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Dr. B here in my series on grief. Today's topic is on anticipatory grief, this happens the first time I experienced anticipatory grief was when my grandmother, who was a big part of raising me my closest relationship at the time was diagnosed with cancer and then the treatment wasn't working and there was this progression and the anticipatory grief of her passing and I know that a lot of people go into grief in this way, right? Maybe your family members on Hospice. Maybe they were diagnosed with a terminal condition.I feel like I have been living in anticipatory grief since 2008 when I Reggie, my husband and my daughter were diagnosed with DRPLA. And as you're watching my videos, you'll know that I lost Reggie in 2016 from complications of DRPLA.And then my daughter, my daughter is now 21, but she is probably cognitively, maybe 10 years old. She is now at the beginning of having difficulty walking and there's this continual reminder that her brain is slowly dying. DRPLA causes atrophy in the brain, atrophy is death, cell death and it's a very slow progression. Reggie was considered a quick progression. He was diagnosed at age 9 and he passed away at 17. He began having symptoms at like four or five years old, so that would be considered a rapid progression of DRPLA. My husband did not begin showing signs until he was about 45. He's now 52.You know this year really hit me hard. This is the 5-year anniversary of Reggie’s death and I'm really looking at Miah and I'm realizing that I'm protecting my heart. Like I'm not loving her the way I was loving Reggie. Reggie was so sick when he was young that a lot of my attention and time was on Reggie. And then after Reggie passed, it's almost like I'm scared to shift that time to Miah because I'm going to lose her too. And I'm likely going to lose my husband. I like to say likely because you know anything is possible and I'm trying to think positive.That anticipatory grief is real, and you know, learning how to live in joy in that, it is very difficult because you almost want to grieve their loss before they're gone.That’s taking away something that you could have something precious in this present moment.And so I've been wrestling with this and I've been like trying to figure out how I can open up my heart, and I do things like yoga and Tai Chi, and there's like these techniques about opening your heart, but the one that's really sticking with me when it comes to anticipatory grief is this technique in Tai chi where you take your past and you visualize your past in your hand and my past has grief, right? I mean, I fought and fought and fought for Reggie and you still passed. And then you put your future in the other hand, in images and I say I'm going to lose Miah. It doesn't matter how much I fight, I'm going to lose her.And you take those two things and you bring them together and for me I'm bringing them together in prayer, but also in trying to be present.Miah has really good days. She is a happy girl. Everybody loves her. She's so sweet. Her heart is so sweet. I am practicing living in the present and that's all we can do in anticipatory grief.Don't spend too much time in controlled grief, if you are doing a lot of anticipatory grief in the present. You're taking away from the present because that's your pain of the future even if it's very likely and we should always hope that there's a chance that it doesn't happen, right?But you can be realistic but be present in the moment and not spend too much energy in that anticipatory grief because that's the pain of your future. You already have the pain of your past, and sometimes there's pain in the present, but let's try to stay in the present and find those gratitude's of the beautiful moments that you have. And not spend too much time in anticipatory grief.Because you will feel that pain later.You are Mentally STRONG.www.mentallystrong.co