The Grief Recovery Method: An Action Program for Healing Grief

Note: Names have been changed to protect the privacy of those mentioned

Last year when reading The Grief Recovery Handbook by John W. James and Russell Friedman a phrase on page 56 made me put the book down, pause and reflect on clients and students I have supported on their grief-healing journeys:

“Unresolved grief tends to separate us from ourselves.” 

On page 57, I had to put the book down once again after reading:

“Each time a loss is not properly concluded, there is a cumulative restriction on our aliveness.”   

Those two phrases brought to the forefront of my mind 82-year-old Sarah who silently carried her sorrow over her daughter’s death for 60 years. And who, upon writing and sharing  the story of her loss, regained the aliveness she had lost, finally coming home to herself several months before she died.

Sarah’s Story

In the summer of 2009 I met Sarah while teaching a three-part continuing education class at a local university called Writing to Heal Grief and Loss. A few weeks before our first class, Sarah was diagnosed with terminal cancer and had been given less than a year to live by doctors. When class participants introduced themselves Sarah said this:

“My daughter, my first child, died from a crib death 60-years-ago. After she died, my husband said we could never talk about her again – to each other or anyone else. And we never did. My husband said she was gone and that was that – move on. But I never really did. Her death has always been right there in front of me, in my heart – the pain of it. My husband died recently; I feel I can grieve for my daughter now but feel icy inside - I don’t know how or where to start; I’m a writer, so I’m taking this class. I want to be at peace before I die.”

At the end of our first class I instructed my students to write for 20 minutes daily about their loss, not concentrating so much on what had happened but rather how what had happened made them feel - the emotions contained in their individual stories - and if through writing down those emotions what new memories and emotions came to the fore asking for healing.

At the second class, when it came time to share what had been written Sarah said she had been crying all week “and I never cry  - it felt bad in a good way.  I can’t believe how mad I am. And sad. And so many things. And hopeful – which is something I didn’t expect. Though I’m not sure what I’m hopeful about.”

At the end of the second class I assigned students the task of writing significant emotional statements they would like to say to their loved one in order to release words they wish they could have said but never did. The following week Sarah once again shared that the assignment had caused her to cry throughout the week until one morning she woke-up “feeling strange. It took me awhile to figure out what was different; the ache in my chest that had been there since my daughter died was gone. And I thought ‘is this what peace feels like’?”

A few months after our class ended a thin and wane-looking Sarah approached me at a writer’s conference we were both attending to share where she now was at on her grief-healing journey.

“I feel now how wonderful it is to be alive,” Sarah said. “Even to my own ears that sounds ridiculous at my age when I’m so close to the end, but it’s true. I love my children now in a way I always wanted to but somehow never could. Writing has become easier. I feel I’ve come home to myself – found the me I lost when my daughter died.”

A few months later a fellow writer and a close friend of Sarah’s informed me that Sarah had died. “I just wanted you to know that Sarah died in peace,” the woman said. “The grief class and writing about her daughter changed everything for her.” 

Undelivered Communications Can Keep Us From Moving Forward

Like my student Sarah, many people feel stuck and unable to move forward with who or what has been lost due to feeling incomplete with the past. This sort of incompleteness is most often experienced as something unresolved and unhealed caught within us, inhibiting through pain or numbness our sense of aliveness and connection to our best selves. 

In The Grief Recovery Handbook, the authors define the sort of incompleteness Sarah experienced and its causes as:

 “… an accumulation of undelivered communications, large and small, that have emotional value to you. To the best of our knowledge, only the living grieve. It is essential that we complete what is unfinished for us. 

Sometimes incompleteness is caused by our actions or nonactions. Other times it is caused by circumstances outside of our control.

… Sometimes incompleteness is caused or exaggerated by others. Some people will not allow us to say meaningful things to them. Since we cannot force them to listen to us, we often get trapped with these undelivered communications, both positive and negative. Sometimes we are afraid to say emotionally charged things. Or we have been waiting for the right moment or circumstances. Sometimes the right time never comes. Or we forget. Or we get sidetracked. And then someone dies. And we are stuck with the undelivered emotional communication."

