Grief and Loss
HOW
TO GRIEVE AND GET DONE
(As a bonus, download
my Slide Presentation about Grieving free for our Visitors
BELOW.)
Change is loss. At the very least, it is
a loss of the comfort of familiarity. It requires more or less orientation
to that which occurs from moment to moment. Ones conscious living is an unending
process of orientation to the environment. If orientation happens more than
once, it is re-orientation. Re-orientation to change is technically the same
as grieving. And to re-orientate properly so as to cope properly is to grieve
and get done.
The real work of warfare is done in the heat of battle. The real work of
grieving is done in the moment of horror when you take ownership of what
went wrong. In this way, the process of grieving can be compared to warfare.
The Japanese say: ‘War purifies.’ If war purifies through destruction,
grieving purifies through teaching. It brings us into direct contact with
the worst of realities in our environment. It depends on the experience of
the individual person how big a load of misfortune he or she can grieve through
and get done with. The things that go wrong are your best teachers as much
as they are you greatest enemies. If misfortune is the teacher, life itself
is the classroom.
This moment of horror, when one takes ownership of a loss, occurs with absolute
regularity as soon as one has done all possible bargaining (negotiation).
It is a moment of distress, which justifies the comparison to the heat of
battle. It is also where the more experienced can push the process through
to closure, which ends in re-identification of oneself in terms of the specific
loss. The person who has re-identified in terms of a specific loss has mastered
that loss on emotional level. The one who fails moves backwards into the
stage of bargaining, and even worse, into the dull state of denial.
Denial, bargaining, and closure are the three stages of the grieving process
that have to be dealt with. Denial may be imperceptibly short. The ability
to see, hear, feel, smell and taste makes realization inevitable, and realization
is the end of denial. Denial ends in realization, bargaining in owning up,
and closure in re-identification of oneself.
Denial is the neutral moment which must inevitably fill the switch of ones
orientation the different things that happen from moment to moment. It may
be as short as half a second. There isn’t much more time than that if
the school bully has just given you a clout across your ears. But denial
may last for years for the mother who doesn’t want to realize that her
son has died in a motor cycle accident. She may still be waiting for him
to come home and pick up his dirty clothes in his bedroom. Of course, this
is abnormal denial, and not healthy. In both these examples, it is clear
that denial is a state of respite.
Denial is the moment in which one says:’ Nothing has gone wrong’.
Wrong. But the person in denial also says:’ There is nothing to feel’.
Wrong again, but this is why denial is characterized by a misplaced dullness.
To inexperienced eyes this person may appear to have completed the stage
of closure. But this individual, in contrast, has adapted to all the emotional
feelings attached to the loss. This person is fully aware of the pain suffered,
but knows that he or she is the survivor. The clinician diagnoses denial
by its dullness. One who prefers ‘not going there’ is most probably
protecting denial’s comfort area of dullness, unrealistic as it may
be..
To end denial by realizing that a loss has occurred is painful, but it is
nothing compared to the horror moment of taking ownership that marks the
end of bargaining.
Between the two moments of realizing and taking ownership, bargaining takes
place, and bargaining is accompanied by rapidly escalating anxiety. In the
process of bargaining, the individual gropes at any possible argument that
could shield against taking ownership. ‘It is not final!’- but
it is; ‘It could still change!’- but it doesn’t; ‘Someone
is going to come and help!’- but there is nobody around; ‘I don’t
care!’- but I do. Further examples of bargaining arguments are as multiple
as that particular loss has different parts to it
The process of bargaining allows for the possibility that the new problem
could still be solved. If in bargaining, one should back-track the path along
which one came when you lost a hard earned hundred dollar bill and find it,
bargaining is successful and makes an end to the entire grieving process.
If the loss is not recovered, one inevitably arrives at the horror moment
of owning up.
