To get the most from reading this, study these slide presentations on
psychological wounds (or this
text version) and
healthy-grieving basics (or this
text version). Then read this introduction to Project 5,
and this brief research summary.
Could the
findings apply to people you care about?
Contents
Perspective
Starting in infancy, healthy (unwounded) people form
(emotional / spiritual
attachments) to special people, pets, places,
ideas, physical things, and rituals throughout their lives. These bonds get
broken by choice or chance, causing minor to overwhelming
Losses can be tangible (prized
things) or invisible, like security, trust (faith),
self-esteem, hope, respect, physical abilities, companionship, comfort,
freedom, and love.
Nature provides the automatic healing response of grief (mourning) to
help us accept our losses, resume undistracted living, and form selective
new bonds. Does this match your experience?
If key personal and environmental
are missing for someone with significant losses, the natural
can
slow or stop. If this is not corrected,
serious psychological and physical
problems can
occur to the "loser." These in turn may cause significant relationship
problems with affected adults and kids. Implication - like
incomplete grief is a
family problem, not just a personal one.
All animals (like us) instinctively seek comfort and pleasure. Losses and
normal grieving hurt - so our pleasure-seeking, hyperactive culture promotes
of the
vital importance of the natural mourning process.
This promotes widespread
incomplete grief. To test this premise, see if the adults and older kids
who matter to you could "pass" this quiz about
healthy-grief basics, and return here.
Premise - from childhood experiences and hero/ines, and social
and media influences, every person
and family evolves a
- a set of rules (shoulds, ought to's, have to's, and musts) about
bonding, losses, and grieving losses. A common rule: "Females can cry, but
respectable males shouldn't."
Typical mourning policies are unconscious and unspoken.
They range
between encouraging to discouraging healthy grief. Once aware of this
concept, any person
by their
can evolve a
personal
pro-grief policy and promote one in his or her family. Can you describe
your personal and family grief policies now?
|
Three factors interact to
promote personal and family policies that hinder healthy mourning: adults'
psychological
+ ignorances
(lack of
+ lack of internal and social
to grieve.
All three factors can be avoided and/or reduced, despite ceaseless media
distractions. |
Average adults and human-service professionals may agree
that grief can be hindered or incomplete, but not know (a) the three factors that cause it
(above), (b) how
to
it, or (c) how to encourage it. Project 5 in this Web site
aims to convert that ignorance into understanding and motivate corrective actions.
Symptoms of Incomplete Grief
Incomplete grief promotes observable physical,
emotional, and behavioral clues.
Learning to watch for them empowers you to spot it and take appropriate
action. Four widespread physical clues
are...
-
obesity,
-
chronic shallow breathing, which tends to numb
feeling,
as does using tobacco,
-
(some) "digestive problems," and...
-
having a "frozen face" and "flat"
voice which seldom show current emotions.
Obesity may be organic or it may be that the
person's protective
uses food
(i.e. chemicals) and compulsive eating to numb
their
Much inner pain may be due to repressed grief -
i.e. unmourned losses. Someone has said
"Every fat cell is an unshed tear."
Possible emotional
(psychological) symptoms
of blocked grief include frequent "apathy," chronic sadness,
irritability, and/or anger;
(some)
unusual "mood swings," rage and/or crying outbursts, and reluctance to study, discuss,
and act on what you're reading here.
Common environmental clues
are the person (a) growing up in and/or (b) now choosing a
human
environment that ignores, discounts, or
healthy grief.
Common behavioral symptoms
of blocked grief and underlying psychological
include
these
and
None of these prove an
inability to mourn well. The more of these symptoms an
adult or child has, the more likely s/he is to be blocked in mourning some
significant losses.
If
you feel that you (i.e. your
may be
unable to
mourn some important losses, what can you do?
Options for Freeing Incomplete
Grief
The following ideas come from 28 years' research and clinical experience with
over 1,000 typical adults and some of their kids. This section focuses on
ways you can promote healthy mourning. The next section explores ways to help
other
adults and
kids who
seem to be blocked. Premise -
you can't help others heal their wounds and grieve well if you are
and
Do you agree?
