How Trauma Therapy Can Help with the Avoidance of Pain

We have all stubbed a toe or sprained an ankle, gotten bitten or sunburned at some point in the last month. The instant ouch, the resounding throb, and tender joints for days are common for most ordinary people, and the more extreme and active you are, the more likely those will become.

Most of us have also eaten a new delicacy or old favorite, and gotten sick enough to throw it up due to food poisoning, and in future days, months, even decades for some, become so averse to the food, we completely avoid it.

Emotional Pain

Sometimes emotional pain caused by mistreatment while a child, difficult, frightening and uncontrollable things, feeling physical pain above the threshold of toleration, or being inappropriately touched or betrayed by someone, can make our bodies and minds respond similarly, just like becoming averse to food, or nervousness about playing that sport again in case your ankle might hurt again.

We are instinctively averse to things that cause us pain. A conversation about healthy fear versus unhealthy fear and healthy stress response and unhealthy stress response is valid. But for now, we can assert it is true that a powerful force in our mind prompts us to take special note of pain and quickly choose options to deal with it somehow.

Some of the ways we deal with emotional pain are suppressing our feelings, addiction, denial when it comes up, walling ourselves off from more pain or situations, fantasy and daydreaming, and other kinds of avoidance.

What we get from these are anxiety, a feeling of lurking feelings underneath the surface, and hopeless, cynical, antisocial, or isolative behavior. The problem with these is that none of them deal with root causes. All of them look to reduce or avoid symptoms.

Broken Cisterns

In Jeremiah 2:13, God tells the prophet Jeremiah about his people Israel: “For my people have committed two evils: They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

We can see a parallel to the broken cisterns that can hold no water, to those instances of avoiding pain, our rushed way of acting, but not getting to the root solution. Historically, cisterns were reservoirs or wells that would be built to hold and contain water. God used this metaphor to point out to His people that certain avenues and choices will never truly satisfy and comfort us or support us with the right provision of healing.

Ice cream is great for celebration, but not great for reducing the pain of rejection from people. Leaving in a hurry and swearing at someone to get away might be useful if being chased by an assailant, but not if you need to work a thorny issue with a family member. There is a reason and a season for things that make something an applicable or not-so-applicable choice to cope. The same goes for emotional, mental, and spiritual pain.

What is trauma therapy?

Let’s now take this philosophical topic and distill it to the psychological topic you came here for; how trauma therapy (“trauma” being the Greek word for wound, and so trauma therapy is the attending to the wound) can intersect with pain and help the sufferer face it and cope with it in the right way.

For nearly every theory proposed, tested, and verified in modern therapy, some theorists looked at basic questions like what unhealthiness is, what healthiness is, and useful thinking and feeling, and what is the vehicle of change to go from unhealthy to healthy.

Many theorists looked long and hard at how pain, wounding, fear, and negative habits of the past shaped people’s decision-making, defense mechanisms, and worldviews. They also proposed what they believed were common traits of healthy thinking, responses, and outlooks, and then went to work to derive hypotheses and develop interventions that could become vehicles of change toward healing in some way.

Some looked at reducing the pain and negative symptoms, while others looked at becoming more flexible and accepting negative feelings, and changing one’s outlook about them.

Types of Trauma Therapy

Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

For example, TFCBT (trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy), which is an evidence-backed theory for how to help children and teens experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress, has a particular understanding of trauma and how to heal.

The theory lays out an eight-step protocol that starts with educating caregivers about trauma, teaching relaxation skills for a body wracked by trauma, acknowledging emotions around pain and loss for kids, helping enhance adaptive thinking about events, thoroughly describing events through one’s narrative and then incorporating these skills into day-to-day life with the help and support of a support network.

According to this theory, you must come face to face with the wound and address it in trauma therapy, learning new ways to calm the body, understanding the normal mental reactions to trauma, making sense of it, and beginning to readjust to living in the presence of or in the wake of a painful event.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Another evidence-based method is called Dialectical Behavior Therapy, which is effective for individuals experiencing big overwhelming feelings in relationships, outbursts, and/or addictions, and also looks to address suffering and the conditions that drive us to act in unwanted ways.

1“Radical Acceptance,” a sub theory in this method, suggests that until we wholly accept that a trauma or a wrongdoing occurred in all its detail, we will get stuck in suffering, thinking about why or why not, and why me. While not accepting what happened is understandable initially, over time, it becomes problematic.

The answer this theory offers, is to hold our emotions hand-in-hand with logic and cold hard realities, and find a middle ground of wise behavior called “wise mind” thinking, which listens to the feelings, needs, and urges of the emotional side and balances them with acceptance of fact, to synthesizes them into a new, more adaptive way of thinking. In this theory, neither trying to medicate away feelings nor accepting reality without feeling would benefit healing.

Acceptance And Commitment Therapy

Yet another evidence-based theory called Acceptance and Commitment therapy was based on its founder, Steven Hayes’ experience of having his panic attacks get worse the more he tried to avoid the panic he felt in those moments.

