 |
The Mindfulness
of Healing Loss: The Difference Between Grief and
Depression
by Judith Orloff, M.D. |
|
|
|
Depression is an emotion
to be mindfully transformed; grief is a reaction to loss
that can transform you. Loss comes in many forms: the
death of loved one, a pet, a job, a relationship. It’s a
stripping away of a potent connection, leaving an aching
emptiness inside. Despite grief’s agony, try to let it
flow rather than attempting to change it or get it over
with. Unlike depression’s emotional inertia, grief has
an inherent healing trajectory that seeks to resolve
itself. Choking grief off inhibits this forward motion
and leads to depression. As I can attest, if we don’t
shut down, grief can ultimately open the heart.
On
January 24, 1982, I learned that my uncle Sidney had
been murdered. A stoned teenage punk robbed him, then
shot him point blank in the head, right after Sidney
handed over the money in his business’s cash register.
For over thirty years, Sidney and his brother Jerry had
run “I. Orloff and Sons Furniture.” It was started in
1920 by my grandfather in South Philadelphia, an area
that had disintegrated into a crime-infested ghetto.
Uncle Sidney was a Humphrey Bogart look-alike who got
into the role, calling his kids, wife, and me “Schweet-heart.”
He was a modest, kind man. Everyone in the neighborhood
adored him. When I moved to Philadelphia for medical
school, Sidney helped me furnish my tiny one-room
brownstone apartment overlooking the art museum. I
remember watching him proudly lugging a brand new plaid
couch from his store up five flights of stairs, an act
of utter devotion. Uncle Sidney’s caring eased my waves
of homesickness for California. He’d sometimes just look
at me and beam: “My niece, the doctor!” When I later
finished medical school at USC, he wrote me, “Your
graduation announcement holds a place of honor on my den
table. What a pleasure to renew our lives when you
arrived with your companion Pipe {my dog} in
Philadelphia. Please thank your mother and my brother
for raising such a precious human being.” Three years
later, my father, pale as I’d never seen him, broke the
news: “Sidney has been murdered.” In the next moments of
numbing silence, I staggered with disbelief. How could
this be? Dear Sidney who’d never wished anyone harm. Why
would a complete stranger want to kill him?
My
grief at the death of my uncle set off a torrent of
feelings in me with a momentum of their own. I tried to
be mindful of them all. Shock. Rage. Anxiety. Sadness.
Losing someone who loved me so much, and whom I loved so
deeply, was unthinkable. It took a while for this brutal
reality to sink in. I yearned to talk to Uncle Sidney,
hug him, eat dinner at his house. But none of these
everyday intimacies that you think will always be there
were possible anymore. Even now, over twenty years
later, though I’ve accepted Sidney’s death, I still miss
him. Some grief you never fully get over. To this day,
pangs of grief continue to resonate through me, not as a
burden, but as a widening portal into the compassion of
what enduring love means.
In
psychiatrist Elisabeth-Kubler-Ross’s iconic book, On
Death and Dying, she presents common stages of
grief. Denial: “This can’t be happening!” Anger: “I’m
furious about the loss or at everything.” Bargaining:
“I promise I’ll be a better person if only you bring him
back.” Depression: “I don’t care anymore. Life is too
unfair. Why try at all?” Acceptance: “I’m coming to
terms with what-is. I’m devastated but I can continue to
keep loving.” We each have our own time frame with these
stages. Over the year following Sidney’s murder, I
experienced every one. Sometimes I wanted to grieve
alone. Sometimes I wanted to talk about it. Always I
kept looking to the night sky for answers, as I have
since childhood. Its spacious splendor offered
consolation by embracing me in a oneness that reunites
all love and lovers. The stars had Sidney in them: I
felt them shimmering through me, bringing niece and
uncle in communion again. I’m thankful for the support
of family, friends, therapist, and the heavens that
cradled me though this anguished period.
Depression can be a healthy stage of grieving, but
people can get stuck there if they are not mindful that
this is happening. What complicates grief is when it
taps into early traumas or losses that contributed to
depression. A chronically ill parent; a volatile
divorce; death of close relative or friend. Your current
grief is compounded by depressions that preceded it.
