Daily Excerpt: Harnessing the Power of Grief (Potter) - Introduction
excerpt from Harnessing the Power of Grief (Potter)
Introduction
Grief, the process by which we adjust to the losses
in our lives, is often one of the most devastating and life-changing
experiences in a human being’s life. Like all who have come before us, each of us
will suffer important losses and will experience grief. A fraction of us will
experience complicated grief and will benefit from professional help. Treatment
of complicated grief is beyond the scope of this book, as discussed below. Most
of us will experience normal grief, still very difficult, but manageable
without professional help. In time, with our inner and outer resources, we will
make a satisfactory adjustment to our loss. How do we do this? We harness the
power of grief, and that is the subject of this book.
In my career, I coordinated a hospital-based
wellness program including a spousal bereavement program. Volunteers, who
themselves had been widowed for at least two years, provided help and support
to those who were newly widowed. The volunteers attended monthly meetings to
talk about those whom they were helping and to learn more about the subject of
grief.
At each volunteer meeting, my team leader and
I led discussions on various topics, based on the newest studies on grief and
traditional knowledge about grief. A recognized expert would publish an article
that we would discuss. A new book would come out, and we would review it
together. There would be an article in the paper. Someone would bring in her
favorite grief book. Therapists would be invited to give lectures. My team
leader and I would present topics on grief. Rarely did everyone agree entirely
with what was presented, and we would often hear: “It wasn’t like that for me;”
“I think you are missing an important point;” and “I agree with this, but not
with that.” The discussions were always lively.
We came away with the appreciation that each
one of us is different. Even though there is a lot of research-based knowledge as
well as traditional knowledge on the subject, each grief experience is unique.
There is not one way to grieve. There are your
ways to grieve. Knowledge supports you in your inner journey, but you are the
one who writes the story.
Yet, knowledge has an important place.
Knowledge gives you a framework for your journey. Knowledge gives you hope.
Others have walked this path, and you can, too. Knowledge validates your
experience and gives you confidence. Duane T. Bowers, a counselor in
Washington, DC, reminds us, “Grief will happen—don’t worry, it will happen.
Many people think it is not happening or that if it is happening, they are
doing it wrong. The problem arises when people get anxious and stressed about
it.” [Bowers][1].
He encourages us to relax. Grief happens naturally and differently for each
person.
George A. Bonanno, a well-known clinical
psychologist, author and grief researcher, puts it this way: “Above all, it
[grief] is a human experience. It is something we are wired for, and it is
certainly not meant to overwhelm us. Rather, our reactions to grief seem
designed to help us accept and accommodate losses relatively quickly so that we
can continue to live productive lives.” [Bonanno] [2] “Relatively quickly” is
different for each person: a few months, one year, two years, six years…
Throughout the rest of your life, your grief
may return, albeit not necessarily with the same intensity. At first, these
returns may be frequent, scary, and painful. With time, these returns become less
frequent and probably less intense. They are a connection to your loved one.
They are a connection to others who also have experienced losses. Grief and its
returns are a connection to humankind. Even though we may feel alone, we are
together.
Much of the body of valuable research on grief
goes back decades, even to the days of Sigmund Freud. The more recent research
is refining but not revolutionizing the work of the past. Studies of the grief
traditions of different cultures, including cultures that are thousands of
years old, have also contributed to our present-day understanding of grief and
its powerful place in the collective life of humankind.
Although knowledge continues to evolve through
research, William Worden, clinical psychologist and researcher, suggests that
we do not have to create a new theory of grief. Instead, we need to refine what
the past 100 years of grief knowledge and study have brought forth. You will
consequently note that there are new references that continue to validate much
of the older work. As Worden says, “Looking at the various theories of grief
that have been proffered over the past 100 years is a bit like the fable of the
blind men and the elephant. The description of what the elephant was like depended
on what part of the elephant the various blind men were touching. Grief theory
makes up the elephant—conceptions of the adaptation to the loss of a loved one
with their various similarities and differences. However, the elephant needs a
pedicure! Rather than recreating the elephant, we need to select and
investigate specific parts of these theories (toes) and tweak them” [Worden] [3]
In 1982, Worden himself introduced the idea of
the four Tasks of Grief, an idea that continues to have merit today. Part 2 of
this book is devoted to Worden’s Tasks.
