Introduction
From her long term and extensive study into the process of dying, Elizabth Kubler-Ross identified Five Major Stages of Grief. They were firstly found to applicable to the terminally ill, who were faced with their own approaching death, but later found to be also directly relevant to the bereaved.
These are well documented and fully discussed in her two books ‘Death and Dying’ ‘Grief and Grieving’, which provide valuable support during such times.
These five stages, Denial , Anger , Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance
which may seem rather simplistic and we will all shout, that there are many other emotions coming up, they are actually useful and familiar signposts.
Our Journey of Grief
They provide valuable understanding of the general feeling states we can expect to face and move through after a bereavement. We can at least understand that when we wake up one morning, and want to shake our fists furiously at the sky, it is to be expected and thankfully normal. We do not tend to encounter these stages in a liner, consecutive fashion, like stations on a railway line. They are more like places on a map, The Territory of Grief. We make our own individual journey around the terrain, visiting these places in no particular order, stopping at some more than once and others not at all.
Anyone who has already embarked on such a journey through the stony road of grief will find them frighteningly familiar and will probably correct me by saying we don’t voluntarily visit them, rather they seem to visit us. It also true to say they stay as long as is necessary, which can be quite briefly, but it is often far longer than we would really like.
Unfortunately they can also be rather demanding guests, taking up most of our attention, and often seem to leave without paying the bill! However, once they have stopped coming, or at least when the visits have become rather more infrequent, we will find they have left something worthy enough to pay what is outstanding.
Compassion, wisdom, healing and understanding to name but a few of the many valuable qualities the challenge of grief can bring us once acceptance and resolution is found.
Grief is Personal
Bereavement is always very personal, but all would agree that the loss of a loved one is an experience of enormous and overwhelming sadness. If that person was suffering badly, there is always relief that it is at last over, and they are now at peace, which always provides important comfort. There is however, little escape from the roller coaster of feelings that must rattle through the system during the grieving process, until some peace and acceptance is reached. Reaching out to friends and family for ongoing support during this time, is the most helpful way to moving through the stages of grief, but essentially it’s up to us to find our own way through.
Links to the Chapters:
The Five Stages of Grief
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