Grief and Loss
When we think of grief generally we imagine the loss of a loved one. While this can be an intensely felt grief, feelings of grief can arise from many other experiences too – divorce, illness, letting go of a dream, and so on.
In our humanness, we try to organize feelings of grief. We look for ways to make it manageable and orderly, perhaps so we have a benchmark against which we can compare our progress and feel we’re getting somewhere. Theories of grief propose five stages including denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, though people tend not to process these stages in order. We may begin with denial, followed by bargaining, then denial, then depression, then anger, then bargaining, etc. Grief can feel less like climbing a hill and more like surviving a tornado of emotions.
Denial protects us enough that we cope with loss piece by piece rather than all at once. That can make grief seem endless at first, but there is reason for hope – slowly, day by day, month by month, grief can give way to a different life – not always because we wanted a different life, but because we continue to live and find ourselves forced to accept the loss. Questions about spiritual beliefs and life’s meaning can arise – while painful, working through these questions can help inform our future.
At first, thoughts of our loss may consume our days and nights, and we may imagine never being able to think about anything else ever again. Eventually though a time may come when we notice our attention was focused somewhere else for a couple minutes; gradually that couple minutes turns to 5 minutes and starts happening a few times a day. Slowly we can find ways to carry on with remembrance and meaning, choosing what life looks like for ourselves going forward.
The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Counselling for grief allows individuals to share their story of loss while processing the emotions associated with it. There aren’t a lot of spaces in our culture where people who are grieving feel free to drop their mask and reveal their true sorrow – and getting through grief may require such sorrow to be felt and expressed. Counselling for grief can also help identify areas where thoughts or perceptions may be prolonging the grief process. I am not proposing that the processing of grief can be hastened, but rather than it need not be more prolonged than necessary. For example, some people may struggle with an inability to forgive themselves due to regrets or feelings of guilt – counselling can help draw these types of hindrances out so they can be wrestled with and settled.
Working through grief isn’t so much a matter of starting a new chapter in life – it can be like starting a new book when you were in love with the story you had going. Shifting from that former book into a new book is what going through grief is all about. Not all the old characters and circumstances get to be in the new book, but their influence survives and shapes the next story in ways the author chooses.
