“No one ever told me grief felt like fear” from CS Lewis a Grief Observed.
God knows as men we tend to keep it all inside emotionally not sharing our pain and sorrow with anyone thinking that maybe showing what we think is weakness or unmanly. This could not be farther from the truth ……KNOW THIS! that courage is not about agonizing in silence and not showing your sadness, it is about being vulnerable enough to go to the depths of our grief and coming to terms with what is the emotional dragon we need to face. We can each slay the dragon if we have the knowledge and strength to do it. What does it take?
I love what Brene Brown PHD has to say about it. “Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is cor – the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” Over time, this definition has changed, and today, we typically associate courage with heroic and brave deeds. But in my opinion, this definition fails to recognize the inner strength and level of commitment required for us to actually speak honestly and openly about who we are and about our experiences — good and bad. Speaking from our hearts is what I think of as “ordinary courage.” ― Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame
How do you get the courage to share your pain? For me it was having a confidant, someone I trusted. Yours could be a therapist or unbiased friend that can listen to your heart, but has no patience for your drama. It really began with my former wife and me seeing a marriage counselor that we both trusted. He was someone that had a great bullshit meter and was able to give me a response that made me think WOW… “I never thought about it that way or it didn’t occur to me that that was what I was doing”.
As strange as it sounds, I also had a lawyer that was also my good friend that had experience with divorce and he became a sounding board that I would rely on after my divorce. During our settlement negotiations and post-divorce this friend had a way of giving me insight into how I was feeling and why and how the actions I was thinking of taking would only cause more drama. What you need to do is think how this will affect you down the road especially when you have children involved. You will have to have your former spouse in your life even after the kids turn 18, so you better get some good will credits in their bank.
This process is about nurturing and balancing your mental, physical and spiritual self. If any of these are not taken care of then you will suffer. There is not one best way of doing this; it is different for everyone so you need to try out new and different ways of getting to wholeness.
The way you will know if you are on the right track is that what you are thinking of doing makes you feel uncomfortable or scared. This is your indicator that you need to move into this area of your life. And fuck no it is not easy, but just do it and see what happens. You will be surprised at the outcome and how you feel the more you open to it.
Some go to church or read spiritual text or listen to tapes or take drawing or dancing classes whatever that is for you make sure you take the time to do it. You need to stretch yourself and take a chance on you and get out of your comfort level. Mix it up!!!! If you are bored it is your own damn fault!!! Take your mind off yourself and focus on something other than work your kids or yourself.
My experience has shown that your life and the lives of people around you will seem to change for the better if you can start doing this and stop stressing about things you cannot control. I know this control issue is a biggie for most people, it is ingrained in us from an early age to control our surroundings the problem is if you don’t manage it the long-term effect of stress can kill you. Dr. Gabor Mate says the following about stress;
“The research literature has identified three factors that universally lead to stress, they are uncertainty, the lack of information and the loss of control.” Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection
Don’t over think it, you are stronger than you imagine.
We all know people that play an account of the relationship over and over again. I have a friend that from my perspective loves the drama of a relationship because it is what he knows and how he grew up. If you are a person still dealing with past heart ache from family or relationships and are still angry then the cycle will continue on and on until you are tired of the same old, same old. My holding on to the anger was making me reactionary and hostile to my whole world. It was the enemy within that I had to do something about because I knew I could not continue living like this especially if I wanted another relationship in my life. No one deserve to have an angry person living with them.
How did I do it? By crying at first to feel what it was and then eventually to purge the emotional squatters that had camped out in my head. This way of grieving was signifying to me that I was letting go of the sickness that is the pain held inside. I felt at times I had to do it to cleanup my body of the heavy emotional energy that was lingering in me.
If you are a guy you may see this as being a total pussy, but I would suggest you try it the next time this heavy feeling comes over you and you are alone.
I love what the 19th century writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat Washington Irving wrote about tears;
“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.
There is an emanation from the heart in genuine hospitality which cannot be described but is immediately felt and puts the stranger at once at his ease”.