He came to realize that befriending the fearful thoughts, recognizing they were a part of him but not him in totality, and reminding himself of his values and desired path of life that he was committed to, even amid that pain, helped him come out the other side. Flexibility came when there was more than just one way to handle pain, so that he could accept it, and move on, learning along the way and staying true to his beliefs.

12-Step Groups

Lastly thinking of all 12-step groups which have been proven effective over many decades, acknowledging pain and the past, not shutting the door on it, and committing to a plan of action with steps that improve your relationship to yourself, to God and other people, has assisted millions of addicts twisted by avoidance of pain become people reforming into witnesses to their pain but in recovery toward wholeness as recovering addicts.

The Common Factor

What do all these approaches have in common? They don’t advocate avoiding pain in the healing process; they offer strategies to heal through the moments and seasons with pain in it, with acceptance, a different vision, and tools to emerge resilient and more of yourself than you would be if merely avoiding pain.

And still, I want to escape. I still want to escape pain, sadness, and wounding. I want to throw my hands up and ask, “Why?” And that’s okay – it’s human. But the question is whether I can refocus after I acknowledge the real pain I feel so that I can recover.

Bringing back the theological aspect, what might be God’s desire for my handling of this situation? Do we believe that God works all things into our lives for a reason to yield a certain result, if not desiring pain, at least allowing it?

Tim Keller, a renowned late pastor and writer, shared about a time he talked with a psychiatrist friend of his who was feeling stuck in a rut with his psychiatric training. He said one day he looked at his massive textbook and asked, “What if I read this textbook for Christ?”

Suddenly, the friend said, he was thirsty to learn, compare, make connections and insights for treatment out of a sense that he was learning for Christ, thus the fulness of his work was coming out of his response to the question “What if there is more to this textbook than a textbook?”

What if there is more to pain than pain? Keller also goes on in other sermons to describe how the secularized post-modern Western world has precious few resources for explaining, dealing with, and enduring distress. Since, in most of Western culture, pain is meaningless, it should be avoided as an ultimate evil, right?

Christ, as detailed in the Gospels, gave another view. That there “will be trouble” in the world, that pain and sin are inevitable, but that we should ask for deliverance from them at the same time.

As the Serenity Prayer (credited to a 1920’s German preacher Reinhold Niebuhr and read at many 12 step groups around the world) says, the prayerful person asks to start “Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.”

Trauma Therapy Reconsidered

Let us synthesize all of this. In the theology of pain and the healing therapies, we see both a universal issue and helpful ways through it. Be it Dialectical “Radical Acceptance,” CBT reorientation and resilience in facing hard things, or the twelve steps of becoming willing to accept a new path rather than the old one of avoidance and addiction, we see a strange, foreign theme emerge.

This theme is in contrast to avoiding pain and distress at all costs, which the world and our instincts ironically tell us is unavoidable. It is a theme of not clearing out from pain, but grasping it, acknowledging hardship and caring for ourselves in the midst of it, and taking the world as it is, not as we would have it, because that avoidance – that wishing for an alternative reality – keeps us in more pain and bitterness.

One last spiritual picture: If you are not familiar with the story of Job, it is a biblical account that starts with Satan coming to God and requesting to make life difficult for one of God’s chosen people, a blameless and upright man named Job. Satan, the accuser, tries to prove to God that Job, faced with stress, insult, fear, and pain, will surely curse God and not act blameless, for Job was only trusting God (said Satan), because of God’s kindness and material blessings.

What we see instead is a man who endured pain, but cried out to God in anger, but the key phrase is that he cried out “to God.” Job was a man who, though he experienced the pain, remembered to fix his eyes on God, and had faith that God can take our experience and raw expressions of pain and can provide healing and strength through it, not around it.

And the three therapies and the 12-step philosophy listed above all touch on different ways of bearing up underneath the burden of pain in this same way, attending to it rather than avoiding it.

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Counseling and Help for Helping Professionals

Being in the helping profession can be a fulfilling journey. These are the people who meet us at our most vulnerable times and offer to help. It can be a teacher in a class or a first responder coming to the scene of an accident. When we talk of those in the helping professions, they cover many categories. Below is a list of some of them:

  • Emergency services (First Responders, ambulance drivers, disaster relief workers, firefighters, police services)
  • Mental health and counseling services (Counselors, mental health advocates, psychologists)
  • Health Care Professionals (Nurses, doctors, EMTs, Midwives, etc.)
  • Non-Governmental Organization professionals
  • Social Services (Hospice workers, child welfare workers, domestic violence advocates)
  • Spiritual and Religious leaders (priests, Pastors, Rabbis, Imams)
  • Educational Services (Teachers, Lecturers, Professors, School Counselors)
  • Legal Services (Judges, Attorneys, Public Defenders, Mediators etc.)

