Coping with Grief and Significant Losses

 Distraught and running fingers over weepy eyes, Cindy related how her 29-year-old son died of a drug overdose and was found in a portable toilet in Los Angeles. A sheriff had visited her home to tell her what had happened.
“It’s about your son,” he started. “Don’t you tell me my son is dead,” Cindy screamed. “Don’t you do it!” In tears, Cindy described a surging feeling of wanting to break everything in her house and bolt out.
Cindy’s terror, heartache and confusion capture the shock of grief. Unfortunately, as a society, we are not trained or educated to cope with devastating loss experiences. Some people simply stuff it and try to move through life. Others feel they’ve run out of tears. Still others use alcohol, food or shopping to somehow cope.
Many have suffered so many losses they don’t remember why they hurt any more. “Loss on top of loss on top of loss, all wound up like a ball of yarn, says Jeff Zhorne, M.A., a Certified Grief Counselor in Santa Clarita. “Along comes another loss, and it’s one more wrap around a huge ball of hurt. Over time we can start to feel detached or numb.”
Some may wake up one day and discover they have shut off feelings completely. Others call someone like Zhorne and say, “I can’t get over my husband leaving me” or “My life stopped when she died.”
We get bewildered by not knowing what to do about unresolved pain. It sounds so overwhelming.
Grieving people can continue to stuff the feelings, shove them away or numb themselves until the losses become an ever-growing weight being carried around. He said buried pain is very real, has energy and doesn’t go away on its own. Unresolved grief will make itself known when least expected. Reactions become disproportionate to circumstances. Our emotional, mental and physical well-being suffers.
“Recovery starts by being able to freely express all the thoughts and emotions connected with loss,” Zhorne said. Maybe it’s regret, which is often associated with loss or grieving the loss of unrealized hopes, dreams and expectations.
“If you are tired of temporary pain relief, tired of quenching in, and want to expand your life and relationships, there are tools for finishing unfinished emotional loss,” Zhorne stated. Grief Recovery offers skills to be able to cherish fond memories of loved ones or move through the pain of less than loved ones. You can learn to risk intimacy again and find freedom to make healthy choices.
The Grief Program is offering a free community presentation on the tools and skills needed for working through significant emotional loss at 7 p.m. on Thursday, February 25, at the Education Center, Christ Lutheran Church, 25816 N. Tournament Road.
For more information, call The Grief Program at 661-733-0692 or visit www.TheGriefProgram.com.