Grief - Denial
Grief is a powerful thing. Whether we fully understand it or not, it affects us almost daily. We feel the weight of it, we feel its influence. It doesn’t matter if grief arrives from a large traumatic event or a small minuscule one, it is surrounding us. Grief can help us contort our reality into something more manageable, or make us lash out at someone to release emotion, but it is not to be ignored. Over the course of this blog series, you will begin to understand and process your grief, harness its emotional energy, and arrive at a place of healing and acceptance.
This blog series was adapted from the Kübler-Ross Model of the five stages of grief. For more information, check out Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's book On Death and Dying here.
In a nutshell, the denial stage of grief is what initially helps you survive a traumatic experience. You may find yourself saying things like, "life doesn’t make sense anymore, nothing has any meaning, it's all too much for me to handle, ahhhh, I'm going to die!" And with the overwhelming dread creeping in, you'll start to deny the truth that a traumatic event has actually happened to you, and you'll begin to go emotionally and mentally numb.
It's common in this 1st stage of grief to begin wondering how the hell your life will go on. Now that your world has crumbled around you, you'll find yourself in a state of shock and start to notice the life you once knew has effectively ended. You've been KO'd, traumatized, and your hopes and dreams are being pulled away – along with any lingering joy and confidence you had left.
If you were diagnosed with a lethal disease, you might believe the news is incorrect, a mistake must have occurred somewhere in the lab, and they mixed up your test results with another poor soul. If you received the news that someone you loved has died, then perhaps you cling to a false hope that they identified the wrong person. If your spouse decides they want to sleep with anyone else except you and serves you divorce papers, you may think they're suffering from a sudden onset of psychosis.
The truth is, you aren't living in reality anymore. In the denial stage, we tend to live in a "preferred" reality. A preferred reality warps your brain and assists you in conjuring up plausible plot lines to ward off any negative – yet accurate – perceptions. It's the denial and shock that help you cope with your grief. Denial sets the pace for your feelings and emotions. The saying goes: If you have to eat shit, it's best not to nibble, you simply bite, chew, swallow, and repeat. Denial simply makes those bites smaller and seasons them with some salt and pepper in an effort to make eating said shit less… well… shitty. Think of it as your mind's natural defense mechanism telling you, "hey, there's only so much I can handle at once. You gotta slow it down."
Unfortunately, the amount of time you spend in denial isn't really up to you. For some of us, we get caught up in perpetuating loops. Our minds recognize the initial shock and ease us back into the comfort of our preferred reality, only to have us shocked – once again – after the veil is lifted. This cycle will continue until your mind feels you are genuinely ready to start the healing process.
Rumi - The 13th-century poet says, "If you desire healing, let yourself fall ill."
Your mind will do its best to protect you, but once you find yourself ready to wake up from your preferred reality and come back to the actual world in all of its glorious sufferings, you must allow yourself to "fall ill" and begin feeling all of the emotions that come with it.
But how do you allow yourself to “fall ill” and exit the stage of denial?
Well, first things first, you need to make time to work through the details of what happened to you and adapt to the new circumstances. Unfortunately, this requires being brutally honest with yourself and staring your trauma in the face.
Once you’ve adapted to a more accurate sense of the trauma you're facing, you can begin working through the steps below. These come in no particular order; however, each one will establish a clearer understanding of the emotions you're feeling and help prepare you for the next stage.
Honestly examine what you fear.
This isn't the time to set yourself up for failure and use your fears as a way out. This is when you get to figure out what your demons are, let them know you're aware of them, and confront them with primal ferocity.
Think about the negative consequences of not taking action.
I like to break out the legal pad here and make an old-fashioned list of pros and cons during this step. Try identifying the irrational beliefs about your situation and get as detailed and absurd as possible. Once you see your options listed in front of you, things start to become a little clearer.
Journal about your experience.
This is one of the most critical steps, whether it's with pen and paper, a notes app on your phone, or recording an audio journal. Journaling creates a safe space and allows you to express the fears and emotions you keep locked inside. I don't know the science or magic behind it, but it simply declutters the mind. Once your thoughts are written or spoken into a journal, your mind relaxes and begins to let go of them.
Open up to a trusted friend or loved one.
We are not meant to go through life alone! Men especially struggle with this one. Find at least one trusted and safe person, and ask them to listen. They don't even have to give advice; they just need to be there with you. Research shows that when we are lonely, our brains produce an excess of norepinephrine, the hormone responsible for signaling a fight or flight response. This, of course, can force you right back into the preferred reality you are trying to escape from.
Participate in a support group or a mental health provider.
Whether you are talking to a group or a therapist, understand they are on your team. They are simply there to help you find healthy ways to cope with your situation rather than pretending it doesn't exist. Actively participating in the conversation allows the brain to produce more dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins. These are the “feel good” chemicals our brain produces when we experience trust and connection. Having a group or therapist join your team increases your chances of regulating the chemical imbalance created from trauma and urges you into a state of rationality and healing.
By this point, those feelings you were once suppressing should finally be boiling to the surface. They have been impatiently waiting in the shadows for the opportunity to aggressively push you into the next – and possibly most fun and dangerous – stage of grief. Anger