Grief Public Service Announcement:
#3 of 10: “We can welcome our experience of grief without welcoming the loss itself.” Click here for original post.

Our first two Grief PSAs were pretty discouraging.
Recall that we discussed:
GPSA #1:  Time does not heal all wounds.
GPSA #2:  When we lose someone we love they never go away.

For today’s chat, we will consider some better news:
GPSA #3: We can welcome the experience of grief without welcoming the loss itself.

Albeit a tough one to embody, this statement can actually bring some calm to the storm of grief by way of acceptance. And most definitions of acceptance can be misleading. So let’s start with what acceptance is NOT when we are talking about grief.

Acceptance is NOT: defeat. Acceptance is not apathy or indifference. Acceptance is not approval or giving permission of some kind, saying its “ok.”  Rather, when talking about grief, acceptance IS allowing what is here, now, to be here now. And this is where the good news comes in. So much of our suffering comes from resistance. We fight not to feel. We struggle and resist. We display our “non-acceptance” of a death by acting out through behaviors that are not who we are.

But here is the key: We can welcome the experience of grief without welcoming the loss itself. In other words, instead of reacting, running, struggling, denying and resisting, we say “This is not my choice, but this is what’s here.” In this way, we begin to allow the details of our experience to emerge, and as we welcome instead of rejecting our experience, things flow a little more easily.

Consider the metaphor of a motor vehicle accident. You are driving down the road and a deer runs in front of your car. In an effort to avoid hitting the deer, you run your car into a tree, injuring yourself and totaling your vehicle. Unable to move, you call for help.

When first responders arrive at the scene and ask you to describe your symptoms, you don’t say to them “Well, I really don’t accept what’s happened so I won’t allow you to assess or treat my injuries.”  You don’t decide whether or not your potentially broken bones, or bleeding cuts are worthy of treatment. You don’t judge the way you got them. You just get the help you need, swiftly, open and without a “defeated” mindset.

Bringing this back to grief, we can accept our excruciatingly painful experience of loss, and tend to our injuries without labeling or rationalizing them. Just as with an auto accident, we need to get to the first responders and report what has happened, and then get about the business of figuring out we need and getting it.  Maybe we need to be in a group that helps us feel less alone.  Maybe we need to journal about our experience.  Maybe we need to watch home videos to borrow back what we have lost.  But there is no conversation that can begin, until we open to our experience.

Suffering does not come from loss, but rather from the stories we tell ourselves about our loss. And for the most part we tell ourselves this is “wrong” or “not supposed to happen” which only delays us in getting the help we need for our injuries. If we can’t give ourselves permission to validate our wounds then how can we expect to forge a path of healing? Yet, if our arm was broken and hanging off of our shoulder, we wouldn’t tell the paramedics: “Damn deer, ran me right off the road, and now look at me. I am not going to the hospital for x-rays and treatment. I am too mad. I am busy resisting, fighting and denying something that already happened.”

But when we don’t tend to our grief injuries, they become exacerbated. Imagine that broken arm, not getting the medical treatment needed to stabilize and heal. Infection ensues. The bones heal improperly. The entire body becomes sick and now a broken arm results in full blown sepsis and requires immense intervention, IV antibtiotics, surgery and maybe even amputation.

We can’t change our losses. And if you have not experienced profound loss (good for you!) you may not know how very physical the symptoms of grief can be. We get migraines, suffer from sleep deprivation, extended bouts of nausea or insatiable hunger, neurological confusion and literal throbbing heart aches. Our entire physical bodies can become sick as we act out this resistance.

But accepting the grief, without getting enthusiastic about the loss, is totally fine. We don’t have to thank the deer for running us off the road. We don’t have to be grateful that a tree totaled our car, or our bodies. But we can be grateful to be alive. We can look at our injuries, allow them to take shape, and get busy finding the specialty care we need.

When our hearts or our arms are broken, delaying the care that we need only makes the situation worse. By accepting the grief, even if we are in disbelief that one moment we were driving and then next we crashed, we allow it to see the light of day. And only in the light of day, can we see what’s broken, bleeding and potentially infected. Only when when we get into the ambulance for a head to toe assessment, do we and/or the paramedics know what we need.

When we are grieving, mostly I don’t think we know what we need. But carrying on as if nothing has changed can cost an arm, and a whole heart, if we are not careful.  We don’t have to like our situation. But let’s not make it worse by deciding whether or not it is real.

Unfortunately I promise, that it is. And all we can do now, is see what is broken and tend to our wounds.