subject: Ways to Lessen the Pain of Loss [print this page] Even if the year just gone was a real wash-out and you're glad it's over, it still touches in on years gone by. And that inevitably brings up those people we have lost from our lives.
How do you get past that pain? Especially when it's fresh. You lessen the pain by letting it have its way with you. I mean really letting it!
In the old days people would wale and beat their chests when they lost a loved one, and there would be a meaningful ritual that would aid in the letting go. These days, we don't show our feelings, and we don't have any meaningful rituals that let us grieve.
Mostly we lose loved ones because they leave us, not necessarily because they die. What rituals do we have for the loss of our first love? The dissolution of a marriage? A child moving to the other side of the planet? These losses are just as profound as death, and yet we don't get time off work, or a funeral to help us work through it.
I've been through just about every kind of grief and loss there is - parents, a child, a marriage, friendships, lovers, youth, and even my body- when you lose your breasts to cancer you lose a significant part of self. I guess that's why I know of what I speak. I've had to learn to grieve properly so I could keep going.
Sometimes the pain seems more than you can bear and you feel that if you let it get any worse, it will kill you. So, the temptation is to stop it- hold off letting grief have complete control. After all, it's very uncivilized to 'carry on' like that isn't it? Much better to be seen soldiering on, suffering in silence. No, it's not better. It's far worse. If you stop the grief from running its natural course- whatever that is for you- you just get stuck in it.
