Religion – Page 4 – Andrea Arthur Owan

How to Grieve Well: Successful Steps to Complete Your Grief Healing—Part 5

LAST WEEK IN OUR SERIES on doing a relationship review to complete your grief healing, we talked about the importance of apologies in successfully completing your grief process. This week we’ll explore forgiveness.

Forgiveness. Even the word can make people cringe and feel queasy and defensive. It’s not always an easy thing to give to someone, and it’s a healing component a lot of people get stuck at and resist doing.

But I can’t stress enough it’s importance.

How important is forgiveness in grief and loss recovery?

Forgiveness is usually a critical element to completing unfinished and incomplete emotions attached to any relationship you have throughout your life. Someone is bound to hurt you—sometimes horrifically, so; and you are bound to hurt another person. It’s unavoidable. We’re sinful people with myriad wants, needs, greeds and hang-ups.

Relationships are overrun by sensitive natures, life experiences and prejudices about life topics. Misunderstandings and misinterpretations abound.

It doesn’t help that society’s definitions and concepts of forgiveness are often hidden landmines that complicate the process, as are the reasons behind forgiving someone and what to expect after forgiveness is given.

But why is forgiveness such a critical element?

Read on to find out.

Basic definition of forgiveness—

The psychologists at the Greater Good Science Center at University of California—Berkeley define forgiveness as:

“A conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness.”

Look at the key words in their definition:

Conscious
Deliberate (decision)
Release (of feelings)

A conscious, deliberate release. The process is action-oriented, not passive.

And then please take note: forgiving someone has nothing to do with whether or not the recipient of your forgiveness actually deserves it.

And that’s where people get really stuck, to a point where not forgiving or being unable or unwilling to forgive negatively affects their life.

Does “forgive” mean “condone”?

This is where a lot of people get hung up emotionally and spiritually, thinking forgive equates to condoning.

Does it?

Absolutely not!

Forgive does NOT equate to condone.

Ever.

And just because you forgive someone does not mean you reconcile or re-establish a relationship with the person you’re forgiving.

Let’s look at their different definitions, as given in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary:

Forgive—

1 : to cease to feel resentment against (an offender)

2a : to give up resentment of or claim to requital (compensation or retaliation)

Condone—

: to regard or treat (something bad or blameworthy) as acceptable or harmless.

: or dismiss as of little importance

Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines it as: to treat as if trivial, harmful, or of no importance.

So should you treat horrific behavior that demoralized or physically or emotionally harmed you as something you should condone, regardless of the offender’s relationship to you?

No.

But if we focus on the definition of forgive, and the critical reasons for it, we’ll be heading in the right direction.

The dangers of harboring resentment and having an unforgiving heart—

If you decide you can’t or won’t forgive someone, what’s the harm to you, or the other person?

Actually, there’s likely no harm to them. They’re usually not the ones suffering for their behavior.

But before we go one, let’s look at one more definition.

Resentment:

“… a feeling of indignant displeasure or persistent ill will at something regarded as a wrong, insult, or injury.”

I especially want you to focus on the persistent ill will part of the definition.

Continuous. Unrelenting. Never-ending. Ongoing.

In other words, something that nags at you. Affects your behavior and thoughts. Drags you down. Drives you nuts. Dogs you. And likely compromises your emotional and physical health.

And therein lies the problem.

The un-forgiver, not the perpetrator, is the one that suffers.

As the Grief Recovery Institute points out, and which is so true and substantiated by life and Scripture, is that:

“Any resentment etched into the memory of events that occurred in the past will limit and restrict [your] ability to participate fully in life. Any reminder of the person or event about which the resentment exists may stimulate a painful reliving of the unfinished emotions attached to it. Successful recovery requires completion of the pain rather than retention of the resentment.” (my italics)

By clutching on to your resentment, you’re forever reliving the perpetrator’s act and re-experiencing the pain.

And if the perpetrator has died, constantly reliving it—and feeling all the pain and anger surrounding it—doesn’t hurt the deceased person. It only hurts you.

You’re hurting you. Repeatedly. Over and over and over again.

If that’s what’s happening, it’s impossible for you to live a life of joy and healthy productivity.

You won’t thrive.

There’s no debating that sometimes people’s actions are insensitive, careless, thoughtless, mean, vengeful or downright evil. But if you don’t forgive them, you will never be truly free mentally, physically, emotionally or spiritually.

May I be blunt?

