I am rereading Melody Beatte's book, "Codependent No More," and I am very surprised to see how she spends a lot of time on the grieving process.
She writes,
"A codependent person or a chemically dependent person may be in many stages of the grief process for several losses, all during the same time. Denial, depression, bargaining, and anger may all come rushing in. We may not know what we're trying to accept. We may not even know we're struggling to accept a situation. We may simply feel like we've gone crazy"
"We may travel back and forth; from anger to denial, from denial to bargaining, from bargaining back to denial. Regardless of the speed and route we travel through these stages, we must travel through them. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross says it is not only a Normal Process, it is a necessary process, and each stage is necessary. We must ward off the blows of life until we are better prepared to deal with them. We must feel anger and pain and blame until we have gotten them out of our system..."
"Grief, like any genuine emotion, is accompanied by certain physical changes and the release of a form of psychic energy. If that energy is not expended in the normal process of grieving, it becomes destructive within a person. Even physical illness can be a penalty for unresolved grief..." Melody
"Learn the Art of Acceptance. It's a lot of grief" Melody
This section in the book has opened my eyes to many things. First that the five stages of grief don't run in a straight line, nor do they wait their turn, you can actually be flung from one to another in rapid succession AND, we can be processing many losses at one time.
I can see the road I traveled and why. And I love that she (Elisabeth and Melody) allow us to be in our stages of grief for as long as it takes, that there are no rules, that we will PROCESS that which we need to process in our own time.
I knew I was grieving, what I failed to appreciate was how many feelings I had repressed that had to be felt, as well as brand new ones that came in.
Not only did I have to grieve the loss of a father and mother in my past, but had to do so in the present moment as well when they failed to act parental in this moment in time. AND, to say nothing of processing my loss childhood and me...siblings, religion and all the trappings that go with.
What I also wasn't truly understanding while I was living it, was that my feelings my feelings were the key to healing.
She writes,
"Another problem with repressed feelings is they don't go away. They linger, sometimes growing stronger and causing us to do many peculiar things. We have to stay one step ahead of the feelings, we have to stay busy, we have to do something. We don't dare get quiet and peaceful because we might then feel these emotions. And the feeling might squeak out anyway, causing us to do something we never intended to do; scream at the kids, kick the cat, spill on our favorite dress, or cry at the party. We get stuck in feelings because we are trying to repress them, and like a persistent neighbor, they will not go away until we acknowledge their presence."
"The big reason for NOT repressing feelings is that emotional withdrawal causes us to lose our positive feelings. We lose the ability to feel. Sometimes, this may be a welcome relief if the pain becomes too great or too constant, but this in not a good plan for living. We may shut down our deep needs - our need to love and be loved - when we shut down our emotions. We may lose our ability to enjoy sex, the human touch. We may lose the ability to feel close to people, otherwise known as intimacy. We lose our capacity to enjoy the pleasant things of life."
"We lose touch with ourselves and our environment. We are no longer in touch with our instincts. We become unaware of what our feelings are telling us and any problems in our environment. We lose the motivating power of feelings. If we aren't feeling we're probably not examining the thinking that goes with it, and we don't know what our selves are telling us. And if we don't deal with feelings we don't change and we don't grow. We stay stuck."
"Feelings may not always be a barrel of gladness, but repressing them can be downright miserable..." Melody
When I let the gate open to ALL feelings, I was overwhelmed and flooded, lost in the sea of emotions. I sat for days (really years) and just felt. I wrote and felt, and walked and felt and expressed and swore and hollered and vented. I cried and cried and sorrow poured from me...
When I finally sat down to feel, I had 40 years worth of feeling to do.
The past emotions clashed with my present day ones to be felt, and the volume was scary and volatile, I literally thought I was losing my mind, but what I was really doing was coming alive.
I not only was feeling feelings on the darkest end of the spectrum, but I was at the same time feeling the most exquisite feelings of warmth, joy, peace, love.
I was moved to tears by beauty.
While it may be the scariest of rides, this ride through the grieving process, to accept the horrors of life, it also is the gateway into living an authentic feeling life.
My feelings now are welcome, for I know the cost of repression AND how it really is an act that is futile; for unexpressed emotions never leave you....time travelers they have been called.
All you are doing is blocking ALL feelings. If you can't feel the sorrow, you will not be able to feel the love, the peace and the joy.
I lived blocked, like a block of wood for way too long. I now celebrate feeling! It matters not to me what the feelings, are I accept them all.
This book also offers to me and explanation for so many who are unable to walk in their truth...and feel. It explains how they are not skipping around the mountain, but trying to hold it back...they can until they can't. For now, they are not willing to leave that stage of the grieving process.
