When misfortune, disaster or death occur, does it stall your life? Do you recover? And how do you
bounce back? To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway, "Life breaks us all; some of us are stronger at the broken places." Everyone experiences the universal human experience of loss, thousands of times
in a lifetime.
Our grief cannot be compared nor diminished. Each person's loss is equally important to them no matter what that loss is. No one can presume that the loss of a pet for one person is less impactful or
tragic than the loss of a job, a lifestyle change, or that of ailing health for another. Each has to deal
with their own bereavement individually - and it involves a real, authentic grieving process no
matter how one attempts to intellectualize it. Please do not compare your encounter with grief to
another's. Comparison will only diminish your feelings and experience around your response to
your loss and keep you stuck. This could imply to you that you do not have permission or the right
to grieve your specific loss, because it may appear someone else's grief is greater than yours. If
grief goes unresolved, it is cumulative over time, and can contribute to much depression, illness
and/or addiction in life.
Psychologist and journalist, Philip Chard wrote, "Life is mostly a series of losses, and life is also a
series of gains. Learning to handle loss is one of life's most important and difficult lessons. It
tasks us in ways that reveal to ourselves and others, the mettle of which we are made. Coming to
terms with loss requires a measure of acceptance. It means being willing once one's spirit is
ready, to walk away from what has been and toward what can be . . ."
In my practice with clients and in opening Pandora's box of grief for myself leaving me without
any family member connections, I conclude the task of acceptance of our loss, which unites us
with our healing and recovery, is often the hardest to achieve. Acceptance is having the
conscious awareness of what life presents to you, recognizing your choice to cope in the matter,
and dealing with it from a willing, reasonable attitude, to heal and move forward. While it is not
easy for us to ascertain our situations from a higher-self perspective, it may be essential in order
to find the meaning in what appears to be most unfortunate circumstances.
Our connection with the media allows our lives to be riddled by chaos through television and
journalists' reports of kidnappings of our precious children, hijackings of planes, vehicles
overturned on the highway, homes decimated from mass floods, and lands torn apart by ethnic atrocities. The experience of misfortune can elicit a feeling of colliding with a freight train
that comes out of nowhere while you were minding your own business and weren't anywhere
near those tracks. Are these tragedies," as author C.S. Lewis, of The Chronicles of Narnia,
wrote, "God's megaphone to a deaf world?"
This is not to suggest these experiences are a punishment from God, or that someone deserves
to go through pain and suffering. We are often innocent and our abilities to cope are sincerely challenged. We may, however, want to learn to appreciate phases of our lives offered to deepen
our spiritual awareness.
Luis Palau, a leading evangelist and author of Where is God When Bad Things Happen? said,
“The main issue is how people respond to pain, suffering and tragedies. There are three ways:
One is active trust, the second is rebellious anger –real rejection of a good God, a loving God—
or thirdly, as I think of some parts of the world, a passive acceptance. All of us are pilots, in that sense. We know that living on planet Earth is a risky business and any day we could be shot down. Therefore, be ready."
It is more than difficult to stay centered, balanced and remain in “active trust” with God as Mr.
Palau suggests when your world has just fallen apart. I do not believe one can “be ready” for
sudden occurrences either as in 9-11. After all, the first stage of grief is shock or denial. Another
stage is that of anger having to do with injustice. It is perfectly okay to be angry with God over a change or loss. God can handle it. Indeed, our healing correlates with the way in which we respond to pain, suffering and tragedies. Since many of us were not automatically given the
tools to deal with loss, we are left with developing an understanding on our own. What we may
come upon in our process of learning and coping are the basic lessons of compassion, surrender, flexibility, forgiveness, and hopefully to incorporate humor back into our lives.
Of course, with loss comes change. One cannot grow or evolve without change. Author and
professor, Jacquelyn Oliveira writes, “Change requires courage –the capacity to move ahead
despite despair, doubt, disappointment and dread. Change humbles us as easily as it enlarges
us. Change asks us to learn larger lessons in life – beyond appearances, beyond what can be
immediately understood or explained. Change is a part of a continuous cycle, a process –
inviting us forward. Through God’s grace, we can be transformed to live our lives with
appreciation for who we are now and for the days and months ahead of us."
Look for Turning Your Wounds Into Wisdom - Parts 3 and 4 in the next blog
Veronica K. Chilton, is an interdenominational minister/grief counselor, keynote speaker, healer
and author soon to be published author of a two-part memoir.
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