The Gifts of Grief
The Gifts of Grief? What a crazy title for an article. How could anyone see anything positive in grief? Grief is painful, overwhelming, always unwelcomed and is unfamiliar territory until you enter it. So how can anyone identify gifts in grief? A gift usually denotes a present or surprise — an unknown, unexpected benefaction or offering. However, that is precisely what the gifts of grief are --- while experiencing grief, we have absolutely no idea that there might be positive outcomes in such a devastating situation. But, how can that be? It appears to be a contradiction in terms. How can one imagine living through life's most devastating trauma and expecting a result to be anything positive, useful or beneficial? My response: we need to focus on the world behind our eyes; we need to view life from the eyes of the soul. From this perspective, we are responsible for planning it that way. Each of us has our own life and we know the life lessons we need to learn and therefore planned to learn them through our life conditions. However, how could we know that?
Perhaps we could look to our higher self; our soul if it is too difficult a concept to grasp. Grief is a major juncture where faith can enter or solidify in our life. Faith doesn’t have to be God if one doesn’t ascribe to that concept but can be embraced as a force beyond this life, the source, creator, the universe — but something greater than us that knows of a grander purpose — a significant reason why situations, life events, circumstances "happen to us" in our lives. Faith is the ability to step into that unknown. Faith is open ended and does not require proof. 
Although I never carried the reputation of a religious extremist during my lifetime, my spiritual beliefs became stronger since my son's death. Was I angry with God? Absolutely. Was I depressed? Positively. Did I suffer from PTSD symptoms and guilt? Definitely. Yes, I experienced the deep pit of initial despair and trudged through the early grief period. However, I cannot imagine my grief journey without acknowledging the part my faith played in recognizing my growth through that process. With time, as I trusted my newly evolving life, my faith strengthened, my beliefs solidified and the heavy burden of moving through the days lifted. I have difficulty understanding how anyone can move through grief without faith. Faith helps me reconcile the stillborn birth, the toddler who succumbs to leukemia, the traumatic accidental deaths of young children and teenagers. Often we feel isolated in our grief and cannot comprehend it alone. With faith there is the possibility of a greater reason and the potential for understanding that there is logic in life experiences. 
I would not have acquired the awarenesses and growth in my life without experiencing a trauma of this magnitude. We cannot visualize the “gift” portion of our grief until we accumulate a history of charting our internal world’s journey. Early grief distress fogs our perceptions and makes mindfulness impossible. But as we allow ourselves to move through the pain and devastation of grief and loss, we can revisit and review the life we have survived and perhaps recognize the hope and promise that seeing life through different eyes exposes. It is through this hope and faith that we are able to recognize the possibility of any positive aspects of our pain. Faith and acceptance allows us to discover blessings in the plan of our journey. We are not nor will ever be the same person we were prior to our child’s death. We need to allow ourselves permission to move through our process on our own timetable. Individual grief processes cannot be compared, rushed, avoided and one cannot imitate someone else’s journey.

Although our journey can be a treacherous icy road filled with detours, obstacles, hills and valleys, each of us chooses how to navigate and view our path. While not a rare human experience tossing about in this sea of emotions, we still feel alone. But before choosing to live again, the bereaved must come to grips with the death and that timeline varies. One’s new life story unfolds as the result of the growth that occurs through the following process:
  * Embracing the pain 
The emotional, physical, cognitive and spiritual pain after a death dominates one’s life for months or years. It is a time of pain and confusion and it must be… for a while. Hopefully after time, this anguish is transformed so the pain can be replaced by remembering and honoring the loss.   
  * Decision to change 
Life is choices but the important choice for bereaved parents is to open their heart to love again. In early grief decision making is impossible but time allows our focus to move from body and mind to feeling grace and peace entering our heart because of our daily decisions.  
  * Creating a new inner balance with no end points or expectations
Life will not be stable and one must find their own methods for creating balance to calm the tornado of inner feelings. Rituals, reading, support groups, therapy, refocusing energy/time and journaling are options to fill the hole in the griever’s heart. A new normal life can be built on a foundation of honoring the negative and positive of one’s internal world and making decisions from the heart not the head.  
  * Exploring our assumptions about life
Loss can be a catalyst to become more of who we were intended to be as opposed to maintaining homeostasis. Grief often encourages us to seek our life potential. A lesson from loss is learning to reflect on our true reality and that which makes up our vast consciousness. Identification of and thinking clearly about our beliefs and values creates who we really are. (a clear mind can be a gift to yourself) Sometimes deemphasizing physical life to concentrate on spirituality is necessary and often because it’s unfamiliar territory, guidance is necessary along this new path.         
  * Learning new ways of acceptance
Acceptance cannot be taught or learned from another griever as an individuals need to create their own new reality. The many steps of acceptance will be experienced through the cognitive and emotional domains and will involve an indeterminate amount of time. Switching from the sorrow of the loss to the living with the loss is often recognized with a corresponding shift in spiritual acceptance. Although there is no specific identification of acceptance, one’s perspective change usually occurs when compassion in one’s heart is reactivated.  
The gifts one can discover through grief are: 
  * Deepened and prioritized physical and emotional needs
  * Strengthened trust and faith
  * Awareness of one’s world and growth
  * Understanding hope and faith
  * Solidified beliefs
  * Held, maintained and knowing one’s truth
  * An opened heart
  * Life perspective based on grace and gratitude
  * Attained deeper meaning of life
  * Enriched life purpose

Guiding one’s attention from the eye of the storm to the center of the heart encourages a perspective from behind the eyes. The eyes of the soul helps one understand that grief will not continue forever, encourages acceptance and strengthens beliefs, trust, and faith.

Grief is overpowering but survivable. Sibling loss obliterates one’s past, parental loss forfeits one’s history and child loss shatters the whole being. Grief is about death while the gifts of grief is about healing and living differently. Death can be a catalyst for recognizing the mystery of life which helps identify and rebirths a new purpose for living beyond the grief. Embracing these gifts can recreate the new you. Noticing the gifts of grief can offer you comfort and solace. I hope you meet both in your journey.