Though the work they do is valuable and serves a great need in society, it comes with unique challenges and stressors. Constantly being there for others can be emotionally, mentally, and physically draining. The impact of these stressors can have a huge impact if not addressed in time. Due to the nature of the work those in the helping profession do, they rarely think of themselves as the ones needing help. This is why organizations and companies that employ those in the helping professions need to have strong Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) available. These programs can provide essential support for individuals in the helping professions, ensuring they have access to resources like Newport Beach Christian Counseling to address their own emotional and mental health needs.

Common Stressors for Helping Professionals

These programs can assist with some of the stressors that come with helping professions like the ones below:

Burnout

Many in the helping professions must deal with high workloads with few staff and resources to help them out. The fact that they also work long hours at a time can contribute to burnout. This is when the body experiences extreme levels of deep exhaustion. Burnout is common for those who are in the helping professions.

Spillover into personal life

Trying to gain a balance between life and work can be difficult for those in the helping profession. Not only is it the long hours that hinder the ability to attend to other aspects of life, it’s just that the work can also be all-consuming. Struggling to “switch off” when one gets home is a common complaint. This can have a huge impact on the person’s relationships and general well-being.

Compassion Fatigue

Being in the profession of helping others can cause compassion fatigue. This is the impact that helping has on individuals. It can be emotional, mental, or physical. Compassion fatigue causes those who are going through it to be unwilling and unable to care for others. There is a level of disinterest in the welfare of others due to constant exposure to trauma and suffering.

Secondary or Vicarious Trauma

Vicarious trauma happens when those in the helping professions witness or hear about their client’s or patient’s trauma and they take it upon themselves. This is not voluntary but can manifest itself through intrusive thoughts or nightmares. Unfortunately, those in the helping professions are constantly being exposed to the trauma of others and sometimes without adequate support.

Grief and Loss

An unfortunate reality for those in the helping professions, especially those in the healthcare industry, is that they will experience the death of their patients. This can be emotionally challenging and lead to dealing with grief and loss constantly.

Mental Health Issues

PTSD, depression, and anxiety are some common mental health issues experienced by those in the helping professions. The work they do is emotionally taxing meaning without adequate support they could struggle mentally.

Physical Health problems

Physical health issues are a reality for those who work in the healthcare industry. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they were on the front line and therefore more at risk for contracting the virus themselves. Those in the health profession are also more at risk of physical harm as they carry and attend to those in distress.

Help For the Helpers

As essential as the work done by those in the helping professions is, questions need to be asked by organizations and society about what sort of help and support can be offered. Being in a helping profession means that there needs to be a huge emphasis on self-care, organizational support, and seeking professional help when needed.

Being able to take care of oneself is important when in the helping profession. This does not mean a person is being selfish but making sure that they are healthy enough to carry out their duties. Self-care can be achieved by taking care of the physical body, making sure one gets enough exercise, eats right, gets enough sleep, and seeking professional or medical help when they are not well. Taking time to be involved in one’s favorite hobbies and building relationships ensures that individuals are allowing themselves to unplug from their work and care for other aspects of their lives. Relationships are important as they provide the much-needed social support that those in the helping professions need. Being part of a loving and vibrant church community can offer these relationships and support.

A huge part of self-care is the ability for one to have boundaries. This must be both in their professional and personal world. Having boundaries will guard against being burnt out and suffering from compassion fatigue. As much as it is within one’s power, they might need to cut down on shifts at work or limit their church and family commitments so that they are not overstretched. Part of having boundaries can also come in the form of carving out time for prayer and meditation. This is the time one can give themselves to just be still, rest, and commune with God.

Organizational support is also important for those in the helping professions. This can come in the form of Employee Assistance Programs that cater to the unique needs of the profession. Companies and organizations can run seminars and training courses that address any of the risks that are posed. Organizations can also provide career counseling and coaching services to their employees, so they are kept up to date with the changes in their profession, thus reducing the risks of stress in the workplace. Personalized supervision and consultations can also be provided for employees so that they have superiors they can rely on to give direction and guidance.

Professional help for those in the helping professions can come in the form of psychological, psychiatric, or medical help. Due to the dangers posed on individuals due to the stressors they go through daily, access to the above should be made available. Those in the helping professions might struggle with PTSD, Vicarious Trauma, depression, anxiety, physical injuries, and grief. These require professional help. This is in the form of individual counseling, specialized trauma therapy, support groups, and medical and psychiatric interventions. Due to the high-stress nature of helping professionals, greater importance needs to be placed on supporting them and providing them with the necessary resources. Resources need to be available for those who might need regular medical check-ups due to the nature of their work.

All this does not mean that all those in the helping profession are struggling. Most of these challenges have been mitigated by organizations and companies that set up appropriate services for the welfare of their employees. With adequate support, it can be a fulfilling journey to be in any of these professions as long as individuals prioritize self-care and make use of the support structures available to them.

Reach Out for Support

Being in the helping profession can be isolating and sometimes difficult to deal with. If you find you are struggling because of your work and need help and guidance, please reach out to our offices at Newport Beach Christian Counseling. There are trained Therapists who are ready to provide a safe and confidential environment for you to work through any work-related concerns.

