Grief Experienced Dissolves

Tonight's post will be a little different in that it is geared both towards the bereaved and people who wish to help the bereaved. One of the most popular articles on this blog is How To Help A New Widow Or Widower, so I'd like to expand on that article a bit with some help from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. I find that Sogyal Rinpoche has some very compassionate things to say to widows and widowers, and I feel it is important to share bereavement tips from an Eastern tradition. So, without further ado:

[from pages 311-312]:

A person who is going through bereavement for the first time may simply be shattered by the array of disturbing feelings, of intense sadness, anger, denial, withdrawal, and guilt that they suddenly find are playing havoc inside them. Helping those who have just gone through the loss of someone close to them will call for all your patience and sensitivity. You will need to spend time with them and to let them talk, to listen silently without judgment as they recall their most private memories, or go over again and again the details of the death. Above all, you will need simply to be there with them as they experience what is probably the fiercest sadness and pain of their entire lives. Make sure you make yourself available to them at all times, even when they don't seem to need it. Carol, a widow, was interviewed for a video series on death one year after her husband had died. "When you look back on the last year," she was asked, "who would you say had helped you the most?" She said: "The people who kept calling and coming by, even though I said 'no.'"

People who are grieving go through a kind of death. Just like a person who is actually dying, they need to know that the disturbing emotions they are feeling are natural. They need to know too that the process of mourning is a long and often tortuous one, where grief returns again and again in cycles. Their shock and numbness and disbelief will fade, and will be replaced by a deep and at times desperate awareness of the immensity of their loss, which itself will settle eventually into a state of recovery and balance. Tell them that this is a pattern that will repeat itself over and over again, month after month, and that all their unbearable feelings and fears, of being unable to function as a human being any more, are normal. Tell them that although it may take one year or two, their grief will definitely reach an end and be transformed into acceptance.

As Judy Tatelbaum says:

Grief is a wound that needs attention in order to heal. To work through and complete grief means to face our feelings openly and honestly, to express and release our feelings fully and to tolerate and accept our feelings for however long it takes for the wound to heal. We fear that once acknowledged grief will bowl us over. The truth is that grief experienced does dissolve. Grief unexpressed is grief that lasts indefinitely.

But so often, tragically, friends and family of the bereaved person expect them to be "back to normal" after a few months. This only intensifies their bewilderment and isolation as their grief continues, and sometimes even deepens.

In my next post, I'll share some of Sogyal's advice for people who have experienced sudden death.

I'll just reiterate how important it is to find a local bereavement support group and attend regularly. Such a group is probably your best bet for finding people who will listen "silently without judgment" as you go over your memories and details of the death.

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.

Who Gets in Your Bucket?

Many times on our journey of grief, we run into people who want us to feel better, mostly so that they will feel better. We scare them. We are in more pain than they can imagine, and they think that platitudes or constant chiding will miraculously cure us of our grief. In the grief community, these folks are not-so-affectionately called "Don't Get It"s or DGIs for short. I like to call them the Clearly Clueless™. This kind of behavior is to be expected from strangers and acquaintances, and DGIs are simply part of the grief landscape. But what about when we get this behavior from close friends and family? Wouldn't it be helpful if we could print out a short article and have them read it? The following article by Doug Manning does a great job of explaining to DGIs why their reproaches are not at all helpful, as well as offering them a simple suggestion to truly help us:

Who Gets in Your Bucket?
— By Doug Manning

The best way I know to picture how we receive help from others in grief is to imagine you are holding a bucket. The size and color doesn't matter. The bucket represents the feelings bottled up inside of you when you are in pain. If you have suffered a loss, hold the bucket and think through how you feel right now. If you are reading this to learn more about helping others, then imagine what would be in your bucket if a loved one had died very recently. What is in your bucket?

