When someone experiences emotional and mental pain through a difficult experience or through the loss of a relationship in any form, grief follows. Grief is an important step that must be experienced in order to heal. I’ve watched people think it’s a badge of honor to just continue on bravely with their lives after a loss, to push away the sadness and not admit that it is one of the hardest things they’ve ever had to do. I’ve also seen people take their pain to new heights, only to watch that pain control their lives in a very negative way. There are steps to grieving, and feeling grief over any type of loss is a step that must be taken and cannot be skipped. Subsequent healing won’t happen unless all the steps of grief are experienced one by one.
I remember the shock I felt when I learned about Phil’s abuse problem. It was not real to me at first – I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. Over and over again I denied what was happening. This could not be happening to me! And not to my children and people that I loved! But the problem did not go away, and I had to wake up to the fact that I couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened. I had to deal with it. When disaster comes into our lives, we all have to choose how we are going to deal with a life crisis. At first I choose to sleep. My waking hours were my nightmare, so I slept to get away from the nightmare of my new reality. But when I woke up the elephant in the room was still there, and I had to find a way to cope.
So I began my grieving. I shed so many tears and felt so much pain. At one point I couldn’t understand how my physical body was still alive because my soul seemed to be dying. How could I still be physically alive when I felt so much emotional pain? Couldn’t this much emotional pain kill a person? The despair, the hopelessness I felt was real, and I just wanted the pain to end. I wished to die. I knew that there was a loving Father in Heaven watching over me, and I wanted to go to Him. At times I wished that someone would just commit me to a mental institution and let me stay there, pretending that my life wasn’t really my life. All I knew what that I just didn’t want to think about it anymore.
But then my children would appear. They would come to me as I cried and they would wrap their sweet little arms around me and try to console me. They didn’t want me to cry. They would tell me how much they loved me and touch my face and wipe my tears away. The fact was that they had lost their father. That wasn’t easy for them, and maybe their young minds couldn’t understand their own pain just yet. But they comforted me in their sufferings and I wanted to live for them. I knew that Phil could no longer be in their lives, and if I was to give in to the despair and die, what parent would they have left? Children need a loving parent, even if it’s only one. One loving parent is better than losing both. So I choose to live, to grieve and try to get on with our lives. I choose to live for them. They saved my life very literally.
I also found that it was important for me to cry. It was a relief in a way, and it actually felt good and healing to shed a few tears. Tears are often expressions of emotional and mental pain. Most people don’t want to be seen crying in front of other people – it’s embarrassing, maybe humiliating and some think it’s a weakness to feel so much emotion. I began to let down those restrictive walls that are imposed upon our emotions, and I cried. It wasn’t just the grief I felt over Phil’s choices that led me to cry, but I became much more emotional over many things. When I attended church and was touched by someone speaking or a song, a message, it felt like I had gained a new kind of freedom to be able to weep in front of others. I looked forward to the times when I could cry, unashamed and unencumbered and let my emotions flow freely without embarrassment of any kind. Because it felt so healing to cry, I didn’t care what others were thinking of me and I began to think that is was sad when others held back their tender emotions. It didn’t hurt anyone or anything to show that the spirit had touched my heart and then to express those feelings through my grateful tears. Whoever said that men shouldn’t cry because it isn’t manly or that women shouldn’t cry because we have to keep our emotions in check? Those are silly, old fashioned notions of what men and women are. I believe that men and women alike are supposed to become like Christ, not stern or lacking in affection or feelings, but gentle, kind and meek. Christ openly wept in front of others and showed forth beautiful, tender feelings toward all people. If becoming like Christ is our goal, why are we sometimes so afraid to cry?
I think we are afraid because once we start crying, it may be difficult to stop. We may lose all control over our emotions for a time. That is what real grief does to us, and crying is an important step in the grieving process. I wondered why it felt so good for me to cry at times? So I did some research and found some important information about the good that crying does for us.
First, tears help remove toxins from our bodies. Toxins can build up in our bodies due to stress. The tears that are released when we are in distress or experiencing grief are more toxic than the tears we may shed at other times. Chemicals can build up in our bodies during stressful times, and so it’s actually healthy to cry and release those toxins from our bodies. A natural emotional cleanse as it were. Suppressing our tears can lead to an increase in stress levels, thus affecting our overall health and contributing to diseases that are affected by high levels of stress. Tears can elevate your mood because it changes the levels of certain proteins in your body that can cause nervousness, fatigue and just unhappiness. So crying can make you happier and balance your emotional state. Tears help release oppressive feelings due to all kinds of things we experience, and help our bodies feel better. Tears kill bacteria as they wash germs out of our bodies through our eyes, which helps to fight off infection. Due to the wet nature of tears, their basic function is to help us see. It sounds like they not only help us see physically, but spiritually as well – washing away pain so that we can have a clear perspective to move forward. And one more thing that I noticed that tears did for me…they connected me to others. They broke down my old desires to hold back my emotions and allowed me to share my true feelings with others. People who wanted to express heart felt feelings and hard life circumstances of their own came out of the woodwork to talk to me, and we would comfort and help one another. We become more like Christ if we can break down the barriers that keep our emotions in a hardened state. Tears became a bonding experience between me and my family and friends. I’d say that tears are a miracle, both physically and spiritually.
