Grieving a Sudden Death

In my last post, I shared some Eastern wisdom from Sogyal Rinpoche's great book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. I really enjoyed reading it, if for no other reason than that it gave me an entirely new perspective on death. I find that Western grief books almost always tell you that grief is forever, that you will always be grieving to some degree. In the Eastern tradition, however, the approach to grief is noticeably different — we can learn to let go of our dead spouse and go on with living.

Tonight's post will be about grieving a sudden death. While Deb's death was far from sudden, I have now met a good number of widow/ers whose spouse did die suddenly. Sogyal shares some important grieving advice which will hopefully help you to heal more quickly:

[from pages 312-313]:

Facing loss alone in our society is very different. And all the usual feelings of grief are magnified intensely in the case of a sudden death, or a suicide. It reinforces the sense that the bereaved is powerless in any way to help their loved one who is gone. It is very important for survivors of sudden death to go and see the body, otherwise it can be difficult to realize that death has actually happened. If possible, people should sit quietly by the body, to say what they need to, express their love, and start to say goodbye.

If this is not possible, bring out a photo of the person who has just died and begin the process of saying goodbye, completing the relationship, and letting go. Encourage those who have suffered the sudden death of a loved one to do this, and it will help them to accept the new, searing reality of death. Tell them too of these ways I've been describing of helping a dead person, simple ways they too can use, instead of sitting hopelessly going over again and again the moment of death in silent frustration and self-recrimination.

In the case of a sudden death, the survivors may often experience wild and unfamiliar feelings of anger at what they see as the cause of the death. Help them express that anger, because if it is held inside, sooner or later it will plunge them into a chronic depression. Help them to let go of the anger and uncover the depths of pain that hide behind it. Then they can begin the painful but ultimately healing task of letting go.

It happens often too that someone is left after the death of a loved one feeling intense guilt, obsessively reviewing mistakes in the past relationship, or torturing themselves about what they might have done to prevent the death. Help them to talk about their feelings of guilt, however irrational and crazy they may seem. Slowly these feelings will diminish, and they will come to forgive themselves and go on with their lives.

I'll finish up tonight's post with another quick excerpt from the book, this time dealing with the perspective of grief as a gift. All too often we experience grief as some terrible emotion that we just want to get rid of at all costs. Perhaps the following perspective can help you change this desire to run away from grief. I healed a tremendous amount when I wanted to find out what lay on the other side of grief:

[from page 316]:

You may even come to feel mysteriously grateful toward your suffering, because it gives you such an opportunity of working through it and transforming it. Without it you would never have been able to discover that hidden in the nature and depths of suffering is a treasure of bliss. The times when you are suffering can be those when you are most open, and where you are extremely vulnerable can be where your greatest strength really lies.

Say to yourself then: "I am not going to run away from this suffering. I want to use it in the best and richest way I can, so that I can become more compassionate and more helpful to others." Suffering, after all, can teach us about compassion. If you suffer you will know how it is when others suffer. And if you are in a position to help others, it is through your suffering that you will find the understanding and compassion to do so.

So whatever you do, don't shut off your pain; accept your pain and remain vulnerable. However desperate you become, accept your pain as it is, because it is in fact trying to hand you a priceless gift: the chance of discovering, through spiritual practice, what lies behind sorrow. "Grief," Rumi wrote, "can be the garden of compassion." If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life's search for love and wisdom.

And don't we know, only too well, that protection from pain doesn't work, and that when we try to defend ourselves from suffering, we only suffer more and don't learn what we can from the experience? As Rilke wrote, the protected heart that is "never exposed to loss, innocent and secure, cannot know tenderness; only the won-back heart can ever be satisfied: free, through all it has given up, to rejoice in its mastery."

In my grief work, I wanted to learn what grief had to show me, and I only wanted to learn it once! Over time, I was able to look at grief as a friend and companion; an experience to be embraced, not a torment to be endured.

Moving Toward Grief

The Western world is not a culture where grieving is well understood, let alone tolerated. I've heard of bereaved people going back to work 3 days after losing their spouse to be greeted by their boss saying, "well, you've had three days off, so you should be well over your grief by now." How people go back to work after 3 days is beyond me! I took a month off, and I probably should have taken more time. Ah well. Should-a, could-a, would-a, didn't-a!

It turns out that our modern culture of "get over grief fast" has very ancient roots, dating back to the Stoics. It is a myth that does not serve us well at all. Dr Alan D. Wolfelt talks about this bad advice in his book, Understanding Grief. He explains that grief is a collection of feelings that we need to experience, not a handicap that we must overcome.

When I became a widower, I did not know how to grieve, nor did I feel that I needed to. Deb had been sick with terminal cancer for 16 months before she died, and I felt I had done all my grieving during that time. What I found was that this myth of needing to get over grief fast helped me prolong my initial mourning by about 5 months. It wasn't until I started crying everywhere that I bothered learning what grief was and how to experience it.

Dr Wolfelt has some very good advice on how to counter this popular notion of grief. In my experience, it wasn't until I followed this kind of advice and faced my grief head-on that I began to heal. Read on:

[from pages 11-12]:

Myth #3: Move away from grief, not toward it.

Our Society often encourages prematurely moving away from grief instead of toward it. The result is that too many bereaved people either grieve in isolation or attempt to run away from their grief through various means.

During ancient times, stoic philosophers encouraged their followers not to mourn, believing that self-control was the appropriate response to sorrow. Today, well-intentioned, but uninformed, relatives and friends still carry on this longheld tradition. While the outward expression of grief is a requirement for healing, to overcome society's powerful message which encourages repression can be difficult.

As a counselor, I am often asked, "How long should grief last?" This question directly relates to our culture's impatience with grief and the desire to move people away from the experience of mourning. Shortly after the death, for example, the bereaved are expected to "be back to normal."

Bereaved persons who continue to express grief outwardly are often viewed as "weak," "crazy," or "self-pitying." The subtle message is "shape up and get on with life." The reality is disturbing: far too many people view grief as something to be overcome rather than experienced.

These messages, unfortunately, encourage you to repress thoughts and feelings surrounding the death. By doing so, you may refuse to cry. And refusing to allow tears, suffering in silence, and "being strong" are often considered admirable behaviors. Many people have internalized society's message that mourning should be done quietly, quickly. and efficiently. Don't let this happen to you.

After the death of someone loved, you also may respond to the question "How are you?" with the benign response "Im fine." In essence, though, you are saying to the world, "I'm not mourning." Friends, family and co-workers may encourage this stance. Why? Because they don't want to talk about the death. So if you demonstrate an absence of mourning behavior, it tends to be more socially acceptable.

This collaborative pretense about mourning, however, does not meet your needs as a bereaved person. When your grief is ignored or minimized, you will feel further isolated in your journey. Ultimately. you will experience the onset of the "Am I going crazy?" syndrome. To mask or move away from your grief creates anxiety, confusion, and depression. If you receive little or no social recognition related to your pain, you will probably begin to fear that your thoughts and feelings are abnormal.