Forgiveness should not be looked upon as the “F” word.

Forgiveness is often an action first, feeling second—

Sometimes you may feel compelled to offer someone forgiveness. Your heart just feels as though it’s overflowing with mercy and grace.

Other times, not so much.

In those difficult, not-so-much times, consider forgiveness to be the first-step action. Then, if your forgiveness is sincere and verbally stated, the feelings will follow.

Just hearing yourself say “I forgive you for…” out loud is enough to change your heart and mind as your action and words form an imprint on your brain.

It breaks open that dam holding in the stagnant resentment and lets it escape.

It cleanses your heart. It prompts healing to occur. It reduces physical, emotional and spiritual stress.

You can extend forgiveness for something someone did or for something they did not do.

I can forgive my father for not telling me how radiant I was on my wedding day, insisting that I focus on my mother and tell her how lovely she looked. But it wasn’t her day. It was mine. Neither of them seemed to appreciate that. When I descended the church stairs to take my dad’s arm and begin the processional, that was the comment he hit me with.

It broke my heart.

But his thoughtlessness didn’t need to break my heart for the rest of my life.

He never realized or acknowledged his omission or commission, so I didn’t confront him or ask for his forgiveness (a subject we’ll get to in just a minute), but I have made a forgiving statement directed toward his memory out loud and to my husband, because it’s important for someone else to hear it (a subject we’ll also cover in more detail in other posts).

It frees my heart to let that go. And it gives me extra real estate in my brain to construct happy memories.

And there are many other, more grievous events and words, I have forgiven both my parents for.

What about “I can forgive, but I can’t forget”?

Because their thoughts on this are so clear, true and concise, I’m going to quote Grief Recovery Institute.

“The implication of “I can forgive, but I can’t forget” is that “since I cannot forget, I will not forgive. The real questions are: Who stays an emotional prison cell? Who continues to resent and shut down their own mind, body, and heart? Whose life is limited by the absence of forgiveness?”

Clearly, the perpetrator is not the one suffering.

Should you ask a living person for forgiveness?

While asking for forgiveness and giving an apology seem identical, they’re really not. Let’s look closely at the two.

When you focus on giving an apology, you’re recognizing and admitting to your poor or grievous behavior and taking full responsibility for it.

And you’re leaving the forgiveness up to the person you’ve harmed, which is their right to give, or not.

However, when you approach the problem and person with: “Please forgive me for…” you’re already telling them you have an expectation for their reciprocating behavior. It’s really a manipulative technique, and one that puts the potential forgiver in an uncomfortable situation.

And they may say they forgive you without really meaning it.

I once had a friend say to me: “You’ll need to extend me grace on that,” when I said to her “I haven’t seen you in a while,” at a wedding reception. It struck me as an odd, somewhat flippant comment that was intended to shut down any further discussion about it. And she said it with a smile, which told me she really wasn’t apologizing for her silence.

I hadn’t said it with an accusatory tone, or even expected any explanation. I just nodded.

Don’t ask the person to do something that you need to do, with forthrightness and conviction. Take action, and allow the other person time to consider your actions.

After offering an apology for the specific action or inaction, you might follow up by saying, “I hope you can forgive me.” Then leave it up to them.

Should you tell someone you’ve forgiven her when she hasn’t apologized?

Telling someone you forgive them when they haven’t apologized is a danger to be avoided at all cost.

Why?

Because your statement is likely to be considered an attack.

And if they haven’t apologized, the person you’ve forgiven doesn’t need to know you’ve forgiven them.

This is what happens in forgiving someone who is deceased. You won’t be speaking directly to them, so they won’t know. You’ll know.

And that’s enough.

Don’t be trapped in your past by an unforgiving heart—

Again, forgiving someone doesn’t mean you’re condoning bad or dangerous behavior.

It’s disengaging your heart from the ugly past and allowing yourself to move forward, fully engaged in and with life.

It’s the best way to “let go.” To “cease to feel resentment.”

It gives you your best shot at a thriving, healthy life!

How does God fit in to forgiveness?

I love knowing that when I repent, God forgives me. And I remember that He promises that as far as the east is from the west, He will remember my sin no more. That gives me comfort and the impetus to repent and feel cleansed.

While we’re human, and it seems impossible for us to cast away our memories, remember that nothing is impossible with God. If you’re having difficulty in this area, ask Him for help. He’ll faithfully provide.

