How to Get Through Grief
Have you ever lost somebody close to you to death? We go through a sorrow process that was finest described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in On Death and Dying. In it, she speaks about the 5 phases that people go through denial and isolation; anger; bargaining; anxiety, and lastly acceptance. The dying and those who love them go through these phases although rarely at the same time and these phases are not predictable.
You might think you are in the anger phase, then leap to anxiety, and then back to denial once again. There is no rhyme or reason — only what feels right for each person at the time. No one can anticipate how long a stage will last. If you are grieving and some well-meaning individual suggests that you should not be feeling what you are feeling, kindly thank them for their concern; however know that you are precisely where you require to be.
Nevertheless, with grief, often you will become aware of something not feeling right. You might think, I must be over this by now or I don’t like sensation this way. When you, yourself, recognize that it is time to move beyond where you are at, then trust that sensation also.
I wish to discuss grief from a Choice Theory perspective. This will most likely take numerous posts to make sense of it all. I need to start with the Option Theory expression that all behavior is purposeful given that grief is truly the simple habit in choice theory terms. Option theory informs us that whatever we do at any point in time is our best effort to get something we want — some picture we have in our Quality World that will satisfy several of our needs in some way. Sorrow is no exception.
When you comprehend that all behavior is purposeful and that sorrow is a person’s best attempt to get something they want, then it becomes simpler to understand what to do about it. What could we possibly be trying to get by grieving? Many people would state that there isn’t a choice. When someone we enjoy passes away, we have to grieve. I state it is natural that we will miss the person’s existence in our life but it isn’t inevitable that we have to grieve, not in the way the majority of people think about grieving.
The first thing I think that we are trying to get over with our grief is the person who passed away. When we grieve, it is our best effort to keep that individual alive, at least in our perceived world. We understand they no longer exist in the real world as we understand it. However, if we continue to think about them, pine for them, grieve their presence, then it keeps the idea of that person active in our understanding and it feels better to us than the total void or absence of the other person.
Another possible benefit of grief is that it reveals to others just how much we took care of and liked the individual who died. I’m not suggesting that people are being manipulative in their grief. I am saying that there is a side benefit to grief in that it reveals to others just how much we cared. It likewise says, See what a great ___________ I was. Fill out the blank with spouse, partner, mother, father, siblings, and so on.
Sorrow is also important in getting us the assistance we need from others during our time of bereavement. People do things for us that we would typically be anticipated to do ourselves. Again, please don’t believe that I am suggesting that a grieving individual wakes up and chooses to grieve so somebody will stop by your home with a meal. None of this is conscious but I’m simply mentioning the potential benefits of sorrow.
When we become completely mindful and aware of what our grief does and doesn’t provide for us, then comes the hard part. We are required to make some decisions about how we wish to live.
There are always a minimum of three alternatives in every circumstance and they can be framed up in regards to — leave it, alter it, or accept it. With death, you may wonder how somebody is going to leave it. Well, some possible methods would be a significant rejection of the loss, suicide, drugs and/or alcoholic abuse, or sinking deep into mental illness, among others.
When we get caught up in altering things, we might continue in our grief as our best attempt to get the person back. That might look like constant journeys to the cemetery, regular discussions with the departed, declining to believe he or she is really gone, constantly speaking about the one who’s gone. There are many things we can do to attempt to change the reality of the loss.
If and when we choose to accept it, we can experience some measure of peace and rejoin the living. A healthy step in this procedure is discovering a method to in some way preserve that person’s presence in our lives. Now, this is a really specific thing and you need to be extremely mindful not to judge the options of the bereaved.
Most people have seen the Meet the Parents film. In it, Robert De Niro’s character kept the ashes of his mother in an urn on his mantle. Many individuals do this with the cremated remains of their loved ones. Others place some ashes in a locket and wear it around their neck. Some will set up scholarships or memorials. When my husband passed away, his household and I developed a wrestling scholarship fund for a local high school wrestler. When my friend lost her 8-year-old kid, she had the Houston zoo name the frog display after him!
There are all kinds of creative methods to maintain the person’s presence. There is no wrong way. Whatever brings comfort to the bereaved needs to be supported by those around them. Bear in mind that even if a person is picking something that may be distasteful or wrong to you, don’t make it wrong for that person.
When acceptance takes place, then the grieving person can start to reassimilate back into their lives and the lives of those around them however it will not occur overnight. We require perseverance and caring understanding for those coming back from grief.
Another possible choice is the individual who does not appear to grieve at all. There may be numerous descriptions for this behavior. The person might be really personal and won’t do his/her mourning where others can see. Another possibility is that the person is trying to be strong for everybody else. I understand I desired my kids to KNOW that I was going to be OKAY. I didn’t desire them to think that they needed to look after me. To some, it appeared that I wasn’t grieving enough.
If you are grieving, or you are associated with the life of someone who is mourning, please do not evaluate yourself or them. Comprehend that all habits are purposeful and the person is getting something out of what they are doing. When they end up being conscious that there is a choice, then they can make a conscious decision about which of the 3 choices they want to make. Once they know the direction they wish to enter, they need to flesh out the information of their plan.
