Grief as a spiritual path
Bernat Carreras , a clinical psychologist specializing in end-of-life care, believes that all the grief we experience throughout our lives is ultimately part of the same grief, a single grief: the grief for our own mortality. Thus, the everyday grief, whether small or large, for all the losses and disappointments that occur in our daily lives, along with the inevitable grief for the deaths of people significant to us, constitute the announcement and the invitation to prepare ourselves for the final grief: the one that occurs when it becomes obvious that our life is ending.
Perhaps this is why the cognitive and emotional effects identified by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in the care of the dying can also have their counterparts in the profound personal transformation we experience when we are struck by the death of someone who has been crucial to our lives. And thus, just as the realization of our own mortality can become, in the words of psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, a stimulus for a responsible, successful, and meaningful life, so too can the existential upheaval caused by the loss of someone deeply loved open the door to the possibility of embarking on a path of spiritual growth . This brief overview will focus on this type of grief and this possibility of spiritual pilgrimage.
What do we understand by spirituality?
We previously pointed out that when we talk about spirituality, we are referring, as agreed at the Consensus Conference led by Christina Puchalski in 2009 in California, to that aspect of the human condition related to the way in which people seek and express meaning, as well as the way in which we express a state of connection with the moment, with ourselves ( self ), with others, with nature and with that which is meaningful or sacred.
What characterizes us as humans, probably a consequence of our ability to abstract ourselves from the moment and take perspective regarding the past and the future, is our yearning for meaning and transcendence .
As biologist Ramon Maria Nogués says, human beings are not content with merely surviving; we harbor a profound «need» for meaning, a constant search for what is true, good, and beautiful. Regarding this existential quest for meaning and transcendence that implicitly accompanies each of our days, our own mortality and the death of those close to us pose the greatest question: one of those extreme situations, described by psychiatrist Karl Jaspers, with the potential to completely overturn our understanding of life. And, as Frankl said, while finding meaning in suffering makes us more capable of enduring it, meaningless suffering has the potential to destroy us.
To reduce emotional distress following the loss of a loved one
That is why David Kessler, a disciple of Kübler-Ross and an expert on grief, emphasizes the importance of finding meaning in the transition from the pain of loss to the resumption of one's life project : meaning in relation to death, to the loss, to how the death occurred, to the person's life... finding meaning can take many forms, among which he points out:
- Gratitude for the time shared with the deceased.
- A contribution from us to the world that honors them.
- A ritual to commemorate his life.
- Making some important change in one's own life after realizing its brevity and its value.
- Strengthening and improving relationships with people who are important to us...
Ultimately, it's about discovering a way to maintain love for a person after their death, while continuing with one's life, assuming that loss is part of existence as it is and that meaning is what I choose to do with that loss.
Grief involves an oscillating movement of experiences
In a systematic and methodical way, Clara Gomis, a leading figure in grief and spirituality with a conceptual framework that combines Psychology, Philosophy, and Theology, describes the spiritual journey that loss prepares us for. She does so based on the stages of grief defined by Alba Payás: shock, avoidance, pain, and growth and transformation; similar to those outlined by Kathleen Dowling Singh: chaos (denial, anger, bargaining, depression), acceptance, and transformation. It's worth noting that each of these models, such as Kübler-Ross's pioneering approach or the more recent ones by William Worden, Robert Niemeyer, or Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut, presents both points of convergence and divergence in their conceptualization of grief. Perhaps their lowest common denominator is the recognition that grief involves an oscillating movement between experiences oriented toward the past and loss, and others oriented toward the future and regeneration. For us, it's obvious that each person experiences grief in a unique way, but also that each of the inner circumstances we go through during grief holds a potential for life that is offered to us. These aren't phases we must necessarily go through, but rather experiences that can occur now and earlier at different points in the process, and by recognizing them, we can navigate them with greater awareness.
Thus, returning to Gomis's proposal, shock entails the rupture of the pre-loss understanding of the world, entails the task of confronting the temptation of closure in life, and, spiritually, contains an invitation to sustain the void by becoming aware of the bonds that remain. Moments of pain avoidance are accompanied by the analytically unsolvable question of why suffering; a question that, from a spiritual perspective, can be transformed into what for and for whom, that is, placing us in a future-oriented position that allows us to creatively shape our circumstances and give them meaning in line with Kessler's proposals.
The experience of grief, which is an immersion in mourning for the loss, also involves coming into contact with the Jungian notion of the shadow—those unpleasant or threatening aspects of our identity that usually remain hidden and which, now that they are visible, can be attended to, embraced, and supported, enabling psychological unification and greater wholeness. Periods of growth and transformation require confronting the mental narratives that the loss awakens, characterized by victimization, idealization, and blame, in order to progress in ego renunciation, forgiveness, and self-transcendence. Finally, when we leave behind all these loss-oriented patterns, in which energy is focused on defending ourselves against the deficiencies that this loss activates within us, a final task can begin: the search for that essential imprint that the deceased person has left in us and that we can embrace, embody, and extend from our own authenticity. Thus, following Clara Gomis's approach, healing grief from a spiritual perspective will involve abandoning the escape and resistance to pain, accepting the present as it is , increasing awareness, recognizing who we really are, learning new ways of relating to others, connecting with sources of authentic love and hope, a personal and unique act of self-transcendence, capable of giving meaning to one's own existence.
Thus, returning to what we said at the beginning, the grief over the loss of someone we loved can empower us to cope with our mortal condition, insofar as it puts us in a position to assume the ultimate commitment: to open ourselves to making ours a valuable and freely chosen life.
