Grief is among the worst of the human states. It can range from mild sadness at something or someone’s passing, to a spirit splattering agony that requires years to recover from; if recovery is even possible. There is truth in the theory that grief can kill or at least bring about a deep urge to be with those for whom we grieve.

To a large extent we have no option but to experience grief in our lives and at times that grief will, to all and intents and purposes send our lives spinning off in all directions. What once felt certain becomes insecure and unstable; a bit like a building in an earthquake.

These are the times when those around are more important than ever. Our blessing is that grief is weighted to the private individual rather than the national population. Only during disasters and large scale attacks does our nation rock under the passing of a loved one.

Thankfully this means that for many of us that there are family, friends, doctors, counselors etc who can help us open up a space in which to begin the long road back to a life of conscious worth. The heartache is that grief can kill the desire to do so. Sometimes even our will to heal can follow our loved ones to the grave.

Perhaps all we can do is pass our body over to those who might help us; and this is where the path from extreme grief back to gentle living begins. It might be nothing more than a physical shift to another’s house or office. Our hearts and minds might merely lag behind, attached by the merest wisp of self-preservation, but the physical act of going for help favors the will to live.

In grief, morality attacks us as never before. Our guilts and shames bark at us from every corner. ‘Should I have done that; was I good enough; is it my fault?’ These demons are our most dangerous enemy in early grief; hence the need for compassionate-others. Sometimes it is their humanity that rescues ours.

It is important to be honest in such times, which are why professional grief counselors are extremely useful. Detached from the dynamics and pitfalls of family and friendship, they can hear without judgment our ‘reprehensible’ thoughts and feeling concerning those who have gone and we who remain. Not all who die are forgiven easily; nor those who do not. It is through these non-judgmental, lovingly detached souls that our grief-spattered morality can be balanced and reshaped for its continuing life.

In time too we will require to look at the whole spectrum of harm that has been done in our grief-stricken state. Often the greatest harm will be that we do to ourselves. No one vilifies us like ourselves when night falls. And in this we find our guiding principle towards emerging from our living-graves; which is essentially what grief is. First; do no more harm to ourselves especially.

By the time we reach this stage of wishing to do no harm we will have seen the value of others; their beacon of humanity towards which we can crawl, and hopefully have begun to feel the pangs of wishing to live beyond our living-grave.

From there on in it is really a wheel of habit; recycling the habit of physically engaging with the living and telling, truly, how we feel. No feeling is ever immoral; merely the action it might execute. Share and be shared with.