{"id":15056,"date":"2019-12-13T04:15:56","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T04:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/?p=15056"},"modified":"2019-12-13T18:35:38","modified_gmt":"2019-12-13T18:35:38","slug":"grief-is-just-anger-grief-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/featured\/grief-is-just-anger-grief-myth\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cGrief is just Anger\u201d &#8211; Grief Myth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">I always like to start by affirming a couple of basics of grief from the Grief Recovery Method\u00ae:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Grief is the normal and natural emotional response to a loss of any kind.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Grief is unique\u00a0<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">and relates directly to the uniqueness of human relationships,\u00a0 No two relationships are the same<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Grief is conflicting feelings caused by a change or an end in a familiar pattern of behaviour.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Grief is emotional, not intellectual. Grief is a heart issue.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>The events are factual\/intellectual but to the person experiencing them, it is emotional.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">With these out of the way, I have shared in <a href=\"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/grief-loss\/things-we-gotta-stop-saying-to-grieving-people\/\">previous posts<\/a> about the unhelpful myths we have come to believe about grief and loss. many of these myths have been woven deeply into our culture.\u00a0<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>This weekend I came across a myth that I had forgotten.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">This myth is:<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><strong>Grief is just another form of anger.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">While sometimes people who experience grief might experience anger, the two are not interchangeable.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>They are two very different emotional experiences. The basic rationale of this myth is we are angry that we lose something,<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>and while there are certainly instances where anger plays a role, there are many examples where anger may not be a part of our grief experience at all. <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Examples are numerous and might include the death of an aging loved one. <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>For many, this is often experienced as both sadness but also relief.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Another example may include retiring from a career.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>While the person is pleased with entering retirement, they must learn to live life a new way.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>This is often difficult for men who have built their identity on their vocation, and now that they are retired they need to rediscover their identity.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>In our personal experience with my wife being diagnosed with cancer, we sure experienced a lot of feelings but anger wasn\u2019t one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">To be clear,<strong> anger can be a part of people\u2019s grieving journey but it isn\u2019t inevitable<\/strong>. <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">So what about anger?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Anger, as a primary emotion, is when we experience injustice and we respond appropriately to the injustice. <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>This might include someone carelessly or intentionally hurting a loved one.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Our anger motivates us to act appropriately to address the injustice. <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><em><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Loss is not always unjust.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">There is a different kind of anger that isn\u2019t the primary emotion but a secondary emotion.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>It is synthesized by suppressing the natural and normal emotional responses to our painful experiences.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Emotions like anxiety, guilt, and fear when suppressed and not acknowledged and experienced, are transformed into anger.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>This is especially true for grief and sadness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Grief is cumulative and when we suppress our normal and natural response to loss, the pressure from other losses combines with new experiences of loss and creates a toxic inner cauldron that manifests as anger.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>This why it is important that we as a culture become more grief and loss literate, debunk the unhealthy myths and with healthy action deal with our grief before it is transformed into anger.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">This is why it is so important that we define grief correctly. Instead of anger, we bring our attention to the underlying root that is very often one kind of a loss experience or another.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>When we address the cause we deal with the symptoms.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Resources:<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/from-sad-to-mad-how-suppressing-your-sadness-invites-anger-0415145\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sad to Mad on Good Therapy<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/recovering-from-significant-loss\/\">Michaels Grief Support and the Grief Recovery Method<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I always like to start by affirming a couple of basics of grief from the Grief Recovery Method\u00ae: Grief is the normal and natural emotional response to a loss of any kind. Grief is unique\u00a0and relates directly to the uniqueness of human relationships,\u00a0 No two relationships are the same Grief is conflicting feelings caused by&#8230;","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":15069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,674],"tags":[710,711,229,342],"class_list":["post-15056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-grief-loss","tag-anger","tag-emotions","tag-grief","tag-loss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}