Stop Trying To Heal From Grief

[KayC]

Stop Trying to Heal from Grief

 

---

 

I know this might sound controversial. Or, at minimum, unexpected from a grief writer and therapist. If you’ve spent any time on #grieftok or #griefstagram you’re probably all too familiar with messages about ‘healing from grief’. You’ve likely scrolled the hundreds of grief influencer videos promising to help you ‘recover from grief’ or ‘heal your grief’ via retreats, essential oils, coaching sessions, classes, and Facebook groups (all while making green juices in their pristine William Sonoma kitchens). ‘Unhealed grief’ and ‘unrecovered grief’ are talked about like some sort of boogeyman, hiding under our beds waiting to grab our ankles and hold us down as we try to emerge from the rubble of loss.

Every time I hear this language I cringe.

Language and Thought

We like to believe that language describes our thoughts. But the reality is far more complex. Language can describe thoughts, but it also creates and shapes our thoughts. Philosophers had long speculated that how we speak constructs our realities. Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said “The limit of my language is the limit of my world”.  In recent years, modern science has provided us with overwhelming evidence that these philosophers and linguists were right.

Research has found that differences in native languages mold the ways people see and understand the world. This applies to concepts as fundamental as space, time, color, and even eye-witness memory of events. Though I am tempted to go on a tangent explaining all the research, in the interest of (relative) brevity I’ll ask you to either trust me on this or go and read about it on your own. I do recommend it – the way language shapes thought is fascinating stuff. And if you’re not up for reading more, this short video is an interesting, quick example.

You Don’t Need to Heal Your Grief

We are far from the first to suggest this. Let’s go back one hundred years to Freud. Now, this is a man who said some things about grief that we take serious issue with. But even he was assuring people that grief is not a problem or a pathology. He understood it as a normal human process. In Mourning and Melancholia he says, ” It is also well worth notice that, although mourning involves grave departures from the normal attitude to life, it never occurs to us to regard it as a pathological condition and to refer it to medical treatment.”

He contrasts mourning with melancholia (what we would now call depression), which he sees as a pathology that does require intervention. Mourning, on the other hand, he describes as a natural, transformational process after loss (granted he thinks it makes us ultimateley “free and uninhibited”. That’s not how we’d describe it. We’re cerntainly not team-Freud here. But it is important to note that he, a man who pathologized many, many things, saw grief as a normal, transforming process).

For the last fifty years, mental health and grief experts have been trying to help people understand that grief is not something we need to heal from. Rather, grief IS the healing. Though we’re not fans of the five stages of grief, for reasons we’ve shared many times, there is a passage that I have always appreciated from David Kessler in the Afterword of his book with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, “On Grief and Grieving”.

“There is wonder in the power of grief. We don’t appreciate its healing powers, yet they are extraordinary and wondrous. It is just as amazing as the physical healing that occurs after a car accident or major surgery. Grief transforms the broken, wounded soul, a soul that no longer wants to get up in the morning, a soul that can find no reason for living, a soul that has suffered an unbelievable loss. Grief alone has the power to heal.”

Kubler-Ross & Kessler, On Grief and Grieving

Grief is Not a Wound

When we grieve, it is because we have experienced a devastating and unimaginable loss. That loss is what has shattered us. Grieving is our normal and natural human response to that loss. It is the physical, emotional, cognitive, relational, existential, spiritual experience we all go through, in varying degrees and in various ways, after a loss. Grief and grieving are not the source of our pain. The source of the pain is the loss itself.

Grief is how we process this loss. After loss we open our eyes to a world that in no way resembles the world we once knew. In this new world, grief is how we come to understand who we are, how we feel, and how we will survive in this new world. In grieving we create a relationship with a person who died. We develop the continued bonds that will evolve with us as we move forward in a world without that person. Grief allows us to turn inward and assess what we need from ourselves and others in this life after loss. It has the power to clarify our values and our priorities. In grief we begin to make sense of who we are in a world without a person who defined us.  

