Caring For The Soul In Grief

I read a recent post on the PsychCentral website titled, 8 Tips to Help Console a Grieving Friend. I believe this is a very important topic because our contemporary culture tends to repress and deny the fact of suffering and death, such that when they (inevitably) occur, we have no idea how to handle it. Consequently, we fall prey to the impulse to make the grieving person "feel better: and "move on," not recognizing the necessity and value of mourning.

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

From a depth perspective, grief involves us with the soul in a profound way. In his book The Soul in Grief, Robert Romanyshyn reminds us that "loss is a season of the soul--its winter--and, like the winter of the world, a moment whose time must have its place."

The list in the PsychCentral article, authored by Kate Evans, offers some essential advice on how to begin to offer support to a grieving friend and I recommend giving it a read. After looking it over, however, I began to think about what could be added to this list from a specifically Jungian point of view. 

Here is my contribution, from a depth psychological approach, on ways to support the grieving. Two items on the PsychCentral list provide a bridge to this addendum and so I will start with them, while expanding on them slightly.

1. Let Go of Time Expectations

In any book on grief and grieving, you will find the reminder that grief is a process that takes time, that there is no proper time period for mourning, that the length of time a person grieves will be specific to that person. Therefore, supporting a friend during a time of grief takes patience--lots and lots of patience. But more than this, it is important to remember that the bereaved person is in the grips of an archetypal situation by virtue of their proximity to the experience of death and loss. They dwell more in the archetypal world than in the world of the everyday.  As such, the bereaved's experience of time can be paradoxical--minutes feel like hours, while days fly by in minutes. When the world moves on with it's daily round of activity, those who are grieving can feel separated and isolated in a kind of timeless dimension. It can be helpful to have a companion who can patiently sit with them in this "world out of time."

2. Offer the Bereaved Ways to Memorialize

This was tip number 6 in the PsychCentral article, and the suggestions for helping the bereaved memorialize their loved one included things like planting a tree, writing a letter to the deceased, or gathering in remembrance of the beloved. Creating a memorial or some kind of ritual remembrance is healing for the soul. "Remembering," says James Hillman, "is a commemoration, a ritual recall of our lives to the images in the background of the soul...Memory heals into imagination." One of the toughest demands of grieving is replacing the concrete physical reality of the deceased with a memory held in one's imagination. Memorializing is about endowing our memories of the deceased with value. It can help those grieving be released from simply recalling their loss over and over again. Through the activity of memorializing, our memories of the deceased are deepened from "Who they were" to "What they meant."

3. Listen to the Bereaved's Dreams

It is a common experience during a time of grief for people to have many dreams about the deceased, as well as about grief itself. According to Ann Back Price and T.J. Wray, authors of Grief Dreams, dreaming serves several functions during the grieving process. Grief dreams help absorb the shock of loss, they help sort out our emotions, they enable a continued inner relationship with the deceased, and they can make a creative bridge to the future. Listening to the dreams of a grieving friend can help facilitate the dreaming process with these very important functions. It is probably best to avoid the impulse to interpret. If you want to do more than just listen, try sticking with the dreamer's experience with questions such as, "What was that like for you?" or "What do you make of that?"

4. Share Your Own Dreams

Price and Wray suggest that sometimes "message dreams," in which one experiences receiving a message from the deceased, can come through another person. If you have a dream of the deceased or even of the mourner, it can be helpful to share that with them. All too often, we make the mistake of not mentioning the deceased for fear of upsetting the bereaved by "reminding" them of their loss. The bereaved cannot be reminded of their grief because they cannot forget their grief. Hearing someone else's dream of their lost loved one can be consoling. It can let the bereaved person know that their loved one is other people's minds as well as their own. Of course, some discernment is necessary here. If you have a dream in which the deceased is portrayed as suffering or in a particularly negative light, it may be prudent to keep that to yourself.

5. Share Your Stories

Again, those who are grieving often feel that everyone else has moved on and forgotten about their loved one long before they will ever feel able to move on. It can be helpful to know that the deceased is in other people's minds and imaginations. The soul loves stories. Tell a favorite story of the deceased to your friend, one that you feel captures the essence, or a particular quality of that person. 

6. Offer to Accompany Your Friend to a Service

If your friend is part of a spiritual tradition that brings them comfort, offer to attend a service, or a meditation class, or wherever they seek spiritual consolation, with them. Times of grief are often times of spiritual searching and questioning. Set aside your own doubts, if you have them, and offer simply to be with the bereaved during this time.

7. Resist the Temptation to Convert

Alternately, if you have a spiritual belief that brings you meaning and comfort, but the grieving person does not, it is natural that you might feel that your belief or practice could be helpful to your friend. This can easily backfire. Any doubt or even enmity toward all things religious can be intensified during a time of grief. Even for the religious, simplistic statements such as, "He or she is in a better place," can be insulting and infuriating. People don't want to feel better that their loved one is gone. I included a quote from C.S. Lewis in an earlier post on grief, which I believe it is helpful to keep in mind on such an occasion:

"Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand."

By the way, this warning against trying to convert can of course apply to everything written in this post. The bereaved may want to have nothing to do with dreams, or talk of the soul, or depth, or even, for that matter, talk. So, when all else fails:

8. Just Sit and Listen

When all is said and done, a person in the midst of grief needs a friend--someone who can just sit and listen to them. And when they don't want to talk? Just sit.