Brian Nandy Counseling              

Grief Recovery Handbook Summary

John W. James & Russell Friedman  | ISBN: 0-06-095273-3

Grief: A Neglected & Misunderstood Process

Grief is the conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior.  After someone you love dies after a long illness you may feel a sense of relied that you loved one’s suffering is over. That is a positive feeling, even though its associated with a death. At the same time, you may realize that you can no longer see/touch that person. This may be very painful for you. Relief & Pain and totally normal in response to death. Other losses: loss of trust, loss of safety & loss of control of one’s body [physical or sexual abuse].

Grief is about a broken heart, not a broken brain. All efforts to heal the heart with the head fail because the head is the wrong tool for the job. It’s like trying to paint with a hammer – it only makes a mess. A well-meaning friend may say “Don’t feel bad – you can have other children.”  The intellectual statement that one has physical ability to have children is irrelevant, unintentional abuse, because it belittles the natural and normal emotions.  While it is intellectually accurate, it’s emotionally barren.  The confusion leads to social isolation.

What is recovery?

Recovery means:

1. feeling better.
2. claiming your circumstances instead of your circumstances claiming you and your happiness.
3. finding new meaning for living without having them precipitate painful feelings of regret or remorse.
4. acknowledging that its perfectly ok to feel sad from time to time and to talk about this feelings no matter how those around you react.
5. being able to forgive others when they say or do things that you know are based on their lack of knowledge about grief.
6. one day realizing that your ability to talk about the loss you’ve experienced is indeed normal and healthy.

The death of a loved one  produces emotions that can be described as the feeling of reaching out for someone who has always been there, only to find that when we need them one more time, they are no longer there. With a problematic relationship with someone aka “less than loved one” – the feeling is one of reaching out for someone who had never been there for you and still isn’t. This is also true for those of you who need to discover and complete the unfinished emotions attached to a living person with whom you have a less than fulfilling relationship.

            Incomplete grief dictates fearful choices. It will create hyper-vigilance self-protection from further emotional pain. Excess of caution limits the ability to be open, trusting, and loving, dooming the next relationship.

These are all normal & natural responses. Their duration is different for everyone.  Don’t predict a time. If someone you love dies, you may not have anger, instead feel relieved. Don’t let anyone create a time frame or fit you into a stage.

Getting over | Getting complete

Misinformation: you can “never get over” the death of a child. “Not forgetting” becomes incorrectly entangled with the idea of “not getting over”.  Ask yourself; “When you remember pleasant memories, does your heart feel broken?” No. Instead of saying “my heart is permanently broken”, use instead “sometimes when I am reminded of her struggles and her death, my heart feels broken. Other times remembering her wonderful qualities, I feel happy and pleased to share my memories about her.”

Grievers are willing to talk about the circumstances of the loss and to review the relationship they had. Grief Recovery can happen immediately. The accuracy of our memories is heightened about the loss. Tragic circumstances creates social isolation [AIDS, suicide, murder] – the feeling of the unfairness of it all. So quickly move to consider 2 large truths:

1. Would you love your loved one any less if s/he died some other way?
2. What is left emotionally unfinished for you as a result of this death?

 

Closure is another unhelpful and inaccurate word. Lawsuits may complete a crime but does not being emotional completeness.

 Guilt implies “intent to harm”. Since you had no intention to harm, and having the devastation of the death, you don’t need to add hurt with an incorrect word hat distorts your feelings. In some instances, people have does things with intent to harm, in that case, an apology helps to remove any obstacle to completion.

 Survivor reminds people to revisit the circumstances about the loss. It becomes an identity. Do not use that word. Segregating the grievers by type f loss adds to that isolation. Meeting together with others who have had a similar experience is comforting.

We are ill prepared to deal with loss.

We are always thought to learn to acquire things to make life successful and happy. We are even advised not to learn about dealing with loss, not to talk about it. “What is done is done. You have to move on. Don’t burden others with your feelings.”  The crucial step is to develop some helpful habits for dealing with grief. To develop a new habit:

1. must become aware of the need to develop a new habit.
2. learn the component parts/ skills necessary to build the habit. This means identifying the ideas that don’t work & replacing them with ideas that work.
3. MUST practice the new ideas to turn them into habits.

 Misinformation about dealing with loss:

1. Don’t feel bad. “If you’re gonna cry, go to your room” aka “Don’t cry” “there are plenty of fish in the sea.”
2. Replace the loss. “Let’s go shopping”, “I’ll get you a new dog.”
3. Grieve alone. “Give her some space.” “He needs to be alone”.
4. Just give it time aka “time heals all pain”.  If you have a flat tire, would you just stare at it and wait for air to somehow get back into the tire? Time itself does not heal; it is what you do within time that’ll help complete the pain.
5. Be strong for others.
6. Keep busy

 Grieves have been taught to isolate themselves. Participation is part of the solution. Participate is your own recovery.  The accumulation of unhelpful reactions add up to a loss of trust.

Others are Ill Prepared to Help Us Deal with Loss.

 People don’t know what to say. “I know how you feel.” This is delivered with great compassion & with intent to soothe. Most people report that they are anything but soothed by that comment. All relationships are unique, no exceptions! A similar loss is an intellectual fact. It is not emotionally helpful. The great majority of well-meaning people around us do not have successful grief recovery experiences to share. Therefore they unwittingly encourage us to act recovered.

 People are afraid of our feelings. Society teaches us that having sad, painful or negative feelings & showing them are somehow not appropriate. “Get a hold of yourself” “You can’t fall apart”.

 People try to change the subject. The implication is that if your loved one is no longer suffering, then you shouldn’t either.

 People intellectualize. Since we rely on our minds everyday, we’ve got more practice with it. Grief is an emotional response to loss. The cause of the loss itself is intellectual, but the reaction to it is emotional. That’s because death of a loved one is not an everyday occurrence. Reliance on intellect is at the expense of feelings. Comments that are not helpful: “Be grateful you had him for along time”, “He’s in a better place”, “She led a full life”, “God won’t give you more than you can handle”.

 People don’t hear us. A teenager had a birthday party and her 3 best friends in the last minute cancelled. She was sad and her mom said “Don’t feel bad, there are lots of other nice people here to enjoy.” Instead she should have said “Ouch, you must feel so disappointed.” Grieving people want and need to be heard, not fixed.

 People don’t want to talk about death. “What happened to daddy? God has called him to heaven.” The next several years, the child is upset and confused by God. It is better to tell the truth. “Your daddy died. And now we believe that after he dies, we went to be with God.” Avoid metaphors with children. Developing minds can’t match reality with metaphors.

 People want us to keep the faith. Anger will pass if we’re allowed to express the feeling. We have to be allowed to tell someone that we’re angry with God and not be judged for it.  If not, this anger may persist and block spiritual growth.