The Seven Stages of Grief

Please note:

• You may be able to manage the 7 stages of grief successfully on your own. If you do find you need some professional guidance, coaching or counseling, please contact Dr. DeFoore.
• If you want practical skills for healthy grieving, skip ahead now.

• If you are a professional, a grief counselor, or a grief group facilitator, please contact us for grief counseling training.

The longer you live the more loss you experience. In order to grieve in healthy ways, you need to understand the 7 stages of grief and how they relate to different emotions.

Shock. This is the body/mind's way of saving you from the devastating pain of the loss, at least initially. It is a blessing at best, but at worst can become a long-term numbness to feelings that resembles a sort of living death. It will pass naturally as long as the other stages of grief are honored.

Denial. This is your mind's attempt to protect you from the reality of the loss. You may lie to yourself and think about the person as if they were still alive. A certain period of denial is normal but if prolonged, it can keep you stuck and prevent resolution. There are many forms of denial, as varied as people are different from each other.

Anger. When you lose someone you love, it is natural to be angry for a period of time. You may be angry with the person for leaving you, angry with yourself for what you did not do to save them or angry with God for taking them away. You may just be angry at the unfairness and injustice of life. Healthy anger management techniques may be essential here.

Guilt. There seems to be a human tendency to blame yourself when something happens to a loved one. In loving someone, you automatically take some degree of responsibility for her or his welfare. It is only natural to question yourself for a period of time after your loved ones die. This is a normal part of the grief stages, but it is extremely important that you move through it and don't get stuck in this stage. Use these healthy grieving techniques to help you through this stage.

Pain And Sorrow. These feelings often exist throughout all 7 stages of grief, and are the core feelings of grief. In the early stages, however, you are often distracted from your sorrow by denial, anger, guilt and the resulting confusion. Fear can also be a tremendous barrier to the experience of sorrow, triggering all of the defense mechanisms. To truly face and experience the pain and sorrow is necessary and healthy however, and it moves you forward through the stages of grief. Working with love is the key for moving through this phase, because only love has the power to move us to the depths of our being where the greatest loss is registered.

Release And Resolution. This stage of grief process is accompanied by a sense of acceptance of the reality of the loss, a sense of “letting go." There may also be a degree of forgiveness that occurs in this phase. The denial, guilt and anger stages are over, and the pain and sorrow is not as intense as it was before. Many people ask, "How long does it take?" The answer is different according to the severity of the loss and the health of the individual who is grieving. Grieving moves in cycles, and it may seem as if we are through for a substantial period of time. A birthday, anniversary or another loss can bring back many of the same feelings that were there when our loved one died. Any loss or low emotional period can bring back the feelings of loss, particularly if you have not reached resolution. When the release finally occurs, your entire body will feel it. I have watched many people go through emotional release in their grieving, and I am convinced that it is as much a physical, non-verbal process as it is verbal and conscious.

Return To the Willingness To Love. This is the final stage of the grieving process. Healing has occurred, and the grieving person is able to laugh again and to get involved in life. Fear can slow you down or even stop you at this point, because new love means the risk of new loss. By honoring and completing all seven stages of grief process, however, you will overcome your fear and move forward. This occurs through an appreciation for yourself and the life you are left to live. Nurturing your inner child is an excellent tool to use to help you through all seven stages of grief process, and particularly as you move back out “into the world” after a period of grieving. Part of the return to love also includes remembering the love you felt for the one you lost. The love lives on and the anger, guilt, pain and sorrow fade away.

This final step in the seven stages of grief process is ultimately a spiritual one. It is a fact that all of us on this planet will die. You need to have some way of living, laughing and loving with this reality. That's where spirituality comes in. True security cannot be found in another person or in any external circumstances. You have to turn within, to your own concept of the infinite, to ultimately find peace and security in a life that is only temporary in its tangible form.

Remember, if you are a professional, a grief counselor, or a grief group facilitator, please contact us for grief counseling training.

The greater the love you feel for someone or the greater the emotional investment in a given situation, the greater the sense of loss you feel when death, transition or tragedy occurs. The depth of grief process you experience is directly proportional to the depth of love experienced, invested or needed. Grieving is actually an aspect of love, and healthy grieving is an act of love and remembering love.

The reason that anger, shock and denial interrupt and in some cases stop the grief process is because they take you away from love. That is what they are designed to do as protective mechanisms.

Here’s the real clincher about love and the stages of grief —remembering, writing about and talking about love takes you directly into the pain. As this happens however, all of the unconscious defense mechanisms designed to protect you from pain are activated. This is where the anger, shock and denial come in. The instinctual reaction of avoiding pain is natural. If you allow this to dominate however, you will never complete a grieving process. We must be conscious of our instincts, and act according to our wisdom.

