When a person experiences significant loss, it’s natural to want to offer comfort and relieve their pain.
But according to Jack Kornfield, PhD, it’s crucial not to rush past difficult emotions in the healing process. In fact, as Jack explains, it’s important to learn how to honor and acknowledge grief.
Jack reveals more in the video below, and illustrates responses that can help people express grief and begin to heal from it.
Take a look – it’s just about five minutes.
What strategies have you used in your life, or your work with patients, to deal with grief and loss? Please share your experience in the comment section below.
I’m glad he addressed both allowing the pain AND being aware that sometimes our story can become addictive. That’s something I’ve been looking at in my life and the people I work with. Feeling our feelings fully can be healing and transformative, but beware the addictive pull of misery to wallow in it and perpetuate it (what Eckhart Tolle calls the ‘pain body’).
I find that my breath is a tool that is available to me every moment, and can be a very soothing means by which to enter into a mindful state of being. When I consciously use my mind to slow down my respirations and focus my attention and awareness on it, I feel an almost instant calming effect. I am suddenly aware of more than just my fearful thoughts–I am aware of spaciousness, my bodily sensations, & what’s happening in and around me. It is the most powerful medicine I know for soothing myself when I am agitated, anxious, afraid, angry, worried, overly excited, etc. My breath is a bridge from my thinking mind to the deeper awareness & wisdom we all possess, but can’t always access b/c we are lost in our often difficult thoughts. Following my breath connects me to my body and the deeper places within me that DO know all that I need in that moment. And most importantly, my breath connects me to the here and now–not the guilty past or the overwhelming future. It is the fast track to NOW. Where else would we want to be?
Agreed!
Accept, even encourage the tears, the expression (writing or whatever)… the catharsis of their loss. It detoxifies the soul and the very cells of their grieving, making way for restoration and healing. Thank you Dr. Jack.
I am torn and amazed at the same time about the inpatients I meet who are hospitalized because they are depressed following a major loss whether that be beloved spouse, pet, child or person with in a past week, yesterday, or a couple of months ago. When I mention the grieving process almost all of them have not heard of it. I come from the Elizabeth Kulber Ross era and have guided people through that process during the height of the aids epidemic. That is not to say someone trying to kill themselves so they can follow their beloved surely needs to be redirected probably into a safel setting until that feeling passes. I feel torn between what I know works over time and how the medical establishment often handles the situation.
I also found the Narrative approach to grief and healing very helpful for clients. I also have clients write to their missed loved one how they are feeling right now, what they remember about them that gave them joy, what they wished they had done or said to that loved one. I also have them go through a ritual of connecting with a lost loved pone by having them visit a place that was significant for them, that they have good memories of, then have them sit and mindfully bring that person in mind and enjoy again the happy memories. Finally, I have them leave something symbolic of their parting. One client left a poem and flowers and intends to do this annually. This facilitates the leave-taking more compassionately and also relieves the guilt of them getting on with their lives.
Using body and emotional awareness while sitting with my grief and that of those I walk with has been immensely helpful for all of us in healing our grief
My mom is dying. At the same time as a single parent, my son is getting ready to graduate and go off to college. I deal with my grief by: 1) giving myself the excuse to slow down and be less busy- I only do work, visiting my mom and keeping up with my son’s activities; 2) letting myself cry when I need to.cry. I do get a pit in my stomach loneliness at times, but it does pass in less than an hour normally.
I love the way you can encourage one to walk towards painful feelings and also how to work with the story
To have the support and courage to sit with one’s grief is the single most powerful way to process and move through the stages. Mindfulness is key.
When the grief is about unresolved traumas and losses of childhood and people are afraid that if they start crying they will never stop, I remind then that they lived a finite number of days as a child and suffered a finite number of hurts that can never happen again to them as a child. The grieving process is finite. Sometimes that makes them less afraid to approach the grief.
In my own healing journey with multiple deaths and trauma I found that as I fully surrendered into whatever was there, I did it with compassion and discovered that each time I healed more gracefully and was left with a strength of spirit and a knowing that truly I was being guided with grace and I would get through this and recover. Now as I walk the stages of acceptance I look back with gratitude and awe of what is possible when one surrenders into the flow of life and simply allows it. All pain gives way to greater love, light and peace. All contraction becomes expansion. Separation becomes oneness. Gratitude is what lives on.
