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.”