04/06/2024
Feeling grief takes a toll.
Refusing to feel grief takes an even bigger, more insidious, toll.
I met with a grieving father and husband in 2017.
His wife and son died, together, in a car accident.
He was destroyed. Of course he was. Of course life would never be the same. Of course his former self died. Of course he questioned whether or not he could go on without them. Of course he longed for his family. Of course he questioned his identity. Of course he felt despair. Of course.
But, because he was listening to messages of this culture about it being "time to move on now" and to "trust God's plan" - platitudes in stark contradiction to the truth he felt in the moment, he began to drink. Heavily. And when the drinking no longer satiated the hungry ghost inside him, he turned to more and more self-and-other harming behaviors that expressed his inner truth: he was destroyed and rather than finding solace in the compassion of others, he was met with stubborn silence and loneliness.
The destruction and loneliness he felt inside was brought forth in many ways that hurt him and others, adding tragedy to tragedy.
He came to me in a desperate moment of clarity. When I normalized his emotions - not behaviors, but emotions driving the behaviors - he learned how to fully inhabit his own grief, he connected with like others, and he stopped the self destructive pattern. Today he is still feeling grief, but it’s honest grief, not diluted by alcohol or drugs or other means of self destruction. And of course it still hurts, excruciatingly. But he has supportive others who care for him and his grief and he no longer feels compelled to destroy himself even more than he’s already been destroyed.
Today he knows... that yes, indeed, the cost of feeling grief is high.
And, also, the cost of not feeling grief is even higher.
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Become a certified Compassionate Bereavement Care provider at our next training in Sedona, Arizona. 30 CEUs available for providers:
Certificate.MISSFoundation.org
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