Saturday, October 18, 2008

Grief--How Do We Handle It?

People in grief wonder if they will ever be or feel okay again. Not only do you face overwhelming emotions of loss, you can get to feeling discouraged or even ashamed when you think your grief doesn't just "disappear" right away. Grief is as individual and personal as your own set of fingerprints. Loss is loss and grief is grief. Whatever your situation is, it belongs to you and how you go through it. It will be determined by what previous encounters you may or may not have experienced before. Each loss is different because with people, you will have a different relationship with them. Some you are more emotionally connected with than others. Because we may not have as deep as a connection with someone will never devalue them it is just that you have built an entirely different bond together. So what do we do with this grief? First acknowledge that you have the grief to deal with. We know we will be experiencing feelings and memories of this person and that is a compliment to them. Some people try to rush through or sidestep this process and in many cases it just resurfaces at a later time when you least expect it. There is a phrase, " Grief bottled up just simply reappears". Next we need to honor our feelings and respect the emotions we are having. Some people think that expressing emotions makes you weak somehow. Actually it does just the opposite. When you allow your whole psyche system to experience these range of emotions it does help to complete you as a human being. I would hate to walk around planet earth and not feel the beauty or the sadness that comes across my path. There is much to be said about "stuffing" our emotions as if there were a reward as to how well we did it. It creates a completely different set of problems, emotionally, psychologically and physiologically with stress and our internal organs. Develop a language of grief, sadness, joy, happinessc etc. Learn a range of emotions to honor your your own self so when you have to go through an encounter like this you will do it appropriately and on a timely basis, dealing with it now instead of later when it may not be as convenient. To bury these feelings and not give them a voice is like the phrase, "Silence is no token that no secret grief is there, but sorrow that is never spoken is the heaviest load to bear". Learn to bend--you will not break. This is a gift you give to yourself so as to be able to share yourself with others. When you honor your feelings is when you get on the road to healing. By allowing all this grieving, gives you hope as you head toward healing. It is a process that most of us were never taught however it can be your path back to a place of peace, building a stronger and more empathetic you.