Understanding Your Suicide Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart
194
Understanding Your Suicide Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart
194Paperback(Original)
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781879651586 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Companion Press |
| Publication date: | 08/01/2009 |
| Series: | Understanding Your Grief |
| Edition description: | Original |
| Pages: | 194 |
| Sales rank: | 192,120 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d) |
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Understanding Your Suicide Grief
Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart
By Alan D. Wolfelt
Center for Loss and Life Transition
Copyright © 2009 Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-879651-58-6
CHAPTER 1
Touchstone One
Open to the Presence of Your Loss
"In every heart there is an inner room, where we can hold our greatest treasures and our deepest pain."
Marianne Williamson
Someone you love has completed suicide. In your heart, you have come to know your deepest pain. To be "bereaved" literally means "to be torn apart." You have a broken heart and your life has been turned upside down.
From my own experience with the death of a close friend to suicide, as well as my experience of supporting hundreds of survivors over the years, I have learned that we cannot go around the pain that is the wilderness of grief. Instead, we must journey all through it, sometimes shuffling along the less strenuous side paths, sometimes plowing directly into the center.
While it is instinctive to want to run as far away as possible from the overwhelming pain that comes with this loss, you have probably already discovered that even if you try to hide, deny, or self-treat your pain, it is still within you, demanding your attention. In acknowledging the inevitability of the pain and raw suffering that comes with this grief, in coming to understand the need to gently embrace the pain, you in effect honor the pain. "What?" you naturally protest. "Honor the pain?" As strange as it may sound, your pain is the key that opens your heart and ushers you on your way to eventual healing.
What is Healing in Grief?
To heal in grief is to become whole again, to integrate your grief into yourself, and to learn to continue your changed life with fullness and meaning. Experiencing a new and changed "wholeness" requires that you engage in the work of mourning. It doesn't happen to you; you must stay open to that which has broken you.
Healing is a holistic concept that embraces the physical, emotional, cognitive, social, and spiritual realms. Note that healing is not the same as curing, which is a medical term that means "remedying" or "correcting." You cannot correct your grief, but you can heal it.
In many ways, this book is about helping you face the pain of your loss so you can enter into and through your darkness and come into the light. The word honor literally means recognizing the value of and respecting. It is not instinctive to see grief that erupts following a suicide death and the need to mourn as something to honor. I certainly didn't want to honor my pain when my friend Ken took his life. However, I discovered that it was necessary and ultimately healing. I hope you discover as I did that to honor (value it, respect it, give it the attention it demands) your grief is not self-destructive or harmful, it is self-sustaining and life-giving.
You have probably been taught that pain is an indication that something is wrong and that you should find a way to alleviate the pain. In our culture, pain and feelings of loss are experiences most people try to avoid. Why? Because the role of pain and suffering is misunderstood. This is particularly true with suicide grief. Because of the stigma and taboo surrounding suicide, many people think you shouldn't talk about it, let alone honor your pain by openly mourning. Normal thoughts and feelings after a suicide death are still seen by some as unnecessary, even inappropriate.
You will learn over time, if you haven't already, that the pain of suicide grief will keep trying to get your attention until you have the courage to gently, and in small doses, open to its presence. The alternatives — denying, suppressing, or self-treating your pain — are in fact more painful.
I have learned that the pain that surrounds the closed heart of grief is the pain of living against yourself, the pain of denying how the loss changed you, the pain of feeling alone and isolated — unable to openly mourn, unable to love and be loved by those around you. Denied grief results in what I term "living in the shadow of the ghosts of grief" (see my book by this title for an outline of the consequences of carrying your pain), which is a state in which you essentially die while you are still alive.
Taboo: something society decides is so terrible that no one is allowed to do it, talk about it, or learn about it.
Stigma: the mark of shame and ridicule placed on those people who do kill themselves, and on their families. The stigma is the punishment for breaking the taboo.
People are often anxious and afraid of what they do not understand, so this stigma exists because of fear. So, sad to say you will have to reach out and find safe, nonjudgmental people who support your need to mourn openly and honestly.
Instead of dying while you are alive, you can choose to allow yourself to remain open to the pain. Paradoxically, it is gathering courage to move toward the pain that ultimately leads to the healing of your wounded heart. Your integrity is engaged by your feelings and the commitment you make to honor the truth in them.
In part, this book will encourage you to be present to your multitude of thoughts and feelings, to "be with" them, for they contain the truth you are searching for, the energy you may be lacking, and the unfolding of your eventual healing. While it can be tempting to only want to allow a limited range of feelings to surface, my experience suggests you will need all of your thoughts and feelings to lead you there, not just the feelings you find acceptable. For it is in being honest with yourself that you find your way through the wilderness and identify the places that need to be healed.
EXPRESS YOURSELF: Go to The Understanding Your Suicide Grief Journal on p. 10.
