Excerpts from an essay written by Candyce Ossefort-Russell:
Words Matter
In the face of grief, then, terms like resilience, overcome, recover, and control counterintuitively reveal a disempowering underlying story that perpetuates fear of grief itself.
- Resilience means a strong and speedy return to the original form after being bent or compressed.
- Overcome means to get the better of in a struggle or conflict; to defeat; to prevail over.
- Recover means to get back, to regain; its root means to get again.
- Control means to maintain influence or authority over.
All of these terms suggest that grief is a monster in the darkness that we should fear and flee from, or battle and fight against so that we will ultimately prevail over it to regain control.
Though ultimately fear-based, this ego-driven, battle-filled story preserves the illusion that even in the face of the most horrific tragedy, we can learn the tricks of resilience in order to dominate the grief monster and bounce back to normal in just over a year.
However, along with Dr. Porges’ work, emotion science and age-old human wisdom show that grief itself is adaptive. Loss is an injury to the psyche, to the soul. Though painful, grief is actually the brain/body/soul’s natural, necessary, healthy response to this universal wound.
That is, grief, as painful as it is, naturally arises in us precisely because the inevitable wound of loss is so great. We couldn’t survive this unavoidable wound without the healing force of grief.
Just as a wound to the body automatically — without any thought or effort on our part — sets itself to healing via a rush of blood that clears out damaged and dead cells, and a release of growth factors that spawn generation of new tissue, the spontaneous emotions of grief rush in to set healing in motion. Grief reactions are the natural yet anguishing growth factors that invite the deepest self to heal and to grow into a scarred yet more mature identity
So to believe the story that grief is a dangerous force that needs to be overcome is to actively fight against or to shut down the healing forces that our bodies naturally provide for us.
To try to bounce back to our old ways of being is to refuse to accept that there is no going back as much as we’d like to, and to turn away from the pain that comes from radical growth that’s being forced upon us whether we want to face it or not.
Instead of terms like terms like resilience, overcome, recover, and control; the terms fortitude, bear-with-courage, transform, and humility underlie a story that honors the strength of what it’s like to fall apart, completely rebuild against our will, and go on anyway; to go down and through the darkened way with help, trusting that it is the path to healing from the root of the soul.
- Fortitude means mental and emotional strength in facing difficulty, adversity, or danger, especially over a long period.
- Bear means to carry and endure.
- Courage means the ability to do something that frightens you; and mental or moral strength to persevere and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.
- Transform means to make a thorough or dramatic change in the form, appearance, or character of.
These words tell the encouraging story of down-and-through, where messiness and pain are seen as part of the natural healing forces of grief — forces we need help and encouragement to bear with courage and fortitude over time, rather than to flee from or vanquish.
Hence the fortitude we are expressing (not building, but simply expressing) — just by getting out of bed and going to work and tending the children — is something that should be respected and honored.
Continuing to live with nothing more to give than hanging on by our fingernails should be seen as an expression of courage and strength.
Learning that we have control over much less than we ever thought makes us humble and teachable.
And viscerally understanding that nothing in life is guaranteed naturally unleashes gratitude.
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