The Web address of this
three-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/grief/thaw.htm
Clicking links below will open a full window or an informational popup,
so please turn off your
browser's popup blocker or allow popups from this nonprofit Web site.
This is one of a series of articles in Lesson 3 in the
Break the Cycle! self-study course. The lesson aims to educate readers
on healthy grie-ving basics so they can complete any unfinished mourning
and grow a pro-grief home and family. Doing this is part of
breaking the
lethal [wounds + unawareness]
cycle.
Typical survivors of childhood trauma (Grown Wounded Children - GWCs)
never learned these basics, and risk psychological, physical, and
re-lationship problems from incomplete mourning.
Lesson 3 requires major
progress on
Lesson 1 - reducing psychological wounds.
Premises - all healthy adults and kidsform bonds over time,
which break by choice or chance - causing losses.Incomplete grief is an unrecog-nized,
toxic condition in many people and families.
It seems to be caused by
widespread psychological wounds + unawareness + lack of personal and social
permission to mourn well.
Lesson 3 in this nonprofit Web site proposes an effective way to prevent or
reduce unfinished grief, and to intentionally grow
pro-grief
relationships.
This article offers
options for completing unfinished grief in yourself an example.
The article assumes you're familiar with...
the
intro to this nonprofit web site and the
premises underlying it
My
work as a therapist and student of family systems since 1979 suggests that
many people and families are
stressed by the toxic effects of incomplete grief.
Typical adults (like you?) are unaware of
healthy grieving basics, and what to do if they become "stuck" in the
process of mourning.
Options for
Completing Your Grief
If you have
symptoms of unfinished grief, choose a long-term
outlook, and adapt the options below to fit you and your situation.
The
long-term goal is to become an effective griever, not just to mourn a
spe-cific loss.
Study Lessons
1 thru 3
here until you can easily answer these quizzes:
1
>
2 >
3
Free
your true Self to
guide
your other dynamic subselves (Lesson 1). If you don't, these
other options probably won't help you grieve well.
Assess yourself for "good grief"
requisites, and
commit to acquiring any you're missing.
Starting in childhood, identify your significant
life-losses
and their key impacts on you;
Assess for and free up any incomplete grief on any of your losses.
Use your Self's wisdom and new awareness to
grieve new losses to completion - and help others do the same.
Pause and reflect. How do you feel about these options? Do they seem do-able?
Do you think average women and men could explain all of them? Can your
family adults?
To free up blocked grief, it's
important to know how false-self dominance combines with ignorance of healthy-grieving
basics to
hinder the mourning process.
Personality Subselves and
Grieving
My clinical experience and research suggests that
normal personalities are
composed of an inter-active
group of subselves that each have their
own purpose, values, needs, way of communicating, and view of the world. They
create all the "voices" (thoughts) and images in your mind, and seem to cause a
wide range of emotional and physical reactions.
If you're skeptical or curious
about this idea, read this letter to you,
and then try this safe, interes-ting, exercise. Though
ancient, this
"subself" idea is new enough in our
culture that most grief profession-als aren't
aware of it. Most do believe in psychosomaticillness. Do you?
Your
inner family of subselves can range from harmonious, contented, and calm to conflicted, inse-cure,
and discordant.
Growing up in a
low-nurturance family promotes inner-family chaos and the
auto-matic formation of psychological injuries.
From practicing
inner-family therapy
for 18 years,
I believe many bodily discomforts and illnesses are promoted by our dynamic
subselves beyond our awareness. For example,
the subselves governing wounded adults
often withhold
permissions to
mourn well.Impressionable children are taught anti-grief beliefs like these:
"Real (virile) men (or males) don't cry."
or "Crying is for wimps, babies, and sissies."
"(Feeling and/or showing) anger, or too much
sadness, is wrong and bad."
"Keep a stiff upper lip (or we'll withhold
our approval, respect, and love.)"
"Don't burden others with your sorrow."
"Get over your loss, and move on. No
big deal!"
"It's
not OK to vent repeatedly about your
losses and pain."
"Put on a happy face (or someone will
dislike, reject, or punish
you)."
"Don't be gloomy or 'negative' (or
someone will dislike, reject, or punish you)."