STAYING PRESENT TO YOUR PAIN
As you stay present to your pain that comes with the experience of suicide survivor grief, you will be participating in "soul work," which will eventually lead to "spirit work". Keep in mind that "soul work" precedes "spirit work."
Soul Work: A downward movement in the psyche; a willingness to connect with what is dark, deep, and not necessarily pleasant.
Spirit Work: A quality of moving toward the light; upward ascending.
"A wound that goes unacknowledged and unwept is a wound that cannot heal."
John Eldredge
In part, healing and transcendence are about your willingness to descend into your soul work on the path to your spirit work. My personal and professional experience suggests that when we experience the death of someone we care deeply about to suicide, we must allow ourselves to descend before we can transcend.
EXPRESS YOURSELF: Go to The Understanding Your Suicide Grief Journal on p. 11.
SETTING YOUR INTENTION TO HEAL
You are on a journey that is naturally frightening, painful, and often lonely. No words, written or spoken, can take away the pain you feel now. I hope, however, that this book will bring you some comfort and encouragement as you make a commitment to embracing that very pain.
It takes a true commitment to heal in your grief. Yes, you are wounded, but with commitment and intention you can and will become whole again. Commitment goes hand in hand with the concept of "setting your intention." Intention is defined as being conscious of what you want to experience. A close cousin to "affirmation," it is using the power of positive thought to produce a desired result.
"Much of the pain from suicide grief can come from trying to keep the pain secret."
Alan D. Wolfelt
"You need to have the intention to survive, and if you don't have the tools, you have to reach out for them."
Iris Bolton
How can this concept of setting intention influence your journey through grief? When you set your intention to heal, you make a true commitment to positively influence the course of your journey. You choose between what I call being a "passive witness" or an "active participant" in your grief. You have probably heard or been told the cliché: "Time heals all wounds." Yet, time alone has nothing to do with healing the wounds of grief that come with suicide. I like to remind myself and other survivors that healing waits on welcome, not on time! Healing and integrating this loss into your life demands that you engage actively in the grief journey. It can't be fixed or resolved; it can only be soothed and "integrated" or "reconciled" through actively experiencing the multitude of thoughts and feelings involved.
EXPRESS YOURSELF: Go to The Understanding Your Suicide Grief Journal on p. 11.
INTEGRATING YOUR SUICIDE GRIEF
The concept of intention-setting presupposes that your outer reality is a direct reflection of your inner thoughts and beliefs. If you can change or mold some of your thoughts or beliefs, then you can influence your reality. In journaling and speaking (and praying!) your intentions, you can help set them.
You might tell yourself, "I can and will reach out for support during this difficult time in my life. I can and will find people who do not change the subject or feel a need to run away when I tell my story. I will look to people who can accept the new person I have become. I will become filled with hope that I can and will survive this tragic death."
Setting your intention as in the above example is not only a way of helping yourself heal (although it is indeed that!), it is a way of actively guiding your grief. Of course, you will still have to honor and embrace your pain during this time. By honoring the presence of your pain, by understanding the appropriateness of your pain, you are committing to facing the pain. You are committing to paying attention to your experience in ways that allow you to eventually begin to breathe life into your soul again. What better reason to give attention to your intention!
Integration or Reconciliation
An important concept to keep in mind as you journey through grief is that of integration or reconciliation. You cannot get over or resolve your grief, but you can integrate or reconcile yourself to it. That is, you can learn to incorporate your grief into your consciousness and rediscover meaning and purpose in your life. See Touchstone Nine for more on integration and reconciliation.
In reality, denying your grief, running from it, or minimizing it only seems to make it more confusing and overwhelming. Paradoxically, to eventually soften your heart, you must embrace your grief. As strange as it may seem, you must make it your friend.
In this book, I will attempt to teach you to gently and lovingly befriend your grief. To not be ashamed to express it. To not be ashamed of your tears and profound feelings of sadness. To try not to pull down the blinds that shut out light and love. Slowly and in doses, you can and will return to life and begin to live in ways that put stars back into your sky.
A Survivor Speaks:
"Once I decided I wanted to go on living, I committed myself to facing what I had to face. It's been so hard, but it has been more than worth it."
EXPRESS YOURSELF: Go to The Understanding Your Suicide Grief Journal on p. 12.
NO REWARD FOR SPEED
Reconciling your grief does not happen quickly or efficiently. The grief work surrounding suicide may be some of the hardest work you ever do. Because grief is work, it naturally leaves you feeling drained. That is why you probably are experiencing what is called the "lethargy of grief," where you don't feel like you have any physical, emotional, or spiritual energy. Can you relate?
Consequently, you must be patient with yourself. When you come to trust the pain will not last forever, it becomes tolerable. Deceiving yourself into thinking the pain does not even exist is sure to make it intolerable. Spiritual maturity in your grief work is attained when you embrace a paradox: to live at once in the state of both encounter and surrender, to both "work at" and "surrender to" your grief.
