Definitions are very important because they articulate the fundamental concepts of the Healthy Grieving experience, which serves to differentiate terms from their common usage.

Attachment: Anything external that gives one identity and meaning in their life that when lost or taken away causes a deep feeling of loss and emptiness. Most attachments are so intertwined in one’s life as to be unrecognizable – they become the hidden infrastructure of one’s life.

Attachments are fundamental to the human experience- mankind’s need to create meaning in life because of the inherent feeling of emptiness within. The role of attachments is to “fill” the emptiness so life has purpose and meaning.

Being honest is the willingness to expose the experience of one’s self as it is. Being honest is the first step that allows one to see and acknowledge the construct of their reality so it can be transcended. Only in being honest can one truly see what is, not the way one wants things to be – their story.

Being a victim is a person who is not able to take responsibility for their life and their life’s predicaments. Victims blame others for their situation, powerless to make any meaningful changes in their life.

Emotions are the unconscious expression of repressed feelings. For example, anger is the emotional conglomeration of the repressed feeling of being a victim. People live in their emotions so they don’t have to feel because feelings expose the underbelly of a person – the dark and vulnerable secrets we compulsively hide from.

Grieving is the willingness to experience the deep pain of the loss of one’s self-identity for the purpose of reuniting one’s self – the experience of becoming “whole”. Effectively, the externalized meaning and purpose of the attachment becomes internalized, which is experienced as true love and acceptance.

Feelings are the conscious and unconscious expression of how we “feel” about ourselves. Emotions are universal to all people whereas feelings are unique to each person based upon their personal experience of life. From this powerful perspective, feelings become an intriguing window into the experience of one’s self.

Feeling feelings is a deep willingness to go into the pain of “how I feel about myself” for the purpose of letting it go – experiencing the feelings as you, completely and fully by letting the “emotional charge” go through you rather than resisting and pushing it away. Feeling feelings is the capacity to go into our inner sanctum that we have compulsively hide from to feel exposed and raw, knowing that it is this exposure and rawness that allows the feelings to be effectively dissolved.

Resistance is the experience of the mind’s intrinsic capacity to fight against the loss of self-identity – self-destruction. It is experienced as shutting down – denial, skepticism, and the loss of clarity – which prevents self-awareness.

The mind is one’s reality, a conglomerated pseudo-reality called the self. It is created by the brain by integrating one’s experiences of life.

Self-identity is the way we know and experience our self. Self-identity is the definition of “who I am” which when lost or taken away leaves a person feeling a deep sense of loss. This loss is expressed deeply as “I don’t know who I am anymore” and leaves a person feeling lost in life, rudderless to find their way.

Self-love is the willingness to being vulnerable for the sake of growth; an open heart. It is the experience of stepping into life anew – to start again, and again, in a new and fresh way. It is taking full responsibility for the experience of one’s life.

Self-value is the experiential knowing of who I am. It is experienced as the unarticulated inherent awareness of the accumulation of one’s growth.