Counseling Center

Now may the LORD of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The LORD be with all of you.  2 Thess. 3:16 (NIV)

“What was ordinary yesterday becomes precious today, and what was precious yesterday seems dull and lusterless. What we liked becomes uninteresting, but what we loved becomes everything” (p. 38).
Levine, S. (2005). Unattended sorrow. Rodale: NY.

As we reflect, relive, and remember the events from this weekend and attempt to move forward, there is the reality within our community that this pain is nothing new.  This loss of life we are experiencing triggers other reactions precipitating anxiety, depression, fear, and uncertainty.  At times we attempt to make sense of what happened. We replay the events. We wonder what could have been different. We look for reasons. We wonder. We wander. We can’t sit still, yet we don’t want to go anywhere. We want to be with people, yet we want to be alone. Stephen Levine, in his book Unattended Sorrow, mentions there is the reality of pain, fear and courage that comes into play as we approach the idea of working through our grief:

“In order to balance our fear with our courage, we must trust our pain enough to explore it.
Fear is our first unsuccessful attempt to protect ourselves from pain.
The pretense of painlessness is the next.
But it is the surrender of resistance that opens pain to healing.
In order to open our hearts to our pain, we must be willing to experience it wholeheartedly.

There comes a point where it is more important to just let our heart break
and get on with it than to keep trying to figure out why we are so
often in pain or who’s at fault and what sort of punishment they deserve.
It takes a lot of work to get healed, to merge the heart and the disheartened” (p.19-20).

Most grief material will tell you that noone grieves the same. There is no timeline for grief and mourning. There is no prediction or checklist to follow. You are unique, because the relationships you possessed were unique to you and that loved one that is now, no longer physically here.

Dr. Neeld, in her book Seven Choices: Finding Daylight after Loss shatters your world (p. 51),  offers some suggestion about this impact of loss when sometimes we can’t even think about where to start looking:

What is Normal?
Presence of strong emotion
Absence of emotion and feeling
Need to roam; inability to sit still
Inability to concentrate or focus
Yearning and longing
Dominated by memories
Body biorhythms disturbed
Feeling numb
Plagued by anger, guilt, blame
Experiencing fear, confusion, disorientation
Having no hope

What Can I Do?
Stay close to people who love you.
Talk to the person you have lost as if she or he were actually present.
Ask for anything you need.
Spend as much time as you can with someone who encourages you to grieve in any way you wish.
Take care of yourself.
Talk to a professional. There are counselors, pastoral care professionals, social workers, and therapists who can be a guide in this painful grieving process.

In the next few days and weeks, we at the ACU Counseling Center will be providing a place for you. The physical place is located in the new MACCC, NW entrance between Moody and Teague. But this virtual place will offer resources at the right, as well as some blog posts with very real thoughts, raw emotions, and sacred tears. Death ends life, not relationships.