This page demonstrates the use of the Healthy Grieving process in a worksheet format.
The Healthy Grieving Process Example #1
#1 Be Honest.
On the surface I am grieving my dad. But as I looked at it, I saw there was a lot more going on here as far as attachments and a deeper concept. The following is what I worked through as I got deeper:
My dad is not here so I try to move on. He is not present any longer, so I try and move on. I cannot see him, talk to him. I am holding-on to the past with him. Why? ….because it’s comfortable. If I let go of my past with my dad, I would feel like it’s “not right”. I would not know who I am. I would not know my own definition. It would be lonely. I would be empty.
What loss am I grieving? My “past” and my history.
So this loss I am grieving also has to do with my own self-definition. I used my dad for a whole lot of history, labels and definitions to help build up my self. Not to mention my dad was a major “safety net” for me; both in the past when he was alive, and in present in terms of memories.
#2 Feel the feelings.
I had feelings at each level I was at through my scale rankings. Detail below for each level.
#3 Set up a scale.
Me at a “9”:
Feelings: guilty & bad, fearful, regretful, wary, stuck, worried, sadness, unfairness, if only, mean, scared, threatened, uncertain, alone, empty, lonely, unprotected, conflicted.
Description: I miss my dad. I wish he were still around to talk to on the phone, visit and just hear his voice and re-assurance. He was always my safety net and the head of the family. There is no head of the family anymore. I feel guilty that I did not spent more time with him when he was sick and I regret not being there when he died.
…I decided to go watch some old videos of my dad – to bring up buried feelings, to see how this attachment to my dad defined me, and what labels I gave myself. I saw how much I used my dad to help define who I am, things like this: italian; big family (lot of relatives, strong family, stick by one another); “ home”; being proud of my dad for various things – which gave me self-worth; good looking; great hair; responsible leader; I made him proud; warm smile; loving/caring personality; memories of xyz.
Seeing, realizing and owning the above helped move me from a “10” to a “6” on my scale….but I was stuck at a “6”…
Me at a “6”:
Feelings: guilt, regret, uncertainty, fear for the future (eg. getting cancer/sick), fear of death.
Description:I miss my dad and I am scared for my own self as he suffered so much with a long, ugly cancer battle. I worry I would get cancer too and fear sickness, pain and death. I am hung-up (stuck) here on my dad’s suffering. So I created a list of how I honestly feel about my dad’s suffering:
- I am scared to death of having to face what he faced. (I never really talked to my dad about death openly.)
- I am hurt from how my dad treated me when he was sick.
- I felt unloved. (I was wimpy in sharing my own feeling for my dad. There was never any closure.)
- I feel guilty I was not there enough for him while he was sick, and ultimately when he died.
- I feel like I should of “stepped-up” more and supported him.
I was stuck here and did not really know how to work through this further, so I sat on it for a week and allowed it to settle and penetrate. Then I got an idea to share this list with my mom and discuss it with her. My mom was very close to my dad and nursed him though cancer for 5-years. It was not going to be a comfortable conversation, but I felt it was necessary and it felt like the right thing to do.
So I met with my mom and we ended up having one of the best talks of our lives for about an hour. I shared each point in my list and we discussed each one, and what she did was gave me some great perspective in terms of understanding the situation better from a factual perspective, clarifying some misconceptions I harbored about my dad and the 5-years of suffering he went through. What she told me really helped aid in my own self-forgiveness and helped me to eliminate my guilt, self-blame, regret.
The interesting thing that also came out of this is my mom mentioned to me that after all this time, she still really missed my dad. I did not say this to her, but I realized inside me that I did not miss him anymore. I felt guilty about that at first, like “why don’t I miss my dad anymore?” But now I see that the part of me that missed him was that part that was very attached to him; and that attachment was going away now. I still have a lot of love for my dad in my heart (I never lost any of that), but I just did not miss him anymore.
This conversation with my mom, and the insights following, helped bring me from a “6” down to a “2” and then to a “1 1/2”…
Me at a “1 1/2”:
Feelings: smiling on my past with a ton of warmth and love for my dad and thankfulness for him being part of my life. Relaxed, unstrained, peaceful, lighter. (guilt and regret is gone now).
Description: My heart holds a ton of love for my dad; this love shines through even more now, but I don’t really miss him anymore. I really appreciate his life and how I got to be a part of it. In terms of my dad’s suffering, I know it does not have to be my journey (it was part of his journey…his life). I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I know it will be an experience that I need.
