The Conflicting Emotions Of Grief

As part of my role as a Bereavement Counselor, I have a list of people that I regularly keep in contact with. We start out with weekly phone calls and gradually taper off. I am not there to tell people how to grieve. These weekly phone calls are precious times to check in with people grieving the loss of a loved one. And I often start each weekly conversation in a similar fashion: I’ll ask about how you’re eating and sleeping, how’s your support system, and; where you’re at emotionally this week.

Grief is an emotional process. It is that love for someone special with nowhere left to go. Its object has been removed. The Muse is gone. Grief and love are interconnected and grief is not a problem to be solved, but a process to go through.

However, our culture does not equip us to really face and deal with our emotions. Somewhere along the way, many of us have picked up the idea that openly displaying our emotions is somehow a sign of weakness. I’ve got to be strong for others usually means shutting down our emotions, or only allowing them the freedom flow when we’re alone. Vulnerability is seen as weakness, but if you believe that crap, I suggest you just go read some Brené Brown.

And it’s not just that we’re taught to bottle up our emotions (which are energy, by the way), it’s that we are often not well equipped to even identify, much less respond to our emotions. That’s why I regularly ask people where they’re at emotionally this week. I encourage them to use feeling words and actually identify the emotions running through them.

One surprising realization for many people is that they are actually feeling conflicting emotions at the same time. They are angry and relieved. They are sad but hopeful. They are grieving but joyful. All at the same time. We contain multitudes. But we’re not taught how to navigate such deep waters.

Grief is the natural reaction to any significant loss or change.

For man people, grief is evidence of love; it is that love for someone special with nowhere left to go.

Grief is not a problem to be solved but a process to go through.

Grief is an emotional process.

And grief contains conflicting emotions at the same time.

Such turbulent waters require growing in self-awareness and practicing grace. We are often our own worst critics and that’s where things like timelines enter the grieving process for many. Why am I not further along? So we compare ourselves to others or judge or progress instead of letting the conflicting emotions inside of us unweave themselves from one another. Grief requires emotional situational awareness and the willingness to let go of understanding and let our emotions play themselves out. This is a painful process but we must accept that we can have conflicting emotions running through us at the same time.

Understanding that grief can contain conflicting emotions at the same time can also help us understand why it is that grief is both universal but unique. No one goes through grief in the same way because no one has the same story; no one has the same gumbo of emotional history.

So let’s give ourselves and one another some grace along the way.

Sitting With The Brokenness (More About Grief, Kintsugi and The Art of Precious Scars)

In 2019, I began exploring the idea of using Japanese art of Kintsugi as a metaphor for the grieving process.

At that time, I was serving as a Hospice Chaplain/Bereavement Coordinator/Volunteer Coordinator at a small hospice. Part of my job was offering ongoing grief support for the Bereaved. Much of the curriculum that I came across was either trademarked, overly religious for the groups I was leading, or just full of empty platitudes. So I started creating some conversation-starters for support groups on my own.

Somewhere during this time, I learned about the Japanese art of Kintsugi, sometimes known as “the art of precious scars.” If you’re not familiar with Kintsugi, you can read my original post or Google Kintsugi yourself.

Somewhere during this time I also began working through the idea that we must explore what it means to carry our losses forward with us in life in emotionally healthy ways. Kintsugi is a perfect metaphor for this. The mended pieces are beautiful because of their journey through brokenness.

Since that time, I have transitioned to serving as a full-time Bereavement Counselor for a large hospice. Day after day I talk to people trying to work through the grieving process. I have talked to hundreds, if not thousands of people fumbling their way through the loss of a loved one.

And I keep coming back to the idea of Kintsugi being a perfect metaphor for what it might look like to carry our loss forward with us in emotionally healthy ways. I am reminded of a quote by Anne Roiphe: “Grief comes in two parts: the first is the loss, and the second is the re-making of life.”

I can’t remember where I came across a description of the process a Kintsugi master might go through when someone would bring a broken piece to them. They would spread the broken pieces out on a blanket and sit in front of them. They would just sit with the brokenness.

