One of the preliminary steps in the Healthy Grieving process is letting go of being a victim . . . because a person cannot heal from the pain of loss if they are blaming somebody else for causing their pain.

The victim work in itself is so powerful that – even in classic victim situations such as having an abusive or alcoholic parent – people are able to let go of blame and take full responsibility for their lives, transforming themselves and their lives in the process.

Recently we interviewed a 37-year old Denver woman who grew up with an abusive alcoholic mother who drank herself to death when Brandi was 17 and a senior in high school.  She describes her life this way when she came in for counseling:  “I was a mess. Anxious, depressed, lonely, crying every day. I had stopped loving myself. I was at the end of my rope.  I didn’t know what to do, so I was going to move out of Colorado, run away like I have dozens of times before.” She said that no matter what she did, she “couldn’t get past the pain in her life,” until a Healthy Grieving process practitioner took her through the Letting Go of Being a Victim process.

On the verge of moving, she was asked by her  Healthy Grieving counselor if she felt resolved with everything before leaving. She expressed some unresolved feelings about her last relationship that had ended abruptly, saying that she was missing closure and felt abandoned. When they explored the theme of “abandoned,” her relationship with her mother came up. Using muscle testing as a guide, it was revealed that what needed attention was feeling like a victim in relation to her mother.

The client reports, “I was taken aback that this came up because 1) I was prepared to do the Healthy Grieving process which we had talked about, not this other work and 2) I never considered myself a victim; indeed I took great pride in what I had made of myself and in the fact that I know people who blame others but I didn’t do that.  Until I went through this process, I never realized how much I wasn’t taking responsibility for my life. I was certain that I had cut all ties with blaming, but evidently I had not.

“At the top of the Victim Worksheet I wrote:  “I blame my mom for abandoning me.”  And then I made a list of everything in my life I blame on her including my relationships, my panic attacks, my trust issues, running away  and the biggest one of all . . . using alcohol as a crutch in my life.

“Making a list of the things I blamed my mother for was the easy part. Taking responsibility wasn’t so easy.  I had created a speech to talk about my mother in a very superficial way, I said the same thing every time, but I never got down to this level of feeling.  This process went really deep. I had never felt so exposed and raw. My counselor gently reminded me that no one had ever died in her room. But it feels like you’re going to — that everything in your life is going to end right then.

In taking responsibility for my own life and not blaming my mom, I had to see and admit that I choose to be afraid so I do not have to try and do not have to fail. I choose to put up walls so that I can hide in order to not grow as a person. I don’t trust anyone so that I do not have to show them who I am. I try to save other people so that I do not have to focus on myself. I don’t love myself because I have let myself be the person I am. I decide to run away from everything in order to not have to deal with my problems. I choose to continue using alcohol as a way to perpetuate the problems in my life. I use my mom as an excuse for the decisions I make. I do this instead of taking responsibility for the choices I have made.

“I was exhausted when we were done, exposed and raw, but I also felt good. I felt hopeful. I felt different. I felt like we accomplished two years of therapy in 45 minutes. I felt different right away. I didn’t then imagine that my whole life would change, but I knew something had shifted. I’m astounded by this, but the crying literally stopped. I stopped having anxiety attacks — and I had been having them every day.

“I feel like a different person now. I am more honest with myself. I know that I am responsible for what I do and have a feeling of empowerment to change myself. I trust myself more and I am trusting life, which is really big for me. I know that I am resilient and can get through anything. I know I am internally strong. I respect myself and because I respect myself, I make better decisions and feel more positive.

My drinking has changed. I no longer drink for the reasons I did, which was to escape my life. I am no longer pretending to be happy at work; I actually am. I like myself more, smile more, actually let myself be happy. I catch myself smiling lately, and then I smile bigger for no reason.

I have forgiven my mom. I made the decision to let go of the pain and anger I held towards my mom, and I can now use that space to fill with positivity, growth and love. I have made space to fill myself with myself. I am gravitating toward more positive things. It’s hard to pinpoint or describe. I would say that I am finally letting myself be myself.

I feel like my environment changed to reflect how I was feeling on the inside. When things shift internally your external world does change. That may sound like a stretch, but it is true for me.

