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.”

 

 

 

 

 

One of the best ways to help readers understand the Healthy Grieving Process is to share the experiences of those who have gone through the process.  Here is a first-person account by a woman who helped us demonstrate the process for workshop attendees:

At the suggestion of a friend, I attended a Healthy Grieving workshop, and I volunteered to be the person who went through the process in the front of the room. I originally thought I wanted to grieve being an unwanted child, but after I read some of the handouts, I decided to choose something more immediate and concrete. Aging had been on my mind a lot and I thought that would be a really good thing to grieve so that’s what I volunteered to do.

We started with the practitioner asking me what was my issue with aging and I thought about it for a minute and said “Becoming invisible, being invisible.” I was thinking about how when you are an older woman, you’re not really seen anymore. We’re such a youth-oriented society and once a woman becomes a crone, she’s no longer seen as attractive or desirable. A crone doesn’t have a lot of value in our society. Men don’t look at us — at me –. No one does. The attention is on youthful women.

The practitioner then asked me, “Why do you want to be invisible?” And I said, “No, you misunderstood. I don’t want to be. That’s the problem.” And he muscle tested me and it came up strong that yes, I do want to be invisible.

That really threw me for a loop. It really threw me off. It didn’t seem true to me.  But then I had this moment where I thought, maybe he’s right.  I could see that in a way it was true. I am safer if I’m invisible. I don’t have to engage. So we went from there.

Although I was in the front of a roomful of more than a dozen people, it was as if there were just the two of us. I responded to his questions and was in some sort of zone. I wasn’t even aware, really, of what I was saying. I was just answering his questions and letting him take me into a deep place of feeling.

Truthfully, I did not know what I said during the process. I know we went to some very painful places, but the only part I was aware of and remember was the last step of the Healthy Grieving process when I was invited to explore the possibilities of what my life could be like when I let my painful feelings go.

I understood clearly that my pain, my beliefs, the decisions I had made, and the feelings I had about myself, that they were all just a story — how I wasn’t loved, wasn’t supported, wasn’t safe, wasn’t welcome on the planet, about how I was not enough and was so alone, the ways I hate myself — the stories I know so well inside of me and the deep, deep sadness I carried – that they were just stories.  I could clearly see how they had colored my perception of not being safe and of not being welcome and of not belonging in life.

I remember thinking I had been living in like a B movie and now it felt like I was in a top-rated film. I felt this whole other energy in me. I knew that the sad stories were not who I am; they were just a story, a tape, something that likes to feed on its own pain, but it’s not really true, it’s not really me, I can make a different choice, those stories are not the truth of who I am.

So we explored the possibilities of letting it go. What my life could be like. How I could experience life and myself. What I would do. I felt great. People told me I looked totally different. I remember saying, “This is how I have wanted to feel my whole life! “  I felt totally open. I felt alive, without boundaries. I felt connected to myself and to life, like I was a part of life. I was in that place where you are when you’re not in your head at all. It felt great.

This was on a Friday afternoon.  Over the weekend, I’m not sure what happened, but I was having a really hard time. I felt sad. I felt lost, disoriented.  A few days later, I read the notes someone had taken of what I had said during my session and I found them really disturbing.  It was very hard to read the painful things I said, to read the feelings that came out of my mouth.  Not just me having to know it, but realizing I said them in front of a room full of people, exposed myself in such a vulnerable way.  That I had admitted to my most painful feelings, how much pain I am in, how lonely, how shut down and disengaged from life, how alone.

I’ve always felt like this. I carry this with me. While at some level I have known that, it’s another thing to admit it in a group of people.  I felt embarrassed. How could I have done that? I felt different, and alone.  It didn’t matter that people had said they’d experienced the same feelings.

I was in some sort of zone or bubble when the process was actually going on — not aware of what was coming out of my mouth. It was so hard for me to read and see and know the feelings I had expressed, that I actually threw away the notes. I didn’t even want to have them in my house.  I had no idea that I had said those things.

I think what I was going through was a sort of delayed reaction to being so vulnerable and honest in front of people I didn’t even know. My most painful feelings exposed. Me, so exposed.  I remember someone from GriefFree saying that I was going through a cathartic experience as a result of the grief work. All I know is that I had a really hard time for a few days. I felt raw and vulnerable. Maybe it was a little bit of a ricochet effect, like a contraction after that expansion.

After a few days, I felt like myself again. I actually felt really good. I remember noticing that people seemed to be responding to me in a new way. Wherever I went I was having these sort of open-hearted encounters.  And I realized that even though I say that men don’t look at me now that I’m older — that I’ve become invisible — what I actually realize is that when my energy level is good – and I don’t care or need anything – then men do look at me. Everyone looks at me, because it’s an internal thing.

Two weeks after my Healthy Grieving session, I had a follow-up interview about the results of the process, which is an important part of the Healthy Grieving process. I was asked to describe how I was feeling, what was different, how things had changed. This time, I kept my notes from the conversation. Here is what I said:

I feel that I am a part of life. I feel connected. I feel alive. I feel positive. I feel joyful and spacious. I feel ageless and without boundaries. I am open, inquisitive, curious about life. I feel young, quiet and peaceful. 

This is the true experience of who I am.