Thankyou for that. This is is the true and complete perspective i am in excess need of at this moment in dealing with my own sorrow. Emilia
I work with clients with complex trauma and find that being “with” them while they are experiencing their grief and loss during the session is a powerful and healing process for them. I liked Jack’s recommendation to encourage the client to externalise their feelings of grief through art and / or movement.
I have found the brief presentation of Dr.Kornfield very powerful. I n working with the grief process with my patients,, there is no doubt in my mind as to the validation that the healing power comes from us allowing our patients to feel loss and pain to it,s depth. We as therapists must work through our own feelings regarding loss in order to allow our patients to go to whatever depths they need to go to to experience theirs.
Miriam Nicoll LCSW;BCD
The timing of watching this video is amazing. A client (whose young adult son suddenly died) is a musician. His son truly respected and admired this. In our next session, I will ask him to consider expressing his grief through his gift of music.
As a practitioner and member of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing, therapist, former body worker ( Trager Psychphysicsl Integration) and coach, I have used the following process, which i interactive ith feeling or sensations in the body
1. Scan the body for where the grief seems to be sitting: usually throat, chest, sometimes belly
2. Welcome the sadness “Welcome back, my old friend. ”
3. Hold the grief or sadness in your arms like a baby, gently rocking it.
4. Ask “What is your true name?” What seems like anger may be fear or sadness. Some of us need to learn the names of feelings, and can find them at a site of on the internet. Remember that most feelings fall within the categories ” mad, sad, glad, lonely, scared”. Self- judgment or other concepts are mental stories. It may be good to recognize them, but this process shifts actual emotions or feelings best. ( The feeling behind self- judgement may be fear or shame, for example.)
5. Ask ” why are you here sgain with me at this moment?” Let answer arise with its own voice, rather than have your head figure it out. Be with the feeling and let it speak.
6. Ask “What do you need from me today?” Again, listen for the answer to rise within you, which might be: Please acknowledge me and my pain! ” or an outward action “Please write to ( lost person or object..like something important lost in a fire) and tell her/him/ it how you feel and how much you miss them. Take time to do thus, or make a promise you can keep later, to listen more, write, or speak further with the Feeling
7. Thank the grief or sadness for visiting, and tell them they are welcome back at any time.
Wishing the feeling to go away when it is too soon is like pushing, and it may push back and stay longer. Like an ignored child, it may stay stubbornly waiting to be addressed. Welcoming it and holding it as a precious child may help it to relax and begin to melt away, or rest for a while.
Each time this is done, the feeling may speak more easily, or have a different request. At each stage of the process, when the question is answered, you will feel a shift, an easing for that moment. Gradually, the grief will ease.
Thank you for these ideas on how to be gentle and kind to oneself whebn in grief.
Lovely and wise process. Thank you for sharing!
I feel it’s imperative to respect grief,however long it takes to heal (sometimes never) and in whatever form it may take. It is something our culture continues to find hard to accept or is frightened by . Grief is a rite of passage :through the loss of the beloved we can stare death in the face, perhaps for the first time. Grief is unique to the sufferer. Jack’s advice to go with the feelings and let them lead is the only way. Gifts can come out of deep grief. It is a word for pain. It is a word for irrevocable change. It is a word for love.
life is a constant grieving process. the big losses tend to overwhelm us. we can learn to work with the smaller losses which will build our capacity when a goant loss comes around. no surfer starts with the biggest wave he can find but starts out mastering the smaller waves and works up within his capacity. always comforting to see and hear jacks soothing voice and compassion . ive been to several workshops with stephen and ondrea levine and their work with the grief process is on the same path as jacks work.
i hve a unique situation i am very ill,, i have asthma pretty bad,,,,,, my Father is getting very old and frail,, i cannot travel to see him and he is too frail to come here,,, i love him with aall my heart and he has always treated me with so much love,,,
and when he passes i will grieve for the loss but also for the time that we could have had now and is sli[[ong away from us,,, i already feel so much anger at the situation and jealousy that my brothers and sisters are there with him anytime they want to see him
BUT i havea REALLY bad asthma when i get upset i CAN NOT JUST L ET THE tears flow i would end up being hospitalized,,,, i have to find another way,, even expressing anger gives me asthma ..bad!! i eed to protest myself ..my health,,
any ideas??