And we can remember what our precious Lord Jesus had to say about this when He taught the disciples to pray to the Father:

“…forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

That section of what is commonly referred to as “The Lord’s Prayer” always gives me pause and makes me ask myself:

“Is there anyone I haven’t forgiven?”

If I have not—and I don’t—then I stifle my relationship with God. I don’t and can’t receive all the blessings He has for me. I tie His hands from giving them to me.

Am I willing to put a wedge between God and me, just to hang onto my justified resentment? To forgo His blessings and hamper our relationship?

I think not.

I hope not.

Jesus had something else to say about this forgiveness stuff and how important it is to God and your relationship with Him. In Matthew 5, verses 23 and 24, He instructs His followers:

“This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God” (The Message).

If forgiveness is important to God, it should be important to us.

Does that make it easy? No. We’re human. It’s hard.

But remembering what the Lord spoke on the cross, when He asked the Father to forgive the people who put Him to death because they didn’t know what they were doing, should make it easier.

I hope you can and will use Jesus as your example when freely offering forgiveness to others, no matter what their sin.

Countless lives have been destroyed or rendered fruitless and pain-riddled by the inability or stubborn refusal to complete their relationships with past painful events, by refusing to forgive and free themselves from the events.

Please don’t let that be you.

Invitation—

Is there anyone in your life you know you’ve harmed by a careless word or deed that you need to apologize to?
Has anyone harmed you and hasn’t apologized for the harm they did?
Who and what is that harm? What kind of effect did it have on you physically, emotionally, and spiritually?
If the person is alive, and you haven’t yet forgiven them, I invite you to pray for them. It’s very difficult, if not nearly impossible, to feel anger toward a person you’re praying for. Start there, and you may find it easier to move to the forgiveness stage.
Think and pray about how un-forgiveness has affected your life, is affecting it now. Ask yourself if you really want to continue living with the grudge you’re holding.
Has anyone asked for your forgiveness and you really haven’t given it? Why not? What steps could you take today to make that happen, to free your soul?
If the person is deceased, write down specific “I forgive you for…” and “I’m sorry for…” statements to that person. Be specific. Openly state your misdeed. We’ll use these when we write the complete Relationship Review letter in a few weeks.

Before you go, enjoy the songs by Matthew West and Kevin LeVar.

NEXT WEEK: a look at significant emotional statements and how they fit into the relationship review and grief completion.

Until then,

Remember that forgiving is not condoning; and err on the side of forgiveness. For your sake.

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John).

Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She mentors people in how to thrive physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

How to Grieve Well: Successful Steps to Complete Your Grief Healing—Part 2

HOW ARE YOU at completing what you started, taking it all the way to the end? Would you say you’re a great starter, AND a great finisher? Or are you better at getting all excited about starting something, delving into it, only to find yourself fizzling out and leaving it undone?

I confess I’m a better starter than finisher. I usually burn up all my enthusiasm and energy for a project before putting the finishing touches of completion on it. All I have to do is glance around my house to prove it. Or open a craft box. (To my joy, many of those years-left-partially-finished-and-undone projects were recently completed. Hallelujah! But I had to really give myself a lot of pep talks and fanny kicking to do them.)

Complicate the matter with my ADD tendencies, and the fact that I often have too many projects going at one time, and you have a recipe for lots of starts but few completions.

But after a project is really finished, it feels soooo good. Not only does the project look and feel completed, and gives me pleasure, but I kind of feel completed too. Really satisfied. And better. Looking at undone projects depresses me, and makes me feel a little tarnished, like the threads of my life are hanging frayed and knotted.

Grief and grieving can follow the same course.

But just how do we ensure that we complete the grieving well and don’t leave any suppressed grief festering in our souls?

The “How” of Grief Recovery and Completion—

If statistics are correct, we are people who love to learn how to do things. We constantly search “How to” do this or that on the Internet. We want to learn, so we can accomplish things, grow, share our new knowledge and achieve. Change.

But as much as we want to be able to get through the grief we didn’t start on purpose, we don’t always ask “How?” or know what steps we should take to finish the grief, or complete it. Deep in our hearts, we still feel as though something’s not quite finished with the grieving process.

Last week we started our discussion on the grief completion process, and I introduced the term and idea of using a relationship review to help with that completion. Before we move on, though, let’s review the Grief Recovery Institute’s definition of completion.

“Completion is the action of discovering and communicating, directly or indirectly, the undelivered emotions that attach to any relationship that changes or ends.”

