From Pain 2 Purpose (eBook)

2

How Long Will This Grief Journey Take?

“This is terrible. It’s like my insides are being torn apart.”

“I can hardly breathe. I’ve never felt such gnawing pain.”

“I’m in shock. Numb. In disbelief. This all seems surreal.”

“I’m emotionally drained. I feel an emptiness, a void, a vacuum, a gaping hole in my soul where he once was. I feel so lost and alone. And I don’t think I know who I am anymore.”

These are some of the emotions commonly felt by those suffering a major loss. At times it can seem unbearable, and you wonder how long this will last. There is no one-size-fits-all answer. Each individual’s recovery from loss is different because each individual is different. There is no set timetable or prescribed stages you must go through before you arrive at a new normal without your loved one. What you experience is uniquely yours because the relationship with the person you lost was uniquely yours. How you respond to your grief will largely determine the length of your journey forward from deep grieving to that new normal. Yet despite these inevitable variations, there are several responses to grief that are common to everyone who suffers loss.

It is not unusual for those grieving to have disrupted sleep patterns. Some people find it hard to sleep after a major loss. Others may stay in bed for days, as if attempting to sleep it all off. Other common responses to a major loss can include feeling numb, a sense of shock, a lack of concentration, a change in eating habits, and depression. Perhaps the most common reaction to loss can be described as your emotional energy riding on a roller coaster. The ups and downs and ins and outs of positive and negative feelings can be exhausting emotionally and physically draining. And you may question whether it will ever end.

Dr. H. Norman Wright, author of Experiencing Grief, identifies four indicators that show when a person is successfully moving through the grief process after the loss of a loved one. Those indicators are: (1) a sense of release; (2) renewed sense of energy; (3) ability to make better judgments; and (4) eating and sleeping better. Dr. Wright says, “For many adults it seems to take eighteen to twenty-four months before these four indicators are present.”3

Does Time Heal All Wounds?

You have probably heard people say, “Time heals all wounds.” That isn’t true. Time alone does not heal all wounds, but healing does take time. As we’ve said, there is no set timetable that applies to every situation. But there are certain factors that will determine the time it takes to heal your wounds and recover from your loss.

One factor is in realizing that trying to logically reason your way past your grief will not remedy what you are going through. Most losses make no logical sense. And attempting to rationalize through your grief definitely won’t speed up the process. Logic is a function of the brain, and the brain isn’t what is wounded. When we encounter a major loss in life, it’s not about a broken brain but rather a broken heart. None of us can reason our way through grief to bring healing to the heart.

If you break your arm, you go to the doctor for help. Neither the doctor nor you can reason around the fact that a bone is broken and will need medical attention. There are no quick fixes to a major bone break. It will take time to heal, probably longer than you want. It will require you to patiently endure the process—setting the bone, immobilizing the arm through wearing a cast, and suffering a good bit of discomfort. But by following through on the medical process and taking the prescribed medication, in time, you can heal.

When your heart is broken, you need to give yourself the same freedom for your heart to heal as you would for your body to heal. Accept that you need to follow a process to grieve productively in order to move forward. That process begins by understanding how to move through unresolved grief.

What Hinders Grief Recovery?

Unresolved grief is simply the pain we continue to experience due to a loss that we have not productively processed. The problem is that other factors mix in with our grief and hinder grief recovery.

For example, if someone caused the injury or death of our loved one, we might resent that person and become bitter. The added feelings of resentment and bitterness would complicate the grieving process and keep it unresolved. It’s common for grieving people to struggle with “if-only” thoughts. If only I had done this or that differently, my loved one’s death might not have happened. As a result, needless regrets impede the grieving process. We might blame ourselves in some way and suffer from guilt. We might additionally struggle with anger, fear, and anxious thoughts about the future or even feel a loss of identity since our loved one has passed.

With these and other added elements mingling into our pain of loss, our grieving can become unproductive and remain unresolved. Unless we identify and let go of these added and unproductive elements, they can keep us stuck in a perpetual state of grief.

Imagine your heart with a hole in the center of it representing your loss.

A vacuum will always remain in your heart because your loved one or your dream is gone. That’s naturally the case. But the good news is that the pain, as intense as it is, can find an abundant measure of healing if it receives the proper treatment. The purpose of the treatment is to get rid of that unproductive mixture of elements that have trapped your pain within your heart. Only then can you move forward toward healing. The solution is really very simple—just let those contaminating elements go. Of course, simple does not mean easy.

We are grieving because the hole in our heart caused by our loss has left us feeling alone and brokenhearted. The second illustration above shows the hole in the heart surrounded by several contaminating elements that often block healing. Many of these can sneak into our heart unknowingly. Our grief becomes complicated or unresolved when we fail to deal with these unproductive factors. The longer we hold on to them, the longer it will take for us to heal and recover.

Take the time now to stop and reflect on the unproductive elements that might be surrounding your loss. In addition to the grief you feel, what other complications might hinder your healing? Are you experiencing any regret, bitterness, guilt, anger, isolation, struggles with trust, or fear of tomorrow? Write about any of these unproductive elements that come to your mind.

The Incremental Process of Letting Go and Holding On

As we are letting go of those unproductive elements that can creep into our lives, we also need to take hold of some new things. It is actually a process of letting go of the unproductive and holding on to the productive that enables us to move forward to a new normal.

The apostle Paul told us that for him to grow and move forward in his spiritual life, he had to both let go and hold on. He said: “I focus on this one thing: Forgetting [letting go of] the past and looking forward [holding on] to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race…[And] hold on to the progress we have already made” (Philippians 3:13–14, 16). This same principle applies to how we grow and move forward emotionally through the stages of grief.

When we see that what we are being offered to hold on to is positive and productive, it gives us courage and strength to let go of those things that are holding us back. It is an exciting prospect of letting go in order to move forward. That two-lane road will lead us back to hope-filled thinking and joy-filled living.

The reality is that you have been going through a “letting go and holding on” process your entire life. In fact, at every point in life’s journey you have let go of the old in order to hold on to the new. In birth, you let go of the protective and warm embrace of your mother’s womb and held on to a process of breathing on your own as a newborn. You let go of nursing in the arms of your mother and held on to the adventure of eating on your own. Eventually you let go of being under the constant care of your mother and father and took hold of thriving on your own. Life is a process of letting go and holding on, and it’s not always an easy transition. But that is how we come to experience renewed emotional, relational, and spiritual wholeness and purpose.

When we find our soul mate, we need to let go of our mother and father and hold on to a fresh source of love with the one we marry (Genesis 2:24). We may move from one house to another, trade cars, and purchase new clothes. In all of these transactions, we let go of the old and embrace the new. When we relocate...