Until my own loss, understanding the grief process was not something that was important to me. I was a young North American with visions and dreams. Yet lately I've been thinking about how our culture and grief tend to be at odds.
Youth is idealized. We fight our aging with a vengeance. So how can we have an understanding of the grief process unless we have experienced it or are professionally trained to do so?
Yet living in denial of something, increases it's ability to cause us pain. I heard Paula D'Arcy speak once, and she used the image of trying to hold beach balls under water. Can you picture it?
If there is one thing I have learned in the past several years it is that grief can only be transcended by first going through it. Our culture teaches us that pain is to be stuffed inside. But stuffed suffering will come out eventually. And it if doesn't come out in healthy ways it will come out in destructive ways.
On my grief journey, nature has taught me to notice life and death side-by-side. Learning to live at peace with this life and death pattern is not easy, but it did help me to be a peace with the death and suffering that touched my own life.
This page on the stages of grief will help in
understanding the grief process
Other articles related to the grief process:
Kubler-Ross Stages of Grief
7 Stages of Grief
My 5 Stages of Grief
Complicated Grief
Dealing with Loss through Photography
Articles on Grief
Grief Journaling
Handling Grief
EFT Tapping for Grief and Loss