Sounds simple, straightforward and easy enough, doesn’t it?

But maybe it’s not.

Like any project we endeavor to start and complete, there are steps we need to take to get it done. We usually can’t do the steps out of order, and we sometimes need to wait patiently for one step to be completed (maybe dry or cure) before moving onto the next one. And if we bungle one, sometimes we need to tamp down our frustration, back up, and redo it. Otherwise the finished product looks kind of crummy and unfinished.

**What’s involved in grief completion?**

Again, before we move on, let’s review the truths of this completion definition.

Completion is an action. It requires the griever to do something for herself; to be an active participant.
Completion is an act of discovery, which implies uncovering hidden truths or tangible items. Bringing into the light what was once hidden from sight or recognition.
Completion is communicating, verbalizing what was once unspoken or unexpressed.
Completion uncovers or sheds light on emotionsthat have not previously been acknowledged or expressed.

Grief completion is the process you go through. It’s where you dig deeply into your heart and memory banks to find and expose those emotions that naturally accompany any relationship. The emotions you buried or were lying dormant.

The emotions that brought you joy.

The emotions that brought you pain.

The emotions you felt guilty for having.

The emotions you wanted to express, but, for whatever reason, you didn’t or couldn’t.

Through that act of discovery—identifying those honest emotions and expressing them—you move forward to completing your grief. Putting yourself back together, to be whole and thrive.

And the means by which we can do this is the relationship review.

What is a relationship review?

A relationship review happens when we dig down deep and draw out and express those emotions we had, and may still have, surrounding a relationship and its loss.

Happy emotions. Sad emotions. Regretful or guilty emotions. Unfinished emotions.

Emotions directly related to your relationship with the person, job, or pet you lost.

The family member that died. The house and community you had to leave. The beloved pet you had to put down. The job you walked away from, or lost. The friend that decided they no longer valued you or your friendship and said goodbye.

Those are the emotions swirling around what you wished could or would have been different, better, or more about the relationship. Unrealized hopes and dreams about the future. The ones you had to say goodbye to or walk away from.

The discovery of those emotions can be used to complete what is emotionally unfinished.

Who’s responsible for making the correct action choices?

In spite of exhaustion or a desire to ignore and hope it goes away, it is the griever who needs to take these decisive actions. A concerned friend or family member can’t do it for them. While you may suggest and encourage, go first, or walk alongside, or be a listening ear, you cannot force or do.

You cannot complete this difficult project for them.

Recovery from grief or loss is achieved by a series of steps—small and correct actions—made by the griever.

Each griever had his or her own unique relationship with the person, family, pet, or circumstance. The actions they take are entirely about their relationship—not anyone else’s—with those people or things.

Other people’s relationship emotions must not be planted into the griever’s mind.

And therein lies the danger of sharing your emotions with family members.

While some siblings or other family survivors are good, sympathetic listeners, others may try to guide, put down or dismiss another survivor’s emotions. This only causes a griever to clam up, shut down, and then never revisit the grief. Or, they might claim others’ expressed emotions as their own.

All these things must be guarded against, which is why joining a grief group, or connecting with someone trained in the process can be so helpful and effective. You feel freer to really bare and share your heart and all those emotions. You won’t need to worry about being judged, criticized or belittled for your feelings or voiced expressions.

When to begin the relationship review in the grieving process?

It is never too late to do a relationship review. If you feel stuck in grief or that you have unfinished relationship or circumstance emotions you never addressed, the review is helpful.

And there is no perfect time to begin the relationship review, although the sooner you start after the acute pain wears off is a good time. Sometimes it’s when you just feel and know it’s right to venture into the waters.

But watch out for negative grief influences!

What might hamper a relationship review?

Our Western world tends to look down on “sad” emotions. We negate emotional pain and suffering and tuck it into the “weak” category.

You may have been influenced by this pervasive thought and feel self-conscious or fearful of baring those different, more, and better thoughts and feelings.

Again, this is where a grief group or knowledgeable and sympathetic guide can be helpful.

Other things that might hamper a relationship review are myths, like saying everybody dies eventually. Or just pull yourself by your bootstraps and move on. Don’t feel bad, as though feeling bad is evil. Or believing if you just stay busy enough it won’t hurt as much, or it will go away.

None of those beliefs or tactics work. In fact, they can be detrimental to healing.