Remember — society will often encourage you to prematurely move away from your grief. You must continually remind yourself that leaning toward the pain will facilitate the eventual healing.

Once I started acutely grieving at around six months out, I was acutely aware of society's disapproval and wish that I would be over my grief. However, I knew that I needed to grieve, and if the world wasn't going to support me, at least I could support myself. And when I wished that society would be more supportive of me, I kept in mind a quote attributed by Ghandi:

Be the change you want to see in the world.

The Only Way Out Of Anxiety

I've been sharing some valuable information from Dr Paul Dobransky's ebook called MindOS™ - "The Operating System of the Human Mind". I originally shared his work in my series entitled The Rollercoaster, and the last two posts have dealt almost exclusively with anxiety. In Avoiding Grief, we looked at how avoidance is a passive response to anxiety, and in Dumping Your Anxiety, we saw how worrying and complaining is a destructive, active response to anxiety. I also clarified that, as widow/ers, we need to express our worries and complaints, and that support groups are a more appropriate outlet for "dumping" than our friends and acquaintances.

Tonight I'll wrap up this series with Dr Paul's way out of anxiety: courage.

[from pages 196-205]:

Courage IS the only way out of problems with anxiety, victimization, impulsivity, addictions and lack of confidence. Interestingly, the film, "Saving Private Ryan" defines courage very succinctly: "Do the Right Thing."

Consider that knowing that "the Right Thing" to do comes from your two inner decision-making resources, conscience and intuition! Courage then, is not bravery, not fearlessness or any other thing we lack or acquire — it is a DECISION!...

We have no excuses. Courage is a decision, and if we are alive, we are capable of decisions, by definition. Every time we make a decision, we have to be in the "present moment," and therefore also have access to Observing Ego at those times. Courage is a constructive way of thinking before acting, done in a WIN/WIN way that sees the world as a place of ABUNDANCE.

This is where the notion of faith comes in to intertwine with courage.

To have FAITH in something, we need to have some degree of BELIEF that our actions in the future will work out, even if we don’t have conclusive proof they will. That takes some Observing Ego first off — a "bird's eye view" of our abilities and function. But then we have to DECIDE to think and act according to that faith. Imagine it — if you have poor Observing Ego ability then you don't have the "bird's eye view" on life. You only see the challenges in front of your face. So you tend to THINK in childlike ways—destructively. But with the "bird's eye view" of Observing Ego, you can see ALL the options available to you, now and in the future, and so you are a bit less distressed. You can do it, with some smart planning. You can do courage, the "Right Thing" to do.

Interestingly, we are most alone in the world when we do courage, but after the moment we do it, the WHOLE WORLD wants to join us. If our beliefs are composed of some part emotional evidence and some part intellectual evidence for the belief, then the emotional part can be used as energy to nudge us into action, and the intellectual part can guide the way. The emotional energy of courage then can then be joined by faith and belief so that we don't have to feel so alone in that moment that requires courage...

If you saw the film Saving Private Ryan or you yourself served in heroic capacity in the military, then you know what courage is and how it works. The soldiers storming Normandy Beach WERE afraid, nervous, jittery, peeing their pants, and calling for their mommies. But they were still among the most courageous men of the last century simply because they DECIDED to do what is right, regardless of the amount of uncomfortable feelings they had at "the moment of truth."

This concept of courage is one of the hardest character skills to build in psychiatry, because it doesn't involve too much thinking and analyzing — one simply has to think of the "Right Thing" to do, then go DO courage. That is an act that almost never can take place in a therapist's office. It has to happen out there in the real world, where one is ALONE and without a psychiatrist to chat with about it...

If courage is constructive, then just as any WIN/WIN behavior that sees the world as a place of abundance, it takes time, patience and discipline to do. Courage is about the long haul, not the quick fix of wishing you were something you're NOT.

The bright spot of this all is that you CAN become something that you aren't right now. You can become a little more like your heroes every day through Observing Ego, just like the main character in a great film — but only by the slow, patient discipline that adults use.

When you do courage, You have a 100% guarantee of reaping an EQUAL amount of confidence in ratio with the amount of courage put in. But we all have more or less confidence about SPECIFIC fears. If you list those fears, then you know the most logical targets for your courage, things to make goals out of. List your fears, then fly your "airplane of success" toward the goal of beating those specific fears through courage! It is a sure-fire way to build confidence in exactly the areas of life you need it.

Now you can see every kind of behavior to do with anxiety. This is important because we all do all three methods of anxiety all the time. Impulsivity and victim behavior get us NOTHING, but only courage wins confidence — it is EVERYTHING.

I'll just close by mentioning that I've previously described a great tool for getting that "bird's eye view" in my post titled A Wider Perspective. And I'll also mention that, since incorporating the above anxiety diagram into my life, I have more than restored all the confidence that I had lost when Deb died.

I hope that deciding to "do courage" proves fruitful in your life as well.

Dumping Your Anxiety

In my last post, I shared some very interesting information from Dr Paul Dobransky's ebook called MindOS™ - "The Operating System of the Human Mind". I love the way he explains complex emotional behaviour in a logical, straightforward manner. He showed how avoiding anxiety in our grief is really a passive response to anxiety. While avoidance can be helpful in the first few months after our spouse dies, eventually we need to actively deal with our anxiety if we ever want to heal.

In tonight's post, I'll continue Dr Paul's teaching about responding to our anxiety "signal." As he already explained, anxiety is a signal that we have fears, challenges, change or risk to face, and there are only three ways to respond to anxiety. In my last post, we covered the only passive response, namely avoidance or impulsiveness. This post will look at one of the two active responses to anxiety: worry and complaining.

[pages 188-189]:

When we think destructively with anxiety, Mind OS calls that "Victim-thinking", "martyr-thinking", or masochism, where you take on a "poor me" attitude, erroneously believing that you are truly hopeless, or helpless. You worry about the future and complain without offering solutions. You regret the past, and essentially are WISHING you controlled the uncontrollable, "dumping" your anxiety into someone else's boundary.

Doing all this may seem harmless, but it is NOT. You are dumping your anxiety into someone else to let them worry about FOR you. It is childish, WIN/LOSE behavior, where you WIN relief but someone else LOSES their sense of peace, by absorbing your negative energy.

Is an adult person who walks and talks and can do adult things ever truly hopeless or helpless? NO! Never. Sure, a CHILD can't just go out and get a job, or buy a home to fix their problems, but adults CAN. To think otherwise is an illusion. When we get masochistic, victim-like beliefs about the world, it forces others to participate in the mechanics of OUR illusion. This is where anxiety connects to depression.

[pages 191-192]:

When we decide to take the destructive, immature "quick-fix" of immediate gratification, we find that others can sometimes be convenient "dumping grounds" for our complaints and worries. This happens especially if they have holes in their boundary where we can "push their buttons," shame and manipulate them into accepting our anxiety FOR us. We then "WIN" and they "LOSE."