First - Learn
1) To reduce the ignorance that promotes false-self wounds and
impaired grief, patiently learn...
-
to distinguish between low-nurturance
and high-nurturance families
and environments;
-
about
subselves, "false-self"
wounds, and
-
about
(broken bonds), and the healthy three-level
grief process; and learn...
-
about "good-grief"
basics and
Then...
Check Yourself for Wounds and
Incomplete Grief
2)
yourself
honestly for (a) significant false-self
dominance (wounds) and (b) whether you're living in a
environment or not. If you're significantly wounded
(in your opinion), commit to personal
wound-
Note
that if you have significant levels of all six wounds, you may (a)
them and/or their impacts, and (b) have
difficulty
If so, you may have little to grieve, rather than being
unfinished or blocked. If
this seems likely, focus on wound-reduction
first - then on healthy mourning.
If
you live and/or work in a low-nurturance environment and your true Self usually
your personality, weigh the pros
and cons of intentionally shifting toward a higher-nurturance
environment.
NOTE
- if you ignore, discount, or postpone steps 1 and 2 above, the steps below
are probably irrelevant.
3) Check yourself for
healthy-grieving
Identify your (a) personal and (b)
current-family grieving
values,
and
Then decide whether these
combine to promote or
hinder healthy three-level grief.
If
wholistic health and healthy grief are not high priorities for
your ruling subselves, meditate on the related long-term
risks, and seek to identify
are setting your priorities. Option - consult with your
Future Self to learn what may happen to
you and any kids because of a chronic attitude of
4) Honestly assess if your attitudes, beliefs,
and values about reacting to major losses are your own, or are inherited
from parents, ancestors, heroes, and/or the media.
If they're someone else's, patiently
forge your own conscious beliefs without
excessive guilt, shame or anxiety. To succeed at this,
your Self (capital "S") must steadily
your other subselves.
For perspective on this, review these common
and see how they apply to you now.
5) Use these ideas about effective grieving
support to
decide if you live and work in a
"pro-grief" (high-nurturance)
environment that consistently encourages healthy three-level mourning.
Three key requisites for such an environment are all your key
adults...
-
often being guided by their true Selves,
-
know and value good-grief
basics; and...
-
give each other steady
to grieve
significant losses.
6) Review these ideas about
losses.
Then inventory
your major
tangible and
invisible broken bonds. Then -
when your Self is
- patiently
review your life starting in childhood, and list your major
losses across the years on paper.
Pay special attention to possible abstract (invisible) losses -
e.g. "Because of my parent's addiction, I lost my chances to (a) have a normal, unhurried, secure
childhood; and to (b) fill my developmental needs well enough."
7) Compassionately check
yourself for inabilities to (a)
bond and/or (b) grieve, and (c)
symptoms of
incomplete grief.
-
An
inability to bond is a symptom of five related
psychological
from serious childhood
Assessing for it and
and
is the theme of family
in this nonprofit Web site.
-
An
inability to grieve usually results from
several factors: psychological wounds + ignorance of healthy-mourning
basics + lack of personal and environmental
good-grief
-
For
each tangible and invisible loss you feel is significant (a subjective judgment), get
undistracted, meditate, and thoughtfully use these
levels and phases to assess how far
along you are in grieving it:
-
mental level: identify (a) what
specific questions this loss caused for you, and (b) whether you have
found stable, satisfying answers to each of them.
Option: say the answer to each
question out loud, and notice what thoughts and feelings occur. There is
no right or wrong to this - only "what is." If some of your
subselves feel satisfied with your answers and others aren't - you're
not done with this level.
-
emotional level:
judge whether you (any of your
active subselves) have any "significant" residual major confusion, sadness,
and/or anger about this loss. "Significant" means "disruptive to
personal health, filling daily needs, and key relationships."
Meditate
on how you feel on the anniversary of this loss. For some people,
anniversaries can trigger significant
As you do this,
stay aware that your losses span far more broken bonds than the death of a
beloved person or pet.
