It is important for a person to grieve and complete their relationship to the pain and unfinished business caused by a
death, divorce or any other significant emotional loss.
When is it time to do "grief work?"
This is the most difficult question facing grievers. Part of the problem stems from the biggest single inaccurate idea
that we were all socialized to believe: that "time heals all wounds." Time does not heal. It takes actions to
help discover and complete unfinished emotional business.
Therapy can help deal with unresolved grief. When we begin to discover and complete all of the things that ended, we
are able to resolve all of the broken hopes, dreams, and expectations.
Waiting to do grief work is potentially dangerous.
Most likely you’ve heard that grievers tend to create larger than life memory pictures in which they either enshrine
or bedevil the person or pet they lost. This phenomenon actually increases with time, making it more difficult to
discover the "truth" within the relationship.
There are some tipoffs that unresolved grief is interfering with our life.
Unresolved grief tends to take people "out of the moment," that is to cause you to be off in conversations with people
who are no longer physically there with you. This is not limited to death. You are equally likely to be lost in a
conversation with a former spouse, still living, who is not physically present. Assuming that your physical health
is okay, unresolved grief tends to drain you of energy.
Unresolved grief tends to close our hearts down. Since we’re
incomplete with a prior loss, we almost automatically "protect" ourselves by not loving again. More accurately, we
limit our loving exposure and thereby doom the new relationship to fail.
Commonly, grievers will hide their true feelings for fear of being judged. Where isolation is the problem,
participation is a major component of the solution. Support groups, counseling, and workshops are all aimed
at discovering and completing the unfinished emotional business that fuels the isolation.
Fortunately, grief counseling and grief therapy can help us to resolve these feelings and continue on with our lives.