Note that all the traits that go with playing the victim are also characteristics of nonbiological depression, and they are an illusion. We complain to the boss, we whine and moan about how helpless we are, we allow ourselves to believe there is no hope, and finally find ourselves winding into masochistic depressive thinking.

When we do this attitude long enough, people will get sick of it and turn on us, abandoning us and leaving us with even more loss than before. Complainers, whiners, moaners, and masochists attract the attention of soft-hearted friends in the short run, but tire them out and lose those friends in the long run. So a negative feedback loop occurs where we get negative momentum for our personal growth. We started to make a "mountain out of a molehill" that drives friends and solutions away...

Now you're probably reading this and thinking, "uh, HELLO!!! My spouse is DEAD. This is NOT a molehill. It is a thousand Everests!!!" And I agree. It is probably the most painful, agonizing ordeal we ever have to go through in our whole life.

Keep in mind that this ebook was not written for the bereaved, so it can come across as a bit harsh and uncaring. Yet the phenomenon of dumping our anxiety into someone else's boundary is all too common. Why do you suppose "friends" and acquaintances vanish after the funeral? They cannot deal with our immense sorrow, so they avoid us, adding to our losses.

But to grieve, we absolutely must get our feelings out by talking! We need to talk about our anxiety and fears in order to heal, but if we tell our friends, they can't deal with our hopelessness and they leave! How unfair is that? And how do we resolve this paradox?

Well, you've probably already guessed the answer: bereavement support groups. Try to find a support group like Bereaved Families of Ontario, one run by volunteers who have themselves suffered a similar loss. The primary reason to attend these groups is precisely to express your sense of "poor me," hopelessness and helplessness, worry about the future, complaints without solutions, regret about the past, and wishing you controlled the uncontrollable, all that unflattering stuff in the first quoted paragraph above. The major difference here is that support group attendees can relate to you and support you, unlike your friends and acquaintances.

You are not expecting these strangers to worry about all this stuff for you — you just want (and need) for someone to listen. You need to get your pain and frustrations out. Keeping them bottled up inside is a recipe for lifelong misery. And when you are finished talking, you can be there to listen for someone else who needs you just as much as you need them. Sitting with someone else in pain is one of the most powerful gifts you can ever give another human being. And when you give this gift to someone else, you heal yourself in return.

No Problems In The Present Moment

I've written a number of posts now about a major tenet of ho'oponopono, namely that all our problems in life come from our memories. This should be very clear to see as we struggle through bereavement. If you open a newspaper from a neighboring city to the obituaries, I'm sure you can find an obit concerning someone you don't know. Do you feel overwhelming sadness about their death? No? Why? You probably feel overwhelming sadness concerning the death of your spouse. But what is the difference? They are both dead people. The difference is, you have no memories of the dead stranger, but you have tons of memories of your dead spouse.

I was reading part of The Sedona Method yesterday, and I found a great section that takes this concept to a whole new level. It also teaches a powerful life skill that I feel will help you immensely in your grief work.

[from pages 268-270]:

Exploration: There Are No Problems

...I'd like to share one of the most powerful perspectives that we've been exploring in Sedona Method Advanced Courses with you: There are no problems in the present moment. I saved this piece for now, because I know this may be hard for you to accept, but — what if all the supposed problems you have right now are only memories? I challenge you to explore this question for yourself and at least entertain the possibility. If you can even partially accept this notion, and work with it as best you can in the way outlined here, it will give you another powerful tool to transform your life radically for the better.

The reason that problems appear to persist through time is that, whenever they're not here, in this moment, we go looking for them. Yes, we actually seek our problems. We tend to filter our experiences based on the belief that we have a particular problem, unconsciously censoring anything from our awareness that doesn't support that belief, including the fact that the problem is not here NOW.

I have worked with this perspective in the background of my awareness for many years; however it has only been in the last few years that I have used it in our classes and retreats. One of the first times I shared this perspective with a group was at a Seven-day Retreat a few years ago. Henry came to the retreat wearing a leg brace and feeling a lot of pain due to torn ligaments in his knee. His doctors had told him that the pain would probably persist for about six months until all the ligaments healed. So, he was quite skeptical when I told him that even pain is a memory. Yes, there were sensations in the NOW, but the pain itself was only a memory. He was so skeptical, in fact, that he spent the next 24 hours trying to prove me wrong. He was certain that if he got completely present with the sensations he was experiencing, he would still feel pain.

The next day in class, Henry shared that he was more than a little shocked that, despite the fact he had doubted what I said, every time he looked for pain in the present, he couldn't find it. He went on to explain that not only could he not find pain in the present, but there was no more pain to be found period, and his swelling had gone down about 85 percent. He also no longer needed his leg brace to walk!

I invite you to challenge your long cherished problems by embracing at least the possibility that they are only memories and allowing yourself to be open to what you discover.

To release the suffering caused by your perceptions, begin by thinking of a problem that you used to believe you had. (Notice that I have purposely phrased this sentence in the past tense.)

If you have a hard time accepting the problem as being from the past, allow yourself to include the last moment as part of the past. Most of us think of the past as at least yesterday, last year, or years ago. For the sake of understanding what I am suggesting, please view the past as anything that is not happening at this exact moment, including a second ago, or even a nanosecond ago.

Then, ask yourself this question: Could I allow myself to remember how I used to believe I had this problem?

The shift in consciousness that follows the question may make you laugh, it may make you tingle inside, or it may simply open the possibility in your awareness that, "Yes, even this is just a memory."

Next, ask yourself: Would I like to change that from the past?

If the answer is "yes," ask: Could I let go of wanting to change that from the past? Then let go as best you can.

Simply move on to the next step if the answer is "no."

The completion question in this series is: Could I let go of wanting to believe I have that problem again? Or: Could I let go of the expectation of having that problem happen again?

As always, just do your best to let go. If you find that you're still clinging to the memory of the problem in this moment, however, repeat the steps from the beginning until you can let go fully.

There are tons of excellent exercises in this book to help you let go of all your problems, anxieties, fears, and limitations. I highly, highly recommend it.

Quieting The Self

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a few articles about how grieving is a feeling process not a thinking process. Tonight I'd like to revisit this concept a little bit and tie it in with a fascinating book called Beyond The Conscious Mind. The author, Thomas Blakeslee, describes a consciousness model in which a number of specialized modules in our brains are responsible for different aspects of our daily living. There's a module for driving a car, for example, and different modules for other physical activities, such as climbing the stairs. Our consciousness is made up of many of these different modules, but there's a central module which takes most of the limelight: the "self" module.

