The Healthy Grieving Process is a six-step process. A typical process includes an hour and a half session and a follow-up session of about a half hour. In the first session, an individual is taken through the first five steps. The final step is scheduled a week later. In this final step, an individual is able to articulate how they have let go of the pain of their loss and opened their heart to their life anew. (Please read the testimonials.)
Since the Healthy Grieving Process is a healing modality, individuals experience a deep and permanent release of the pain of grief and loss regardless of how much time has passed since the loss. The pain is consistently replaced with a sense of wholeness, rejuvenation, and fond memories of the loved one.
The Healthy Grieving Process Treats The Loss Of One’s Self-Identity Rather Than The Emotional Loss Of The Person
Grieving may be one of the most misunderstood experiences of human nature. In the revolutionary Healthy Grieving Process, grieving is not the experience of the emotional pain of the loss of the person or object, it is the experience of the pain of the loss of what the person or object represented; the loss of one’s self-identity – that which gave meaning to one’s life.
One’s self-identity is the interwoven fabric of how a person experiences one’s self. The experience of grieving is as if the very foundation of how one experiences one’s self has been taken away and what is left in its place is an inescapable abyss: the void. The experience of this void is the experience of grief – a tragic feeling of an empty and meaningless existence created by the loss of one’s self-identity.
The reason why the process of grieving is traditionally characterized as “an individualized experience that can take several months to several years” is the unwillingness to feel the pain of loss. Effectively then, grieving becomes the period it takes for a person to deny and suppress the pain of loss so it is no longer consciously experienced. The illusion is that the feeling of loss, which causes a deep and painful expression of emotions, is not for letting go but for emoting – a wallowing in pain rather than a deep experience of release. This emoting pain becomes the memory we often hold onto rather than the possibility of loving memories.
The Healthy Grieving Process is a process of feeling the deep pain of the loss of self-identity for the purpose of letting go of the pain. In the Healthy Grieving Process, a person is reunited with an aspect of one’s self that was given away in the emotional attachment: the emptiness and pain are transcended and a warm sense of love and appreciation replaces the loss.
The perceived pain is the person’s own experience of loss not the experience of the loss of the person (object). For example, when a person goes to a funeral to pay respects and feels a sense of loss and sadness, this feeling of loss and sadness is not for the person who passed away but the emptiness they feel inside from the loss of the person. Healthy Grieving realizes that grieving is not for the person but the loss of what the person represented to one’s self-identity.
A Willingness To Feel…
The process of Healthy Grieving starts first with the willingness to feel the pain of loss for the purpose of letting it go. Without this willingness, Healthy Grieving cannot occur and grieving becomes the traditional process of grieving – wallowing, denial, and suppression. Many people, sometimes at a subconscious level, are unwilling to feel the pain of loss so they can be a victim to the experience thus maintaining their reality of the loss that has affected their life – being a victim replaces the meaning that the loss took from their self-identity often effectively blaming the person (object) for their misery.
Identification Of The Loss Of Self-Identity…
The second major step in the Healthy Grieving Process is the accurate identification of the specific loss of self-identity. The challenge at this step is that a person is often not consciously aware of the loss. It is difficult for the grieving individual to create separation for this identification because self-identity is so ingrained in a person’s experience it can be virtually indeterminable. With the help of specific strategies to tease out the self-identity, a person can bring forth the clarity needed for identification.
When the identification of the loss of self-identity is clearly defined it can be validated by the emotional reaction a person experiences from this awareness. With this sense of clarity, a person can then move to experience the pain of the loss of the self-identity. Interestingly, the ability to experience this pain of loss is a natural human experience and can be accomplished relatively easily if a person is not afraid of feeling emotional pain. Emotional pain is very much like the boogeyman that hid in the closet as a child; it does not exist except in your mind. When a person is willing to face the emotional pain of grief it dissolves as if it never existed. The Healthy Grieving Process is like the choice to go to the dentist for an impacted tooth: you can decide to go through the pain of having the tooth removed so the pain goes away and healing can take place or you can take medication and manage the pain. The traditional experience of grieving can often be like the management of the pain because people are very afraid to face the emotional pain of grief so they find ways to avoid or distract themselves from feeling the pain.
The Healthy Grieving Process is a Very Dynamic Process…
The Healthy Grieving Process is a very dynamic process because grief is a universal human emotion to the experience of loss. The fundamental principles of Healthy Grieving can be effective not only with the death of a loved one but can be applied in a wide variety of real life situations. When the concept of attachments and self-identity are fully grasped, the Healthy Grieving process can become a comprehensive tool that can be used to reconnect individuals to a fuller expression of themselves and life.
From this perspective, the Healthy Grieving Process is not intended to be a process used for a single occurrence; it has been created as a way of deconstructing the attachments that form our unconscious identity. It is this unconscious identity that creates the fleeting experiences that cause life to be perceived as hard and unfulfilling. Over time, with the conscious use of the Healthy Grieving Process, an individual will begin to transform the externalized attachments into internal self-love(value). From this place of self-value, a person no longer feels the emptiness of life or experiences life as unfulfilling but experiences an emerging sense of completeness in life.
Please visit the testimonials page to hear the remarkable stories of healing from grief and loss. You are invited to learn more details about the Healthy Grieving Process by contacting us.