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Grieving and Making Use of Prayers of Lament

Grief and loss come to us all at one point or another in our lives. In those moments, we can find ourselves struggling and without the words to express the deep and complicated emotions and thoughts we’re experiencing. Holding your grief and honoring that experience on one hand, while holding onto trust and hope in the other, can be difficult. This is where prayers of lament can be helpful.

When you’re grieving, you are trying to process loss in your life. Grief is a natural response to loss, and it’s important to allow yourself the time and space to grieve. Using the prayers of lament from Scripture is one way to process and express your grief. If you’re struggling with this process, Newport Beach Christian Counseling offers support and guidance in navigating grief, helping you find comfort and healing during such a difficult time.

The various causes of grief

Loss can happen in a variety of ways. We often think of death, but it applies to many things. We form emotional attachments to other people, things, and places, and they become part of our everyday life. You could even say that they help shape who we are, and so when we lose those things, it affects us in profound ways. These connections and attachments can be broken or disrupted in numerous ways.

The kinds of loss that can induce grief include the loss of a relationship through the death of a loved one, a bad breakup, or a divorce. Loss also occurs when you experience significant failure, a cherished dream gets shattered, or when a loved or deeply respected person betrays you or lets you down. When you move away from your childhood home or the community that has nurtured you, that can also fuel a sense of loss.

Grief can come in various guises, and it is connected to the loss you’ve experienced. For instance, if you lose a loved one due to a natural disaster, an accident, or through some form of violence, which can lead to trauma and traumatic grief.

This type of grief involves losses that happen under horrific or unpredictable circumstances. Grief can also be anticipatory, in that the loss hasn’t yet occurred, but the feelings of loss and grief set in, in anticipation of loss. Grief can thus be complicated.

Allowing prayers of lament to be part of your grief

The process of grieving is unique to each person, and how they make sense of their loss won’t look the same as it does for another person. You may have heard of the five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages don’t delineate a straightforward process that runs in order, and when you get to the other side of it, you’re done grieving. Rather, it indicates the kinds of emotions you may experience along the way.

Scripture offers many prayers to address grief in its many forms. One of the kinds of prayers in the Bible is lament. This sort of prayer can be helpful when a person is grieving. A lament is an honest, raw expression of our sorrows that’s directed toward God. It is an expression of your pain and a way to mourn loss. A sizable portion of the Psalms is made up of laments in various contexts.

Many people who follow Jesus assume that they can or should only pray happy prayers, or prayers that are full of hope. This often means that in practice they feel the need to suppress feelings of angst, sorrow, pain, distress, anger, depression, and more. Jesus, while He was on the cross, quoted from one of the Psalms of lament, Psalm 22, when he said, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1, Matthew 27:46, NIV).

It’s okay for a believer to feel sorrow and grief, to experience a sense of abandonment. Jesus, and the rest of the Psalms, show us the way. Those feelings can be directed at God and addressed to Him. The Lord is big enough to handle our most complex and painful emotions and experiences. The Psalms show us how to hold our grief and thankfulness in tension, as in Psalms 13, for instance:

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?… But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me. – Psalm 13:1-2, 5-6, NIV

You can tell God how you honestly feel, knowing that the heavenly Father welcomes you and wants to hear from His children. This is one Psalm, but we don’t know how long it took David to move from the emotions of the first verses to the utterances of hope and gratitude in the last verses. It can take time. You don’t have to rush toward expressing gratitude, but you can trust that you’ll get there. In the meantime, you can be honest with God about your grief.

Reaching for help

The psalms of lament can help to give us the language as well as permission to take our grief to God. Likewise, you can also talk with a grief counselor who can help you to process your grief and make sense of your experiences. Reach out to our office today at Newport Beach Christian Counseling in California and we will schedule an appointment for you with a qualified therapist who will help you to cope with your loss.

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The Grieving Process: Reaching Acceptance in the Midst of Grief

There is great freedom in reaching acceptance. But it does not come without a cost. Typically, you must go through a grieving process to reach acceptance. Going through this journey can be difficult, but the rewards outweigh the costs. Newport Beach Christian Counseling can help guide you through this transformative process, offering the support you need to heal and embrace acceptance.

The Stages of Grief

There are five well-known stages of grief, and acceptance is the last one. To reach acceptance, you will go through the other steps of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression first, though grief does not always run in a straight line through these stages. You may jump back and forth between them (and some may not occur at all) before finally reaching acceptance.

Grief is not always related to physical death. It can be the death of a dream or the death of a life stage that you enjoyed. A new mother of a special needs baby may need to give up dreams for her child and the future she expected.

A recently retired man may need to grieve the loss of his livelihood and sense of identity. Both people will need to go through the stages of grief to reach acceptance in their new situations. When they take on that challenge, they can be greatly blessed on the other side.

An Example of Reaching Acceptance in the Grieving Process

Let’s look at an example of how the grieving process might play out in one woman’s life. Diane and Paul are recent empty nesters. They have raised three children together. Paul has spent the last ten years in a recovery program, overcoming his alcohol addiction that affected most of their 30-year marriage. They are looking forward to celebrating a new, happier future together.

