Cope with your great loss by viewing your emotions as internal messengers

Emotions are not something that simply moves in the brain; They invade every cell in the body and affect the immune system. However, they are ingenious because they not only communicate our internal response to change, but, equally important, they eventually provide many messages about how to deal with our current dilemma.

How we perceive a particular loss has a great impact on the emotions that arise. If we believe that the loss of a loved one was inevitable, we suffer in a way. If we believe the loss is not justified, we regret otherwise.

The three most obvious emotions associated with grief are anger, guilt, and depression. Some mourners experience one or more of these emotions, others none at all.

If you are currently dealing with one of the above, examine the questions these emotions pose to you. Then apply your responses by taking specific actions and see if the course of your pain improves.

1. Although anger is an acceptable emotion because we are deprived of something we value, it also sends the following messages for us to listen to carefully. Am I using my anger to cover up other emotions (such as fear, frustration, depression, dependency, or guilt)? Is it making me refuse to accept death and prolong my suffering? What do I need to restore to release my anger? This question asks you to consider what to do with your emotional energy, where to reinvest it.

Is my anger thwarting my ability to love? Love is the most powerful coping response you can generate to adjust to your loss because it will open you up to a different view of your world and the role of inevitable loss and change. Am I turning my anger into resentment by refusing to forgive? The gift of resentment is the guarantee of continued misery.

2. Guilt usually asks for the following. Am I acting like I should be omnipotent? Often when looking back at an event that leads to guilt, the mourner becomes a second soothsayer and says “Should I have done this or that?” Guilt also says what do I need to change? The grievance dictates the change perpetually. And guilt suggests that I can change the way I view the event that causes guilt.

Is this feeling of true cause and effect guilt or is it neurotic guilt (where the effect dwarfs any possible cause or causes none)? If it’s real fault, how can I fix it? If it’s neurotic guilt, why do I feel responsible for everything? Keep in mind that most of the guilt associated with the death of a loved one is not true guilt. One way to deal with neurotic guilt is to focus on all the good things you did for your loved one.

3. The mood disorder of depression is not only one of the most common emotions experienced, it is also the most researched. The following questions are for those who experience uncomplicated acute grief with reactive depression. What should I let go The late psychiatrist, M. Scott Peck, defined depression as our inability to give up the old for the new, which is a very normal human response to massive change. What old routines, beliefs, approaches, relationships, or parts of your life should you give up?

And depression raises one of the biggest questions of all: What do I need to add to my life? What knowledge, skills, abilities or perceptions? What everyday spirituality will help me transcend my great loss?

In short, you create your emotional responses when a loved one dies based on your beliefs, perceptions, and meanings associated with the loss. A careful review of the factors involved in the depth of your emotions, along with the inner wisdom that your emotions may present in the form of some of the questions listed above, highlights the unusual resource that lies within you. Let it be used and developed.

Study the questions carefully. They demand a lot of your time and careful analysis. The result will be that you will better direct the course of your grief work and adjust to your great loss.