There 5 stages of grief. Learn what to expect after a loss.
Grief is a somewhat commplicated and misunderstood emotion. Yet, grief is something that, unfortunately, we must all experience at some time or other. We will all inevitably experience loss. Whether it is a loss through death, divorce or some other loss, the stages of grieving are the same.
There are five stages of grief. If we get stuck in one stage or the other, the process of grieving is not complete, and cannot be complete. Thus there will be no healing. A person MUST go through the five stages to be well again, to heal. Not everyone goes through the stages at the same time. It is different for each person. You cannot force a person through the stages, they have to go at their own pace, and you may go one step forward then take two steps backward, but this is all part of the process, and individual to each person. But, as stressed, ALL five stages must be completed for healing to occur.
The five stages of grief are:
1-Denial-"this can't be happening to me", looking for the former spouse in familia places, or if it is death, setting the table for the person or acting as if they are still in living there. No crying. Not accepting or even acknowledging the loss.
2-Anger-"why me?", feelings of wanting to fight back or get even with spouse of divorce, for death, anger at the deceased, blaming them for leaving.
3-Bargaining-bargaining often takes place before the loss. Attempting to make deals with the spouse who is leaving, or attempting to make deals with God to stop or change the loss. Begging, wishing, praying for them to come back.
4-Depression-overwhelming feelings of hopelessness, frustration, bitterness, self pity, mourning loss of person as well as the hopes, dreams and plans for the future. Feeling lack of control, feeling numb. Perhaps feeling suicidal.
5-Acceptance-there is a difference between resignation and acceptance. You have to accept the loss, not just try to bear it quietly. Realization that it takes two to make or break a marriage. Realization that the person is gone (in death) that it is not their fault, they didn't leave you on purpose. (even in cases of suicide, often the deceased person, was not in their right frame of mind) Finding the good that can come out of the pain of loss, finding comfort and healing. Our goals turn toward personal growth. Stay with fond memories of person.
Get help. You will survive. You will heal, even if you cannot believe that now, just know that it is true. To feel pain after loss is normal. It proves that we are alive, human. But we can't stop living. We have to become stronger, while not shutting off our feelings for the hope of one day being healed and finding love and/or happiness again. Helping others through something we have experienced is a wonderful way to fascilitate our healing and bring good out of something tragic.
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Sunday, April 12, 2009
THE NEED TO BE ALONE
I feel smothered by something I can’t explain that well… Somehow I have been accustomed to be alone and locked up somewhere. The need to be outside would just be for the sake of having to breathe some foreign air. Otherwise, I’d be suffocated by the same air that I am inhaling and exhaling for the entire time. It’s a bit weird though. Before, I used to find myself all over the place. I Spend time with people, take pictures, enjoy a particular event and being motivated to LIVE. But now living to me is like a CHORE. It’s something that I should get through every single minute of everyday. It’s more like enduring it actually. I don’t know what stage in life is this. But I just feel like everything has gone PALE… I was consciously trying really hard to get out of this – but I guess it’s true that what your subconscious is telling you, that is going to happen. There’s this feeling of extreme guilt that’s eating me up inside. I feel so bad that I’ve caused a nuisance to a lot of people. I was hurt BUT eventually hurt a lot of people in the process… And then I thought about the reasons of living. I see other people and ask myself why do they go on with their lives? What are their plans in the first place? What’s the fuel that keeps them going? Some people tend to be driven by worldly pleasures. Others would persuade me to go abroad or get a high paying job, ANY job for that matter… just to give a meaning to my life… and so that I can give them money… YEAH RIGHT… money is the chief motivator… what else is new? They expect that the real reason of my existence in this world that I didn’t even choose in the first place is because I should provide them what they want… What are they really? A flat screen tv? A high-tech cell phone? The gadget that they’ve been wanting so hard that they’d surely die if they don’t have it? A nice car? Clothes that can show off? Or be seen at some good restaurant so that they can be proud at themselves for having been there? Gawd, I shudder whenever there is so much excitement about temporal stuff. I GET ENORMOUSLY DISGUSTED.
