Photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash
It’s a normal morning. You wake up and get a cup of coffee and sit down to read. Then it hits. You’re not even sure what happened but suddenly you’re sitting there with tears streaming down your face. “I thought I was over this… , ” you think. Think again.
Grief is defined as keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow. At some point in time all of us have grieved or will grieve. Loss is part of life. No matter how much we wish we could; we can’t stop it from happening. It just does. Loss can be by death, break-up, or even disappointment and change. Grieving is essentially the process of coming to acceptance of a new normal. No matter what the loss, we are never really the same. Our experiences – the joys, accomplishments, losses and disappointments – all of them, shape who we are.
It almost sounds simple; but it is anything but…
Grief is messy. It is painful. It’s exhausting. And It is different for every unique individual.
It is not a once and done kind of thing. Nor does it happen on a schedule.
It is widely accepted that there are five stages of grief: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. And yes, it would be nice if these would happen sort of in checklist form so we would know what to expect and when. Unfortunately, instead of occurring in a linear path, the path is more treacherous than that – foggy, winding, rocky and steep…an even circular at times. It often feels more like a tangled mess than a straight line. And yet, the only way to the other side is through that tangled mess. If we try to go around the mess instead of through… or if we avoid the mess all together….we get stuck.
So how do we go through it instead of around?
We feel.
If you feel numb for awhile… that’s ok. If you find yourself feeling irritable or down right angry… that’s ok too. (Now you might not want to take it out on anyone or anything, but it’s ok to feel it.) If you feel sad…allow yourself to feel sad. C.S. Lewis once said that no one ever told him that grief felt so much like fear. Is it possible that we are so afraid of how big all these feelings are…that we feel like they won’t ever end… or that they will swallow us up?
What if we don’t have to be afraid of them? What if we accepted the fact that the more profoundly we feel a loss, the more profoundly we loved or hoped? And that this says something wonderful about who we are. If we can remove the layer of fear, feelings felt during grief tend to come and go like the tide…sometimes the surf is stronger than other times….but the tide always recedes…
If you are grieving a loss this season, be patient and gentle with yourself. It’s not a race. There is no time limit. Whatever you’re feeling….it’s ok….and it will get better. The tide always recedes…
Take care of you…