However, Paul’s decades of drinking took a toll on his internal organs. Only two years into their empty nest journey of traveling and enjoying time with friends, Paul is diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer. He chooses to be put on hospice care rather than endure chemotherapy and radiation. After three months of hospice, Paul passes away, and Diane is left a grieving widow.

Two months after the funeral, everyone has gone back to their regular lives, except Diane. She has felt numb, telling everyone she is fine. But her anger at the slightest provocations, as when she is driving, shocks her. Diane feels withdrawn, sullen, and miserable. Finally, she reaches out for help at church. Her pastor suggests that she meet with a Christian counselor to deal with her grief.

Diane’s counselor helps her review her marriage, along with all the hopes and dreams she had to give up due to Paul’s addiction. Diane struggles with feeling like she was partially responsible for Paul’s declining health. If only she had confronted him sooner, helped him eat healthier, and more.

Her counselor helps her see that she is going through the bargaining stage, which is normal and healthy. Diane is moving past anger into bargaining, which leads to deep sadness. At this point, she joins a grief support group at church, where she connects with other widows. For the first time since Paul’s death, she feels a spark of hope despite her depressed feelings.

With the passing of holidays and anniversary dates, Diane’s grief stages of anger, denial, bargaining, and sadness resurface. But she sticks with her counseling appointments and support group meetings to weather the changes. She also stays in touch with her children and takes up sewing, an enjoyable hobby she put on hold when her children were growing up.

Diane joins a quilting guild to connect with other quilters. The guild’s show-and-tell meeting is a highlight of her month, and she gains satisfaction from working on small sewing projects throughout the week.

On their wedding anniversary three years after Paul died, Diane visits his burial site with a much lighter heart. She still feels sad, but she is no longer consumed by grief. She thanks God for all the goodness Paul brought to her life. As she drives away, she praises God for bringing her to a place of acceptance.

Your story of grief and acceptance may not look exactly like Diane’s story. But you will likely have to overcome several challenges to reach acceptance, just like Diane. Here are more types of acceptance you can attain with God’s help.

Contentment with God’s Plan

The Bible says that God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8). You may need to grieve about what God allowed to happen in order to reach acceptance. Once you go through the grieving process with God, you can gain contentment despite your challenging circumstances.

For example, you may not naturally like a certain aspect of your physical body or personality. However, with God’s help, you can reach self-acceptance by grieving what you wish you would have been given and accepting what God gave you. Meditating on Psalm 139 can help you understand your great worth in God’s eyes, just as you are.

Social acceptance is another common struggle that many people face. You may not feel accepted by your peers, your family, your coworkers, or other groups. If you have faced rejection, betrayal, or exclusion, you may struggle with a strong desire for social acceptance.

Rather than striving to win the approval of others, you can work on your relationship with God. When you put more trust in him than people, along with grieving what may not be possible in your relationships, you can find the peace and acceptance you seek.

Conditional acceptance is a compromise. It means that you are willing to accept one aspect of a situation but not another. For example, a newly divorced man may grieve the fact that he needs to move in with his parents while he financially recovers.

But he reaches for acceptance by setting a 24-month deadline to move out on his own again. During that period, he will receive the counseling support he needs to rebuild his spiritual and emotional reserves.

Contentment with God’s plan usually means giving up something we deeply desire. God wants us to be honest about this. The longer you deny what you wanted, the less spiritual growth you can experience.

You may get stuck in one of the stages of grief if you don’t make acceptance and contentment your ultimate goal. However, getting stuck in a grief stage is a common problem. You can reach out for help if acceptance always seems outside your reach.

Finding Acceptance in the Grieving Process

The day you find acceptance is the day you step into the new life God has for you. But you may need help reaching acceptance. The grieving process is difficult and painful, and it may last much longer than you expected. A caring Christian counselor can help you walk through the stages of grief and find acceptance.

Often, what you are grieving about now may be related to older grief. As we can see in Diane’s story, she wasn’t only grieving Paul’s death, but also the toll that his addiction took on their marriage. She needed to work through both problems before she reached acceptance. You may also need help dealing with deeper issues from your past while you cycle through all the grief stages.

When you enlist the help of a Christian counselor in your grief journey, you have true hope of reaching acceptance. Your counselor will listen with compassion, ask thoughtful questions, and offer guidance for making new choices. By connecting with other support groups, as Diane did, you can have even greater hope of reaching the acceptance stage of the grieving process.

The team of counselors at Newport Beach Christian Counseling are trained in walking you through all the stages of grief. No matter what life situation you are facing, you can find the hope and healing you are seeking by reaching out to us. Give us a call today, and we’ll help you reach out for acceptance.

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7 Bible Verses about Death: Finding Hope in God’s Word

The Bible teaches us that ever since Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, this world has been fundamentally dysfunctional. Sin and death and various kinds of pain and loss are grim realities that remind us that things are not the way they are supposed to be.

