Emotions in male grief must flow like a stream
Below is an excert from Sometimes I Cry in The Shower and the chapter "The River of Grief."
While excerpted midway through the chapter, it discusses the analogy of how emotions must flow through each of us to find some level of healing in our grief journey.
Unfortunately, for me, as well as most men, I had every intention of stuffing those grieving emotions deep inside where no one could see them. Fortunately, and for us all, human emotions cannot be suppressed. Emotions flow through us continually, much like a stream in the forest, maintaining balance and giving life to the natural flora and fauna of our little personal ecosystem. Think of a beaver in nature who decided to come along and build a dam across a stream. Once the normal flow of water is stopped, it builds up behind the dam, floods the surrounding land, and drowns out the living, breathing, and beautiful vegetation. It is not hard to visualize that this destroys and permanently changes a once exquisite, productive, and thriving landscape. That scenario deals with throttling the normal flow of water, but it works incredibly similar to our own human emotions. If you are at all like me, keeping emotions in check because I am a guy, you have a bit of a dam built across your stream already, do you not? Some might say we have placed it at the heart, which is the most vulnerable spot where our emotions might slip out and reveal themselves to others.
One day, however, both unannounced and unexpected, comes the heavy flow of grief brought on by the loss of a child. It pours down inside like Noah’s forty days and forty nights. You can bet that when it comes those emotional waters will surge downstream towards that dam like a rampant flash flood, roiling, frothing, and following its natural outward path. It will meet the blockage, and for a time flood backwards to drown out and destroy the environment even more. What is being submerged is self-esteem, confidence, a desire to live, relationships with friends, family, and more, all part of a once thriving and beautiful persona. The pressure will continue to build and emotional waters rise until the dam is eventually overrun and blown apart, exploding as if made of twigs and leafs. The result will be an escaping cascade of raging, raw emotions rushing frenzied downstream and outwards towards others, destroying everything it comes in contact with, including any remaining friendships, passions and the potential for an amazing life. It is obvious to recognize the destruction.
My dam was strong, too. My little grief beaver committed an incredible feat of emotional engineering and built a structure that held back the floodwaters for quite some time. Make no mistake, as the powerful emotions continued to build and the larger the dammed up flooding became, the more the impact affected my life inside and out. If any good can be found from this, at least for myself, mine burst and there was much destroyed, but my emotional stream now runs more freely. I am certainly not completely clear of the blockage, but I am working on that. My little eco-persona, once flooded and dying behind the dam has somewhat come back to life, and I am slowly repairing what the flood destroyed when it raged outwards in my life with the burst. My barrier came down without warning, albeit in my shower where I could constantly return to and have some level of control of the flow as it exposes itself to others. And, what of my industrious little beaver? Well, I have a pelt on my wall and I am keeping an eye out for any of his little family and friends.