COUNSELOR TURNS GRIEF ON ITS HEAD AND FINDS IT RIGHT-SIDE-UP

Megan Devine (whose partner died by accidental drowning in 2009) has written an insightful post that captures something vital about grief, which I've always known but have found difficult to explain. She got to the bottom of it in five words:

Grief is not a problem.

I suppose we mistake grief for a problem because of the "forces" with which it is integral (grief follows a loved one's death, grief is painful and disorienting and messy and can seem interminable) -- but as Devine points out:

Grief isn't something to be gotten rid of so that we can get back to life. It IS life.

Many of us who work with the bereaved try to explain this in our own way (on my website, I attempt it by quoting Rabbi Earl Grollman), but the idea of simply classifying grief as not a problem gets down to it in a way that I find very helpful.

Bereaved people "don't need solutions," Devine says:

They need support. Support to live what is happening. Support to carry what they are required to carry.

Supporting people in carrying the pain of their loss (I call it "holding a space" for them) honors the experience they are having instead of judging it -- or trying to escape from it ourselves. Devine's admonition -- both to the bereaved and to those who would help them -- is spot-on:

We need to practice being in there with grief, rather than getting out of it.