“Grief is a force of energy that cannot be controlled or predicted. It comes and goes on its own schedule. Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love.”

By Maria Popova

“All your sorrows have been wasted on you if you have not yet learned how to be wretched,” Seneca told his mother in his extraordinary letter on resilience in the face of loss. One need not be a dry materialist to bow before the recognition that no heart goes through life unplundered by loss — all love presupposes it, be it in death or in heartbreak. Whether what is lost are feelings or atoms, grief comes, unforgiving and unpredictable in its myriad manifestations. Joan Didion observed this disorienting fact in her classic memoir of loss: “Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be.” And when it does come, it unweaves the very fabric of our being. When love is lost, we lose the part of ourselves that did the loving — a part that, depending on the magnitude of the love, can come to approximate the whole of who we are. We lose what artist Anne Truitt so poetically termed “the lovely entire confidence that comes only from innumerable mutual confidences entrusted and examined… woven by four hands, now trembling, now intent, over and under into a pattern that can surprise both [partners].”

But we also gain something — out of the burning embers of the loss arises an ashen humility, true to its shared Latin root with the word humus. We are made “of the earth” — we bow down low, we become crust, and each breath seems to draw from the magmatic center of the planet that is our being. It is only when we give ourselves over to it completely that we can begin to take ourselves back, to rise, to live again.

How to move through this barely survivable experience is what author and altogether glorious human being Elizabeth Gilbert examines with uncommon insight and tenderness of heart in her conversation with TED curator Chris Anderson on the inaugural episode of the TED Interviews podcast.

Gilbert reflects on the death of her partner, Rayya Elias — her longtime best friend, whose sudden terminal cancer diagnosis unlatched a trapdoor, as Gilbert put it, into the realization that Rayya was the love of her life:

Grief… happens upon you, it’s bigger than you. There is a humility that you have to step into, where you surrender to being moved through the landscape of grief by grief itself. And it has its own timeframe, it has its own itinerary with you, it has its own power over you, and it will come when it comes. And when it comes, it’s a bow-down. It’s a carve-out. And it comes when it wants to, and it carves you out — it comes in the middle of the night, comes in the middle of the day, comes in the middle of a meeting, comes in the middle of a meal. It arrives — it’s this tremendously forceful arrival and it cannot be resisted without you suffering more… The posture that you take is you hit your knees in absolute humility and you let it rock you until it is done with you. And it will be done with you, eventually. And when it is done, it will leave. But to stiffen, to resist, and to fight it is to hurt yourself.

With an eye to the intimate biological connection between the body and the mind (which is, of course, the seedbed of feeling), Gilbert adds:

There’s this tremendous psychological and spiritual challenge to relax in the awesome power of it until it has gone through you. Grief is a full-body experience. It takes over your entire body — it’s not a disease of the mind. It’s something that impacts you at the physical level… I feel that it has a tremendous relationship to love: First of all, as they say, it’s the price you pay for love. But, secondly, in the moments of my life when I have fallen in love, I have just as little power over it as I do in grief. There are certain things that happen to you as a human being that you cannot control or command, that will come to you at really inconvenient times, and where you have to bow in the human humility to the fact that there’s something running through you that’s bigger than you.

Gilbert goes on to read a short, stunning reflection on love and loss she had originally published on Instagram:

People keep asking me how I’m doing, and I’m not always sure how to answer that. It depends on the day. It depends on the minute. Right this moment, I’m OK. Yesterday, not so good. Tomorrow, we’ll see.

Here is what I have learned about Grief, though.

I have learned that Grief is a force of energy that cannot be controlled or predicted. It comes and goes on its own schedule. Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love.

The only way that I can “handle” Grief, then, is the same way that I “handle” Love — by not “handling” it. By bowing down before its power, in complete humility.

When Grief comes to visit me, it’s like being visited by a tsunami. I am given just enough warning to say, “Oh my god, this is happening RIGHT NOW,” and then I drop to the floor on my knees and let it rock me. How do you survive the tsunami of Grief? By being willing to experience it, without resistance.

The conversation of Grief, then, is one of prayer-and-response.

Grief says to me: “You will never love anyone the way you loved Rayya.” And I reply: “I am willing for that to be true.” Grief says: “She’s gone, and she’s never coming back.” I reply: “I am willing for that to be true.” Grief says: “You will never hear that laugh again.” I say: “I am willing.” Grief says, “You will never smell her skin again.” I get down on the floor on my fucking knees, and — and through my sheets of tears — I say, “I AM WILLING.” This is the job of the living — to be willing to bow down before EVERYTHING that is bigger than you. And nearly everything in this world is bigger than you.

I don’t know where Rayya is now. It’s not mine to know. I only know that I will love her forever. And that I am willing.

Onward.

Gilbert adds in the interview:

It’s an honor to be in grief. It’s an honor to feel that much, to have loved that much.

