How to Stay Spiritual When Things Go Horribly Wrong
It’s easy to feel the benefits of my spiritual awareness and connectedness when everything in my life is going smoothly. But what happens when things fall apart? How do I pull from the strength and power of my spiritual connection when my mind is flooded with frustration, grief, or despair? What happens if I get sick? What happens when I must face a frustrating situation? What happens when I’m filled with self-doubt?
Just a few weeks ago, I set out to make a podcast episode about dealing with grief. Since I’d been working on a chapter about grief in my book, I thought it would make for a robust episode since the information was fresh in my mind. But when I sat down to write out the episode notes, our family dog got sick and lost the ability to walk on his back legs. His health deteriorated over the course of the next week until we had to say goodbye to that four-legged family member.
My writing on the spiritual aspect of grief looks good on paper, but in the midst of the pain within myself and the pain I felt coming from my family — those ideas provided little comfort. And in a moment of ragged grief, I thought my faith was flagging and I struggled to listen to my own advice. I began to feel like a fraud.
Were my spirituality and philosophy wrong, did I not really believe the words I write, or was I just incapable of following through? All these feelings of self-doubt flooded my mind — even before our dog was gone.
I want to mention that I live with a mood disorder that can amplify emotions brought on by stressful or intense situations. Sometimes I fail to take the illness into account and the result is often intense frustration when I find myself struggling to cope. But I also have a strong support network in place — people who are willing to grab my hand and guide me through whatever crisis I might be facing.
I mention this because it is important that we are unafraid and unashamed to reach out when we are faced with grief and sorrow. There is no rule that says we have to face grief alone. There are times when we may be reluctant to share our grief with others in fear that we will burden them, but that’s not true. To those who care for us, the expression of love that comes through their support far outweighs any sympathetic pain they may experience.
I’ll be honest — I wasn’t ready to have my faith and philosophy tested the way they were. I suppose that’s just how life’s tests work, though — as a pop quiz. As I said, I was working on my book and had just wrapped up a chapter on grief. I thought that would be a great topic for a podcast, so I sat down and started writing. But Within an hour, things started to go horribly wrong.
The details aren’t too important here. Suffice to say that our family dog suffered a neurological event in his spine a long time ago — but accelerated rapidly toward the end. We’d hoped that losing his ability to walk on his back legs would be the worst of it, but it became painfully obvious that his condition was getting worse. There was no treatment or cure — nothing could be done to save him. A week after he’d stopped being able to walk on his back legs, he was gone.
For the last week of our dog’s life, the way that I process grief went through a metamorphosis. In 1969, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described five commonly experienced stages of grief. These are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This model isn’t fixed. These stages do not necessarily occur in any order, can occur simultaneously, or not at all, and some stages may be repeated or revisited later on — even after the acceptance stage.
In this case, I processed the grief of impending loss in a way I couldn’t have imagined. In my writing, I was trying to describe a way to detach and muscle through grief to get to acceptance as quickly as possible. I didn’t write that we ought to ignore the pain of loss or any emotions that come with it, but to try and put things in a frame that fosters acceptance closer to the beginning of grief.
But my writing was much more academic than I’d hoped for. I wrote that we can think of grief in particular ways and those frames can help lessen the pain and move us closer to acceptance,- but I hadn’t come up with the “how” — or a way to actually do such a thing while in the grip of pain.
I have to admit that I beat myself up a little because I felt like I wasn’t practicing what I preach. I started to feel like I was a fraud. I know that isn’t the case and I’ve forgiven myself for the self-punishment. In reality it was just deflection — or, to be accurate, it was a defense mechanism.
I live with bipolar mood disorder. I take medication, I have therapy, and I have devised my own meditations and techniques to deal with the ups and downs, the depression and the mania. Despite the obstacles, I have an amazing life and I am happy even when my brain chemistry tries to tell me otherwise.
But — and maybe because of how well the illness is managed — I can forget that I have to be extra-cautious in emotionally charged and traumatic situations. Situations that cause the release of hormones and other chemicals that affect mood. The tools and techniques I’ve used to prevent bipolar depression or mania from affecting my behavior don’t work the same way when outside stimulation — like grief — are present.