Fear. Will I survive? What will happen to me now? Who will care for me? Who will be with me when I need someone near? Most likely your bucket is almost full just from the fear. But there is also:

Pain. It is amazing how much physical pain there is in grief. Your chest hurts, and you can't breathe. Sometimes the pain is so intense your body refuses to even move. There is enough pain to fill the bucket all by itself.

Sorrow. There is devastating sadness; overwhelming sorrow. A gaping hole has been bitten out of your heart and it bleeds inside your very soul. You cry buckets of tears and then cry some more.

Loneliness. There is no lonely like that felt when you are in a room full of people and totally alone at the same time. Loneliness alone can fill any bucket ever made.

I could go on, but that's enough to get the idea across, and hopefully get you started thinking through your own list. What is in your bucket?

Now picture someone like me approaching you and your bucket. I also have a bucket. My bucket is full of explanations. I am armed and ready to explain why your loved one had to die, how they are now better off and how you should feel.

I am also well equipped with new ways to look at your loss. In politics they call that "spin doctoring," but most human beings seem to know this skill by instinct.

I have almost a bucketful of comforting words and encouraging sayings. I can also quote vast amounts of scriptures. I seem to favor the ones that tell you not to grieve.

So we face each other armed with full buckets. The problem is, I don't want to get into your bucket. Yours is scary. If I get in there, you might start crying and I may not be able to make you stop. You might ask me something I could not answer. There is too much intimacy in your bucket. I want to stand at a safe distance and pour what is in my bucket into yours. I want the things in my bucket to wash over your pain like some magic salve to take away your pain and dry your tears. I have this vision of my words being like cool water to a dry tongue, soothing and curing as it flows.

But your bucket is full. There is no room for anything that is in my bucket. Your needs are calling so loudly there is no way you could hear anything I say. Your pain is far too intense to be cooled by any verbal salve, no matter how profound.

The only way I can help you is to get into your bucket, to try to feel your pain, to accept your feelings as they are and make every effort to understand. I cannot really know how you feel. I cannot actually understand your pain or how your mind is working under the stress, but I can stand with you through the journey. I can allow you to feel what you feel and learn to be comfortable doing so. That is called, "Getting into your bucket."

I was speaking on "Guilt and Anger in Grief " to a conference of grieving parents. I asked the group what they felt guilty about. I will never forget one mother who said, "All the way to the hospital, my son begged me to turn back. He did not want the transplant. He was afraid. I would not turn back, and he died."

I asked her how many times someone had told her that her son would have died anyway. She said, "Hundreds." When I asked her if that had helped her in any way she said, "No."

I asked her how many times she had been told that she was acting out of love and doing the right thing. She gave the same two responses. "Many times" and "No, it did not help."

I asked her how many times she had been told that God had taken her son for some reason, and she gave the same responses--"Many" and "No help."

I asked how many times someone had told her that it had been four years since her son's death and it was time to "Put that behind you and get on with your life." This time she responded with great anger that she had heard that from many well-meaning people, including family members, and that it not only did not help, it added to her pain and made her angry.

What I was really asking her is, "How many people have tried to pour their buckets into yours?"

I then said, "Would it help if I hugged you and said 'that must really hurt'?"

She said, "That would help a great deal. That would really help."

Why would that help? Because I was offering to get into her bucket with her and to be in her pain, instead of trying to salve over her pain with words and explanations.

If you are in pain, find someone who will get into your bucket. Most of the time these folks are found in grief groups or among friends who have been there. It is not normal procedure. It is hard to swallow our fears and climb into your bucket.

If you are reading this to find ways to help others in grief, then lay aside your explanations and your words of comfort. Forget all of the instructions and directions you think will help, and learn to say, "That must really hurt." I think that is the most healing combination of words in the English language. They really mean, "May I feel along with you as you walk through your pain?" "May I get into your bucket?"

Why Attend A Support Group?

