GRIEF

Grief may be the experience of continue to love someone after they die and yet knowing that it is no longer available. Feel frustrated by the loss. Not limited to loss through death. Every time you LOSE a relationship or are faced with uncertainty you grieve the loss of a predictable and safe world.

Ex. New town, lose a job, go through a divorce. You experience grief any time you experience any change in your relationship to the world.

You may experience frustration, sadness, anger, guild, anxiety, exhaustion. We all need to grieve mindfully.

What is grieving Mindfully?

It’s allowing yourself to accept the pain of grief, therapy finding relief in not running away from the loss you are experiencing.

To allow this process means to allow yourself to feel and experience each day on its own terms; we cannot assume that we know what tomorrow will bring.

Full awareness, especially in grief, of your patterns of thoughts and feelings can take you from living with misery, fear, and discontent to living with openness and passion. Grieving mindfully means approaching your grief as an opportunity to grow by actively giving meaning to your pain.

Grief Happens

It’s a part of life. Suffering is a part of all our lives and although not desirable, it will happen no matter what we do.

We grieve when our sense of identity has been shaken.

Grief is the process of finding out who you are in a world that is barely recognizable because of the tremendous change that has taken place. You may not be able to answer the question, “Who am I? “ for a long time after loss.

Stages of Grief

You will go through various stages of grief, not necessarily in order: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Read more about the stages of grief below.

Denial, numbness, and shock

• This serves to protect the individual from experiencing the intensity of the loss.
  
• Numbness is a normal reaction to an immediate loss and should not be confused with "lack of caring".
  
• Denial and disbelief will diminish as the individual slowly acknowledges the impact of this loss and accompanying feelings.

Bargaining

• At times, individuals may ruminate about what could have been done to prevent the loss.
• Individuals can become preoccupied about ways that things could have been better, imagining all the things that will never be.
• This reaction can provide insight into the impact of the loss; however, if not properly resolved, intense feelings of remorse or guilt may hinder the healing process.

Depression

• After recognizing the true extent of the loss, some individuals may experience depressive symptoms.
• Sleep and appetite disturbance, lack of energy and concentration, and crying spells are some typical symptoms.
• Feelings of loneliness, emptiness, isolation, and self-pity can also surface during this phase, contributing to this reactive depression.
• For many, this phase must be experienced in order to begin reorganizing one’s life.

Anger

• This reaction usually occurs when an individual feels helpless and powerless.
• Anger may result from feeling abandoned, occurring in cases of loss through death.
• Feelings of resentment may occur toward one’s higher power or toward life in general for the injustice of this loss.
• After an individual acknowledges anger, guilt may surface due to expressing these negative feelings.
  

Again, these feelings are natural and should be honored to resolve the grief.

Acceptance

• Time allows the individual an opportunity to resolve the range of feelings that surface.
• The grieving process supports the individual. That is, healing occurs when the loss becomes integrated into the individual’s set of life experiences.
• Individuals may return to some of the earlier feelings throughout one’s lifetime.
• There is no time limit to the grieving process. Each individual should define one’s own healing process.

Recommended reading: On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross & David Kessler