Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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Pathways for Coping with Loss and Grief

Pathways for Coping with Loss and Grief

Jeanne Cacciatore, a Zen priest and bereavement specialist, offer sound advice on the process of loss and grieving.  In her book, Bearing the Unbearable: Love and the Heart Breaking Path of Grief (2016), she presents the process as a series of contractions and expansions; contractions are the inward path of attention and energy as the physical environment shrinks (vulnerable emotional tightening for self-protection), and expansions are self-compassionate allowing of safety, exploration, curiosity, willingness, and renewed connections.  Over time subtle shifts of improvement occur.  Over time we begin to live again. Breath as a metaphor serve this view well; the earlier short, shallow, chest breathing in and out changes into a slower, longer abdominal breathing in and out. As we normalize expansion, the pain and suffering of loss remains but it is no longer overpowering and overwhelming.  We re-learn how to function and experience hopeful pleasure and joy once again. We notice that we have some gratitude for our life just as it is now.

What are some important things to do when one is in a state of loss and grief?  Here is a list.

  1. No matter what you do, the normal process of loss and grief will occur. The issue is how do you want to experience it.  It can be devastating and long-term, or it can be devastating but less long-term.
  2. We need to stay with the process to find our way through it. This takes time and courage.
  3. Use all spiritual and religious beliefs you have that are helpful. Heaven, reincarnation, no-self may all be helpful to you in your process of grieving. If helpful, seek spiritual support from others.
  4. It may help to use creative rituals, rites, and alters in your personal process. Rituals can be one very powerful healers, but they can also be very powerful reminders of your loss.
  5. Sit in meditation and/or prayer. Use whatever content seems to help you cope better emotionally. Some people find meditation in a cemetery can be both challenging and helpful.  Be with it all.
  6. Share your grief with the right people, at the right times, and in the right places.
  7. When others try to help you, tell them what you need. This often includes combinations of quiet listening, basic presence, kind actions, direct assistance, and social-emotional supports. Pure silence may help.
  8. For those of you who may be more spiritually involved, respectful kneeling and prostrating may help.
  9. Holding a yoga posture in prayer pose can strengthen your capacity to deal with the suffering.
  10. Reading spiritual texts can be helpful and lead to new insights about loss and grief.
  11. Learning to place birth and death into life’s context reminds us of the impermanence of all things.
  12. Spend time in natural environments and allow the soothing power of that environment to heal you.
  13. Practice as much compassionate self-care as possible, although this may be difficult at first.
  14. Do whatever comes to mind to commemorate and respect the loss loved one. Your stronger physical actions in this area (lasting tributes) may reduce the emotional suffering of grief.
  15. Last, allow time to heal, and recognize the thin line between grieving and depression.  If you become stuck in the depressive “dark nights of the soul” get professional help quickly.

For more information refer to Cacciatore, J. (2016) Bearing the Unbearable: Love and the Heart Breaking Path of Grief. Boston: Wisdom Publications. See also Healthbeat (2015). Coping with Grief and Loss. Boston: Harvard Medical School.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, VermontChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

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Mindfulness About Loss, Grief, and Mourning

Mindfulness On Loss, Grief and Mourning

Mindfulness about personal loss, grief, and mourning may encompass many things.  Here I will focus on the process and what people can do to better handle their suffering and pain.  One way to look at it is through the lens of radical acceptance; another is via the reality of impermanence.  Emotion regulation with necessary grieving process (pure suffering) is yet another perspective.  We humans tend to be on autopilot a lot.  Then we lose someone close to us and the whole world falls apart.  What I found to be most helpful to me when my loving wife died was to create and participate in ceremonies, rituals, and a good deal of meditation. For experienced meditators like myself, directly meditating into the pain and suffering helped me the most. I do not recommend this process for inexperienced meditators. Kubla-Ross and others have mindful-happiness_Loss-Grief-Mourning_010 (1)provided us with a reasonable set of steps to navigate this painful process. Whatever pathway you select, the following information may be helpful to reduce the intensity and duration of your suffering.  We do need to allow the process until it works its way out of our life. If you get stuck and cannot find your way out, get good professional help (therapy not just pills).

Of all human emotional experiences, grief and mourning transcend general life processes.  Perhaps no other emotional experience except love has such a profound impact on our emotional structure and awareness.  Much of the process is about mindful awareness and how we utilize it.  A typical reaction is to experience fear, anger, deep sadness, and emotional dysregulation after a significant loss occurs.  The more power we use to push the pain away, the more power the pain has to come back at us.  Its all about our neurons and how we use them in thoughts and emotions. Sacred recall about the loving experiences you had with this person helps to rekindle emotional connection; however, the same process may intensify the grieving process. mindful-happiness_Loss-Grief-Mourning_005 Remember that death does end human suffering; when we die and our physical form changes we no longer suffer from thoughts and emotions related to life experiences.  That is why many suicides may reflect the desire to escape the pain and suffering at hand.   We need to search mindfully for the middle way; we need to find the middle path between denial and despair.  We need to welcome our grief as an old friend.  In genetic terms it is just that.  Our gene history has much experience with loss, grief and mourning.  We can radically accept the loss and simply allow the pain and suffering to become part of us.  Remember, like life, suffering is also impermanent.

In The Five Ways We Grieve, S. A. Berger offer a creative perspective on the grieving process.  Some of us are nomads, just wondering around for years without significant resolution. Others are memorialists, creating (cherishing and preserving) concrete and process-oriented rituals to mindful-happiness_Loss-Grief-Mourning_007honor the lost loved one.  A third approach is to normalize by investing energy into recreating more normal functioning.  One other methods is to be an activist by helping others who suffer in similar ways as your lost love object did.  Lastly, some are seekers – moving more deeply into spiritual or religious involvement to find a more emotionally meaningful life.  J. E. Welshons and S. A. Berger offer many ideas about how to become mindfully involved in various actions that may reduce the intensity and duration of your suffering.    Remember, this information is not presented so you can cut-short your grieving process.  That is not a god if.  Grief is a natural process.  That said, there is no need to suffer unnecessarily from the pain of loss.

Here is part of their list.  May you find inner peace.

  • Cry when you need to.
  • Participate in sacred ceremonies, rituals and blessing related to your loss.
  • Return to positive emotional memories and let go of any residual guilt, shame, or fear.
  • Mindfully pray, contemplate, and meditate on both content and process of your grief.
  • Be as creative as you can be in pursuing joy and healing.
  • Do deep, slow, calm breathing often – and on each breath connect with the healing of your loving heart.
  • Recognize and accept the sacredness of this whole process.
  • Remember that all of your suffering is dedicated to the merit and value of the person you lost.
  • Remain focused on being involved in life , more and more over time.

For more information refer to: Berger, S. A. (2009). The Five Ways We Grieve: Finding Your Personal Path to Healing.  Boston: Trumpeter.  Also see: Welshons, J. E. (2003). Awakening From Grief: Finding the Way Back to Joy. Makawao, HI: Inner Ocean Publishing.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, VermontChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness

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