Any Misfortune Is Not Accidental?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

A man tells me about a woman he knows. She was in a car accident. Overnight her life was shattered. She is in pain almost all the time, her legs are paralyzed, and she had to part with many hopes

He tells how stupid, stupid she was before the misfortune happened to her. But, he says, after the accident, there has been a change for the better in her life. And now she lives just fine.

Finally, he utters these words. Words that can be equated with emotional, spiritual, psychological abuse.

He says: “Nothing is accidental. It had to happen to her. For her own spiritual, personal growth."

What a rare, vile nonsense this is. And this is a complete lie.

I have been working with people in grief for so many years, and I never cease to be amazed at how tenacious all these myths are. The vulgar, hackneyed, empty phrases disguised as a kind of "worldly wisdom".

It is these myths that will prevent us from doing the only thing we need to do when our life is suddenly turned upside down: allowing ourselves to grieve.

You know all these phrases. You've heard them countless times. You may have said them yourself. And it would be good to destroy all these myths.

And I tell you quite bluntly: if a disaster has happened in your life, and someone in one form or another says something like: “it should have happened”, “nothing is accidental,” “it will make you better” “Well, this is your life, and you are responsible for everything that happens in it, and you are able to fix everything,” - you have every right to expel such an advisor out of your life.

Grief is always very painful. Grief is not only when someone dies. When people leave, this is also grief. When prospects collapse, when a dream dies, it's grief. When illness strikes, grief.

And I endlessly repeat and repeat words that are so strong and honest that they can knock arrogance off every donkey that devalues grief:

Many things happen in life that cannot be fixed. You just have to live with it.

This was said by my friend Megan Devine, one of the few who writes about loss and emotional turmoil in a way that I would subscribe to her words.

These words are perceived so painfully and acutely because they hit right on target: our vulgar, pathetic, low-grade culture with its myths about human misery. You can't fix the loss of a child. And the diagnosis of a serious illness cannot be corrected. And the betrayal of the one you trusted the most in the world is also not correct.

One must live with such losses, bear this cross.

Although emotional upheavals can serve as an impetus for spiritual growth, this is not always the case. This is the reality - often it just ruins lives. And that's all.

And the trouble is that this happens precisely because we, instead of grieving with a person, give him advice. We get off with general phrases. We are not near the one who has befallen.

I am living a very unusual life now. I built it in a very special way. And I’m not joking when I say that the losses I’ve endured didn’t make me any better. In many ways, they rather hardened me.

On the one hand, the misfortunes and losses that I suffered made me very sensitive to the pain of others. On the other hand, they also made me more withdrawn and secretive. I became more cynical. I became tougher towards those who do not understand what losses do to people.

But most importantly, I stopped suffering from the “survivor's guilt” complex that had haunted me all my life. This complex gave rise to my secrecy, and isolation, and vulnerability, and constant self-sabotage.

I can never get rid of my pain, but I have learned to use it for good - when working with others. It is a great joy for me that I can be useful to people in need. But to say that all those losses that I experienced had to occur in order for my abilities to unfold more fully would be to trample on the memory of those whom I lost, the memory of those who suffered in vain, of those who faced the same trials. that I did in my youth, but could not stand them.

And I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to build some crazy constructions, adjust life to the patterns we are used to. I am not going to arrogantly claim that the Lord has given me life - me, not others - so that I can do what I am doing now. And I'm certainly not going to pretend that I was able to cope with my losses because I was strong enough that I "became successful" because I "took responsibility for my life."

How many vulgar platitudes have been invented like this "take responsibility for your life upon yourself"! And all this is, for the most part, nonsense …

People say all this to others when they do not want to understand these others.

Because to understand it is much more difficult, more expensive than giving an instruction like “become responsible for your life”.

After all, "personal responsibility" implies that there is something for which to be responsible. But you cannot be held responsible for being raped or for losing a child. You are responsible for how you now live in this nightmare that you are facing. But you didn't choose whether to let grief into your life. We are not omnipotent. When our life turns into hell, when it bursts into it, we cannot avoid grief.

And that is why all these common phrases, all these "attitudes" and "methods of solving problems" are so dangerous: by getting rid of those whom we, as we say, love, we thereby deny their right to grieve, to grieve. We deny their right to be human. With these phrases we bind them exactly when they are at their weakest, vulnerable, when they are in complete despair.

Nobody - nobody! - has no right.

And the paradox is that, in fact, the only thing we are responsible for when we have trouble is for grieving, for living our grief.

So, if someone tells you something from the series “Come to your senses”, or “You need to live on”, or “You can overcome everything” - let such a person out of your life.

If someone avoids you when you have a trouble, or pretends that no trouble happened, or disappears from your life altogether, let him go.

If someone says to you, “All is not lost. This means that it should have happened. You will become stronger, having survived this misfortune”- let him go.

Let me repeat: all these words are nonsense, nonsense, lies, complete nonsense.

And you are not responsible for those who try to "feed" them to you. Let them go out of your life. Let them go.

I am not saying that you should do this. It's up to you, and only you. This is an extremely difficult decision and must be taken very carefully. But I would like you to know that you have the right to do so.

I have suffered a lot in my life. I was filled with shame and self-loathing so intense that it almost killed me.

But there were also those who helped me in my grief. There were few of them, but they were. We were just there. Silently.

And I am alive now because then they chose to love me. Their love was expressed in the fact that they were silent when it was necessary to be silent. They were ready to share my suffering with me. They were ready to go through the same discomfort and breakdown that I experienced. For a week, for an hour, even for a few minutes - but they were ready.

Most people have no idea how important this is.

Are there ways to "heal" when "life is broken"? Yes. Can a person go through hell relying on them? Maybe. But none of this will happen if you do not allow a person to burn out, burn out. Because grief itself is not the most difficult thing.

The hardest part is ahead. It is also a choice of how to live on. How to live with loss. How to rebuild the world and yourself from the fragments. All this will be - but after the person is burned out. And there is no other way. Grief is woven into the fabric of human existence.

But our culture treats grief as a problem to be solved, or as a disease to be cured - or both. And we did everything to avoid, to ignore the grief. And in the end, when a person encounters tragedy in his own life, he discovers that there are no people around - only banal "comforting" vulgarities.

What to offer in return?

When a person is devastated by grief, the last thing he needs is advice.

His whole world was smashed to smithereens.

And for him to invite someone into this collapsed world is a huge risk.

If you try to "fix" something in him, correct, or rationalize his grief, or wash away his pain, you will only intensify the nightmare in which the person is now living.

The best thing to do is to acknowledge his pain.

That is to say literally: “I see your pain, I acknowledge your pain. And I'm with you.

Note - I say - "with you", not "for you." “For you” means that you are going to do something. No need. Just be near the person you love, share his suffering, listen to him.

There is nothing stronger in terms of the power of influence than simply admitting the enormity of a person's grief. And to do this, you do not need any special skills or knowledge. It only requires a willingness to be close to the wounded soul and stay close - as long as necessary.

Be near. Just be around. Do not leave when you are uncomfortable, uncomfortable, or when you seem to be unable to do anything. Quite the opposite - when you are uncomfortable and when it seems that you cannot do anything - then you should be there.

Because it is in this nightmare, into which we so rarely dare to look, that healing begins. Healing begins when next to the grieving person there is another person who wants to go through this nightmare with him.

Every mourner on earth needs such a companion.

Therefore, I beg, I very much ask you - become such a person for someone in grief. You are needed more than you can imagine.

And when in trouble you need such a person by your side - you will find him. I promise you that.

And the rest … well, let them go. Let them go.

Translated by Anna Barabash