The Many Faces of Grief

What do you think of when you hear the word grief? I find that most people associate grief with the death of a loved one or some other significant loss of life. While death is certainly one of the primary causes of the grief that we experience as humans, the grieving process can actually be triggered by anything that causes us to feel intense or deep sorrow. In particular, any kind of ending such as the loss of a job, the termination of a relationship or even a relocation to a new home or different geographic location can easily open us up to experiencing grief. 

By this more expansive definition, I hardly know a single person that is not experiencing some sort of grief at this exact moment in time, no matter how magical their overall life might seem on the surface. For example in our lives here at Team Herbert, we experienced the death of a family member within the last couple of weeks. My wife Christiana and I have both recently experienced other deep personal emotional losses that have awakened feelings of grief within the last month. Even our daughter Emma, who is ending the preschool chapter of her life and getting ready to make the jump to kindergarten is showing signs of grief about saying goodbye to her friends and teachers, which in turn creates a great deal of wistfulness for me and even a bit of grief by extension. 

All three of these individual circumstances I just listed can then start to add up to a heavier weight of collective grief, and that's before I even begin to take into account how much heaviness is being experienced by others who I care for in my life or across our entire planet for that matter! It can be enough to make you feel completely overwhelmed at times, can't it?

Just the other day as I was trying to make a bit more sense of the multitude of emotions that I am currently experiencing, I noticed the subject line of a new mailing list I've been receiving over the last couple of weeks. I must have been automatically subscribed after I signed up for a free class series by one of my favorite Qi Gong teachers, Mimi Kuo-Deemer. The subject line simply read, "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." 

This particular subject line caught my eyes because I had just been discussing this exact topic with my It's About Life Podcast partner Deb Frischmon. When I opened the email about pain and suffering, I discovered an essay by a man named David Kessler who is considered one of the worlds foremost experts on grief and loss. In his essay, Kessler reviewed the five stages of grief as outlined initially by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her groundbreaking book On Death and Dying. Kessler would go on to eventually study with Kübler-Ross and co-author a second book with her titled On Grief and Grieving. 

For those of you who are less familiar with any formal study of the grief process, the five stages typically outlined are: 

1) Denial - shock and disbelief that the loss has occurred
2) Anger - that someone or something we love is no longer here
3) Bargaining - reviewing all the what-ifs and regrets
4) Depression - feeling the sadness from the loss
5) Acceptance - acknowledging the reality of the loss

Every single one of us has experienced some sort of grief in our lives and while the process can unfold differently, most everyone can relate to the above five stages as a reference point for the process. More recently, Kessler has explored the reality that the grieving process actually has no ending point. While there is a level of implied finality in reaching the place of acceptance with a loss of any kind, the acceptance piece does not mean that we are okay with the loss or that the pain it created has been, or will ever be fully healed. In order to make something that is potentially enriching or fulfilling out of our grief, we need to allow ourselves time to move into a profound and crucial sixth phase of the grieving process, which Kessler now calls Meaning. 

In his most recent book, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, Kessler points out that with meaning, we can make sense of our grief over time and allow it to serve a purpose that can drive us to explore possibilities that we might otherwise have never explored. 

For example, when I look at the recent death we experienced in our family, it is allowing me to re-examine the time of my own father's death and consider parts of that time in my life with a new perspective. While it may not be easy to re-experience grief from the past, it can certainly be a powerful tool in my own self-development. Some of the stories I have been telling myself over the 27 years since my father died still hold true, and others are just stories that some part of my psyche designed to help protect me in that moment in time. Whether or not having that protection still serves me is another story, but I'll save it for another time. 

Another life event I can reframe by looking at the grief process with the additional perspective of searching for meaning, is the huge loss my wife Christiana and I experienced when we lost every income source we had at the onset of the Covid pandemic in March of 2020. In many ways we are still recovering from the enormous financial hit we would take over the next year and a half, but it did allow us to consider the possibility of becoming full time entrepreneurs which we otherwise would have never likely had the courage to try. There are still a number of things I miss about the security of our former lives and jobs, but I can't deny that I am on a path to fulfill my highest purpose in life as a writer, coach, teacher and spiritual guide. 

Even as we are on vacation at our rental property in Michigan, I can't help but notice a tiny bit of grief and then consider a search for meaning within that grief. I have always loved everything about Western Michigan and I am so grateful to own a small rental property in the amazing town New Buffalo. That being said, the "good old days" of hanging out at restaurants or friends homes until all hours of the morning are a part of the past. We spend a good deal of our time out here trying to find personal space in a tiny cottage and wishing that Emma would wind down and go to bed early enough for us to watch a movie, or do anything else for that matter before I'm too tired and need to get some sleep. 

What I did notice on this particular trip though, was that my desire to include wine or spirits as big part of our time out here has finally passed. I had often said to Christiana that Michigan continued to be the biggest potential trigger for my sobriety. Since so much of my time in New Buffalo over the last three decades has been focused on celebrations, coming out here and not drinking was exceedingly challenging, even long after I had stopped drinking. This time around though << Test First Name >>, I haven't even had a single NA beverage as surrogate compensation. Noticing how firmly I have become entrenched in my life as a sober person has given great meaning to an otherwise cold and rainy trip that in many other ways has been challenging. 

Are there things in your life that are ending that are creating big feelings for you? Perhaps even just the idea that summer is winding down and you may not have had all the experiences you were hoping for is enough to be causing you some sadness? Whatever it is, may I suggest that you let all the feelings rise up even as they relate to things that might otherwise seem trivial. Perhaps in doing so you will be able to find meaning in something that you might have not take notice of if you didn't make time and space to do so. 

Well that's all for this week. Next week Emma starts her journey as a Kindergartener and I'm sure I will have PLENTY to reflect on as it relates to that whole experience. In the meantime, feel free to reach out if you have any questions, have any thoughts to share or could use a little loving support. Until then, I send you peace and blessings, 

Jim