The weird thing about the self module is that it is not related to physical activities. It also doesn't have direct access to any of the other modules that do pertain to physical activities. You can prove this to yourself by asking yourself to describe any physical task that you perform automatically, like riding a bike. How exactly do you balance on two wheels? Try to describe how you shift your body weight around to keep upright. If you're like me, about the only way I can begin to describe such a task is by imitating the posture of riding a bike and trying to describe what I'm feeling. My self module has no direct access to my "bike riding" module and therefore can't explain exactly which muscle groups move in exactly what way. Those details are known only to the bike riding module. The self module can really only guess.

Why is this important to know when grieving? We have a tendency, men especially, to intellectualize our grief. We imagine that if we just think long and hard enough about our dead spouse, that somehow the pain will go away. But we miss the forest for the trees by doing this. Here's a clue: pain is something we feel, it is not something we think! And there's lots of physical pain in grief, as you're well aware. We have to feel our way through grief, not think our way through.

So this brings us back to our conscious mind, and why we would want to quiet our self module. Our self module is the thinking module. But, as we already know, it doesn't have access to the physical modules — it can only guess at what is going on in there. And grieving is something we do physically, not something we do mentally. So, if we think really, really hard about grieving, about the only thing our self module is accomplishing is some guesswork as to what our physical activity modules are doing and why they hurt. Thinking about grief is not a help — it is a hindrance. We need to learn how to quiet the thinking self module and let the other feeling, physical modules feel their way through this desert of grief.

OK, so how do we quiet the self? I'll let Thomas Blakeslee explain:

[from pages 62-3 of Beyond The Conscious Mind]:

If you try hard to quiet your mind and think about nothing you will find that there is always something — a noise, a breeze, a memory image, or a random thought. The problem is, the effort not to think always engages your self module. Willpower is the domain of the self, so the harder you try not to think, the less chance you have of succeeding. There is a way to quiet the self module, but it does not involve willpower: If you do any task that firmly engages another module of thought, the self module will instantly fall silent.

Skill activities that require concentration, such as art, music, sports, dancing, or nonroutine work, can put you in a flow state where the self module is quiet and time seems to stand still. When you have been in a flow state for an extended period of time and your self module reasserts itself, you may feel that there is a time gap in your memory where you don't even know what happened. You may look at the clock and remark about how time flies. The activities that will make this happen always require skills in which the self module is not proficient. This guarantees that the self module will lose the competition for control. While the gap in consciousness is noticeable after such extended periods, normal day-to-day existence contains occasional brief bursts of self-consciousness.

Since the self module is often nagging us with what we should do, it can feel quite refreshing to have this nagging silenced for extended periods...

One reason people develop hobbies is that they can quiet the nagging self module by putting themselves in a pleasant flow state for extended periods of time. The quieting of the self module and living in a continual flow state are common goals in Eastern religions. Meditation is a regular exercise directed at quieting the self. It could be very useful for Westerners, but it is often made very difficult by our strong habit of using self-control to accomplish things. When we try to use willpower, it engages the self module, which defeats the whole purpose of meditation. Learning to accomplish things by letting go takes a lot of practice, but the payoff is considerable.

... And that nicely explains why I, as a widower, attended a free 10-day silent meditation course ;-)

Understanding Grief

I wrote last month about memories from a western perspective. In that post, I referred to a great book by Dr. Alan D. Wolfelt called Understanding Grief. Tonight I'd like to quote a bit from the introduction to that book.

For the first six months after Deb died, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. I knew there was this thing called "grief" that I was supposed to do, but, having no prior experience with the death of anyone close to me, I had no frame of reference for understanding what grief was. I remember distinctly wondering, "what is grief, anyway?"

Dr. Wolfelt does an excellent job in his book of explaining, in a clear and concise way, exactly what grief is and how to complete that process. If you are newly bereaved, this book may provide some much needed answers at this bewildering time.

[from pages viii and ix]:

What Is This Wound Called Grief?

"Grief Work" may be some of the hardest work you ever do. Healing in grief is not a passive event. It is an active process. Because grief is work, it calls on your emotional, physical, intellectual, and spiritual energy. You cannot skirt the outside edges of your grief; you must go directly through it.

Please do not try to embrace your grief alone. You need fellow companions who will bring you comfort and support. My experience suggests trying to do grief work alone can be overwhelming. A useful analogy is as follows:

When you go out on a sunny day, the bright sunlight on your unprotected eyes creates stress. It makes seeing difficult. Sunglasses help filter out the harmful sunrays. Maybe you can think of the stress of your grief in just that way. If you respond to the stress of the death of someone loved alone, or without sunglasses, you may be overwhelmed. But if you accept the help of other people, just like putting on the sunglasses, your work of mourning will be accomplished more easily, and with less damage to yourself.

[from pages 1 and 2]:

Perhaps you have already heard the statement, "With time, you will feel better." The feelings of grief you experience when someone loved dies are sometimes described as "emotions that heal themselves." Yet, time alone has nothing to do with healing. To heal, you must be willing to commit to learning about and understanding the grief process.

When forced to confront the death of someone loved, you must become an active participant in your own healing. But in this culture, you are often left to your own resources at the very time those resources are the most depleted.

Another disappointing reality is that you may have little, if any, preparation for a new life as a bereaved person. In the crisis of grieving, you may even fail to give yourself permission to mourn, and you will usually not receive that permission from other people...

Grief is not a disease. No "quick fix" exists for the pain you are enduring. But I promise that if you can think, feel, and see yourself as an "active participant" in your healing, you will experience a renewed sense of meaning and purpose in your life.

To be human means coming to know loss as part of your life. Many losses, or "little griefs," occur along life's path. And not all your losses are as painful as others; they do not always disconnect you from yourself. But the death of someone you have loved is likely to leave you feeling disconnected from both yourself and the outside world.

Based on my own experience, that last paragraph is especially true. Now that I have successfully passed through the desert of grief, I can see more easily and readily the many "little griefs" that I pass through on a daily basis. But now, I have a wealth of tools and skills to help me navigate through those losses with an ease that eluded me before I was bereaved. If you are in the depths of intense grief, it is helpful to know that the skills you are acquiring now will become extremely useful and helpful in the days and years ahead. The day will come when you will be very thankful to have these tools you are now paying for so dearly.

No Time For Goodbyes

Tonight I've got another great article by Dr LaGrand about what to do when there was no time to say goodbye. In my case, there was lots of time to say goodbye, but Deb and I never really wanted to discuss it. Looking back, I can see that after Deb died, I did several of the things listed in this article, like writing a goodbye letter and refocusing my thoughts, and I did find that they helped me. I hope they can help you also:

What To Do When Someone Dies And There Was No Time For Goodbyes

Not infrequently, death occurs and surviving family members and friends do not have the opportunity to say goodbye to the loved one who died. Fatal automobile accidents and heart attacks, hurricanes, murders, and many other unexpected events are the catalysts for much anxiety and deeply felt grief.

Many survivors are guilt ridden when in fact there is clearly no outward cause for such guilt. They did nothing wrong. Yet, unexpected death often wipes out our ability to see that we did not create the circumstances to cause the emotion being experienced.