#5 Possibility.
There is a chance now for me to be a “super” father in my own way, as my own Self, and I am excited about this. I see I have been on my own now for 10+ years without my dad, and I am doing well without the leadership and safety net that I used him for and it’s still a great growth opportunity for me. I know that I used my dad in the past for self-definition and labels to help develop and build my own image and self-ness; but that’s going away now as I see it’s not really me. I want to experience my own truth now and not live through his (or other’s) eyes and expectations.
#6 …see above for my scale movement.
The Healthy Grieving Process Example #2
#1 Be honest. What loss am I grieving?
This attachment has to do with an old group that I was part of in the past. At first I thought the loss I have been grieving was “friendship”. But since we were so close, I then figured it was loss of “family.” David and I looked at the definition of family, “a group of people united by certain conviction or a common affiliation; fellowship”. The word “fellowship” really hit the nail on the head for me, defined as, “companionship, community of interest, activity feeling or experience.” I am grieving the loss of fellowship.
This has to do with companionship – close friends that all stood together and stuck up for one another, common bonds and directions we all shared that helped shape and define us. We backed each other up – therefore a safety net of security. A feeling of self-definition/identity, direction, acceptance, self-worth and security were all deeper connections to fill (mask) my emptiness.
#2 Feel the feelings.
At first I was not “feeling the feelings”, as I was just stuck on the surface, being a victim. At first this was blaming others, then this turned into blaming my self. I had to go deeper- then finally got beyond surface. See below for feelings and description at each stage of scale.
#3 Set up a scale.
Me at a “10”:
Feelings: guilty, depressed, screwed-up, defeated, demoralized, loser, wrong, dishonored, embarrassed, if only I had done xyz, rejected, sorrow, unsuccessful, insecure, small, defenseless, fearful, ashamed, bitter, ruined, wimpy, gave-up, regretful.
Description: I am a mess about this. I am haunted with bad dreams still about the past and how things went down. I feel like it just happened yesterday and it has been 6 years… that’s how screwed-up I am about this. I threw everything away. I miss my fellowship. I feel really bad about everything and feel so guilty. I want to run and hide, move out of the state, escape the reality of still being around people that I used to know. I fear all this on a daily basis.
…I decided to go through my old photos and papers that I had been holding onto – to bring up buried feelings, to see how this attachment defined me, and what labels I gave myself… and then throw these away. Then I spent a day and went to my old home and town and allowed as much of the feelings to come up as I could, that had been just buried deep. This helped move me from a “10” to a “6” on my scale….
Me at a “6”:
Feelings: blame, regret, jealousy, envy, anger, small, wrong and guilty, mistaken, unsuccessful, wimp (note: these are still surface level)
Descriptions:
What not to do: (victim – blame others…)
I am angry at my old fellowship. I was not successful. I never felt like it changed me. It did not work for me. I wanted to leave and I did not do it. I stayed and did it anyway out of peer pressure. I did not get to do a lot of things I wanted to do with my life, and blame others for that. I did not stand up and speak up for my ideas. I did things I did not want to do. I am pissed it could not be positive.
What not to do: (victim – blame self…)
I am ashamed of my self, my life, my results. I am not a man. I am a bad guy. I left all my friends, girlfriend – my fellowship. I let everyone down. I was a wimp, a quitter and failure. I made a huge mistake. I am an outcast, a screw-up, a bad example, just another guy who didn’t make it. I ran away. I had to cause others a lot of pain and increased weight to carry. I lost everyone close to me. I am embarrassed. All my hard work has nothing to show for it. All my contribution and sacrifice does not matter anymore. I feel like I wasted about two decades. How am I going to make up this time? I feel regretful. I made a huge mistake. I was never really the “smart one” after all. I am lost … have to rebuild my whole life.
What to do: (own my self and my feelings – not as victim, poor me, why did this happen)
Feelings: I am empty, lonely, deep hollowness inside me, naked, exposed, unprotected, alone, small, tiny, weak, unsure, regretful, terrified, cut off, separate, ungrounded, unconnected, shattered, lost.
Description:
Everything I worked for since I was 20 was gone (fact). I am empty, lonely, hollow, exposed, no protection, alone, small, defeated – failure, weak and tiny, unsure, terrified, let my self down, deep sense of loss inside, cut-off, separate, ungrounded, I am shattered, my world is shattered, lost my identity and definition, I am nothing, not existing, lost, my world shattered. I feel these in my heart – inside.
