Yesterday we remember how that 23 years ago America was attacked by insane terrorists. Our nation was thrown into emotional turmoil. Families were fractured. So many children found themselves without a parent. It was as if many people’s hearts were torn from their chests by this new grief. Even today after all of these years in the remembrance ceremonies people were still weeping.
This brings to mind the process of grief. Anyone who finds himself in this position would do well if they got the booklet Good Grief by Granger E Westberg. For this blog I am using some thoughts offered in his manuscript along with my own thoughts. I would also say that it is a mistake to think that grief is like going through an emotional tunnel and then suddenly coming out on the other end into the bright sunlight. We cannot go from one step to another step to another step and tell ourselves we are finished. Instead, we experience a step and then another step and then back to the first step and then forward again to third step or fourth step and then back again. We can repeatedly cycle through the grief.
We must go through this irregular process until we can find some standing. I have advised those that I’ve counseled to put their grief in a black box on the top of an emotional shelf and leave it there until the one grieving takes it down from the shelf to reexperience the tragedy. Then put the black box back up on the top shelf and leave it there for a while.
It is important that we recognize we are not agreeing to what caused the grief or the one we have lost being gone from us forever. We are recognizing the reality for the cause of our trauma, but we must come to a place in which we will not allow ourselves to be defined by the loss. Emotionally this experience may be singular or shared by the whole group.
In fact, even if it’s in a group, each member will deal with grief separately from the others. We must allow each other to react to the strain that created a disturbance and damaged our emotional balance. Never should a person tell someone else how to deal with their upset. Sometimes silence is golden. Listening to what someone else has to say without verbal rebuke or correction is priceless. If the other person says nothing, that awkward silence is likewise gilded.
Shock is he initial stage of discovering what happened.
Emotional release must be permitted as opposed to stifling or stuffing it inside. Whenever a person feels like crying, they must be given that opportunity as often whenever and wherever.
Depression is bound to surface as a natural response to the moment. Intentionally or unintentionally, it could cause the grieving person to separate himself from others.
Physical symptoms can be a natural reaction to grief because of the lack of food or sleep or a lowered immune system balance. Under any kind of prolonged stress this could occur.
Dwelling on the loss could easily cause a lack of ability to concentrate, set goals, and produce intense worry. This could cause the inability to accomplish anything productive.
Guilt or self-blame may be a way of reflecting on the occurrence. This is when “if only” kicks in as we realize the insurmountable solution to the matter. Telling oneself that it was their fault is a counterbalance to the real culprit of circumstance or an individual perpetrator.
Anger can be productive or not productive depending on how it is addressed. It can indicate emotional and mental activity. The important part of anger is to use it in a productive way. This is why the Bible says, “Be ye angry and sin not.”
Bargaining with God may fit somewhere in this turmoil. Even though it is impractical and impossible, some people want God to change history on the premise that they will do something such as going to church faithfully every Sunday.
Anger and resentment may demonstrate a way to cope. Blaming others in particular is a way of projecting onto another person a cause-and-effect situation thinking they are in a better position or not affected at all by the trauma.
Resistance could be a campground because it became a familiar territory that otherwise would require strength and direction to rebuilding a life without the one lost.
Hope could seem to be an impossibility, but an occasional breakup of the cycle surfaces unexpectedly. It is not that one eventually agrees to the loss. It is that God made us such that we cannot be indefinitely sustained in this mindset and stay sane. This could cycle about creating self-blame when a positive state of mind momentarily surfaces.
A new reality develops eventually in which we are not the same as once before. We are a new person without the one lost and a person has a different direction. The newness is like a rebirth into the “what might be or what could be” lifestyle.
Self-nurturing is a necessary step that involves reconnecting with God and the Bible. By having a previous and strong relationship with God, this level reveals itself as a greater reliance on God; not expecting him to prevent another tragedy but relying on him to be sustained each day for whatever happens.
Sharing insights and spiritual progress with another grieving person that has had their own trauma may be a way that God will use these two people for each other’s sake. Sharing experiences from the past does not mean preaching. It means an open honest understanding from where the other person has originated as a result of their grief.
Experiencing the steps of grief is better enhanced by allowing oneself to be influenced by the Holy Spirit. It is to recognize that the ultimate healing is only through him and for his glory. To experience God in a whole new way is a privilege. To be closer to him by taking the route of grief in his presence is a spiritual aura.
Christian Writer 