Grieving Your Losses

As counselors, one of the phrases that rolls off our tongues easily is:

“You have to grieve your losses.”

“Great” says a lot of clients “How do I do that?”

I really had to think about that for a while. I mean I know how to feel sad, but I am aware that it’s more than that. So I started at the beginning of the grief process as theorized by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying.

The first stage according to Kubler-Ross is denial. I found it interesting that the first step in the “twelve step program of recovery” is breaking denial. But it makes sense – grief is the process of recovery from loss.

When death is the loss, it is pretty easy to identify. It is just so up front and in your face. But there are so many other kinds of losses that we experience, and it may be that we don’t recognize the need to identify them as losses and grieve.

I would ask the question “What loss(es) might you be denying?

Dig deep – go into you history, your past. What do you regret? What things have passed you by? What relationships are unfinished because they didn’t end well, or you said too much or too little and wish you could have a “do-over”?

I know that I have rationalized some of my bad decisions so that I wouldn’t have to admit them as losses – but they really are. Other decisions were made for me and the reality of my powerlessness in those situations is a loss.

Truth be told, I don’t want to grieve my losses. I would rather stay in denial or avoid them. I don’t want to feel sad, or scared or angry. But the problem is that it is highly likely that I will either shut off all my feelings, or I will redirect them into an addiction of some sort. I might not even recognize it as an addiction if the pursuit seems positive, like focusing on a career, or volunteerism, or mastering a musical instrument or acquiring some other skill.

So what is the goal? For me, I would say freedom. Like releasing the air pressure that builds up in a balloon, the grief process releases the stored up pain and allows us to keep moving forward. Women often talk about the relief they feel after a “good cry”.  Guys not so much, but I’ll bet it is still true. But I do know that the first step toward freedom is “owning” our losses, no matter what they might be. Then it is likely that some of the other stages of grief will follow.

The Bible clearly tells us that there is a time for mourning as well as a time for rejoicing. Perhaps it is not possible to do one without making room for the other.

Psalm 30:11 - You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy.

Necessary Endings or “What just happened?”

Back in 2014 I spent five days dismantling a 6000 square foot warehouse facility, tearing down shelving units, moving desks, cabinets, tables, computer equipment, etc. It was tedious, physical labor. It was also the culmination of 44 years in the same career.

The last thing I did was sweep the floor. I swept every corner. It was the same job I started with 44 years ago, and as I did it I thought to myself “This is the last time I will ever do this, and I want to end well.”

It was really a very spiritual experience shutting down the building. It gave finality to a huge part of my life that I didn’t feel when I stopped working my regular sales route a couple of months prior. There simply was no time to think about things in the rush of transferring accounts, consulting people, and signing papers. But the last week there was all kinds of time to reflect while doing the mundane tasks of unscrewing shelves and cutting stuff up.

But it was a necessary ending. The next phase of life was begging for my attention.

There are all kinds of necessary endings. Here are a few I thought of, some of which we may let go of reluctantly.

• Living at our parents house

• A bad relationship

• Our school years

• A comfortable but dead end job

• An affair or an addiction

• An unrealistic dream 

• The single life

For most of us, we will struggle with some of these necessary endings. It will require embracing loss and allowing ourselves to grieve. It will require us to look beyond the present and to believe that there will be good days ahead. Even death offers the possibility of a perfect future. 

I did not have to end my career -- a job was offered to me when we sold our business. I had to actively make a choice to let go and move on. The decision was bathed in prayer for a long time, mine and many others. But it was essential for other dreams to materialize.  

Jesus had a necessary ending, too. It was not an easy decision. It required unbearable suffering and totally surrendering his will to God. 

Hebrews 9:22 (NLT) In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. 

It was necessary that Jesus end his life so that we could be forgiven. And it was an act of unimaginable love for our sake. 

John 15:13 (NLT) There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

Isn't it comforting to know that Jesus calls us His friend?

You might be facing a necessary ending that feels like an unnecessary or unwanted one. The struggle to accept reality is ahead of you. You don't have to do it alone. Gather your tribe and take it to God in prayer. Let the Holy Spirit comfort you through the process.

Can Emotional Intelligence Predict Relationship Success?

As a kid I remember taking all kinds of IQ tests. Some of them were pretty annoying, like the pattern recognition ones. I think those ones kept me out of shop classes. Maybe they thought I would hurt myself or something. Others probably got me into AP classes where I had to work harder for the same grades. Whatever.

These days more and more attention is being paid to the concept of emotional intelligence as a predictor of success in certain areas of life. The business world has used it to determine who will make a good employee or associate. The same criteria might be helpful in determining the probability of success in marriage as well.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups.

One model (the ability model) posits that there are four abilities connected with EI:

1. Perceiving emotions – the ability to detect and decipher emotions in faces, pictures, voices, and cultural artifacts—including the ability to identify one's own emotions. Perceiving emotions represents a basic aspect of emotional intelligence, as it makes all other processing of emotional information possible.                                                                                         
2. Using emotions – the ability to harness emotions to facilitate various cognitive activities, such as thinking and problem solving. The emotionally intelligent person can capitalize fully upon his or her changing moods in order to best fit the task at hand.
3. Understanding emotions – the ability to comprehend emotion language and to appreciate complicated relationships among emotions. For example, understanding emotions encompasses the ability to be sensitive to slight variations between emotions, and the ability to recognize and describe how emotions evolve over time.
4. Managing emotions – the ability to regulate emotions in both ourselves and in others. Therefore, the emotionally intelligent person can harness emotions, even negative ones, and manage them to achieve intended goals. 

Psychologist and author Daniel Goleman’s model has five constructs: 

• Self-awareness -- the ability to know one's emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drives, values and goals and recognize their impact on others while using gut feelings to guide decisions.

• Self-regulation -- involves controlling or redirecting one's disruptive emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances.

• Social skill -- managing relationships to move people in the desired direction

• Empathy - considering other people's feelings especially when making decisions and

• Motivation - being driven to achieve for the sake of achievement. 

It would seem that the higher the emotional intelligence you have, the more likely you would be able to make positive adjustments within a relationship. Some researchers suggest that it is possible to increase our EI and therefore become more successful (skill building). Nan and I would tend to agree with that assessment since we have worked with many couples who have been able to change their behaviors towards each other, increasing their listening and empathy skills, and curbing their critical communications.

If you would like to take a simple EI assessment, a free one can be found at: https://ihhp.com/free-eq-quiz/

If you are brave enough, post your results in the comment box --

Thanks to Wikipedia for some of the content.