As a way of processing the situation I find myself in, along with the rest of humanity, I am writing through the stages of grief. Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the laid out the Five Stages of Grief in her book On Death and Dying.
An article on the Harvard Business Review discussed the emotions we are all feeling right now. The reason it has been so hard is that we are all going through grief. The article has an interview with David Kessler, the author of Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. I have just started to read the book. He adds Meaning as an additional stage of grief.
It is important to note that not everyone moves through the stages one after another in a linear fashion. We may jump around, step back and forth or skip stages altogether.
Deny
When tragedy hits or disappointment comes, this is our reflex response. This can either be avoiding the issue of minimizing the impact it is having. When this whole thing started, I wrote a light-headed story about how my daughter and her girlfriend jokingly tried to cheer up a friend who they were saying was infected with Corona.
I try to minimize the pain by convincing myself that it is not too bad. This sucks, but some people have it way worse. People are caring for sick and going into the front lines. They are people losing loved ones, and they can’t be together with their community as they grieve.
For the first couple of weeks, I was all like, what’s the big deal. I was confident in my immune system and knew I could kick it and wasn’t at all concerned if I infected others, especially the elderly and the vulnerable. I started making huge plans for a multi-week road trip across the country with the family so that we could still go on Spring Break, even if the airlines were shut down. If I had of known how hard this all would be on myself and all of us, I would have taken it more seriously, sooner.
I was talking to a leader this week who is facing a string of painful losses. On top of this COVID crisis, he lost a dear friend, and they couldn’t have a funeral to grieve as a community. He was also let go of the company he founded. He told me that it all felt unreal like someone had made it all up. This is what denial feels like.
Blame
When the reality of the painful situation starts to sink in, we then go to blame. This is the most natural stage for me to hang out it.
Blame is when we externalize an inner truth and point the finger at some imagined culprit that caused it all. For me, this came out as anger and slamming leaders at my company and our kid’s schools and government for how they were mishandling this whole thing. I was pissed and couldn’t stop wondering who these idiots are? I even blame Trump for making all this vitriol so easy. If he’s doing it, why can’t I? If he is throwing tantrums with all his press conference presidential buffoonery, why can’t I?
The problem with reacting to the pain this way is that it doesn’t make it go away. It might be fun to allow it to keep feeding on itself, but it doesn’t help you move through it, I just seem to get stuck in it.
Bargain
In this stage, we try to make deals with God to lessen the pain and make things more comfortable. Then we will be an angel and serve him always and never do anything wrong again. These types of deals are still tit for tat. If you pull out your magic wand and fix this, I will obey you all of my days and live for you.
Make this external situation better, and I will be alright inside. It is a false hope that it dependant on an external reality.
You may not be making deals with God, but another this stage shows up is asking What if questions. This could be things like if I had worked harder at my job and tried to find another job sooner, then I wouldn’t have gotten laid off. Or something like if I hadn’t traveled and stayed at home, I wouldn’t have exposed myself and brought it back to my family.
Another way we deal with this stage is by asking If Only questions.
If only things had happened differently, it wouldn’t have turned out this way. This is the stage that the two sisters, Mary and Martha, are at when their brother Lazarus passes away.
This family was close friends with Jesus, and they sent word to Jesus by saying, “The one you love is sick.” John 11:3. Lazurus passes away, and Jesus waits a couple of days before coming to town.
As he comes to them, both sisters, at separate times, come out to him with the exact same question
If you had been here, my brother would not have died.
John 11:21 & 32.
Jesus responds to them both in different ways. First, to Martha, he talks about his resurrection power that gives and maintains life and challenges her belief in it. Then to Mary, he starts crying, and we come to the shortest verse in the bible.
Jesus wept.
John 11:35
After sitting with this passage for a while and wondering about the vast difference in responses to the same question, I got the sense that Jesus will meet our internal need, meet us right where we are at. He can respond to either from his strength or his vulnerability.
He ministered to them individually, before he resurrected Lazarus and brought him back to life. There is an interesting twist to the story at the end with the reaction from the chief priests.
So from that day on they plotted to take his life.
John 11:53
Giving life to Lazarus would cost him his own.
Depression
This is the stage that we most identify with when we think about grief. The feeling of overwhelm, lacking the energy to take action and the resignation that nothing we do will change things.
These days I’m starting to see how connected anxiety and depression are. I was talking to a friend of mine about my brain feeling like sludge, a constant dull headache. I told him I had a rock stuck in my head, my mind was spinning out control, trying to shift the rock, but it only made it more prominent. And it was exhausting me.
My friend asked, “You know there is a name for that, don’t you?” He continued, “It’s called anxiety.”
It is good to know there is a name for it, but it only made me sadder! That being said, acknowledging to a few people that I’m scared and afraid with all that is going on, has only led to a deeper connection.
Acceptance
Once the losses have been acknowledged, processed, and grieved, we come to a level of acceptance. This is not flippant. I’m fine. But a profound realization that in light of the significant losses, I’m going to be ok.
I will be able to live without that which I thought I could never live without.
It is thought these hardships that we gain a new perspective. We come to know, without a doubt, what matters most. With less distraction from meaningless things, we can extract more significance from the simple things.
Meaning
If you have stuck with this post this far, you deserve a gift. And that gift is one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite books.
It can be said that they were worthy of their suffering; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom – which cannot be taken away – that makes life meaningful and purposeful… If there is a meaning in life at all, there must be meaning in suffering.
Man’s Search For Meaning
Victor Frankl
Page 67
Reflection Question:
What stages are you going between?
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Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
James 1:2-4
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