Friends, family members, or beloved pets die; jobs are lost; health and independence decline, homes are lost to fire or flood – grief is an unwelcome but inevitable part of life. Newport Beach Christian Counseling can provide the support you need during these challenging times.

Though the picture may seem dark, God has not left us without instruction and comfort. In fact, there are many Bible verses about grief that can bring comfort to the grieving Christian.

7 Bible Verses about Death and Grief

If you are going through the grieving process, meditate on the following Scriptures on grief and let God’s Word give you comfort.

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also.Psalm 31:9

In this verse, David is experiencing deep grief (we are not told over what) that is intense enough to have physical effects on his body. Rather than wallowing in his misery, however, David pours out his heart to God, pleading for His grace.

The first step when you are grieving is to take your grief directly to God. Though God already knows what you are going through (you are not giving Him any new information), it is His will that His children come to Him in prayer with their concerns and requests.

Much as a father might see his young child struggling to complete a task and yet wait until his child asks him for help, God often waits for us to ask Him for help before He gives it. However, unlike a human father who might become irritated or might not hear his child, God always hears His children and delights to answer their prayers.

A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed.Proverbs 15:13

Here we see that happiness in the heart generally produces a happy countenance, but by contrast, grief in the heart can be soul-crushing. This teaches us the truth that a person’s outward behavior is profoundly affected by the state of their heart. Happy heart = happy face. Sad heart = sad face.

We see this reflected both in ourselves and in our daily interactions with others. It is often easy to tell a person’s state by the expression on their face. Proverbs are general observations, however, meaning that this is not a hard-and-fast rule. We will see a contrasting thought in the verse we look at next.

Even in laughter, the heart may ache, and the end of joy may be grief.Proverbs 14:13

Sometimes the outward appearance can be the exact opposite of what is happening in the heart. Though a person may laugh and smile on the outside, it may be just a mask for genuine pain and grief.

Solomon (the wisest man – other than Jesus – who ever lived) implies that this ironic sort of occurrence is normal. Sometimes, in order to cope, or because a person doesn’t want to spill their guts to someone, they need to put on a mask of normalcy that hides their inner pain.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.Psalm 147:3

Suffering from grief can be overwhelming. We can feel as if we will never recover – never move past it. The psalmist, however, teaches us that though we may be in the midst of deep and crushing grief, God has compassion on those who are brokenhearted and heals their emotional wounds.

This is not to say that God makes everything better and that the source of the grief goes away. Rather, as Saint Augustine once said, “Oh Lord . . . our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”

God heals broken hearts by giving Himself to His brokenhearted people. We find healing and rest for our souls when we find our comfort and satisfaction in Him.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.Psalm 23:4

David, the “sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Samuel 23:1) was no stranger to grief. Many of his Psalms deal with the subject in depth. In Psalm 23, possibly the most well-known of all of the Psalms, David describes the rest and peace that God provides.

Even though David is facing death (whether his own or that of someone else is not specified), he finds his comfort in God’s discipline (God’s “rod”) and guidance (God’s “staff”). In other words, God is taking care of David through daily correction, instruction, and wisdom.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.Matthew 5:4

Next, we come to a verse about grief in the Bible that has caused a lot of confusion over the centuries. Contrary to much popular exposition, the phrase “those who mourn” in this verse refers to those who mourn over their sin. These people will be comforted because their sins will be forgiven.

This makes sense when we think about the nature of “blessedness” and mourning. “Blessedness” means a deep-seated joy, which would appear (at first glance) to be contrary to mourning. However, if one is mourning over their sin, then they can have this kind of joy, knowing that God has forgiven them.

Though this verse does not directly address grief and loss, there is a secondary sort of application to those of God’s children who mourn over traumatic events. They will be comforted both in this life and in the life to come as they come to a deeper knowledge of God and grow in likeness to Christ. Their comfort will derive from the fact that their sins are forgiven and that any grief and pain that they suffer in this life is temporary.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.2 Corinthians 1:3-4

The Apostle Paul wrote these words to the people of the church at Corinth who were apparently suffering from affliction of some kind. Paul tells them that God is the “Father of mercies and God of all comfort,” meaning that He is characterized by compassion and is the source of any comfort that they experience.

Next, Paul tells the Corinthian Christians that God brings comfort to them in all of their afflictions. This is a precious promise! God does not leave His children to flounder aimlessly and wallow in their grief. He ultimately brings comfort to them by giving them Himself!

However, God does not merely comfort His people so that they will merely live happier, more joyful lives. He comforts them so that they can bring the same comfort to others who are going through affliction and grief. In other words, comfort in our times of trouble is never an end in itself. It is to overflow from our hearts as we reach out to others who are suffering.

Loss can strike God’s people unexpectedly, so the time to get the proper perspective on grief is before it hits. Figuring out what one believes about God, His sovereignty, and His comfort while in the midst of grieving is dangerous. If a person’s heart is not firmly grounded on the precious promises of God, times of grief can completely destabilize and overthrow their faith.

