During a recent therapy session, I had a profound exchange with a man about how, months after the tragic loss of his sister, grief is changing him in ways that feel important and meaningful.
There is a clear delineation of causality within our conversations; there is no sugarcoating the hell he is living or the pain he will always feel. The grief is not a “gift,” and it did not happen “for a reason.” But it did happen. And the ways in which this man is choosing to live with it are giving him a deeper experience in life.
He is motivated to switch careers to something more fulfilling and mission-driven. He wants to move closer in proximity to the people he loves most. And what he organizes his life around on a daily basis is shifting toward quality of experience versus social status or traditional measures of success.
Making changes such as these, while often worth it, can be very difficult. It can be painful, lonely, confusing, filled with uncertainty, and extremely uncomfortable, to name a few. For this particular man, his newfound intentions further rattled a life that has already been turned inside-out.
Yet after the initial blackout period of grief, a period in which devastation and heartbreak were all he could see, he is now in a place where he is able to come up for air and reassess his life. He is taking inventory of where he has been, where he is now, and where he wants to be.
The grief has given him an understanding of life he never asked for—to know how short it really is. The grief from the loss of his sister forced him to go inside himself, where he found more core truths of who he is and how he wants to live than ever before. While he lost much, he is realizing through his grief journey he found more of himself.
You have to enter into a partnership with the grief. You have to agree to be changed by it. This means acknowledging that the transformative process will be hard, that you will most likely have to let even more things in your life go, but that in the end your voice will be clearer and stronger. Your life will feel more yours—even with the ever-present loss and pain.
These transformative realizations are not always easy to let in or act on. However, if you are willing, grief can change you in a way that leads to greater meaning, freedom, authenticity, and comfort. Pain and beauty can coexist. Grief and joy can both sit at the table.
To have this type of experience, to undergo transformative grief, you have to be willing to be changed by the grief. It is not an automatic process.
You have to enter into a partnership with the grief. You have to agree to be changed by it. This means acknowledging that the transformative process will be hard, that you will most likely have to let even more things in your life go, but that in the end your voice will be clearer and stronger. Your life will feel more yours—even with the ever-present loss and pain.
The point is not for your loss to be softened or minimized. Why should it be? The point is if you are willing to work with this horrible loss, you can allow it to change you in meaningful ways, perhaps with the help of a therapist. Grief and pain can contain an alchemical process that empowers you, points you straight to your truth, and removes old fears.
This does not necessarily mean your life will be better than before. It does not mean the pain goes away. It means you adjust to your new normal and find a life inside of it—a life that still hurts, but that also finds beauty, love, courage, and truth. Transformative grief allows you to live more fully.
In Part II, we will cover how to enact this transformative process—and the pitfalls you may face in excavating joy from within the pain.
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