Five months after Deb died, my illusion that I could go on living as though nothing had changed was thoroughly shattered. I knew I had to start grieving, but I had no idea what that involved. So, what does any sane 30-something do in such a situation? Ask Google ;-) Support groups seemed the way to go, so I quickly found the one closest to me, Bereaved Families of Ontario — Ottawa Region.

Now, there's a big difference between deciding to go and actually going. All I knew (or thought I knew) about support groups was that alcoholics went to them (AA), or they could help you sleep (Fight Club) ;-)

Let's be clear: I knew I needed to go, but I did not want to go. Fight Club was certainly on my mind, and I toyed briefly with writing "Cornelius" on my nametag. In the end, I remember sitting around a circle with about 20 other people who had all lost their spouse. I'm not normally one to engage in schadenfreude, but there is something to be said for realizing that others have it worse than you do.

In I'm Grieving as Fast as I Can [pp 136-138.], the author enumerates 15 ways a support group can be helpful :

1. A support group facilitator gives people permission for intimacy in their conversation. Little time is wasted on polite small talk. You get to know a room full of strangers extremely well in a couple of hours. You feel connected to the world again.


2. A support group lessens the feeling of isolation. It keeps you from feeling that you are the only person in the whole world who is going through this experience. The group facilitator does the community organization to bring young widowed people together. When you lessen your feelings of isolation, you automatically increase your feelings of self esteem.


3. You will be able to make new friends to help fill the void in your life. It will allow you to network a new social life. You will meet people from all walks of life. You will make friends with people who never knew your husband or your wife and who will like you for the person you are now. This will raise your self esteem. You will have new friends with whom you can feel extremely comfortable because you know they understand. You can let your guard down.


4. You will learn how to improve your communication skills with others. The goal of good communication is to tell the truth to yourself and to others. "You will let the inside stuff get out." Some formerly shy people will become very talkative as they realize that their spouses did the talking for both of them.


5. You will feel physically comfortable in the room. There is an automatic bond between young widowed people, much like the bond between war veterans.


6. You will serve as role models for each other and help each other find your own unique way of handling this experience. You will give each other permission to get on with your lives. How are widowed people supposed to behave? How long should you feel miserable after a death? How long do you wait before you leave the house in the evening with a friend? When is it okay to smile without feeling guilty? You will learn there is no one right way to grieve.


7. A group will force you to set aside time to think and grieve with people who genuinely understand what you are going through. You will have your feelings validated and any feelings of guilt you have will lessen. By setting aside time to think and grieve, you will be able to accept the death a bit faster and you will feel better faster.


8. A support group allows you to discuss your husband or wife openly, serving as a mini-memorial service to the deceased. A support group makes you feel your memories are important because you are important and your husband was important. This will also increase your self esteem.


9. A support group will aid in overcoming your denial of the death. The fact of the matter is that you wouldn't be at the group if your husband hadn't died. You cannot sit there and pretend you are not a widow at the same time.


10. You will get the support you need to enable you to resist outside pressure from parents and friends. It will leave you less vulnerable to "the first nice man who comes along."


11. You will learn to recognize the vulnerability in others and thereby learn to recognize it in yourself. You will be more careful with yourself and have a greater respect for yourself.


12. You will meet people who are coping better than you seem to be and this will give you inspiration and optimism that you can feel better too.


13. A support group is a safe place to relax and talk to people after a death without family and friends accusing you of socializing too soon.


14. You will be applauded for your new accomplishments. Everyone gets very excited when someone makes a stride, e.g. buys a house, gets a job, starts socializing. The group is very supportive. That's why it's called a support group. Give it a chance.


15. You will truly enjoy the company of a group of sensitive, compassionate people. The members do not just sit around and discuss their grief. On many evenings there is so much laughter that you'd swear you were at a comedy show. After a death, sensitivity is heightened and that includes sensitivity to humor. Many young widowed people say they would have been totally lost had their senses of humor not remained intact.

If you haven't yet joined a support group, please give one a try. I can't recommend them highly enough.