This feels unnatural. We want to hide our brokenness. We want to fix it. But grief is not a problem to be fixed. It is a process to go through. If grief is love for someone with nowhere left to go, then it is not a problem to be fixed. It’s natural to mourn and cry out that this isn’t the way things are supposed to be; to admit that things feel broken.

Grief comes in two parts: the loss and the re-making of life.

And when those Kintsugi masters would sit with the broken pieces, they were not just sitting with the brokenness, they would pick up the pieces, and feel them; trace the edges, and they would begin to envision what the piece might look like after it’s mended. How its brokenness would become part of its story in beautiful ways.

As we acknowledge our loss and brokenness, we must learn to not dwell on the past (the loss); we acknowledge it and its pain, but we set our sights towards an emotionally healthy future (the re-making of life.). This will look different for everyone but I believe that kintsugi can help us understand what it might look like to carry our loss forward with us in emotionally healthy ways.

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• Read the preface piece to this post: Grief, Kintsugi and The Art of Precious Scars

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Why I Don't Use The "Stages of Grief" In Bereavement Counseling

I have been listlessly following the unfolding Ravi Zacharias predatory sexting controversy. I wish I was surprised by the deceptive, manipulative, and destructive side of yet another “Christian Celebrity” being laid bare for all to see.

But none of that mess is actually what I want to talk about today. Instead, while reading through this sordid saga (by the way, if you’re not following this story, it appears that renowned “Christian Apologist” Ravi Zacharias groomed a young woman for sexual predation via phone calls and texts), I found myself talking out loud to myself about one particular phrase. As the story unfolds, the woman upon Zacharias appears to have preyed involves her counselors. In the course of this narrative we find the following section:

“According to the Basels, in the month following the traumatic revelation of the affair, the Thompsons, especially Brad, offered Zacharias “premature forgiveness.” The Basels said both Brad and Lori Anne had not yet worked through the stages of grief and were stuck in a form of denial.”

“Brad and Lori Anne have not yet worked through the stages of grief and were stuck in a form of denial.”

I haven’t stopped thinking about this phrase since I first read the piece. It struck a deep chord that often comes up in my daily work as a Bereavement Counselor.

The Basels are the aforementioned counselors. I do not want to disparage anyone or question the work of other professionals and I hope that comes across. I am not criticizing their work or their approach and it certainly seems to have helped the people involved. But I did find myself responding out loud to that section: “Brad and Lori Anne have not yet worked through the stages of grief and were stuck in a form of denial.”

I hope I’ve built up the suspense enough that you want to know what I said to myself. I said: “That’s because the “stages of grief” weren’t meant for a situation like this. NO, they’re not in denial. They both admit what happened. They just don’t want to accept it. But that’s different from denial.”

As you might discern, this outburst was simply an internal dialogue given external voice. This is something I’ve thought a lot about. I have people ask me all the time about the stages of grief.

These questions are referencing the important and ground-breaking work of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. She spent hours and hours with dying people. Over the course of listening to these people, Dr. Kübler-Ross developed what have become known as the “5 Stages of Grief.” You’ve probably heard of them:

• Denial

• Anger

• Bargaining

• Depression

• Acceptance

Grievers reference these ideas all the time as if they are steps which we must complete in order to be “healed” from grief. One problem with this idea is that we do not heal from grief the same way we heal from other things. But another is that Dr. Kübler-Ross’ was not based upon nor intended for grievers. Instead, her work was based on her years spent with dying people. She developed these “stages of grief” (grief is the natural reaction to any significant loss or change and may include conflicting emotions) as a way to understand the process that many (NOT ALL) people went through after they had received a terminal diagnosis.

Her work was not based upon nor intended to help grievers; the bereaved; those experiencing significant loss or change. But, for many years, there was no evidence-based research on how to help grievers, so with an honest desire to help others, many people applied Kübler-Ross’, not to the one dying but the ones left behind grieving. And this approach has helped a great number of people. But that doesn’t mean that this is the best use of these principles or that there aren’t better ways to process grief.

I hope all that helps you better understand why I didn’t control my inner dialogue when I read those words: “Brad and Lori Anne have not yet worked through the stages of grief and were stuck in a form of denial.”

