By Daniel Benor, MD

While it is well recognized that in the grief process the stages of sadness, anger and guilt often come in waves, it is not often acknowledged that the final stage of grief, recovery, also may come in waves. TWR is absolutely wonderful for clearing the painful stages of grief . TWR is also outstanding for dealing with the trying experiences of waves that come in the recovery stage of grief.

Here are various ways in which waves of emotions may come over you during the recovery stages of grief:

Waves of unexpected residual sadness, anger and guilt may be stirred occasionally, well after the major portions of grief have waned. These might be triggered by an anniversary, a holiday or visiting a location where the person who passed on had played an important part in your life.

The stage of recovery is one of learning to live in a world that has changed for you. This is a world in which the person who passed on is no longer present. You may engage in a task or a recreational pursuit in which the departed used to participate. Your participation in these activities may be altered by this absence. Seeing a film or eating a particular delicacy may have been a shared pleasure that now is a pleasure only in your experience of the activity – and the missing piece, the absence of sharing, may trigger the wave of readjustment awareness.

You may look back upon a period of time or an activity in which you were fully engaged, with no awareness of the departed during the time in which you were gardening, taking a walk along familiar paths or listening to oldies and goodies. You may suddenly realize that you’ve moved on and are now able to do this with some measure of enjoyment on your own. The fact that you have moved into the stage of truly letting go of the departed may be jarring. You may feel twinges of guilt or sadness in thinking about these changes in your life.

Dreams may raise memories or unfinished clearing of emotions. This is your unconscious mind that is now opening doors behind which you hid away some of the bits and pieces of grief in the past, at times when they felt too painful to deal with.

A child in your life may have been too young to fully comprehend what death is at the time that the death occurred. Typically, children under eight years old do not have a full understanding of what death is, and they may not have digested the meaning of someone passing on. Or a child of any age may have been uninvited to the viewing or funeral, thereby missing the ritualized opportunity to digest, process and begin to clear their grief. Such a child may get triggered and that, in turn, may stir a wave of your own recovery awareness.

In any and all of these situations, TWR can help you to clear your residuals of the painful aspects of grief. Beyond this, what is particularly helpful is that TWR can also enable you to install and strengthen positive thoughts and feelings.

In much of western culture, grief is marked by personal and ritualized cultural expressions solemn, sorrowful mourning. The TWR process teaches us that there is no reason to avoid simultaneous celebrations of the positive memories of the departed. I am finding this increasingly common – as in people sharing some of their warm and humorous memories of the departed along with their sorrow, grief and condolences.

If this feels out of place within your cultural frameworks for grieving, TWR can be used in enhancing positives at a decent interval following the grieving process.

Resources:

TWR eBook for Clearing Your Grief and Bereavement https://danielbenor.com/product/ebook-whee-book-clearing-your-grief-bereavement-2/

You may reproduce all or parts of this article in your journal, magazine, ezine, blog or other web or paper publication on condition that you credit the source as follows: Copyright © 2013 Daniel J. Benor, MD, ABHM All rights reserved. Original publication at WholisticHealingResearch.com where you will find many more related articles on this and similar subjects of wholistic healing.