Feel It to Heal It

No matter what your grief stems from – death, loss of a relationship, loss of a dream, a dashed hope, or the childhood you wanted but didn’t get – it’s painful. It can be excruciatingly painful at times. In an effort to avoid the pain, you may immerse yourself in project after project or perhaps you may distract yourself so that you don’t have to think about it. You hope that it will just magically disappear if you can just avoid it long enough. And therein lies the problem because grief never just goes away. Grief that goes unprocessed continues to grow within you.

Hey – I get it! No one wants to enter the grief process. It’s not fun. It’s overwhelming at times, but it IS necessary for healing to occur. And when I say healing, that’s exactly what I mean. There are some things in this life that we do not fully heal from, but we can be on the healing path until we enter eternity. We can live a purposeful and peaceful life. We can build something beautiful among the ruins. God says that He makes beauty from ashes (Is 61:3). However, it seems that we want the beauty without having to walk through the ashes. Unfortunately, everyone in this life must walk through the dust of ashes at some point, but Elisabeth Elliot reminds us, “Of one thing I am perfectly sure: God’s story never ends in ashes.”

It’s hard to let go and let God write your story. It’s difficult to realize that you don’t have the control you thought you did. It can feel terrifyingly scary at times. And then there’s all the emotions that you feel from the grief itself. It can be downright scary at times leading you to fight to keep the emotions at bay.

However, feeling your feelings is what helps you to move through them. Expression of your feelings is one way that you feel them. In grief, there’s a wide range of emotions that can change with no warning. Therefore, it’s important to be open to new feelings that come up and to get curious about what those feelings want you to know. As Lysa TerKeurst states, feelings are indicators, not dictators. They are indicators of what is happening inside of you.

As you open yourself up to your feelings and allow them to be what they are, it can lead to a peaceful acceptance that yes, this happened. It wasn’t ok. And you can get through it. When you choose to avoid your feelings or stuff them into your emotional trash bag, eventually the trash bag becomes stretched beyond its limits and bursts, spewing your emotional trash on people and in places you never intended. It’s not a pretty sight, and it can lead to shame upon shame instead of grace upon grace.

Avoidance and distraction can keep you from experiencing the pure grief. And not getting to the pure grief is what can prevent the healing you so desperately long for. But you don’t have to do it alone. Research confirms that you are hard-wired for connection. Having your grief witnessed by another can help you to feel connected. You see, grief shared is sorrow divided, and connection allows the joys of life to be multiplied.

And if you are wondering if you will forget your loved one as you feel your feelings in an attempt to get to a place of peaceful acceptance, remember that grief is about love, and love never dies. As you journey on the grief path, your grief will most likely change. It may move from being front and center to being to the front and side, but it’s always there. Just because the grief has moved doesn’t mean that it has disappeared or that you’ve forgotten.

Greensboro grief counseling is available! If you are looking for someone to walk alongside you on your grief journey and offer effective tools that can help, reach out through the contact form to see how Breathe Again Counseling may be able to help.