Grief isn’t a simple subject. It is much more complicated than cause and effect — or five easy to define stages. There is a biology to grief and evidence suggests an evolutionary necessity. It may not be that grief itself is a useful, evolutionary necessity, but is a side effect of our tribal instincts — or need for the protection of our tribe or community.
How grief manifests will be different for everyone, and will be unique to every loss we experience. We can even feel the pain of loss sympathetically. If we are empathic, we may even experience another person’s grief.
But what is grief, anyway? What makes us feel the pain of loss more or less from one to the next?
First, grief is a collection of emotions evoked as a response to loss, or even to the fear of loss. If we dig deeper, we can see that grief is rooted in fear. When we lose someone or something we cherish, we enter new territory — a world without the object of what we cherished. We came to rely on or expect the presence of what we’ve now lost. That loss can make us afraid of the uncertainty that follows.
What’s the first emotion you think of when you hear the word, “grief?” Is it sadness? Is it anger? Is it fear? Whatever emotions come along, grief is a natural response to loss or the fear of loss.
So, what dictates the intensity of the emotions we feel during grief or in any of the stages of it?
The first part of this is attachment. Can we grieve the loss of something we have no attachment to? Probably not. Is it, then, the strength of the attachment that determines the intensity of what we feel as we experience grief? In my experience, not so much.
Instead — and understand I have no scientific evidence to back up what I’m about to say — instead, I think the intensity of the many emotions we may feel in grief are directly proportional to our expectations of the permanence of what we’ve lost or what we might lose. It is that expectation that fuels denial — and the chaos of denying the reality that stares us in the face incites or adds fuel to the other emotions associated with our grief.
I don’t want to paint with too broad strokes. The only thing that is absolutely true for every human is physical death. I can speak only to my own experience and the assumptions I’ve made about what I’ve observed. No two experiences are exactly the same, no matter how similar they may appear.
We can experience the loss of a loved one much differently than another. Two people will experience the loss of a person they both love in different ways. There are too many variables to calculate what might alter our perceptions and the effect grief will have on us at any given moment. Environment, age, experience, community, relationships — any or all of these things can impact the way we deal with grief.
There, too, is an often overlooked sixth stage of grief: guilt. To what degree does guilt drive the intensity and duration of grief? I don’t think guilt is always present, but in my experience, it is present often enough to be mentioned.
These thoughts come from my own experience. When my maternal grandmother died it was completely expected. Our whole family had the blessing of the opportunity to say goodbye each on our own. My grandmother was wise and kind and did everything she could to give us immediate closure. Her aim, as she told us directly, was for us to not grieve. Instead, I felt crippling grief such as I’d never experienced before and hope to never experience again.
But a few months later, my grandfather passed away. My reaction to his death was more disappointment that I wouldn’t be able to do the things we’d planned on that summer. I was sad, and I still miss him, but the acceptance of my loss came quickly. I felt guilty about that. I know I didn’t love him any less than my grandmother and I was just as close to him as I was with her. Our relationship was different, of course, but was that the key difference? And why was I feeling guilty for not feeling the same, intense grief I felt for my grandmother?
I pondered that for ages, and I am not sure I have the right or at least complete answer today. I am sure I know what I felt guilty about. I felt guilty that I hadn’t seen him since his wife’s funeral. I felt guilty that I didn’t come see him when he got sick (even though he told me not to). Mostly, though, I felt guilty that I didn’t grieve ENOUGH.
That last bit got me thinking and I wondered, “do we turn up the volume on our grief to lessen our guilt?” In other words, do we intentionally intensify or prolong our grief because of some arbitrary expectation of what that grief is supposed to look like?
I think the answer is, “sometimes.” I have had people tell me that they felt guilty that they didn’t feel enough pain, or that they couldn’t grieve enough for the loss of someone dear to them. More than one person told me that they were afraid of what other people would think of them if they didn’t show enough grief.
Again, I’m talking about expectations.
OK — so let’s look briefly at the other stages of grief and see if we can find where expectations play a role.
Denial. In grief, it’s easy to deny the truth of what has happened — of the loss itself. I don’t want this loss to be real. This can’t be happening. How can they be gone? I can’t live without them. I will never be whole again.
The birthplace of this denial is the expectation we had that whatever we lost was permanent. We expect that we’ll always have the thing or person we want in our lives. Whether sudden or progressive, the reality of impermanence appears.