I had a lot of going on in my life. I always get what I wanted (would qualify me to be called a spoiled brat?), and also some of the stuff that I never really wanted or needed but got them anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely grateful, for my parents who are working so hard to provide all that, buy it just adds up to the emptiness. The more I get, the more I’ve been looking for something else, something different. Something that will make me feel a lot more like a person than some dump site of material things. I’ve even been asked by others, what more could I ask for? And keep on telling me, if you don’t like your stuff then give them to me, I would take all the pleasure of using them… haha… What’s wrong with me? I honestly can’t explain.
The incident just kept on flashing back on my mind. I was nearly in the finish line. Just a few steps there and BAM… I blew it… I totally blew it! Instead of heading to the finish line, I went a few steps back and never finished the race. I just froze. The main essence of me being there just flew away like some balloon in the sky. Once again, utter DISBELIEF… how could I have done that! I should’ve been happy with the person that means so much to me… I could’ve lived simply and peacefully with my own family… without even wanting the material stuff that doesn’t even count…. without being pressured by a lot of people asking me to fulfill their wants and caprices.
Is that the main reason of my existence - to provide to them their happiness and throw away my own? They might have developed skewed values regarding ALTRUISM. I’ve never felt that I belong. They just need me to tag along like some doormat. Somehow, I’ve gotten tired of the stereotypes and narcissists. They have finally gotten into my nerves… I needed time to be alone. To breathe the sweet air that I desperately longed for. I’ve had enough of people who needed me and just leave me like this whenever there’s nothing more to give. Is it still possible for me to be wanted because they want to spend time with me and not exploit and take advantage of me? I want to experience the true meaning of reciprocated altruism , (or do I still have to bargain for conditional altruism at best?) Isn’t that too ambitious and idealistic of me?
Maybe I have to shrug this off… but in the meantime, some time alone would do me good.
I had a lot of going on in my life. I always get what I wanted (would qualify me to be called a spoiled brat?), and also some of the stuff that I never really wanted or needed but got them anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely grateful, for my parents who are working so hard to provide all that, buy it just adds up to the emptiness. The more I get, the more I’ve been looking for something else, something different. Something that will make me feel a lot more like a person than some dump site of material things. I’ve even been asked by others, what more could I ask for? And keep on telling me, if you don’t like your stuff then give them to me, I would take all the pleasure of using them… haha… What’s wrong with me? I honestly can’t explain.
The incident just kept on flashing back on my mind. I was nearly in the finish line. Just a few steps there and BAM… I blew it… I totally blew it! Instead of heading to the finish line, I went a few steps back and never finished the race. I just froze. The main essence of me being there just flew away like some balloon in the sky. Once again, utter DISBELIEF… how could I have done that! I should’ve been happy with the person that means so much to me… I could’ve lived simply and peacefully with my own family… without even wanting the material stuff that doesn’t even count…. without being pressured by a lot of people asking me to fulfill their wants and caprices.
Is that the main reason of my existence - to provide to them their happiness and throw away my own? They might have developed skewed values regarding ALTRUISM. I’ve never felt that I belong. They just need me to tag along like some doormat. Somehow, I’ve gotten tired of the stereotypes and narcissists. They have finally gotten into my nerves… I needed time to be alone. To breathe the sweet air that I desperately longed for. I’ve had enough of people who needed me and just leave me like this whenever there’s nothing more to give. Is it still possible for me to be wanted because they want to spend time with me and not exploit and take advantage of me? I want to experience the true meaning of reciprocated altruism , (or do I still have to bargain for conditional altruism at best?) Isn’t that too ambitious and idealistic of me?
Maybe I have to shrug this off… but in the meantime, some time alone would do me good.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Another eye opener shared by a friend
PARTNERS AND MARRIAGE
By Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz
I have never met a man who didn’t want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn’t fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our lives.
When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at older couples and saw, at best, mutual toleration of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering and could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.
And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to glow in each other’s presence. They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of each other’s foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible.
How, I asked myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the other’s habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less love each other?
The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the early stages.
Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side. This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from having any normal perception of what life would be like together.
The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long- time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each other’s laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.
This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility.
One of these is laughter. Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each other’s company over the long term. If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can always keep the world around you new. Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even the most intimate relationships based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship can become based on being critical together.
