The 6th Stage of Grief...Meaning

Elizabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler did a great service in putting forth the theory that Grief has 5 stages.  (See their book: On Grief and Grieving). 

These are: 

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Another way to look at grief in 5 stages is through the Sharpening Your Interpersonal Skills picture of grief: 

I've even seen 7 stages of grief!  

There are important things to know about grief: 

• Grief is carried in the body, and all of us carry it differently. 
• Some of us get headaches, our stomach gets twisted up.  
• Breathing may feel constricted, or a tightness is felt in one's chest. 
• Grief can be felt in the body as a sluggishness or exhaustion.  
• It can be a part of how we are doing psychosomatically.
• Grief is not linear – people experience and express grief very individually based on who they are and where they are and what they are grieving.

It's necessary to see whatever loss we have experienced (not just a death) as a disruption in our system of meaning. Something in our story changes when we go through grief, and we grapple with it. What is our story, and how does this loss impact our story? What is the meaning behind this change, this loss, and how should we move forward? 

This leads us to the 6th Stage of Grief, according to David Kessler, in his book, Finding Meaning: The 6th Stage of Grief. 

Here are some of my favorite quotes: 

• He offers the hope that post traumatic growth happens more often than post traumatic stress.
• However and whenever meaning is found, meaning matters and meaning will heal us. (p15).  
• And healing doesn't mean that the loss didn't happen, it means that it no longer controls or dominates us. 
• All of us get broken in some way. what matters is how we get up and put the pieces back together again. (p. 28). 
• Grief must be witnessed. Grief should unite us, not be experienced in isolation. He tells the story of a researcher on an indigenous village in Australia. In that village, the custom is that the night someone dies, everyone in the village moves a piece of furniture or something into their yard. The next day, when the bereaved family wakes up and looks outside, they see that everything has changed since their loved one died - not just for them but for everyone. That's how these communities witness and mirror grief. They are showing in a tangible way that someone's death matters. Loss is made visible. (p.30)
• It's important to realize that "the grieving mind finds no hope after loss. But when you're ready to hope again, you will be able to find it." (p14). 
• The act of witnessing someone's vulnerability in grief can bring the person out of isolation if the witnessing is done without judgment. (p.30)
• When people ask me how long they're going to grieve, I ask them, "How long will your loved one be dead? That's how long. I don't mean you'll be in pain forever, but you will never forget that person, never be able to fill the unique hole left in your heart. 
• Hope has a very close relationship with meaning. In the same way our meaning changes, so does hope. Sometimes when someone is stuck in grief, I'll say, "It sounds like hope died with your loved one. It seems all is lost." Surprisingly they perk up. "Yes, that's it!" They feel witnessed.  But then I'll tell them their loss of hope can be temporary. Until you find it, I'll hold it for you. I have hope for you. I don't want to invalidate your feelings as they are, but I also don't want to give death any more power than it already has. Death ends a life, but not our relationship, our love, or our hope." (p. 33)
• The story we tell ourselves about the death or the loss shape our grief and help us heal or keep us mired in suffering. What story are we telling ourselves? (p.51)
• The first step in finding meaning is acceptance.
• Next is deciding if we will allow ourselves to heal from the loss. Not making a decision is making a decision. Healing doesn't allow for neutrality. It's an active process, and we have to decide if we will live again. 
• Many people spend years looking for the why of the loss, the why of the death. However, it is often more helpful to look for the why of the life. why did the loved one live? What did you get out of knowing the loved one. Sometimes we just need to reframe the question! 

He states, 

"Each of us has the ability to choose how we respond to even the most terrible circumstances. 'We who have lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken fro a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.' Frankl suggested that when we are faced with a situation that is hopeless, unchangeable, 'we are challenged to change ourselves.' When we make the choice to do that, we can turn tragedy into an occasion for growth."

Resources

The Sixth Stage of Grief, David Kessler

Man's Search of Meaning, Viktor Frankl

Other Grief Blog Posts

• Job's Wife: Authenticity in Suffering
• Grief
• My Grief Bag
• Embracing the Gift of Grief 
• 4 Aspects to Not Being Overcome By Evil 
• I Went To The Woods 

Grieving the Impact of A Global Pandemic

There is much to grieve in 2021, now that the shock of the pandemic and resulting months and months of quarantine are wearing off. 

Not acknowledging through naming and feeling and facing the grief and loss we've experienced results in not being able to move on and forward with hope and joy in the future. 

Here are some named losses, but what would you add to the list? 

• We grieve the deaths of loved ones - permanent losses. 

• We  grieve the future we have to face without those loved ones who died because of the pandemic, whether from the actual disease or because they could not get medical attention due to overwhelmed medical systems. 

• We grieve not being able to grieve together at the funerals of these loved ones. 

• Even when the pandemic ends, our world is forever altered. We can never go back to how it was before. We grieve a lost world. 

• We lost a year of in-person relationships and being "present" in key events of loved ones. Graduations, weddings, births, bridal showers, dying (last moments) and death. We grieve all of those losses. 

• We grieve how our lives were disrupted. Our personal and global narratives are forever marked by "the pandemic." 

• Future loss will often find their roots to losses in the pandemic. We grieve what is to come directly due to the pandemic. (Anticipatory grief)

• We grieve the loss of finances due to loss of work. 
• We grieve the loss of our desired routine. 
• We grieve the loss of opportunities 
• We grieve the loss of traditions we could not engage in due to quarantines. 
• We grieve the fear now pervading the world. 
• We grieve the changes of public life and having to wear masks. 

