Twelve Critical Questions for Mourners . . .: The Answers That Will Help You Heal

by Alan D. Wolfelt

Overview

Confronting the “little griefs” that can occur in the course of a lifetime, this handbook seeks to relieve the inevitable burden of loss. Taking the “wilderness experience” into account—being disconnected from oneself and the outside world—this guide presents 12 vital questions, the answers to which encourage the choice between deciding to live and letting sadness take control. Delving into the possibilities behind integrating sorrow into one’s life, this study is the road map to exploring and honoring the transformational nature of grief.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781879651623
Publisher:	Companion Press
Publication date:	03/01/2010
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, is a speaker, a grief counselor, and the director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition. He is the author of Healing Your Grieving Heart, The Journey Through Grief, and Understanding Your Grief. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Read an Excerpt

Eight Critical Questions for Mourners ...

And the Answers That Will Help You Heal

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By Alan D. Wolfelt

Center for Loss and Life Transition

Copyright © 2010 Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-879651-62-3

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CHAPTER 1

Question 1

WILL I GRIEVE THIS LOSS, OR WILL I MOURN THIS LOSS?

"We need to acknowledge that this experience of grief and mourning is part of the soul's life."

— Thomas Moore

I often remind myself that there is no love without loss. And there is no integration of loss without the experience of mourning.

Your capacity to love requires the necessity to mourn.

To deny the significance of mourning would be to believe that there is something wrong about loving. Yet, I truly believe our greatest gift from God is our capacity to give and receive love. Likewise, it is a great gift that we can openly mourn our life losses.

You may have noticed that people tend to use the words "grieving" and "mourning" interchangeably. There is a critical distinction, however. We as humans move toward integrating loss into our lives not just by grieving, but by mourning. You will move toward "reconciliation" (see p. 42) not just by grieving, but through active and intentional mourning. So, what is the distinction?

Grief is the constellation of internal thoughts and feelings we have when someone we love dies.

Think of grief as the container. It holds your thoughts, feelings, and images of your experience when someone you love dies. In other words, grief is the internal meaning given to the experience of loss.

Mourning is when you take the grief you have on the inside and express it outside of yourself.

Another way of defining mourning is "grief gone public" or "the outward expression of grief." There is no one right or only way to mourn. Talking about the person who died, crying, expressing your thoughts and feelings through art or music, journaling, praying, and celebrating special anniversary dates that held meaning for the person who died are just a few examples of mourning.

Bereavement: originates from the word "reave," meaning "to be dispossessed" or "to be robbed." It also means "to be torn apart" and "to have special needs." When you experience the death of someone loved, you are dispossessed of something very precious to you. Bereavement initiates grief, and grief tries to instinctively convert to mourning. The experiences of grief and mourning alert compassionate people around you that you have special needs that call for support and comfort.

Making the choice to not just grieve but authentically mourn provides you the courage and confidence to integrate the death of someone loved into your life. I have come to believe that to heal your grief, you must mourn it. To go on to ultimately "live well," you must "mourn well." By mourning well, I mean openly and honestly expressing your thoughts and feelings from the inside to the outside — no pretense, no repression, no inhibitions. Somewhere in the collision between the heart, which searches for permanency and connection, and the brain, which acknowledges separation and loss, there is a need for all of us to authentically mourn.

Authentic mourning means being consciously aware of the painful emotions of grief and feeling safe to express them. This may seem odd, because your initial response following loss is instinctive and organic. The loss has taken place, and you naturally feel core feelings such as helplessness, anxiety, fear, despair, protest, and sadness.

Herein lies the paradox — a wide range of instinctive responses occur, but you get to decide as your grief unfolds into mourning if you will truly experience these responses or instead inhibit, suppress, or deny them.

Actually, befriending such emotions is what makes it possible to experience, eventually, a sense of renewed meaning and purpose in your life. Yet the emotions you sometimes most want to avoid are the ones you most need to attend to.

Being consciously aware of your need to mourn does not mean you are "feeling sorry for yourself" or wallowing in your pain. However, authentic mourning is allowing yourself to accept and to experience the natural rhythms that accompany the journey. Authentic mourning is anchored in making the conscious choice to allow yourself to mourn, to recognize that darkness sometimes precedes light, and to seek healing, repair, and transformation of your very being.