What
this book includes:
In Part 1, “Grief Past and Present,” I define
grief as a natural human response to loss, the way we incorporate the loss into
our lives and then to move on in life. I trace the individual and community
history of grief in Western culture from the rural small-town past to modern
times. By looking at the past, we gain a fuller appreciation of how we are
experiencing grief in this present day and age. As Joe Piehuta, an old family
friend, put it, “If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.”
This look at the past helps us in the present. It gives us power in the
present.
We will see how our transient,
individualistic, and modern society presents challenges for the grieving person
who does not always receive adequate support from his community. We can learn
from our past, and we can learn from other cultures. Other cultures see death
and grief as the natural progression of human existence, not as an aberration
and an affront to one’s sensibilities.
We will explore the experience of grief and
what it might be like for you. Our modern culture does not have a unified view
of grief so you may feel blindsided by the experience. Consequently it is
helpful for you to know what you might experience in grief: a loss of meaning;
judgment of yourself and others; a changed view of the world and your place in
it; the oscillation between your grief experience and navigating in a changed
world; middle knowledge (one moment you know the death has occurred, and the
next moment you don’t); and the presence of reminders that trigger grief
reactions. Exploring the many ways grief may manifest helps you to accept what
you are experiencing as normal and to accept the experience of others.
In Part 2, “The Tasks of Grief,” I use William
Worden’s Tasks of Grief as the framework for our discussion of grieving. Other
authors use stages of grief, which imply that if you go through one stage, you
are ready for the next. When you complete all the stages, you are finished.
Then, you move on. Yet, many researchers have found that grief does not follow
a timeline from beginning to end. Grief is a dynamic process, and we never
completely “get over it.” As human beings, we will find grief always to be a
part of our lives. With the passage of time, our relationship with the deceased
and our memories become deeper or take on new facets as we ourselves change and
grow. The Tasks of Grief can continue throughout your life.
The asks summarize the process of grief—what you
do to make it through:
Task 1. To accept the reality of the loss
(Chapter 4)
Task 2. To experience the pain of grief
(Chapters 5 through 8)
Task 3. To adjust to a world without the
deceased (Chapter 9)
Task 4. To embark on a new life while establishing a
place in your heart for your deceased loved one (Chapter 10)
The tasks
honor the uniqueness of each grief experience. You can work on the tasks in
order, in any order, or all at once. You may find it helpful to revisit each or
all the tasks at different times throughout your life. Working with the tasks,
completing the task(s), and revisiting the tasks are ways to harness the power
of grief.
Some tasks
may be easy for you to complete. Others, not so easy.
The Tasks
of Grief describe a powerful process in which you are in charge (although you
may not always feel that way). These imply action rather than passive
experience. As will be described in Chapter 2, when people do something, they
feel better. The tasks honor the complexity of the grief process by recognizing
the variety of ways individuals accomplish things and the effort needed to do
so. There is room for individual variation in how much or how little and what
kinds of attention you choose to give to each task. To harness the power of the
tasks, see them as a creative process and a labor of love for your loved one,
yourself, your family, and your community.
When a
loved one dies, your sense of meaning can be changed, challenged, deepened,
damaged, and even shattered. Within each task is the search for meaning:
finding meaning in the loss, finding meaning in the pain, finding meaning in
your loved one’s life and death, finding meaning in your own life, and
reaffirming and/or rebuilding a meaningful life.
The tasks
can be perennial. At times throughout your life, you may be inclined to revisit
the tasks. Often this occurs because you have acquired new knowledge. After a
time, you may feel complete with your grief process, but then years later,
something will happen that will rekindle thoughts of the deceased in a new way—an
event or a new bit of knowledge (positive or negative) that will give you a
different look at the past and your relationship with the deceased.
A reminder
may pop up in your consciousness, bringing up a loss from long ago. New meaning
in your life and in your memories of the deceased may evolve. John Jordan, a
clinical psychologist specializing in grief and bereavement says, “Grief is a
cyclical revisiting process.” [Jordan][4]. He suggests that you
imagine that you are going up a spiral staircase. As you go up, you make a full
circle and return to your beginning point but on a higher or different level.
At each return, you have the opportunity and maybe the inclination to see
things in a different light and from a different perspective. At each return,
you are different, your world is different, and new insights can unfold. You
may be inspired to revisit one or more of the tasks, to accept the loss and to
appreciate the life of your loved one in a different, a more nuanced, and maybe
a deeper way.
