The grief process

Part 2: Denial and Anger

The Taos News has committed to implementing a weekly column to help educate our community about emotional healing through grief. People may write questions to Golden Willow Retreat, and they will be answered privately to you and possibly as a future article for others. Please list a first name that grants permission for printing.

Dear Dr. Ted,

Please review the grief process. Thanks Taylor

Dear Taylor,

Last week we spent time reviewing the phases of grief and noted that loss can come from many events in your life. This does not only mean a death of a loved one or pet but anytime your life has an event that causes you to have to adjust to a new way of being. Each of these events has a grief process consciously or unconsciously. The more conscious you are of your healing process, the less chance of delayed and compounded grief. Even though the grief process is not a linear one and is more porous and fluid, I will be writing about it in the linear fashion.

Please remember: In actuality, the grief process is more like a pot of stew, and you move back and forth throughout the phases of grief with less and less intensity, frequency and duration of being captured and engulfed with emotions from the event. Usually after a loss there is a certain amount of denial as your psyche and life habits, thought processes and your everyday life have not had time to adjust. Denial is that adjustment period in which you cannot believe something has happened; you experience all levels of reluctance to embrace the fact that the loss has happened. This denial period is like insulation. It allows time for your cognitive process to slowly be aligned with the emotional and physical aspects of your life. In other words, it takes time for you to catch up with what has happened and start to be present of where you are now in your life after your loss. This is often followed by anger.

But anger does not have to mean that you are angry in a certain way or pinpoint the anger. It can often be a protest that you are having to change due to a loss. This may present passively, with reluctance or resistance to step into empowering yourself to heal. Distractors such as addictive and negative behaviors, tangential blaming and other ways of avoiding the fact that you have a loss can include anger, or a combination of denial and anger. There can be anger that you have had to change your life in a manner that you had become accustomed to within your daily way of being. Anger is an emotion, and you cannot control emotions, but you can manage your behaviors while experiencing these emotions. Emotions also do not even have to make sense as they arise and subside.

Doing your best to not judge your emotions or have to react to them is a great discipline and can save you from being hard on yourself as different emotional protests bubble up from within you. If an emotion that is not serving you continues to hold you captive, give it attention, speak to a friend or professional so that an emotion that is not helping you in your healing process can be seen, heard and valued. This can prevent it from defining you or removing you from the present moment. Finding healthy ways to work with anger can build the future passion and energy to help you and others to heal and lead more productive lives down the road.

Next week we will explore bargaining and depression in this four-part series of the grief process.

I wish you well and please stay safe. Until next week, take care.

ASK GOLDEN WILLOW

Ted Wiard

Golden Willow Retreat is a nonprofit organization focused on emotional healing and recovery from any type of loss. Direct any questions to Dr. Ted Wiard, EdD, LPCC, CGC, Founder of Golden Willow Retreat GWR@newmex.com or call at 575-776-2024. Weekly virtual grief groups, at no charge, are being offered to help support emotional well-being. Information can be accessed through goldenwillowretreat. org.