Of course I was not privileged to these private conversations, but I have had enough conversations with enough people in similar situations that I am willing to go on the record saying that I really doubt they were in denial. They knew what happened. That’s why they were in counseling in the first place. They just hated it. They didn’t want to accept it (which you have to do to move on in emotionally healthy ways), but none of this is what Kübler-Ross meant in her “denial” stage.

Kübler-Ross observed that many people who had received a terminal diagnosis actually wrested with believing this reality. Not just believing it; many people actively denied it. They pursued 3rd, 4rth, 5th opinions. They ranted about how doctors didn’t know anything and this Google article says that everyone is wrong. They rejected the truth in front of them. This is not the same thing as a broken couple grappling with the shards of infidelity. As I observed; they are in counseling (this particular couple) precisely because they are hurt by what happened. They don’t want it to be true, but this is not the same thing as actively denying that it happened.

As grief and bereavement work has continued, we have learned to appreciate and value Kübler-Ross’ work while also understanding that we have tried to apply it in ways never intended. This is our fault, not hers. We are all growing and learning and (hopefully) getting better. This means admitting when we’ve misunderstood or misapplied theories.

I know you’re not supposed to draw attention to a problem without also bringing a solution, but I didn’t really set out to explain what we might use instead of “The Five Stages of Grief” and that would make this post too long anyways (but if you’re really interested, may I highly recommend looking in to something like the Grief Recovery Method). This was more the type of post where I just had to say out loud the rest of the internal monologue and explain why I (and most Bereavement Counselors I know) no longer use these “Stages” to help grievers. Perhaps I’ll write about the other side of this conversation later, but in the meantime, I hope you at least understand my perspective.

Of STUGS And STERBS

Everyone is unique. And everyone grieves differently. If someone tells you that they know exactly what you’re going through, they don’t. If someone tells you that they can’t imagine what you’re going through, that might not be terribly helpful, but it’s at least true.

While it is true that no one processes loss (grief is the natural reaction to any significant loss or change) the same, in my role as a Hospice Bereavement Counselor, I do come across lots of people with similar experiences.

One of the familiar themes I come across is people who describe grief as feeling as though it comes and goes, almost like the waves of the ocean. Sometimes you might feel the wave coming before it hits you while others you feel blindsided as the grief floods your soul. And we don’t always know what triggers one of these unexpected onsets of grief and sadness. Sometimes it might be hearing a song on the radio, a particular place or smell. Other times it’s as if we’ve been unexpectedly hockey-checked right in to the boards.

It must be noted that these “waves” are not the same thing as grief in general and that not everyone will experience them. But I’ve talked to enough people to understand that enough people experience these waves that we need to talk about them. Believe it or not, there is a technical term for these unexpected onsets of intense grief. We call them Sudden Temporary Upsurges of Grief, or S.T.U.G.s for short.

Part of the grieving process is growing in self-awareness. We are wise to examine ourselves and how we process difficult emotions. What is helpful for us? Are there certain songs that were important to you and your loved one? Movies? Places? Foods? Understanding such “triggers” will not prevent STUGs, but they will help you prepare for when they come. And this is important because, it is these STUGs which can be so raw and painful that we often turn to S.T.E.R.B.s (yes, another acronym).

The Grief Recovery Institute defines STERBs as: “Short Term Energy Relieving Behaviors. They are activities you use to distract yourself from painful feelings that follow a major loss.” The first thing to understand is why they are called Short Term Energy Relieving Behaviors rather than “Emotion” relieving behaviors. The answer is because grief is emotional and emotions are energy. As John Lydon might say: “Anger is an Energy.” As we experience a wide range and intensity of emotions, we have physical effects. Some people will feel anxious, others tired, etc. We don’t know what to do with all that energy and quite frankly, we want to get rid of it/calm it/ignore it/whatever we can. So we turn to certain behaviors to try to cope with all these energies wreaking havoc on our bodies and psyches.

