Complete The Thing To Start Over: Grief Process

When we turn a page in our lives, it’s the end of the story. When we say goodbye, we write the end of the story. When we don’t get it done, and we don’t move forward in it, it follows us. We keep repeating the same thing until we manage to complete the last point and press “enter”. The grief process allows us to start from the beginning and from a new page.

Grief is defined as the process of mental adjustment after some kind of loss. Loss does not necessarily mean death. It is true that in our collective subconscious we associate the word with this most strongly, but it can also be used in situations of separation, new jobs, major changes…

Stages of grief

According to Dr. E. Kubler-Ross, the different stages of grief are as follows:

• Denial : A sad person refuses to accept a loss. He may also be in shock, preventing him from starting the process he inevitably has to go through.

• Anger : At this point, the sad person feels frustration and anger. He may direct these emotions to the circumstances that caused his loss, to himself, to other people, and so on.
• Trading : When he realizes his loss, he tries to find solutions. If a loved one is lost, at this point the mourner may return to the activities he or she did with the deceased.

• Depression : At this point, the sad person experiences their loss as pain, and he or she works with grief. At this point, the mourner retreats to himself.
• Acceptance : At this point, the person understands their loss and situation. He accepts it and tries to adapt to the new situation, combining the remaining parts.

These gears are not the same for everyone. And they don’t happen in this particular order or last for a certain amount of time. This list will only help you understand the process. The important thing about this list is that when you are dealing with a person who is grieving, it is good to know that at every stage he or she treats his or her grief with a different attitude. Attitude determines the tools we offer him and the actions we propose to him.

Without a proper decision, all processes tend to repeat, stop, or regress. All the faults we see in others, but which we have ignored or which we have not worked, take us in the same direction. We need to feel the grief of loss. We need to feel our feelings and take energy from our anger to accept grief as part of us.

If we don’t get it done, we’ll just put patches on our bloody wounds. We only superficially deal with what hurts us. The relief is only temporary. It only lasts until we encounter something else again.

Work with grief by giving up suffering

In his book The Path of Tears, Jorge Bucay explains as follows :

The pain we need to feel is a healthy feeling. It is a feeling that the wound is healing. It connects us to our innermost selves and helps us deal with loss.

No feeling is insufficiently impaired. Therefore, loss means sadness, pain, distance, anger, etc. These are stages, but if they last longer than necessary and make life impossible for a long time, it is time to ask for help. When grief turns into depression, anger into unfounded aggression, distance to personal neglect, or pain into anxiety, then yes, something has gone wrong in the healing process. We are not on the right path of tears. We have to ask for help.

What role do I play in the grief process?

When I know why the phase is over and I look for positive results in it, it helps me feel better. When I understand what went wrong and what I did wrong, I understand how I can heal. I can learn what I want to change, what I want to keep, or what I would have done better.

The grief process brings me to a special conclusion. It marks the end of the story. It is not a passive process, it takes emotions, action, desire and strength to continue. Writing a good ending requires personal reflection. Then we can start a new chapter with everything we have learned and enjoyed.