Tuesday’s Trust - Trust the Process

Tuesday’s Trust

Trust the Process

Trust the process.

I often have said to clients in my psychotherapy practice as they face the arduous task of walking through their traumatic memories with me, "Trust the process." I know from years of experience in guiding others through such memories before them, that with active commitment and work, ever fighting the tendency toward resistance, clients will reach the other side to a state of pain. They will feel a sense of resolution, joy, freedom, better understanding, and healing. They will feel freed up to be more of the persons they were created to be. They will feel whole, integrated, and centered, finding themselves to be more resourceful when facing any of life’s new challenges.

Now…what about me??!

As I walk through the third year of grief after the sudden loss of my 19-year-old daughter in 2006, as I continue to undergo this long arduous task of grief, do I “trust the process”?

Now, it is I. I am the one walking into the unknown darkness of grief with no idea of how to navigate except to feel my feelings, tell my story, and walk through every facet of grief as it presents itself with as much patience, nurturance, and self-protection from any interfering-toxins as possible. But this time, I don't know what lies on the other side of such devastating pain...

This time, I have no idea what the exit from deep grief will look like, what the exit strategy will be, nor the length of time it will take to get to at least a semblance of healthy functioning.

I can see I am getting stronger in many ways as I go through; I do feel the loving hand of my Heavenly Father throughout; I do see a degree of better functioning.

So, simply seeing there is progress along the way will have to be enough as I daily navigate, learning baby-step by baby-step to “Trust the Process” –but this time, “Trust the Process of Grief.”

What about you?

Where are you in your walk through grief?

Are you learning to ‘Trust the Process of Grief”?

Can we "trust the process of grief”?

Can we "Trust the Process of Grief" will lead to peace at some time in our lifetime?

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I hope you never allow anybody to give you Valium at the time of such a crisis, as it will cheat you out of the chance to experience all your feelings, cry out all your pain, shed all your tears, so that you can live again, not only for your own sake, but for the sake of your family and all others whose lives you can touch!

~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross On Children and Death

Failure to mourn impairs a life. Most people's problems with mourning are not caused by compounded losses; their problems are caused by other people's desires to get mourning over with. Family, friends, and medical staff want accommodation of the loss as quickly as possible. Only through mourning can we find a life on the other side of loss. We need to grieve losses and find people who will accept that grieving. To grieve well is to value what you have lost.

~Arthur Frank At the Will of the Body

Whether in painting, poetry, performance, music, dance, or life, there is an intelligence working in every situation. This force is the primary carrier of creation. If we trust it and follow its natural movement, it will astound us with its ability to find a way through problems--and even make creative use of our mistakes and failures. There is a magic to this process that cannot be controlled by the ego. Somehow it always finds the way to the place where you need to be, and a destination you never could have known in advance. When everything seems as if it is hopeless and going nowhere . . . "trust the process."

~Shaun McNiff, TRUST THE PROCESS: An Artist's Guide to Letting Go

“.....every time there are losses there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper.”

~Henri Nouwen

“When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.”

~Henri Nouwen

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With God’s help, may we “trust the process of grief”, finding every pain being “transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.”

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

~Psalms 30:5b

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me...

~Psalm 23:4a