Dealing With Our Grief

By Steven Stadler, MA, LPCC, LADC

“We want to keep grief at bay, away, far far away. Yet, it keeps creeping into our lives, invited or not.” ~ Ted Bowman

Cravings are messages from our unprocessed grief telling us to pause, listen and

experience me, it will lead to more inner peace and freedom.

Types of Grief we experience in Recovery:

• Letting go our dependency and coping skill (alcohol, cannabis, sex, work, etc.)

• Change in social environments/letting go of “drinking friends”.

• Death of a loved one/friend

• Self-image and self- esteem (lack of intimacy and our inability to be present for others)

• Job/Career Direction (living in fear; success and failure)

• Loss of Dreams

• Broken Relationships including divorce (lack of intimacy and our inability to be present for others in those relationships)

• Health and Wellness (mental health challenges, poor self-care in earlier years)

• Family dynamics changing and the ending of chapters (your children moving out)

• Reason for living (losing touch with a meaning and purpose)

• Family of origin; acceptance of what needs were not met and the challenges you experience in your current life due to those unmet needs (abandonment, insecurities and generational shame issues.)

• The Aging Process

5 Stages of Grief

by Elisabeth Kubler Ross

How are these stages helpful to us? They can be tools to help us frame and identify what we might be feeling. (They are not linear)

1. Denial- shock, this is not happening…

2. Anger- is a necessary stage of the healing process and giving yourself permission to process and let the anger go in healthy ways.

3. Bargaining- using the “what ifs”.

4. Depression- experiencing depression is the appropriate response to great loss (sadness, irritability, lack of motivation, concentration and focus problems, tears)

5. Acceptance- recognizing that this new reality is the permanent reality. “Coming to grips” with the loss or situation and moving to engage in life on a deeper more intimate level.

   
   

Why grieve?

• Those who grieve well, experience deeper connection with others.

• Grief is the healing process of the heart, soul and mind; it is the path that returns us to wholeness.

Guides to Grieving

• All loss can be the ground work for new life.

• Losses are unique to each individual, because we grieve more over the loss of what something meant to us than the lost object.

• Change always brings loss, even when the change is welcome.

• Loss evokes a wide array of emotions, whether we admit them or not (irritability, sadness, anxiety, depression, anger)

• We will find the makings of ourselves in our own history of loss, especially in the ways we have chosen to deal with it.

• While we cannot control the losses we experience in life, we can choose what we do with them.

• Grieving that produces Growth involves 3 movements:

  • Openly acknowledging what has been lost to others.

  • Expressing our feelings as we acknowledge the loss

  • Choosing to change the things that keep us tied to the loss.

There is no timeline for grief, each individual grieves at their own pace…

How do we grieve?

By sharing our loss with others…

Quiet time and reflection with your higher power

Reading literature on Grief (there are many inspiring and helpful books available)

Walks in nature

Spending time with your pets

By writing…(grief letters)