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The Contact Experience
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During Grief
Just as one might have to turn the whole body around in order that the eyes should see the light instead of darkness, so the entire soul must be turned away from this changing world until its eye can bear to contemplate reality.
~Plato
Hallucinations of both the visual type and the auditory type are included in this list of normal behaviors because hallucinations are a frequent experience of the bereaved .... With all of the recent interest in mysticism and spirituality, it is interesting to speculate on whether these are really hallucinations or possibly some other kind of metaphysical phenomena.
~J. William Worden in Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy
What is grief? Grief is the universal human response to loss. Although still considered by some as a sign of weakness, it is a natural, healthy, yet painful internal process. More specifically, grief is the emotional and physical response to any meaningful loss or change. It is significant that we emphasize the physical component, because every cell in the body is affected by our emotions. In fact, there is impressive evidence that over a period of time the continuous stress of grief compromises the immune system. Or, as medical researcher and physician Dr. Irving Dyle offers: "You cannot have a single thought in your head which is not instantaneously translated into a bodily sensation. If you have a pessimistic or a catatoxic thought, you make adrenaline instantaneously, you have a worried or frightened thought, you get a squirt of adrenaline. That's the connection between mind and matter."' Thus, grief affects our entire being.
Although everyone grieves, not everyone mourns. Yet mourning is a very natural and healthy way to cope with loss regardless of its type or duration. Mourning is one of the essential processes of reconciliation with the loss experience; it facilitates the release of pent up emotions and the stress associated with confronting massive change. As stated earlier, grief is not merely a mental process, but is expressed through every cell in the body so too with mourning. However, all too many people grieve and keep the process internal, hiding what is really taking place, which results in paying a heavy price both physically and mentally. While mourning is a painful process of learning to adapt and live again without the deceased, its purpose is to gradually lead to reinvestment in life.
One final point about mourning: The expression of emotion when mourning is only the beginning. There are many other thoughts and memories which have to be reviewed and dealt with in order for the mourning process to culminate in a healthy remembrance of the deceased and for the mourner to embrace life once again. For example, what symbols and memories will be retained? What type of a relationship will be established between the mourner and the deceased? And what will the mourner have to do for himself or herself that was formerly taken care of by the deceased?
Our third commonly used word, bereavement, is the objective state of loss and change. One is bereaved when a loved one dies, a home is destroyed, a valuable item is stolen, or a child leaves home. The term does not necessarily imply emotion but rather a condition of loss.
Grief work is one other term we need to examine, as it is often used by writers and counselors and I will be using it frequently in the chapters ahead. It describes the work of establishing new routines, priorities, and even beliefs in order to create an orderly environment which no longer includes the physical presence of the deceased it is slowly undoing the ties that bind. Mourning and grief work are related. In fact, grief work is at the very core of the mourning process. As one does his or her grief work, the process of mourning begins to change. Furthermore, grief work includes the withdrawal of our emotional investment (not our memories) in the deceased and the establishment of a different relationship with the person. It demands that we gradually stop anticipating events and routines that normally included the deceased. This is perhaps the most difficult task for most people, because the anticipation of future events with our loved ones is a source of much joy and satisfaction. Nonetheless, the essence of grief work is the necessity to initiate new routines, behaviors, and traditions. Grief work is hard work.
communication and should be facilitated. We do a terrible disservice to our children in this regard by sending the wrong message early in life that crying is a form of weakness. I am reminded here of a speech given by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler Ross and her example of how parents inadvertently teach children that they should not cry. She asked us to recall the admonition of our parents saying, "You want something to cry about? I'll give you something to cry about." Does that sound familiar? It does to most of us.
Whether male or female, tears are the universal human communicator of sorrow as well as joy. The act of crying, as millions of people will attest, discharges tension. Studies have shown that crying is not only emotionally healthy but possesses physiological merit as well. Tears of sorrow, for example, appear to contain products of the stress response that the body disposes of through the act of weeping.'