This is not to suggest that the grieving process will be easy, however. God can and will teach His people many things as they grieve, all of which are designed to make them more and more like Christ.

If you are struggling with grief, seek out a trusted friend or your pastor for wise counsel. If these are not available, however, a Christian counselor, at Newport Beach Christian Counseling, can come alongside you and help you work through the grieving process. Don’t wait – get help today!

Photos:
“Grief”, Courtesy of Marquise Kamanke, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “A Grief Observed”, Courtesy of Yuris Alhumaydy, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Remember”, Courtesy of Matt Botsford, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Cross”, Courtesy of Maria Oswalt, Unsplash.com, CC0 License

How to Navigate the Five Primary Grief Stages

Grief is an incredibly difficult thing to go through. At some point, we are all likely to experience it in some form – whether through the loss of a loved one, the breakdown of a relationship, or even a personal failure. You may have heard of the “stages” of grief.

These are often used to try and define the different coping mechanisms we employ in response to grief, as we come to terms with loss and heartache. But they are by no means one-size-fits-all – people will experience grief in very individual ways. Newport Beach Christian Counseling offers support to help individuals navigate their unique grief journey, providing personalized approaches to healing and coping.

Simply put, there is no one right path of grief, and you should never feel under pressure to conform to one particular way. David Kessler, an expert on grief, writes that the stages of grief “are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling.”

He suggests that they are not merely some sort of “stations of the cross” to be performed in order. In fact, not everyone experiences every one of them, or if they do, it is not in a set order. He hopes the stages of grief will provide a knowledge of the landscape of grief, better helping us to handle the loss. Grief will be as unique as the individual experiencing it.

Grief can be incredibly lonely. Despite your best efforts, you may not be able to fully explain how you feel, making it an extraordinarily isolated place to be. That said, there are some recognizable elements of the grieving process that can be common to many people.

Indeed, it is important to become familiar with these, so that you are prepared for when they hit. Again, it is vital to stress that there is no “right” way to grieve, and each person will develop their own individual methods of coping.

Christian Hope for the Grieving

While it might feel as if no one truly understands what you are going through, the Lord knows everything there is to know about it. Indeed, not only does God promise to come close to us in our pain and heartache, but he also declares, in Revelation 21:4, that “He will wipe every tear from [your] eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.”

Christ knew the depths of earthly grief and can identify with our deepest pain. At the grave of Lazarus, the Bible says that “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). Of course, Jesus went on to resurrect Lazarus, demonstrating his ultimate power over the “final enemy” of death.

The Longterm Process of Grief

Grief is a process and should be viewed in the long-term. Too often, we look for a “quick fix” or the ability to rush through the prescribed “stages of grief,” failing to give ourselves ample time. It is important to note, however, that even with all the time in the world, the pain may never fully leave you.

Grief can be a long process, and though the pain may ease over time and as you deal with it alongside friends, family and a trained counselor, it may always be with you.

It is worth looking at the latest version of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), which is used by mental health professionals to analyze and diagnose their patients. In the part about depressive disorders, it has a caveat that demonstrates how important it is to distinguish between grief and actual mental disorders:

“Careful consideration is given to the delineation of normal sadness and grief from a major depressive episode. Bereavement may induce great suffering, but it does not typically induce an episode of major depressive disorder.”

Death is an Amputation

So, with this in mind, it is important to point out that there should never be an “end goal” for grief – it is a process that must be managed carefully and sensitively. A trained counselor will assist you to move forward in your life while always honoring the person lost.

Theologian and writer C.S. Lewis, who lost his beloved wife, wrote that “the death of a beloved is an amputation.” He also wrote of how no-one ever truly “gets over” a loss like that, but that they learn to adapt to their new life without having the person around.

In his book, A Grief Observed, Lewis wrote: “He will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones, and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off.”

Grief and love are intimately related. You only grieve someone so much because you loved them so much.

Grief is Not Just About Death

When we think of grief, our minds often jump to the aching loss of someone we love. But as we mentioned earlier, there are plenty of other life events that can cause you to experience a season of grieving.

Examples could include:

  • Loss of a pet
  • Loss of employment
  • Loss of physical or mental capabilities
  • Separation from someone you love
  • End of a friendship or relationship
  • Infidelity
  • Divorce

These are highly emotional events and may evoke a reaction of grief similar to the death of someone close to you.

The Five Grief Stages

With that being said, it is worth looking at a few of the more prominent aspects of grief to gain a more general understanding of the grieving process and what it usually looks like.

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of death from her book “Of Death and Dying serves as the most significant work in this area. Though somewhat trivialized through the years, these aspects are still incredibly helpful to understand when exploring the topic of grief. She defined the five grief stages as:

1. Denial

Denial is a typical reaction to the immediate shock that hits you when something emotionally devastating occurs. It can be a way of coping that can help us to get through a loss during those painful and traumatic moments.