Sometimes dying people choose to die when those close to them are not present in order to spare them additional pain. Also, it is not uncommon for a person to die in a hospital or hospice setting when a family member is rushing to get there. All of the pain of these events is maximized by the thought of not being with the person at the end.

So what can be done to reduce emotional pain and provide support in the face of deep sadness? Plenty. One or more of the following can prove helpful.

• Say goodbye in a private setting. I often tell those who are mourning the death of a loved one that there is nothing wrong with talking to the person who has died. It is a successful coping response used by millions of people and a meaningful way to say goodbye. Find a quiet room in your home, place a picture or other symbol of the loved one across from you, and say whatever you need to say. Explain why you were not there, why you are sorry, and that your love will always be with the person. If you believe in an afterlife, ask the person to send you a sign that they have heard you and are okay.


• Be sure to go to the funeral service and the viewing of the body. The funeral is traditionally the time and place where you get to say goodbye to the person who died
  (something all children should be told). It can especially be your informal opportunity to say your goodbyes. If you are unable to attend the scheduled service time or showing, then find someone to go with you at another time when you can view the deceased.
  
  It is very important for you, especially on an unconscious level, to have seen the person who died.


• Write your goodbyes in your diary or a letter. Writing thoughts and descriptions of feelings can provide a profound emotional and physical release. Write as though you are speaking directly to your loved one and be specific. Put an I Love You in it, and that you will never forget the person. When you are burdened by your thoughts of not having said goodbye, reread what you have written. You may also want to add something else to your writing at this time.


• Write or paste messages to the loved one on a biodegradable helium-filled balloon for release. This can be a wonderful opportunity for a ritual of goodbye as you watch the balloon ascend into the sky. It will give you a planned occasion to think of your loved one if you are alone or discuss memories of the loved one if it is a group or family ritual.
  
  Be sure you purchase a biodegradable balloon as others are very damaging to wildlife and the environment.


• Learn to refocus your attention and thoughts. When guilt and anxiety arise over the unintended event of not being able to say goodbye, an important survival skill involves immediately refocusing your attention. First, believe that the loved one understands your inability to say goodbye and would not hold a grudge. Then divert your awareness to a pleasant memory of the deceased or visualize her forgiving you. Change what is happening in the moment. This technique takes practice but it is a powerful coping response to develop and can be used for dealing with many other unwanted thoughts.

These approaches for dealing with not being able to say goodbye have a common goal: the acceptance of one of the sad events often associated with the death of a loved one. In the final analysis, each person has the ability to say a belated goodbye, let go of anxiety, recognize that separations without goodbye happen often, and start on the road of reinvesting in life.

Dr. LaGrand is a grief counselor and the author of eight books, the most recent, Love Lives On: Learning from the Extraordinary Encounters of the Bereaved. He is known world-wide for his research on the Extraordinary Experiences of the bereaved (after-death communication phenomena). His website is http://www.extraordinarygriefexperiences.com.

Successful Grieving II

In my last post, I talked a little bit about what successful grieving means to me. The two main ideas I covered were the importance of having a goal, and understanding that success comes gradually, not suddenly.

Tonight, I'd like to share some fascinating information I discovered while perusing a neat website called First30Days.com. The founder, Ariane de Bonvoisin, has created a website dedicated to helping people change positively. There is no arguing that the death of a spouse is a major change! Kind of like hurricane Katrina "changed" New Orleans. While the website is geared mainly towards managing less catastrophic changes, like career, attitude, or health-related changes, there are some excellent articles on there about grief and grieving.

The information I'd like to share tonight came from a survey report commissioned to discover how people respond to change. You can get a copy of the 16 page report here. It "found interesting conclusions about the characteristics that make someone succeed through a change:" [pg 16]

Though the passing of time is important and inevitable, people can also be more proactive in responding to change, and with a bit of planning and consciously taking some positive steps, can manage change better. First30Days seeks to help people with this active approach. Within the first 30 days, those who report a successful response to change assemble for themselves, in some manner, three things:

• attitude (positive outlook),


• support (they reach out), and


• a plan (they learn about it, know what to do, and/or make a plan.)

The key is doing all of those, and right away, which is a key premise of the mission of the First30Days.

Looking back at my own grief journey, I can see how I too assembled these key ingredients. Mind you, I'm not sure I did them within the first 30 days of Deb's death. In fact, I know I didn't get started on my plan for at least 5 months. Then again, it is not like the death of a spouse is just one change — it is many changes simultaneously. I wrote a bit about these different losses in Why Grieving Takes So Long.

Still, I know for certain that within the first few days, I had decided that I was going to get through widowerhood. I knew I had support from my family and friends, and I guess my initial plan was to get on with my life after I had finished rearranging my affairs and settling Deb's estate.

For about 5 months, I was successful — at grief avoidance :-P Then, the shock phase wore off and I started experiencing the raw, agonizing pain of grief without the benefit of all those lovely brain-numbing chemicals my body was kind enough to produce immediately following Deb's death. This too was a change! Here's where I started really implementing the 3 keys as outlined in the report. As before, I maintained a positive outlook — I was determined that I would get through that horrible pain. Second, I knew I didn't have enough support, so I went to my first bereavement support group at Bereaved Families of Ontario. And finally, I went to work on my plan. This meant learning about what grief is, as well as how others had successfully come out the other side.

So, if you are reading this because you are newly bereaved, you might want to ask yourself how you too can implement a positive outlook, an effective support team, and a plan of action. That plan might be as simple as, "I will make it through the next 5 minutes." Or, if many years have gone by and you still find yourself "stuck" at some point in your grief, you too can ask yourself how you can implement these 3 keys to successful grief recovery.

How long will it take? Ah, the question with the elusive answer. The only answer I know is that it takes as long as it takes. For me, that hard road was about 16-17 months of heavy slogging.

For my next post, I'll give some helpful tips on how to take action once you've got your grief recovery plan in place. Until then, if the road ahead seems daunting, keep in mind the wisdom of Lao Tzu:

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Successful Grieving

How does one grieve successfully? Can this really be achieved? What is the best way to facilitate grieving? These are some questions I have been contemplating over the last few days. I think often of new widow/ers and how I can best help them during this nightmare stage of their lives.

First, let's work with the definition of success that I am most comfortable with:

Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.
— Earl Nightingale

A few points flow directly from this quote:

• One needs a goal in order to be successful


• Success is a gradual process, not a sudden event

So, back to successful grieving. I needed a goal. In my case, I quickly determined that my goal was to be at total peace with Deb's death. Easier said than done! Still, I had my goal out in front of me. Next, I needed to take gradual steps to realize this goal of total peace. But in what direction should I head? This was my first real experience with death, and I found that societal support was pretty much non-existent.

