A Lesson I Learned on Grief

[SkepticalHumanist1980]

I realized something today about grief.  More specifically, I realized something about how my non-belief affects my relationship with grief. To give a little background, I was raised in a version of Christianity that believes in and practices faith healing. I had heard stories all my life of people who would be at the sickbeds of loved ones praying and wailing for hours and hours, days and days until, miraculously, they would be healed and recover. I heard stories of people, because of prayer, coming out of wheelchairs and walking, cancerous tumors dropping off of people and onto the floor, the dead being raised, eyes forming in moments into the sockets of people born without eyes (I know that sounds crazy, but that's what I was taught).  These accounts were always spoken about with reverence, and as a child I looked at these people as heroes who expressed a profound faith and devotion that seemed almost if not entirely unreachable to me.  I didn't realize it at the time, but this planted in my mind a severe and impossibly high standard of faith and devotional expression that haunted me for many years.
     After I had gotten saved, I had this feeling in the back of my mind that if someone I loved got sick and didn't get better that it was partly my fault for not praying hard enough or having enough faith. So I felt a lot of pressure to resist the idea of their sickness or to accept their possible demise.
     I didn't fully realize what a burden this had been to me until last night when I got the news that the man who had helped raise me was in intensive care in respiratory and renal failure and they didn't know if he would pull through it. I was liberated from my faith about 7 or 8 months ago and this has been the first death scare I've had since then. I had wondered a worried a bit how I would handle this kind of situation without my faith. I found out last night that I shouldn't have worried. Without the pressure of having to somehow try to supernaturally affect a positive outcome, I was able to realize that these things are just a part of life and out of my control, and that however things turned out it wouldn't be my fault. While I am still sad that I may lose him, the realization that I can't change the situation allowed me to accept the situation and spend my time loving him and saying my goodbyes instead of wasting my time on praying and worrying if I had enough faith for my prayers to be answered. This has brought me so much peace that I didn't even realize I was missing in times past. I still don't know what will happen if he does die, but this experience has made me more hopeful that I will be okay whatever happens.

[MOHO]

Nice post, Skeptical.

A shot in the arm, to be sure, for many reading here.

    - MOHO (Mind Of His Own)

[TABA]

Hi Skeptical, and welcome to our community!  I'm sorry that your first post here is at a difficult and sorrowful time for you, but I'm glad that, like me, you have found that letting go of faith can bring an unexpected peace.  I haven't suffered the loss of a loved one since my deconversion, but in general I find myself no longer struggling with things by trying to make sense of 'God's will'. There is more peace than I could have imagined outside of the faith!  I've also come to realize that it is not a god's love that sustains us, but rather the support of flesh-and-blood mortal men and women who wish us well.  So even though I no longer pray, I do send you my very best wishes.  Please stay in touch - and again: Welcome!

[Margee]

On 2/24/2017 at 10:18 AM, SkepticalHumanist1980 said:

 While I am still sad that I may lose him, the realization that I can't change the situation allowed me to accept the situation and spend my time loving him and saying my goodbyes instead of wasting my time on praying and worrying if I had enough faith for my prayers to be answered. This has brought me so much peace that I didn't even realize I was missing in times past. I still don't know what will happen if he does die, but this experience has made me more hopeful that I will be okay whatever happens.

 

SH1980, I'm so sorry you are going through a bad time. Life is certainly unfair as well as fair. But definitely, I can relate to having the burden of begging and pleading for god to make our loved ones healthy again is gone. I know now that life is life and bad things will always happen to good people and good things can happen to bad people. And yes, we will all die and most of the time it won't be peacefully in our sleep. Hopefully his will be a peaceful transition filled with loving people.

 

You are so right in just spending time loving. Keep us posted hon on how you are doing.

 

Big (hug)

[Tsathoggua9]

38 minutes ago, Burnedout said:

This body is just a flesh and blood machine that eventually wears out.  We cannot stop it, MAYBE slow it down.  All the charlatins of the world use life and death as a prop to till the flock for money.  

 

Excellent point!

[SkepticalHumanist1980]

I just wanted to let everyone know that the man I was talking about in my original post died about a week ago. I went to his showing and funeral this past Friday. It hasn't been easy, but I have found that it hasn't been any harder to deal with death now than it was when I was a believer. The love and attention that has been expressed to me by many people around me as well as my allowing myself to grieve and to process my grief have been enough. I have been doing some guided meditations on death and grief over the past several days that have been helpful to me as well.  This is the first of the two that I have been using: 

I have found this meditation to be helpful to me in the process of leaning in to my grief rather than running from it. There is a bit of talk at the end of the meditation about the Bardo and the passage into the next life, but it is short and easy to overlook. There is a lot of talk about the dharma, but I find that idea pretty easy to look at  from a secular standpoint.

Here is the other guided meditation I have been using: 

This guided meditation is a visualization exercise about the lost loved one and is a way to process my feelings about the loss. I have also ordered a few secular books related to grief and loss that I hope will be helpful to me. 

[Margee]

SH1980, I'm so sorry for your loss.  I send you a big internet hug and positive thoughts while recovering from this. Go and do something really nice for yourself today hon. If you need us, we're right here for you.

 

(((hug)))