Humans easily bond with people, land, rituals, memes, and many other "things". And as many connections are made, as many connections are broken too. It's (our) Nature. And Nature also provides us with effective ways for healing ourselves from broken connections so we can make new connections. That is, if we know how, and if we do not block our grief. Besides personal factors, environmental factors, like having to keep working to pay our bills to keep our shelter and have food, can also hinder or block healthy grief. When we block grief, we can experience significant psychological, physical, and relational problems.
Not too many people allow themselves, or can afford to do healthy grieving, even less people have learned how to evolve grief-proof relationships and families, and it's only a rare few that know why and how to detect and release blocked grief (Yes, this is a conscious challenge).
??? Healthy grieving ???
? What does that look like ?
Seven key ingredients can be distinguished for most people:
??? And blocked grief ???
Links to more detailed information and resources:
Grief and Loss: Suggestions
Stoic Warriors : Grief
Suggested reading:
The Artist’s Way - A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, by Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan, G. P. Putnam’s Son’s, New York, NY; 1992. An empowering book focusing on increasing personal creativity, personal recovery and wholeness.
This page is part of my appreciation for my colleague Lynne Azpeitia. Lynne has this wonderful ability to provide a bunch of anchors to jumpy people, and the courage to dive into the unknown with them.
Take a step back from your busy buzzed businesses, and check whether the relationships in your business/team/life meet the below quality connections. If not, hight time for some test-driven development until they do!
Do you have the impression people in your environment get where you are at and why?
Do you feel listened to (and not plopped or pushed) when you express not feeling comfortable with assigned roles and tasks?
The key here is that your role/assignments/tasks meet your authentic you, so you can live your own dreams (too). Respect means valuing who we are and understanding our boundaries, instead of challenging them.
Do your actions often get misinterpreted, and do people freak out at you when that happens?
Emotions are natural and important signals, but a reactive environment is deadly. Instead of reacting, we can respond by using the received signals for asking sensible questions.
If you can, and your environment can't, find another environment that is more trusting!
Did you ever catch people in your environment (or yourself) telling a blatant lie?
The next time these people tell you something, it will take you increasingly more effort to believe them, until you let go of your willingness to believe in good endings and trust goes out the door.
Do you feel supported in bad times as well as good times?
Some people avoid trouble and come to the party to take credit when the danger is over. And some people are great in emergencies, but fall apart as soon as the emergency is over. Like when the danger is over, they collapse and stop supporting you, while you continue to support their efforts.
With healthy relationships, we support each other in good and bad times and celebrate together when the going gets good!
Do you take turns with who gets the lousiest jobs and assignments?
When relations become a power struggle, things can go downhill really, really, fast when one or more people do anything they can to have his or her way all the time.
Most of the time, when a person can't get their way by pushing you, they'll attempt to play on your feelings to get their way. And if there is no change, no matter how many times you spoke up in all honesty, with intent to solve problems, leave!
The key here is give-and-take. We don't have to keep track of the details or a running count to make sure things are exactly even, but your gut will tell you when things are uneven!
Do you feel like you are (gradually) losing out on being yourself?
If your efforts go unnoticed while theirs are emphasized at every opportunity, that's bad. If you invest in relationships that go out of whack this way, the whole relationship is out of whack.
When you entered this environment you already existed, with your own dreams and your own life. "We are not to let ourselves be defined by other people's limited perceptions." -- Virginia Satir
With healthy relationships, everyone needs to invest and make compromises. We are to feel free to develop new talents or interests, make new friends, and move forward.
Do you feel miscommunications are avoided by people in your environment?
We all know how many different meanings can be made of a single fact, and that different significances can be assigned to the same meaning.
What is important is to ask what's happening, and to be asked what is going on for you. To speak honestly and openly, and being given time and space to consider our replies when we ask for that.
Lynne, thanks!
In studying the spaces between two letters, or two birds in a flock, we can distinguish some universal temporal patterns that we can use for building healthy relationships, as long as we remain aware hopes and wishes of both parties in any relationship may change.
The first phase is like a romantic meeting. The desire for a relationship is acknowledged by both parties, and the other party seems to fit the gestalt of a perfect partner. During romantic encounters we seem to carefully check each other out, and whether the other party meets some basic conditions. We flirt.
In the next stage the two parties determine to meet with more intensity. Both acquire some relationship experience, and whether the other party has the knowledge and skills to meet their respective needs, wants and desires. Positive interactions and appreciations are crucial, for this phase is a context setting for the next phases by gathering and agreeing on rules.
Now both parties commit to a long term relationship that can deepen and crystallize the respective roles. Most important during this phase are high quality and performance, and offering extra services can keep a relationship vital in this phase. Required cost and energy are much lower than in the previous phases, for the parties believe to know each other to a certain extent.
With expectations, strategy and nature of the relationship set in previous phases in balanced ways, this phase becomes an expression of a strong and loyal relationship. Purpose is stabilisation and maintenance to the advantage of both parties.
These four phases can also be applied to business partners, developers and managers, and client and customer relationships. Not all relationships go through these patterns. During each of these four forming patterns, one of the two parties can break off the engagement. Yet, the further we are in the patterns, more loyalty is built up, and breaking off the relationship in favour of an alternative, becomes less and less attractive. We can get stuck in uneven relationships, if we're not careful.
And sometimes relationships become so uneven that our health and dreams are threatened, and all alternatives seem more attractive than staying in the relationship. We best leave and renew ourselves, for we just ran out of karma to be with that other person, and there can be no dharma without karma.