Grief is the Healing

Perhaps it sounds like semantics, my saying we don’t need to “heal from grief”. Especially when I so strongly believe that we heal through grief, that grief is healing. But I think it is far more important than semantics. If the language I hear early after my loss is that I must ‘recover from grief’ or ‘heal from grief’, I see grief as an adversary. That language molds my understanding of grief itself, seeing it as a problem. Or worse, as a threat, something that has in and of itself caused harm, a thing to escape. It is no surprise that I might then avoid my grief. Or I might interpret signs of ongoing grief as a sign of failure.

If I hear, early after my loss, that we ‘heal through grief’ or that ‘grieving is an ongoing and evolving process of healing’, my understanding of grief is shaped in a fundamentally different way. Grief is no longer my adversary, a boogeyman hiding under the bed. Instead of something to escape, battle, or eliminate, grief is a companion.  And when I am no longer fighting against my grief, I am able to invite it in. I can listen to what it is teaching me about myself, about those I’ve lost, about how to live in this new world.

Grief as Companion

I understand that grief is the keeper of my most treasured memories and continued bonds. Grief is a trusted friend (albeit a cranky and temperamental one). The memories and bonds that live in my grief are what gives me the confidence that I can, slowly, rebuild. Knowing grief is a companion is what allows me to move forward without fear of “moving on” or “letting go”.

On a triggering birthday or anniversary years on, when my grief sidles up beside me and brings on a cascade of tears, I am not surprised or scared. I don’t fear that I failed to ‘recover’ or ‘heal’ properly. Quite the opposite. I am grateful that I can still welcome grief in. We can share old memories and revisit the life I once believed I’d live, while still appreciating the life I am living. I am happy to let grief put her arm around me, to bury my face in her shoulder as I cry, knowing that together we will always be healing.

MAY 29, 2023

https://whatsyourgrief.com/stop-trying-to-heal-from-grief/

[shawnt]

Wow, that is a lot.

I agree our language is the limiting conduit of our thought, but only the communicating of it. Emotion \ internal thinking are more complicated and subtle than speech can ever be. Think of holding a baby and it can let you know how it feels without speech, I have a brother who is 51 ,never spoken in his life and I and more so my sister understand his needs.

I think the placebo effect can be both positive and negative. 

The spin we or others  put on things(semantics?) can change the effect.I am more & more convinced grief is a part of existence and like all other human experience the individual can determine all or part of the out come.

On a side track , I have a theory that perception controls reality. People of faith beliefs become their truth and therefore reality as they perceive it.If you think you will fail you usually do. My deeper question is can I wilfully change my perception to come out with a better (perceived) reality? Or is that just lying to myself.

 

[KayC]

Wow, total mutism is rare, can he convey himself through writing? I assume it was something he was born with?  

1 hour ago, shawnt said:

I have a theory that perception controls reality.

I think this is spot on, and in answer to your question, 

 

1 hour ago, shawnt said:

My deeper question is can I wilfully change my perception to come out with a better (perceived) reality?

Our outlook plays a huge part of our grief journey and yes, outcome.  I believe in positivity and gratitude, I learned this through my grief journey and it started almost immediately.  It was day 11 when I ran across this refrigerator magnet, I felt it was meant for me and the dragonfly was just to get my attention (I was coming out of Rainbow Optics and the store next door had it on display on the sidewalk! It has shaped and molded my life more than I can say.

[shawnt]

You mention day 11 a lot, that must have been some gunslinger of a day

Hum 

[KayC]

It changed me.

[shawnt]

Auto correct won't let me put humdinger in

Hope I have a day like that

 

[KayC]

Don't you hate autocorrect! Drives me nuts!

[KayC]

14 hours ago, Gator M said:

What I thought would be my purpose...even after Ann's  death...now may be unappreciated.

What is/was your purpose? I'm sorry you feel unappreciated. I didn't discover my purpose until years after George's death, I was just getting through the day, trying to make my mortgage payment, shovel snow, long commute, wishing I had more time for my dog.

[RichS]

I guess like grieving, we all eventually find our purpose in our own way and in our own time frame.

[shawnt]

I struggle with that also. We built this life for us, now with her gone a life built for 2 isn't right for one. I am rudderless and without ambition . I have to find my purpose again. I am realizing that some(many) things I enjoyed with us I don't want any more.

