As Jane delved deeper, she was able to find the energy of her dad's love permanently imprinted in her heart. By tuning in to her feelings, she could reconnect with his undying affection whenever she chose. Freed from grief, her heart opened. She had her personal cheerleader back. His love again supported her to enjoy life and welcome intimacy with a romantic partner.
Before long, Jane met an attractive young man, fell in love, married, and had a child. It was natural and very tender. She had recovered the feeling of her dad's unconditional love. We both learned that love does not end with physical death.
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross eloquently discerned that grief is a natural process in which we move through five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. When and how we move through each stage is spontaneous and personal. And even though we may wish to avoid all the messiness of it, the body needs to process the experience regardless of what we think. Whether the loss is through death, divorce, rejection, firing, or something personal, the five stages still apply.
The Stages of Grief
DENIAL
The intellectual mind does not seem able to comprehend the instantaneous awareness that something we consider essential is here one minute and gone the next; it defies logic and we resist. Those of us old enough to remember watching television January 28, 1986, all can understand denial from the experience of watching live as the space shuttle Challenger launched and broke apart seventy-three seconds into takeoff. The whole country saw the spacecraft disintegrate before our eyes as seven heroic lives evaporated with it. Our brains could not compute. We were shocked, stunned, and immobilized by denial.
ANGER
Next comes the anger: Someone must be at fault—and “How could they!” No matter how mature we are, we go through a stage of wanting to blame someone. After all, if someone is at fault, we might prevent this experience from happening again and save ourselves future suffering. It's a very understandable response, but it doesn't work. No matter how much we want to feel better by being angry, it does not bring back what we have lost.
BARGAINING
Eventually, the mind recovers enough to raise its intellectual voice, and we start negotiating with life, a partner, a boss, a higher power, or just ourselves. Sometimes, we promise to behave better in exchange for a feeling of security instead of grief—“I'll be a more loving person and never get mad,” “I'll never drink again,” or “I'll pray every day.” Other times, we hope to replay the events that occurred in ways that save us from suffering—“If only I hadn't gone to that party,” “If only I had looked into his room when I noticed his door ajar,” “If only I had forced him to go to the doctor.” More than anything, we want some comfort even though we know a different outcome is unattainable.
DEPRESSION
When the mind and body accept that the loss is real and there is no evading it, there is a period of depression—being engulfed in the sadness of life without the lost one. An inevitable sense of reality returns, and it is uncomfortable. It is what it is—significant loss—and there is nothing we can do about it.
ACCEPTANCE
Eventually we come to terms with what is. We reach a place of realizing we can go on, though differently than before—possibilities of a new way of living begin to open up. Joan lost her seventeen-year-old son when a drunk teen in an SUV barreling downhill hit his turning car broadside. When she and I met serendipitously, she shared how her world went black for what felt like forever after her son's tragic death. She continued to feel angry with the driver, who was unhurt in the accident, and
I knew my life was over and I expected to live forever in a world of blackened death like a completely burnt forest . . . and then out of the blue when I wasn't considering it a possibility, a single blade of grass grew up in the middle of the burnt nothingness. I wanted my son back instead of a new life, but without my permission life took over and I began to live again.
Joan eventually adopted a thirteen-year-old girl from Mexico, and though she did not forget her love for her son, she was reborn. In the same way Nature naturally heals a burned forest, emotional recovery has an organic life of its own. We are designed to thrive.
One of the ways healing works through us is in layers of memory. Even when we have completed the grieving process, deeper levels of sadness and grief may appear years later, triggered by some reminder or similar situation. These are fortuitous times because they bring what was buried and unconscious into view and allow for release. Deeper pain becomes accessible because we have cleared what was there, and now we're ready for another level of lightening the sorrow.
Several months ago, my husband had back surgery. As I sat in the hospital, I became acutely aware of my last experience in a surgery waiting room. It was in 2000, and my dad was having knee-replacement surgery. He suffered a serious stroke the day after surgery and eventually passed away without leaving the hospital. These memories came flooding in as I waited to hear from the doctor. Up came deep feelings of sadness, and I started to cry. Acknowledging and remembering provided a powerful release. As I wrote down my feelings, the sadness gradually dissipated, and I felt clearer and lighter than before.
Receiving the Gift of Old Feelings
Whenever old feelings show up, no matter how old, you have an opportunity to dissolve previously dammed emotion. Instead of thinking you ought to be done with those feelings or that something must be wrong, treat them as dams that you are now strong enough to remove. They offer a door to deeper healing and greater emotional freedom and intelligence.
The RIM processes you will learn about in this book act as a catalyst to bring stuck emotion forward into your conscious awareness so you can set it free to expire naturally, allowing your inherently comfortable self to live again.
As one example, Julie had lost her twenty-five-year-old son Jacob in a skydiving accident fifteen years before she came to see me, and she had been suffering severely ever since. Jacob was her only child, and she and his father had already been divorced for years when Jacob died. Though she was a psychiatric nurse specialist, losing him abruptly created a dam of chronic depression in her. It was like her lifeblood had been sucked out at the time of his death and never returned, that is, until she connected with Jacob through imagination. With eyes closed and his imaginary form before her, she sobbed and shared out loud how she felt she must have done something wrong for this to happen and how sorry she was. Through imagination, she began to hear him lovingly respond—“You didn't do anything wrong Mom; it was just my time. I love you and I always will.” In that experience, Julie regained her loving connection with Jacob. She could finally remember him without feeling extreme guilt and grief. Now that she was no longer punishing herself, organic healing spontaneously occurred and she could feel joy once again.
Similarly, sixty-year-old Ted was stuck in denial two years after he was released from his job. He could not believe his employers had let him go. After all, he was a loyal and committed worker. How could this happen? Stuck in his denial, Ted was unable to find an equal position and was just getting by in a sales job with less than stellar results.
As he relaxed into his body, he saw he was fooling himself. He was fired when he had slacked off at the job because he was tired and wanted to retire, but couldn't because he needed the income. As he opened up to this inner conflict consciously during a series of three sessions, Ted realized he was wishing for something that was no longer available. Living in the past was stopping him from realistically pursuing the new job he still needed at a similar or better professional level.
Moving through his denial allowed Ted to progress through the stages of loss to acceptance almost instantly. As this realization registered in his mind