Attitudes about Grieving

Grief defined in the dictionary as “an affliction of deep, acute sorrow; sadness and distress.” natural response to loss

Grieving normal, healthy, healing activity an experience we all encounter as part of the human condition something that humans MUST DO in order to survive losses it is hard - learn how to “grieve well”

Cultural Influences/Messages sad feelings are inappropriate, awkward, and often selfish people should behave in a way that makes everyone else around them feel comfortable it’s unpleasant to see someone in emotional pain - emotional pain, unlike physical pain, is not acceptable in American culture grief is taboo

Pain & the Process pain won’t go away just because we deny it exists - the more pain is denied, the harder it becomes to identify, deal with, and grow from pain is an essential part of any growth process in our fast-paced world we have come to expect fast results - we have become impatient with the process the only way to get through something is to get THROUGH it - all the way through it, and it has to take as long as it takes NO SHORTCUTS!

Pain & the Process it is easy to avoid suffering because we look for ways to “grow” because of it can’t skip the healing process - trying to do that will make you feel worse cheating yourself of the necessary time to feel bad is cheating yourself of the only process that could really heal you

Pain & the Process pain that is met head-on is always understood fully important emphasis is on truly facing the total reality of the situation - be aware and accept the outer circumstances and one’s full inner responses to it

Good Friday only good in retrospect - at the time it happened it was bad pretending that real distress and real despair never happened is rejecting the possibility for redemption if it had been “good,” Easter would not mean as much

Comfort & Hope the needed strength to experience grief and go through it is already within ourselves others who care about us can help us find access to it, so we can allow ourselves to take the time we need to go all the way through our own grief process

Comfort & Hope “comfort” - comes from the Latin words meaning “with strength” to be comforted is to be given the strength to meet a situation, to face it fully

Comfort & Hope hope doesn’t erase the pain pain becomes bearable when we have hope and we are able to trust that it won’t last forever whatever pain or loss we experience, they are a part of what makes us unique hope allows us to learn to bear them with dignity as signs of what life has taught us

5 Stages of Grief: Kubler-Ross Model 5 stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance assists in learning how to live with loss tools that help identify what your feeling NOT a complete list of all possible emotions can occur in any order - do not enter and leave each individual stage in a linear fashion. We may feel one, then another and back again to the first one not everyone feels all 5 stages all stages are responses to feelings

DABDA

Denial first of the 5 stages where individuals believe that situation is somehow mistaken helps us survive the loss helps us cope and pace our feelings of grief it’s nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle as you accept reality and start to ask questions, you are unknowingly beginning the healing process all the feelings you were denying begins to surface in other stages

Anger necessary stage of the healing process when the person can no longer deny the situation, the natural response is anger “Why me?” “It’s not fair!” “Who is to blame?” “How could this happen to me?” “Why could this happen?” “Where is God?” underneath anger is pain it is natural to feel deserted or abandoned being angry gives you something to hold onto and feeling anger feels better than feeling nothing is an indication of the intensity of your love

Bargaining involves a hope that you can avoid grief by negotiating, bargaining, or compromising become lost in a maze of “If only…” or “What if…” or I’ll do anything…” Guilt is a common feeling in this stage - causes us to find fault in ourselves and what we “think” we could have done differently may even bargain with the pain - feel as if you will do anything not to feel the pain of the loss

Depression in this stage, grief enters our life on a deeper level feels as if this stage will last forever depression is not a sign of mental illness, but an appropriate response to loss common responses: withdraw from life, be left in a fog of intense sadness, wondering if there is any point in going on alone? Why go on at all? Depression after a loss is too often seen as unnatural: a state to be fixed, something to snap out of. If grief is a process of healing, then depression is one of the many necessary steps along the way.

Acceptance often confused with the notion of being “OK” - some people may never feel “OK” about certain losses this stage is about accepting the reality of the situation - this is how it is now we learn to live with a new norm and readjust Finding acceptance may be just having more good days than bad ones Instead of denying our feelings, we listen to our needs; we move, we change, we grow, we evolve. We begin to live again, but we cannot do so until we have given grief its time.