[WithoutHer]

3 hours ago, shawnt said:

I struggle with that also. We built this life for us, now with her gone a life built for 2 isn't right for one. I am rudderless and without ambition . I have to find my purpose again. I am realizing that some(many) things I enjoyed with us I don't want any more.

I have the exact same feelings. I have no interest in doing anything I once did with Vickie and there are no remnants of any of my previous interests before we met. Someone suggested I go for a walk in places she and I would day trip. I can't possibly walk along those paths without her. The simple thought of that puts me in tears.

[shawnt]

I have a friend, a widow who lost her ❤  4 years ago, also a good friend of mine( I miss that guy he made me laugh) who wouldn't let him eat a piece of cheesecake. They were saving it for a party, anyway one thing led to another and he never got his piece, and then he was gone. She can't forgive herself and it eats at her . But she forgets he would have never, ever thought anything about it. I refuse to play the what if game. The past is gone and we don't get to play again and there is only pain and nothing to gain by wishing it was different. I am afraid I could be lost in anger or unforgiveness and not be able to live a better life.

[KayC]

Yes, they'd be the first to forgive us and have forgotten already.

[Jemiga70]

I never bought into the idea that grief could be "healed."  Baloney. Clickbait to sell product.  If someone says they can heal your grief then run fast, run far.

Grief can only be managed.

[shawnt]

I had a new thought this morning, kind of related to healing(changing?).

I have been trying to think of the me I was before I fell in love with my Suzy,  and I believe now I can never be that guy again, I changed and grew a lot being her husband, and just like  that I was someone new. What I am now is also someone new and I can't  seem  imagine how to do it.

[ThereIsAField]

9 minutes ago, shawnt said:

I had a new thought this morning, kind of related to healing(changing?).

I have been trying to think of the me I was before I fell in love with my Suzy,  and I believe now I can never be that guy again, I changed and grew a lot being her husband, and just like  that I was someone new. What I am now is also someone new and I can't  seem  imagine how to do it.

That's exactly how I feel too.

[RichS]

I'm right there with you. I don't think I would have fully "grown up" had I not married Chris. Before that, I was heading down the road to complacency, drifting along with a light load of responsibilities. I JUST HAD A THOUGHT, NOW..........Isn't the sign of a good relationship that a couple become better people as a result of being to together?

[ThereIsAField]

6 minutes ago, RichS said:

Isn't the sign of a good relationship that a couple become better people as a result of being to together?

That sounds about right to me.

[shawnt]

I believe that. If you are with the right person their love makes you be more and do more + be more resilient to life's harsh touch .1+1 = more than 2.

[KayC]

9 hours ago, shawnt said:

I believe now I can never be that guy again

You are so right, nor can I be who I was before.

8 hours ago, RichS said:

Isn't the sign of a good relationship that a couple become better people as a result of being to together?

I think so.

[Jemiga70]

14 hours ago, shawnt said:

I have been trying to think of the me I was before I fell in love with my Suzy,  and I believe now I can never be that guy again, I changed and grew a lot being her husband, and just like  that I was someone new. What I am now is also someone new and I can't  seem  imagine how to do it.

This is EXACTLY what I've been battling with the last few months.  I'm no longer the guy from before we met, I'm no longer the guy who was one-half of our marriage.  So then . . . who the hell am I now??

Besides the pain of missing her, this is the thing that's messed up my head the most.  Doesn't help that my main job recently vanished - and I have no interest in finding another one (too much apathy) or re-inventing myself.  Too young to retire (52).  I don't really want to retire anyhow because then too much free time.  Frankly, I don't really want to do anything - BUT I don't want to do nothing either if that makes sense.  I'm introverted to begin with;  that doesnt help.  All of this just sucks so badly.

My wife was also a Sue.  Suze Q I called her.

[shawnt]

I called mine Suzy Q also and now and again I would sing that stupid song (usually some rum involved) I feel at this stage in life the ability to change is tougher . Set in our ways, shared a life with a partner and not comfortable flying solo + learning to live with this huge hole where my soul used to be.

Some people do it, I hope I can to.