Me at a “1”:
Feelings: more neutral, smiling on my past with some warmth, relaxed, unstrained, peaceful, lighter, less chatter/emotion in my head.
Description: I don’t miss them any more. Its over now, I am not holding on any more. It feels good; more releasing. I am forgiving myself and moving on. I hold some love in my heart for them, my past. I see some special things about it now and about the people who were close to me. I realize the gift that being alone gave to me.
#5 Possibility.
I see the benefit of leaving for me. I am free. Clean slate, I have a new lease on life. I can do the things I have wanted to do. New jobs, relationships, family. I am looking forward to the future. I am unstuck. Hopeful. Excited. Enthusiastic. I have a chance to be on my own, without a safety net. Be by my self and grow. I see the benefit the opportunity provided. I do not regret what happened. I do not feel connected to it all anymore.
#6 Check in again with your feelings and set up a new scale. Revisit this step until your scale is at a l.
The Healthy Grieving Process Example #3
1. Be Honest – what loss am I grieving? : The only true friend I have ever had.
I have somebody to share my journey with, I have someone to make me feel good about myself in the way that he does, and I feel loved for who I am. I have a partner that is honest with me and supports me. I have someone that makes me feel special, wanted and accepted.
2. Feel the feelings :
At first I was using a lot of concept words & phrases describing the feelings, during this process I realized they actually cover up the real feelings, but as I kept going they lead me to break through a layer to feel what is behind them.
Great despair, a deep loss, like someone put a hole in my chest. Desperate – I feel like I will do anything to make the feeling go away, abandoned, left behind, dark and scary, cold, thick, very suffocating, feels like no life is in there, I don’t exist – I am not alive. I feel like this feeling is a place I will do anything to cover up from experiencing.
3. Set up my scale – I am at a 10
Narrative defining myself at a 10 : Jeff is the first man I have ever opened my heart up to and I have real feelings for. When I begin to feel the feelings of what it would be like with out Jeff in my life – I feel alone, scared that I am left all by myself with no one to depend on, and I have no one to share my life with. I feel grief-stricken, despair and a deep loss of myself. Below the surface I begin to feel like someone has put a hole in my chest. I feel very empty, hollow, and feel nothingness in here. I have told myself that I was not capable of ever feeling these feelings again for another man. My attachments to Jeff have revealed my real feelings for him, and how I fill the emptiness I feel inside of me. I will do anything to make these feelings go away, and I cannot bare to feel a giant gaping hole in my heart. I feel extremely sad, depressed, and I feel like I am lacking a part of me that I need to function on. I feel I have no reason to keep going in life if I am all alone. Going into that hole in my chest is a dark, cold, and scary place. I feel so desperate, and closed in that I want to claw my way out of here. There is no light in here, I cannot see anything, I cannot see myself, my outside world does not exist at all and I feel utterly alone. There is no comfort in here, there is just blackness. The air is thick, heavy and I feel panicked. I cannot breathe in here and I feel like I am suffocating to death. In this place I feel lifeless, like my very breath is leaving me, and I am unable to speak or move. I am sinking in my own blackness and I feel paralyzed. I am non-existent in here and feel like I am not alive. I am understanding now why I will do anything to not feel this place inside of me, It feels like an internal death with out actually dying.
4. Let it go : I realize that I need to be there for myself, that these feelings are false and are not supporting me. By letting go of these feelings I will be supporting myself in a healthy way. I need to be a partner, a true friend, and honest to myself, rather than depending on somebody to do it for me.
5. Possibility : I would have a relationship with myself, and I would love myself for who I am, therefore love my partner for who he is. I would have the space I need to work on myself, and get to know myself. I will become intimate with myself and not give myself away to my partner. I will not want anything from him, and the relationship will feel effortless. Wanting something from someone takes a lot of work, and energy. I would feel free, and not burdened. It feels like a dream and I never could have imagined having something like this before. It feels like these possibilities have never existed in my world.
6. Check in with my scale in a few days or week
Feel the feelings
I feel depressed, sad, bleak, and uneasy. I feel a deep withdrawal, lacking something, I feel unprotected, disconnected, small, fragile, lost, I don’t feel good about myself , I feel desperate for attention, I feel alone, I feel unimportant, and invisible.
