Hello, terror, my old friend... I was born into a home filled with terror and grief. Terror and grief, thus, became the most familiar thing in my reality. (this terror and grief was largely unconscious and unspoken, so uncovering it took the willingness to honestly look at what was really there) And to be clear: we are all born into a world filled with terror and grief. ...
By Elaine Mansfield -- "As soon as you begin to ask the question, Who loves me? You are completely screwed, Because the next question is How Much?" Tony Hoagland -- And after that, Does he love me still? and Does he love me even though he’s dead? And then, When do I stop feeling married to a person who is no longer here? and Why do I feel lonely in a room full of people because he’s not smiling from across the room? … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Fear, grief and despair are uncomfortable and are seen as signs of personal failure. In our culture we call them "negative" and think of them as "bad." I prefer to call these emotions "dark," because I like the image of a rich, fertile soil from which something unexpected can bloom. Also we keep them "in the dark" and tend not to speak about them. We privatize them and don't see the ways in which they are connected to the world. But the dark emotions are inevitable. They are part of the universal human experience and are certainly worthy of our attention. They bring us important information about ourselves and the world and can be vehicles of profound transformation. … [click on title to read and view more]
by Robert D. Stolorow The DSM5, the most recent version of psychiatry’s diagnostic bible, makes it possible to classify grieving that endures beyond a rather brief span of time as a mental illness. … [click on title to read and view more]
I would like to suggest an idea for consideration. Much of what is labeled psychiatric disease is grief that has never been expressed or properly felt, or validated. If we have unexplored trauma, then it's likely we have unexplored grief too. Some of us need to begin a grieving process that never started in order to heal. Some of us have a life-time of grief that needs to be allowed and experienced. We can choose to challenge our culture's fear of grief and the dark emotions and begin to heal and turn it around. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
From a young age we see around us that grief is mostly an affliction, a misery that intrudes into the life we deserve, a rupture of the natural order of things, a trauma that we need coping and management and five stages and twelve steps to get over. Here’s the revolution: What if grief is a skill, in the same way that love is a skill, something that must be learned and cultivated and taught? What if grief is the natural order of things, a way of loving life anyway? Grief and the love of life are twins, natural human skills that can be learned first by being on the receiving end and feeling worthy of them, later by practicing them when you run short of understanding. In a time like ours, grieving is a subversive act. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
By Rick Belden Grief is an inevitable part of every human life, regardless of gender. It is also one of the great isolating forces in the lives of men. Male grief is all too often invisible, misunderstood, and unwanted, which leaves many men in the difficult position of having to deal with their grief on their own, if they deal with it at all. … [click on title to read more]
I like to say that if we are not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, we are suffering from pre-traumatic stress disorder. There is no way to be alive without being conscious of the potential for disaster. One way or another, death (and its cousins: old age, illness, accidents, separation and loss) hangs over all of us. Nobody is immune. Our world is unstable and unpredictable, and operates, to a great degree and despite incredible scientific advancement, outside our ability to control it. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
From a young age we see around us that grief is mostly an affliction, a misery that intrudes into the life we deserve, a rupture of the natural order of things, a trauma that we need coping and management and five stages and twelve steps to get over. Here’s the revolution: What if grief is a skill, in the same way that love is a skill, something that must be learned and cultivated and taught?
Years ago I showed a film to a group of men who were newly bereaved about how Tibetans once – maybe still – cared for their dying and their dead. When the film ended, the long silence was finally broken when one of the men said, “I feel like I come from nowhere.” And that seems to be what happens inside most of us when we see or hear of a people wholly at home where and how and who they are: we feel the shadowed hollow of our immigrant, refugee history, and our lack of ceremonial instinct and experience, or we try to fill it up by stealing something from those people who are miraculously still deeply, ancestrally, ceremonially alive. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
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