This newsletter is dedicated to professional caregivers. It is our hope that this newsletter will help you give comfort and strength to those you serve.

Someone you love has died. In your heart you have come to know your deepest pain. Your grief has brought challenges that seem

beyond your own capacity to survive. Grief cre-ates chaos, and your soul cries out. You naturally experience a sense of helplessness and, at times, you feel the depths of hopelessness. It all feels so incredibly overwhelming. And as you live in this painful place, you come to learn that you must surrender to your grief, sit in your wound and make space for your lost self.

If your experience is in any way like my own and those of the thousands of mourners I have had the honour to walk with and learn from, you are feeling aban-doned and alone right now. You may instinctively be questioning the meaning and purpose of life. You recognize that so many things in your daily life have changed − your plans, your dreams, your concerns and your roles. You may discover yourself searching for a reason to go on living in the face of this loss and asking countless “How” and “Why” questions.

“How can this be happening?”

“How am I going to make it through this?”

“Why did this happen now, in this way?”

“Why am I feeling so lost?”

When we experience a loss − whether it is the death of someone loved, a divorce loss, the loss of a job or a significant change in health − it re-minds us of how little control we really have over some things about life and living. Naturally, these kinds of losses (among many others) can leave us feeling incredibly powerless, seemingly helpless and deeply hopeless at times.

When we lose someone we love, it changes us. The person who died was a part of you and part of your life. This death means you must mourn a loss not only outside yourself, but inside yourself as well. At times, overwhelming sadness and loneliness may be constant companions to you on this grief journey. You may feel that when this person died, part of you died with him or her. And now you are faced with finding some sense of meaning at a time when you may be feeling empty and alone.

Your loneliness and emptiness are often present, even in the midst of family and friends. When

by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.

Fall 2012

The Importance of Hope“Today… I open my heart’s hand to allow… the touch of hope.”

~Julia Cameron

others try to help by saying, “I know just how you feel,” they usu-ally do not. They cannot. They are not walking this walk for you. Your pain, your questions, your doubts, your fears are unique. No one can know exactly how this feels for you.

While your grief is unique, some of the questions you may be asking are universal. The fears, doubts and questions that come when we experience grief have been with us since the beginning of our awareness that loss is part of the cycle of life. Loss truly is an integral part of life. You are asking questions that others before you have raised. Questions that have been raised to God. Ques-tions that have been asked about God. Like others who have been where you are, you may be feeling distant from your God, perhaps even questioning the existence of God. These kinds of questions have been preserved in time because they belong to and are asked by most everyone who experiences the pain of loss.

So, like your fellow travellers on this grief journey, you are faced with sitting in the wound of your grief. When you sit in the wound of your grief, you surrender to it in recognition that the only way to the other side of the pain and hopelessness is through the pain and hope-lessness. You acknowledge that you are willing to do the work that mourning requires. Paradoxically, it is in befriending your wound that eventually you will restore your life and reinvest in living.

Loss of Your Divine Spark and the Role of Hope in Your HealingPeople in grief often come to see me on the sacred grounds of the Center for Loss and Life Transition. When they begin their grief journey, they often start by expressing their sense of hopelessness by saying, “I feel so hopeless,” or, “I am not sure I can go on liv-ing.” Like you, the losses that have touched their lives have natu-rally muted, if not extinguished, their divine spark. Their divine spark is that internal energy that gives meaning and purpose to life. Your divine spark or life force is the keeper of your mind, your body and your soul.

I discovered some time ago that a central part of my helping role is to gently and quietly bring hope to those in grief; hope that encour-

ages them to discover a renewed divine spark and a desire to re-enter life with meaning and purpose. Each and every one of us as humans has a divine spark. We are each the keeper of our own spark or life force. My personal life losses and my role as a caregiver to others have taught me that hope is the vital ingredient that helps us re-ignite our divine spark after loss breaks our hearts and touches our souls.

The more I reflected on the role of hope in healing from life losses, the more compelled I was to write an article that would help mourners invite hope into their lives. This article invites you to find and experience the hope that you will need to slowly, over time, and with no reward for speed, mourn well so that you can go on to live well and love well. My wish for you is that these pages help you

nurture your divine spark back toward light and life. This article, directed from my heart to your heart, is an invitation to come out of the dark and into the light.

My hope is that you find this little article to be a gentle compan-ion that gives you wisdom and strength for today, tomorrow and each day that follows.

My Prayer For YouMay you continue to discover hope − an expectation of a good that is yet to be. May you continue to find new ways to renew your divine spark and to believe that meaning, purpose and love will come back into your life. No, you did not go in search of this loss. But it has come to you, and you have discovered the importance of sitting in your wound on the pathway to your healing. If you give up, the essence of who you are will die or be muted for the rest of your life. Hope can and will keep this from happening.

May you never give up and may you consciously choose life! May you turn your face to the radiance of joy every day. May you live in the continued awareness that you are being cradled in love by a caring presence that never deserts you. May you keep your heart open wide and receptive to what life brings you, both happy and sad. And may you walk a pathway to living your life fully and on purpose until you die.

Blessings to you as you befriend hope and choose to celebrate life. May your divine spark shine brightly as you share your gifts and your love with the universe.

About the Author

This article is excerpted from Dr. Alan Wolfelt’s book The Mourner’s Book of Hope: 30 Days of Inspiration, available at book stores and at Dr. Wolfelt’s website, www.centerforloss.com. Dr. Wolfelt is an interna-tionally-noted author, teacher and grief counsellor. He serves as direc-tor of the Center for Loss and Life Transition and is an educational consultant to funeral homes, hospices, hospitals, schools and a variety of community agencies across North America.

