The Skill in Grief – Memory to Light, Day 4

I was listening to my boyfriend talk about coaching high school soccer. He was saying that the younger players with less technical skill play with more brute aggression than advanced players. “They want to plow through each other,” he said, “without means to get to the goal another way.”

For both kinds of athletes, the end goal is the same: to win. But without skills and strategies to deal with the other players on the field, and the ball in play, the game becomes about brute force. Who is more forceful than whom?

Brute emotional force

I laid this thought as a composite over grief. If you don’t know how to handle it, but you have to get through it–because life tells you you have to, your job requires you be back on Monday, your relationships need you–then what effect does the brute force of mustering through have on you? And on your people? Now, in the near future, farther down the line?

Do we stuff it? Get aggressive with others? Channel the aggression into work? Get addicted? Go shopping? Ignore our loved ones who know what we’re like when we’re grieving? Implode because it is too hard to handle? If we don’t have skills and strategies to support us while in pain, what effect does grief and trauma have on our relationships, at work and home? What effect does it have on our life trajectories? In getting to the bigger goals past surviving to thriving?

Icing the meltdown

In 2007 I went back to New York on a research trip. Every person I interviewed, who was in NYC on 9/11, spoke of their lives at that time, in some element, as having taken a nose dive in the years since. Deep depression, severe anxiety, change of career, change of plans, flirts with addiction, writer’s block, dealing with loss and grief on other levels. Were we lacking skills to deal with what we saw on that day, and experienced in the weeks and years that followed? Internal eruptions and self-directed attacks matched the external meltdown we witnessed.

Yesterday I spoke with a good friend who volunteers for hospice. Hospice workers sit vigil with people who are dying. I asked her what led her to that life choice and she told me about a loss she experienced early in her life. She didn’t know how to handle it, she said, but long walks saved her. And a friend who was willing to sit with her in her grief, just sit and listen and love her while she grieved, saved her.

What saves you?

We’re deeply in now. But to this point, our conversation exposes much and answers little. In our exploration together, I wonder how others have handled their pain. What saves you in deep grief? Do you cook? Take long walks? Exercise? Chop wood? Run and run and run long distance? Work long hours?

What skills have you gained in grief that will help you the next time around? Or that you can share with others who might be hurting?

I practiced yoga after a recent loss. I could hardly wait to get to the mat each day. By the time 24 hours had passed, my tensions were high, tightrope quivering, fear, sadness and anger were roiling. I would bring it all to the mat, and for the time I was there, let my body and breathing take it over. Let it go. I also had a really fantastic therapist who was yoga for the mind and emotional body, offering me skills to reach perspective each time something new and painful surfaced.

What saves you?

 

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(You can read all of the Memory to Light stories in order on the side bar -–>)

Thanks for reading Day 4 of “Memory to Light: 31 Days of Stories, August 11 – September 11, 2011.” It is an exercise in writing about loss, for the purpose of letting grief wake, live, and pass through the system. Grief is transformation. Story is transformation. Our world could use a some wakeful transformation right now. Take a peek at the introductory post for the full story of what we’re up to. You are invited to join.

Tagged as: 9/11, emotion, Grief, Loss, Memory, Memory to Light, Transformation, Writing