And what if you don't cry when loss occurs? For any reason, be it the way you were reared or the nature of the emotional attachment to the deceased, it is still acceptable, You may express your sorrow in other ways. We should not judge the depth of one's sorrow by the flow of tears, for that is to misjudge. As healthy as crying may be, some mourners will have to find other means by which to assuage their pain. For some, it will be found through greater participation in ritual or in the help provided to others in the first few days of intense grieving.
Finally, I would like to suggest that many mourners, whether male or female, must give themselves permission to grieve, to mourn, and then to go on with their lives. Of course, this is easier said than done. But since grief is the other side of the coin of love, then your grieving is a symbol of love shared. If you choose to love, as we all do, you automatically choose to grieve. There is a reason to grieve and you have every right to express that reason, to celebrate and honor the deceased loved one. You do not have to grieve silently, nor is the goal of your grief work to forget the person. On the contrary, you must now establish a new relationship with the loved one who died. Often this relationship is facilitated by the contact experience, which brings untold relief and allows a survivor to go on with his or her life.
A key component in giving yourself permission to grieve is to realize that it is okay to feel what you are feeling, that there is nothing abnormal with feeling the way you do, and, most importantly, that you are going to get through your grief, whatever it takes. This is a commitment you make to yourself and your loved ones you will make it through your grief eventually.' Surely, it will be a long and arduous task. It will be painful and it is necessary to experience the pain. But life will be meaningful again.
A Glimpse at Grief
What is normal grief or as counselors call it, an uncomplicated grief reaction? Normal grief includes a wide range of behaviors, emotions, physical sensations, and thoughts. Thoughts, which Worden refers to as cognitions, include a variety of contact phenomena for example, the sense of presence of the deceased and hallucinations.' Obviously, those who are classified as experiencing complicated grief are subject to similar responses, but with a major difference. Complicated grief implies that mourners have become "stuck" in their grief, and their grief work has ground to a halt. They are unable to continue the process of assimilating their losses into their lives. They have been unable to let go of the past with love and reinvest in life and new routines.
Small griefs are really not small, not if they're yours. Significant loss is defined in each individual's heart, and who is to say what is significant? No matter what we've lost, if it wounds us enough to trigger the grief stages, then we must allow ourselves to mourn. If we don't suffer and share our sadness, it will bide inside our psychie like a canker
B. Bartocci, "Little Griefs Still Matter,"
Woman's Day, September 1, 1994
Small Griefs and Big Griefs
We often fail to realize how frequently people grieve because of what we may consider a small loss. We forget that a loss depends on our perception of an event and perceptions vary immensely. Truly loss, like beauty, is in the eye of the behold. Thus, some people do not think that loss of money, an ability, self-respect, or faith and trust in someone are valid sources of grief. But in fact, we grieve over small losses in our own individual ways. Someone who loses his ability to see or hear or has difficulty breathing because of pulmonary disease will grieve these losses in very deep ways. Although we associate grief with big losses like death and divorce, there are people around us all of the time who are silently grieving changes in their lives.
I should emphasize here that there is a very wide range of normalcy in the grief process. Again, the operational word here is "process." Grief is not an event which comes and automatically ends after a given period of time it is ongoing and reappears for many even years later. Unlike earlier assumptions about grieving, current theory suggests that not everyone experiences despair and depths of depression. Some others are able to integrate the most catastrophic losses into their lives due to their belief systems.' Therefore, grief may be brief or prolonged, intense or wavering, immediate or delayed, even erratic and repetitious and all quite normal.