We call these responses STERBs. These are (short-term) attempts to distract ourselves from our grief. They might be the desire to numb ourselves, or to just “check out”. There is no comprehensive list of STERBs because, just as everyone grieves uniquely, everyone tries to cope differently. Some people will turn to sex, alcohol, drugs, video games, the internet, exercise, shopping, hoarding, gambling, workaholism, isolation, eating/starving, etc.

We turn to STERBs because we believe that they are helping us recover from our grief. But, when we’re honest with ourselves, they do not make us feel better. They just make us feel different. Yes, they might distract us for a bit. They might even numb our pain for a bit. But, just like STUGs are “temporary,” STERBs are “short-term.” They do not help us move through, process, or recover from our grief, they simply postpone the process.

Just as growing in self-awareness can help us prepare for STUGs, growing in self-awareness can also help us face our loss (which must happen to move through grief in an emotionally healthy way: Read my piece: “Grief: When You Come To This Trench, Swim Through It, Not Over It”) rather than turn to STERBs.

Grief forces us to be honest with ourselves. Grief forces us to know ourselves better. And, knowing that grief is something we will all face, maybe it’s best if we all started thinking about ourselves now. Am I the type to try and distract myself from difficult things with business? Am I the type of person who tries to numb difficult emotions? Knowing such things about one’s self in the here and now will not only help us when waves of grief crash over us but the next time we hit an emotional speed-bump.

The Complicated Grief of COVID

I have served in the hospice world for a while now; first as a Hospice Chaplain, then as a Chaplain, Bereavement Coordinator, and Volunteer Coordinator all at the same time before stepping in to my current role as a Bereavement Counselor late last yer.

Throughout it all, I have tried to maintain a tender skin and tough skin. I get to walk alongside strangers in their toughest moments, but as a Bereavement Counselor, my role is only “interventionist”. I am a Bereavement Counselor. My role is to help people through the immediacy of Bereavement. That includes Grief counseling, which I do a lot of, but that not is my primary role. Let me explain how understanding the nuances between grief, bereavement, and mourning can help us help others through the complicated grief of Quarantine.

Grief is the natural reaction to any significant loss or change. Most often it is something/someone meaningful in our lives (though not necessarily that we love).

Complicated Grief is grief that does not resolve in a healthy way or time-frame. This can include grief long after the loss, but it can also include “complications” in the grieving process itself. The Complicated Grief website compares complicated grief to getting an infection after a wound:

“You can think of healing after loss as analogous to healing after a physical wound. The loss, like the injury, triggers a pain response which can be very strong. Injuries also activate a healing process. Loss does too. However, a wound complication, like an infection, can interfere with healing. So, too, maladaptive thoughts, dysfunctional behaviors or inadequate emotion regulation can interfere with adaptation to loss.”

During most times, most people will not experience complicated grief and most will not even need a Grief Counselor or long-term counseling. But these are not most times, are they? We are in the middle of a global pandemic which has many not only quarantined but isolated and separated from common mourning practices. As if their loss were not enough to bear, COVID is complicating the grief many people experience.

Without getting too far in to the weeds with definitions, I want to offer this quick outline of ideas:

Bereavement is the act of losing someone/something we have relationship with or attachment to (not necessarily that we love).

Grief is the natural reaction to any significant loss or change (often including conflicting emotions).

Mourning is the outlet we try to give to our grief. This includes family/religious/cultural memorials and events like funerals, wakes, or even informal things like reminiscing or even crying with others, etc.

As our culture has moved further and further away from a clearly delineated, cultural norm of mourning, grief has often become more complicated. Mourning is the outlet or process we try to give our grief. This often culminates in a memorial/funeral/graveside service, but can include things like mourners (people publicly displaying both their bereavement and grieving) may wear black or subdued colors. Public rituals like flying a flag at half-mast. Some people wear armbands. In some cultures, widows wear black for a long time following the death of a spouse. Some people get tattoos. Some will hold wakes. Some cultures will cut their hair. Some cultures will seclude the bereaved for a period of time. 

