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An excerpt from
Thoughts For The Lonely Nights
By Doug Manning
Neither Friend Nor Foe
It is hard to believe how much physical pain is caused by
grieving. You expect the emotional and mental suffering, but somehow
you don't expect your chest to feel like you have been in a car wreck and
every bone in your body to ache.
No one would welcome the pain. No one would call it
a friend and yet it is in the pain - in the times when we hurt them most -
that we are healing. Grief is not an enemy to be avoided. It
is a process to be walked through. The best thing to do with grief
is grieve.
You are doing your best grief work when you hurt the
most. That sounds backwards. That even sounds cruel and
unfeeling, but the pain is there because you are dealing with your
feelings. Dealing with feelings hurts, but that is the pathway
toward coping with your loss.
Grief works much like a bad cold. A cold creates
mucus that fills our sinuses to the breaking point. The mucus must
find a way to be released. Some people try to dry the mucus up with
medication and it seems to work for a time, but when the medication wears
off the mucus flows again. Sometimes the mucus internalizes and
flows down our throat causing other problems like bronchitis and
respiratory problems. Some times we can relieve the pressure by
simply blowing our nose. That is not a pleasant experience, and if
we do it often enough the nose becomes very sore, but it does relieve the
pressure.
Now it may be silly for me to compare grief with the
common cold, but the analogy has some merit. Grief creates its own
mucus inside your soul. You can try to beat it down with medication
or alcohol but when these wear off the pain is still there waiting for
you. You can internalize it and let it take its toll on your whole
being. Or you can learn to let it out. Letting it out is not
pleasant. Letting it out will be much harder for some than it is for
others. Letting it out will often be a lonely proposition
since it is often hard to find anyone you can feel comfortable enough with
to allow them to witness such a thing.
You may fear you will seem weak and too
emotional. You may feel no one wants to endure your tears and
tirades. But when the pain gets intense enough you will not care who
is watching nor what they think, you will let it out. In that case
and that case alone, the pain is not your enemy.
Grief comes in waves. The waves come without warning
and without pattern. Suddenly we are overwhelmed with grief and
pain. We cry at the oddest times. We break down in the most
embarrassing of places. There are some times when we can expect a
wave to hit. Times like anniversaries of birth, death or
marriage. Times like the holidays or special times of the
year. Some will be swallowed up by the summer or maybe the fall of
the year, or every year when they have the fair. But, most of the time,
waves just happen. They hit, we hurt, and they subside a little
gradually over time the waves are not so high, they don't last as long,
and they come less often. The waves come to remind you that it is
time to focus again on the healing of your soul.
Healing is a process of embracing the pain and crying the
wave dry.
This excerpt is reprinted here with the permission of
the publisher.
In-Sight Books 800-658-9262
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