At it's very heart, adversity is about recovering from the loss it creates.  As difficult as this is, it is made even more difficult by the code of silence that surrounds loss.

Simply put, we don't like loss.  It's painful and our natural instinct is to avoid pain.  One way we can do this is to not talk about it.

Considering how strong our avoidance is, it isn’t surprising that there is a lot of confusion about the definition of grief.  Often the words “grieving” and “mourning” are used interchangeably but in fact, they mean different things.

Grief refers to the feelings you experience when you have a loss.  These include sadness, emptiness, anger, loneliness, despair, fear, and desperation.  When a person is grieving, it means they are experiencing feelings such as these.  Other grief reactions are listed here.

Mourning is giving outward expression to grief.  Wearing certain clothing, participating in a farewell ritual, weeping while speaking about a loss, writing about it or visiting a place associated with it are all examples of mourning.  It is everything you do to express your grief and actively work through the process of making peace with the loss.

As with all emotions, feelings of grief are charged with energy.  Sometimes they are so charged the only way to cope with them is to shut them off.  Focussing attention intensely on other things or becoming withdrawn are two ways of doing this.  Anything that takes your attention away from how you feel will do the trick. 

This is called instant pain relief, and at first this is exactly what most of us need.  Your grief is overwhelming and you need to do something to alleviate it.  Avoidance works!

Problems arise when these initial ways of coping turn into long term solutions.  This can easily happen because even though avoidance generally leads to feelings of disconnection and emptiness,  the pain of that is easier to endure than the pain of your loss, at least at first.

Unresolved loss is a barrier to healing that acts much like a dam.  If your thoughts and feelings are not somehow expressed, they keep building up behind it just like rising waters.

Feelings of grief AND feelings of isolation and emptiness all intensify.  You are the container for all this energy and unless you release it, you will eventually reach maximum capacity.  That is when it will start to leak out in ways that may cause even more difficulty in your life.

What is needed is not a solution to grief, but a resolution of grief. 

The idea of finding a solution implies that loss and feelings of grief are problems and they are not.  They are natural occurrences we make into problems because we are afraid of them.  We want to get them out of sight and out of mind as soon as we can.

The idea of a resolutiuon is not to banish something, but to find a way to live in peace with it. 

There is only one way to resolve loss.  Instead of following our impulse and running from pain, we have to do exactly what we don't want to do.  We have to acknowledge, feel and express it.  We have to find healthy ways of releasing the energy of grief. 

The way we think about loss in our society doesn't encourage us to do this.  If we reconceptualized loss and gave it some of the respect it's due as a natural life process, grieving and mourning might not seem like such a bad choice.

Loss is a fundamental aspect of the human experience.  Feeling sorrow is a fundamental aspect of human nature.  If there were no loss for us to feel, we would be other than human and living something other than a human existence. 

Grief is not bad.  Grief is not a sickness.  It is a normal, healthy response.  It's natural to feel grief when you have a loss, just like it is natural to feel fear when you are in danger, and joy when something good happens to you.  That's what makes you human.  That's the way it's supposed to be.

We have talked ourselves into believing it is NOT the way we're supposed to be.  We think there is something wrong with us if we feel grief.  We try in whatever ways we can, as individuals and as a society, to delete part of our very nature - our capacity to experience our love for something through our feelings of grief.

Grief deserves a place of honour, because when you acknowledge grief, you are acknowledging love.

Sorrow is the healing response to the wound we call loss.  A void has been left where there was once something valued.  The process of grieving and mourning doesn’t fill the void, but rather helps it close.

It is a process of integrating the experience of loss into the totality of your life experience.  As you do that, you will temporarily experience some intense pain.

When the pain you release goes, it goes for good.  Traces usually remain even after a process of deep mourning.  This grief may be experienced occassionally throughout your life.  It's like a quiet echo.  It's love calling back to you.

Mourning losses and letting go of grief is a process that takes time, gentleness, compassion and courage.  It is a very personal and private journey, but it is not one that should be travelled alone.  Support from understanding others will help you through.

It may be a long road.  It may take you up and down harrowing hills, around blind corners, and into places you have never been.    There may be pauses along the way.  Whatever happens and whatever you feel is fine.  Each person's path is unique. 

What I have learned above all else is to respect your process and go at your own pace.  Push up the hills and through the barricades when you can.  Rest when you need.

Your resilience, resourcefulness and the support of others will help you get to that place where you live peacefully with your losses, where you honour the loss and the love.