When mental health professionals talk about grief they are usually talking about grief in response to death. It’s the most common form of grief and the most widely acknowledged in our society. Western culture doesn’t like to talk about death but following the death of a loved one the grief hits and takes center stage in the life of those still alive.
I’m thinking about grief as it relates to loss. We all experience little deaths throughout our lives that don’t result in our ultimate death. Loss is inevitable in our lives. We experience loss from the moment we’re born. At the time of our birth we leave the safety and warmth of the womb only to be brought into a world that is cold, loud, and overwhelming. We begin experiencing loss in that moment. When I think about the progression of life and how and when grief kicks our butt I think of a graph. Loss is a constant in our lives. We get hurt, we get sick, we fail a test, our friends move away, etc. It’s when a major life event intersects with these daily losses that we experience grief.
Think of the day our were diagnosed with your illness. The intersection of the diagnosis along with all the other stresses creates an emotional and spiritual tsunami. Our interpretation of the event is what creates the suffering. It’s our attachment to something we believe we had and deserved that causes our attachment to something that was fleeting all along.
We live lives that are filled with loss. How we learn to befriend those losses is what determines our level of spiritual stamina. It’s our ability to understand that loss is part of life and doesn’t detract from all the good things in your life. The problem comes when we keep trying to fill the holes created by the loss and it’s like filling a hole that has no bottom.
How do you handle loss? Are you prone to suffering? Would you like to change that world view? Check out the website for more information…http://www.survivingstrong.com
Pilgrim Pathway/Surviving Strong 