New losses
bring up old losses. When you experience a loss, you may revisit previous
losses, or shall I say, they re-visit you. It may seem for a time that they
come back to you with painful intensity. You may revisit one or all the tasks,
and once again reaffirm or re-create your sense of meaning in your life.
Special
events may rekindle your grief—weddings, graduations, funerals of others who
died at the same age or in the same way as your loved one, family reunions, and
birthdays. Children whose parent has died may miss that parent at each growth
milestone and special event—a first day at school, a graduation, a marriage, or
the birth of a child. Parents whose child has died may mourn what could have
been at those same events and milestones: “This could have been my son’s first
day at school” or “If my son were alive, he would be graduating today.”
Everyday
experiences may rekindle your grief and inspire you to re-visit one or more of
the tasks. When I had a severe case of the flu as an adult, suddenly the
thought came to me, “I wish my mother were alive. She really knew how to take
care of me when I was sick.” I reminisced about all those common yet unpleasant
childhood illnesses and how she was there for me. I did not experience an
intense grief experience; rather it was a gentle love, appreciation, and
gratitude.
In keeping
with the philosophy of the tasks, please feel free to read the task chapters in
order or according to your interest or to what you are experiencing.
In my
years of bereavement work, thinking of the grief process within the framework
of these tasks seemed to make the most sense. However, I have found merit in
many of the other authors’ paradigms. Their insights can be readily
incorporated into the Tasks of Grief framework. I have noted their work
throughout this book (Bowers, Jordan, Doka and Martin, Golden, Duggan, Bowen,
Parkes, Rando, Stroebe, Bonanno, Westberg, Yeagley, Kübler-Ross, Weissman,
Rynearson, Ochberg, Leafy). Their work does not negate the tasks. Instead, they
complement and add depth to them. Please refer to the bibliography for
information about these and other authors.
In his
book, Grief Recovery, Reverend Larry
Yeagley [Yeagley][5]
briefly describes four broad steps to work through the grief process: Think.
Write. Talk. Weep. I have adapted Yeagley's work for this book, using his four
steps as a springboard to develop a number of practices, each tailored to
particular grief tasks and other particular conditions. I do not refer to these
practices as steps, as he does. To me a step seems to say that once you
complete the step, you are finished with it. Rather the practices and the tasks
are here for you to use repeatedly and comfortably.
In Part 3,
“Special Considerations,” we explore two specific kinds of losses: sudden death
and ambiguous loss. When your loved one dies suddenly, there is no time to
prepare and no chance for you to say goodbye. One minute she is here, the next
minute she is gone. On the other hand, an ambiguous loss is one that does not
end and continues to evolve. Your loved one may have Alzheimer’s disease with
many losses of functioning long before the actual death occurs. Or your loved
one is Missing in Action. Although the evidence points to her death, there
still is the small chance that she is alive.
We will also look at different styles of
grieving. Some people prefer the company of others in their grief. Others seek
solitude. Some people grieve in an emotional or feeling way, others in a
thought-oriented way. Your grief history, your age, your sexual orientation,
and the type of loss all influence your grieving.
Part 4, “Guides
to Understanding,” gives you a quick pick-me-up (Chapter 14, “Tips and
Validations”) when you don’t feel like reading a chapter or even reading much
at all but would just like some reassurance. It is there for those times when
you are particularly affected by your grief and may be wondering if you need
extra help (Chapter 15, “Danger Signs”). It is there, too, for the helper
(Chapter 16, “How to Help”). All of us will at one time or another have the
opportunity and the privilege to be a helper. As a grieving person, your first
job is to help yourself and to come to a more comfortable place in your own
life. However, as time goes on, you may want to reach out and help others who
have experienced a loss. On the other hand, as a newly grieving person you may
want to share Chapter 16 with those helpful family and friends who may clumsily
be trying to offer help but do not know what to do. (Most of us have been in
that position many times in our lives).
This book
is filled with common-sense ideas. A person’s confidence in exercising common
sense in managing his grief is likely to be challenged during the grieving
process. The common-sense ideas are the ones that help to open the door of hope
and give you access to your inner power. They may also simply validate what you
might be doing already, thereby increasing your power.
Grief is
natural to humans. If you are a person, you will grieve. With every change, positive
or negative, big or small, there is loss, and thus there is grief. We greet
what is new, and we miss what we had. We incorporate our rich history and
experience into our present life.
Death is
the final event, the one from which there is no return. This book focuses on
death, yet the information herein can be applied to all kinds of losses.