[Nancy2]

On 5/29/2023 at 6:56 AM, KayC said:

Stop Trying to Heal from Grief

 

---

 

I know this might sound controversial. Or, at minimum, unexpected from a grief writer and therapist. If you’ve spent any time on #grieftok or #griefstagram you’re probably all too familiar with messages about ‘healing from grief’. You’ve likely scrolled the hundreds of grief influencer videos promising to help you ‘recover from grief’ or ‘heal your grief’ via retreats, essential oils, coaching sessions, classes, and Facebook groups (all while making green juices in their pristine William Sonoma kitchens). ‘Unhealed grief’ and ‘unrecovered grief’ are talked about like some sort of boogeyman, hiding under our beds waiting to grab our ankles and hold us down as we try to emerge from the rubble of loss.

Every time I hear this language I cringe.

Language and Thought

We like to believe that language describes our thoughts. But the reality is far more complex. Language can describe thoughts, but it also creates and shapes our thoughts. Philosophers had long speculated that how we speak constructs our realities. Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said “The limit of my language is the limit of my world”.  In recent years, modern science has provided us with overwhelming evidence that these philosophers and linguists were right.

Research has found that differences in native languages mold the ways people see and understand the world. This applies to concepts as fundamental as space, time, color, and even eye-witness memory of events. Though I am tempted to go on a tangent explaining all the research, in the interest of (relative) brevity I’ll ask you to either trust me on this or go and read about it on your own. I do recommend it – the way language shapes thought is fascinating stuff. And if you’re not up for reading more, this short video is an interesting, quick example.

You Don’t Need to Heal Your Grief

We are far from the first to suggest this. Let’s go back one hundred years to Freud. Now, this is a man who said some things about grief that we take serious issue with. But even he was assuring people that grief is not a problem or a pathology. He understood it as a normal human process. In Mourning and Melancholia he says, ” It is also well worth notice that, although mourning involves grave departures from the normal attitude to life, it never occurs to us to regard it as a pathological condition and to refer it to medical treatment.”

He contrasts mourning with melancholia (what we would now call depression), which he sees as a pathology that does require intervention. Mourning, on the other hand, he describes as a natural, transformational process after loss (granted he thinks it makes us ultimateley “free and uninhibited”. That’s not how we’d describe it. We’re cerntainly not team-Freud here. But it is important to note that he, a man who pathologized many, many things, saw grief as a normal, transforming process).

For the last fifty years, mental health and grief experts have been trying to help people understand that grief is not something we need to heal from. Rather, grief IS the healing. Though we’re not fans of the five stages of grief, for reasons we’ve shared many times, there is a passage that I have always appreciated from David Kessler in the Afterword of his book with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, “On Grief and Grieving”.

“There is wonder in the power of grief. We don’t appreciate its healing powers, yet they are extraordinary and wondrous. It is just as amazing as the physical healing that occurs after a car accident or major surgery. Grief transforms the broken, wounded soul, a soul that no longer wants to get up in the morning, a soul that can find no reason for living, a soul that has suffered an unbelievable loss. Grief alone has the power to heal.”

Kubler-Ross & Kessler, On Grief and Grieving

Grief is Not a Wound

When we grieve, it is because we have experienced a devastating and unimaginable loss. That loss is what has shattered us. Grieving is our normal and natural human response to that loss. It is the physical, emotional, cognitive, relational, existential, spiritual experience we all go through, in varying degrees and in various ways, after a loss. Grief and grieving are not the source of our pain. The source of the pain is the loss itself.

Grief is how we process this loss. After loss we open our eyes to a world that in no way resembles the world we once knew. In this new world, grief is how we come to understand who we are, how we feel, and how we will survive in this new world. In grieving we create a relationship with a person who died. We develop the continued bonds that will evolve with us as we move forward in a world without that person. Grief allows us to turn inward and assess what we need from ourselves and others in this life after loss. It has the power to clarify our values and our priorities. In grief we begin to make sense of who we are in a world without a person who defined us.  

Grief is the Healing

Perhaps it sounds like semantics, my saying we don’t need to “heal from grief”. Especially when I so strongly believe that we heal through grief, that grief is healing. But I think it is far more important than semantics. If the language I hear early after my loss is that I must ‘recover from grief’ or ‘heal from grief’, I see grief as an adversary. That language molds my understanding of grief itself, seeing it as a problem. Or worse, as a threat, something that has in and of itself caused harm, a thing to escape. It is no surprise that I might then avoid my grief. Or I might interpret signs of ongoing grief as a sign of failure.

