TNEEL-NE
Therapeutic Interventions
Learning Activities
Activity 9: Grief information in popular newsletters
“How to Heal from Loss by Grieving Fully”
© Dr. Christiane Northrup’s Health Wisdom for Women™ Reprinted with permission of Dr. Christiane Northrup
How to Heal from Loss by Grieving Fully
When I was in my final year of medical school, my maternal grandmother died. She was
only 68 years old and had been perfectly healthy until the night she died, after shoveling the
snow from her driveway. Her death felt like a big deal at the time and was a real loss. Though I
missed my grandmother and, while her death seemed premature, it felt as though it had a natural
order about it
About nine months after my grandmother’s death, I experienced a totally different type of
loss from death. My youngest sister, Cindy, was killed in a car accident at the age of 23. When I
heard this news, every cell in my body went into shock and disbelief I could barely breathe and
I felt disembodied, as though the whole thing were a dream.
When I returned to Boston after her funeral, my training involved caring for women dying
of various types of gynecologic cancers. Some were relatively young with young children. For
the first time in my life, I knew deep within me what grief was and what these women and their
families were going through. I sat down on their beds and told their families to be sure to say
whatever needed to be said, because they still had time. At night, I often wept in my husband’s
arms, grieving for the loss of my sister. And I went to movies with her boyfriend, a longtime
friend of my husband’s whom my sister had met at our wedding. It helped both of us to get
together and talk about the person we had loved and lost.
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A short time after my sister died, my father dropped dead at the age of 68 while playing
tennis with my mother. When I got that phone call and heard how he had died, I remembered a
conversation we had when I was a senior in high school. My dad said, “Someday, a blood
vessel is going to burst inside my brain, and I’ll float out into the universe?’ And that’s exactly
what he did. At the funeral, my dad looked so healthy lying there that a part of me thought,
“Why can’t you just get up and get on with it?” Then, I cried.
Having learned a great deal about healthy responses to grief and loss and how to heal, I
want to share with you some of the wisdom I have gained from my own personal grieving
experiences and what I know has helped dozens of patients and their families who have suffered
losses. Whether you grieve the loss of a child, a beloved pet or even a job, these steps can help
you, too.
Allow yourself to feel your loss fully. Do not be afraid to feel what author and meditation
teacher Stephen Levine calls “the pain that ends the pain?’ Your body knows how to grieve-by
making sound and shedding tears. In other cultures, women often wail together. And even
animals grieve their losses through howling and wailing. It helps to make and release these
sounds of grieving. If you don’t, the pain is apt to get stored in your body and result in an illness
later.
Give yourself time to grieve. Depending on the type of loss you suffer, it may take at
least a full cycle of four seasons to ease the pain. And recovery isn’t linear. Sometimes you’ll
be going along and you’ll notice that you haven’t felt really bad for a day or two. Then
suddenly, you’ll be overcome with feelings of grief again. Let them wash over you. Have
compassion for yourself. Don’t be surprised when a song on place triggers a strong memory of
loved one. Just know that each time you allow yourself to feel fully, the depth and acuteness of
your sorrow will lessen a bit the next time and become more shallow.
Some grief takes much longer. My mother recent told me, “It’s been over 20 years since
Cindy died. A part of me will never get over it, and I’ve decided that's okay?’ I couldn’t agree
with her more. When we try to talk ourselves out of the truth of our feelings, it never works. But
when we soften and give ourselves breathing space around them, we always feel better and the
pain lessens.
Create an altar or shrine to your loved one. Put pictures, letters, items that they loved,
or flowers in an altar. Or create an album. Keep the altar or album in view for as long as it
brings you comfort. The process of doing this helps you work through your loss and also
celebrates that individual’s life and connection with you. You’ll know intuitively when to move
or dismantle it.
Don’t try to replace your loved one with activities or other people. If a loved one’s
place in your life could be easily filled by another activity, person, place or thing, you wouldn’t
feel grief Those of us who have lost loved ones know that no one will ever be able to replace
that person fully in our lives. Don’t even try. Your lost loved one is not replaceable. Your
relationship was unique to you both.
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Talk about your loss. Many people feel that they can’t go to funerals or write to friends
who have suffered a loss, because they simply wouldn’t know what to say: Here’s what I can
tell you: It feels really good for a grieving person to talk about the person who they’ve just lost.
If you knew that person too, sharing stories or memories about the person who has died really
helps. When my sister died, I cherished the letters I received from my friends who had known
her, and even from some who hadn’t. Many people shared their own stories of loss with me at
that time. I found this to be very comforting and reassuring because, through their sharing, I
knew that I was not alone in my grief. It also helped to know that, despite having experienced
this pain, these people had managed to go on with the business of living.
Resist using drugs or alcohol. Many doctors prescribe drugs, such as Valium to “take the
edge off,’ in a misguided attempt to help people deal with grief This will only prolong or distort
your grieving process. The same is true with using alcohol to numb your feelings.
Get help. Depending upon your situation, you may not be surrounded by friends and
family who knew your loved one and can share in your grieving process. If this is the case, then
I recommend that you consider joining a support group for those experiencing loss and grief
Allowing others to support you will keep you on track with a healthy grieving process so that
you’re less apt to get isolated or frozen in your process. To locate a group, call your local
hospital. If you look under the word “counselor” in the yellow pages, you will often find
resources to help you.
Thousands of people, including myself, have found peace and comfort for their grieving in
the writings of Stephen Levine, including Healing into Life and Death (Anchor 1989), and A
Year to live (Three Rivers Press, 1997). Raymond Moody's book, Life after Life (Bantam
Books, 1988), is also good. And, I highly recommend an incredible and powerful new book on
the process of death by Kathleen Dowling Singh entitled, The Grace in Dying (Harper San
Francisco, 1998).
Let go. There comes a time during the grieving process when you must move on and
begin living again; otherwise, your life energy becomes so caught up in the ongoing process of
grief that you r own life becomes stagnated. Generally, a stagnated grief process results when
we are unable to fully grieve our loss and then let go. You know you’re in trouble when your
loss is still the major focus of your life one year later. An example of a stagnated grief process
would be the individual who loses a child and continues to set a place at the table for that child
every night. Other indications of stagnated grief are: if you can’t sleep Or eat, you get no
enjoyment out of the things that used to bring you pleasure, or if you are burdened by guilt and
self blame. If this describes how you feel one year after your loss, you should seek help in
dealing with it.
Form a new relationship with your lost loved one. As time goes on, you will find
yourself having a whole new relationship with the individual you lost. For example, I feel my
father around me every day. In some mysterious way, I feel that we have as good a relationship
now as we ever did when he was living. He’s like a spirit guide for me. I don’t feel the same
way about my sister, Cindy. Somehow, I don’t feel like she’s around me at all. But this is not a
source of pain for me because I trust that she is where she needs to be.
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Expect anniversary reactions. Don’t be surprised when a special event such as a
birthday opens the wound. This is not dangerous, but you may want to prepare for it. For
example, you may want to plan to have a moment of prayer to remember your loved one, but
also plan a new activity for that day.
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