Still, I knew it was possible to grieve successfully -- others had done so before me, and many of them had documented their success. A key component of success is imitating those who are already successful, making use of their hard-won acquired wisdom. So, one of the first directions in which I set out was the public library where I signed out Seven Choices by Elizabeth Harper Neeld. A big insight I acquired from reading this book was that grief work would likely be carried out over a period of years. This was disheartening, but I was glad to be reading about my first success story nonetheless. It also helped me to read such a detailed account of someone else's grief.

The Importance of Asking "How" Questions

I stress this point a number of times on this blog. "How" questions will lead you to your goal. Yes, there tends to be a period of time where our thoughts are dominated by "why" questions. For me, those questions included,

• Why did Deb die at 32 years of age?


• Why did she get cervical cancer and suffer such a horrible death?


• Why did she say goodbye to me emotionally 15 months before she died?


• Why was I left to raise a 2-year old by myself?

You'll notice, of course, that none of those questions were getting me any closer to my goal. And no matter how many times I struggled with those questions, I never did come up with any real answers. However, I've since read that this is a normal phase of grief, so it is good to know that I am normal ;-)

I think part of the reason I didn't spend too much time dwelling on "why" questions is because I read Lester Leavenson's highly irritating quote in Happiness Is Free: And It's Easier Than You Think!:

Try to see the perfection where the seeming imperfection seems to be.

"Seeming imperfection" - give me a break! But you know, a little seed was planted the day I read that tidbit, and I began to entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe, there was a good reason for all this crap to have happened. Maybe things were unfolding perfectly, however demented it seemed to contemplate such a thing at the time.

Back to "how" questions. The main question I kept asking myself was, "How can I be at peace with Deb's death?" As I began asking this question, I started getting answers.

When a Loved One Dies

I am very conscious of the fact that, because I have fully recovered from Deb's death, the articles I write may not be of much help to someone who is newly bereaved. I am quite far removed from my early grieving experiences, and besides, I've been spending quite a lot of time recently in cleaning my memories ;-)

I'm always on the lookout for articles that speak directly to someone whose partner died recently, and if that is your current circumstance, I hope that you will find the following article to be helpful:

When a Loved One Dies

At some point in time, we will all have the experience of a loved one dying. The death may be abrupt like a car accident or sudden illness. It may take place over a longer period of time when your loved one has a long-term illness such as cancer. There is nothing to prepare ourselves for such a loss. There is nothing you can read, no words that can be said that will reduce your pain immediately after the death.

You will feel hopeless, despondent and numb. You will feel that no one really understands what you are going through and feel isolated from friends and family. You will be amazed that life for others goes on as usual. People go to work, children go to school, and the sun rises in the morning and sets at night. You will go through periods of time where you feel a huge disconnect between yourself and the rest of the planet.

These feelings you experience during the initial stages of grief will devastate you to the point that you don’t want to participate in regular activities that give you pleasure. You will also feel like being sedentary, sitting on the couch, mindlessly watching television, but paying no real attention what show is on.

Eventually you will become tired of sitting around all the time. You will hear a voice inside you that you need to move to the next step of your grieving process.

That next step is moving your body.

There is a ton of research that indicates that physical exercise improves your physical health, decreases feelings of depression and anxiety, improves self-esteem, reduces stress and increases mental and physical strength. Some studies indicate that your endorphins can kick in after only fifteen minutes of exercise and at the point you can experience a sense of well being.

Exercising is certainly a healthy way to deal with the death of a loved one. A short walk, run, bike ride or other aerobic activity will help you face and work through trauma.

What is going to help me get off the couch and into an exercise program?

1. Become aware that it is normal to feel overwhelmed with sadness, confusion, anger, and deep despondency immediately after a loved one dies. This sense of overwhelm and shock will cause you to be sedentary much of the time during the beginning stage of grief, but you don’t have to feel guilty about it because this is a normal part of the morning process.

2. You will eventually reach the point where a voice in your head will inform you that it is time to do something else rather than laying around when you are not at work or actively parenting. Pay attention to this voice, don’t ignore it or push it away. Make an appointment with your physician to determine if it is safe for you to exercise.

3. Repeat these words throughout the day: “Exercise will help me get through this horrible time. It will put me in a better state of mind where I will be able to get through the pain. Moving my body will enable me to feel good about myself and eventually improve the quality of my life.”

4. Choose an activity that you feel that you can do on a regular basis. Some of you may not have exercised for years. Others may never have worked out. If you are not sure what to do, begin walking. You can do this in your neighborhood and it does not require any equipment other than good shoes. Begin short and slow. When you start exercising, create a realistic goal such as walking for fifteen minutes at a slow pace. You can gradually increase your speed and distance as you go along.

5. Become self aware as you are exercising. Ask yourself: How does my body feel? What is my breathing like? What am I thinking and feeling about?

Once you experience positive results, you will be motivated to continue a regular exercise program. Moving your body is a safe, productive means to deal with tragedy. The pain you are experiencing can move out of your head and into your body. You can feel the anguish gradually leave as sweat pours through your skin and mixes in with the tears falling down your face. You can discover this new way of letting go.

Bob Livingstone, LCSW, has been a psychotherapist in private practice for almost twenty years. He works with adults, teenagers and children who have experienced traumas such as family violence, neglect and divorce. He works with men around anger issues and adults in recovery from child abuse. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Redemption of the Shattered: A Teenager’s Healing Journey through Sandtray Therapy and the upcoming The Body-Mind-Soul Solution: Healing Emotional Pain through Exercise (Pegasus Books, Aug. 2007). For more information visit www.boblivingstone.com.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License

Letting Go Emotionally

One of the more difficult aspects of grieving in the first 6-12 months is figuring out how to grieve. We know we are supposed to do it, we feel terrible, and it can be a huge struggle to get out of bed in the morning. Life seems meaningless, and yet we're supposed to get some energy and do this thing called "grieve." What the heck is that? How does one go about it? What is the point? Why the effort?

For me, I think it was about month thirteen that I was reading How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies. I talked a little bit about this in my post about letting go. Around this time, I was beginning to understand that my emotional energy was still largely caught up in thoughts about Deb, and that I had no emotional energy for anything else. In her book, Therèse Rando explains that this is a normal result of having invested so much of my emotional energy into my marriage for so many years. Now that Deb was dead, that emotional energy had nowhere to go, and it was chewing me up inside.

It was helpful for me to read the following [pp 230-232]:

You also have to change your emotional attachment to and investment in your loved one to reflect the reality that, despite your intense wishes to the contrary, he is dead and will no longer be able to interact with you as he did in the past. No matter how much you need him, nor how much you are determined that things in your life will not change, the fact of the matter is that your loved one no longer can give you what he did previously. He will no longer be able to return your emotional investment in him. As a result, over time you are going to have to change your emotional investment in him to accommodate this fact.