How to embark on a relationship review—

The first thing to remember is that all grief is experienced at 100 percent. Everyone experiences a loss at her own level of intensity. And that level is usually based on the uniqueness of the relationship.

While I am still suffering the loss of a dear friend and confidante, my friend’s husband and children are suffering in infinitely different and deeper ways. I must be very careful not to compare my suffering with theirs, or presume to know how each of them is feeling.

Like the physical effects they might be experiencing.

The physical effects of grief—

Grief fills up your entire being. No part of your body, soul, mind or spirit is left untouched. That’s why you can feel physically ill and in real pain. Just look what WebMD had to say about the physical effects of grief in a July 2019 article.

“A range of studies reveal the powerful effects grief can have on the body. Grief increases inflammation, which can worsen health problems you already have and cause new ones. It batters the immune system, leaving you depleted and vulnerable to infection. The heartbreak of grief can increase blood pressure and the risk of blood clots. Intense grief can alter the heart muscle so much that it causes “broken heart syndrome,” a form of heart disease with the same symptoms as a heart attack.”

Several weeks after my father died, my family went on a ski trip. I thought I was “managing” my grief, until the night I suddenly and unexpectedly had a rapid heart rate and started hyperventilating and had to lie down on the floor. For a moment I thought I might be experiencing a heart attack, until my mind landed on what was really going on.

A panic attack.

My body was reacting to my grief, throwing out symptoms of my pain. My heart muscle and lungs were suffering right along with my mind. After several minutes of controlled breathing and relaxation techniques, my heart calmed down and my breathing normalized.

A warning sign that things still were not well. I needed to continue the healing process.

The dangers of trying to intellectualize death and grief—

Ever have the question “Why?” run through your mind after a loved one dies?

What seems like an intellectual reaction is actually more an emotional lamentation.

Before you try to answer that question of why with a scientific explanation, it’s better to examine the real question. And sometimes, even after all the scientific evaluation is done and satisfied, the answer to that question is: “I don’t know why.”

So be careful of trying to shift your or a griever’s responses away from emotions and toward intellectual reasoning.

You want to maintain safety of expression so you, or the griever, can tell the emotional truth. You’re angry. You’re feeling upended and lost. Your heart feels splintered, or aches to the point of bursting. You’re upset about something the person said to you before they died. Or didn’t say. The way the whole thing happened.

When do feelings of loss end?

Don’t expect your grief feelings to end right after the funeral or memorial service. Feelings continue. Sometimes for a long time.

It’s never too late to review and address the emotions that pop into your mind and heart.

As Amy Davis, a recovered griever who was quoted in the WebMD article noted about grief:

“Lean into it. You only get to grieve your loved one once. Don’t spend the whole time trying to distract yourself or push it down….you will miss feeling that connected to that person again. And if you feel like your whole life has fallen apart, that’s fine! It totally has. Now you get to decide how to put yourself back together. Be creative. There’s new life to be lived all around you.”

Right on, Amy!

Invitation—

Who in your life would make an ideal grief listener? Someone you could share your innermost feelings with and not be made to feel weak or bad after voicing those emotions.

Is there a grief group in your area or online that you could access, to honestly share your pain?

How do you think you could benefit from it?

NEXT WEEK we’ll take a step further in undertaking a relationship review by looking at the initial questions to ask yourself and examining the emotional energy checklist.

Until then, don’t hide from your grief or try to wish it away, or cover it up with busyness. As Amy Davis said, “Lean into it.” If you take the right steps and make productive choices, you can and will thrive again!

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John).


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people to thrive physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

The Shock of Grief: Grieving the Death of a Friend

I’ve encountered a lot of grief in my life, but it’s always just as horrible when it happens again, and especially when it happens unexpectedly. Sudden, unexpected grief leaves you in shock, like your insides have been gutted, your nerves have been supercharged to numbness, and your life energy has been vacuumed away.

Life seems instantly duller, and you aren’t quite sure how you’re going to go on. Everything—even making decisions—requires more energy, and you find you need to sleep more. If you can sleep. Otherwise you shuffle around in a perennial state of exhaustion.

That’s what happened to me on the afternoon of Sunday, July 19, when I called a local hospital to speak with a friend who was there awaiting heart valve replacement surgery the following day. When I asked to speak with my friend Carmen, the nurse asked me to hold a minute. Then another nurse came on the line and asked how she could help me.

In the pit of my stomach, I knew something was amiss.

