I have worked with many people who are grieving a loss of loved one, parents who have special children who are grieving the typical child they wished they had had and those people who grieve the opportunities they believe they missed out on.
So what is grieving? There are many interpretations and I am sure you have seen many pictures of what you are ‘suppost to do and feel’. I see grieving as a sadness that we are holding on to in order to motivate ourselves to do something different or to show caring.
So the man I worked with who lost his Mum, eventually came to terms with that death is part of life but was grieving because he regretted not telling his Mum how he was feeling on many matters, so he never felt a connection. He realised he was sad now because he was not wanting the same thing to happen between him and his kids. Of course when he made the realisation the sadness dissipated and he went home and shared his thoughts with his family and encouraged them to share with him.
Many parents of special needs children I have worked with come to realise that they have this child with special needs they are not going to go away. The reason they are sad is because they feel hopeless and are trying to motivate themselves to help their child. When they realise this they often come to think that thought is not helping them achieve their end goal so they switch to thinking that ‘anything is possible’ supports them in taking action to help their kids and loving their kids where they are!
The other common thread in these Option Process Dialogues is that ‘if we were not sad, then that would make us cold and heartless’. When I think about times I have been sad I do not recall actually actively caring for anyone else, it is totally self indulgent. e.g. I used to sit and worry about Rohan while he was having a seizure. When I dialogued this I realised I was worrying about a possible future where he was unhappy and so I was unhappy, so I was worried then in order to in some way save myself or him from a future unhappiness??? All that time I was worried I was not present and caring for him. Now if Rohan has a seizure I am totally there for him, loving him, coaching him to breath from a calm place and reassuring him telling him I am there for him and he has the strength and ability to pull himself through. This feels better inside, feels more useful and feels like caring!
Contact me if you need some help.
Rekha 🙂