One of the most rewarding issues to work with is grief. Even though the month of May is associated with sunny, warm days, and even though I usually try to connect characteristics of the month with topics for this newsletter, this month’s focus is on grief.

A woman came to me whose husband of 25 years had died suddenly 8 months ago. They were soul mates in every sense of the word, from the way she described their relationship. A man I saw told me that his 4-month-old son had died after he and his wife decided to “pull the plug” on the boy’s life-support. A 35-year-old woman came to see me because her twin sister, who had been born with a health condition, had died 5 years ago, and she was grieving over that, along with feeling “survivor’s guilt” that it was her twin and not her who died.

These are all very different situations, yet they all share the same sense of loss. Put differently, they all believe there has been a deep loss in their lives because of the death of the loved one.

Because the work I do is in reorganizing how the mind responds to events in life, grief is no different than anything else. When one sees death as a loss, as an end, then it makes sense that people grieve. But in doing so, they are attempting to bring back what appears to be gone. Of course, one may know logically and consciously that it is impossible to bring into existence something that no longer exists, but grief is an attempt to do that (“if only I hadn’t stopped life support, if only the car hadn’t hit her, if only, if only, if only…).

And that’s one way of looking at it. Our society focuses a lot on viewing death as something that requires mourning, sadness and grief. Crying and feeling pain is considered normal and expected, even healthy. Think about that: crying and feeling grief and sadness is considered healthy! The general belief is that after a period of six months or so, such sadness should be processed integrated in such a way that it is no longer disturbing. Somehow, that doesn’t really make sense, does it?

When the death of a loved one is seen not as a loss, but rather as a change, then grief and sadness no longer make any sense. Peace and comfort does make sense, however. In an email from a client a month after we met to transform her grief, she wrote “I do feel better. My grief is much better. I do not cry everyday like I did before we met. I feel literally lighter and I can easily relax and feel my muscles tingling/twitching like they did in our session. Thank you so much.”

What a wonderful gift, to feel peace and lightness after such pain and suffering. If you know of anyone who could benefit as this client did, I would be more than happy to help explain more about this! Have a great May!

 

 

Life, Death and Grieving. – From “After Loss”, afterloss.yolasite.com that may help all those that have recently lost a loved one and hoping to help those facing a bereavement to understand the actions and feelings during the grieving period. Please visit the non-commercial website and forward this to anyone that you think it may help. Thanks.

 

Sonoma teen's family grieving after death in Peru

Filed under: death and grieving

SEBASTOPOL – The mother of a Northern California teen is grieving after her son's body was found in Peru, where police say a shaman confessed to burying the 18-year-old after he ate an hallucinogenic plant. Kyle Nolan went on a spiritual retreat in the …
Read more on San Jose Mercury News

 

Grieving dad uses newspaper website to reveal son's death

Filed under: death and grieving

Grieving dad uses newspaper website to reveal son's death. by Paul Linford, last updated on September 18, 2012. 3 Comments. A grieving dad whose son was killed in a suspected hit-and-run accident at the weekend used a newspaper website to reveal his …
Read more on HoldTheFrontPage.co.uk