When I repeated the same request to her, a pause followed. A long-enough pause to make my heart speed up a little. But then her answer made my heart race and my gut ache. Even while knowing, I hoped it wasn’t true.

“Carmen is no longer a patient in our hospital.”

I was politely told I’d have to contact her family for more information.

Terror and pain assailed my senses as I called her husband and received confirmation of my deepest fear.

My beloved friend had gone into sudden cardiac arrest around 3:00 AM and been given a direct flight to heaven.

The world instantly felt duller without her in it.

So now I’m limping along, trying to follow the playbook and do everything I teach you and my clients to do:

Lean into my emotions.
Write those emotions down and try to understand them.
Get exercise, even though that may the last thing on my mind.
Eat right, since eating doesn’t sound appealing right now.
Get plenty of sleep; and take naps when slogging through the afternoon seems an exercise in futility and won’t improve anything anyway.
Remind myself that staying busy isn’t going to make this better.
Talk about my loved one with family and friends. (My children have been great, passionate, and sympathetic listeners!)
Cry on my shoulder or in his arms. He knew her and is missing her too.
Give listening time to her husband and daughter. Just listen—and reminisce with them.
Write down what I would have liked to have been better about our friendship, what I would have liked more of; what I would have liked to do and know. What I liked best about our friendship and her.

Reminding myself that my friend confronted a lot of health hurdles, and this one was the latest and worst, helps me rejoice in her leaving us to enjoy her new home, where she is more alive than she’s ever been. And out of pain and sorrow.

But for now, I’m taking my own advice and working through this. To do that means I’m taking a two to three-week hiatus from my blogging. And in that period, my younger son has asked me to accompany him on a brief road trip to collect his new Shetland sheepdog puppy from a farm. I’m looking forward to the trip—to have coveted mother-son time and breathe a little.

But when I return, I’ll be right back here to help others navigate the grief valley and emerge from it recovered, healed, whole and read to thrive again.

Blessings,

Andrea

Aloha, my dear friend.

Until we meet again.

Grief Struggles: Short-Term Energy-Relieving Behaviors (STERBs)

Many things cause us to struggle or stumble in our grief recovery. Things like well meaning but misguided friends, and our attempts to hurry up our grief recovery. And our grief recovery struggles can be worsened by our own behavior errors, like using short-term energy-relieving behavior, or STERBs.

Knowing, understanding and recognizing STERBs can help us short circuit them, or avoid lapsing into them in the first place.

But just what is a STERB?

STERB: a short-term energy relieving behavior—

When we’re grieving, we often look for outlets for our pain. Many of these outlets we learned when we were children, when our mother gave us a cookie or treat to help us “feel better.”

When we get older, our well-meaning friends might take us out on the town to drink our sorrows away.

We might sit in front of the television, mindlessly binge-watching programs we’ve already seen countless times. Or read fantasy or romance books that whisk our imaginations away to places we wish we were living.

Away from our pain-ridden reality.

We may have been taught to try to substitute something for the loss, like going shopping.

These are all examples of short-term energy relieving behaviors.

Why do we use STERBs in grief?

Grief brings with it sad, painful or negative feelings. And those sad emotions produce tangible energy. Energy we want, and need, to relieve.

So we find ourselves searching for ways to distract ourselves.

Enter the handy STERB.

The dangers of STERBs—

If we substitute, try to take the easy way out, and don’t complete our grieving process well, we can carry around negative attachments to life events for years.

Have you ever met someone who relays a sad, personal life event to you in such a way that makes you feel as though the event happened yesterday, when in reality it’s been decades since the event happened? And they vividly relay the story over and over and over.

It takes a lot of energy to hang onto a painful story, to re-tell it as though you’re reliving it.

The energy it takes to hang onto that pain doesn’t just go underground and stay buried. It manifests itself in other ways, like physical ailments, diseases, and emotional and mental health issues.

There are physical consequences to holding onto the sadness or anger surrounding grief. Or trying to substitute a distraction for concrete, effective healing.

Some permanent habits and problems that might have started out as a STERB:

Smoking
Overeating
Drinking/Alcoholism
Over the Counter (OTC) drug overuse and abuse
Illegal drug abuse
Addictive exercise
Eating disorders—bulimia, anorexia nervosa, binge eating
Workaholism
Anger issues/Tantrums/Acting out
Fantasy (video games, computers, books, television, movies)
Isolation and Avoidance
Sex
Shopping (sometimes jokingly called “retail therapy”)

More often than not we use a STERB to self-medicate—numb our way out of the pain and sadness.