Of course, there are a multitude of reasons you might choose to grieve and not mourn. Your pain may seem intolerable. Since mourning won't bring back your lost love, you may rationally try to "put it behind you." After all, you tell yourself, mourning won't bring the person back.

People around you often think they are helping when they say things like "carry on," "keep your chin up," and "keep busy." Or, you may feel that if you don't "overcome" the loss, you are not living up to your testimony of faith that you have tried to live by. No doubt, some people — or maybe you yourself — may suggest that sufficient time has passed and that you should be "done" or "finished" with your grief and mourning.

Perhaps as a child or teen you were taught in your family not to express grief in front of others. Or, some people have shared with me they fear they will "go crazy" if they allow themselves to encounter their grief. Or, perhaps you have decided to deny or repress your grief because you feel it interferes with your ability to function at work and/or home.

All of these potential reasons and many more are often rooted in a reluctance to feel the pain of loss and a general attitude toward grief that is present in our "mourning- avoidant" culture. There is a widespread lack of understanding about how to befriend painful grief energies and use those energies for healing and transformation.

The opposite of befriending pain and allowing ourselves to mourn is control.

Underneath the controlling impulse is fear: the fear that we will experience feelings that are painful.

As grief enters our lives, many of us have been taught that giving these feelings too much attention is a sign of weakness or breakdown. In fact, many people try to head off losses in the first place by controlling. After all, you don't have to grieve and mourn if everything comes out your way.

I believe we control because we are afraid of the emotions that grief brings our way. We don't like being overcome by the waves of grief and sorrow. We don't like "losing control." And until we come to realize there is a natural, normal mourning experience that can result in meaningful transformation, we have little awareness of the need to experience the pain we call grief.

In addition, the emotions of grief are often referred to as "negative," as if they are inherently bad feelings. This judgment feeds our culture's attitude that these emotions should be denied or overcome. Married to this observed truth is the reality that society gives us little permission to openly mourn. We realize that the better we appear to be coping, the easier it is for people to be around us. People invite you to assure them how "well" you are doing and generally encourage you to "keep busy" and "keep your chin up." Sadly, authentic mourning is often seen as a weakness, a flaw, or a self-indulgence, instead of an emotional and spiritual necessity.

So, unfortunately, there are a multitude of forces working against your organic instinct to mourn in the face of loss. The choice to experience and express your grief to its fullest can indeed be difficult in our mourning-avoidant culture. Yet, no matter how difficult, if you do make the choice to authentically mourn in the ways that are unique to your being, you will have begun to return to life, to living, and to loving! If you come to embrace the truth that mourning is a natural extension of loving, you will come to see mourning as part of the natural order of life.

So, ask yourself each day this critical question: "Will I grieve this loss, or will I mourn this loss?"

Having the courage to mourn can breathe life back into your divine spark. Choosing to authentically mourn can and will help you experience a time of release and renewal. Of course, this does not mean your journey is over and done, but it does mean you are empowering yourself. To empower means to give or add power, to propel. When you empower yourself through mourning, you will begin to feel a gentle strength that runs through your body and your soul. Yes, asking and answering this critical question can help empower you.

Declare Your Intent:

Place your hand on your heart and say out loud ...

"I will not just grieve this death, I will mourn in ways that empower me to rediscover life, living, and loving."

Put your hand on your head and say out loud ...

"I will survive, and I will discover a renewed divine spark."

Question 2

WILL I BEFRIEND THE FEELINGS THAT FLOW FROM THIS LOSS, OR WILL I DENY, REPRESS, OR INHIBIT THEM?

"I don't have to go in search of the pain of grief — it finds me. It's when I deny or insulate myself from the pain of the loss that I shut down. Ironically, it is in being open to the pain that I move through it to renewed living."

— Alan D. Wolfelt

Your feelings are the way you perceive yourself. They allow you to respond to the world around you and help you know you are alive. If you shut them down — if you deny, repress, or inhibit them — you risk being among the "living dead." If you lose touch with your feelings, you have no true awareness of life.

