Living Behind the Veil

I'm often asked what I wear in Afghanistan and what it's like to wear a veil. It's freedom. Freedom to have a bad hair day, freedom to arrange my chadar to conceal the curve of my breasts and backside, freedom to not be an expatriate for a little while. It means freedom to hide even on the street from the Afghan men's eyes which seem to strip me naked.
When I relax my shoulders and walk less purposefully, less confidently, my eyes downcast and covered by sunglasses, I pass for an Afghan woman. I hear the men whisper in Dari, "Is she a foreigner or local woman?" I chuckle but am silent. On the street, I'm also a free target....freely exposed to groping, sexual innuendos whispered to me as a man bicycles by, free to have stones thrown at me, freely seen as no one's wife, daughter, sister, mother, friend, or boss. I step inside my gate, and remove my chapan and chadar. Now I'm someone's boss, motherhood returns to me as little steps run to greet me, and I receive a kiss from my adoring husband. Now I'm free to his loving and gentle eyes which know and enjoy my curves, free to once again be under the protective umbrella of being a wife, mother, friend, colleague, boss, niece, sister, daughter, woman.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

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