“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
Grief is something everyone faces in their lifetime. The definition of grief is "a normal response to losing something of significance in one's life." Most people think of grief as losing a loved one, but it goes way beyond that. Many today feel some connection to the collective grief of mass shootings, the demise of Mother Earth, and other societal calamities. We feel grief when we divorce, when we leave a community, and when we face significant health challenges that impact our energy and mobility. We experience grief with trauma and significant neglect. Even such things as shame hold elements of grief.
Grief is a heavy energy that is truly unbearable on one's own. Ideally friends and family are supportive and available, but that is the exception rather than the rule. Western society is not filled with people that are comfortable sitting with another in pain, especially a pain that often calls one to come face-to-face with their own mortality. This is where professional support can be needed to break the isolation that otherwise comes with grief.
Grief work is highly relational work. Dr. Alan Wolfelt describes the notion of "companioning" someone in their grief. All 11 tenets he outlines are available at this link, but suffice it to say it is about sitting with someone in spaciousness, acceptance, unknowing, and presence. This is the foundation of healing from grief. Beyond that, we also work with people to look at the impact grief is having on their life emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically, and relationally. We also help people to identify what their needs are in this very difficult stage of life and find ways to have them met.
So far we have only looked at the downside of grief, and there are many. Another thing to remember though is grief offers one of the most significant opportunities for transformation in one's life. We are not the same person after we've gone through a difficult loss. While many people ascribe to the notion of the "new normal" as a diminished state of life, it does not have to be that in the long run. Doing the work necessary for deep healing can open up one's heart and possibility in one's life beyond what existed before the loss. A quote from Maya Angelou describes this beautifully, "I will be affected by things that happen to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it." Grief will "reduce" us in the short term, inviting us to that always-difficult surrender, but that does not need to be a permanent state.
Working through all grief is hard, deep work. Stigmatized grief such as that associated with suicide or overdose requires even more ability to companion the bereaved. Other types of grief that require specific expertise include complicated grief, disenfranchised grief, and cumulative grief. Believe in the possibility of healing from grief and reach out for support to work through this very painful time in your life.
Listen to AnnE on Finding New Waters Podcast: Grief Uncovered
Listen to AnnE’s interview on the Holistic Counseling Podcast
“We were fortunately introduced to AnnE at the most tragic moment in our lives. It was AnnE’s insight and spiritual guidance that tethered us to a space of sanctity and awareness, giving us the space to find solace and meaning in the midst of our most devastating loss, and enabling us to survive and thrive. ”
Grief In Recovery
Grief in Recovery – compassionate, professional support to help you develop the ability to heal from grief and loss AND stay clean and sober at the same time.
Grief in Recovery is dedicated to dealing with the challenges and implications of grief and loss for those with issues of addiction. I honor that there are many “faces” and sources of grief – not just the death of a loved one.
Grief is a challenging, hard emotion for everyone to deal with – and it is all the more challenging for those with addiction issues… and all the more critical that it be dealt with effectively. I aim to provide people with addiction issues the tools and support to heal from grief and loss while staying clean.
Grief and (early) recovery have a lot in common. With both of them, our emotions are erratic, unpredictable, and can be challenging to accept and understand – for both oneself and our loved ones. Mental focus often feels evasive. Memory seems shot and our ability to process thought and comprehend things just is not there sometimes. There are also the physical challenges of out-of-whack sleep cycles and eating patterns. It’s overwhelming to someone newly clean and sober and jolting to those with some clean time who thought they were beyond these extremes.
I have supported many people at all stages of recovery in coming to grips with their grief. Some recognized that grief had a powerful grip on them but didn’t know how to get to the other side. Many felt they had successfully pushed their loss(es) off to the side and gone on with their life, then realized how much their substance use had increased with each and every painful loss. Wherever a person finds themselves as they begin this journey, I will meet you there and guide you gently to healing and freedom.
In her review of AnnE’s memoir, If You Want the Rainbow, Welcome the Rain: A Memoir of Grief & Recovery, Rev. Diane Berke, founder of One Spirit Learning Alliance, wrote, Perhaps at the deepest core of all true healing is the experience of grace that tells us, ‘You are not alone.’ She then goes on to share about how AnnE’s book provides this companionship….Well, AnnE herself also provides this companionship – and to a much greater degree.
“AnnE is a skilled teacher and consistently and lovingly taught the most essential part of grieving: honoring one’s own process. She is a teacher, a healer, and above all, a true master at creating sacred space.”