Shari
Thank you so very much for this healing video!
Thank you for posting Jack Kornfield’s insights about grief. I found his comment about the value of using both expressive and cognitive approaches particularly valuable – I’ve had clients describe feelings of release or relief through movement, art, writing etc but be then be devastated or despondent by subsequent return of grief “story”. Integrating expressive and cognitive approaches has been so helpful when working with my own grief and loss stories, as well as with clients; I’ve used a combination of yoga & massage alongside guided mindfulness practices both cognitive and body-based (e.g. Kristin Neff’s “soften, soothe and allow” guided meditation) to honour and work with grief at multiple levels. Om shanti
Dear madam Ruth,
I am deeply impressed by you & your teams spirit to guide ,teach and request for comments from people from various walks of life world wide. I am 66 year old a retd engineering professional, I had a
very bad and unfortunate fate following me since 1987, My wife was diagnosed with a schizophrenia and a bad health problems.Later she became acute anemic followed with esophageal carcinoma and scum bled to it in 2011.I find your web site some where that time following your guidance on mindfulness,trauma and related subject regularly. Your untiring effort to guide millions around the globe on this very interesting phenomena is laudable and I dont have any words to express my express.
May god bless you and you expert team guide all of us in such a harsh phase of our life to lead a peaceful and healthy mental life. With love Muralidhara ( India )
I simply let it run its course, no matter how long it took. It took 12 years.
Much as Jack has shared before I try to take care to remain fully within and alongside the person’s pain until that person shows that they feel they have been heard and I really understand their pain. To know our pain by going toward it and being in it and not pushing it aside or running from it has a remarkable ability to eventually create space for another way of being, another way which often doesn’t include this pain or suffering. I’ve seen this with all kinds of pain and suffering, not just that resulting from what we typically think of grief and loss. In fact, I think all pain and suffering can be thought of a sort of loss (of what we thought of as acceptable) with accompanying grief.
Great reminder to trust the body and the process. Giving it space and creating loving rituals and finding people who can stay with your grief is very important. Spiritual beliefs that help one to feel connected to those who have died and can comfort some. Rose oil on the heart area can sooth and acknowledge.
Prayer is helpful for some when loss is intense. A human experience that takes time needs to be normalised in our culture that can sometimes be intolerant of pain and shut these experiences down.
Thanks.
I appreciate this acceptance approach as many people assume they should be able to “get over” a loss in a scripted or time limited amnner. I like to explain the First Nations cultural traditions in which the people left behind are given a year to grieve all of the “firsts” that they will encounter without their loved one. They are also excused from community obligations and ceremonies because are recognized as needing the time to process and heal. It can create a softening of expectation that my clients tend to appreciate….particularly when they are rigid self-expectations.
Jack is so right that you cannot hurry-up grief. It runs a unique course for everyone. What may appear trivial to one person seems to roll of another (not so feeling or connected individual) like nothing happened.
I do think feeling people had good attachments, and their sense of loss may be greater. Distanced people seem to *get over it* quickly.
As a practitioner of aromatherapy, as well as other modalities, I find that using essential oils specific to grief can be really helpful in soothing the painful experience, and allowing new ways to view it. I think it is very necessary to not “short-circuit” the grieving process, but to fully experience it. It is also important not to expect that others will understand what one is experiencing personally – we are all individuals, and even though we may have similar experiences (e.g., death of a loved one), we will still have our own personal process as we move through grief.
Personally, I began losing dear family members when I was nine years old. I lost my first love in a car accident when I was 19; I also lost two of my adult children within a 10-year span, and many more such losses over the years, so deep loss has been part of my life. I don’t believe it ever “gets easier” nor have I hardened myself against loss, but it becomes apparent that “change is the only constant’ in physical life, that we humans have a remarkable capacity to endure and continue on, that we are certainly so much more than our frail little physical bodies would have us believe.