The Grief Recovery Institute points out that:

“Depending on age and other circumstances, the vast majority of young people begin their involvement with drugs and alcohol soon after a major loss experience.” (James, Friedman, and Matthews, When Children Grieve, 86)

Aside from this depressing and alarming statistic, there are— according to The Grief Recovery Institute—three major problems with STERBs.

They appear to work.

Notice the word “appear.” What might be mistaken for an effective, positive result is actually a created illusion. And that illusion causes you to bypass or bury the emotion.

But emotions don’t automatically die when you try to bury them alive. They find some other way to fight their way out, and often that means negatively affecting other body systems.

Short-term energy relievers are just that—short term.

STERBs don’t last, and they don’t address the emotional issue. And, like any drug, they often require higher and higher doses over time to be effective. Pretty soon you’ve got a habit or addiction you can’t stop.

In the long run, STERBs do nothing to relieve the pressure building up from the pent-up or ignored grief emotion.

In short, STERBs can cause more problems than they solve.

And they can add to the problem of unresolved grief.

If not STERBs for grief relief, then what?

We don’t want to just mow down the weeds in our lawn, we want to root them out so healthy grass can grow and we can enjoy all the benefits of a beautiful lawn.

We don’t want to just stuff the emotions, we want to address them, deal with them, so our lives can get fully back on track. And we can once again prosper and be happy.

In order to make a full recovery from grief, we need to achieve what is known as grief completion.

And that’s what we’ll explore more of next week.

Invitation:

Can you identify any STERBs in your life you can trace back to a specific loss or grief?
Can you identify any STERBs that seemed to work for you during a time of loss or grief but you now recognize as a problem?
How have STERBs worsened your grief or made it more difficult to recover from it?

NEXT WEEK we’ll delve into what grief completion is and embark on our journey to achieve it.

Until then, explore what STERBs you started in your life that have become pesky, nervous or avoidant habits.

Get ready to be set free!

And I’ll see you back here next week!

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John).

Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, award-winning inspirational writer and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people recover from grief, loss and trauma, and to thrive in life — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Incomplete Grief: Part II

HAS ANYONE ever said to you that you don’t seem as though you’ve finished grieving yet? Have you ever felt that way years after a loss?

Perhaps what they really mean to say is that you’re experiencing incomplete grief.

What is the real goal of grieving?

Many of us think the goal of grieving is to experience deep, painful emotions and finally arrive at the point where they aren’t as noticeable or don’t bother us as much as they did when the loss was fresh. A point where we feel as though we can get back to some kind of normal life.

But is that really the point of grieving?

It is. And it isn’t.

The point and task of grieving are to first grieve, feel all those emotions, and then complete the relationship with all the unfinished emotions you had when the relationship ended or the loss occurred.

You can think of it as unfinished business that niggles your brain and causes frustration or regret.

While grieving occurs automatically, completing the grief—or grief completion—results from specific actions you take to make that happen.

Well-meaning but bad grief advice—

You’ve probably heard someone say, “It’s best not to dwell on the past.” Or “Better let bygones be bygones.”

They sound like good practices, but in the long run they can be dangerous.

Why?

Because the human mind functions in a very different and specific way than the human heart. And vice versa.

The human mind tends to hang onto and replay what ifs—what could or should have been different, better or more. And those different, better and more thoughts can devour us emotionally, year after year after year.

It’s natural for us to do this. And where grief is concerned, it’s better to go along with that persistent brain, answer those questions, and take some steps to complete the thought and the revelations that come with it.

Incomplete grief can be about good things too—

As the experts at The Grief Recovery Institute note:

“Incomplete grief exists when there are any undelivered communications of an emotional nature.”

With that definition, you can easily see how incomplete grief can come from both good and bad events. They can be positive or negative.

For example: Let’s say you received a gift from a special friend and written and mailed a thank you note. But the morning after mailing the card, you learn your friend has died of a stroke. Besides the pain of losing a good friend, what feelings would you have about the loss?

One thought probably replaying over and over in your mind is that you wish your friend had known just how much you appreciated her gift. And now she’ll never know. Something has been left unfinished. And it hurts.

What if the last thing your spouse heard before driving off to work and getting killed in an auto accident was your snippy comment about something he did that morning that irked you? You would likely chastise yourself repeatedly over your unloving last words. Replay what you should have said to him; wish you could have apologized.