If I hear, early after my loss, that we ‘heal through grief’ or that ‘grieving is an ongoing and evolving process of healing’, my understanding of grief is shaped in a fundamentally different way. Grief is no longer my adversary, a boogeyman hiding under the bed. Instead of something to escape, battle, or eliminate, grief is a companion.  And when I am no longer fighting against my grief, I am able to invite it in. I can listen to what it is teaching me about myself, about those I’ve lost, about how to live in this new world.

Grief as Companion

I understand that grief is the keeper of my most treasured memories and continued bonds. Grief is a trusted friend (albeit a cranky and temperamental one). The memories and bonds that live in my grief are what gives me the confidence that I can, slowly, rebuild. Knowing grief is a companion is what allows me to move forward without fear of “moving on” or “letting go”.

On a triggering birthday or anniversary years on, when my grief sidles up beside me and brings on a cascade of tears, I am not surprised or scared. I don’t fear that I failed to ‘recover’ or ‘heal’ properly. Quite the opposite. I am grateful that I can still welcome grief in. We can share old memories and revisit the life I once believed I’d live, while still appreciating the life I am living. I am happy to let grief put her arm around me, to bury my face in her shoulder as I cry, knowing that together we will always be healing.

MAY 29, 2023

https://whatsyourgrief.com/stop-trying-to-heal-from-grief/

I agree with everything you wrote.  Those are my sentiments exactly!

[KayC]

I didn't write it, it's from What's Your grief.

[Griefsucks810]

On 5/29/2023 at 7:56 AM, KayC said:

Stop Trying to Heal from Grief

 

---

 

I know this might sound controversial. Or, at minimum, unexpected from a grief writer and therapist. If you’ve spent any time on #grieftok or #griefstagram you’re probably all too familiar with messages about ‘healing from grief’. You’ve likely scrolled the hundreds of grief influencer videos promising to help you ‘recover from grief’ or ‘heal your grief’ via retreats, essential oils, coaching sessions, classes, and Facebook groups (all while making green juices in their pristine William Sonoma kitchens). ‘Unhealed grief’ and ‘unrecovered grief’ are talked about like some sort of boogeyman, hiding under our beds waiting to grab our ankles and hold us down as we try to emerge from the rubble of loss.

Every time I hear this language I cringe.

Language and Thought

We like to believe that language describes our thoughts. But the reality is far more complex. Language can describe thoughts, but it also creates and shapes our thoughts. Philosophers had long speculated that how we speak constructs our realities. Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said “The limit of my language is the limit of my world”.  In recent years, modern science has provided us with overwhelming evidence that these philosophers and linguists were right.

Research has found that differences in native languages mold the ways people see and understand the world. This applies to concepts as fundamental as space, time, color, and even eye-witness memory of events. Though I am tempted to go on a tangent explaining all the research, in the interest of (relative) brevity I’ll ask you to either trust me on this or go and read about it on your own. I do recommend it – the way language shapes thought is fascinating stuff. And if you’re not up for reading more, this short video is an interesting, quick example.

You Don’t Need to Heal Your Grief

We are far from the first to suggest this. Let’s go back one hundred years to Freud. Now, this is a man who said some things about grief that we take serious issue with. But even he was assuring people that grief is not a problem or a pathology. He understood it as a normal human process. In Mourning and Melancholia he says, ” It is also well worth notice that, although mourning involves grave departures from the normal attitude to life, it never occurs to us to regard it as a pathological condition and to refer it to medical treatment.”

He contrasts mourning with melancholia (what we would now call depression), which he sees as a pathology that does require intervention. Mourning, on the other hand, he describes as a natural, transformational process after loss (granted he thinks it makes us ultimateley “free and uninhibited”. That’s not how we’d describe it. We’re cerntainly not team-Freud here. But it is important to note that he, a man who pathologized many, many things, saw grief as a normal, transforming process).

For the last fifty years, mental health and grief experts have been trying to help people understand that grief is not something we need to heal from. Rather, grief IS the healing. Though we’re not fans of the five stages of grief, for reasons we’ve shared many times, there is a passage that I have always appreciated from David Kessler in the Afterword of his book with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, “On Grief and Grieving”.