All of these are part of the mourning process. They are public displays that we are bereaved (separated from) and that we are grieving. And the fact that they occur publicly is important. After a significant loss, our world is shattered. And, for a time, we are “different” from everyone else. They don’t know what we’re going through. They may have lost someone but every grief is different. And as we learn to accept and incorporate our loss in emotionally healthy ways . . we close the casket . . . we throw the dirt . . . we cry together . . . we grieve and feel the pain of our loss and then, someday, gradually we wear black less often . . . we take the armband off . . . we return from seclusion. And we move back in to community (although this process often takes place with a community along every step); we are “restored.” And we have moved through our grief.

But COVID has shut down most large gatherings. Most people have cancelled or put put funerals on hold. Large memorial gatherings are prohibited. And for the safety of the community, many people are being forced in to complicated grief. In community, or with the appropriate cultural cues, most people grieve appropriately.

Bu without a formal mourning process, we often do not not know how to process our grief. Without the cultural landmarkers of things like “viewing,” “memorial”, “graveside service/burial”, we lose little but key perspectives of time and healing like: “it’s been a week since we all gathered together; remember when Aunt Dottie shared that story none of us had heard before, and remember how hard cousin Bill took it, I didn’t realize he would be affected so much . . . “

Isolation and lack of cultural cues has led to complicated grief for many people. Chances are, someone you know is hurting and processing some type of grief. And chances are, someone you know feels like they have to do it alone. Grief and grieving are things everyone will go through but no one talks about and no one teaches us how to do. Most of us muddle our way through it somehow, but many are trapped in isolation right now. It’s not that they’re not going to make it through, it’s just that it’s going to be more of a slog than it has to be. I don’t know that our culture has yet had time to consider the many ways COVID will affect generations to come.

So, if chances are that someone we know is processing grief alone, then the obvious answer is to love our neighbors and consider others better than ourselves. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Send a hand-written letter. Send a care package. More than anything, let someone know you care. Memento Mori, friend; remember that we too will die. That shadow pushes us to share the light of hope of the Love of God.

Don’t offer advice. Don’t tell them you know what they’re going through (especially if you think you do). Don’t tell them “time heals all wounds” or that they “just need to get over it.” Don’t tell them no to cry. Do not say: “Well, at least you had all the good times” or: “Well, they’re in a better place now”. Do not give them a time-frame and do not judge someone else’s grief by your own experiences.

Listen.

Ask a few questions.

And listen.

That’s all you need to do.

“I’m just calling to check on you and see how you’re doing . . . “

“I hope you don’t me asking, but are you eating and sleeping OK?”

“Have you been able to have any public mourning event?"

“Do you have a support system in place; people you can share with?”

“Where do you find strength for times like this?”

Let the griever guide. You’ve already shown that you care and that you’re willing to be whatever presence they need. If they need to talk, they will. And you’re willing to be present with someone in the midst of their isolation and ask simple questions like the one above and have the patience to listen, you’d likely be surprised how many seeds of hope we can spread.

COVID is having impacts we will not understand for years. I wonder how many people’s complicated grief might lead to other issues down the line and what we can do about it.

Let’s all be good neighbors. We’re all hurting.

Who needs to hear from you today?

The Grief Playlist: Learning To Practice Emotional Situational Awareness

Grief is universal and universally unique. It is something we will all experience and we will all experience differently. No one grieves the same even though there are some things that a Bereavement Counselor often sees.

One common experience I see is that when someone is experiencing the grief of losing a loved one to death (particularly a traumatic, painful or unexpected death), they will often (and often at the most inopportune times) find themselves re-living the most painful moments. They find themselves (often unwillingly) rehearsing mental images or replaying scenes or conversations and it just seems to come on like a fresh stab in the heart, making it impossible to “move on” like all their friends keep telling them to.

I am not a professional counselor. Nor do I claim to be. But I pastored for around 15 years, served as a Hospice Chaplain for over 3 years, and currently serve as a Bereavement Counselor and hospital Chaplain Intern. So this is a familiar conversation and a common question that I’ve come across over the years:

is it possible to change our thought patterns?