Scale – I am at a 5
Narrative defining myself at a 5:
I miss my friend, I miss having someone to talk to and give my life ease. I miss having Jeff in my life to take away this feeling of lack and emptiness that I feel so unprotected from. I am feeling like my life has no meaning if I am all alone. I am feeling depressed and I find myself experiencing deep sighs of sadness through out my day – I feel like a part of me is missing. I am feeling like my life is flat and meaningless because I have no one to share it with. I feel like I have lost my way of connecting to myself because I have no one to connect to. I am feeling very bleak, my life feels obsolete and unimportant. There is no one to accept me and I feel desperate to feel accepted and loved. I feel as if my life line to the outside world has been severed and I feel lost and unable to find my way back. I feel like jumping out of my skin so I can avoid feeling this vacuum inside of me. I am unsure of who I am with out all of these things that I depend on to feel good, I feel uncertain about myself and I am feeling fragile.
***Check in with my scale in a few days or a week
Note: This worksheet example does not have the next scale check in. The work was completed and did move to a scale of 1.
The Healthy Grieving Process Example #4
Step 1: Be honest about what I am really losing. We talked a lot about my house. And this is what I came to about selling it; what I am grieving: the loss of everything I ever worked for and dreamed about.
I stayed in jobs and relationships, I went into debt (deeper and deeper), I stressed and agonized for this dream. All my time and almost all of my money went into this dream. And I have had this dream my whole life. From the time I was able to look at houses as my dad drove down the street, I started fantasizing about what they looked like inside. I would always wonder what they were like. And I felt like if I just had that house or that life, everything would be okay. Better, I thought everything would be awesome. And what I have realized about my life right now is that dream has come true. I have that house, that yard, and I don’t have to work. I don’t have to leave my nice pretty cave. So of course I don’t want to work on this attachment. Everything I have ever done went towards achieving this dream. And even though it isn’t all that (everything is not better and happy-go-lucky), I’m not ready to let it go.
Step 2: Feel the feelings. Here is where I got tripped up over the last week. David reminded me that the feelings are the same whether I am a victim or coming from my heart. What changes is the “mindset”. When I am a victim, I feel some of the feelings and stop there. I wallow in them and use them to create fear and drama. I don’t look for more and deeper feelings. I camp out in the surface and first sub-levels of feelings.
When I feel the feelings with authentic intent, I keep going. I keep going deeper and deeper. And as I feel the emotions I can find more. Because if I am doing it from my heart, I feel a feeling and it starts to dissipate, so then I can look for more. And as I move through them I can get deeper and deeper and keep looking for those feelings until I can’t find anymore. Victim mode stops me long before I get to the deepest core feelings.
As I wrote this I realized I was changing lines with each pause to look for more. And the breaks between lines are the pauses I took to sink down deeper into the emotions and pull more out.
This is the order the feelings started coming:
disappointing, sad, a physical loss, like somebody is dying
failure, humiliation, devastated, overwhelmed,
embarrassing, in-capable, lost — This has always been my focus and I now I don’t have anything to work for.
I feel empty and blah. I feel like I am coming apart because there is nothing to hold me together.
it is exhausting, scary, terrifying
There is no core point to rally around.
It feels —- blackness, cold, empty,
floating around in space or a vacuum
lost forever, suffocating, crushing, can’t suck in any air; feels like my heart is going to be squished into oblivion
like death itself: cold and dark and crushed into feelings of oblivion
Step 3: Set up a scale. This is me. And this is my 10. These feelings are the intensity of losing everything I have ever worked for and ever dreamed about.
I have worked so hard at having a nice house with a nice yard and at not having to work so I can have a leisurely life of luxury, all so I could cover up and hide from me these feelings of death itself.
This has always been my focus and now I don’t have anything to work on or for. The surface feelings were devastated, humiliated, overwhelmed, incapable, lost, a failure. But more I feel empty. I also feel like I am coming apart because there is nothing to hold me together now. It is exhausting and terrifying.
There is no core point in me to rally around. What is there feels like blackness. It feels cold and empty, like I am floating around in space. It feels like a vacuum. It feels like I am suffocating, that my lungs are being sucked flat, like I can’t suck air in. It feels like I will be lost forever. It feels like this vacuum is squishing my heart, like I will be squished into oblivion. It feels like death itself, cold and dark and crushed: oblivion.
