GRIEF Prelude

“No one ever told me that grief was so much like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach; the same restlessness; the yawning. I keep on swallowing.” – unknown

GRIEF

Prelude

Grief is a natural reaction to loss.

It is triggered by the loss of anything to which a bond was formed.

Examples include the death of a loved one, the ending of an important relationship, a job loss, the loss through theft or the loss of independence through disability.

Grief is multi-faceted and everyone is grieving in their own way and everyone’s responses to loss will be different.

Grief is a misunderstood and neglected process in life.

Loss is often awkward, uncomfortable and frightening to grievers and their surrounding. And because of this the whole process of grief is often avoided.

It is full of negative emotions.

Grief is unhappy and painful.

It leaves us with numbness and we feel removed from daily life. We might even be unable to carry on with regular duties and then there is this fear, anger and darkness crawling up which leaves the griever with nothing but confusion.

Nowadays, in our society, any negative feelings are considered as a threat and we are trained to eliminate these negative feelings.

But negative feelings are a part of us and mostly by not letting them be what they are we don’t realise that they are just feelings…they come and go. But they will never go forever, if we try to keep them in a box.

Once our feelings are out of the box, we can have a look at them, deal with them and then put them away forever.

This is what’s called FREEDOM.

Avoiding grief will lead to evaded conflicts, which we will be carrying throughout our whole life, ending up in always the same mess we found ourselves in before.

It will lead to depressive circle of self-destructive behaviour, suffering, sadness, excessive alcohol and drug use and any other addiction we can find out there in the world in order not to feel the pain.

The pain will increase, growing on our back and in a few years time we will be carrying a massive backpack full of darkness, fear and anguish around.

I am suffering a very important loss at the moment.

A loss on both levels.

A physical loss where everything got taken away from me, also the one I loved, and an abstract loss, which is relating to aspects of my social and financial interactions.

Times of grief leave me here with no instructions and there is no way to explain it.

No one can tell me how to get through it; I will have to find my own way to cope with the loss. But what I need to let you know is, that it is very important to get THROUGH it and not trying to avoid it or to eliminate the pain and symptoms. I am not saying I wont try this, it’s way too easy to do so, but deep down inside of me there is one single truth, telling me, that if I don’t get THROUGH this, severe problems in my future life will be triggered and it will cause me suffering in all levels.

I want to be free and become again who I am.

I want to face it, and just dive THROUGH it… although at the moment, it feels like never-ending.