The Grief Recovery Method

Feeling complete with the past begins with asking and then answering the question: “What do I wish had been different, better or more?”  This method of emotional processing leading to grief healing is called ‘completing incomplete communications’ or ‘delivering undelivered emotional communications’. The grief recovery method process can be outlined as:

Choosing a Partner
In grief support we have an adage: “One caring (and listening) other can help us heal.” With that in mind, the grief recovery method suggests that optimally you choose a partner (such as a friend or professional counselor) with whom to share your thoughts and writings and overall journey toward completeness. An ideal partner is someone who: has suffered intense emotional loss and now feels healed; is trustworthy; is capable of maintaining complete confidentiality; and is honoring of your unique and individual grief journey. You may also choose to make your way through the grief recovery steps on your own.    

Making a Relationship Graph
One aspect of the grief recovery method is to first make a loss history graph, with dates and brief notes regarding the significant losses you have experienced throughout life. If you are concentrating on completing incomplete communications with one particular person who has died then it is suggested you make a graph of your relationship with that person. 

Simply put, a relationship graph can be made by drawing a straight line across a piece of paper: above the line write years or specific dates and one or two word descriptors of significant positive things you experienced with your loved one; below the line write years or specific dates and one or two word descriptors of experiences related to undelivered emotional communications you would now like to deliver.
 
Apologies, Forgiveness and Significant Emotional Statements 
The next step is to put the undelivered emotional communications you identified on your relationship graph as seeking completion into three distinct categories:  

  • Apologies – you can make an apology for anything you did or did not do that might have hurt your loved one or that you carry as a regret
  • Forgiveness – to forgive is to give up the hope of a different or better yesterday and/or to cease to feel resentment against someone
  • Significant emotional statements – any undelivered emotional communication that is neither an apology or forgiveness goes into this category 

Molly and Adam’s high school age son died of an undiagnosed heart condition while playing basketball; Molly and Adam witnessed his death. With her permission, I will use my client Molly’s experience of loss as an example of how this step works. 

Apology
I didn’t take your heartbreak over your breakup seriously enough
Not listening when you talked about sports even though I knew it was important to you

Forgiveness 
For not being part of my future

Significant Emotional Statements
I love you
I was so proud of you
I appreciated how you would help Grandpa in the garden

Writing the Completion Letter

The final step of completion is to put apologies, forgivenesses and significant emotional statements into letter form. Writing the letter is best done alone and in one session. In the letter it is best to stick to the most important unsaid things which usually fills-up two or three pages. Using some of Molly’s letter as an example, here is a helpful format for a completion letter as suggested by the grief recovery method:

Dear Erik, (use the name or title that best represents how you remember the person)
I‘ve been reviewing our relationship and have discovered some things I want to tell you. (This phrase is an easy way to get a completion letter started.)

Erik I apologize for not taking your heartbreak over your breakup with Emily seriously enough.
Erik I apologize for not really listening to you when you talked about sports, something that was so, so important to you.
Erik I apologize for… 
Erik I apologize for… 

Erik I forgive you for dying before me – I know you didn’t want to but that’s what happened.

Erik I want you to know what joy you brought into my life just by being you.
Erik I want you to know that I love you and will never stop loving you.
Erik I so appreciated the kind and patient way you acted with Poppy and Nana.
Erik I would have loved to see who you chose to marry and what your children would have been like and how you would have contributed goodness to the world.

Erik, I love you, I miss you. Good-bye Erik. (You can use another closing statement based on your unique relationship; however it is important to have the last words be “good-bye”. It is the “good-bye” that completes the communication.)

Communications in a completion letter are private and should only be shared with your designated grief recovery partner. If you are going to write a letter to a living person to finish unfinished communications, forgiveness and negative emotional statements are never to be shared as it can increase the pain of loss for both the letter’s sender and recipient.  

What you want to do with a completed letter is up to you. Some people put them away in a safe place; I have done ritualistic burn ceremonies or burial ceremonies with several of my clients regarding their completion letters. The important thing is to do what feels right for you.  

Healing Secondary Losses With the Grief Recovery Method

Secondary losses are losses that cause additional suffering after the death of a loved one. Such losses can include: a home; income; financial security; relationships; identity; support systems; family structures; faith; purpose; or a sense of safety.

Molly’s marriage did not survive Erik’s death; the death of her marriage was a secondary loss flowing from the death of her son. Molly went through the grief recovery method for that loss, as well, in order to complete incomplete communications.   

For more information on the Grief Recovery Method see:
The Grief Recovery Handbook by John W. James and Russell Friedman
www.griefrecoverymethod.com
info@griefrecoverymethod.com