Clients regularly come to see me after experiencing loss - the loss of a loved one, a job, a relationship, health, you name it. They feel afraid, anxious and I don't blame them, whatever they just experienced, it hurts like hell. Maybe they are so sad and hurt they are having trouble eating or sleeping or just functioning without bursting into tears, at work, on public transit, or alone at home. They feel like they are failing - failing to move through this difficult period of their lives with grace, with optimism. Friends and family sometimes don't help, they either disappear or they offer advice or they make what are supposed to be encouraging comments "at least you.." or they can even become openly critical: " what are you so upset about it's not like yada yada yada." It is quite shocking how difficult it is to deal with loss, not just the loss experienced by ourselves but by those we care about.
This blog intends to explore the aspects of loss and its impacts, on our sense of self, on our relationships with other people and our belief in our ability to move forward.
I want to ask the question, how do we move forward in the face of loss?
Loss is painful. The key to recovering or moving through loss is dealing with that pain. And the problem with pain is it just isn't that desirable. Who actually says "Please allow me to experience heart-wrenching emotional pain?" The natural reaction to pain is to reject and deny it. Why do we deny it? Because not only is it a change we did not ask for, but we are also afraid we can't move through it, we are afraid that if we allow ourselves to experience the pain of loss we will not be able to manage, to survive, to be who we were before. Our view of ourselves is challenged - not only by the change we are experiencing but by the intensity of the pain we are feeling. We feel that we are not who we were before and we are afraid. We are afraid of disintegrating.
Merriam-Webster defines disintegration as
1: to break or separate into constituent elements or parts
The iron hinges were disintegrating into dust.
2: to lose unity or integrity by or as if by breaking into parts
The relationship started to disintegrate.
3: to undergo a change in composition
an atomic nucleus that disintegrates because of radioactivity
In his poem Song of Myself Walt Whitman wrote "I contain multitudes..." His poem describes in minute detail how identity is made up of everything from our relationships to other people, to the objects and natural phenomena that surround us, to the way our bodies function and what we choose to do with them in terms of our work, hobbies etc.
Losing important parts of who we are, or disintegrating, is scary. A person who experiences the death of an important person in their life experiences the loss of the identity they have built in relationship to that person - the same can be said for someone who has lost a job that is important to them, a pet who has been a valued companion, an object which is cherished, or for a healthy person who becomes ill. Loss affects what we do and who we are. We become bereaved, unemployed, unhealthy and our lives are changed. To feel angry, to want to fight our feelings around loss or to want to hide from them is natural and human and also part of who we are. We need to make a space for the way we feel about our loss in order to integrate it and move forward into a new identity that includes it.
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