I think you will be amazed as I was when you do release the pain by shedding tears and see that the overwhelming feelings subsid and are gone no longer effecting you in the moment.
To me this meant I was heading in the right direction especially when the emotions would well up like oil stuck in the ground trying to break through, these emotions were trying to get out, so I let them often crying for no apparent reason. But what I found is that after the tears have subsided my whole body felt lighter. It’s as if I had eaten something spoiled and needed to throw-up to get it out. Crying was the physical manifestation of pain being released because afterwards the heaviness in my body was always gone. It’s as if the crying and releasing of tears created more room inside me so that I could fill the anger with something I could live with like my own loving heart.
Convinced yet that expressing your pain by crying is good for you? How about this expert’s findings then?
Dr. William Frey, a Biochemist and “tear expert”, discovered that emotional tears have special health benefits. Reflex tears are 98% water while emotional tears also contain stress hormones which get excreted from the body through crying. Emotional tears release stress.
Or how about this information from an article by Judith Orloff M.D. in Psychology Today, she discusses the health benefits of tears. She describes “a good cry as cleansing, a way to purge pent up emotions, and to release stress symptoms such as fatigue and pain. Crying stimulates the production of endorphins which are natural pain blockers.
Crying is good for your health, your mind, your body and your spirit. It is a natural cleanse stimulating the release of pain. Give yourself permission as well as the time and space to work through your grief, to feel and to express your feelings as they come. So often we judge our healing by our tears. Find solace in knowing that tears are an expression of our unspoken words, our sadness, our pain leaving our bodies. There will come a day when tears are not a part of our daily expression. Until that day comes let the tears fall and know that they are a powerful component of healing. Practice self-compassion, patience, and the active nurturing of your soul and remember that every tear shed carries with it pain and stress. Grief is one of life’s greatest teachers. It teaches us who we are, want to be, and can become.
We learn in time that we can endure what we once believed impossible. Grief introduces us to the possibility of our own resilience. Through our grief, we can learn to live with a deeper awareness and appreciation for healthy connection, meaningful growth and intentional purpose. Grief shows us on a cellular level that change is inevitable. We cannot escape loss. We can make choices and learn strategies to protect ourselves from being defined or limited by loss. With awareness, we can make choices that allow us to grow, evolve and ultimately transform. All of us are capable of making choices that push us to find deeper meaning in our lives.”
Jennifer Stern, LISW in her website Transformative Grief writes; “Let your tears fall with pride for they are not a sign of weakness or self-pity, but an authentic expression of sorrow. It takes great courage to feel your feelings, to express your feelings openly and honestly. It takes great strength to tend to your sorrow. Crying is not for the weak of heart. Crying expresses what few words can or ever will. Our work in grief is to feel, to express, to accept, to integrate, to heal. Grief work takes guts, persistence, patience, self-compassion and courage, lots and lots of courage. Tears are the sweat of grief work.
It is not the job of the griever to make others comfortable with their expression of grief. It is the job of the griever to grieve. To grieve is to actively feel and express sorrow. If your tears appear to make others uncomfortable calmly speak your truth, teach them about your tears. I cry because I grieve. I cry because I am profoundly sad over the loss of my loved one. I cry because life will forever be bittersweet. I cry because there are no words to adequately express how I am feeling. I cry because I am brave enough to face another day, to endure, to push forward, to live with grief in my heart. I cry to express, to relieve, to release.
Witnessing the tears of friends or family reminds us of our own fragility, powerlessness, inability to fix or lessen the pain and suffering of another. The most compassionate and supportive thing we can do is create space for those tears, to breathe, to sit with the discomfort and to understand that crying is an expression, a release, a healing… not something to be analyzed, feared or stopped”.
What I wish for you to do is allow yourself to cry and release your pain. I would hope most people already know this to be true because it shifts our energy and perspective and opens us back up to return to love and light. We are not separate from everyone ever. Life changes for us when you see the interconnectedness of everyone and we remember to do what we think and say as one and let a few tears fall.