The word "feeling" comes from the Indo-European root that means "touch." To feel is to activate your capacity to be touched and changed by experiences you encounter along life's path — in this situation, the death of someone in your life. The term "perturbation" refers to the capacity to experience change and movement.

The purpose of mourning is to allow feelings to move through you in ways that integrate them into your life.

To integrate grief into your life requires that you be touched by what you experience. When you cannot feel a feeling, you are closed in your ability to use it or be changed by it, and instead of experiencing perturbation, you become "stuck." This can result in being out of touch with your feelings and will lead you down a path to carrying the grief surrounding the death. (For more information and insight on "carried grief," see my book Living in the Shadow of the Ghosts of Grief.)

When you carry your grief, not only do you struggle to identify what you are feeling, you often have difficulty expressing feelings to people around you. Your capacity to experience life fully is inhibited, and you begin to shut down. In contrast, you probably know other people who are visibly touched by what happens to them and to others. They recognize they have special needs when losses impact their lives. They feel deeply and they show it. They are not stoic in the face of loss but respond to the instinct to organically mourn, openly and honestly.

The unique expressions of your feelings

The specifics of how you express your feelings of loss are as unique as your fingerprints. Some people are more naturally expressive, while others have more quiet styles of mourning. It seems that the important thing is that feelings be permitted to emerge into consciousness. For you, how this happens will be unique to your personality, cultural and family background, and a multitude of other influences. Remember — there is no one right or only way to mourn. Discover ways to mourn that feel safe and comfortable to you.

The word "heart" literally means "well of reception." Just as you opened your heart to love, you must open your heart to feel your feelings of loss. Again, we sometimes forget that love and feelings of loss are inextricably bound together. As I like to remind myself and others, the capacity to love requires the necessity to mourn.

Mourning is the experience of loss in love. Love is the fuel that inspires grief and the need to mourn.

Rather than think of feelings of loss as a weakness or vulnerability, the reality is that our ability to mourn highlights our capacity to give and receive love.

Your heart is moved entirely by what it has perceived. In allowing yourself to befriend your feelings, you will discover the natural place of grief in your life. I truly believe that place is in your heart, right beside your capacity to love and be loved. Authentic mourning, anchored in feeling your feelings, is an opportunity to embrace your open heart, your well of reception, in ways that allow for and encourage your healing.

Perhaps the most important truth I have learned is that healing in grief is heart- based, not head-based.

Modern therapies sometimes separate the head from the heart; it's as if we should somehow be able to rationally think through our grief. I heartily disagree! Carl Jung taught us years ago that every psychological struggle is ultimately a matter of spirituality. The critical questions explored in this book encourage you to think, yes, but more importantly, to feel with your heart and soul. The sad reality is that the power of befriending feelings as a profound way of ultimately healing is often not acknowledged in our mourning-avoidant culture, which worships scientific findings and more masculine ways of operating in the world.

As a result, I remind you it takes courage to befriend feelings of loss in contemporary North American culture.

The death of someone precious to you opens or engages your heart. Now you can choose to take your heart, which has been engaged, and gather the courage to encounter your feelings of loss.

Courage can also be defined as the ability to do what one believes is right, despite the fact that others may disagree. If you choose to befriend your feelings of grief and loss, some people may well try to shame you and directly or indirectly encourage you to deny, repress, or inhibit them. So go forth with courage.

The word "emotion" literally means "energy in motion." To be authentic with your emotions is to have them work for you instead of against you. To do that requires that you put your emotions into motion through befriending them. As you do so, you will begin to experience the rewards of being in touch with your feelings and the resulting perturbation. Then you will begin to experience the benefits of enhanced feelings of aliveness, the renewal of the capacity to have joy in your life, and the reigniting of your divine spark.

Declare Your Intent:

Place your hand on your heart and say out loud ...

"I will befriend my feelings of grief in ways that allow them to move through me and integrate this death into my life."

Put your hand on your head and say out loud ...

"I will survive, and I will discover a renewed divine spark."

Question 3

WILL I BE A "PASSIVE WITNESS" TO MY GRIEF, OR WILL I BE AN "ACTIVE PARTICIPANT" IN MY GRIEF?

