Dealing with loss and grief takes courage, more courage than perhaps you have ever found. Courage means standing by your core and, as you do grief work, your life will change.
Saying goodbye to someone you love is not easy...
The only way: Let them go in love but keep for yourself the precious memories of the life you shared with your loved one.
However, getting to this point takes some inner work. Here's how.
One of the deepest pains we will ever face is the loss of a loved one. Though it is a fact of life that we will experience a depth of sadness like no other when someone we deeply love makes their transition, or leaves for other reasons, most people don't know how to deal with the pain from this inevitable loss.
When my sister died 22 years ago, I felt like I had fallen off a boat and all I could do at first was struggle to stay afloat.
Following my sister's death, except for two close women friends, I was unable to find anyone to really say anything to me that helped the deep and yet invisible wound that Linda's premature death had left in my being. The problem was that because I had no visible tears or rips in my flesh, no one knew of the pain and deep wounding that I was experiencing in my whole being.
I finally called a former therapist in Michigan. (I had moved from Michigan four years before). I thought that my extremely gifted therapist would help me process these seeming unbearable feelings. This expectation was wondrously wrong. Paul told me that I needed to secure a copy of The Grief Recovery Handbook, by John W. James and Russell Friedman. He advised me to work through the book, then take the Grief Recovery certification training.
I did get the book, I worked through it with two friends, and then I did the training. As a result, I have led grief recovery groups and have counseled many people on grief issues now for nearly 20 years.
One of the amazing gifts of this program for me is this: I have always said my goal as a therapist is for my clients to heal the blocks that would keep them from making their dreams come true. I have discovered that for most people, these blocks have to do with grief and loss issues that were never dealt with. This fact alone brings most people a sigh of relief. The relief comes from the fact that they realize there is not something inherently wrong with them; that they have been carrying a shroud of grief because most of us do not know how to deal with loss and grief. In the grief work I do with people, I help them discover their inner strengths and gifts that have been covered over with grief until they have the courage to look at a lifetime of loss.
I understand this at depth. For my sister, she learned to use alcohol to deal with the bumps and bruises of our very chaotic childhood. When her alcoholic husband left her, she also left the planet by abusing alcohol. She was the rebel; I was the massive overachiever. Though it may look preferable to the outside world, constantly seeking ways to be better is as addictive as any drug. Linda's death and my resulting immersion in understanding grief and loss and how to heal, arrested my need to overachieve.
I'm doing all I can to prevent another premature death of a sister, a daughter, a friend, a cousin, or a spouse to addiction. I hope to remove the stigma of addiction and help the world know that we all use some form of addiction to medicate the pain we don't know how to deal with that stems from grief and loss. I dedicate my grief work to my sister, Linda—my precious sister whose radiant light went out too soon.
My mom died four years ago, and the grief work I had done prior to her death as a result of my sister's death, enabled me to receive the gifts I had received from my mother long before she died.
If I had a magic wand for you, I would suggest that you do grief work now.
Submitted by Suzanne Carter, LPC
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Suzanne Carter is a licensed professional counselor at her practice Unity Wholeness Center. She has 35 years of experience, specializing in helping people heal from trauma, providing grief counseling, and more.
I am here for you and a friend if you want to do the Grief Recovery Program with me. The cost is the same whether one, two, or three of you schedule six sessions to deal with grief and loss together. The sessions can be in-person or via screens. I can nearly guarantee you that your courage to do this now may save your life; at least it will make you a lot happier, as finding the courage to remove the shroud of grief will reveal your dreams.