Thoughts on Suffering, Grief, and Choice to Live Life Fully by Thomas Burns LCSW

C.S. Lewis wrote:

"Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.".

C.S. Lewis had not only a remarkable connection to his grief, but also the gift of expressing it on paper which offers all that read it a contextual understanding of their grief. Somehow giving our intellect a framework to create more of an understanding of extreme pain from loss and grief.

The contextural frameworks which C.S. Lewis and others have provided may provide some temporary relief, but it doesn't stop the grief, loss, and pain from running our lives for a while. We rip, tear, and may try to destroy the fabric of our life before we stand exhausted and beaten on the edge the personal grief abyss. Some of us are ready to stop the anger, fighting, self-destruction, wave the white flag of brokenness and fall backwards into the depths of grief.

It is my experience that the human body can withstand enormous amounts of physical pain and an endless amount of emotional pain. The road less traveled is clearly to not quit. We may choose the zombie-like shuffling through life until the feverish grief breaks and a different person emerges. We feel like a Phoenix rising from the ashes of destruction, ready to move on and start the next chapter of our lives.