We encounter situations in life that trigger thoughts, emotions, and sometimes even deeper traumas within us. This is also what happens in the case of loss. It is an event that, in itself, can be traumatic while also awakening experiences that left a mark on us. Thus, I too felt forgotten areas rekindling within me and thoughts emerging from their ashes.
Loss, abandonment, rejection—concepts that conceal a common idea behind them. Something very important to us is lost. Something so important that it simultaneously satisfies many of our needs. Perhaps what we lost made us feel safe, sparked our interest, made us feel important and capable of growing, giving us a sense of ‘belonging’, the feeling that we love and are loved.
So we grieve when we lose a loved one, we grieve when we lose a relationship, we grieve when we lose our job or when the time comes to retire. The pain is very intense and its raison d'être is very significant because, along with the significant other, we lose a ‘mountain’ of beautiful emotions and life-giving needs they provided us.
Loss is the first thing we learn when we come into life. It is there to welcome us; one might say it wants to prepare us. For this experience to be a gift to carry with us for the rest of our lives. We are violently parted from a sea so warm, so quiet, so serene that we may never encounter its equal again. Paradoxical? An infant mourns this loss, yet it is this loss that signals its welcome into life. Some say where there is death, there is life. When something dies, something else is born. Is the cycle of life like this? Who knows?;
Loss accompanies us perhaps much more often than we think. In moments when someone insults us, we may be grieving for that lost self-confidence with which a person is born, but can lose even in the very first months of their life. You might also think of those moments when your partner withdraws and with them the security they offered you; perhaps this too is a small grief for that lost security which every person has the potential to well up within themselves.
Even in the moments when we realize the dark parts of our character and prepare to say goodbye to them because they have hurt us deeply, even then we grieve, despite the empowerment and the welcoming of a stronger and brighter version of ourselves. This happens often in psychotherapy. Much like the moment we lose our parents—no matter how mature we have grown—even their presence signifies that someone is still there for us, in whatever way they exist, gentle or rough. Then we realize that the time has come to mature even further; we have no other choice, we no longer have that ‘first’ hand to hold onto. Once again we say goodbye to a piece of our old self and painfully welcome the new... like a birth.
Grief is closely linked with withdrawal. The greater the loss, the more intense the grief and sorrow. The more important what we lost is to us, the greater the withdrawal. Is there a reason why we withdraw when we mourn? What is the function of grief?;
Is our organism trying to protect us? Do we hurt in order to learn? Withdrawal gives us the opportunity to think about and process what has happened, both in our thoughts and in our emotions. This processing can grant us experiences—lessons written deep within us—which we can keep as gifts or offer to our loved ones, to our children.
So what is this grief I am experiencing teaching me? Do I want to let sorrow overwhelm me and allow my sobs to give meaning to the loss I am living?.
I will not allow anyone or anything to tell me: ‘Don't cry’. No social rule will stand in the way of my right to feel and express myself. I have the right to experience every wave of sorrow that comes. And if someone tells me: ‘Don't cry because you're upsetting me’, I have this to say to them: ‘If you really want to be close to me, hold my hand and allow yourself to feel whatever you feel when you see my wet eyes, and you will understand me even better; the fact that my grief upsets you too connects me with you, and I need that connection right now. If you can't bear it or don't want to be near me, that is acceptable, but do not stand in the way of my emotion...’