This is not a betrayal. It does not mean that you no longer love the deceased or that you will forget him. The relationship is altered, to be sure, but it always will exist in a special place in your heart and in your mind. What it does mean is that you modify your ongoing emotional investment in and attachment to him as a living person who can return your investment-you must let go of being connected to him as if he were still alive. The emotional energy that went into your relationship with him gradually must be detached from him, since he can no longer return it, and in time it must be channeled elsewhere where it can be returned for your emotional satisfaction.

...

The most crucial task in grief is this change in relationship with the person who died. It is the untying of the ties that bind you to your lost loved one. Again, it must be stressed that this does not mean that the deceased is forgotten or not loved. Rather, it means that the emotional energy that you had invested in the deceased is readjusted to allow you to direct it towards others who can reciprocate it in an ongoing fashion for your emotional satisfaction.

...

It is not an easy task to withdraw emotional energy and investment from someone you love. It takes a great deal of time and effort. It means that all of your ties to that person-your needs for and your feelings, thoughts, memories, hopes, expectations, and dreams about that person and your relationship with him-all must be brought up and revived [emphasis mine]. Then each one must be reviewed and felt. In this way the emotional charge is loosened or defused. You may still have the thought and memory of each one, but the emotional feeling accompanying it lessens in intensity. Gradually, over time, you do not feel the accompanying feelings any more, or at least not the way you did when they were intense and vibrant, kept alive by the ongoing, reciprocal relationship you had with your loved one before death.

After reading this, I finally felt like someone had finally adequately explained to me just what the heck I was supposed to be doing with my time in grief. I remember feeling like a key had turned in a lock somehow, that the door to a grief framework had finally been opened. I didn't look forward to the remaining grief work to be done, but I knew that once I walked through that door, I would be one step closer to that peace I was searching for.

My Experience With Despair

I am normally a pretty optimistic person, although I've had my share of disappointments and frustrations in life. Still, nothing could really prepare me for the full-on despair that comes with grieving a spouse. In How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies, Therese Rando does a good job of describing what awaits the new widow/er:

Besides feeling abandoned, you may feel sad, low, or blue. Pleasurable activities may no longer be enjoyable, and you may become apathetic and slowed down, with no energy or motivation. You may brood about the past and be pessimistic, if not hopeless, about the future. You may lament about your situation and how you have been victimized. Tearfulness and crying are not uncommon. On some occasions you may desperately want to cry, but find you are unable to do so. In your intense grief and depression, it will not be at all unusual for you to feel out of control, helpless, deprived, depersonalized, despairing, lonely, powerless, and vulnerable. You may feel that your life is meaningless and even that you, yourself, are worthless. Self-reproach, shame, and even guilt can occur. Feeling so inadequate frequently causes you to feel, in turn, childish, dependent, and regressed. While this is understandable in light of the major loss and the profound psychological injury you have sustained, you might begin berating yourself for feeling less than competent. This can cause you to become inappropriately angry at yourself. If you are like other mourners, too often you will underappreciate just how much you are affected by this traumatic loss. It is bound to set you back emotionally, physically, and socially for quite a while. [pg 38]

In my case, many of these points played out over the weeks and months following Deb's death. Here's an especially poignant example:

I have a really annoying klaxon-style alarm clock. It has to be, or I won't get up. I've tried waking up to the radio, but my subconscious seems blissfully happy to sleep right through any music or talk-shows ;-) So, like many, I've settled for a rather obnoxious-sounding, very loud electronic beeping. Usually it never fails to get me out of bed, just so I can turn the darned thing off (it is purposely set up across the bedroom ;-).

I think it was one morning about three or four months after Deb died that the alarm went off at 08:00 a.m., and I woke up, but I didn't turn it off. I just listened to it. For the next three and a half hours! I just lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling, listening to this jarring alarm, and thinking, "life is pointless."

If you are newly-bereaved and reading this, you might become a little apprehensive about what you could be in for. Here's what's important to understand about this: it wasn't the low point of my grieving. In fact, I wouldn't even say that the full gravity of my situation had hit me yet. The low water mark was still months away.

As you read books on grieving, you'll quickly find the "steps" of grief, and denial factors in prominently as step number one or two. This always really bothered me. How could I be in denial of Deb's death? I held her hand as she breathed her last breath. I sat in the front row at the funeral. I was last to leave the casket before interment. My bed was empty, her clothes were given away, and her spot on the couch was conspicuously vacant. How could I possibly be in denial?

What I have come to understand, looking back now over the last 21 months, is that I was in denial that my life had completely changed. See, even three or four months in, I was still thinking that I would get through this grief stuff and move on with my life and do all the things I still wanted to do. I didn't understand that grief is for life. A good analogy is like learning to live with diabetes or an amputation. Conditions like these aren't going to go away anytime soon. However, that's the point of the analogy — we can learn to live with grief. My goal in writing this blog is to give you enough tools to not only live with grief, but thrive with it. I now consider grief to be a friend of mine (not a very friendly one at times!), a friend that has a lot to teach me about myself, relationships, and what it means to live.

Focusing to Heal

If you read my last post, you may have wondered what I meant when I described how I let my body grieve without getting mentally involved. There's a good story here.

Many years ago, I had started reading a book called Focusing, a book about how to listen to your body and the wisdom it contains. This was my first exposure to the idea that intelligence existed in my entire body, not just in my brain. However, I found the book to be difficult to read, so I abandoned it about half-way through. At the time, I didn't feel I needed the skills it would teach me bad enough to justify the slog through it.

Fast-forward several years, and Deb and I were full-bore into our battle against cancer. I remembered the book but didn't have time to get into it again. Once Deb died, I felt that now was the time to delve back in and learn the skills. Besides, now I was motivated — my body felt terrible, and I liked the idea that it was trying to tell me something, if I would only learn to listen.

I read through Focusing quickly enough, pushing through the difficult parts. I didn't find it terribly accessible as it seemed to be written for a professional audience as opposed to a layman. Still, I liked the simple exercises and felt they were helpful. I also started to do more research into the focusing technique, and I stumbled upon Ann Weiser Cornell's The Power of Focusing: A Practical Guide to Emotional Self-Healing. Unlike the first Focusing book, I found this one to be highly accessible and much more helpful. Here's an example from the first chapter:

Whenever Jenny needed to speak up about herself, she got a choking sensation in her throat. The more important the situation was to her, the stronger she felt the choking. Job interviews and class presentations were painful, nearly impossible. She had been to many therapists and tried many techniques to try to get rid of this choking sensation, without results. She diagnosed herself as "self-defeating, masochistic, always sabotaging myself."

Then Jenny heard about Focusing. She heard that Focusing is a way of listening to your body with compassion, without assumptions. She heard that many people experience profound and lasting change from this kind of inner listening. She was doubtful. It sounded too simple! But she was willing to give it a try, because she was desperate for something to work.

