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Well has it been said that there is no
grief like the grief which does not speak.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Grief is the process by which we release something from our life.
This is a healing process. We usually associate grief with the death of a loved
person, but grief occurs to a lesser degree whenever there is an ending to any
experience. There can be a breakup of a relationship, a project that failed or
that disappointed us, the retirement or loss of a job, the loss of a hope for a
particular thing or the ending of a pleasant experience.
The constructive aspects of grief.
 | Grief allows us to
release something that is no longer in our life. We can move on to the next
stage, with its new opportunities. |
| Grief forces us to confront the fact that we will die someday. This awareness
can add depth and meaning to our everyday existence, and it can compel us to
evaluate our values so we are focused on significant activities in our short
lifetime.
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The destructive aspects of grief.
| Grief is painful. The pain occurs because we have lost something that
was the recipient of our love. Love is our subjective experience of the flow
of spiritual substance from one person to another person. When the recipient
disappears, the flow has nowhere to go, therefore we must shut off that flow,
until we find another recipient. The shutting off of this precious flow causes
the intense pain of grief and of the related phenomenon of heartbreak in a
relationship.
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| We might fail to complete the grief process. We have unresolved design
elements such as the emotional energy of anger that will linger within us,
influencing us in our future life. |
Grief occurs in stages.
| Withdrawal from the previous condition. Each person can encounter these
experiences in a different order.
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| Denial and disbelief. We cannot believe that the loss has occurred.
We deny that it has happened: "That can't be true!" Even after we
intellectually acknowledge the loss, we do not accept it emotionally. |
| Shock. This numbness helps us to survive the emotional shock until we
are ready to confront the reality of the loss. |
| Anger. We can be angry at various things:
 | The person. We can feel that the person has abandoned us. |
| Ourselves. We can be angry at ourselves for not doing more to
help the person to survive. |
| A deity. We can be angry at a deity or at life itself for
allowing or causing the loss to occur. |
| Someone who can be responsible for the loss. We can be angry at
the doctor who was unable to sustain the person's life. |
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| Guilt. We can believe, correctly or incorrectly, that we were
partially responsible for the loss, or that we should have been at the scene
when the loss occurred, perhaps at the bedside of the dying person, or that
we should have acted differently, maybe friendlier when the person was alive. |
| Loneliness. If the person has been a significant part of our social
life, we feel loneliness. |
| Sadness or depression. |
Eventually, the first stage comes to an end.
We begin to leave behind that which is truly behind us.
| Acceptance. We accept the fact that this part of our life has gone.
The loss is reality. |
| Appreciation.
| A belief that the person is in a pleasant circumstance. We can
believe that life continues after death, and that the person is happy now,
perhaps even happier, particularly if the person was suffering with an
illness before death. |
| A consideration of the deceased person's best wishes for us. Many
grievers say, "I know that he or she would want me to be happy, and to
carry on with my life." We realize that our desire to be happy again is
not a betrayal of the deceased person. |
| A release of the social rewards. During grief, we receive compassion,
caring, extra attention, flowers and greeting cards. Eventually, we are
expected to return to being a regular person who can both give and receive
comfort. |
| Creating a new life for ourselves. The person stays with us forever, in
our memories, and in the various ways in which they changed us and affected us.
We now look to the present and the future, to re-enter the mainstream of life,
and to find other people to fulfill our current needs. Our life goes on.
|
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| Hope. We believe that it is possible for us to be happy again, and to
have a full life although nothing can replace the particular gifts that were
granted by the deceased person. We can even hope that the rest of our life
can be better than the previous part of our life. |
| Responsibility for generating a new life. We do not rely on the
departed person, or on people's sympathy. Instead, we realize that we have
to make an effort. |
| Re-investment of ourselves. |
| Our new identity. |
| Our new lifestyle. In situations where the departed person would have
been involved, we create new habits, and new ways of doing things. |
Techniques for managing grief.
| Design-work. We can generate energy tones such as peacefulness and
happiness.
| Affirmation. "I can create a new life." "[The person]
would want me to be happy". |
| Directed imagination. We can visualize ourselves being happy in new
circumstances, with new people. |
| Modeling. When we are ready to re-enter regular life, we can act as
if we are strong and confident. |
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| Intuition. |
| We can deal with each of the emotional aspects of grief such as anger,
fear, guilt. |
| We can practice grieving in the small deaths of our life.
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| We can learn how to detach ourselves from the past. |
| We can learn about cycles, including the cycles of life and death. |
| We can look for unresolved grief from our past. We may not have completed
the grief process from the death of a parent during our childhood. We can
complete the various aspects of that process now. |
| We can develop resources in our life, to prepare for future losses. If we
have only one friend, our sense of loss will be immense if that friend dies, but
if we have many friends, we can turn to those other people to fulfill our need
for friendship. |
| We can learn to assist people who are grieving. Sometimes those people
will need to be alone, but sometimes they need comfort and other types of
support from their friends. Our attentiveness, conversations, and intuition can
help us to discover ways in which we can assist the people during this difficult
period. |
What right have I to
grieve, who have not ceased to wonder?
Henry David Thoreau
Next topic: Fatigue |
