Adapting to the Darkness of the Pit: What Grief Processing Actually Means

What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

Helen Keller (Sarkis, 2012)

Take a moment to imagine that you are sitting alone in the loveliest of gardens. Surrounded by a white picket fence, your garden contains a vast assortment of flowers and vegetation. At the center of your garden is a four-hundred-year-old southern live oak tree, its roots sprawling, its branches hanging heavy with Spanish moss.

Since your earliest days, you’ve retreated to this garden—to rejoice with the flowers on festive days, to hide in the live oak’s branches on unhappy ones. The garden is your private sanctuary. You simply cannot envision a life without its comfort and beauty.

One day, a destructive force more powerful than tornadoes and hurricanes sweeps through your garden without a warning. It ravages the flowers and vegetation. It splinters and obliterates your picket fences. Worst of all, it swarms around your live oak and rips it from its roots, leaving nothing but a deep, black pit in its place.

When the storm has passed, you look around the wreckage. You pick through the shriveled remains of tulips and kick away shards of splintered fence posts. The worst part of this experience is looking into the pit that once contained your lovely live oak tree. The hole is still, black, lifeless—a horrible reminder of what once lived there. Looking around the garden, you are overwhelmed with pain. You cannot fathom how you will ever function now that you have lost what was so precious and indispensable to you.

Contemplating the Darkness

When we lose what is most precious to us, it feels as though the deepest recesses of our hearts—the sanctuary of our ‘inner gardens’—have been ravaged by a pitiless storm. Something we loved has been ripped up by its roots, leaving a deep, dark pit in its place. Facing this darkness, we cannot envision a world in which we could feel happy again. And yet, many around us have experienced devastating losses and somehow they continue to breathe and function. We ask ourselves, how on earth do they do it? Why aren’t we getting through it the same way? What is wrong with us?

One of the most important things to remember is that grief processing is as unique to the individual as a fingerprint. There is no “correct” way to grieve, nor does it happen in a neat, predictable, linear fashion. Many find that their grief stages jump all over the place. One day they may experience anger, the next day acceptance, the next depression, and so forth. What is important to remember is that, no matter how one grieves, one must experience and process these difficult emotions in order to heal. That said, what exactly does it mean to “heal” from grief?

Working Around the Pit

Despite the intense pain of grief, many are resistant to the idea of healing. Healing, in their minds, signifies ‘letting go’, ‘moving on’, or ‘forgetting’. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. In the words of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, one of the foremost experts and pioneers of grief therapy, “You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to” (Kübler-Ross & Kessler, 2007).

Healing does not signify that you have filled the darkened pit or forgotten what once resided there. It means you have come to accept the reality of its presence and have begun to plant your flowers around it. With time, you will create meaning of its significance, thereby honoring it. (For more information on grief and meaning-making, grief expert David Kessler’s Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief is a phenomenal resource.)

A Few Final Words on Grief

As the infamous year 2020 reaches its end, many of us are processing the changes and losses that have occurred. Such losses include jobs, incomes, homes and other possessions, school routines, graduations, weddings, social activities, travel plans, physical and mental health, a sense of safety and security … the list goes on. Some of us have lost friends and family members to death, COVID-related or otherwise. The point is, every single person surviving 2020 has experienced loss, and the natural healing process of loss is grief. For this reason, if you find yourself dealing with painful, exhausting emotions, please do not discount or invalidate them. Such feelings do not signify weakness. You are facing the blackness of the pit in your garden, and your mind is desperately searching for a way to adapt to its presence.

Perhaps Leo Tolstoy put it best when he said, “Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them” (Sarkis, 2012). If you grieve, it means you have loved what was lost. No matter what else happens, that same love will get you through the pain and, in the end, will lead to healing. This is by no means a quick and easy task, but with enough self-compassion and fortitude, you will find your way around the pit. You will never be exactly as you were before the storm, but you will ultimately find your mental peace.

Courtesy: Gwendolyn Brown, M.S..

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