Changing Unnecessary Suffering Into Acceptance Of The New When Grieving

"No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit." - Helen Keller

Since change is a condition of existence, we have to continually make adjustments in the way we deal with the altered conditions to be faced. Grieving is all about developing a new normal and often some new skills to deal with our different life. And unless we have a vision of where we want to go and how to get there, the tendency to spin our wheels, cling to the past, and not meet goals is guaranteed. Our vision has to include not only where we are going, but equally important, how we will establish a new relationship with our deceased loved one.

Accepting the new without our loved one is often fertile ground for creating unnecessary suffering. However, there is more than enough pain and suffering without unknowingly adding to our burden. So how can we reduce unnecessary suffering and work toward accepting the new life we must live? Here are five beginning strategies.

1. Strengthen your inner life. We all have programming that hurts or helps us when grieving. Coping well with any major change in life is directly dependent on the condition of your inner life, what you say to yourself, your belief system, memories, choices, and most importantly your willingness to change and be open to the new circumstances of your life. The key word here is "open."

We all like the familiar and the certainty that usually goes with it. However, life is all about continuous change and how we choose to adapt to those changes.

We have to court insecurity in order to adapt new ways of dealing with a life that is moving onward. Therefore, carefully examine how you speak to yourself. Are you more positive in your thoughts or are you thinking more on the negative side? The more positive you can be, the more you will be able to be open to ideas and experiences you have never had previously. Consciously practice self-talk that says you can deal with the changed circumstances you now face. Look in the mirror and say "I am capable and good." Tell yourself you have the courage to meet tomorrow and the next day and on and on.

2. Work at getting rid of your "labels." People like to throw labels on others, especially in their early years. Sometimes we place them on ourselves due to a mistake or failure we experienced. Everyone has labels, either interpreted as good or bad. Regrettably, they are mostly bad. Can you remember in high school labels like nerd, failure, sissy, dingbat, loser, uncool, ugly, and the list goes on? Sometimes those labels come from people in our family ("He's not our best student") or teachers. Think of the labels you have been living up to and whether or not they are harming your ability to deal with your great loss. The ones you bought into can have a terrible effect on your self-esteem and your coping strategies. 
If you have taken the labels dumped on you (or you dumped on yourself) in your earlier years and turned them into fixed beliefs, you are in deep trouble. Why? Because those beliefs keep you from changing. They block you from taking in more useful beliefs and behaviors. Remember, they are only labels, not who you really are. You can be who you want to be, not some fictitious character someone laid on you. You have the inherent ability to cope with any change life throws at you. And it will have an incredible influence on your inner life. Start with the fact that your thoughts create your identity.

3. Gradually let go of and eventually eliminate resistance. It is quite normal to not want to accept the great burden you must deal with. Yet, keep in mind that by resisting what cannot be changed you prolong the intensity of your grief and add loads of unnecessary suffering to the process. Yes, grief will revisit as time moves on because we don't "get over" our grief we learn to live with it. One way to live with it is to let your emotions out as naturally as they surface. Refuse to be strong and stuff your hurt and tears deep inside. Let your tears and emotions work through you. They appear for a reason: to express them and help you through the present moment. They are a normal human response to loss. So let them out. And in the process, become aware of and get rid of disempowering thoughts.

4. Learn not to grieve 24/7. Grief is the expected response when something dear to us is suddenly no longer there. But it is not a process we are expected to be involved in without a periodic break. To grieve without a daily break is to guarantee developing a health problem. The reason for this is quite simple. Grief is a highly stressful experience. It makes major demands on your physical as well as emotional self. Part of your grief work is to allow for time to give your body a needed break to reenergize so you can continue on with adapting to all the new experiences and challenges.

If you refuse to change the scene for an hour or two each day, to rest and recharge, then you can expect excessive pain and sadness. Get out and do something just for you like yoga, meditation, gratitude practices, shopping, nature walks, exercise as well as strengthening your spiritual life. It is perfectly okay to show some compassion to yourself and do things that make you feel better and enjoy a focus on something other than grief. Go to places and seek to be with people who are at peace and full of energy.

5. Accept what is: the things you cannot change. This means looking at your great loss in a different way. It means letting go of some of the old reasoning you may have picked up in your younger years: like be strong. Fight back those tears. You'll find someone else. You will find closure (There is no such thing as closure.). And the false list goes on with the added problems you try to solve with little or no success. Such faulty thoughts and beliefs block the number one task of the grief process: to accept the reality of your great loss and integrate it into your life. Not easy to do and it takes time and practice, practice, practice. Ask your Higher Power for "the serenity to accept the thing you cannot change." Find a way to perceive death as an integral part of life. Ask those who teach or practice this view how they arrived at it.

In summary, notice that the bottom four of the five outlined above all have an effect on the quality of your inner life. In particular, one of the secrets of the good life and coping well is resilience. Other words for resilience are changeable, bendable, adaptable, adjustable, and variable. Your degree of resilience and finding ways to increase it will do much to help you grieve and accept the new. You are powerful and never forget it. Don't let anything take that power away from you.

Dr. LaGrand is a grief counselor and the author of eight books, the most recent, Healing Grief, Finding Peace: 101 Ways to Cope with the Death of Your Loved One. He is known world-wide for his research on the Extraordinary Experiences of the bereaved (after-death communication phenomena) and was the founding President of Hospice & Palliative Care of the St. Lawrence Valley, Inc. His monthly ezine-free website is http://www.extraordinarygriefexperiences.com.