“There is wonder in the power of grief. We don’t appreciate its healing powers, yet they are extraordinary and wondrous. It is just as amazing as the physical healing that occurs after a car accident or major surgery. Grief transforms the broken, wounded soul, a soul that no longer wants to get up in the morning, a soul that can find no reason for living, a soul that has suffered an unbelievable loss. Grief alone has the power to heal.”

Kubler-Ross & Kessler, On Grief and Grieving

Grief is Not a Wound

When we grieve, it is because we have experienced a devastating and unimaginable loss. That loss is what has shattered us. Grieving is our normal and natural human response to that loss. It is the physical, emotional, cognitive, relational, existential, spiritual experience we all go through, in varying degrees and in various ways, after a loss. Grief and grieving are not the source of our pain. The source of the pain is the loss itself.

Grief is how we process this loss. After loss we open our eyes to a world that in no way resembles the world we once knew. In this new world, grief is how we come to understand who we are, how we feel, and how we will survive in this new world. In grieving we create a relationship with a person who died. We develop the continued bonds that will evolve with us as we move forward in a world without that person. Grief allows us to turn inward and assess what we need from ourselves and others in this life after loss. It has the power to clarify our values and our priorities. In grief we begin to make sense of who we are in a world without a person who defined us.  

Grief is the Healing

Perhaps it sounds like semantics, my saying we don’t need to “heal from grief”. Especially when I so strongly believe that we heal through grief, that grief is healing. But I think it is far more important than semantics. If the language I hear early after my loss is that I must ‘recover from grief’ or ‘heal from grief’, I see grief as an adversary. That language molds my understanding of grief itself, seeing it as a problem. Or worse, as a threat, something that has in and of itself caused harm, a thing to escape. It is no surprise that I might then avoid my grief. Or I might interpret signs of ongoing grief as a sign of failure.

If I hear, early after my loss, that we ‘heal through grief’ or that ‘grieving is an ongoing and evolving process of healing’, my understanding of grief is shaped in a fundamentally different way. Grief is no longer my adversary, a boogeyman hiding under the bed. Instead of something to escape, battle, or eliminate, grief is a companion.  And when I am no longer fighting against my grief, I am able to invite it in. I can listen to what it is teaching me about myself, about those I’ve lost, about how to live in this new world.

Grief as Companion

I understand that grief is the keeper of my most treasured memories and continued bonds. Grief is a trusted friend (albeit a cranky and temperamental one). The memories and bonds that live in my grief are what gives me the confidence that I can, slowly, rebuild. Knowing grief is a companion is what allows me to move forward without fear of “moving on” or “letting go”.

On a triggering birthday or anniversary years on, when my grief sidles up beside me and brings on a cascade of tears, I am not surprised or scared. I don’t fear that I failed to ‘recover’ or ‘heal’ properly. Quite the opposite. I am grateful that I can still welcome grief in. We can share old memories and revisit the life I once believed I’d live, while still appreciating the life I am living. I am happy to let grief put her arm around me, to bury my face in her shoulder as I cry, knowing that together we will always be healing.

MAY 29, 2023

https://whatsyourgrief.com/stop-trying-to-heal-from-grief/

 

On 5/29/2023 at 7:56 AM, KayC said:

Stop Trying to Heal from Grief

 

---

 

I know this might sound controversial. Or, at minimum, unexpected from a grief writer and therapist. If you’ve spent any time on #grieftok or #griefstagram you’re probably all too familiar with messages about ‘healing from grief’. You’ve likely scrolled the hundreds of grief influencer videos promising to help you ‘recover from grief’ or ‘heal your grief’ via retreats, essential oils, coaching sessions, classes, and Facebook groups (all while making green juices in their pristine William Sonoma kitchens). ‘Unhealed grief’ and ‘unrecovered grief’ are talked about like some sort of boogeyman, hiding under our beds waiting to grab our ankles and hold us down as we try to emerge from the rubble of loss.

Every time I hear this language I cringe.