"Always think of the other guy (otherwise
you're being selfish and bad)!"
"You only grieve when someone dies, and then
it should take a few weeks at most."
"We don't talk about or evaluate our family's
grieving habits, values, or rules - and we deny, minimize, and/or joke about this."
"If you must grieve, do it
privately, and don't disturb anyone else."
"Always look at the bright side! (or we'll
disapprove of or reject you)."
"Strong emotions are upsetting and bad.
If you must feel them, don't show (express) them."
"When the going gets tough, the tough get
going. We (parents) love tough people best."
"We (you) don't discuss family business
(like losses and their impacts) with outsiders."
"It is not
necessary or OK to get professional help in
healing your losses."
"If it hurts, use sugar,
fat, nicotine, and/or
alcohol (or work real hard) to feel better - and ignore, joke about, or deny
that you're doing this."
You may have
learned as a small child following rules like these got
the respect,
love, and accep-tance you craved. Kids that don't follow the
family's grieving
rules experience subtle or obvious disap-proval, scorn, and rejection. Those
hurt!
From
infancy, you developed a normal
group of personality subselves or parts who cause your pri-mary emotions.
Among others, you probably grew a
sad part, a
scared part, a
shamed part, a
lonely part,
a
guilty part, and an
angry part. Other subselves can feel these emotions too, including
your true Self (capital "S").
Because your Inner Critic
and
Perfectionist subselves ceaselessly
guard your young
Inner Kids from
pain,
they may relentlessly give you
stern warnings and acid judgments if you start to feel or show grief sadness,
confusion, and anger in a way that violates "the rules" (above.)
You may also have developed a
protective Catastrophizer subself that adds vivid
thoughts and im-ages about disasters that will surely occur if you don't follow the Critic's
rules ("You'll be spurned, aban-doned, and die a miserable death alone
in the gutter!")
You may also have a protective People Pleaser subself, whose
steady job is to focus you solely on worrying about meeting
other's needs and standards, in order to avoid agonizing criticism, rejection, and
abandonment. This subself is specially active in
shame-based adults and kids who were
unintentionally taught
to believe they were worthless and unlovable.
Another common
Guardian subself can be called
the Magician. Its specialty is turning painful or scary current realities into
something else
(reality distortions). So when you suffer painful
losses
(broken bonds), this protective subself gives you thoughts like "Losses?
What losses?"; or "Yeah, well we've lost some things, but no big
deal!", or "Take care of the kids' wounds now, and worry about me later" (self neglect).
Probably no one in your family, schools, or social circle has talked about "your inner
family of personality subselves," so
you became an adult without clear
awareness of...
your Inner Critic,
Moralizer/Preacher,
and Perfectionist subselves andthe rules they insists you
follow,
your well-meaning narrow-visioned
Catastrophizer, People Pleaser,
Numb-er,
and Magician subselves; and...
the group of
Inner-child
personality parts that these subselves guard.
If these normal subselves often
overwhelm
your
Adult and Spiritual subselves and your true Self, you unconsciously live your days and nights from a
false self,
believing this and the painful results to be "normal."
When you inevitably experience broken bonds (losses),
subselves like these may block your sad and/or angry subselves from
causing and expressing normal grief emotions and thoughts.
Your well-meaning subselves may insist that you don't dare violate
your inherited childhood rules about grieving, much less edit or
replace them. You then lack "inner permission" to grieve well.
These diligent Guardian subselves may also rigidly protect you against
perceiving who encourages you to grieve well and who doesn't, because the
subselves (mistakenly) believe that's not safe.
The results
may be that (a) your healthy grieving response is hindered or blocked, (b)
you're un-aware of why and how, and (c) you feel "depressed" and/or
"irritable." If this persists and you accumulate too many ungrieved losses, you may become
addicted, obese, "depressed,"
physically sick (e.g. mi-graines, cancer, hypertension, diabetes...), and
strengthen your false self’s toxic dominance of your other subselves.
If you take mood-control medications to reduce your good-grief symptoms, you
may delay or miss the chance to...
reorganize your subselves under the wise
leadership of your
true Self;
complete your
grief, and..
protect your descendents from the lethal
[wounds + unawareness]
cycle.
See this for typical healthy
grieving rules that your true Self would advocate.