Tip-offs that this is happening include: (1) Grief
becomes mired in depression rather than evolving or
resolving. (2) Old traumatic memories intrude on the
present; you can’t get them out of your mind. In such
cases, it’s imperative to obtain psychological
assistance so you don’t become lost in the limbo of
these feelings. Beyond this, stay aware of ingrained,
depression-related negative beliefs that may get
reactivated by the current loss. For instance, my brave
cousin candidly said about an initial phase of his
mourning, “My dad’s death reinforced the fatalistic
views I used to have, how you can try and try but
something can always be ripped away from you. I stayed
angry and depressed a long time until I was ready to
open my heart again and be grateful for each day.” I
know how easy it is to become cynical or hopeless,
particularly after the tragic loss of an innocent. But
emotional freedom necessitates fighting not to give up.
When you lose irreplaceable relationships, there will be
gaping holes in your life. True, some things may never
be the same. However, your future holds the promise for
other rich bonds with other amazing people. Your dear
ones who’ve gone don’t want you to stop loving. During
grief, if old beliefs associated with depression
surface, be kind to yourself, but seek the help you need
to combat hopelessness.
In
many patients and friends, I’ve seen grief catalyze an
intuitive opening if you can stay mindful of what is
happening. Coping with death, in particular, tunes you
into instinctual knowledge organically tied to the
passage. Even if you’ve never considered the possibility
of an afterlife before now, that question may become
eminently relevant. Loss stimulates a part of you that
may long to know. When grieving, notice any intuitions
that lend insight. Pay special attention to dreams.
After the passing of loved ones, it’s been commonly
reported that they appear in dreams to assure us they’re
all right. They know how much we worry. What’s striking
is that the departed look younger, healthier, happier,
no longer sick or in pain. Recently, I had one such
dream following the death of Jim, the psychiatrist I
described in Chapter 1 who’d been my savior as a
teenager. He’d been suffering from cancer for months,
which finally claimed him. I was moved that his wife
invited me to the memorial service. Afterwards, I
dreamed:
I’m in Jim’s home with his family. Jim is there too, but
I’m the only one who can see him. He looks like himself,
not at all a haunting specter. I ask: “Jim, are you
dead?” He just smiles and says, “I don’t really see it
that way!”
I
awoke smiling too. Dreams about death are often conveyed
with the lightness of cosmic humor to allay our worries.
Intuitively, they enable us see that despite death’s
physical finality, the spirit endures. Knowing this is
enormously therapeutic when dealing with grief and in
continuing a meaningful life. It may not console the
part of you that needs a hug from those you’ve lost, but
it’s feedback that they’re fine. We all die with our
music in us and keep making it as we move on--an
incredibly hopeful certainty.
Swami
Muktananda said, “The only thing you lose when you die
is your fear of death.” We, the grievers, have it much
harder. Still, accepting loss as part of life’s cycles
eases your struggle with it. Unavoidably, there’s one
appointment we all must keep. Once we can accept death,
our own and others’, it puts the true nature of things
into perspective, lets us savor every moment of our
intimacies now. We can also more appropriately revere
those who’ve passed without morbidness or trepidation.
(In this spirit, some enlightened medical schools
instruct students to consider their anatomy class’s
cadaver they dissected as a “guiding hand” to remember
throughout their careers as healers). Acceptance of loss
doesn’t mean we like the idea of this sacrifice. But it
does impart equanimity about such letting-go and a
hopefulness about the longevity of love throughout time.
Love never dies. It’s what animates the light throughout
infinity.
When facing loss, try to keep mindfully breathing deeply
and trust the process as grief transforms itself and
you. I picture grieving as riding the tail of a comet on
its orbit compared to the downward arc of depression’s
stubborn gravity. Meanwhile, addressing old issues
related to depression, as well as listening to
intuition, enables you to mindfully work through grief
and accept loss more easily.
© Copyright 2009 Judith Orloff, M.D.
All Rights Reserved. Adapted from Dr. Judith Orloff’s new book Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself From Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life (Harmony Books, 2009).
Judith Orloff, M.D.,
an
Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA and
intuition expert, is author of the new book Emotional
Freedom: Liberate Yourself From Negative Emotions and
Transform Your Life (Harmony Books, 2009) upon which
this article is based. Dr. Orloff synthesizes the pearls
of traditional medicine with cutting edge knowledge of
intuition and energy medicine. She passionately believes
that the future of medicine involves integrating all
this wisdom to achieve emotional freedom and total
wellness.
|
