Five phases to help us overcome a deep and intense pain due to a separation or mourning.
A separation or mourning could be a very complicated and painful moment for a person having to face his/her most intimate thoughts and very strong feelings. A pain and suffering that seems not to want to leave, a mixture of painful and contrasting feelings and emotions that we seem unable to overcome. As mourning we don’t only mean by death but also through separation from our partner or relative, and his represents one of the hardest challenges that a person can through during his/her life. With the term “elaboration of the loss” we mean all the hard work on motional elaboration, of the meanings, past, lived moments and all the necessary social processes to make the ex partner become part of our inner world in order to get out of the depression state we usually tend to fall into.
Psychology has analyzed over and over again this situation and although each and everyone of us has his/her own ways and time of elaboration, 5 main stages of elaboration and in some way get back to lets say normal life have been identified. These 5 ways consist of 5 fundamental moments:
- DENIAL PHASE; is the first stage
“I can’t believe it”, “its not true/real”. During this stage the individual tends to deny the loss. A sort of refusal towards reality, this is considered a defence mecchanism, one trys to save himself/herself from such suffering.
- ANGER PHASE, second stage
“This is not fair/right”, “I do not deserve this”. During this stage the individual is angry about the loss, it is lived as injustice. This is a passage of the psychological & relational path that usually coincides with the moment of maximum request for help or a total closing of oneself.
- BARGAINING PHASE, third stage
“ If I get over this moment i’ll be stronger”, “if I get over it I will not do the same mistakes”. This is the stage were the person starts taking act that the loss is irreversible and starts speculating, altering moments of discouragement and hope, ways and methods to try to get back into control of his/her own life. At this point one reasons on who and what he/she can really count on and on new projects to develop resistance.
- DEPRESSION STAGE, fourth stage
“This is the end of me”, “I will never get out of this situation”. The fourth stage gets one conscious of the loss. The individual uderstands and lingers on all how it will be and what he/she cannot have without that person in his/her life anymore, making things look much bigger (although unconciously) and increasing the level of suffering creating a system that leads to a real and actual depression. At this time the most common symptoms are, headaches, weight loss or increase, irritability, lack of concentration, insomnia or excessive drowsiness, anger, frustration, sadness & will to be left alone and isolate themselves.
- ACCEPTANCE STAGE, fifth stage
“”this is how things have gone”, “its time to move forward”. The fifth and last stage leads to the process of elaboration of the loss. There can still be moments of anger and depression but the person is ready to give a reason and explanation to what happened, to understand that it is the natural order of things and to accept the loss and consider the possibility of a new life’s project, independently, looking at the future with renewed enthusiasm.
During the various stages it is actually of little important what happens around us, because we are concentrated on ourselves and our loss, and very often friends and family can be of little or no help at all, rather what could be significantly of help is breathing and meditation exercises, a sort of space and time to dedicate to ourselves and to the comprehension first of all of our mistakes in order to accept them and reason/think in a different way without always needing to always draw our attention towards others. Working on ourselves, on how we really see ourselves and not on how we think that we are or how others see us or what they think about us. A separation or mourning represents the moment of maximum intensity for our thoughts and emotions and in order to canalize them and can probably help accelerate this process even though it only has 5 stages for some of us it can be very long and heartbreaking.
Yoga is a physical activity that helps us feel better and can be of great help.
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