+ + +
What you just read explains the reason for good-grief options 1 and 2 here.
False-self wounds are one of several core reasons for incomplete grief. If
you doubt or ignore this, this article will probably be of little value to
you.
Example
Let's look at how these grief-completion options might
apply to a typical divorced, custodial mother called Pat in mid-life.
See if you know anyone like her...
Background
Pat became motivated to work at these steps for several
reasons. She feels that her aging Mother has lived a drab, "joyless" life, and
doesn't want that for herself. Pat regrets her recent divorce after 18 years
of marriage, and feels
guilty about the impact it's had on her (custodial) kids Lisa (17) and Steven (15).
She admits that she's probably 25 pounds
overweight, doesn't always eat well, and "may drink too much at times."
Pat
doesn't think much about dating or remarrying, but doesn't want to grow old
alone or burden her kids and any
grandkids in later life.
Pat has felt significantly
depressed for perhaps a year prior to asking
her husband Ray to move out 17 months ago, and ever since. Her doctor
prescribed a popular drug which has alleviated her
depression somewhat, but leaves her feeling "like a robot at times."
She
dislikes needing a drug to function, and is intrigued by the new idea that
her
depression may be linked to psychological wounds and blocked grief.
Before starting to study wounds and mourning, she had always assumed that
grieving was only appropriate when someone died. The idea that the
multi-year process of their divorce had caused everyone in her family major
losses was new and disturbing to her. She and Ray had never discussed this.
None of Pat's childhood adults ever talked about their losses or the
grieving process. (an anti-grief policy). Her mother's stern Swedish ancestors were practical, blunt
people who "had no time to be sad and mope around." Her father had rarely
expressed emotions other than bursts of anger and frustration. She had never
seen him cry, including at his parents' deaths - though he had experienced
much trauma and
pain in his life.
He grew up in an alcoholic blue-collar
family which had struggled to survive the Depression during the
1930s. At age 71, her father had no idea that he was an "ACoA"
(Adult Child of Alcoholics) or what that
meant to him, Pat, and his
grandkids. None of them had ever studied what it meant to be the
grand-child of addicted (wounded) ancestors.
Pat's parents' and grandparents' main attitude (policy) about reacting to
major losses seemed to be "Just get over it." None of them had ever been to
a therapist, or had much interest in human dynamics or "personal growth."
Like their ancestors, hero/ines, and teachers, they had no awareness of
family nurtur-ance-levels, psychological wounds, or blocked grief. Pat's
early caregivers were "God fearing" and reli-gious, but none of them was
really
spiritual.
Like their respective parents, Pat and Ray had never thought to teach their
kids about bonding, losses, and healthy grieving, or how to
support mourners
effectively. As Pat learned more about these topics at age 43, she felt increasingly
guilty and anxious about this. She mentioned this to her older sister Alice,
who said tartly "For Heaven's sake, Patricia, stop worrying. Grieving is
automatic, like di-gesting food, so your kids don't need instruction on how
to do it!"
Bad advice!.
Pat asked Alice's opinion about their childhood-family's grief
policy. When she explained the con-cept, her sister shrugged and said dismissively
"Well, I don't know - I never thought about it. What's the point?"
Over some weeks, Pat invested time to learn
about psychological wounds, recovery, and healthy grief - i.e.
she has
progressed well with option 1.
Option 2 - Assess for False-self Wounds
Pat has studied and accepted the concept of
personality subselves, after some initial
skepticism. She filled out the first three Lesson-1
checklists honestly to explore
whether she was "significantly wounded." Despite some
apprehension and having persuasive urges to
defer this uncomfortable self-examination,
she concluded that she
wascontrolled by a false
self "too often." The idea that she could intentionally reduce this
and
free her true Self to guide her other subselves more often felt
"reassuring."
Of the other five false-self wounds, Pat decided that in certain situations,
her subselves were cau-sing "significant"
guilts, fears, angers, and
maybe major
reality distortions - she wasn't sure yet. She felt
"excessive shame" was not a major problem, and was sure was able to
feel her
emotions (vs.
numbing them), and that she could genuinely care about
(bond with) selected others and exchange genuine (vs. pseudo) love with them. She felt relieved
to acknowledge these traits honestly.