Ultimately it is only a focus on love that gives you the strength and depth of emotion necessary for moving into your pain, releasing your sorrow and completing the 7 stages of grief.

Understand that grief comes in waves. When the initial shock wears off, the first wave might feel overwhelming. Fortunately, each wave of grief eventually subsides, just as waves in the ocean do. You can therefore comfort yourself during each wave of sorrow with the awareness that “this too shall pass”. The better you respond to the waves of grief, the more quickly they pass and the sooner you will complete your grieving process.

The 7 stages of grief process lasts from a few months to several years, depending on the type of loss experienced. That means the waves will continue to come and go for that period of time. Fight them and they will just get stronger. Learn to go with them and move through them effectively, and they will subside more quickly.

Some crying can be and even needs to be done alone, whereas aspects of the grief process require that you do at least part of your crying in the presence of trusted loved ones.

You absolutely must know how to cry. Crying can actually be seen as a skill, in that some people know how to do it, some don’t, and it can be taught.

• Go into a dark or dimly lit room, where you will not be interrupted. Curl up on a bed or on the floor in a pile of pillows. Let your emotions and the sensations in your body be your guide, they will tell you what to do if you have the sensitivity to listen.
• Make a vocal sound that matches with the feelings of sorrow and pain in your stomach, heart and throat. This may come out as a wail, a whimper, a howl or a roar. It is essential that you let these sounds out, as they give you emotional release that otherwise is just not possible.
• Deep, long sobbing is the key to powerful emotional release. That’s what you’re going for in the effort to cry. Quietly leaking a few tears is better than nothing, but it won’t get to the heart of the matter. When you experience deep loss your body needs to sob, deep and long until you feel a release and a sense of relief. You may need to do this several times during the grieving process. Sobbing occurs as a kind of rapid coughing or convulsing rhythm in your belly, so the belly must be relaxed for this to happen. Relaxing your stomach and breathing deeply can often facilitate crying.
• Sometimes there is a powerful layer of anger or even rage surrounding sorrow. Because of this, anger release work may sometimes be necessary to allow crying to start. I have seen literally hundreds of clients go into crying after powerful anger release. The verbal statements that might go with anger release for grieving might be “No, no, no…” or “Why did you leave me?”
• Grieving rituals are extremely important for those of us in cultures and societies that do not have them. Here are some ideas of rituals and ceremonies that may be useful to you, beyond the funeral process that most families utilize:
• Your own private grieving ceremony will allow you to process your feelings and move through your stages of grief on your own schedule, requiring nothing of others.

1. Go into a private space where you will not be interrupted.
2. Put on some appropriate music that will remind you of the person or that will connect with the feelings you want to move through.
3. Light candles to set a sacred space, and to create a quiet and reverent mood.
4. Take out photographs, videotapes, audiotapes, cards, letters and memorabilia that contain or remind you of your lost loved one or of the situation you are grieving. Place these around you on the floor or on a table in front of you.
5. Talk out loud to the departed, or to anyone associated with your loss. You can also write letters (that you may or may not send to anyone still alive) expressing all of your feelings.
6. Stay in this space until you feel some sense of release or resolution. Understand that you may need to do this several times during your stages of grief process, or in some cases one such ritual will be sufficient.
7. Ceremonies and rituals that involve family and loved ones also affected can be very healing. Some examples include:
• Releasing balloons in a park or floating a candle down a stream or river.
• Storytelling ceremonies, in which you and your group get together to swap memories of the departed. Be aware that if these stories focus on anger, guilt or denial they can do more harm than good. While it is necessary to move through these aspects of grief, the purpose of such a gathering is to focus on love, release, forgiveness, healing and letting go.
• Memorial services that include combinations of the above elements, for the purpose of honoring the departed and the love felt by those left behind.

The approach outlined here can be applied to many kinds of losses. Here is a list of losses which necessitate a period of grieving:

• Death
• Divorce
• Loss of innocence through physical or sexual abuse
• Loss of love through abandonment or rejection
• Loss of childhood through being required to take on too much responsibility too soon in life
• Loss of health through illness, injury or aging
• Loss of job
• Loss of money through investment downturns and/or changes in the economy
• Loss due to moving away from a home that you loved
• Loss of community because of a geographical move

You may be able to think of other types of losses that you or others have suffered. The important point to keep in mind is that you do not have to suffer from these losses for the rest of your life. You can take charge by moving through your own stages of grief to a point of peace and resolution, becoming wiser and stronger in the process.