were some of the tactics you teach your patients that you employed yourself during that intensely stressful time?

Maria: What we know as therapists is that when we are faced with an event that potentially puts us at danger, our nervous systems go into fight, flight, or freeze. This often comes with a big feeling of anxiety. You might feel your heart beating really, really fast or start sweating or find it hard to think straight. 

For me, there was a moment where I started to notice some of that very natural panic come in. And I used some of the very simple tools that we recommend to parents all the time. One of my favorite ones is naming things in the room. All you do is you look at an object and describe it out loud for yourself. This turns “on” your prefrontal cortex and cues it into safety, so it starts saying, “If I can sit here and describe an object right now, that means I’m not running from a tiger, and that means that I’m safe.” 

When we do that even just for a moment, we regulate the nervous system enough so that we can think about our next step. And in terms of those small moments, the question is always: “Okay, what’s my next move?” Remember, you don’t have to think through everything right now. You just need to know your next step. Sometimes that next step is focusing on an object in the room so you can get present. Sometimes that next step is asking, “Who can I help?” or “How am I going to talk to my child about this?” 

Your new book is focused on raising calm kids in today’s world. What is your best advice when it comes to helping kids navigate what they’re hearing about the fires in LA right now?

Ashley: Try to remember less is more, lead with curiosity, and ground yourself first. Allowing a child to be upset means that a parent needs to be okay with the child being upset. Remember, you don’t have to fix everything. The most important thing is to be there for kids’ feelings and say, “It’s okay for this to be sad. It’s okay for us to be sad.” Then, give kids some space to let their feelings out. Because when emotions get stuck inside, that’s when the anxieties and the worries build up.

Maria: In this particular situation, parents are really the real heroes because of just how much they have to hold—not only their own fear and grief, but also to be the regulating force for their children. How do we help kids feel calm in the world? It starts by paying attention to how you initiate kids into how you see the world. It can be really tempting to focus on the anxieties in the world, because there are so many of them and they weigh so heavily on us right now. But it’s important to pay attention to the way you talk about acute, specific disasters, and also the state of the world in general in front of your kids. Share what’s happening in a way that reminds kids that you’re there for them and that they’re safe with you. You might say, “We’ve got this. We will figure this out together. Look at all of the people who are here to support, and look at these other kids who are safe, and look at these parents who are safe.” 

Kids really just want to know that they’re safe. And we know that kids are actually a lot more resilient than some people realize, and so they will find their way through with their parent as their guide.

The fires in LA are prompting all of us to feel a collective sense of grief right now. Where do we begin when it comes to navigating this?

Maria: We’re compassionate human beings. We care for one another, and so it’s only natural that our own grief would get lit up when we see others suffering. As therapists, one thing we really try to drive home is that there’s no one right way to grieve. 

In the last couple days, I’ve had sessions with folks who have lost their homes and have evacuated. And a lot of them are in shock; they haven’t moved into the phase where they’re sad or recollecting. And that is okay. There is no wrong way to grieve. People know about the stages of grief, and the first thing therapists will tell somebody who’s grieving is that these stages don’t go in order. They jump around. And the best thing is just to be with where you are, moment to moment.

Ashley: Grief is a funny little bird. Oftentimes what people experience is getting knocked out from grief—almost like the wind is taken out of them. But they have that moment of grief, and then it’s gone. Grief can stick around for years and years, with waves of it that can come really hard and then move through. 

What we want to do is let kids, adults, everybody have their feelings. If we can allow that grief to come and be whatever it is in that moment, it will move through. It might come again, but that’s the way to process it. The situation in LA is still unfolding in front of our eyes—and so, it’s going to take a minute. If people feel grief today—or they feel it a month down the road—it’s all in the right time.

Ashley Graber, LMFT, and Maria Evans, LMFT, are co-authors of the forthcoming book from The Open Field, Raising Calm Kids in a World of Worry: Tools to Ease Anxiety and Overwhelm.You can pre-order it here.