It's important to realize that "Grief stays with us in some profound way. Our relationship with it might change, and to the extent we haven’t processed it, another big grief down the line may trigger a prior grief. All of our grief has a past and a future. It finds its place on the timeline of our life.  One loss triggers another loss that preceded it." (Nicholas Collura)

This past year has produced heightened sense of 

• loneliness
• being out of control,
• concern about our mental health
• feelings of isolation, chaos, uncertainty
• feelings of our life was being waster or passing us by because we couldn’t do what we want to do,
• a unique time of personal and collective trauma
• feeling despair for the earth, society, and the world
• the feeling that the pandemic and resulting tragedy is keeping us from participating in something meaningful

These feelings and the losses associated with them - a loss of the innocence of not having them are all significant results of the pandemic to grieve.  

We all have grief work to do, and it's crucial to recognize that doing this work is fundamentally an invitation to growth and healing; it won’t be easy or pain free.. It's also important to recognize that grief is not the enemy; rather, grief is our own spirit’s best attempt to respond to the antagonism of loss.

Grief is natural, normal, not easy, but it’s sacred. It is a time to turn to God, the God of all comfort, and grieve with Him.  He grieves these losses that we experience and he is present in our losses and griefs. 

What do you need to go and grieve today? 

Silence in Grief

Job became silent. 

Heaven was silent. 

God's presence brings silence. 

The Holy Spirit groans when I can no longer find words. 

Within the 5 stages of grief.

Denial-Anger-Bargaining-Depression-Acceptance...

There is also:

Silence.

Grief so pervasive,

So continuous,

So deep,

How long, Lord? 

Perhaps Friday and Saturday were like that. 

After You died.

An end of one life, one hope, one dream
not knowing even that the next one will begin.

Silence.

From the depths of painful death and loss

I stand silently before the Throne

face-to-face with Justice 

and demand Mercy. 

In the silence  and bitterness
of not knowing when it will end

To be like Him means 

continuous grief and pain

but also

compassion, loyalty, faithfulness

Walking thru 

the world of souls

Accepting healing means

 accepting new Life 

Accepting He always cares.

In the Sacred Romance 

Longing is fulfilled

Lament is comforted

Beauty arises from ashes

Belovedness imparts identity

My heart and soul is comforted

By the Lover of My Soul

Who always Sees Me with Delight

He Stays with Me 

In His Delight in me I focus
The eyes of my soul 

On His face 

No longer estranged from the soil of my soul,

I swim in the river of light

Radiance returns

Beloved acceptance

Known in

Delight in.

(Author unknown)

Rend your heart and not your garments; turn back to God. Joel 2:13

My Grief Bag

My grief bag
Surprises me
It opens at the most inconvenient moments
My hand can't help but go in
And draw out more
Pain
Tears
Sadness seeps
Into my bones
Exhaustion sets in
The pain expands as I gently place it back
In my grief bag
Heavier and bigger
Today than yesterday                                             
Birth, death, and life-in-between marked             
By wounds.
I sit in my grief once again
And grieve.

A good name is better than fine perfume, and one’s day of death is better than his day of birth. It is better to enter a house of mourning than a house of feasting, since death is the end of every man, and the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for a sad countenance is good for the heart.…Ecclesiastes 7:1-3

Related Posts
Embracing the Gift of Grief
4 Aspects to Not Being Overcome By Evil
I Went To The Woods

Grief

Grief 

...A never ending path in a wilderness.

In a world of shortcuts, hotkeys, fast food, and fiber optic speed,

Walking the path of grief cannot be hurried.

The only way out of grief is through it
Each grief has its own limits
Those who say one year is enough do not understand 

There are always new paths to walk in grief,
different stages
new levels of depth

but the smellsightsoundfeeling is always the same

Naming grief is a learned skill,
Honed over decades of walking its paths

Naming is Taming, 
The wild animal is quiet 
...for awhile

Naming Shadows 
Lightens Them 
A Dark, Scary, Confusing Path
Diffuses from black to gray

Perhaps I can see my tears where they fall 

Grief

...Deep sorrow, anguish, trouble of soul, loss, unending sadness.
 
Grief is not depression.
Grief is not sin.
Grief is not weakness.
Grief is not lack of joy.
Grief is not something to get over.
Grief is not something to ignore.
Grief is not a room to keep locked up.
 
Grief is a sign of love.

Deep grief = Deep love.
 
 Grief reflects loss...of any kind.
Grief helps one become a more integrated person.
Grief leads to more complex emotions.
Grief reflects God's heart.
Grief makes us whole.
Grief is a friend.
Grief is a cycle.
Grief has layers.

 

Uncontrollable Sobbing
Softly Weeping
Shedding Tears
Wailing Over Loss
Keening Cry
Heart-wrenching Lament
Shaking shoulders
 

God keeps our tears in his bottle.
 

Why would He do that?
 

God grieves.
 

God grieves with me.
God grieves with you.
 

"He who has seen me has seen the Father."
John 14.9

Jesus was a man of sorrows.
Jesus was well acquainted with grief.
 

My sadness is His sadness, my grief is His grief. 

Genesis 21:17 - He hears the wailing cry of a woman and the quiet cry of a boy and answers
I Samuel 1:10 - He hears the silent shaking cry of a woman and provides
Psalm 18:6 - He hears my voice and my cry
Psalm 31:22 - He hears my cry and takes care of my enemies
Psalm 56:8-9 - He keeps a record of what I cry over and heals them in Heaven
Revelations 21:4-5 - He will show me how He was with me in my tears - He remembers each grief
John 11:34-35 - He weeps over death and separation and the pain of those experiencing loss
John 20:11-15 - The women wept, but the angel gave a different perspective! 



Related Posts
Embracing the Gift of Grief
My Grief Bag