Grrrief

Hi Maggie,

I hope everything is okay...

I have been reading about and thinking about grief.  The article I read asserted that grief underlies anger.

Grief is the noun, grave is the adjective. A synonym listed for grave was weighty. That made me laugh.  It was my weighty self that drew me to grief.  It is the grief that makes me weighty.  It may be the grief and weight that take me to my grave.

Words are always  fascinating.  It's like there's always a hook or a joke or a catch.

The opposite of grief is joy...takes me back to Brene Brown...

I read that grief has many dimensions.  The ones that grabbed me were physical, behavioral, and spiritual.  I am a bit weighty on all dimensions, I think.

I was lost in the reading your healer gave us a year and a half ago.  I think I am always detached - never joyful.

I read the classic - grief has seven stages:  shock and denial; pain and guilt; anger and bargaining; depression - refection - loneliness; an upward turn; reconstruction and working through; and finally - acceptance and hope.  I  think parts of me are stuck in, or perhaps working on, each stage.

Makes me think of shamanism, and wonder if a soul retrieval would help...

Something I have never seen before is that grief has five personas.  There is the Nomad - someone who doesn't resolve their grief and just moves on trying to find an answer. The Memorialist lives in the grief.  The Normalizer, I think, is a controller...that person who desperately believes that appearances are everything.  The Activist works with others - let's understand this together.  The Seeker looks for religion or a community to help find way.

I can see myself working in each persona.  I think strongest might be the Nomad and the Activist. But I am very aware that I look different to myself than I do to others.

So I will pick at this a little more, before I move onto mercy.

Mercy is a word I can use, but the concept is probably more than I think it is...

I love and miss you...Clare