Moving On
Letting Go of the First Stage of Grief
Moving on from numbness to whatever comes next
For many of us getting past the first stage of the five stages of grief can be the most difficult. That first stage of denial often times leaves me feeling numb and out of touch with my immediate reality. This is not a good place to be for any length of time, especially for me who has suffered short, interval bursts of substance misuse during my adult life, while trying to deal with grief, loss and trauma.
My friends and family can attest to the fact that I have in the past spent too long of a time in that stage when I have experienced devastating circumstances. Although this may sound insane, I believed that there was some sort of comfort in about swimming in the pool of denial.
I strongly believe that this was probably engrained in me since childhood. Being a survivor of childhood trauma, I learned early on that denial and suppression were a way to hide from and disconnect from the truth and reality of what I had experienced. Unsurprisingly, decades of this ritual became a habit and that habit led to some not-so-great choices, a few wrong turns, roads that should not have been taken, people, places and situations that were not of my best interest. Emphasize on the word WERE!
I recently returned from a trip to California. It was for a memorial service for a former co-teacher and although we hadn’t seen each other in quite some time, the news of her passing was just a shattering as if we had just talked to each other the week before.
I was reluctant to make that trip but I I did and what happened was one of the best decisions I've made, other than posting on this blog site, all year. Instead of my normal reaction, instead taking the path of least resistance and swimming in the bullshit end of the denial pool, I allowed myself to sit and process what this loss meant to me. It allowed me to remember the impact that friendship made on my life and how even though we had seen each other in years, my life was more for having known her.
In Buddhism it is said that grief and suffering often comes from the attachment to the impermanence of life. Maybe the fact that people and place and things that make up our lives are not permanent and in fact, can and will someday change or not be here, is a scary idea for me.
Buddhist Psychologist Tara Brach has suggested that finding refuge of presence in the face of loss will help us rise out the state of grief and out of that pesky stage of denial to the warmth and peace of acceptance.
So, this is where I am in my journey of healing. Taking a better road traveled. Waking to my here and now. Feeling grounded. Learning to respond, not react. Let’s face it, this is life and shit is going to happen. It's how you choose to deal with it and what you choose to do to begin to move through and get to the other side that counts.
Buddhist Psychologist Tara Brach has suggested that finding refuge of presence in the face of loss will help us rise out the state of grief and out of that pesky stage of denial to the warmth and peace of acceptance.
I read somewhere that there is a magic that happens when you begin to release the debt of grief. I’m ready to embrace that magic.
