How to deal with Grief — Law Wellness

David Kessler and Brene Brown on Grief and Finding Meaning

From the podcast “Unlocking Us” by Brene Brown

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was a Swiss-American psychiatrist who designed a theory for the five stages of grief, known as the “Kubler-Ross model”. David Kessler co-authored a book with Kubler-Ross called “On Grief and Grieving” where he added a sixth and seventh stage. The seven stages of grief are shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing, and acceptance. Kubler-Ross added the two steps as an extension of the grief cycle. In the shock phase, you feel paralyzed and emotionless.

Dancing with the concept of acceptance
1. Acceptance is not enough. You need to find meaning.
2. Regarding the 2020 pandemic, we are all dealing with a collective loss. Just as we did after 9/11. The world we are accustomed to is now gone.
3. Grief is the death of something. It’s a death of a loved one, a marriage (divorce), a job loss.
The meaning is not in the death. The meaning is in me.
1. The loss of normal. The loss of routine. The loss of physical touch. The loss of gathering. We cannot normalize it.
  1. If we don’t name it, we cannot feel it. We must name it.
2. We want to compare losses but you cannot do this. The worst loss is always yours. For a child, going to school is their worst loss right now. For a bereaved parent, it is the loss of a child. Everyone’s losses are legitimate.
  1. Read, “The Allegory of the Long Spoons”. This is a parable that compares the difference between heaven and hell. In hell, the inhabitants have bountiful food but are to serve themselves with long spoons. The people cannot get along and cooperate, so they starve. In heaven, everyone is cooperating and the diners are feeding each other. The difference between heaven and hell is taking care of each other. Something we are learning right now. (Credit: Wikipedia)
3. Example: a child loss does not necessarily cause a divorce. Two parents judging how the other is grieving is what causes the divorce.
  1. We all grieve differently. We somehow think if we love Mom, or Dad, or sister, etc., that we will all grieve the same. Then we think, well my husband is moving too quick and he didn’t love the child as much as I did.
  2. Two people with empty tanks cannot fill each other up.
  3. Judgment demands punishment. We will punish ourselves or punish someone else. You are going to feel bad in your judgment.
Is it ever too early to seek meaning?
1. Finding meaning is not a bypass to the pain. You are going to be in pain. If you don’t feel it, you can’t heal it. Meaning will be the cushion, but you must feel the pain.
2. The meaning is not in the death, but what we do after. It’s in us. It is what we create.
3. Your loss is not a blessing, or a test, or about gratitude. It just happens. Death just happens. Initially, when we have this thought of finding gratitude, we are talking about the wins. Getting up and taking a shower is a win. Taking care of your children is a win. There are experiences where you will have gratitude appear. After the loss of a child, you find the gratitude in various ways. It’s not in the death but in the person that you got to know in this lifetime. The fact that you met him. You didn’t even have to have that child or husband in this lifetime. The gratitude is around the person, not the trauma.
4. We are so busy trying to chase extraordinary moments. Instead, find meaning in the ordinary moments. Name it and be grateful for it.