Complement with life-earned wisdom on how to live with loss from other great artists, writers, and scientists — including Alan Turing, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Rachel Carson, Charles Darwin, Johannes Brahms, and Charles Dickens — and the Stoic cure for heartbreak from Epictetus, then revisit Gilbert on creative bravery and the art of living in a state of uninterrupted marvel.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Go funeral dress shopping. When the saleswoman asks about the event, say: “Dressier than office, but not as fun as cocktail.”

By Caroline M. Grant

Before: Text your friends to tell them that your mother has entered hospice. Tell them that it’s just to get the equipment she needs (a hospital bed, a better wheelchair) and not a sign of her impending death. Pretend you believe it.

Brace yourself for the SWAT team of hospice services and providers that descends on you: the social worker, the nurse, the chaplain, the volunteer bearing a soft blanket, a stuffed bear and lavender-scented hand lotion. Give the bear away.

Answer every phone call from “Unknown Number” because usually it is some kindly person from hospice. Apologize to the Unknown Number who is not hospice when you tell her no, you can’t subscribe to the symphony because your mother is dying. Start to tell her that your mother used to subscribe to the symphony and you would like to someday, when she is … Trail off, hang up and feel guilty about the little bomb you dropped into her day.

A month before your mother’s death, read the draft of her obituary that your father has written, and start to offer edits like it’s any other piece of writing. Don’t cry until you come to the names of your children and nieces.

Nine days before her death, lean in close to your mom, sitting in her wheelchair at the dining table, and ask her to repeat herself until you hear her say, “I’m hurting.” Take her back to bed immediately and tell her you’re sorry, so sorry, you never want her to be in pain.

Cut up the back of all your mother’s nightgowns so that the caregivers can take them on and off easily. Cut off all the buttons to make the gowns more comfortable.

Talk and text with your siblings to help them figure out if and when they should fly out. Tell them not to feel guilty if they can’t; mean it. Feel relieved when they all book flights.

Sit at your mother’s bedside, holding her hand and begging her to please hang on, when your sister’s flight is delayed for six hours. Keep readjusting the sleeping arrangements in your house so that two guest rooms work for five extra family members. Put air mattresses on the floor of your bedroom for your kids and secretly wish it were a permanent arrangement.

Go funeral dress shopping with a friend. Meet her after work downtown and go to the mall like it’s a normal evening. Feel momentarily stumped when the young saleswoman asks brightly, “Shopping for an event?” Resist the urge to answer darkly; instead, try, “Dressier than office, but not as fun as cocktail.” Stare back at the saleswoman and feel some sympathy when she blinks.

Buy an entirely inappropriate, form-fitting, off-the-shoulder dress (which will hang in your closet, unworn, until you finally take it to a consignment store). Accept your tissue-wrapped purchase from the saleswoman who says, “Have fun at your event!”

Escape with your friend to a restaurant and down a glass of wine, very fast.

Seven days before her death, stand at your mother’s bedside while a priest gives her the Last Rites. Two days later try to control yourself, at church, when the same priest says that he is “bad at the Last Rites” because the recipients don’t actually die. Do not catch your sister’s eye, and definitely do not look at the woman the priest points to as proof; she is not your mother.

After church, race back to your mother’s bedside where your brothers have been keeping vigil. Lean in close and smile when she gestures toward your outfit and whispers, “I like this.”

Tell her you chose it with her in mind. Be so glad that “I’m hurting” won’t be the last thing she says to you.

Take turns with your father, sister and brothers, sitting with your mother and holding her hand. Notice when her tight grip, which you have had to peel off finger by finger, loosens, but don’t comment on it. Pass her hand gently to each family member in turn, like the baton in a terrible relay race.

Read to her and play music. Try not to flinch when the nurse nods approvingly and says, “Hearing is the last thing to go … well, nearly the last thing.” Wonder at how quickly you have become accustomed to your mother, your bright and opinionated mother, lying unconscious, mouth open and breathing heavily. Listen to her breathing and try to memorize the sound of it.

Three days before your mother’s death, start to sleep with the phone by your bedside. Be grateful on the two mornings you wake up without it having rung.
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After: Hang up the phone and lean into your husband’s arms. Tell him, “Now I have to learn how to live in this world.”

Wake your siblings. Drive through the darkness to your father’s apartment. Continue to call it your parents’ apartment.

Write “RINGS” on a piece of paper and set it on the floor by your mother’s bed so that you don’t forget to ask the undertaker to remove two of her rings. Ask him to please leave her wedding band on.

Go funeral dress shopping with your sister. Buy the only dress you try on. Notice ruefully that you actually kind of like it. Too bad; you will never be able to wear it again.

Dig out the darkest sunglasses you own and wear them even on gray and rainy days.

Drink so much water. Grief is dehydrating.

Be thankful for friends who make very specific offers: to do your laundry; to pick up family members at the airport; to deliver breakfast; to buy you waterproof mascara.

Look around during the funeral and realize how many of your friends have also buried their mothers. Wonder if you were supportive enough to them, realize you couldn’t possibly have been, know that you will be from now on.