It is clear that grief is not static, but rather a dynamic interplay of many social, physical, and emotional forces. For example, examine a short list of factors influencing how one mourns when a loved one dies:
· Cause of death
· Socioeconomic status
· Age
· Family support
· Sex
· Unfinished business
· Previous loss experiences
· Unresolved anger
· Over dependence on the deceased
· Physical health
· Religious beliefs
· Cultural differences
Grief, therefore, is highly individual because there are differing emotional investments, social variables, and expectations among mourners especially within a particular family. In fact, there may be as many grieving and mourning styles as there are lifestyles. Not everyone cries. Not everyone becomes angry or guilt rid, den. Not everyone is touched by reactive depression. Grief is sometimes borne lightly. What used to be considered pathological grieving is now assessed as normal.
On the other hand, some mourners suffer from chronic or delayed grief reactions; they are bewildered with the massive changes to be faced. There may be extreme anger or guilt concerning the deceased or another family member, or they are unable to express certain feelings about the deceased. Usually, these suppressed feelings surface in disguise as bodily aches, pains, illnesses, or anger toward others, They are experiencing a form of complicated grief.
Finally, grief does not really progress in set, predictable stages. However, in order to study the process, experts have to propose various models or stages for world. For some, this may eventually lead to panic, anger, and intense emotion. Nonetheless, according to Bowl by, the initial state of affairs sets the stage for yearning and searching for the deceased loved one which manifests itself in pre, occupation with his or her image. Specifically, the search often culminates in "a sense of his actual presence, and a marked tendency to interpret signals or sounds as indicating that he is now returned." The sense of presence, although occurring among members of both sexes, has often been reported by widows as being most comforting to the point that they deliberately attempt to invoke the deceased loved one's presence when they are feeling sad and in need of support .'O The yearning and searching phase is in full swing as the bereaved is said to be alternating between two states of mind: the realization of the death with hopeless yearning, and the disbelief of its occurrence and the hope that all is not lost.
It is believed that the search for the deceased may be consciously or unconsciously conducted. Some individuals are very much aware of the purpose of their behavior; others are not. Accordingly, the search is compelling and the recovery of the lost loved one most important, although the motivation to continue the search wanes over time. It is further suggested that the search is revealed in dreams about the deceased which occur in about half of widows and widowers. Children of all ages (including adult children) may also experience the search for their parents through dreams. In general, a great variety of emotional behaviors are features of the yearning and searching phase. As Bow1by concludes... "restless searching, intermittent hope, repeated disappointment, weeping, anger, accusation, and ingratitude are all features of the second phase... and are to be under, stood as expressions of the strong urge to find and recover the lost person."' I
Let me emphasize that the vivid dreams of the deceased as alive and well, hearing familiar sounds of him or her coming up the steps or putting the key into the lock, and interpreting other sounds as related to the person as if alive, are all considered a normal part of the grief process by most professionals. But they are only considered to be artifacts of grief, not real events. That is to say, this phenomena, while common, is an expected result of the memory of these repetitious events when the person was alive.
As a result of the foregoing description of the phase of yearning and searching, we can now address the question with regard to specific times for a contact experience to occur. Searching behavior may go on for months or years it is impossible to place specific time boundaries on the experience. However, it is safe to say that any survivor may have contact within minutes of the death, may have the experience once or several times over several years, or may not experience any contact at all. Can we assume that if a survivor is subject to a contact experience five years after the death of a loved one that he, the living survivor, is still searching for the lost person? Any answer to the question will be controversial at best. I would argue that the contact experiences of the bereaved, coming as they do without warning, may occur at any time after the death of the loved one and are not particularly bound to any time frame or phase of grieving. While this is contrary to current theory, there is good reason for it. Some people have reported contacts within minutes of the death, when they were not present at the death bed or even knew the loved one had died, then never had further contact. Others have engaged the deceased months or years after the death, or have had a series of contacts during several months or years.
What the Contact Experience Is Not
At this point, we can begin to understand the state of mind in which a bereaved person may not accept that the loved one is actually gone, never to return. Consequently, we must test his disbelief in the hopes that a mistake has been made and the loved one will reappear. After all, we have been subtly taught not to accept the reality of death and may readily use denial as a delaying tactic to give us time to assimilate what appears to be otherwise incomprehensible. For many, though not all, looking for signs that the loved one is still around is absolutely essential for going on and trying to complete their grief work. Here is where expectancy in general and the imagination in particular come into play.
