http://www.care2.com/greenliving/after-tragedy.html
After Tragedy
In the first aftermath of a tragedy, victims experience numbness and shock. Shock gives way to tears, one of the very first stages of grief. All anyone can do is try to feel safe again on the most basic level. Hold each other. Don’t be afraid to ask for contact. Reach out and tell your loved ones that you do love them; don’t let it be taken for granted. Feel your fear. Be with it and allow it to be released naturally. Pray. Grieve with others if you can, alone if you must.
Numbness and tears lead to the second stage, in which powerful emotions rise to the surface, often after being buried for years or decades. Feelings of age and sorrow will erupt. You will feel deeply afraid in a way you have never experience before. The most common incidents–the slam of a door, a car backfiring, a surprise tap on the shoulder–could trigger panic.
The third stage of suffering comes when you feel that you must take action, either to heal or to strike out against the attacker or to lend a hand to other victims.
Nothing alleviates suffering like reaching out to another person who is suffering. Go and help, be of service if only in the smallest way. Any gesture–whatever you feel safe to do–is a step toward healing.
Adapted from The Deeper Wound: Recovering the Soul from Fear and Suffering, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2001).
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5 comments
add your comment »I see I went over the limit, Just that I miss him so , till we meet again, May he rest in Peace. He passed three days after our 53rd Anniversary while home on Hospice care. Angry at Cancer that took him where we were to grow old together, as we were young at Heart and full of life. Now to share our Love with Family and friends and now that we are not two but now I am one, but he is in my Heart forever, but still can be lonely.
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May I add to these comments, My Husband passed Sept. 2009 and I wrote this the day I picked up his ashes and about sums up my feeling of our Love ~~
MY Tribute to Syd with Love
Today I picked up my Syd's black box with his ashes, I held him close
As I cried. He will lay beside my bed tonight as I am still ingesting
My loss. To lose a best friend as he and as spoiled as I is harder then
I ever imagined, I do feel his presence but physically not there, I am
Lost with out his touch and assuring words, but in my memory for ever
More he'll be. In time I know will become easier, but time it will
Take, for how long no one ever really knows, when you find the love we
Had since I was 17 and he 20. No other could take his place, he made me
Ever so happy and I smile as I remember how we loved to banter with
Each other even to the end. I still feel his embrace and kisses with
Our tears mingled as we said I love you and we shell meet again when
God calls me. I feel his hand as he squeezed my hand tightly after he
Blessed himself and was gone from our world. I kissed him over and over
And said I love you forever as he had said on my Anniversary card, love
You forever. He was a Great Loving, Giving Husband, Father, Grandfather, Great GrandFather and Friend
One could ever have. He left his mark on so many, so many memories we
All share. He was and is well loved never to be forgotten. Syd I love
You Forever, never good bye, but
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You are welcome Mary. I wanted to add one more thing. When I was going through my most angry period, Care2 became my life line. There are so many awesome groups to join and I wrote alot!!! it helped me get through, with a loving community to share my grief with.
Thank you Care 2!
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Thank you Deepak. Thank you Teresa.
Amazing healing in your writing.
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Bless you Deepak for writing on this subject. My husband has been gone for almost a year, and I am doing better, but man has it been a rough road! The miss of his touch and smile are still very prominent and I have felt pretty lonely. He was killed by the latest greatest radiation machine, which was hard to deal with. But just this weekend I found some messages he had left a year ago, to the day. One was a song which he gave me, the other was a frequency code for transition. I found the code for it on the 1 year anniversary of him printing it. It was a symbol for transition and the code was "Transition
The energy of Transition radiates trust and prepares you for new times. " He also left me St Teresa's prayer ( I was named after her) written on the same page.
May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love
that has been given to you....
May you be content knowing you are a child of God....
It took a year for me to realize that he knew what was happening. It was very healing, and now I feel at ease to go on until our eventual reunion.
In love~ teresa
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