110: Dealing with the Inevitability of Grief
[b]اللهم اني اعوذ بك من الهَم و الحُزن و العَجز و الكَسَل[/b]
[i]O Allah! I seek refuge in Thee from anxiety, grief, incapacity, laziness, stinginess, cowardice; from the burden of debt and from the domination of people.[/i][b][Prayer of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)][/b]
That's Life
Life is a kaleidoscope of inescapable situations; health and sickness, joy and sadness, gain and loss, laughter and tears, birth and death, joy and grief…
Fire burns, diseases infect, time ages, germs destroy, water drowns … these facts have moral and social implications, and all of these are realities with which we have to contend. It is how we are able to deal with these realities that will determine how we chart the course of our lives.
A sage once said; [i]Life is not the way it’s “supposed to be”. Life is the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference. [/i]
[b]Relationships [/b]
To a considerable extent, we humans are who we are in relationship to …
other people, to places, to roles, to positions, to occupations. When we lose any of these, we lose something of ourselves; and for the time being, are not whole people, are not fully ourselves. That feeling is very painful, and the word we use to describe that pain is "
grief".
[b]Grief is …[/b]
~ a natural emotional reaction to a tragedy, disaster and loss / the internal experience of loss / the thoughts and feelings about a loss that you experience within yourself due to the loss of an important life factor such as:[list][*] death of a loved one[/*][*] break up of a significant relationship[/*][*] dawning of financial insecurity through loss of the means of [/*][*] facing of a tragic reality (such as terminal illness or failure).[/*][/list]
{
Mourning is the outward expression of grief = crying, reminiscing, or
commemorating dates are all ways of mourning.}
[b]Painful Emotion[/b]
Grieving is difficult because it involves many intense feelings – love, sadness, fear, anger, relief, compassion, hate, anxiety… to name a few. Not everyone experiences all of these feelings but many in the grieving process experience several of them at the same time. The feelings are intense, disorganizing and can be long lasting. Grieving has often been described as drowning in a sea of painful emotions.
[b]Grief and Empathy[/b]
Grief, like death and separation, is one of those life experiences we all go through but are apt not to consider in any general way until we're forced to - either because suddenly we ourselves experience it or because someone close to us is grieving and we may want to know how to support.
(Note how suffering tends to increase our ability to identify with the pain suffered by others, to feel compassion, and to address their pain in some meaningful way.)
In Helping the Aggrieved the aim is not burden them with further sadness or guilt, but to assist in finding constructive ways of releasing their feelings of grief.
[i]When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face us with the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares[b][author, priest and humanitarian; Henri J. M. Nouwen][/b]
[b]Faith puts Grief in Perspective[/b]
Being a person of faith does not absolve anyone from the reality of suffering. Belief is not some kind of spiritual inoculation which will provide immunity from all that is difficult and painful. Prophets suffered loss and grieved. The grief endured by Prophet Jacob/Ya’qub over the separation from his beloved son Joseph/Yusuf (pbuh) is well documented [b][Q 12:83-86]. [/b]
So, though faith may not in itself prevent grief, [list][*] Faith does put grief in perspective. [/*][*] Faith helps us to understand the meaning of the anguish and pain that accompanies tragedy and loss. [/*][*] Faith provides a philosophy of living that emphasizes the realities of life in the larger context of existence. That is why patience is strongly emphasized as a means of coping with the trials and tribulations of daily living. Ponder over the Qur’anic reminder,[b]وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُمْ بِشَيْءٍ مِّنَ الْخَوفْ وَالْجُوعِ وَنَقْصٍ مِّنَ الأَمَوَالِ وَالأنفُسِ وَالثَّمَرَاتِ وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ[/b][i]Be sure that you shall be tested with some form of fear and hunger, loss in possessions or lives or the fruits of your labor, but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere. [/i]
[Qur’an 2:155]*[/list]
Grief is neither an illness nor a pathological condition, but is rather a highly personal, normal, emotional response to life-changing events; a natural process that can lead to healing and personal growth. Experiencing grief is life-changing: we may eventually be better off than we were before, or we may come out worse off. We are, however, never quite the same thereafter.
The transition through this difficult time is indeed a courageous journey. When Prophet Muhammad was asked about his crying at the funeral of his son Ibrahim, he responded …
[b]ان العين لتدمع و القلب يحزن و انا بفراقك يا ابراهيم لمحزونون[/b]
[i]“The eyes are shedding tears, the heart is grieving;and being separated from you, O Ibrahim, is sad indeed.”[/i]