As Grief Recovery Institute experts point out:

“As a generality, undelivered emotional communications are going to be about things that we wish we had said or done, or about things we wish we had not said or done.”

And they’re also about something else, like the things we wish the other person had said or done, or not said or done.

But they can be about good things too. And it’s important to replay those.

Consider the happy scenario, where you share a kiss and a long hug with your spouse before you both depart for work. Later that day you learn he’s been killed in a freak work accident. Along with your heartache, you replay in your mind your last embrace, your loving goodbye, his joyful wave to you as he drives down the driveway. Those thoughts make you smile and bring gladness to your broken heart.

The reality of life is that we never know when our last encounters with someone will occur, and it’s more than likely that every loss brings with it unfinished details—words you wanted or planned to say, discussions you wanted to have, plans you were in the midst of making. Not procrastination but planned for events and get-togethers.

These types of things can leave you with a feeling of incompleteness in a relationship loss.

When others hinder your grief completion journey—

You may experience incomplete grieving when others cause or exaggerate your incompleteness.

Ever know someone who won’t allow you to express meaningful things to them? Your communication with them remains shallow or frustrating. We can’t force anyone to listen to us, and their refusal to hear or listen can leave us with incomplete feelings about them and the relationship.

Sometimes we’re fearful of being honest and saying things we know are emotionally loaded. We fear another person’s reaction, or their misunderstanding of your intentions.

We want to wait for the right time, but it never comes. And death ends the possibility of it ever coming.

We lose our nerve and never say what we need to say to the other person.

These events can leave us with incomplete emotions.

I can give you a personal example in my life that I still find frustrating. An event that left me with incomplete emotions.

For a reason I don’t understand, someone I considered a precious friend and loved like a sister decided “the season of our friendship had come to an end.”

That’s how she put it in the email she sent me. Not in person. Not in a phone call. She wouldn’t talk to me about why, explain her reasons, or tell me what I might have done to hurt her to cause that decision. I even asked her so I could apologize for how I might have hurt her.

She did tell me that we hadn’t communicated that much since she moved across the country, so I did get an inkling that she felt that, to remain good friends, I didn’t meet her frequent communication expectations.

It’s been a year since that happened, and I still experience incomplete grieving over it. My heart still cries about it. I miss her. But I feel as though she tied my hands and made my grieving difficult. I don’t think she acted loving or fair toward me.

And that makes me angry.

I feel as though her actions robbed me of the opportunity to be complete.

But her actions do not need to become the final say in this friendship ending. I need to heal, completely. So I’m going through the actions I need to take to complete that grieving, the actions I’m going to teach you in this incomplete grieving series. Actions I’ve taken before that helped me complete the grieving process and close open, festering wounds that took their toll on not only my mind but my body.

Goal of complete grieving—

Your goal is to discover those undelivered emotional communications occurring in both minor and major life events.

It’s the uncovering of all the undelivered communications, both large and small, that have emotional consequences for you. And it’s likely there is a heap of these undelivered communications that need unearthing and examination.

Where my former friend is concerned, I’m going to be exploring all of the unfinished communications and feelings I had when the relationship ended. I’m going to detail how the way she ended it makes me feel.

In the process I’m going to take into account the numerous overwhelming burdens in her life: the recent and unexpected death of a loved one; the illness of a beloved relative; the serious accident she incurred a year earlier that seemed to leave her mentally foggy and fearful of life.

In this specific instance, it’s a combination of juggling truth with love and mercy.

And in the process, I can’t tell myself I shouldn’t feel the way I feel. I already feel a certain way, have experienced certain feelings. Telling myself I shouldn’t feel them isn’t going to make them go away. Examining them, figuring out what to do with them, and then doing it will ease the burden and complete my grief.

And that’s the end goal.

Invitation—

Can you identify any relationships that ended by separation or death that still feel incomplete? If so, start jotting down those happy, sad, or unfinished events you wanted to continue, wanted to fix, or wanted to finish. You’ll use those in a future post to be able to complete your grieving.

NEXT WEEK we’ll dig deeper into incomplete grieving: how holding onto feelings may be stifling the grief completion process, and learning to express the feelings that will help us heal.

Until then, don’t be afraid to feel those feelings, and don’t let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t have them.

Blessings,

Andrea

Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, award-winning inspirational writer and senior-ordained chaplain. She works and writes to help people recover from trauma, grief and loss and to live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.