Bargaining is characterized by its movement between the individual’s
groping at one argument after the other, hoping to find it to be valid, and
being disappointed. If we see this movement between hope and despair as taking
place in a side- to- side direction there is also the relentless forward
thrust of the movement from the one useless argument to the next. It is easy
to understand how anxiety will escalate as the one false protective hedge
after the other falls. The dullness of denial is transformed step by step
to the horror of having to take ownership. The clinician diagnoses bargaining
by its movement between hope and despair, its movement from invalid argument
to invalid argument, and its escalating anxiety.
But what does bargaining really do? It does two things:
Firstly, bargaining starts the process or taking the loss apart. It takes
the one aspect of the loss after the other, and examines it for a possible
solution. If the loss is final, the bargaining step will find no solution.
The lost hundred dollar bill is a good example. If it is not found, there
is no solution and bargaining ends in the horror moment of having to take
ownership of the loss instead of the hundred dollar bill.
Secondly, bargaining creates an argument by extending the individual’s
framework of reason to include the new loss. It does so by scraping together
each aspect of the loss, lodging a critical scrutiny on one aspect after
the other. In doing so, it places an entire field of reason between the negative
dullness of denial and the moment of positive horror, that of taking ownership.
By these means real life starts its teaching the moment the individual starts
bargaining with the reality of a specific loss. On the other hand, trying
to bargain more than one loss at a time is bound to lead to confusion. The
reason for this will become clear as soon as you understand the outcome of
closure, which is the moment of re-identification of oneself.
Why is the moment of owning up so full of energy? Just think what you are
doing if you take ownership: You say: “This is my loss, and....that
is how I feel about it”. On the one side, you do your clear thinking,
and on the other side you recognize the way you feel. We all think and we
all feel, but is seems to be so safe and so efficient to solve all problems
just by clear thinking. It is so comfortable to leave the feelings aside.
And it is so wrong. The moment you bring your clear thinking half and your
feeling half together, you become your whole self. And to grieve and get
done is to recognize your whole self as the survivor.
It is so simple: You don’t recognize half an apple as a whole
apple.
If the loss is compared to an invasive enemy attack, denial, with its false,
dull comfort, is obviously unrealistic. One is forced into bargaining as
one is forced into battle. The attacking soldiers try to shatter the defenders.
The loss shatters the individual. The defending soldiers, on their turn,
try to divide and conquer. The moment of owning up cuts the loss up into
its constituent parts. In the warfare of the past it was soldier against
soldier at any given moment. The real work of grieving is done by measuring
the shattered bits of the victim against the dissected bits of the loss.
If the defending army survived with some of the attackers dead and some captured,
the individual ends up by recognizing his or her survival. The loss has become
part of the surviving person, as the enemy soldiers are either slain or taken
captive.
In the horror moment of taking ownership ones mode of consciousness changes
radically from the usual. Under normal circumstances one might walk down
the mall on a Saturday morning and be conscious of oneself and all of ones
surroundings. One is aware of self and the mall, self and the humdrum of
people around you, self and time available, self and what you set out to
buy. That is, awareness of self and surroundings is a continuous interplay
between awareness of self and non- self. The person who is not in the horror
moment of taking ownership is enjoying this widespread, uncommitted awareness
of everything in the environment.
In contrast, the moment of taking ownership is characterized by an awareness
which is totally committed. If the school bully gives you a clout over the
ears he forces you into that moment. Immediately you become conscious of
yourself and the bully and of nothing else. The comfortable, widespread awareness
of your whole environment suddenly changes into a painfully intense awareness
of only the self and the loss, that is, the bully. It is a moment of distress
where all the energy of ones mental processes is concentrated on oneself
and ones immediate misfortune.
This is exactly where the work of grieving is done. It is a suitable figure
of speech to say that the victim is ‘shattered’, but a blow across
the ears also shatters literally. The bully, for instance, has separated
you from your glasses, your comfort, your dignity and your ego, to mention
just a few things.
If the school bully is a foot taller than you and a boxing champion to boot,
it may be wise to start peace talks. Then, in the end, you will identify
as the prudent guy who avoided hospitalization and who could go on with his
more important school activities. But should you by any chance be able to
teach the wimp of a bully his manners by giving him a bloody nose and a black
eye, you may identify as the guy who takes no nonsense and again carry on
with your normal activities.
