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This
article
is one of a series on self-study
- learn to understand and practice healthy personal and family grief.
The series exists because (a) typical adults are unaware of healthy-grieving
basics, and (b) incomplete ("complicated") grief
seems to be a widespread, unrecognized stressor in our culture. This article...
-
provides background on
healthy grief, and...
-
proposes
six practical steps healthy adults can take to evolve a "pro-grief" family -
that is, one which consistently encourages healthy three-level grief in adults, kids,
and supporters.
The article assumes you're familiar with...
Background
Throughout
our lives, healthy people automatically form significant emotional attachments
(bonds) to people, things, rituals, ideas, freedoms, dreams, and
many other
tangible and invisible things. Inevi-tably we choose, or life forces, sudden or foreseen endings
of these cherished bonds - losses.
Nature provides us an automatic way to eventually accept and adapt to our
losses and resume normal life - grief or mourning. This natural process
occurs on mental, emotional, and perhaps spiritual levels at the same time,
if allowed to.
Premise:
Healthy grief requires at least seven
personal and environmental
to run its course. Can you name
them? Many typical adults and mental-health professionals have never been
taught these elements and where they come from. This
ignorance (lack of knowledge) is part of the silent [wounds + unawareness]
that is relentlessly degrading our families, culture, and global
environ-ment.
Multi-level
mourning can be slowed or blocked
by internal and/or
social factors, promoting personal and family
stress and illness. When mourners and supporters become aware of the common
of grief blocks and intentionally acquire the
requisites, healthy grief can resume.
Researchers are
just beginning to study blocked ("complicated")
grief, so most lay and professional people, probably including the people
who raised you, are unaware of its causes, symptoms and toxic effects.
Healthy grieving is a vital
component of personal and family nurturance and
Do you agree?
After studying family dynamics
professionally since 1979, I believe
incomplete grief in one or more members is one of five
related
that
most U.S.
families are significantly stressed,
and many
divorce legally and/or psychologically.
Biofamily separation and divorce,
and/or spouse/parent
death, and parental cohabiting and re/com-mitment cause
many major
tangible and
invisible losses (broken bonds) for kids and adults
who are able to bond. This means that healthy grief is essential for most
people - including you.
All
persons and families evolve semi-conscious
policies
(attitudes and conscious rules) about "pro-per" bonding and grieving. Adults
who are (a)
by their wise resident
and (b) aware of healthy-grief
basics, are
most likely to evolve and live from "pro-grief" personal and family policies
- i.e. rules that encourage all family members to want to follow the
steps below. Before reading about them, see if you can name them
out loud now. Most people can't.
Steps
Toward Healthy Family Grieving
The
essential first step is for each adult to...
1) Learn about the [wounds + unawareness] cycle
and assess for and reduce significant false-self
One of three widespread roots
of blocked grief is adult's unseen psychological wounds from a
("dysfunctional") childhood. The other roots are (a)
of
healthy-grieving basics and other topics, and (b) an "anti-grief"
environment.
So -
assess each family adult for significant
psychological
wounds, and - where appropriate - seek qualified
help in implementing an
effective
program.
Wounded people in denial typically think "Well, that doesn't apply to me/us!" I believe It
does apply to most
troubled,
and/or
re/married men and women, and their kids and relatives.
in this nonprofit Web site and its related
guidebook are devoted to wound assessment and recovery.
Note
that psychological and legal
divorce are common symptoms of the lethal [wounds + ignor-ance]
cycvle at work.
Perspective - recent estimates suggest that almost half of U.S.
marriages ulti-mately divorce. Uncounted millions more endure psychological
divorce.
Without
steady adult commitment to spotting and reducing false-self wounds and
where needed, the following "good grief" steps will probably be
ineffective.
STEP 2)
Learn the basics
together. All family adults - specially mates
and grandparents...
Evolve a shared definition of
bonding, losses, and "effective mourning." and
review this grief-values work-sheet
for perspective. Note -
adults ruled by false selves are likely to be indifferent, ambivalent, skeptical, "too busy,"
and/or discount this family project. See step 1.
3) Identify
your current personal and family
(shoulds,
musts, have to's, and oughts)
about mourning. Do
you know anyone who's studied their own policy on mourning life's inevitable
losses? Did your parents or grandparents ever talk about their grieving policy? You
probably formed your own (uncon-scious) policy by
watching and listening to them and other mentors or hero/ines.
Once
you identify the rules that govern how and what you grieve, study each
one and update it if it doesn't
promote good grief per step 2. For example, if your inherited grief
policy decrees that "Crying is weak and to be scorned," amend that to
"Crying is a healthy natural reflex for releasing stress-producing brain
chemicals, and is to be encouraged in adults and kids."
Step 4) Take
detailed inventories of the
invisible and
tangible losses (broken emotional /
spiritual
bonds) that each adult and child in your family
has had. If you're in a divorcing family or stepfamily, pay special
attention to identifying adults' and kids' losses from (a) biofamily divorce or adult death, and
(b) co-parent re/marriage and/or
cohabiting.
Option:
print and thoughtfully fill out the two linked worksheets
above as a family. Stay clear that this is not about right/wrong, good/bad,
or blaming anyone for causing pain and loss - it's about learning and
healing.
5) Check
each of your family adults and minor and
grown children for
of incomplete grief, including "depression." If you find any, adults decide together on how to
free it up, and act! If
you're unsure or scared, seek help from a
licensed grief counselor.
Check local mental-health agencies for such
specialists.
And if you're in a stepfamily, take...
Step
6) All
co-parents accept without ambivalence
that you are in a normal multi-home stepfamily
vs. "just a regular (bio)family." Then
work at Lessons 1
thru 7 here. All your
adults and kids probably have major losses to
mourn from (a) prior divorce and/or adult death and (b) re/marriage
and/or cohabiting and your several biofamilies'
If courting or
committed
mates bypass this es-sential step, they and their kids risk incomplete grief and major ongoing personal, re/marital, and family
stresses.
Typical stepfamily co-parents in different homes are oftn conflicted by unforgiven divorce-related hurts,
resentments, guilts, shame, disrespects, distrusts, and hostilities. These are often based
on un-recognized
and
Forming a pro-grief
stepfamily is usually far more complex than in an
intact biofamily because there are many more people,
differing values, relationships, and concurrent needs. A
requisite for doing this is to
identify which of
these
exist in and between key adults and kids, and
intentionally work to reduce them together.
|
Many
(GWCs) of low-nurturance
childhoods learned
to protectively numb their reactions to los-ses
(broken bonds), and to inhibit healthy grief in key others
by
withholding
to grieve.
|
Typical Grown Wounded Children are
of doing this,
and often deny it if pointed out to them. If such people do these six grief steps honestly,
they often start to recognize and react to their agonizing childhood
losses. A harmful unconscious protection against this pain is to put off,
intellectualize, discount, or fake, moving through all three
levels of healthy
mourning.
These steps
toward growing a pro-grief family take family-adult courage, patience, and commitment to personal, marital, and
family health. Mates'' committing to doing these steps thoroughly together
great-ly
raise their odds of marital success and protecting their descendents
against inheriting the lethal [wounds + ignorance]
I encourage you to show this article to your
other family adults and supporters. Discuss it together and decide what you each want
to do with this information. Following these steps
toward building a pro-grief family takes courage, commitment, and patience. Doing
nothing is
doing something. This long-term project is best begun before or during
courtship.