2. Anger

Though it may seem counterintuitive, anger may at times be helpful because it helps us release our emotions, instead of merely turning numb. Though the anger may be directed at any number of different things, it is always rooted in pain.

3. Bargaining

This reaction is likely to be an initial attempt to rationalize what has happened. Of course, that is impossible to do – what has happened cannot be undone. Nevertheless, our human nature will try its very best to do something to rectify the situation. We cling to any hope that tells us the situation could possibly be reversed.

4. Depression

When some time has passed, depression often sets in. The initial shock has worn off, and you are left feeling bewildered, sad and hopeless at the devastating loss.

5. Acceptance

Acceptance doesn’t mean that we have forgotten about what happened and have totally moved on with our lives. Instead, acceptance comes when we face the stark reality of the loss and figure out how to live with what happened.

Focusing on the Four Tasks of Mourning

Another helpful model for understanding grief stages comes from William J. Worden. In his Four Tasks of Mourning, he sees a more active role for the person who is grieving, rather than merely floating passively through the grief process.

This model can assist people in moving beyond the denial that is frequently experienced in the immediate aftermath of the death of a loved one. Worden believes that intentionally trying to work through the four tasks is absolutely essential in order for “equilibrium to be reestablished.”

The four key tasks are:

1. Accepting the reality of the loss

2. Working through the pain of the grief

3. Adjusting to life without the deceased

4. Finding a lasting connection to the deceased while also moving on with your life

Getting Help

If you or someone you know is facing grief, contact a Christian counselor at Newport Beach Christian Counseling for guidance, support, and reassurance, as you process your pain. Counseling is a protected and confidential space in which you can express your grief whatever way you feel. A good counselor will both honor the profound depth of your grief while also providing support as your process your loss.

Photos
“A Private Grief”, Courtesy of Nicholas Bui, Unsplash.com; CC0 License; “The Road Ahead”, Courtesy of Johannes Plenio, Unsplash.com; CC0 License; “Grieving Man”, Courtesy of Tom Pumford, Unsplash.com; CC0 License; “Lightning Storm”, Courtesy of Jeremy Bishop, Unsplash.com; CC0 License

The Benefits of Christian Grief Counseling after Losing a Spouse

There is arguably no harder life change than losing your marriage partner. Whether your spouse died suddenly or after a prolonged illness, you are left in a familiar yet devastated world. Understanding the natural aspects and steps of grieving can be beneficial as you begin the process of living life without your partner. Newport Beach Christian Counseling provides support for individuals navigating the complexities of grief and loss.

Acknowledgement of the Loss

The first response to the loss of a loved one is that of thinking, “they really aren’t gone, are they?” As you grieve, you gradually move from this initial response to a more intellectual acceptance that your spouse is gone and they will never return.

This knowledge also becomes your new emotional reality – e.g. when you remember that your partner is no longer there to turn to, or when you expect familiar words, gestures or responses.

Such habits of togetherness only serve as painful reminders of your loss. This explains why some people suffering from the loss of a loved one reportedly “see” their departed spouse in public places, only to realize later on that it was someone else with a striking resemblance of their loved one that merely conjured memories. Seeing someone you mistake to be your loved one usually brings a ray of hope, a temporary thought that your loved one is not gone after all.

The Need for Expressing Grief

Experiencing the pain of loss is another natural and important part of the grieving process. It includes being willing to not only feel but also express your hurt and any other emotion brought about by your loss.

Grief is a painful experience and it is normal to be overwhelmed with sadness.  Feeling the pain and grief of death helps you to process the different aspects of your loss. It is normal to feel alone because as the bereaved spouse, you are now alone in the relationship.

These strong emotions play an important role in helping you come to terms at an emotional level that your partner is no more. Sometimes, some upsetting and uncomfortable emotions might also emerge. Anxiety, anger, despair, guilt, regret and even depression may surface. These typically reveal the difficult parts of the relationship between the deceased and the bereaved.

Finding Hope in Pain through the Cross

For believers in Christ, death is more than a natural event. We were actually created to be immortal but as a result of sin, death comes upon mankind. We not only die but we also go through the pain of watching loved ones die.

Nonetheless, the death of Christ and his conquering of sin give us the hope that death is not the last state for us and our loved ones.

Christian Grief Counseling for the Bereaved

Friends, family and everyone else in the support system of the couple (like social groups and a church family), should help support the person that loses a loved one. However, after three or four months of grieving, the bereaved spouse is often encouraged to move on with life or at least adjust better.

Naturally, the loss will hit the left spouse harder than it will hit other people. When the initial shock of the loss of a loved one begins to fade off, at a time when they would really do with more specific support, the support almost always declines. This is an ideal time to pursue Christian grief counseling at Newport Beach Christian Counseling to find the necessary additional support and guidance.

Photos
“Grief”, Courtesy of Claudia, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Gone”, Courtesy of Ian Dooley, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Prayer”, Courtesy of Ben White, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Grief”, Courtesy of Kinga Cichewicz, Unsplash.com, CC0 License