Why does grief get the the bad rap it does?
Grief commonly get’s associate with depression and depression with loss. They can and are often experienced together. I know I’m definitely part of the human race when I consider the discomfort and pain that’s contained in that bag of tricks because I’ve often avoided it. Sometimes at all costs.
The definition-grief is the response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or some living thing that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, grief also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, cultural, spiritual and philosophical dimensions.
We can’t talk about grief without talking about mourning so, mourning is the expression of an experience that is the consequence of an event in life involving loss, causing grief, occurring as a result of someone’s death, specifically someone who was loved although loss from death is not exclusively the cause of all experience of grief.
Love-Time=Loss/Grief
Grief is actually on the other side of the love coin. Grief cannot happen without love. The deeper the love the deeper the loss.
Another component to grief is the acknowledgement of time. Time on this planet, time with certain people, time having what we want is finite. You are only going to get so much. We can do a bit to extent and elongate the time we get but it will definitely end.
We rush the bad, slow down the good, and prolong the inevitable. It’s what we do as humans. And it leads to endless suffering. We’re often never when or where we actually are.
This distance from love is created in all sorts of ways. The part of me that wants only comfort sabotages connections to limit the depth of love and in doing so circumvents pain from the loss of it somewhere down the line.
Why do we think it will swallow us up and we’ll drown in it?
When we’re headed into a challenging situation we always want an exit plan. We want to control the situation, be able to know how to navigate it, and make sure we’re in charging of changing it rather than letting it change us.
Nothing is worse that feeling like we’re done with something but it not being done with us. Risky, unsafe, stuck, and never being able to escape. That’s why prison is used as punishment. Limiting ourselves is scary as hell so… we avoid it.
Is choosing grief choosing love?
Another facet here is that since most of us think that grief sucks and we know that grief only a result of love we push love away.
Love is the scariest, riskiest endeavor we’ll ever know and this is why. I’ve set up and conducted many of strategies to keep myself from love for this very reason.
I look for betrayal and I sabotage connections so that love is limited and grief is mitigated. It’s not the way to live friends.
Or another favorite is to set up unpassable tests in order to make it through whatever threshold we put in front of our love.
The opportunity:
What can you do to open your heart even wider to an important connection in your life?
Are you committed to love so deeply that you’re consciously willing to experience grief as a consequence of love?
Just some thoughts, have a great day.