Identifying Short-Term Energy Relievers

The death of a loved one, divorce, and all other losses produce an incredible amount of emotional energy. Since we have all been socialized from early on to deal with sad, painful, and negative emotions incorrectly, we end up storing the energy inside ourselves.

The most clichéd of stories illustrates that fact. A little child comes home from preschool with her feelings hurt by interactions with the other children on the playground. Mom, Dad, Grandma, or any other caretaker says, “What happened?” The child responds, tearfully, that one of the kids was mean to her. The caretaker says, “Don’t cry, here, have a cookie, you’ll feel better,” thus setting the child up with a lifetime belief, from an important authority source, that feelings can be fixed with food.

Early on we learn to cover up, hide, or bury our feelings under food. It is not surprising that sometime later we adapt that same behavior and cover up our feelings under alcohol or other drugs. We may have learned to do so by observing family members at funerals or wakes consuming large amounts of food and alcohol. Consuming food or alcohol in response to the emotional energy created by death or divorce does not help us discover the source of the energy or complete the relationship affected by our loss. Therefore, we are participating in an illusion that the short-term relief offered by food or alcohol gives us long-term relief from the pain caused by the loss.

Food and alcohol are obvious and typical short-term energy-relieving behaviors. There are many, many other short-term behaviors that have the same life-limiting and damaging consequences. Here is a partial list of behaviors that, if done for the wrong reasons, can have a negative impact on grieving people:

• Food
• Alcohol/Drugs
• Anger
• Exercise
• Fantasy (movies, TV, books)
• Isolation
• Sex
• Shopping (humorously called retail therapy)
• Workaholism

Most of these actions are not harmful in and of themselves. They become harmful when you engage in them for the wrong reasons. Just as eating a cookie does not help the emotional pain of loss, shopping provides no long-term help for the pain caused by death or divorce. In fact, it can have quite the opposite effect: the shopping binge is often followed by remorse over the wasted money. This is a further distraction from the real and original emotional event—the death, divorce, or other loss.

While many short-term energy relievers are apparent, some are not. The following example illustrates another, more subtle danger.

It’s not uncommon for people to visit grave sites on an extremely regular basis for years following a death. They feel as if the death robbed them of the chance to complete their emotional relationship, and so they often visit the place that best helps them feel close to their loved one. Unconsciously, these grievers are seeking some relief from the pain caused by the incomplete relationship. The problem is that visiting the grave doesn’t lead to permanent relief or completion with the person who died.

At the end of this chapter, you will have an opportunity to look at how certain actions of your own may have been indirect ways of dealing with the feelings caused by loss.

A healthy steam kettle releases energy immediately as it builds up. When you are told, “Don’t feel bad,” and, “If you’re going to cry, go to your room,” the energy stays inside you. The myth that “time will heal” is laughable in terms of the steam kettle analogy. Time only moves the steam kettle closer to an explosion.

As the pressure builds up inside our personal steam kettle, we automatically seek relief. This is when we may start participating in the short-term energy relieving behaviors (STERBs) referred to in chapter 4. There are three major problems with STERBs. The first is that they work, or more accurately, they appear to work. They create an illusion of recovery by causing you to forget or bury emotions. The second problem with STERBs is that they are short-term. They do not last, and they do not deal with the true emotional issue. And lastly, they do nothing to remove the cork that is jammed in the spout. In fact, most people don’t even realize that there is a cork in the spout.

Eventually, our steam kettle is overloaded and the STERBs no longer create the illusion of well-being. Imagine what might happen if a major loss event, a death or divorce, were added to this collection of unresolved emotions. It might put such a strain on our corked kettle as to cause an explosion.

The actions of grief recovery will help you remove the cork. You will then be able to deal more effectively with the emotions associated with loss. In order to remove the cork, we will look at all of the ideas that created it and replace them with more accurate ideas about dealing with sad, painful, and negative emotions.

A simple analogy: if your yard is full of weeds, you can cut the weeds to give some short-term relief, but they will grow back. Or you can pull the weeds and eliminate the problem. You are arriving at the point of making a decision: short-term or long-term relief. We want you to commit to long-term relief. And we will guide you and help you along the way.