Quite honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy in my life, legitimately happy. This is different.  I don’t even feel like the same person. Another therapist I see — a wonderful, open-minded individual who isn’t threatened at all by other modalities — hadn’t seen me in a few weeks and the minute I walked in the door – before she even said hello – she said to me, “You have changed completely, energetically. What has happened with you in the last three weeks?”  When I told her about the work she said, “I can’t deny it, you are not the same person you were three weeks ago.  I can see it physically.”

I feel so happy and grateful that I got to experience the victim process and the Healthy Grieving process, and I want to encourage anyone struggling like I was, especially struggling with a difficult past, to do this work. I would have told you that I was not a victim, and yet I actually subtly blamed everything in my life on my mom and my past. Eventually you have to forgive and move on. I thought I had, but I found out I really hadn’t. I thought I was a pillar of strength but I was just blaming everything wrong in my life on my mom, yet truly not aware that I was doing that.

I am literally blown away by what this work revealed, and at how much I had been carrying for so long. This work has been life changing for me. If anyone can experience even a small portion of what has changed my life, I would like to help them do it; and I hope by sharing my story, someone else will benefit like I did.”

Brandi, Age 37, Denver, CO

In our last blog post, the writer described that she felt really wonderful (“This is how I’ve always wanted to feel!”) at the conclusion of her Healthy Grieving Process, but then had a few days where she felt down and disoriented.

This isn’t unusual.

Because the Healthy Grieving process works at a very deep and profound level —  the self-identity level — the work often results in a catharsis.

The beauty of the Healthy Grieving process is that it engenders a fundamental change in our experience of ourselves which is what creates the catharsis; this is why we define catharsis as a loss of self-identity resulting in internal growth.

Catharsis is not a bad thing or something to be avoided. Indeed it is actually a precursor to permanent transformational change. Without the experience of catharsis , which is essentially a breakdown and reorganization of our experience of ourselves — a deep experience of the truth of who we are –we are often just  rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic rather than actually changing.

It can be disorienting to go through a catharsis after the Healthy Grieving process, but the experience is actually a signpost that deep transformational change is taking place. Although is a good thing, it can be disorienting, so a little perspective and understanding of the experience can be helpful.

Here is great description of the experience of catharsis written by a Healthy Grieving practitioner who uses the process with clients and has gone through it herself dozens of times. I particularly love her description of the caterpillar not knowing what to do without legs and not yet knowing how to use wings . . .

For me, catharsis is an experience of growth. I think of it as a transition, a metamorphosis – the in-between stage after I have lost a deep self identity and before I know who I am without it. It is the awkward stage when the caterpillar is breaking out of the cocoon and realizing it doesn’t have a whole row of legs anymore, but instead, has weird wings. And it doesn’t yet know what it feels like to fly.

I experience it as a loss of all my reference points  — how I relate to myself and the world, how I know myself  — the mask/cloak that I wear to know how to interact with anything. I feel like I have nothing to stand on, and so I pull at and make up familiar experiences so I feel safe, so something makes sense to me.

Without the reference points, I experience a deep sense of panic and feeling lost. It always feels like I just suddenly woke up one day and I can’t understand the world or what happened. Sometimes I feel really confused, helpless, hopeless.  I grab onto old patterns and habits. I can be excessively emotional, irritable. I might sleep a lot, want to isolate myself, or indulge in comfort behaviors. I am sure nothing has ever changed and everything I have done is for naught. Sometimes I am full of doubt about where I am going and what I am doing. I purposely pick up old habits to prove that I haven’t changed.  Sometimes I experience physical symptoms — getting sick, headaches, digestive issues.

What I am experiencing is myself grabbing onto anything to help me find a reference point or to hide from the vulnerability of not knowing who I am without the protection of my self identity, and feeling like I am stepping into nothing.

I can anticipate catharsis, but by nature, it happens quickly and I lose clarity quickly (I feel muddled in paper bag). I have very little self awareness during that time.  

If I know it is growth/catharsis, then I can settle into it knowing what it is and allow the experience to be as it is. As the founder of the Healthy Grieving Process has said, “It’s like the flu. If you know the flu takes 3-5 days to get through it, just do what you need to do to take care of yourself and know you will feel this way for a little while and it will be gone in a few days.”