This question has primarily been in my mind lately with relation to helping bereaved people cope with unhealthy thought patterns in their grieving. But of course it applies to more than that. It applies not only to other types of grief but other unhealthy thought patterns as well and I’ve helped people use this technique in a variety of settings. Through conversation after conversation, I tried to develop a practical approach based on the simple but powerful proposition: we can change our thought patterns.

Of course different people will have different outcomes and/or levels of “success” and we must be honest that this is a difficult, slow process. This is not a promise that you’re going to be just terrific by tomorrow. But it is an approach that we can put in our toolboxes that I do believe is helpful for many. And it starts with driving (sort of).

I don’t know about you, but I’m the sort of Introverted person who likes to sort of live in my own thoughts. And, I am not advocating this at all, but I have this bad habit where sometimes I’ll get in my car, arrive at my destination and sort of jolt myself out of the fog; I don’t remember driving there. I just totally spaced out, wandering around in my own thoughts, perfecting the argument I should have made three days ago, etc., but certainly not engaged in the moment. 

This is exactly how many of us go through life. We are passive and usually re-active when something happens rather than pro-active. We sort of sleep-walk through life. We go about our business, we numb ourselves with our shows or drink or gardening or whatever, until it’s time to go to sleep. Not only does it seem like many of of “sleepwalk” through life, it seems that many of us take active measures to keep our brains “asleep” and disengaged. Because being “present” in the moment means dealing with things.

But our subconscious is not passive. Nor is it quiet.

So, back to those people struggling with traumatic grief experiences (or whatever unhealthy thought patterns your brain likes to randomly insert into your days). At times, it can be silly things like a commercial jingle, as demonstrated in Pixar’s Inside Out:

But other times, it’s those traumatic memories of our loved one’s suffering and our loss and the things we wish we hadn’t said and the things we wish we had done differently. Whatever it may be, the feeling remains that we will never break the cycle.

One helpful way I’ve come to think about this process is that the subconscious mind has certain “playlists” it likes to blare in to the mind. Sometimes we may understand why the mind “pressed play,” something triggered it that we can identify, that song, or smell, or the way the light hits the bank building in the evening, while others it will be like a Jack In The Box we didn’t know was wound up waiting to burst. 

One of my favorite playlists is one called Daily Driver. I listen to it . . . while driving around, daily. I’m currently on volume 04 of this playlist, which I started early last Summer. This playlist has kept a few of the original songs on it, like Creedence Clearwater Revival’s version of “Heard It Through the Grapevine” and the Rolling Stones’ “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” but lots of other songs have come and gone. In other words, I have, as the mood struck, removed and replaced songs. Some have been removed and then replaced again like “On The Road Again” by Canned Heat. 

I know that we’re trying to simplify a lot of neurons and chemistry and biochemical things and years of thought patterns and I definitely don’t want to oversimplify, but it has helped me to think of my thought patterns like my Daily Driver mix (Listen to Volume 01 here and Volume 02 here). Yes, it’s what comes on when I get in the car but I can change it. I can keep parts or get rid of parts. I can switch the order. But this takes learning and practicing what I call “Emotional Situational Awareness”©.

One common theme among various faith traditions is the idea of “living in the moment.” Some traditions teach about the pursuit of Zen in the moment, which is more of an ongoing inner-peace, but nonetheless requires real-time awareness. 

“When asked ‘What is Zen?’ a Zen Master replied, ‘Your ordinary, everyday life.” This is as good a place to start as any. Zen, like life, defies exact definition, but its essence is the experience, moment by moment, of our own existence - a natural, spontaneous encounter unclouded by the suppositions and expectations that come between us and reality. It is, if you like, a pairing down of life until we see it as it really is, free from our illusions; it is a mental divestment of ourselves until we recognize our own true nature.”

Others teach about “taking every thought captive,”(2 Corinthians 10:5) and, at the risk of oversimplification, I think that these various faith traditions mean, at least in part: “wake up!” Practice situational awareness. Be present. Be alert. Engage and interact. It’s not a foreign concept to anyone who can play video games. Video games require something about being aware in the moment, but, for some reason, many of us do not live our lives in general this way, much less our emotional and spiritual lives.

