In preparation for his book, Deep Survival, Lawrence Gonzalez interviewed survivors of nature accidents. In that study, he was able to uncover those factors that accounted for his subjects’ ability to survive, when others did not survive. A resilience researcher in his own right, Gonzalez reasoned that his subjects’ survival strategies could come in handy for the likes of you and me when we have to face our own particular challenges. One important commonality he found in all his survivors was their willingness to engage in a grieving process early on in their misfortune. Their attentiveness to their emotional process, alerted them to the reality of the dire situation they were facing. This, in turn, gave them the early ability to take a crucial step in the right direction. Those early steps dramatically improved their odds.
By way of contrast, imagine a tourist on an afternoon’s hike from a ski resort. A slow accumulation of snow that suddenly becomes a fast accumulation, covers over the well-worn path. Landmarks are suddenly camouflaged. Having left the warm chalet just a couple of hours earlier, the hiker could reason, “I can’t be lost. I’m not that far from the hotel!” Unwilling to tune into the uncomfortable feelings of a grief process (e.g. fear, frustration, anger), the hiker fails to notice the direness of the situation. It’s not hard to imagine such a person hiking harder and faster to find their way back, only to make their situation far worse.
On the other hand, a hiker who is willing to quickly dial into the hard emotions of their grief, is empowered to absorb the reality of their situation more quickly: “I’m lost!” That realistic assessment, made possible by an acceptance of those difficult feelings, enables the hiker to take the important step of building a shelter against the cold, and maybe figuring out how to melt some snow for drinking water.
Observing Grief: Death and Dying
I’m thinking of Gonzalez’s finding when I reflect back on a recent family experience. A few weeks ago, a palliative care professional joined up with my wife, her siblings, my father-in-law, and his sweetheart. With great care, this professional assisted them in dialing into their feelings of grief at my father-in-law, Rom’s, depleted health. I don’t think anyone was looking forward to this meeting. However, I know that each and every family member would agree that it enabled a clearer assessment of the situation. That assessment, helped my father-in-law, Rom, decide to end his dialysis. With clarity, his family was able to support him in that choice. During my wife’s shift of sitting with him, Rom got to die in a way that any of us would hope to pass.
Observing Grief: Post-Election
I have come to think of grief, metaphorically, as the emotional process that goes with any experience of taking down that picture of what I wish were true, and replacing it with the picture of what is true…that I wish wasn’t true. Last week’s article echoed the words attributed to Abraham Heschel, that “words create worlds.” That article also affirmed its logical corollary, “words can destroy worlds.” In my lifetime, I’ve never heard such dark and ominous words articulated by a politician as I have during this election cycle. There is no sugar-coating that. If we hope to be resilient, according to Gonzalez, we cannot afford to look away from painful facts. Maybe that’s why I’ve observed so much post-election grief this week. Time and again, I’ve found myself encouraging my clients to make proper space for their grief. Even just naming it properly, as “grief,” has a way of accessing a playbook of wisdom accumulated over years of loss and disappointments. What I love about Lawrence Gonzalez’s contribution is the way that his research highlights an often overlooked dimension of a grief process. A grief, well-tended, tends to resolve into action. Nothing takes away a sense of hopelessness like agency.
In the next week, would you be willing to surface an action, no matter how small, that would restore a sense of your agency. Remember, a survivor will always ask, “What’s the next right thing I can do to make this situation better?”