As you come to know this paradox, you will slowly discover the soothing of your soul. Resist the need to figure out everything with your head, and let the paradox embrace you. You will find yourself wrapped in a gentle peace — the peace of living at once in both encounter (feeling the pain of your grief) and surrender (embracing the mystery without trying to "understand" it with your head).
Dosing Your Pain
While this first Touchstone seeks to help you understand the role of pain in your healing and eventual transcendence, I want to make sure you also understand that you cannot embrace the pain of your suicide grief all at once. If you were to feel it all at once, you would no doubt feel overwhelmed and unsure that you could survive. Instead, you must allow yourself to "dose" the pain — feel it in small waves then allow yourself to retreat until you are ready for the next wave.
A Survivor Speaks:
"At first, I couldn't even get my feet out of the bed. It was a major accomplishment to take a shower. I would say with my head, 'Get going,' but my body said, 'You aren't going anywhere.'"
EXPRESS YOURSELF: Go to The Understanding Your Suicide Grief Journal on p. 13.
Understanding the Concept of Surrender
The concept of surrender teaches you that when you stop resisting and surrender to your situation exactly as it is, things begin to change. Resistance is an instinctive defense mechanism you use to push away or deny your pain to protect you from your feelings of loss and grief. In the end, resistance robs you of your capacity to heal and transcend. When you surrender, you acknowledge, "This is what I am faced with right now in my life's journey (the suicide death of someone dear to me). While I'd like it to be different, I must allow myself to face the reality of what is happening." When you surrender, you release attachment to how you feel your life should be and invite yourself to be in the presence of your life exactly as it is. While naturally difficult to do, surrender is an act of courage.
A VITAL DISTINCTION: SHOCK VERSUS DENIAL
Shock along with elements of denial is a temporary, healthy response that essentially says, "The reality of the suicide death of someone dear to me is too painful to acknowledge right now. Therefore I refuse to believe it." While this is a natural initial reaction to suicide, you will hinder your eventual healing if you stay in long-term denial.
There are various forms of denial that, as a survivor, you must work to break through:
Conscious Denial: This is where you hide the fact that the death was suicide. You may tell people it was a heart attack, murder, or an unexplained sudden death.
Innocent Denial: This is where you hold onto the hope that the findings that ruled the death a suicide were a mistake and will be changed at a later date.
Blame as Denial: This is where you blame someone else for the suicide, thereby denying the choice someone made to take his or her own life.
Pretense and Denial: This is where the family rule is that you never talk about the death or use the word suicide at any time.
The various motivations for these forms of denial are often multiple and complex. Often, people don't even realize they are in denial. So, if you discover you have gone beyond shock into some form of prolonged denial, do not shame or ridicule yourself.
But here is the problem: By staying in whatever form of denial, you miss the opportunity to do the grief work related to your feelings. You inhibit your capacity to experience perturbation (see p. 70). As you have seen emphasized in this chapter, befriending your pain is central to your ultimate healing. Until denial is broken through and the pain is experienced, you are on hold and authentic mourning cannot take place. If you find yourself stuck in denial, commit yourself to working on this first and foremost. There is good reason that I address this in Touchstone One of this book. Why? Because until you break through denial, the additional Touchstones that follow do you little good. Of course, if you were in long-term denial, you probably would not be reading this book. Odds are you probably know some family members and friends who will not read this book, preferring to maintain their personal denial.
A Survivor Speaks:
"I went from shock into denial and stayed there for a long time. Ultimately, I discovered I was becoming my own worst enemy. Fortunately, I found a compassionate counselor who gently led the way and invited me to face the reality of the suicide of my son. That is when my mourning really started."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Understanding Your Suicide Grief by Alan D. Wolfelt. Copyright © 2009 Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.. Excerpted by permission of Center for Loss and Life Transition.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Also by Alan Wolfelt,Dedication,
Title Page,
Copyright Page,
Dedication,
Foreword,
Welcome: An Invitation to Open Your Heart,
Touchstone One - Open to the Presence of Your Loss,
Touchstone Two - Dispel the Misconceptions About Suicide and Grief and Mourning,
Touchstone Three - Explore the Uniqueness of Your Suicide Grief,
Touchstone Four - Explore Your Feelings of Loss,
Touchstone Five - RECOGNIZE YOU ARE NOT CRAZY,
Touchstone Six - UNDERSTANDING THE SIX NEEDS OF MOURNING,
Touchstone Seven - NURTURE YOURSELF,
Touchstone Eight - REACH OUT FOR HELP,
Touchstone Nine - Seek Reconciliation, Not Resolution,
Touchstone Ten - Appreciate Your Transformation,
Contacts to Create Support Groups and Additional Resources,
THE SUICIDE SURVIVOR'S BILL OF RIGHTS,
Acknowledgments,
ALSO BY ALAN WOLFELT,
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