In Chapter 8, “The Pain of the Past,” of The Stories We Tell Ourselves, I wrote, “Devastating pain cannot be digested all at once. It must be dealt with bite by bite.”
I use this kind of phrasing with my clients who have experienced deep pain and feel like they just keep re-living it over and over. The sad truth is that they are re-living it over and over.
As you probably know, grief is a cycle of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But what you might not know, especially if you’ve been fortunate to not have suffered deep grief, is that grief is a cycle that cycles.
In other words, people who have been hurt may go through the five stages of grief multiple times before finding some kind of ultimate acceptance.
That’s why it’s so important to keep in mind that pain/grief doesn’t have to be digested in one whole bite. Over time and little by little, they must learn how to grieve, and then grieve again, and then grieve yet one more time.
This is especially important when dealing with children who have been deeply scarred. Because they’re enduring such monumental developmental changes in addition to the grief they must process, it’s essential to their emotional health to help them grieve anew with every new developmental stage they attain. If such inner pain isn’t dealt with in a healthy manner during any of their formative years, those repressed thoughts and feelings could negatively affect their emotional health and relationships as adults.
If you’re hurting today, seek help, but don’t overburden yourself by believing that your pain can be fixed quickly. Take it day-by-day, step-by-step, bite-by-bite.
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