There were other steps of grieving that I went through. There was the guilt I felt for marrying Phil in the first place. Maybe I hadn’t made the best choice to marry him, but because he was a master of deceit, he’d never given me cause to think that he could do such terrible things. I felt guilty that I didn’t see his deception or the times he carefully planned things out so that he could be alone with children. I just didn’t know what was inside of him. I had to feel all that guilt of “not knowing” before I could let go of it.
Then anger came along. I was so angry at what he had done. He had ruined my life, he had changed everything and I wanted God to punish him! I can’t say that feeling anger feels very good – it was very unsettling to me and yet, I knew my anger was channeled in the right direction. The decisions he made to abuse were his decisions, not mine. I had every right to be angry at him and what he had done. If there was any time in my life when my anger had a real purpose, this was it. Though I didn’t want to remain in a place of anger in my heart all the time, I had to feel the anger and express it before I could let it go. I wrote letters to Phil that were never sent. I didn’t want to send them, afraid they would open a door that would start him communicating with me. Those letters were still therapeutic for me as I wrote down my anger, sadness, frustration and grief. It was a step that helped me to heal.
From previous chapters you’ll know that depression set in for me. Doubts about myself, my own worth, whether or not I wanted to live or die swirled around inside me. Any time I saw good things happening to others, it made me feel depressed. Why did it appear that other people’s lives so good and mine was in the sewer? I wished to have their lives, not mine. I wished to be taken from this earth and away from my troubles. In many ways, life didn’t seem worth living for a long time.
As I was going through my divorce and the life that followed, my grief seemed to linger. In an effort to heal, I chose to read scriptures and uplifting books written by people that I felt I could trust. I needed words of wisdom and counsel that would help me understand what I was going through and how I could get beyond it. My days were busy, filled with the usual struggles of parenting, (and single parenting), trying to help my children heal, working outside the home, etc., so there wasn’t much time for me. I would read late at night. Like a famished child I would read and these good books were like manna to my aching soul. I read things that gave me a deeper understanding about life’s trials and helped me connect with my Father in Heaven. One of the great things I learned from my reading was the need to focus on my blessings and be thankful for all that I did still have. Gratitude helped me change my focus from “oh, poor me” to, “look at all the amazing blessings that I have in my life!” I may have lost the full family unit that I cherished, but I had my children, which were my greatest gifts. I had been born into a family where the gospel was taught and lived – how many people in the world can say they have the gospel in their lives? I had a place to live, food on the table, clothes to wear and a loving extended family that helped me survive. And as I prayed and thanked my Father in Heaven for all that I did still have, I was blessed with an amazing amount of peace in a very un-peaceful time. I couldn’t believe how much peace I felt – it didn’t make sense that I would feel so peaceful.
People often say that we need to count our blessings. That is important, but it’s not the counting of them that really matters – it’s the focusing on our blessings that makes the difference. If I was struggling and feeling sorry for myself, it dragged me down to a sad and hopeless place in my mind and my thoughts. It was so easy to feel sorry for myself and I felt like I had every right to do so, but having the right didn’t make things “right”. Focusing on the terrible things that had happened was tremendously oppressive. If my mind reached outside that sad place, looking for and recognizing the blessings that were still in my life and all around me, I could climb out of my dark hole to a happy and appreciative state of mind. It was amazing what I found to be grateful for, things that I hadn’t even considered blessings at previous times in my life. Focusing on our blessings can change the dark and negative times in our lives to feelings of light, creating positive attitudes and thoughts. It is a choice to be grateful. I wanted to choose gratitude.
I love to sing. Music can be healing and singing helped center my mind on more positive thoughts when I sang. I believe singing can actually change thought patterns and give you deeper connections to ideas, people and God. Good music becomes a part of who you are. It was a blessing for me to sing, and it got me through some tough times.
One song that had a profound effect on me was about a bird and the power they have because they can fly. It reminded me of one day when I was watching a couple of beautiful birds outside my living room window as they flew back and forth from tree to tree in my yard. When the little finches and robins landed on the strong branches, their weight didn’t have any effect on the movement of the branches. But sometimes they perched themselves on the weakest of the branches. The boughs bent deeply as the birds took their positions, and it appeared that the weak branches could barely hold their weight. But the birds didn’t seem too concerned about the strength of the branches, because if the bough bent too much, they simply used their wings and flew away from the instability. And sometimes they sang as they went. Maybe they sing because they can fly.
I believe that we can be like those birds. Our Heavenly Father gave us “wings” to fly – wings of love, of gratitude, of hope, looking to Christ to help us soar upward towards Him, even during the most trying situations in life. We don’t have to fall to the ground when those ”boughs” or trials can’t hold the weight of what we are going through, because we have the ability to be thankful and mentally sing through the trials, flying above them on wings of hope and unnumbered blessings.
I’m not saying it was easy. There were still endless times that I had to face the darkness of the situation I was in, but I didn’t want to remain in that darkness. Gratitude pulled me away from the fully encompassing sadness I felt. I saw that my cup truly “runneth over” with blessings. Yes, I had lost my life’s dream of a happy marriage right now, but I could not lose me and the hope for my children. I felt joy in my children, which made me to rejoice! I could see an eternal perspective as I felt gratitude for my life. It opened up my mind to possibilities because it made me feel hope. Gratitude helps to put things in perspective and gives hope for the future. The future with no hope is dismal. Choose gratitude! It will always help to heal the grief.
Old Testament, Psalms 23
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shallow of death, I will fear no evil: for though art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest me head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”