Language and Thought

We like to believe that language describes our thoughts. But the reality is far more complex. Language can describe thoughts, but it also creates and shapes our thoughts. Philosophers had long speculated that how we speak constructs our realities. Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said “The limit of my language is the limit of my world”.  In recent years, modern science has provided us with overwhelming evidence that these philosophers and linguists were right.

Research has found that differences in native languages mold the ways people see and understand the world. This applies to concepts as fundamental as space, time, color, and even eye-witness memory of events. Though I am tempted to go on a tangent explaining all the research, in the interest of (relative) brevity I’ll ask you to either trust me on this or go and read about it on your own. I do recommend it – the way language shapes thought is fascinating stuff. And if you’re not up for reading more, this short video is an interesting, quick example.

You Don’t Need to Heal Your Grief

We are far from the first to suggest this. Let’s go back one hundred years to Freud. Now, this is a man who said some things about grief that we take serious issue with. But even he was assuring people that grief is not a problem or a pathology. He understood it as a normal human process. In Mourning and Melancholia he says, ” It is also well worth notice that, although mourning involves grave departures from the normal attitude to life, it never occurs to us to regard it as a pathological condition and to refer it to medical treatment.”

He contrasts mourning with melancholia (what we would now call depression), which he sees as a pathology that does require intervention. Mourning, on the other hand, he describes as a natural, transformational process after loss (granted he thinks it makes us ultimateley “free and uninhibited”. That’s not how we’d describe it. We’re cerntainly not team-Freud here. But it is important to note that he, a man who pathologized many, many things, saw grief as a normal, transforming process).

For the last fifty years, mental health and grief experts have been trying to help people understand that grief is not something we need to heal from. Rather, grief IS the healing. Though we’re not fans of the five stages of grief, for reasons we’ve shared many times, there is a passage that I have always appreciated from David Kessler in the Afterword of his book with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, “On Grief and Grieving”.

“There is wonder in the power of grief. We don’t appreciate its healing powers, yet they are extraordinary and wondrous. It is just as amazing as the physical healing that occurs after a car accident or major surgery. Grief transforms the broken, wounded soul, a soul that no longer wants to get up in the morning, a soul that can find no reason for living, a soul that has suffered an unbelievable loss. Grief alone has the power to heal.”

Kubler-Ross & Kessler, On Grief and Grieving

Grief is Not a Wound

When we grieve, it is because we have experienced a devastating and unimaginable loss. That loss is what has shattered us. Grieving is our normal and natural human response to that loss. It is the physical, emotional, cognitive, relational, existential, spiritual experience we all go through, in varying degrees and in various ways, after a loss. Grief and grieving are not the source of our pain. The source of the pain is the loss itself.

Grief is how we process this loss. After loss we open our eyes to a world that in no way resembles the world we once knew. In this new world, grief is how we come to understand who we are, how we feel, and how we will survive in this new world. In grieving we create a relationship with a person who died. We develop the continued bonds that will evolve with us as we move forward in a world without that person. Grief allows us to turn inward and assess what we need from ourselves and others in this life after loss. It has the power to clarify our values and our priorities. In grief we begin to make sense of who we are in a world without a person who defined us.  

Grief is the Healing

Perhaps it sounds like semantics, my saying we don’t need to “heal from grief”. Especially when I so strongly believe that we heal through grief, that grief is healing. But I think it is far more important than semantics. If the language I hear early after my loss is that I must ‘recover from grief’ or ‘heal from grief’, I see grief as an adversary. That language molds my understanding of grief itself, seeing it as a problem. Or worse, as a threat, something that has in and of itself caused harm, a thing to escape. It is no surprise that I might then avoid my grief. Or I might interpret signs of ongoing grief as a sign of failure.

If I hear, early after my loss, that we ‘heal through grief’ or that ‘grieving is an ongoing and evolving process of healing’, my understanding of grief is shaped in a fundamentally different way. Grief is no longer my adversary, a boogeyman hiding under the bed. Instead of something to escape, battle, or eliminate, grief is a companion.  And when I am no longer fighting against my grief, I am able to invite it in. I can listen to what it is teaching me about myself, about those I’ve lost, about how to live in this new world.

