What happens when you have pain that others cannot see? Do you push through and pray healing will happen or do you slow down and pray that you will find peace in the quiet? I ask because I see many parallels between the pain of grief and the pain that my accident brings to my life.
No one can see the pain that shatters my head. People may notice my unsteady gait or that my words are slower. You might even remember that my last few columns are repeats and realize now that this is because of my word issues and headaches that prevent me from using a computer. Still you are not inside my body and you cannot see my pain.
Just like no one can see the pain that grief creates in the families you serve. People may see the sad face, offer a tissue when the tears come, and hear the pain in a person’s voice when they talk about how much they miss the person they are grieving. They may even know the pain of grief themselves.
We might believe that we know the pain of grief because of the many families that we help heal. Still, even with all our experience, there is no way anyone can understand the absolute pain grief creates in another person. Grief, like the pain from my accident, is invisible. We can offer our shoulders, hearts, and expertise and they will help, but we cannot know the pain another person has. We can only empathize and pray our experience helps them find their path to healing.
Realizing that we do not know what pain is doing to another person may be the key in helping them express it and hopefully let it out. There is a breathing exercise in meditation where you breathe in the positive and breathe out the negative that no longer serves you. As I breathe out the pain I find myself breathing in the gifts that my injuries bring me.
Not being able to think or communicate at my speed before the accident allows me to slow down and let people express their thoughts more fully. My lack of memory and inability to do anything for more than an hour or two lets me see how much my sister Jacquelyn supports me and how hard she tries to pick up the slack my injuries create. Nomis giving me months to write a new column that would take a day or two before the accident lets me know that the words are in me even when I cannot find them. The pain that brings me to an all stop more times than I can count leaves me with more than no TV, no computer, light, or movement. My all stops give me the quiet that I need to find the peace in between my breaths and the perspective to be able to see the gifts within my pain’s challenge.
Grief brings a person to their own all stop, because when a heart breaks a mind is unable to process and when a mind is unable to process words are difficult to express. When we realize that we cannot know the pain of another person we begin to understand how important our compassion, empathy, and caring are. I pray that your support is one of the gifts your families realize and that your expertise helps everyone you serve find the peace in between their breaths. I look forward to hearing about the gifts you help your families find as they heal their broken hearts. Please join in our conversation on the Let’s Chat Blog at https://www.nomispublications.com/blog.aspx, email me at Kristan@mooneytunco.com or give me a ring at 781-331-5308.