After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you respect. When two people first get together, they tend to see their relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions they are sharing obscures the outside world. As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can’t accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the two of you will not respect each other.
Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live on the cusp of poetry and practicality, and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance doesn’t become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated and misunderstood.
There are many other keys, but you must find them by yourself. We all have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves growing further apart until you live in separate worlds where you share the business of life, but never touch each other where the heart lives and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates.
So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word. There is a miracle in marriage. It is called transformation. Transformation is one of the most common events of nature. The seed becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes spring and love becomes a child. We never question these, because we see them around
us every day. To us they are not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to believe. Marriage is a transformation we choose to make.
Our love is planted like a seed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come. If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We are quite willing to accept the reality of negative transformation in a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of the bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger.
It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the power of this passion and the fear that when it cooled I would be left with something lesser and bitter. But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative transformation, it results from a slow accretion of little things. But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches of love. Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate presence, two separate consciousnesses come together and share a view of life that passes before them. They remain separate, but they also become one.
here is an expansion of awareness, not a closure and a constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not tension and there are not traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers. Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the richness that it alone contains.
But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that deepens that experience into something richer and more complex. So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power of transformation.
If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The easy grace of a marriage well made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom… endlessly.
By Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz
I have never met a man who didn’t want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn’t fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our lives.
When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at older couples and saw, at best, mutual toleration of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering and could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.
And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to glow in each other’s presence. They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of each other’s foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible.
How, I asked myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the other’s habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less love each other?
The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the early stages.
Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side. This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from having any normal perception of what life would be like together.
The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long- time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each other’s laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.
This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility.
One of these is laughter. Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each other’s company over the long term. If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can always keep the world around you new. Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even the most intimate relationships based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship can become based on being critical together.
After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you respect. When two people first get together, they tend to see their relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions they are sharing obscures the outside world. As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can’t accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the two of you will not respect each other.
Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live on the cusp of poetry and practicality, and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance doesn’t become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated and misunderstood.
There are many other keys, but you must find them by yourself. We all have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves growing further apart until you live in separate worlds where you share the business of life, but never touch each other where the heart lives and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates.
So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word. There is a miracle in marriage. It is called transformation. Transformation is one of the most common events of nature. The seed becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes spring and love becomes a child. We never question these, because we see them around
us every day. To us they are not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to believe. Marriage is a transformation we choose to make.
Our love is planted like a seed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come. If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We are quite willing to accept the reality of negative transformation in a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of the bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger.
It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the power of this passion and the fear that when it cooled I would be left with something lesser and bitter. But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative transformation, it results from a slow accretion of little things. But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches of love. Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate presence, two separate consciousnesses come together and share a view of life that passes before them. They remain separate, but they also become one.
here is an expansion of awareness, not a closure and a constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not tension and there are not traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers. Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the richness that it alone contains.
But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that deepens that experience into something richer and more complex. So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power of transformation.
If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The easy grace of a marriage well made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom… endlessly.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Don't I deserve a little respect?
I tried to discover a little something to make me sweeter
Oh baby refrain from breaking my heart
I'm so in love with you
I'll be forever blue
That you give me no reason, you know you're making me work so hard
That you give me no . . . Soul
I hear you calling
Oh baby please give a little respect to me.
And if I should falter, would you open your arms out to me?
We can make love not war, and live with peace in our hearts
I'm so in love with you, I'll be forever blue
What religion or reason could drive a man to forsake his lover?
Don't you tell me no. . . Soul.
I hear you calling
Oh baby please, give a little respect to me.
I'm so in love with you
I'll be forever blue
That you give me no reason
You know you're making me work so hard
That you give me no. Soul.
I hear you calling.
Oh baby, please give a little respect to me.
Oh baby, please give a little respect to me.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
A letter from God
I got a letter from God... no kidding! It's right there in my inbox... :)
April 2, 2009
Dear Charissa,
Listen to your anger. Befriend it. It has much to teach you. You’ll
realize that deep inside your anger is fear. And fear should have no
place in you.
Love,
God
P.S. Have I told you that the only antidote to fear is love? So what are
your fears, Charissa? Surrender them all to me. I will take care of you.
That’s a promise
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