Step 4: Let go and know these feelings are falseness and not supportive or healthy. Hanging on to my house, not working, my piano, and many other attachments covers up these feelings. My attachments allow me to hide all of this from me and therefore I can hold on to it. Obviously, having feelings of death itself is not healthy and keeping those feelings is not supporting of me. The cool thing was as I went through these feelings, I could feel them lighten and leave. When I reread this work it already seemed foreign. Just by acknowledging them and feeling them with the intent of letting them go helped me move on my scale.
Step 5: Imagine the possibilities. This one is much harder from me. My ability to be positive is almost non-existent. Turning a negative into a positive is not my strong suit.
Letting go of this dream allows many possibilities. I can have an authentic job and an authentic relationship. In the past I had agendas and motives to fund my dreams and hide my weaknesses. Without my house I can have a fresh start. I can learn to live within my means. When I live within my means, I can manage my money and take responsibility for my actions around money. I can learn to live like a grown up. I can be pragmatic and make reasonable decisions. (Right now I am always behind the eight-ball.) I can put my time and my energy into me. I can learn to take care of me.
Step 6: Check in again with my feelings and set up a new scale. Now it feels like I am at a 6. I still don’t want to sell my house, but I can see the possibilities. I know it is the best thing and it is my truth. I just really, really don’t want to do all the work it will take to get it ready, to get rid of stuff, and to keep it show house clean during the process. I don’t want to pack and I don’t want to move. At this stage it is a huge pain in the butt, and it is easier to stay where I am. I still love my house and am sad at losing what I have worked for. But these feelings of sad and disappointed and ‘put-out’ are manageable. They don’t create intense panic and disoriented loss.
The Healthy Grieving Process Example #5
Note: This example was completed by David. Because of his inner awareness he was able to grieve his dog Pepper in a more free flowing manner.
I feel lost, empty, and heavy- an attachment creates identity and meaning. I feel this way- disorientated- because “there is a piece of me that is gone”. I feel fragmented- whenever I use something external to define me and give my self identity and meaning.
Identity: Who I am- “I am David who has a dog Pepper. David is a person who does not love dogs. David is a person who committed to take responsibility for Pepper. Meaning: David gets up every morning walks Pepper, feeds her scraps from his plate, plans his day around her and feels loved when Pepper greets him excitedly.” The routine gave meaning to my life.
Now, it, my identity and meaning, (“Pepper”) is gone and I feel the loss and emptiness that makes me sad (sad is a blend of emotions and is not really an emotion in of it’s self). It is like this comfort zone of my “self” identity and meaning is gone. And I am left with “nothing”- a big empty hole in me which was filled by the role (attachment) Pepper played in my life. I don’t really “miss” Pepper; I miss what Pepper meant to me- the identity and meaning. Pepper is a label- a place holder – for a piece of me that was given identity and meaning.
For a few days, I couldn’t feel anything but the “loss” (pain) of something that was missing as me until I was willing let go of wanting the loss to be filled with my pain (stuffing). I must grieve from the heart to let go of the pain.
As I grieve “Pepper”, the loss of a companion, I let go of the meaning and identity and allow the hole – the emptiness- to be transformed into love: not love for Pepper (even though I will be left with loving thoughts) but ultimately love for my self. Because Pepper no longer represents the “hole” in me but the fullness – self love
I have grieved my loss of identity and meaning I placed as Pepper. Now I am free- to be just me – without the fragmented aspect of me created by my attachment to “Pepper”.
In the death of Pepper, I found my self.
I can now feel and know that without Pepper (bless Pepper for all the gifts she gave me), I am creating new meaning and identity in my life in me as me. I have reunited with the fragmented part of me- I am whole.
Owning: I can now see me as my falseness:
Insight from grieving Pepper:
I can never experience death because when I am complete (self) there is nothing for me to lose- death- the loss of identity and meaning: that which one calls life. I can never experience death because when I free of attachments or stories and experience my self as whole there is nothing for me to lose. Death is created by the attachment to life and is experienced as the loss of identity and meaning which one calls life.
As long as one “clings” to life’s meaning – attachment and stories- one will fear death. It is inherent in the human condition. So when a one dies with attachments and stories, they are reconnected with source – only upon death will they be at peace..
Please visit the testimonial page to read individuals’ experiences with the Healthy Grieving process.