Grief as Companion

I understand that grief is the keeper of my most treasured memories and continued bonds. Grief is a trusted friend (albeit a cranky and temperamental one). The memories and bonds that live in my grief are what gives me the confidence that I can, slowly, rebuild. Knowing grief is a companion is what allows me to move forward without fear of “moving on” or “letting go”.

On a triggering birthday or anniversary years on, when my grief sidles up beside me and brings on a cascade of tears, I am not surprised or scared. I don’t fear that I failed to ‘recover’ or ‘heal’ properly. Quite the opposite. I am grateful that I can still welcome grief in. We can share old memories and revisit the life I once believed I’d live, while still appreciating the life I am living. I am happy to let grief put her arm around me, to bury my face in her shoulder as I cry, knowing that together we will always be healing.

MAY 29, 2023

https://whatsyourgrief.com/stop-trying-to-heal-from-grief/

I have a better understanding of what grief is now after reading the article you posted. According to the article “ grief is how we come to understand who we are, how we feel, and how we will survive in this new world.”  The source of the pain is the loss; it took me years to fully accept the loss of my husband and the circumstances which led up to his death.

I was under the assumption that grief was this intrusive monster who invaded your mind and emotions in a negative way. 

I also came to the understanding that “ grief is the keeper of my most treasured memories and continued bonds which gives me the confidence that I can, slowly, rebuild.” “Knowing that grief is my companion allows me to “move forward.” 
 

[Boggled]

On 5/29/2023 at 6:56 AM, KayC said:

Perhaps it sounds like semantics, my saying we don’t need to “heal from grief”. Especially when I so strongly believe that we heal through grief, that grief is healing. But I think it is far more important than semantics. If the language I hear early after my loss is that I must ‘recover from grief’ or ‘heal from grief’, I see grief as an adversary. That language molds my understanding of grief itself, seeing it as a problem. Or worse, as a threat, something that has in and of itself caused harm, a thing to escape. It is no surprise that I might then avoid my grief. Or I might interpret signs of ongoing grief as a sign of failure.

If I hear, early after my loss, that we ‘heal through grief’ or that ‘grieving is an ongoing and evolving process of healing’, my understanding of grief is shaped in a fundamentally different way. Grief is no longer my adversary, a boogeyman hiding under the bed. Instead of something to escape, battle, or eliminate, grief is a companion.  And when I am no longer fighting against my grief, I am able to invite it in. I can listen to what it is teaching me about myself, about those I’ve lost, about how to live in this new world.

Really a profound difference being noted in that.  We don't need to heal from GRIEF, we need to heal from THE LOSS OF OUR LOVED ONE.    Though, the grief is so very painful, it does SEEM, especially at the beginning, that it's the GRIEF we need to heal from.  But it's the loss.

[JonathanFive]

This morning I woke up to a dream about my partner, or a nightmare?  It really depends on how I percieve it, and the language I use to describe it. For sure it was a dream - was it the dream I wanted, nope, but it was the dream I got, was part of it scary?  Not really, but could I rationalize it that it was, "extremely scary, and disheartening."

I could...

But that's not grief.  That's ruminating, and involving myself in the negative.

I don't think it was a scary dream, it was just a dream.  Fear is an emotion inherent to our survival.  Dreams don't harm us, there is nothing to fear about them.

[KayC]

Still, I've had nightmares that were very upsetting...like one in which I had a car accident that killed my service dog, Kodie.  When I woke up it was hard to shake.  It was upsetting for a very long time.  

[HisMunchkin]

1 hour ago, JonathanFive said:

This morning I woke up to a dream about my partner, or a nightmare?  It really depends on how I percieve it, and the language I use to describe it. For sure it was a dream - was it the dream I wanted, nope, but it was the dream I got, was part of it scary?  Not really, but could I rationalize it that it was, "extremely scary, and disheartening."

I could...

But that's not grief.  That's ruminating, and involving myself in the negative.

I don't think it was a scary dream, it was just a dream.  Fear is an emotion inherent to our survival.  Dreams don't harm us, there is nothing to fear about them.

I had a dream not long "after".  I dreamed that my husband came home from the hospital and was healthy.  But then in the dream I realized that it wasn't true, so I held him, cried, and asked him to please don't go!?!...  Then I woke up.