Why Grief is so Lonely

This is me, in a cave, alone with my pain; or so I thought. Someone just happened to take a photo of me and I'm pleased they did! This is what MY pain looks like. The thing is that most of us don't want others to see our pain, or we can't face it, ourselves.

We were often told as children: "Go to your room if you're going to cry".

That "room" can become our cave - or our car - how many of us find ourselves driving around and around, or wandering the Mall, while being alone, in our pain?

Many of us feel ashamed of not being able to "hold it all together" - it's just so much easier to hide it - or to tell everyone: "I'm Fine".

We often want to spare the ones we love, the sight of our true pain; it's often too much for them to bear.

Pain and shame isolates us - keeps us from being able to live our lives. Pain is scary and it's usually not very pretty

When we've lost something or someone that's really special to us, we will know the pain of grief; our own, unique pain of grief. That pain can show up in many, many ways. Unfortunately, it often shows up as isolation - going into our own metaphorical "Cave", to hide from others. Those others who don't like or can't bear to see the real pain of our grief and loss. We end up isolated and alone!

Some things to consider:

• Grief takes us out of our comfort zone, big time - we often just don't know what to do or say - we base our words on what we've heard so many times before - those words don't usually work and just isolate us, further

• Grief is entirely inconvenient and we just want life to go back to normal

• We''l do almost anything to avoid pain - ours or someone elses

• You can't take someone else's pain away - they have to live it

• Grief Recovery can help you heal that pain