This is my personal experience, and I do not expect my clients to have the same outlook. However, I think that my own experience enables me to have more compassion, understanding and patience for the unique processes of others’ grief.
Thanks for the video, Ruth and Jack, and for the opportunity to comment. Blessings.
I use the metaphor of grief being like an ocean tide, it will feel like it goes away for a while and then it may come back and flood us again. the importance of honouring the person we lost and what they gave us and brought into our lives and world.
Once again, Thank you, Thank you, Ruth for these incredibly helpful videos! I consistently use The Grief Recovery Method to help clients process their losses, and have quite honestly never found a better model to help work through thoughts and feelings clients are left with after a loss…especially those “if only I would have…” thoughts that can keep clients stuck in the pain of that loss. I so appreciate Jack Kornfield’s validation of the need for people to feel their feelings, to have the pain of those losses acknowledged, and to allow the grief to move through in order for real healing to take place. How blessed I feel to have this resource that you and nicabm provide to all of us!
So true ….. allowing yourself to let go of the grief and feel whole again is also and important step.
I use mindfulness in a visulization so that all unresolved issues may be generated to be released. Feeling the sadness of the loss . Sometimes its an oppotunity to bring up other losses which have not been resolved. Grief is a vehicle for love. Opening the heart is the fuel .
It was helpful to get this today because this morning I learned on facebook that a close friend had died suddenly. I went to the cemetery where my husband is buried for a long walk and reflected on impermanence and wept. Then I called two mutual friends and promised to stay in touch in the weeks to come. Both solitude and contact with friends helps me deal with grief. I also meditate daily with tapes of singing bowls and the sounds of rain and waves.
How do you get thru loss that’s has no closure niece abducted almost 10 yrs ago never found no answer to crime
Perhaps there is no resolution in terms of knowing what happened, but there is a loss for you of her presence and the time you would have had together. You can use the process I posted above to speak to your loss and to your missing niece. This is not easy or comfortable, but it csn help you move out of feeling stuck with effects of that crime.
What such criminals do not realize is that they are robbing and affecting whole fsmilies, friendship groups, and cultures. Remember you are not alone with your grief.
Thank you!
Thank you so much for your fast deep summary
I have operated in the red zone for years
My body is tired but I am moving into loving kindness meditations thru Jack Kornfield’s classes and Tara Brach
Thank you Ruth for your work
This was great! “Grieving Mindfully” by Sameet Kumar, PhD,( a psychologist and Buddhist who works at a cancer center in Florida), expresses similar, helpful and practical ideas. Was given this book by a grief counselor when my parents died with 8 weeks of each other. Mother was already in hospice care, father healthy. Then, Dad was diagnosed with brain cancer and died before Mom who died less than 8 weeks later. Just after father’s diagnosis I was found to have had stage 4 cancer. So waqs in an ocean of loss at that time. That was 3 years ago. I found the concepts to be extremely comforting and helpful. Am guessing that Jack and Sameet know each other as Jack also dsicusses the grieivng process in the context of Buddhist psychology. These ideas can help be helpful not only while greiving the loss of someone in your life but also apply to those going through life’s transitons, medical diagnosis of serious chronic conditions, etc., with the inherent sense of loss as part of the process.. Would love to have Jack teach us more. Thanks again!
Thank you.
A lovely reminder to trust the body, the body wants to heal and has the capacity to heal and grow.
The importance of tears, expression and with loving awareness meeting what is.
Resources I use for myself and others ( constantly need the reminder that these resources are there within and around me!! Thank you Jack Kornfield, and Ruth Buczynski for sharing)
A weave of creative expression,
dance, painting, singing , writing.
connecting with nature and others.
Deep listening.
Body work, more recently TRE trauma release exercises.
Mindful awareness is the ground which I endeavour to work from,
My aspiration :being present and ultimately letting going of knowing and trusting the unfolding nature of things.
