1 28 10 A Lifetime of Healing and Growth

Dear Ted:
Over the past few years I have felt enormous pain with different types of losses and I am grateful to say, last year there were not any major ones. I’m surprised that I keep having tough days; anniversaries take me down and the emotional rollercoaster just continues. How long does it take to feel better? Sincerely, Ready for a Break,

Dear Ready:
It is clear that you are working and healing from losses and it is good to see you are consciously aware of a grief process in which you are identifying and expressing your emotions. As your losses are still recent and over the past year you have experienced many secondary losses, you are still working with the primary loss. What I mean by this is when you have a loss such as death there is the primary loss of the death of your loved one. It may force you to make changes that begin new losses such as financial, familial, identity, geographical and other changes that were not expected in your life and are forcing you to redefine yourself and rebuild yourself in many categories of your personal and professional life. All of these changes are actually losses and play beneath the shadow of your primary loss that was the catalyst for change. You also talk about anniversaries and other special times that may hit you like a 2x4 and cause another flood of emotions. This emotional wave may happen for no obvious reason as well. This is your body and your emotions trying to catch up with the actual fact of a loss in your life. Your brain may have factual information yet your psyche may take years to integrate this fact into your emotional pool of the conscious and unconscious. The more these two can integrate, the easier it will be to ride the roller coaster of grief and loss. The ebb and flow of healing is like a massage that is slowly allowing you to not have has many painful lows. Loss does not go away but it does change. I see it as a slow transition from anguish, to high levels of pain, to longing, to sadness and then missing, with different triggers that spike any or all levels to pop back into the present moment. Each spike will then subside and as you allow yourself permission to have these different emotions, it also becomes easier to trust they will pass and you can survive the ride. As the years go on and you are able to dance with the healing process, You will still have these different levels of emotions and you will start to have more time of joy, presence, connection, gratitude and possibly transforming the lessons from your losses and the wisdom from those teachers into clarity, self-realization and step more clearly into the present moment while honoring the past. Until next week, take care.

Golden Willow Retreat is a nonprofit organization focused on emotional healing. Please direct questions to Ted Wiard, LPCC, CGC, founder of Golden Willow Retreat and clinical supervisor for Teambuilders Counseling at (575) 776-2024 or GWR@newmex.com.