Acceptance of Loss
Healing grief through acceptance of loss does not always come easily. Human beings are averse to unpleasantness, and when we first learn of a significant loss, we may encounter shock and denial.
I recall when I was 25 years old, arriving home from a Friday night out with friends. My roommate met me at the door. She was crying into a towel, as she stammered out, “Your mother called. Your father has died of a heart attack.” I literally ran from her, ran into the back yard, yelling, “No!” It took me a few minutes to really grasp what she had said and to incorporate the reality that my father had died.
The greater the love, the greater the loss.
Francis Weller
To practice acceptance of loss means that we feel the deep pain of losing. In addition to shock and denial, we may also avoid the acceptance of loss by feeling anger or fear. Sometimes we will do anything to avoid the deep pain of loss. We become entangled in other emotions, we drink too much, sleep too much or too little, eat too much or too little –anything to avoid feeling broken hearted. Whatever we do to avoid the pain usually creates suffering. Pain x resistance = suffering.
Mindfulness teaches us that in letting go of resisting the pain, we practice acceptance of loss, and we feel the pureness of the pain without the suffering.
Surfing the Grief Waves with Mindfulness of Emotion
Learning to cope with difficult emotions, including riding grief waves, should be taught in schools.
You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
How do we learn to surf the grief waves? By practicing mindfulness of emotion. Through mindfulness practice, we learn to feel an emotion without becoming overwhelmed by it. We learn to allow the waves of grief to wash over us without knocking us down. We learn to feel pain without the suffering. We learn to feel grief, let it go, and rebalance ourselves by connecting with moments of calm and by appreciating life’s little joys.
Self-Compassion Meditation for Healing Grief
How to we feel the pain of losing without becoming entangled in anger, regret, or other thoughts and emotions that keep us distanced form the pain of loss? By practicing self-compassion. No matter what or whom we have lost is lost, feeling guilt or regret won’t bring them back. Self-compassion practice can help to ease the pain and support us in working through the loss.
Self-compassion practice involves bringing mindful and kind awareness to the moments when we notice we are treating ourselves harshly. Then we expand our perspective to include ourselves and our experience within the realm of being human. We embrace a sense of shared humanity, recognizing that we are not the only one who is struggling. Next, we bring to mind words or an image of kindness. We imagine someone who cares for us offering us unconditional love and kindness. We rest for a few moments in this image or these words, and we savor the kindness.
Loving-Kindness Meditation for Healing Grief
How can we be more loving and kind toward ourselves and others when we are healing from grief? Loving-kindness meditation involves repeating words of mercy and kindness to oneself, to loved ones, to those toward whom we feel anger or hatred, and to the whole world in need of healing. “May you dwell in an open heart. May you be free from suffering. May you be healed. May you be at peace.”
These words of mercy and kindness, repeated over and over through the days, weeks, and months following a loss, can bring moments of ease and healing.
Balancing Grief with Joy
Years ago when I was heartbroken over a number of significant losses that came in a relatively brief period of time, a teacher told me that for every moment I spent grieving, I should spend an equal amount of time cultivating joy. My first thought was that she didn’t get it, that she had no idea the depth of grief that I was feeling. Then I recalled that she had healed her own depression, so she may know what she’s talking about.
Grief dares us to love once more.
Terry Tempest Williams
I decided to give it a try. And you know what? It was such a powerful healing experience that I have incorporated a similar practice into all of my grief coaching and grief counseling work with clients.
Journaling Grief for Healing
Journaling grief can help us to create a sense of order from what feels like internal chaos. It can help us to put words to our experience that we just cannot seem to find words to speak. Grief journaling was a deeply meaningful and significant part of my own healing journey. Writing about loss helped me with perspective taking. It helped me to see the whole of my experiences of loss. Therapeutic writing helped me to transform the pain, make meaning, and regain a sense of purpose.
Journaling grief is a practice that we can do on our own or with the support of a journal therapist. Grief journaling may feel painful, but it should also feel therapeutic. If you’re journaling about grief, and you start to feel overwhelmed or like you’re going to freak out, stop writing. Put the pen down, and try doing grounding practices like noticing your breathing, feeling your feet on the floor, or noticing sounds. If journaling grief feels overwhelming, you may find it beneficial to work with a grief counselor who is a journal therapist to support you in writing in a way that doesn’t feel overwhelming.
Contact Jen to schedule a free 15-minute consultation to see if you would work well together.