Like all the challenging situations we face in life, it turns out that grief is an opportunity. With guidance from the spiritual work “A Course in Miracles,” determined mindfulness, faith and a constantly renewing commitment to TRUST, I was able to deepen my spiritual understanding and grow through my own loss. Of course the process included allowing and expressing my grief, as well as examining the stories that prolonged it and becoming willing to let them go. To walk through the intense emotional experience of grief allowing it to transform us is an alchemy that produces priceless treasures. It also inspired me to write “Healing Loss: Choose Love Now” healingloss.biz which outlines the spiritual principles and practices that became my path to healing. Thank you for addressing this important universal topic.
I had to put my shepherd to sleep suddenly at six, for aggression. It’s been over a year and it is still very very painful for me – I think of him every day, and certainly every morning. I engaged in some art therapy for several sessions right after, and still, when I feel it is so painful if I pick up my pastels and my sketch book and draw a mandala… it helps. I take a bowl and trace it, pretty big, like 15 inches across. And then I have this circle and I just draw whatever inside of it, whatever comes out… abstract or sometimes images. I have a large sketch book of all these mandalas I have done from the beginning … it’s a very healing thing to do. The art therapist said it gives us some distance from the pain… and as the video said, allows us to express it.
Just thought I’d share…
I find that nature is a great healer. I have walked in the woods (or a park) and did walking meditation in a way that was grounding and healing. I’ve recommended it to patients, who often have similar experiences.
i appreciate this allowing and acknowledging of the weight of grief. the reminder that expressing feeling and fully allowing the river of tears and feelings that the tides of grief bring is so important in our healing. as a nurse myself i often marvel at the ability of the body to heal.and in my own journey with breast cancer it is amazing from what we can recover, i see grief as a moving entity of its own, sometimes a beast that so much bigger than what we could have imagined, sometimes a friend reminding us to check in with ourself, what is it we need to support ourselves as another wave washes through. grief is liberating yet so easily denied. thank you. Kumari Ellis, Mullumbimby, Australia
This was beautifully articulated! Always grateful for the wisdom and compassion
that is brought to light in your work.
I really appreciate everybody’s comments. I did some (very easy to read) research (which partially relates to Adele Nicols’ above comment) entitled “Lives Unseen: Unacknowledged Trauma of Non-disordered, Competent Adult Children Of Parents with a Severe Mental Illness (ACOPSMI)” – it includes their grief. I also wrote a resource website on the grief of the same population studied. It’s being used by some at The Royal Melbourne Children’s Hospital, the Victoria VVCS – Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service Department of Veterans’ Affairs, other mental health teams including other institutions and individuals in Australia and internationally. Following a presentation I did to the emergency and medical personnel in Japan post tsunami and Fukushima meltdown the Loss & Grief page now has a Japanese translation.
Jack Kornfield mindfulness notion of “being part of the whole” has worked (partially) for sexual abuse survivors because this group is part of a fairly well-established global movement – at least within the English speaking world and much has been written about their trauma. But it’s not easy or straightforward for the population I studied for reasons best explained in the work itself. Here is the link to my research + resource website — including feedback from practitioners, researchers and survivors, etc. Feel free to distribute it. Scroll down to click on other pages
sites.google.com/site/workwithin/home/trauma
(I welcome feedback – critical or otherwise)
One important foundation (I can hardly call it a “strategy”) I use in life and in my work with patients dealing with grief and loss is psycho-education – based on research or important writings – as much as possible. I believe that the grief of non-physical death related matters is perhaps the most complex essentially because it is disenfranchised and peppered with all sorts of themes (my research explains why, with regards to the population, studied more fully than what can be offered here). Thanks Ruth for organising and distributing this important info.
Thank you. As a therapist, grief counselor and a bereaved caregiver from a long terminal illness loss, I share space with the bereaved and create a safe environment for Gestalt therapy, writing a letter/email to cyberspace, journaling, coloring, and other hands on and psychodrama activities for expression. The use of choosing various pieces of sea glass to depict the process of ones grief has helped as well as river or beach stones of various shapes, sizes and textures. I try to incorporate the senses to create awareness as much as possible. I find all the above helps honor the process of grieving.
