Grief and Loss
Mar 11, 2023Grief:
Experiencing Grief is fundamental to being human. There is no right way to experience grief and there are as many ways to experience it as there are triggers to cause it. At its core, grief is about processing loss. Maybe it’s the loss of identity in a move, job change or divorce. Maybe it’s the loss of something important to you, like a possession or relationship. Or maybe it’s the bone deep loss of another human being, a loved one, family or friend.
The depth of grief as an experience is not possible to relate to unless someone has experienced it first hand. Consequently the meaning of grief in conversation sometimes is diluted in the mind of the uninitiated to seem like a simpler state of emotional sadness or distress. Just a word like many others because it’s devoid of contextual understanding; like a thing that hurts but will pass and get better the way a skinned knee or bruise might. Grief is different. Grief is a process. It demands both time and attention.
There is a contextual underpinning of injustice in Grief, of something ripped away, unfairly maybe. There is an aspect of Grief which acknowledges that the thing ripped way is not coming back and our experience somehow is: we are not whole. We are now incomplete.
Grief is the natural human response to this type of hurt, the hurt borne of loss.
Grief at its most functional, is disorienting and/or melancholy. Grief at its most intense can be an overwhelming, almost intolerable pain. It is a crushing, soul wrenching suffering that feels as though you may never escape. It can feel as though you will never be whole again. It can be incapacitating.
And yet even in its sometimes unbearable intensity, Grief itself is a healing process. Grieving is itself an act of self love. Grieving is an act of healing, not a thing needing done so that you can heal.
Grieving is the human emotional process of surrendering to what is now, of becoming complete with both the loss suffered and the absence of the thing in our lives moving forward.
To move past the loss, Grief must be experienced completely. There is no shortcut and this can be painful.
There’s no right way to experience grief.
Your grief will be complete and perfect if you do nothing but be with it. It will take however long it takes to process. Allow yourself to experience your grief completely. If you can, create space in your life to allow it to emerge and process.
Grief can dredge up old emotional regrets and resentments. Ignore your rational mind and write them down, let them empty into a journal or piece of paper. Pour them out and when they’ve been emptied out of your soul and onto a page, forgive yourself or the other party for them as appropriate.
It may take days, weeks, months, or years to get there, but there are ultimately two end states for the completion of a grieving process; the experience of peace and or the experience of gratitude. Feelings of resentment or regret are indicators of something yet unresolved. Please note regret is different from sorrow. Sorrow for loss, missing someone or something, is part of being human and can be experienced through both gratitude and peace.
Regrets and resentments imply something incomplete.
Tom
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