One thing that intrigued Jenny was that Focusing is a skill, not a therapeutic technique. Although many therapists incorporate Focusing in their work, Jenny would be able to learn Focusing without going to a therapist. She liked the idea of learning a skill that she would be able to use, not only for the choking sensation but for any issue in her life, on her own, without needing to pay someone.

When Jenny came in for her Focusing lesson and told me her situation, I had a strong feeling that Focusing could help her. I've taught Focusing to many hundreds of people over the years, and Jenny's circumstance was classic. Her body was already speaking to her. She just needed to learn how to hear its message.

I asked Jenny if she was feeling the choking at that very moment. "Yes. I can feel it. It's here now because I'm learning a new technique with you, and I feel I have to do well."

I asked her to describe what it felt like. She looked a little surprised, and said, "Choking, of course!" I asked her to go back to the sensation and check the word "choking" to make sure that word was the right word for how it felt.

She looked thoughtful. "Actually," she said slowly, "it's more like a hand squeezing."

Now Jenny's eyes were closed and she was concentrating inwardly. I asked her to gently say hello to the hand squeezing sensation. "Just say to it, 'Yes, I know you're there.' "

This was a completely new attitude for her. "I've never sort of looked it in the eye before; I've just tried to get rid of it." So this new attitude took a while to find, but when she did, there was a definite sense of bodily relief: "It's still there, but it's not painful anymore. It's almost like, now that it has my attention, it doesn't need to hurt me."

Then I asked Jenny to imagine that she was sitting down with the sensation as she would sit with a friend, compassionate and curious about how the friend was feeling.

Jenny was silent for several minutes, eyes closed, sensing. Then her eyes opened in astonishment. "Wow. I never dreamed it would say something like that. That's really amazing."

I waited, knowing that she would tell me the rest in her own time.

In a moment she spoke again. "It says ... it says it cares about me! It says it's just trying to keep me from making mistakes!"

"And how does it feel now?" I asked.

"The choking or squeezing is completely gone. My throat feels open and relaxed. There's a good warm feeling spreading all through my body. This is really amazing. I never thought it would change like this!"

I hope you find this intriguing enough to source yourself a copy. It has helped me immensely.

First Year Grieving

Today I'm going to shake things up a bit with a guest post from WidowNet, a great free Yahoo Group I recommend you check out. We'll let Denise take it from here:

---

Hello everyone

Although I don't post often anymore -- I do read the emails and thought I would share with those of you who are in the early stages of this journey none of us wanted to take. I've been a traveler for over 19 months, with both good and bad days. I came across the following thoughts surrounding first year grieving about 6-7 months after Craig died. I can tell you that there were many times I had to start rewinding because I had dropped the ball of string. In fact, it still happens -- just not nearly as frequent.

Take care everyone
Denise


First-year grief is perhaps the hardest work you will ever do. We are challenged in so many ways that we cannot take loss in all at once. We can only see the world from where we stand; and to most of us, our new world looks and feels like landscape without gravity. There are no maps to guide us through this grief. But others who have made the journey can help by listening and sharing what they have learned. They show us it is possible to turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones along the way.

Grieving requires enormous energy, but pretending that you're not grieving requires even more. You begin to sense that your world is anxious for you to get on with your life, and no one understands that this is your life and you are getting on with it. "This is it, folks." Then other times you pretend and you wear a mask and perform like a trained seal just to keep what's left of your world from leaving you.

There's not a set schedule and no recovery period for grief. But, time alone does not heal -- it's what we do with the time that counts. Take the time you need to do your grief work. But also take time away from grieving to do things you enjoy, and to rest and replenish yourself. When a loved one dies, our hoped-for future dies, too. Beginning in this first year, and continuing on from there, living with our loss means taking on new roles, new relationships, a new future — without forgetting our past. Sometimes, life takes surprising turns. But, as the wise adage goes, "Life is what happens to us while we are busy making other plans." Confronted with loss, we can weave the strands of our past into a new, meaningful future we would never have planned to live. Doing so is a conscious choice.

Getting through the first year of your grief is like winding a ball of string. You start with an end and wind and wind. Then the ball slips through your fingers and rolls across the floor. Some of the work is undone, but not all. You pick it up and start over again, but never do you have to begin at the end of the string. The ball never completely unwinds; you've made some progress.

May your loved one be there to help you during this painful first year and in all the years to come.

---

I'll just add that, when I contacted Denise for permission to use her post, I really enjoyed her tag line:

Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile.

A Bad Trip

I've often wondered how we as widows/ers can explain what we are experiencing to outsiders. You know, those people we affectionately refer to as, "Don't Get Its" or DGIs for short — the ones who ask you, "well, it has been a week, haven't you moved on yet?" :-P

Now, my personality is such that, generally, people don't presume to tell me how I ought to run my life, so I have pretty much avoided dumb comments like these. But I know of many widows/ers who have been on the receiving end of such absurdities. I don't believe the "helpers" say these things to be mean. I have a rule: never assume malice when simple incompetence will suffice. They simply don't know what they don't know. And we should be happy for them in their ignorant bliss. Well, most days anyway... ;-)

The analogy of a bad drug trip relates our experience to them in a way that they might understand (not that I know anything about bad drug trips ;-) After Deb died, and for a long time afterwards, food didn't taste right, colors seemed off, and even the experience of time seemed distorted, almost like everything was delayed by a quarter second or so. For me, the bad trip feeling lasted for almost a year. Emotionally, I was all over the place. I could be almost euphoric one moment and plunged in the depths of despair the next. There's a reason they call it "the roller coaster..."

The drug analogy is helpful for us as well so that we can understand what is happening within our bodies. There's a section in a great book called I'm Grieving as Fast as I Can, which explains that, when we were married, we had become emotionally, physically, and chemically dependent on our mate. Our mind was flooded with endorphins (an opiate, similar to morphine or heroin) just by being around him or her. When our spouse died, we literally went through cold-turkey withdrawal symptoms. I can remember a month or so after the funeral feeling that my skin was literally crawling, like it was separating from my body. Sleep was impossible. "Drying out" was hard work, and it left me feeling exhausted. Thank goodness it finally ended, although it took a little over a year for these symptoms to ease.

I don't mean to scare those of you for whom it has only been a few days or weeks since your love died. However, I do think it is important to know that it will likely get a lot worse before it gets better. I have learned that our bodies know how to grieve, and we will grieve, like it or not. There is good news and bad news here: the good news is that our bodies know how much grief we can tolerate at one time; the bad news is, that tolerance limit is waaaaay deep in the red line and far, far beyond our comfort zone. Sitting in the front pew with my son at the funeral, I had no idea just how much I would be stretched and tried in the months to follow.

There is good news in the bad news: now that I have passed through the acute grieving stage, my tolerance for emotional stress has been reset to a level incomprehensible to most people. Stuff that drives other people batty is now like water off a duck's back for me.

If you're going through the traumatic part of grieving right now, hang in there! There is light at the end of the tunnel, and it isn't the 4 p.m. freight ;-)