"The embracing of grief makes me so aware of the preciousness of life. While I see darkness in my grief, to heal I must seek out light. I will discover that life and living are sacred, beautiful gifts to be treasured each and every moment."

— Alan D. Wolfelt

This question of discernment has the power to shift the entire nature of your grief journey. Asking yourself, "Will I be a 'passive witness' or will I be an 'active participant?'" can lift you to a place where you have the capacity to integrate your grief and discover renewed meaning and purpose. Your awareness of this choice will provide you with a participative, action-oriented approach to healing in grief as opposed to a perception of grief as something you passively experience.

The reality is that healing in grief requires a commitment and intention if you are to become whole again.

What is healing in grief?

To heall in griief is to become whole again, to integrate your grief into your self and to learn to continue your changed life with fullness and meaning. Experiencing a new and changed "wholeness" requires that you engage in the work of mourning. It doesn't happen to you; you must stay open to that which has broken you.

Healing is a holistic concept that embraces the physical, emotional, cognitive, social, and spiritual realms. Note that healing is not the same as curing, which is a medical term that means "remedying" or "correcting." You cannot remedy your grief, but you can reconcile it. You cannot correct your grief, but you can heal it.

Commitment goes hand in hand with the concept of "setting your intention." Intention is defined as being conscious of what you want to experience. A close cousin to "affirmation," it is using the power of positive thought to produce a desired result. So how do you use this concept of setting your intention as you explore this critical question?

When you set your intention to heal, you make a true commitment to positively influence the course of your journey. You choose between being what I call a "passive witness" or an "active participant" in your grief. To integrate loss into your life, you must be willing to learn about the mystery of the grief journey. It can't be fixed or "resolved;" it can only be soothed and "reconciled" through actively experiencing the multitude of thoughts and feelings that unfold in the face of loss.

The concept of intention-setting presupposes that your outer reality is a direct reflection of your inner thoughts and beliefs. If you can choose to mold some of your thoughts and beliefs, then you can influence your reality. Setting your intention to heal is not only a way of surviving your loss (although it is indeed that!), it is also a way of actively guiding your grief. Of course, you will still have to honor and embrace your pain during this time, because a guiding truth is that "the only way to the other side is through."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Eight Critical Questions for Mourners ... by Alan D. Wolfelt. Copyright © 2010 Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.. Excerpted by permission of Center for Loss and Life Transition.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Also by Alan Wolfelt,
Title Page,
Copyright Page,
Dedication,
Introduction,
Question 1 - WILL I GRIEVE THIS LOSS, OR WILL I MOURN THIS LOSS?,
Question 2 - WILL I BEFRIEND THE FEELINGS THAT FLOW FROM THIS LOSS, OR WILL I DENY, REPRESS, OR INHIBIT THEM?,
Question 3 - WILL I BE A "PASSIVE WITNESS" TO MY GRIEF, OR WILL I BE AN "ACTIVE PARTICIPANT" IN MY GRIEF?,
Question 4 - WILL I EMBRACE THE UNIQUENESS OF MY GRIEF EXPERIENCE, OR WILL I ASSUME I MOURN LIKE EVERYONE ELSE?,
Question 5 - WILL I IDENTIFY SIX NEEDS OF MOURNING AND WORK ON THEM, OR WILL I FALL VICTIM TO THE CLICHÉ THAT "TIME HEALS ALL WOUNDS?",
Question 6 - WILL I WORK TOWARD "RECONCILIATION" OF MY GRIEF, OR WILL I BELIEVE I MUST COME TO A COMPLETE "RESOLUTION" OF MY GRIEF?,
Question 7 - WILL I EMBRACE MY TRANSFORMATION FROM THIS LOSS, OR WILL I KEEP TRYING TO GET MY OLD SELF BACK?,
Question 8 - WILL THIS LOSS ADD TO MY "DIVINE SPARK," OR WILL IT TAKE AWAY MY LIFE FORCE?,
My Prayer for you,
The Eight Questions: Exploring your thoughts and feelings,
Also by Alan D. Wolfelt,