Loss Is Not Only From Death –
                                                           Loss & Grief are LIFE Experiences!

In the course of our lifetime, there are many transitions, or Rites of Passage, that we all experience.  Some are celebrations – like births, graduations and marriages.  Other transitions bring about grief and mourning – separations, divorce and miscarriages.  Changes caused by death of a beloved, however, are the most notable.  But from my years of experience as a Grief & Loss Specialist, I have been deeply impressed by the number of losses that triggers grief but remain unacknowledged by both clients and their loved ones.  Mostly because they are losses that do not involve the death of a loved one and so the ensuing emotional struggle is not recognized as grief.

This is because we tend to assign one cause to grief : death.  But grief is triggered by more than one type of loss. Loss also occurs when any attachment that is the glue in our life is either severed or significantly diminished, causing a serious disruption to our emotional stability, triggering grief.

Additionally I contend that as these significant attachments are either severed or diminished throughout our lives, how we react and adjust to these experiences becomes incorporated into our memory bank -or our emotional road map as I like to call it – guiding and directing us through future life experiences of loss.  Let me get more concrete here about how we develop our own emotional road maps.

Let’s first look at some of our earliest childhood attachments with family, peers and friends.  Oftentimes a change in circumstances, beyond our control, creates real loss of attachments close to hearts: a best friend moves away impacting our friendship in multiple ways; a favorite family pet dies or becomes lost.  Or we move to a new neighborhood, a new school.   Most of these changes to what has been ‘our norm’ were not recognized as a ‘loss,’ per say, by either family, peers or even ourselves.  After all, we were just kids so what did we know?  We made adjustments we were expected to make and did so, generally, without a lot of drama.  Some kids adjusted easily.  Others struggled inwardly, quietly.  Especially if these changes are prompted by divorce.

As we leave behind our relatively carefree childhood and ‘Rite of Passage’ into the greater responsibilities of adulthood, we store these childhood transitions in our internal road map.  Lessons learned from these experiences now become our compass.  The only way we know to manage the adjustments that are sure to come in adulthood.

Divorce is one of the more unexpected transitions of adulthood that is often overlooked as a loss, especially by the person initiating it!  It causes a whole range of broken attachments, most noteworthy, the person we once loved has fall out of love and divorce us – or we them.  We’ve also lost friends, cherished in-laws who often feel the need to take sides.  There are places – like home with its neighborhood, school and place of worship – now gone.  Kids of divorce are also ‘collateral damage’ when losss of people and places impact their lives!  Things like dreams and future goals that once provided the glue to our marriage, are now forever shattered by circumstances unforeseen when vows were exchanged!  Emotional struggles follow in its wake.  It is here that  our emotional road map, our internal compass,  takes over, guiding our reactions, our adjustment to the numerous losses created by divorce.  These reactions may promote our healthy healing or hinder it.  When the latter happens, our internal compass has become ineffective in guiding us, a fact often ignored.

Then there’s the familiar adult transition into the Sunset Years,  starting with the ‘empty nest’  experience of grown children now leaving our home to begin their own lives and homes.  This brings with it a mixture of ‘bitter-sweet’ emotions: joy alternating with sadness.  Sadness is often unacknowledged – denied or dismissed – because joy is the logical emotion, incompatible with the joy we genuinely feel.  As we ‘rite of passage’ into retirement, some experience health issues that restrict their mobility and quality of life.  Our  home – lovingly call ‘our castle,’ – has to be left behind as we re-location into retirement homes and nursing facilities.  Our zest for life now stolen by physical disabilities and decline.  A very sad reality but reality nevertheless!  Losses pile up:  a mountain of accumulated losses over a lifetime. This is why I contend that loss is not just about death but rather the result of multiple losses from people, places and things, all undoubtedly the glue of our life.

These are just a handful of lifetime examples of how we’ve learned the ‘right way’ to manage the pain from our losses: namely, discard them like a used kleenex  or bury them.  Each loss becomes one of many other unacknowledged losses from our past that has been presumably ‘safely buried away.’  Just one more body, so to speak, to be added to the other buried bodies.  These analogous buried bodies become the lessons we then draw upon to direct and guide us – become part of our unique emotional road map – when additional life transitions and changes challenge us.

Sometimes all it takes is a ‘last straw’ from life to break our surprisingly fragile stability and emotional equilibrium. Loss from death most certainly does this, though divorce can be a close second.

Give a voice now to these lifetime losses and learn tools that can assist with future changes so that you avoid unhealthy healing and the unhappiness it can festers.