It is quite common to expect to see or hear an individual in a specific place or associated with a specific set of circumstances when one has seen or heard that person in those surroundings hundreds or thousands of times over the years. The expectation is simply automatic and habitual, Perhaps the most common example of this expectation is seeing a person from a distance who looks like the deceased loved one, hurrying to get to the person before she gets lost in the crowd, only to discover that it is someone else very much alive. This is not what we will call a contact experience.
Another situation which occurs again and again is the feeling that you are sure someone has just walked by into the next room or passed by your window, and you believe it is your loved one. Peripheral vision, which varies from person to per, son, can often pick up movement or shadows out of the corner of the eye which are often misinterpreted. Sanders has called this the "flicker phenomenon." But when one turns to look, hoping it will be the deceased, nothing is there." This also will not be labeled as a contact experience.
A similar indicator that someone might be present happens when you look at a drawn venetian blind that is not completely drawn closed or there is a slight opening between the side edge of the blind and the side of the window frame. If you move left or right when looking at these small openings, it appears as though something on the other side of the blinds is moving. In this case, seeing is not believing, although one may entertain the thought that it may be the deceased. These are circumstances that we will not consider in our discussions.
Last, but certainly not least, are any experiences which suggest that mourners should take some type of drastic action or place themselves in harm's way. Any experience of this nature implies the immediate need to obtain help from a friend or a professional counselor (depending on the nature of the event) as soon as possible. Keeping silent about such negative experiences can only be detrimental to the mourner and prevent one from doing the work of grief.
What if You Experience the Extraordinary
It is not unusual for people who do not believe that consciousness survives death in some sort of after life existence to have a contact experience. Of course, after such an experience a strengthening or change in beliefs often ensues. At the same time, there are also individuals whose religion suggests not only praying for but praying to the deceased loved one. In this vein, one may believe that the deceased is with God and can intercede on behalf of the survivor. In either case, when one is suddenly confronted with the extraordinary, the rush of thoughts and feeling can be overwhelming.
How should you interpret your experience? As a gift, a blessing? Or perhaps a haunting or a scare? The very nature of the event most often will answer these questions. Here are some guidelines to consider when dealing with the aftereffects of the experience that may assist in your interpretation:
As soon as time permits, write down what you have experienced. Be as detailed as possible, indicating what time the contact occurred, what you were doing and/or thinking prior to the experience, what message (explicit or symbolic) you received, and what may have caused it to happen. All of this can ultimately help in your final interpretation of the event. Another reason for putting the event on paper is to counter one of the criticisms leveled by skeptics. They insist that much of the important detail surrounding the contact experience is forgotten over time and the story is unintentionally changed or filled in with information which seems to best fit the desired outcome.
Remember that regardless of the nature of your experience, you are not "losing your mind." Whether you think it was a real post,death visit or a hallucination, whether you interpret the event negatively or positively, most professional therapists agree that it is not abnormal to have a contact experience after the death of a loved one. Yes, you are distraught over your tragic loss and you may be filled with confusion, despair, guilt, and/or hopelessness, but your unexpected event should be placed in perspective it has happened to millions of others. So don't fear you are losing your sanity. No one knows for sure why some survivors have the experience and others do not. There is some evidence to suggest that the deceased often appear to those who are in most need of support in dealing with their loss, to finish unfinished business, and to give reassurance that love is eternal and that death never breaks the bond.
Share the experience with a trusted friend or relative to obtain another viewpoint. As with any subject or event that challenges your state of mind and proves stressful or is an occasion for joy find someone with whom you can unburden yourself. This is particularly important considering the major stress you are already having to deal with. The choice of your confidant should obviously be guided by trust. But there is also another consideration: Is he or she a non judgmental listener, someone you could tell anything to? You are in need of a sounding board at this time, not someone who jumps to conclusions. Take your time in making this choice; there is no need to rush. Be specific and detailed in explaining what happened. Describe to your listener the physical setting in which the experience took place. Tell him or her what you were doing before the event occurred and your frame of mind. Then listen to your confidant's response before you share your feelings. Carefully gauge that response before taking the next step.