-
spiritual level - relative to this
specific loss, note your (subselves') responses to questions like these
without judgment:
"If there really is a loving,
attentive God, how could S/He allow or cause this (or any major)
loss in my life?"
"What effect has this loss had on my
over-all spiritual faith, growth, and serenity? On my worship values and
behaviors? On my prayer life?"
"Do I have anything important to say to
- and/or ask - my Higher Power about this loss? If so, is there
anything preventing that now?
If you conclude that mourning some significant losses aren't
complete enough, note that this can indicate (a) an inability to grieve,
or (b) you are able to grieve well enough and
haven't had enough time to progress with it.
Depending on many factors,
it can take months or years to fully accept important losses on
all three levels.
Keep a long-range view, and
patiently repeat this process for each significant loss in your inventory.
This will probably take a lot of time, energy, and concentration, so
pace yourself and take breaks as needed.
Strong feelings of
weariness,
and/or
about this important "grief work"
suggest that a false self distrusts your
subselves
and
to protect one or more
from discomfort or danger.
The priority goal then becomes patiently growing mutual trust and harmony
among your subselves - i.e. progressing at
+ + +
Pause, stretch, breathe, and reflect. You just read a summary of
options for checking yourself for significant false-self wounds, an
inability to grieve (blocked grief), and incomplete grief. What are your subselves
and feeling about
these options? If they say "This seems like a lot of work!" - it IS! The
long-range toxic personal and family effects of [wounds + blocked grief] justify
it!
Working at these steps implies that your subselves genuinely
your own
serenity, and longevity. People who ignore or discount these are
and usually
Do you know anyone who regularly neglects (disrespects) themselves
physically, emotionally, and/or spiritually - and denies, ignores, jokes about, or
justifies this?
Example
Let's look at how these "unblocking" steps might
apply to a typical divorced, custodial mother called Pat in mid-life.
Background
Pat became motivated to work at these steps for several
reasons. She feels that her aging Mother has lived a drab, "joyless" life, and
doesn't want that for herself. Pat regrets her recent divorce after 18 years
of marriage, and feels
about the impact it's had on her (custodial) kids Lisa (17) and Steven (15).
She admits that she's probably 25 pounds
overweight, doesn't always eat well, and "may drink too much at times."
Pat
doesn't think much about dating or remarrying, but doesn't want to grow old
alone or burden her kids and any
grandkids in later life.
Pat has felt significantly
for perhaps a year prior to asking
her husband Ray to move out 17 months ago, and ever since. Her doctor
prescribed a popular drug which has alleviated her
depression somewhat, but leaves her feeling "like a robot at times."
She
dislikes needing a drug to function, and is intrigued by the new idea that
her
depression may be linked to psychological wounds and blocked grief.
Before starting to study wounds and mourning, she had always assumed that
grieving was only appropriate when someone died. The idea that the
multi-year process of their divorce had caused everyone in her family major
losses was new and disturbing to her. She and Ray had never discussed this.
None of Pat's childhood adults ever talked about their losses or the
grieving process. (an anti-grief policy). Her mother's stern Swedish ancestors were practical, blunt
people who "had no time to be sad and mope around." Her father had rarely
expressed emotions other than bursts of anger and frustration. She had never
seen him cry, including at his parents' deaths - though he had experienced
much trauma and
in his life.
He grew up in an alcoholic blue-collar
family which had struggled to survive the Depression during the
1930s. At age 71, her father had no idea that he was an "ACoA"
(Adult Child of Alcoholics) or what that
to him, Pat, and his
grandkids. None of them had ever studied what it meant to be the
grandchild of addicted (wounded) ancestors.
Pat's parents' and grandparents' main attitude (policy) about reacting to
major losses seemed to be "Just get over it." None of them had ever been to
a therapist, or had much interest in human dynamics or "personal growth."
Like their ancestors, hero/ines, and teachers, they had no awareness of
family nurturance-levels, psychological wounds, or blocked grief. Pat's
early caregivers were "God fearing" and religious, but none of them was
really
The Web address of this
four-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/05/thaw.htm