Pat reviewed the three types
of subselves, thoughtfully changed some of the names to "fit better," and
rough-drafted a roster of her personality "parts." She was
surprised to
discover she had a group of
inner children, and over 20 active subselves - including her
Spiritual One. Pat
tried "interviewing" several sub-selves, and
was startled to discover they really did "talk back" to her Self "just
like people."
As she continued this alien self-exploration, Pat wondered
about the subselves that governed her kids Lisa and Steven. She mentioned
this to her close friend Maria (also a mother), who expressed some interest
in learning more about "this true Self / false-self thing."
Pat knew no one
else who had ever discussed or explored "normal personality
subselves." She be-gan to see her parents, her ex husband Ray, and some other people
in a new way: She realized that "They each had
major false-self
wounds, and had no clue about that or what it meant."
Option
3 - Assess for "Good Grief" Requisites
As
Pat continued to adjust to the many changes from their family's
divorce,
she began to wonder if anyone was still grieving the major losses it caused,
and how that might be affecting her family members - including Ray's
parents. She had never thought about "my
gieving policy'' or
"the rules that govern how our family members mourn, and who made our
rules."
Pat wanted to learn whether she and
Ray had developed the
requisites
to help their family members mourn their broken bonds well enough.
With the new knowledge of her personality's
many subselves
and her several
wounds
in the background, she patiently worked at answering this question via
meditation, reading, and discussions
with key people.
She explained the idea of a family grieving policy to Ray, and asked him
what he thought theirs was. She was pleasantly surprised to learn that he
had some interest in exploring that too "for the kids' sakes." Pat did not
try to get into subselves or wounds, expecting him to view those ideas
sarcastically as "New Age psychobabble."
In
reading about healthy-grieving basics, Pat realized that none of their
adults or ancestors had been taught (a) to think of
losses as including more than someone's death, or about (b) the
levels and phases of health grieving.
After some weeks of reflecting, studying, journaling, and discussing their
family's requisites for "good-grief," Pat's dominant subselves concluded...
She
was the first person in their family to assess for false-self wounds and
begin to reduce them. Pat felt sad to acknowledge that her
parents, Ray, and his parents were all probably
Grown Woun-ded Children (GWCs)
and that that probably hindered healthy grief in all of them;
None of their family members had learned and
discussed good-grief basics, assessed their major losses, or discussed
the impacts of these losses on their lives and what to do about them;
Everyone seemed to be confident enough about
their ability to grieve well, but this complacency was based on
ignorance, unawareness, and distorted perceptions;
None of their family members assigned high
personal priority to encouraging healthy grieving or checking for
blocked grief;
None of their family adults had been
committed to helping each other and their kids...
express their
grieving emotions and thoughts freely, or...
clearly identify their key life losses
(broken bonds) and what they each meant.
For
these reasons, the adults in her family had little motivation to help
each other and their kids grieve well in their own unique ways.
Their family grieving policy was
unconscious and toxic. It netted out to...
"Grief only applies to someone's
death. Grieve death briefly if you must, and get on with your life.
Don't burden other people with your thoughts or feelings."
Bottom line: Pat had to acknowledge that (a) she had been raised
in a low-nurturance family that unintentionally lacked the
requisites for healthy mourning, which (b) probably promoted
unfinish-ed grief among them all. She also had to admit that because
of ignorance and unseen false-self wounds, she and Ray had raised
Steven and Lisa in a similar environment.
Her
Inner Critic
insisted that "So you failed as a mother!," causing her
Guilty Girl
and
Shamed Girl
to spasm. Pat's Self calmly countered "No I
didn't fail. I couldn't have taught the kids about healthy mourning
because Ray and I didn't know what they needed to learn - just as our
ancestors didn't know."
Pat journaled about her new awarenesses, including her anger and sadness
about lacking the requi-sites for healthy mourning. She vented about this to
Alice, who was genuinely sympathetic and receptive. That caused sadness and
frustration that she couldn't vent with her own family members and get
empa-thic support from them.
After more reflection, venting, and using these wise
inspirations,
Pat decided to keep working on...
The Web address of this
three-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/grief/thaw.htm
Options for
Completing Your Grief