The idea of situational awareness can apply not only to being aware of and engaged with our surroundings but can be applied to our internal lives as well. What if we learned to practice emotional situational awareness? In other words, what if we practiced cognitively being aware and engaged in the moment so that when those GRIEF PLAYLISTS pop up, we learn how to shuffle the playlist in the moment?

What if we learned to rehearse and insert different memories and mental pictures into that playlist, and, as a result, we were gradually able to change our emotional reactions to our memories? This is hard work and it is a slow process, but it is part of moving forward with life. This is part of what I mean by learning to practice Emotional Situational Awareness. Find some sort of metaphor/analogy that helps you quantify what happens with your thoughts. I love music and making playlists, so for me that’s an easy one. You might need to think of another analogy.

But like a good DJ can read and respond to the crowd, adjusting the mix “on the fly”, those who learn to practice emotional situational awareness can learn to “edit” their mental patterns in real time.

I have seen many people respond positively to this method and I’d love feedback, especially from those with more counseling experience than I have. What are your thoughts?

• Listen to/Download Volume 01 of my Daily Driver mixes.

• Listen to/Download Volume 02 of my Daily Driver mixes.

Grief: When You Come To This Trench, Swim Through It, Not Over It

You know the saying: “Nothing’s certain in life except death and taxes.” We are born to die and love away the days in-between. But if death is certain and we are born to love (and receive love), then grief is also certain, isn’t it? Grief is the natural reaction to any significant loss.

But this is counter-intuitive. It’s against everything we’ve been taught. We’ve been raised to pursue comfort. And grief is certainly not comfortable. So we try to avoid grief. We repress our emotions. We just try to get through it. We won’t let ourselves cry (especially in front of other people). And our society somehow equates doing any of these things as “giving in” and as weakness. So we try to avoid grief.

And we experience another loss.

Which now weighs on top of previous losses.

And the unresolved grief knots itself inside us.

You know the saying: “Just rip the band-aid off.” Just get through it. Some things just need to be faced. Though this is more blunt than I’d like to be, the sentiment remains. We will never completely “get over” grief, but it can get easier. And for that to happen, we must move through our grief.

There is a scene in Pixar’s Finding Nemo, in which Marlin and Dory ask directions from a school of John Ratzenberger fish and we find the following exchange:

School of Fish : “Oh and one more thing: when you come to this trench, swim through it, not over it.”

Dory : “Trench. Through it, not over. I'll remember. [swimming to catch up with Marlin].”

Dory : “Hey wait up there's something I gotta tell you. [sees the trench]”

Dory : “Woah. Nice trench.”

Of course they try to go over the trench. And Jellyfish Mayhem ensues. If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend it. When we try to go around or over or under or avoid our grief, jellyfish mayhem does not occur. We become anxious, angry and/or depressed. We become stuck.

It seems counterintuitive, but the best way to deal with grief is to move through it. We need to allow our emotions to run their course. We need to let ourselves cry. The true strength is found in what the world considers to be weak. Pull out the photo albums. Watch the videos. Listen to the songs. Smell the smells. Eat the food. Visit the places. Because grief is evidence of love and it is a thing to be celebrated.

• Watch Finding Nemo at Amazon.

• Purchase The Grief Recovery Handbook at Amazon.

• Browse my previous posts about grief.

The Banner Hospice Dottie Kissinger Bereavement Camp

This past weekend I had the profound honor of serving at the Banner Hospice The Dottie Kissinger Bereavement Camp For Children in Payson, AZ and I want you to know about this valuable resource.

“The Dottie Kissinger Bereavement Camp is a free community program designed to help children cope with the loss of a loved one.

Children and parents participate in activities that inform, educate and provide opportunities to talk about very difficult aspects of loss. We have helped families who have experienced losses such as grandparents who died from an illness, or sudden accidental deaths of parents or siblings.

The camp is offered three times a year – just outside of Payson, Arizona and is open to the entire community. 

For more information, please call (480) 657-1167.” (from the website)

Watch some informational videos about what happens at these camps.

We have several resources if you are unsure about how to help a child you know through the grieving process. Please contact me or call (480) 657-1167 for more information.