2. Grief Work – The Hidden Secret of The True Man

3. Grief, when dealt with in a knightly fashion, causes an individual to be focused on life in more positive ways. A positive outlook will ensure that a man’s beliefs will not be held hostage by his mood. It will also help him expect a high level of functioning from himself, and allow him more freedom to give others the benefit of the doubt, when needed.

4. Grief work requires that you focus on the event and do the following:
Give yourself quiet time to reflect on what it felt like.
As you remember the feelings, do not try to re-experience the event. Keep yourself grounded in the present.

5. Grief work requires that you focus on the event and do the following:
Approach your grief work in a balanced way by remembering the positive things that were occurring in your life during that time.
Share what you are experiencing with several people with whom you have supportive relationships.

6. Grief work requires that you focus on the event and do the following:
Allow yourself to think differently as you redefine the grief:
Appreciate that you have survived it.
Consider what you have learned from it.
Discover at least three strengths that you have demonstrated by getting through the grief.
Consider how the events appear from another person’s point of view.

7. Allow yourself to think differently as you redefine the grief:
Recognize that some experiences can never be fully explained or justified.
Write a letter of forgiveness to the individuals involved.
Read this letter to various friends, as a way to release the feelings that are related to your grief.
Seek counseling if you need it.
Actively establish beliefs which lead to feeling like you “won,” in areas where you once felt like you “lost.”

8. Allow yourself to think differently as you redefine the grief:
Forgive yourself for any responsibility that you had for the experience.
Ask God to help you grieve all the way through your hurt.

9. “So the king went out and took his seat at the town gate, and as the news spread throughout the town that he was there, everyone went to him.”
Absalom and David
2 Samuel 19:8

10. Consider how the grief areas of your chain mail affect your relationships.
Energy that is available for positive relational pursuits is limited by the grief.
We unknowingly involve ourselves in relationships which require restoration. These relationships often remind us of past relationships because of the similarity in the difficulties we experience in them.
Part of what they remind us of is inside of us.
We naturally seek what is familiar.
Others choose us because of the ways that we fit their chain mail relationship attributes.

11. Consider how the grief areas of your chain mail affect your relationships.
We tend to expect our intimate partner to make up for what was lost as a result of the ways that others have treated us.
Negative chain mail experiences interact with a person’s use of their armor, creating relational defensiveness.
Unresolved grief areas of chain mail act as hurdles which we must overcome in order to achieve intimacy.

12. “Team player: One who unites others toward a shared destiny through sharing information and ideas, empowering others and developing trust.”
-Dennis Kinlaw

13. Consider how the grief areas of your chain mail affect your relationships.
We distort who the person really is to fit our image of who we want them to be.
The grief process requires the use of a good support system to provide new and positive experiences.
We should not take responsibility for fixing the past negative experiences of others.
We can support the grief process of others by listening.

14. Consider how the grief areas of your chain mail affect your relationships.
We want others to do the impossible and mend our old wounds.
Others can’t do your grief work for you. You must do it for yourself.
Forgiveness is the key to letting go of old pain.
You can pursue the forgiveness of those whom you have hurt through an accurate, humble, and honest apology.

15. Consider how the grief areas of your chain mail affect your relationships.
You can support the grief process of others by:
Hearing their anger.
Letting them know their value.
Asking for forgiveness.
Endeavoring not to hurt them again.
Waiting.