Journaling helped emensely when I lost my husband. Also daily walking became of form of meditation. It brought me peace and awareness. Catherine Cauthorne
Thank you for this. I have been practising exactly what you advise and I am managing well. I lost my darling father, aged 91 a month ago today. We had all understood that his time was fast approaching and he made it clear to us that he was ready. He had never been truly happy since his wife died.
I had been already been grieving as I had been loosing him little by little to dementia. I found great comfort in the words of a wise woman. She told me that when he was increasingly absent, due to dementia, he was choosing to spend time with my mother and getting ready to be reunited with her in the next life. Dad was a Catholic who believed in heaven as I do and I am comforted to think that they are together now.
Keening can be an important part of recovery from loss and grief . Keening is the traditional Celtic wailing about one’s loss, with one’s wails prolonged, loud, full, and projected out into the depths of the universe.
This has provided clients with a sense of release and clearing, especially when done with the full attention of a supportive group that confirms the need to express one’s grief, as was done through keening at traditional Celtic funerals held at home in the past. If the client is afraid to wail loudly, I invite them to wail into a pillow, so their voice doesn’t startle them, and I model it for them, so they understand what full wailing is. I also explain that recovery from loss and grief is often profound, long lasting process, highly varied in its manifestations over time, and, that fully feeling and expressing the loss will ultimately cleanse, restore, and bring peace and compassion to both mind and soul.
I also ask clients to speak directly to the person or situation they have lost, expressing what they admired or liked, benefited from, treasured, are grateful to carry within themselves from that person or situation, and the opposite, what they did not admire or like, wanted less or none of, felt impaired by, and internalized from that person or situation but no longer want to carry within themselves.
I love what Carol from Jerusalem writes about wailing . Makes so much sense. In a sense it is another route to releasing over time the energy of all the pain and suffering and loss.
We lost our dad recently and noticed we each deal with our loss differently. I, for example, honour the person he was and have taken up some of his hobbies. Mom has been keening I suppose, as she wails from morning till night. She also talks to his picture throughout the day. My question is, how do the rest of the family deal with her method of grieving? This is making me physically ill because when she wails, it causes a strange sensation in my body. As if I am paralyzed and being suffocated. Other members stay away and I guess I would too if I wasn’t mom’s care provider for now.
Dora I was in a similar situation with a close friend who lost her husband. It was a deep loss for me as well but we handled it very differently. I also became physically ill and developed a kind of trauma response to the friend I had considered one of my best.
I’m not a professional, but I felt like I should share a little bit about what I’ve learned for myself with you in the hopes that it might help.
First I wish I would have had the courage to not define her by her loss and pain. I felt her pain was so much that she would be unable to handle anything else. In the gentle moments where I did try and speak to her, she was still so deep into her grief she couldn’t hear so I gave up on my own needs. Even if she couldn’t hear me, I wish I would have communicated clearly the state I was in and told her I needed others to step in for me.
Although I was not a dedicated care giver, I was the go-to friend and as time has passed I’ve realized how very unhelpful I was. Because of my high stress state and failing health I was not the best person to take care of her and I was completely ignoring my own family. Believe me getting over the story of guilt for “leaving” a friend in grief has been a struggle. And I am not suggesting just running away. Space showed me improved health and spirit so I knew I was on the right path. Slowly, through meditation and artistic expression, I started to turn off the stress response I had been running on for 2 straight years and even more slowly I’m working through the relationship that remains between us.
I realized the strongest support I could give myself in all of that grief would come from me, and once I took the time to listen to what I needed, things began to change for the better. I hope you find what you need!
My best wishes on your journey.
Rosa
Wonderful idea! Thanks for sharing.
My principal strategies, in dealing with grief & loss, have been prayer, meditation, EFT, maintaining a journal & writing my book. My book is about confronting grief, moving through it & the road to forgiveness & healing, then reclaiming wholeness.
For me 2 strategies have been particularly effective:
1. Fully allowing myself to feel and go into whatever comes up in the moment
2. Using Trauma/Tension Release Exercises (TRE) and the shaking this induces which is wonderfully relaxing and sometimes helps me release emotions.
thank you.