Grief

I spent all day Friday and Saturday with a bunch of women.  Over 600 of them actually.  I was at a Christian Women's Conference and it was a wonderful time.  We spent the two days in worship, workshops, prayer time, and just soaking in a presence of other women and receiving a lot of prayer and  encouragement.

The main speaker is a trained therapist and is also gifted in praying for healing.  She focused more on physical and inner/emotional healing, something many women struggle with.  One of the biggest lesson I learned this weekend was on grief.

(image fromhttp://mixed-emotions.com/gallery)

What is grief?  We often think of grief as sadness or sorrow.  But grief is not an emotion, it's a complex mix of emotions - sadness, anger, fear, joy, etc. all wrapped up in a ball!  It is a conflicting mass off emotions, sometimes it makes you feel like you are going crazy.  Wow, this was eye opening for me.

When I experienced the loss of my embryos and canceled transfer, I was sad and upset, but it occurred to me I was also angry at how things turned out; all the time, effort and hopes put into that cycle.  All the money we spent, and still no baby, not even a transfer!  I feared that I may never get pregnant (I still think about this).  I had wondered, how does one grief?  I guess I was grieving, and I just didn't know it.

I also learned that grief has to be shared with others, we need to talk about it.  If we keep it all inside, it can overwhelm and take control of our lives.  It's OK to be angry, even angry with God.  We tend to withdraw from others when we are grieving, I know I did.  But in reality we really need to reconnect with others.  This is truly hard to do, especially for me, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and cry my eyes out.  Maybe we don't want to be around others because we can't control our emotions, and don't want to fall apart in the grocery aisle.  Or we just don't want to talk about it, because it hurts too much.  Or when people ask you how you are doing, you just don't know how to answer, because you really don't know.  You think you are fine, and then realize, no not really.

But we do need to be around others, to be comforted and to share our feelings.  It's not easy to do, and we need to be ready in our own time.  I'm grateful for my friend E who checked up on me during the first few days after my transfer was cancelled.  She dragged me out of the house, to have lunch, to talk, to pray with me, etc.  I think I was pretty reluctant at first because all I wanted to do was be alone, but I'm glad I am blessed to have a friend like her and others that have been around to support and comfort me, and to pray for me.

I'm not really sure if I'm done grieving.  I do feel a lot better now, and can talk about it without crying, but it still saddens me.  I'm not sure how long I will continue to grieve, everyone is different.  But it helps to know that I AM grieving.