What this book is not:
You will
not find case histories of individuals and families. Rather, you will find
anecdotes of grieving people who have been willing to share their important
moments with you. I believe that case histories can actually stop you in your
tracks: “That person’s experience is worse than mine.” “I shouldn’t complain.”
Actually, I believe you should complain. Your experience is unique, and
comparisons to others do not always help. Comparisons can diminish your power
to grieve in your own way and to appreciate your own way of grieving.
I do not
believe that we grieve in a case history kind of way. (Therapists, however,
need to know your case history, current situation, family history and dynamics,
work history, and the like in order to help). You as a grieving person are
helping yourself, and you will experience pivotal moments that will reveal to
you where you are going and how far you have come. It is not always helpful to
get involved in the long and nuanced stories that are another’s grief. It is
better to focus on your own grief. The stories in this book are moments that
are there to help you on your way.
This book
is not about complicated grief, that is, intense and unremitting grief that
benefits from, and may require, professional help. The words “complicated grief”
only appear here in the introduction. However, I point the way toward
professional help in the “When to get Help” sections included in most of the
chapters with easy-to-read warning signs to watch for. Inclusion of
comprehensive discussions of therapeutic interventions and research is not
appropriate for this book because this is a book about normal grief.
Nonetheless, the grieving process is difficult even for normal grief, and this
book is intended to help.
How to read this book:
Grief is
unique for each person. One person may struggle with sadness, another with
anger, another with the loss of meaning, another with guilt, another with
feelings associated with trauma, and another with loneliness. Refer to the
chapters that suit you in the moment that you pick up the book.
Throughout
the book, I suggest many practices to help you in your grief. Some may be
helpful to you in some situations, but not in others. They may be helpful
either individually or in combinations and at different points in time during
your grief process. Try them out and find the ones that work for you. You will
find that many of them simply come naturally to you. In that case, they are
here to validate your experience.
I
encourage you to use this book to work with your thoughts and feelings. Most of
the chapters include recommendations and exercises that you can do. For
example, it is good to talk about your experience, and what you are thinking
and feeling, with trusted friends, family, your deceased loved one, and
yourself (in the form of journaling or creative expression). This idea of
talking is repeated, reinforced, and discussed in different ways throughout the
book. Some other examples are physical exercise, music, poetry, relaxation
techniques, and memorial ideas.
Read the
table of contents for ideas of where to start or look in the index for what you
are experiencing and then go to that page. If you are overwhelmed and feel that
every chapter applies to you, simply pick one. The amazing thing about working
through grief is that if you are helped in one area, this will influence other
areas in your grieving and in your life. It is like facing a daunting home
maintenance project—like spring-cleaning. You start with one drawer in one
dresser. You tidy it up and rearrange it. Afterward, you feel like you have
accomplished an amazing amount and are inspired to continue just by carefully
cleaning one drawer.
Although I
know enough about grief to write about it, I do not know enough to write about
your own unique experience of grief. That is your story to “write,” your story
to tell. If this book helps you to find your own answers, then I will have
succeeded.
We may buy a cookbook with the intention of trying every
recipe in the book, but the common experience is that we pick one, two, or
three recipes—that is the extent of our use. Years later, we may return to the
cookbook and try out another few recipes. In reading this book, you may find
that one chapter—maybe this one—one thought, one vignette, or one quote will
resonate with you, and that will be enough. You may find a reference that takes
you beyond what is written here and inspires you to go in a different
direction. I encourage you to be on the lookout for your own favorite “recipe”
and to change it up to suit your own experience.
My wish for you is that you find your own answers and
come to appreciate your own inner power as you continue your journey of grief.
[1] Bowers, Duane, Conference: The New Normal and the Grief Process – How the threat of
terrorism has changed us, challenged us, and added the dimension of fear to the
grief process.” (Church of the Annunciation, Montgomery Center, April 1,
2002)
[2] Bonanno, George A., The Other Side of Sadness (Basic Books, NY,
2009), 7.
[3] Worden, William J. “Theoretical
Perspectives on Loss and Grief”, p. 98 in Death,
Dying and Bereavement Stillion, J.M., and T. Attig, eds. (Springer, NY, 2015).
[4] Jordan, PhD, John, “Grief after Suicide: a training for mental
health professionals,” (Jewish Social Services, Rockville, MD, Nov. 20,
2015)
[5] Yeagley, L. Grief Recovery, (Larry Yeagley, 1984) 27-29.
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