Shattered as you may have been, your intense awareness of yourself and the
bully, to the exclusion of anything else, did the crucial work. It enabled
you to size up the entire situation. As the perpetrator parted you from your
glasses and your dignity, your intense attention to him told you about his
size and yours, his strength and yours, his intelligence as compared to yours,
and many other attributes. You could react accordingly. Your intense,
concentrated awareness of self and loss enabled you to intensely scrutinize
and analyze the characteristics of your attacker in return to his shattering
you. The enemy tried to shatter, and you divided and conquered.
Finally, you re-identify by recognizing yourself as the survivor. You may
have proven yourself to be wise if you realized that the bully was too big
and to strong to hit back. Else, you may have proven yourself to be the tough
guy. Either way you re-identified. But what happened to the loss? This specific
loss, as well as the solution you worked out for it, has become part of you.
You have assembled your own shattered pieces and the pieces into which you
had dissected the loss, and created a new self- concept. In that new
understanding of yourself you also recognized yourself as the survivor. This
is what closure is.
To understand how the shattered self is reassembled by matching its own pieces
to the subdivided characteristics of the loss is to understand why only one
loss can be dealt with at a time. The whole loss has to be understood in
terms of all its parts. But at the same time the victim has to become aware
of his or her own subdivisions. It is logical that the re- assembly of the
shattered self can progress only by incorporating the characteristics of
the specific loss. Those belonging to a second loss would make no sense and
lead to confusion.
On the other hand, a second loss could be compared to a second invading army,
or a second school bully. It has to be dealt with on its own. Denial, bargaining
and closure will be there, and these steps will have to do exclusively with
the characteristics of the second loss. No less will closure be re-identification
in terms of the second loss. The individual will differ from the one who
has come to terms with the first loss. The difference will be this, that
the second loss has now also become part of the victim, and how to solve
it. The word ‘victim’ is becoming less and less suitable if we
see every moment of re-identification as a victory.
And so on. From the third to the millionth loss the same consideration holds
sway.
We have just described a process of emotional growth. By incorporating loss
after loss, each with its solution, into ones personal armamentarium of coping
strategies, one becomes less of a victim every time. It is a process of
empowerment and enrichment. But it cannot be done in half measures. Each
individual loss has to be clearly defined, cut to pieces, analyzed and
incorporated. The mother who is waiting for her deceased son to pick up his
dirty clothes from the floor has definitely not learnt to grieve and get
done. In contrast, the doctor who handles an emergency department and leaves
for home with some satisfaction, has done most of it.
The paragraphs above take account of loss in its most simple form. It is
easy to apply the model as created to an individual loss which has been
finalized. It seems to fail of the loss carries on. But then the loss has
to be re-defined in terms of its perpetuating itself, and that as such becomes
the defined loss. The model works on the re-identified loss. The victim still
becomes the survivor.
But that may not be enough. Just being the survivor in the face of ongoing
harm is not good enough in anybody’s book. Unfortunately, life is full
of examples where adversity takes place beyond the individual’s ability
to correct it. The only way to re-identify under such circumstances is to
create a balance. In this way, losing the hard earned hundred dollar bill
may lead to a regular savings program. Similarly, the traumatized child may
grow up to be the protective parent.
To grieve and get done does not change reality. It changes me and you to
by turning reality into the teachers of life. It adds to my and your complete
being by uniting the emotional half with the clear thinking half. It does
so continuously, change by change and loss by loss. If any one person goes
through a few million changes in a lifetime, the adult should be a few million
times more able to survive change than the infant.
Lastly, the paragraphs above are based on a belief that grieving should be
an active process. The moment of horror, at the end of bargaining, is the
strategic moment when scrutiny and analysis could be intensified by wilful
consideration of all the constituent parts of the current loss. Comparison
to the parts of the shattered self takes place under the high energy thrust
of the moment. The individual who will not leave this horror moment unless
a solution is found, finds him or herself as being able to grieve through
adversities of ever increasing size.
In this way, many a great warrior has turned vanquished soldiers into allies.
Slide Presentation
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