Embracing vulnerability to anticipatory grief, pain and loss

 I read recently that there are oftentimes ‘peaks and valleys’ in the life of a terminally ill person. Corresponding with them are emotional ‘peaks and valleys’ in the lives of the caregivers, and I say this from my personal experience of the last few years and more profoundly, the last few weeks and days. The 'valleys' corresponded of late, in my case, to the periods of intense anticipatory grief and loss. Periods in which I thought I would crumble under the sheer agony of anticipatory grief. Hence this attempt to reach out to all those who might have had or be having similar experiences.

Rev Richard Rohr says that we need to become vulnerable to pain and that accompanying a loved person on the last few months, weeks and days of life’s journey is a profound experience – one which has the potential to change our lives, should we be open enough to allow that change to happen. I couldn’t agree more.

How do we deal with this concept called ‘anticipatory grief’, which is experienced by some, not all; and that too with varying degrees of intensity? Well it has been an extremely tough journey for me and it would have continued to be so were it not for certain things I did and experienced, small variations of what is called Visual –Kinesthetic -Dissociation in NLP.

1. Identify the crux of the grief. In peace and quiet, I asked my innermost self, my unconscious – ‘what is it that I am really grieving for?’ Keep asking till you hit the root. And the answer in my case was twofold: a) The grief of confronting and dealing with the actual death of the loved one, and b) the grief of loss – dealing with the emptiness that would ensue.

2. Keeping your eyes closed, form a mental image in fantasy, of what you are grieving for (in my case, I had to do it twice – one for each of the above). Take note of the people in it, the colours; frame it like a picture and keep it straight ahead and as far away from you as you desire. You do not have to force yourself to look at the picture if it causes you grief – just take quick nanosecond snapshots of the image and open your eyes in between those shots. Do this till you feel comfortable with looking at the frame at the distance it is kept. Bring it progressively closer and repeat the process.

3. Become aware of the emotions and subtle nuances in the picture. Stay with them; check what it does to you. If you were to become a bird and fly above and as close to the picture frame as possible, maybe even through the picture, become aware of how would it feel as you do so. Also become aware of the type of bird you have become. Get a feel of the changes in feelings and emotions as you bring the picture frame of the image as close to you as is comfortable.       

4. Take a moment to consider what additional resources you would like that future self of you dealing with/ in that picture, to have. What in your opinion would be the additional abilities and strengths that you would like yourself to have in the future when actually dealing with the situation in reality?

5. Identify those resources and give it to that future self in your framed picture. See how that transforms or changes the image. Check how that feels within. Does it feel fine, comfortable, peaceful? Take heed of any objections that your unconscious might raise and ask for its positive intention.  If ok, take a moment to feel those resources within you in the present. Become aware of how they change your emotions and feelings. Feel the movement of energy with you, the future being part of the present in you. And when you are comfortable with the experience, open your eyes.

Becoming vulnerable to experience pain throws open windows of awareness - awareness of self and others. Experiencing and becoming aware of learning’s from anticipatory grief and loss opens up deep pools of strength within, if we but learn to draw succour from them.

Dealing with Grief

The common perceptions of grief are the feelings which arise on the passing away of a loved one. I have spent the past two years reading many books on grief, death and dying. The most beautiful among them being ‘On Grief and Grieving’ by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler, which talks about the five stages of grieving – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. 

Recently, when someone approached me for help to deal with the pain of separation, I realised that what this person is going through is also intense grief or bereavement, yet in another form. It set me thinking. Can the five stages of grieving be applied to grief in situations such as separation, a break-up or even simple plain unrequited love too? And the answer I got was –absolutely yes. Grief is to do with loss or perceived loss and is not limited to death alone.

In such situations, some common questions that arise are – Why me? What is in it for me? What did I do to warrant such pain? Much as we would want answers to these questions, the hard truth is that we rarely get them while in the midst of the grief. I know this metaphor is an oft repeated one, but it bears repetition. The events of our lives may be likened to tiny dots that are drawn at random on a sheet of paper. As we move on from event to event, these dots get connected in random order, making no sense to us at the point in time. But if we were to back at our lives at a later point in time, we would marvel at the design that has been created by the master designer using the very same dots.

A poignant question I was asked recently was – “Do I necessarily have to go through this pain? It’s too intense. What do I do to alleviate the pain?” What I have understood is this – Oftentimes we have to go through the pain to get to the other side. We can take as much pain as we want to, since we internally have all the resources required to deal with it. 

Some of the best learning’s I’ve got on pain and grief have been from Dick McHugh. In his words, “The more you resist, the more it persists. The more you accept, the more it transforms.”   No one can teach us or help us respond to pain. All it needs is our attention, an acknowledgement that it is there and the willingness to experience it fully.  The path to liberation from the pain or grief goes through the act of experiencing it. Accept it and also be watchful, lest your mind takes the pain and converts it into suffering.

Also read my recent article on Dealing with Pain & Grief 
http://rapportinrelationships.blogspot.in/2015/11/dealing-with-pain-grief.html