Grief

Discover What is Important to You

By  | 

“Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.”
– Meister Eckhart

A life-affirming aspect of grief that many people do not fully take advantage of is that it creates a stark opportunity to figure out what is important to them so that they can structure their lives in such a way that these things take center stage. I interpret the light in Eckhart’s quote above to be the path to self-actualization, which becomes much clearer when all the distractions of daily life are swept to one side thanks to the experience of profound loss.

Many of us spend the majority of our lives at the superficial level worrying about things that won’t even matter to us in a few months or years. Sometimes it takes a powerful shock, like an experience that occasions grief, to make us reevaluate our priorities.

Some feel guilty about focusing on their own growth when they have lost someone close to them, as if they are betraying the memory of this person in some way. But if they loved you they would surely applaud any effort you make to improve your life, and would be proud that their life meant enough to you that the foundations of how you see the world are shaking, that you are discovering through your loss what is most important to you.

Making positive life changes because of a loss is building a monument to that person as surely as mourning them is, and more so actually because your actions from here on out, actions that will ripple through the world and have an effect on others, will carry the person you have lost along for the ride, since these actions would not have occurred without them.

Related posts:

  1. Grief Is The Price You Pay For Caring We’ve written that when it comes to losing a loved one, the expression ‘little love little grief, big love big grief’ helps people wrap positive meaning around the boundless emotional pain and suffering they’re experiencing. That pain and suffering is a testament to their loved one, a proof that this person was special and important […]...
  2. Secondary Losses Grieving is a confusing process for various reasons. The one we want to talk about here is that people are not always conscious of all the secondary losses they must confront along with their primary loss. The primary loss is the loved one who has died. Dealing with this is hard enough on its own. […]...
  3. Why Grief Is Scary When faced with a situation that elicits grief the concrete loss is obviously scary to confront. No one wants to admit that something or someone they love has slipped through their fingers forever. But there’s a deeper reason grief is scary, and this is that all of the unfinished business from previous losses comes bubbling […]...
  4. Grief As A Symbol For Love Of all the ways we have tried to help grievers bear up under the weight of loss there is one idea that has consistently been the most effective. This idea doesn’t change anything about the grief experience as such except for perception, so we suppose it could be categorized as cognitive behavioral. Though nothing about […]...
  5. Grieving Many believe that everyone grieves in their own ways and there is no one correct way to do it. This idea is not exactly true though. The paradox is that there is a right way to grieve, but if you follow this right way then your grief experience will be singularly unique. Resist the temptation […]...
  6. Boundless Grief If your love for someone is boundless then it shouldn’t be surprising that when you lose them your grief will be boundless. We could say that grief is the price you pay for love. Little love little grief, big love big grief. Acquaintances, public figures, and other people you know pass away all the time, […]...
  7. Letting Go It takes more energy to hold on than it does to let go. A great yoga teacher said this while we were all in a stretch that requires a certain amount of surrender. My thoughts darted to the applicability of her words for people who are grieving. This article is written for you if you […]...
  8. Ambivalence While Grieving Simultaneous Contradictory Thoughts and Feelings  Ambivalence, which is holding simultaneous contradictory thoughts or feelings, is a disconcerting experience even under normal circumstances. Our Western minds remain influenced by the philosophical legacy of Aristotle, who held that something can be ‘this’ or ‘that’ but never ‘this and that’. He created three maxims to explain it. The […]...
  9. When Elderly Loved Ones Pass Away We saw a funny sign on our travels in a highway gift shop outside of Zion that read “If I had known having grandchildren would be this much fun I would have had them first!” Grandparents and grandchildren have a very special relationship, as we all know. Most grandchildren revere their grandparents, and vice versa, […]...
  10. Lost Youth Conscious awareness around where grief originates doesn’t necessarily make the process of grieving any easier but it does make it possible to go through the process, to start to move towards healing. At the same time moving towards healing is a scary prospect because it means admitting at the deepest level that a loss really has […]...
  11. Subjected To Devastating Loss When subjected to devastating loss the paradox is that our grief is uniquely ours and our unique burden to bear but at the same time we’re not alone because the human condition is tragic and mandates losses of all kinds for all of us throughout the lifespan until we reach that final loss, which we […]...
  12. Life Goes On One of the most shocking realizations for people who have recently lost a loved one is that life goes on around them just like it did before. Everything has changed irrevocably but the world doesn’t seem to notice and just keeps moving at that same steady hum, people keep going on about their business, television […]...
  13. Happiness And Loss Marlene Lauda: “What’s the matter?” Nicki Lauda: “Happiness is the enemy. It weakens you. Puts doubt in your mind. Suddenly you have something to lose.” Marlene Lauda: “When you call happiness an enemy, then it’s too late. Then you’ve already lost.” (From the movie Rush) What a great response by Marlene. The specter of impermanence […]...
  14. Grief And Despair When confronted with the loss of an important human relationship the enemy is not grief but rather despair. Grieving is healthy and productive. Above all grief is natural. As much as we want to avoid those painful thoughts and feelings grief is the adaptive response to loss. Those who have the courage to confront their […]...
  15. Grief Recovery This article concerns grief, the misconceptions surrounding it, and suggestions on how to work towards recovery. A helpful book I have read on the subject is The Grief Recovery Handbook, by John W. James and Russel Friedman. Many of their theoretical underpinnings fit well within a Gestalt psychology framework.  In my practice I have found […]...
  16. Ambivalence and Grief Ambivalence, which means having simultaneous conflicting thoughts and feelings about a situation, is common for most people dealing with the death of a loved one. An example that is almost always confusing and guilt inducing is being heartbroken, really not knowing how life can continue without this person around anymore, while at the same time […]...
  17. Start Living For The Loved One Who Has Passed Away When a loved one passes away most people respond by sinking into despair and hopelessness for a while. But some never really come back from the abyss, they remain disconnected from people and the world for the rest of their lives, and this is due to a fundamental error in thinking that, if challenged and […]...
  18. Grieving Secondary Losses Loss Produces Grief Any significant loss will produce grief. Whatever the main object of that grief is can be called the primary loss. So for example when a loved one passes away the primary loss is the loved one. But what’s often hidden from the full conscious awareness of many grievers is that countless secondary losses follow […]...
  19. Unacknowledged Grief Grief is usually consciously recognized when it’s connected to the death of a loved one but it casts a much wider net than that. Actually any time your circumstances change the potential for grief is there because implicit in change is loss, and loss is what grief is all about. We say the potential for […]...
  20. No Clean Slates With Grief It’s easy to fall under the spell of closure when working through grief, under the idea that with the proper  insight and enough time life will go back to normal. Goodbyes will be said, the gestalt will be completed, and everything will revert to the way it used to be. There are a lot of […]...
Related Items