…hope is the vital ingredient that

helps us re-ignite our divine spark

after loss breaks our hearts and touches

our souls.

By Dr. Earl A. Grollman

All who work with those who have sustained the death of loved ones have heard these

reactions:

Denial. “When I wake up, maybe my beloved will be next to me.” Fleeting moments of disbelief provide a tempo-rary shelter from their torment.

Numbness. “I feel like a specta-tor under anesthesia.” The emotional system is shut down to allow a cushion of time before the reality of loss crushes down upon them.

Anger. “How could God allow this to happen?” Resentment exposes their fury and frustration.

Panic. “What’s going to happen to me?” They are overwhelmed by feelings of panic and helplessness.

Envy. “My friends are all so happy. Why not me?” Jealousy is a reaction to those who have what they no longer enjoy.

Relief. “No longer will I have to take care of him/her 24-7.” Waves of deliver-ance are often mingled with pangs of guilt.

Guilt. “How could I let my son take the car out when the roads were icy?” If only they could turn back the clock. But they can’t.

Depression. “I feel dead inside.” Death has cut them loose from their moorings and they are adrift in life’s most turbulent dilemmas.

Question: Are the above feelings abnormal? Before you respond, read on.

Is the normal grief of death, which in-cludes the reactions of the preponderance of survivors who we counsel, a clinical depression? A harbinger of mental illness? If we were to refer to the psychiatric Di-agnostic and Statistical Manual of Men-tal Disorder (DSM-V), that is now being compiled, the answer would be a resound-ing “yes” – for buried in the fine print is a proposal that typical grief reactions be labelled as a major depressive-disorder – a pathology. Such an interpretation would radically enlarge the formerly accepted boundaries of mental illness.

For example, when a spouse dies as a re-sult of a drunk driver, it would be con-sidered pathological for the bereaved to

exhibit reactions of denial, numbness, anger, panic, envy and depression. My guess is that most of you would object to what we consider these typical rever-berations of loss. Right?

The renowned Harvard psychiatrist and anthropologist, Professor Arthur Klein-man, in his book, The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition, laments the fact that the grief follow-ing the death of a loved one is too easily pathologized and medicalized. Sadness after loss is made into a disease, remak-ing the normal into the abnormal.

There are, however, bereaved who do become clinically depressed. After an extended period of time they feel that they are falling into a “black hole” with no possible escape – trapped with nowhere to turn. They experience no pleasure in being with anyone or doing anything. They are “stuck” in their grief without significant movement or prog-ress. In these instances, professional help must be encouraged. After all, clinical depression is a treatable mental health problem with proper diagnosis, therapy, medication and self-help.

Good Grief

Thus, the rationale of the DSM-V for labelling mourning as a pathology – to ensure that mourners who do exhibit potential life-threatening behaviours such as risky sexual practices, ac-cident proneness, and alcohol and drug addiction receive im-mediate treatment. But we must distinguish between clinical depression and normal grief reactions.

Mourner’s Grief has Many Faces

Dr. Granger Westberg wrote in his book, Good Grief, “You can-not live without experiencing your grief in a thousand differ-ent ways.” Often when the bereaved are asked, “Where does it hurt?” they want to scream, “Everywhere!” The intricate mourning process affects them emotionally, cognitively, physi-cally, spiritually and behaviourally.

Emotionally. Everywhere they turn, another memory is triggered, another swelling of emotions is prompted. “Is this really happening? What have I done to deserve this? I want to run away, anywhere!”

Cognitively. “I can’t concentrate. I’m so disoriented, liv-ing in a fog. Am I losing my mind?” They talk out loud to the one who died. Are they crazy?

Physically. Grief can make the chest grow taut, the throat constrict, the stomach knot, the head pound. Somatic distur-bances are the bodies’ reactions to their tragedies.

Spiritually. After the deaths of loved ones, some believers become non-believers. “Is God too distant to be of help? And, is there a God?”

Behaviourally. “I sometimes cry for no reason at all. The slightest effort leaves me exhausted. I got lost going to the grocery store!”

Grief is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity; the price they pay for love. Part of them has been buried with their beloved. Survivors must restructure their lives without their loved ones with a future that appears murky and bewildering. This is a new normal. Their lives will never be the same.

The loss is unchartered territory without firm rules and abso-lutes. There is no correct way to grieve. There is no calendar for the length of their lament. It takes as long as it takes. Coun-sellors validate their feelings and help them to vent their pain-ful reactions. Sorrow may never completely disappear, but with time and support, their pangs may become less intense.

Again, if pathological symptoms appear (e.g., suicidal ide-ation), immediate intervention is required. Note that DSM-V is still in the formulative stages and will not be published until May, 2013. Changes are being considered such as a new category of Complicated or Traumatic Grief Disorders. While waiting for the new edition, let us be wary of calling grief’s sad-ness “clinical depression.”

C.S. Lewis in Grief Observed stated: “Grief and pain are the price we humans have to pay for the love and total commit-ment we have for another person. The more we love, the more we hurt when we lose the object of our love. But if we are hon-est with ourselves, would we have it any other way?”

Dr. Earl A. Grollman, a pioneer in crisis management, is internationally acclaimed as a writer and lecturer. A recipient

of the Death Education Award by the Association for Death Education and Counseling, his books on coping with

bereavement have sold close to a million copies.

For further information, visit www.beacon.org/grollman.

About the Author

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Grief is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity;

the price they pay for love.