Express your deep feelings and emotions regarding the event, if you are convinced it is safe to do so. It is one thing to tell someone that you have had an unusual experience. That can be a release in itself. But it is quite another to open your heart and mind by sharing what it really means to you. Let your confidant know the effect the experience has had on you. If you feel you will be too vulnerable and fear your friend may be frightened by your reaction, or think you are becoming excessively troubled, then seek his or her initial reaction first. That is, say what you experienced but withhold your interpretation until you are satisfied that it is safe to continue. If the listener's response and body language is threatening to your beliefs about the event, you can then choose to end the conversation and seek help elsewhere. Don't be discouraged, just try someone else.
If your confidant has been neutral, noncommittal, or accepting of your view of the experience, at the appropriate time ask for an opinion from your listener about what he/she thinks the experience means. Obtaining opinions from another can be most helpful in sorting out what has happened. But keep in mind it is only an opinion, an alternative among many alternatives which may help you to interpret the event or add something to your own interpretation. Sometimes a good listener can come up with an idea that immediately feels right and gives you a message that you had failed to see.
Carefully examine alternative explanations. There are many possible explanations for the extraordinary events that occur when one is grieving. Your confidant will not have all of them at his or her command, which means you may have to seek additional help before deciding what your experience means, if anything. I have included a number of different interpretations in later pages, and my list is by no means complete. On the other hand, you may be comfortable with the way you have already interpreted the experience, convinced that its vividness and message was either real or imagined. Go with your heart; your deep inner self knows. Only you can decide. In either case, get on with your grief work and use the experience accordingly.
Accept repetitive events. It is not unusual to have more than one or a series of extraordinary events. It could be a repeat of the same experience or an entirely different one. Quite possibly, you could have a combination of legitimate contact experiences and others which can be explained as natural or misinterpreted happenings. Whether it is a repetitive dream, sound, or vision of the deceased loved one, it is not an aberrant or atypical experience when grieving. (Caution: If the event suggests you should harm yourself or another in some way, this is not a contact experience, and it is essential that you seek professional assistance immediately.)
· Seek professional counseling. There are a number of instances in which a certified grief counselor can help in interpreting an extraordinary experience. In some instances, it may help to know that what you experienced could be real, that others have been through it, or that sometimes the event may have no significance whatsoever. A counselor may be needed if you are unable to share the experience with anyone else but feel you must talk about it. In choosing a counselor, don't hesitate to ask if the counselor has been specifically trained in grief counseling. Even then, I regret to say that some counselors have difficulties accepting anything of an extraordinary or paranormal nature and may dismiss the event as meaningless. If there is not a specialist in your area, contact the Association for Death Education and Counseling (see notes and references section), and that organization can help you find someone in a nearby city or town.
· You make the final decision. Never give up your right to decide what happened and how to interpret it, regardless of the qualifications of the counselor or friend who gives you an opinion, go with your intuition and heart after carefully weighing the possibilities. Remember that this is your grief work, your event, your decision to live with. Most importantly, you know the relationship you had with your deceased loved one better than anyone else, and you can assume your deceased loved one knows that too.
During your considerations, you may have doubts and receive some skeptical input from friends or professionals, which is to be expected. There is a strong tendency toward reductionistic thinking, which can be countered in part by turning inward and listening to your inner wisdom. Authentic messages and messengers possess an encompassing characteristic they will always draw you and those you love into a greater circle of love. Let that be your guide in your deliberations about your experience.
We turn now to one of the most frequently
occurring contact experiences the sense of presence of the deceased, often
referred to as the intuitive experience.
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