What Can I Do with my Grief?

Lake Catherine State Park, Fall 2014

In the 20^th Century we became accustomed to accentuating the positive and disregarding the negative in our lives.  The “Can Do” attitude that grew out of the WWII became “Make a Difference” for the Boomers.  Problems became challenges.  Setbacks became opportunities.  Negativity was a failure to see the positive.  Today we have a much more measured viewed of the negative moments in life. 

But there is one realm that has been untouched by this new approach to life.  Grief is still viewed as a problem to be fixed, a disorder to be corrected, or a situation to be resolved.  Many people believe that they will “get over it” in time.  It can be overcome with the right steps.  We want and expect a clear path with stages of grief to help us see that we are making progress toward our “getting over it.” 

Fortunately, there is a more realistic approach that has been evolving over the last 15-20 years.  It begins with statements like these.  

Grief is never  resolved.  We do not get over it.  Nor do we recover from it.  Grief is not a problem to be solved, a hurdle to be gotten over, nor a malady from which we need to recover.  Grief is not a problem, a situation, or an illness.  It is a life experience!  It is part of the human journey that grows out of the greatest gift we can give or receive, love.

Grief is the result of losing someone or something that we love.  It is a void that will come to anyone who loves.  While it will be a unique, unpredictable experience, it is inevitable and natural to the human experience.  It is not caused by something outside of ourselves but rises from deep within our core where we hold our love.  It is not something that attacks our life.  Rather, it rises from within a life that has been well lived.  In short, grief is a painful but natural and expected experience that rises out of losing someone or something that we love deeply.

Grief disrupts who we are, our daily routines, our hopes, and dreams for the future.  It is a moment when we must face pain, change, questions of self-identity, and new realities.  It is part of life, natural and unavoidable.  It is not unlike puberty, falling in love, and having a child.  It is part of the expected order of things that promotes learning and growth.  Hopefully we have had people to guide us through these moments.  Parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, teachers, spiritual leaders, and mentors will have helped us prepare for the moment when grief overshadows our lives.  If we have been taught and learned well, we will be more resilient in our grief.  If we have not been taught well or if we have not been very attentive during our growing up, we may find grief to be more complicated.   But grief will come, it will be painful, and we will have to face it, one way or another.

So, then, what do we do about our grief?  Or rather, “What do we do with our grief?”

What Can We Do with Our Grief?

Grief is a time to honor our loss(es) and the feelings it evokes.  Great love is a gift from the great mystery of life.  We cannot earn love.  We cannot win love.  We cannot deserve love.  Love comes from the deepest recesses of the mystery that surrounds us in life.  Many will call this mystery, God.  Others may call it, Life.  Others will simply acknowledge it to be a deep mystery, unknown and unbidden, but as real as the wind on our face.

Such love brings a vitality and meaning to life.  It swirls arounds us and opens our lives to so much that would be locked away behind walls of self-centeredness and blind practicality.  It offers us the colors of the sunrise and the beauty of a sunset.  It transforms an evening walk into a wondrous journey.  It creates a deep companionship that brings deep satisfaction in being with another.  Love brings so much to our lives.  Unfortunately, when death steals away someone we have loved so deeply, it also threatens to take away all the marvels that it brought with it.  It is not simply the loss of a person, but the loss of a life that is deeply entwined with our own.

The grief that grows out of this loss offers us the time to honor that life and all that it brought to our lives.  It is true that we often take our loved ones and the gifts they provided for granted.  But in death, they and their gifts are deeply experienced in their absence.  In these moments, while the grief burns in our soul, we can recall and remember the gifts and honor them with gratitude by remembering. 

Grieving allows us to time to tell the story of our journey with our loved one.  It allows us the time to sit with others who also have stories to tell, memories to share.  In these moments we respect their life and the life we shared with them.  We learn to value the gifts they offered and allow gratitude to begin to well up from within the depths of our soul.  This will not make the pain go away.  This will not chase away the darkness or alter the changes that will result from our loss.  But the stories will allow us to re-connect to the person and discover that in many ways they are still there, where they have always been.   In honoring them, we allow them a place to live in our mind and soul.

Grief is a time to discover ways to live with our loss(es).  Coping is a big part of any unforeseen life change.  When we lose a job, we have to make changes to cope with the losses.  When a baby is born, both parents have to learn to cope with being a parent.  When we lose someone we love deeply, we will have to cope with the changes that it brings.  This coping will grow out of our past experiences of grief, those who have mentored us in life, from trusted friends and advisers, and from the creativity that rises out of the unforeseen struggles.  Because there are multiple losses in a single instance of grief, we will have ample opportunity to learn many new coping skills.

We may learn the joy of doing things on our own.  We may discover that washing our own clothes or balancing our checkbook has a certain offers a certain measure of satisfaction.  We may find that there can be joy in choosing what to watch on TV, even if you watch the same shows. 

We may learn the joy of finding just how resilient we can be when we need to be.  We can discover the power of self-confidence to create room for patience in our lives.  We may rediscover the joy of being connected to other people and accepting and offering help to one another.

We may learn to appreciate the silence that allows room in our soul to get reacquainted with who we are and who we want to be.  We may learn to deal with disappointment with a little less anxiety and a little more patience.

As we begin doing new things or rediscovering old skills that must be employed once again, we will cope with the losses.  In doing so we will gradually discover that we can and will learn to live with this loss.  It will not go away.  It will not hurt any less, but it may hurt less often which will allow more time to enjoy sharing and remembering the story of our great love.

Lastly, grief is a time to grow through your loss(es).  Every moment of life is an opportunity to grow.  We constantly grow in body-mind-soul.  Grief is a major part of that journey as we grow in body-mind-soul, especially in our later years.

We experience losses throughout our lives.  Each loss teaches us something about life and our particular life experience.  We may lose a friend to an argument.  We may lose a job or an opportunity.  We may lose our health or a relationship.  Each of these losses and the people who walk with us through them teach us something and allow us to grow.  Each one offered up a sizeable portion of grief.  Each one offered us new opportunities to grow in our capacity for love and trust, joy and hope.  But the loss of a loved one creates the greatest opportunity to grow into that person that is always coming to life in our daily living.  When we lose a loved one in death, we build upon what we have learned previously and can continue to grow through the pain. 

Unfortunately, I have seen people who refused to allow themselves to grow through their grief.  They have held onto the life they lived before the loss and enshrined it in a dusty emotional museum.  Their souls begin to wither away as they lose themselves in their grief.  They lose the living reality of the person they loved as their memories harden into a rigid caricature of the person.  They are always looking back to what was.   They become a person frozen in time and lost to themselves; who they are and who they are becoming.

Grief is a time when, in our coping and discovering, we allow the butterfly to emerge as a new creation.  We grow through our grief.  We find new wings upon which to use as we dance upon the winds of life.  It is a time to honor the past, cope with the present, and grow through and into the person that is struggling to be born in our lives.

In closing, I share a bit of timeless wisdom that speaks to what we can expect out of our lives, including grief.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NRSV)

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

May you find love and trust, joy and hope growing in and through you as you find your way through the shadowed valley.

Blessings,

Bob

Bob’s new book, Whispering Presence: Inviting Mystery to be Your Daily Companion, is now available from amazon.com in both print and kindle editions.  You can download a free excerpt from Amazon.  If you want a companion who can help you find something more in your life, get your copy today.   Print Edition  Kindle Edition