Pause, during the final verse of the final hymn, and listen with tears and joy while your sister and niece float the descant high above all the other voices.

Add your voice and hope that the music somehow reaches your mother.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

– everyone feels differently

By Nick Haslam

Grief can seem desolate for those in the thick of it who often feel unable to imagine a way out of their suffering. But, as time passes, the pain usually dampens or becomes more fleeting.

Understanding the normal trajectory of grief matters for the person experiencing the grief and those treating them. Attempts to provide a map of the bereavement process have typically proposed a sequence of stages. The “five stages” model is the best known, with the stages being denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

While there is some evidence for these stages, the experience of grief is highly individualised and not well captured by their fixed sequence. Some of the five stages may be absent, their order may be jumbled, certain experiences may rise to prominence more than once and the progression of stages may stall. The age of the bereaved person and the cause of death may also shape the grief process.

Stages of grief

The first major attempt to outline the stages of grief was made by British psychiatrist John Bowlby, father of attachment theory, an influential account of how infants and children form close bonds to their care-givers. Bowlby and his colleague Colin Parkes proposed four stages of grieving.

The first is of numbness and shock, when the loss is not accepted or seen as not real. The second stage of yearning and searching is marked by a sense of emptiness. The mourner is preoccupied with the person who has been lost, seeking reminders and reliving memories.

In the third stage, despair and disorganisation set in. This is a sense of hopelessness and sometimes anger where the bereaved person may withdraw into depression. Finally, in the re-organisation and recovery stage, hope rekindles and there is a gradual return to the rhythms of daily life.

Bowlby and Parkes’s model, first proposed in the early 1960s, may have been the first. However, it’s Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s model coined in 1969 that has become the most widely known. Her five stages of grief – originally developed to map patient responses to terminal illness – have become famous. They have been applied not only to responses to death but also to a variety of other losses.

Kübler-Ross’s first stage, denial, resembles what Bowlby and Parkes labelled numbness and shock, but her second, anger, departs from their scheme. The affected person demands to understand why the loss or illness has taken place, and why it has happened to them. In the third stage, bargaining, the person may be consumed with “if only”, guiltily wishing they could go back in time and undo whatever may have led to the illness, or death.

Stages four and five involve depression and acceptance. Despair and withdrawal gradually give way to a sense of fully acknowledging and making peace with the loss.

Evidence for the five stages

Kübler-Ross’s stages emerged from her clinical work with dying patients rather than systematic research. Empirical support for the existence of the proposed sequence of stages has been scant but intriguing.

One study followed 233 older adults over a 24-month period after the death of a loved one from natural causes. It assessed them on experiences associated with a modified version of Kübler-Ross’s stages. In accord with her theory, each of the five experiences peaked in the predicted order.

Disbelief was highest immediately after the loss and declined gradually thereafter. Yearning, anger and depression peaked at four, five and six months respectively before declining. Acceptance of the loss rose steadily over the two-year period.

Problems with the stage model

Although the sequence of peaks matched Kübler-Ross’s model, some aspects of this research also challenged it.

First, although disbelief was at its highest immediately after the loss, it was always less prominent than acceptance. Acceptance is not a late stage of resolution for people who are grieving, but an experience that prevails from the start and continues to grow.

Second, yearning was the most prominent negative experience, despite being omitted from the most well-known version of Kübler-Ross’s five stages. This points to the limitations of framing grief in the clinical terms of depression, which study participants experienced less frequently than longing.

But the study’s findings can’t necessarily be generalised as it looked only at older adults and natural causes of death. Another major study found the typical pattern of grieving among young adults was substantially different.

Yearning peaked before disbelief, and depression remained constant without resolving over two years. In addition, yearning, anger and disbelief returned with a second peak near the two-year mark, when acceptance also declined.

Moreover, young adults whose loved ones died by violent causes differed from the typical pattern. For them, disbelief dominated their first months, and depression initially declined but then rose again as the second anniversary of the death approached.

All these findings represent the average responses of a sample rather than the trajectories of individual participants. Even if the Kübler-Ross’s stages partially reflect the statistical tendencies of the whole sample, they might fail to capture how individuals’ experiences of grief unfold.

That is the conclusion of a study that followed 205 adults over an 18-month period following the loss of a spouse. These adults had been interviewed for a related study prior to the loss.

The researchers found evidence of five distinct trajectories, with some people being depressed before the loss, and recovering afterwards. Some fell into a long-lasting depression, while others were fairly resilient and had experienced low levels of depression throughout.

States of grief

Kübler-Ross came to acknowledge the reality that her stages compose an appealing narrative of recovery rather than an accurate sequencing of grief. Experts now place less emphasis on her stages as a series of steps on the bereavement journey, much as they have tended to lose faith in other stage theories of human behaviour.

For all its limitations, Kübler-Ross’s analysis still has value. The supposed stages of grief may be better understood as states of grief: recognisable experiences that rise to the surface in distinctive ways in each person’s sorrowful passage through loss.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!