Anger. I don’t recall a time when I didn’t feel some amount or form of anger in my grief. Anger is a companion to guilt, so if we experience guilt in grief, anger is hitching a ride. The anger happens when we take the loss personally. Maybe the loss was the result of injustice. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe it was sudden. Maybe it was a prolonged illness. In every case, the feeling is personal because something was taken from ME. If I feel guilt, I’ve directed my anger inward. I might be angry at the person or pet I’ve lost for getting sick or injured. I might be angry at another person that caused the loss. I might be angry at the weather. I might likely be angry at God for allowing such a thing to happen.
It’s the same, though, that I’ve lost something that I expected to remain — whether it is a person, a pet, a thing, or a situation such as a relationship or a job.
Bargaining. This can be a tricky one because bargaining in the face of loss often requires a good bit of mental gymnastics. We’re either begging our god to prevent the loss or trying to figure out how it could have been avoided. If we’re in enough distress, we may escape reality enough to hope that time can be rolled back, and the loss undone.
But what are we bargaining for? We’re asking that what we expected to be there be returned to us.
Depression. Depression is multifaceted. It is more than sadness, sorrow, and/or melancholy. There are things going on physically as well as the emotions that are swirling around in our minds. Of all these stages, this is the one I try most to avoid. This is the one I want YOU to avoid, too.
I think it’s easy to see what role expectation plays in depression, too. Any aspect of grief can drive us into depression, but in my case, it’s the realization of just how powerless I am to control the world around me and maintain my expectations — to keep them right where they are.
When we make our way into depression, all the other stages are free to come in and dance inside our heads. We may lose interest in things we once enjoyed. We may feel guilty about enjoying anything. We may become irritable and angry at anything or everything. We may despair and feel hopeless. We may feel out of place. Our work and relationships may — and likely will — suffer.
Clinical depression is a massive subject, one much too large for this episode. It is as much physiological as it is psychological. According to Psychiatry.org, one in 15 adults will experience clinical depression in any given year and nearly 17 percent of people will experience depression in their lifetime. I’m talking about major depressive disorder, not the sadness that often comes during times of grief.
The symptoms of depressive disorder or a depressive episode are often:
- Feeling sad or having a depressed mood
- Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed
- Changes in appetite — weight loss or gain unrelated to dieting
- Trouble sleeping or sleeping too much
- Loss of energy or increased fatigue
- Increase in purposeless physical activity (e.g., inability to sit still, pacing, handwringing) or slowed movements or speech (these actions must be severe enough to be observable by others)
- Feeling worthless or guilty
- Difficulty thinking, concentrating or making decisions
- Thoughts of death or suicide
While grief, no matter how profound, is unlikely to be the cause of a mood disorder, it can certainly exacerbate an underlying condition. If you experience the symptoms I listed for more than a couple of weeks and disrupting your life, please speak with your doctor, psychiatrist, or other mental health professional right away.
Now, as for the melancholy we might expect with loss and grief, I’m still inclined to avoid it as much as I can. Misplaced sympathy from others can be enabling and give us an easy excuse to wallow in our sorrow.
I do want to make clear, however, that I am not advocating stuffing or deflecting the emotions that we feel when we grieve. These emotions are there for a reason and can give a lot of benefits. The trick is to frame those emotions in context and explore the way we feel.
Grieving is a process and the harder we fight that process, the longer we’ll be stuck in its cycle. I’m not suggesting that there is a right or wrong way to work through grief. Every instance is unique and there is no one-size-fits-all way to deal with emotional pain.
In my most recent experience, I learned a lot. I was able to reinforce some things I knew, learn some things I didn’t, and dispel some things I thought were true. Once I got over my initial shock and with the help of a therapist, I found something important.
I have a habit of intellectualizing everything — trying to rationalize my emotions. This is the technique I use to manage the mood shifts and cycles of bipolar disorder. It’s very effective for that because I don’t have to ascribe an event or situation to the way the moods feel. If I’m depressed, I don’t question it and try to figure out what I could be depressed about. It’s just a chemical imbalance that is part of the illness, not something that has occurred. The same is true for mania. I don’t question it and try to find something that I should be so elated, excited, or angry about. Again, it’s just chemical.
But what if something really happens? What if I fall in love, win a prize, get an award? That’s not chemical — that’s real stuff to be excited about. What if I lose someone or something I care about? What if I miss out on an opportunity?
