Alan D Wolfelt Ph.D. serves as director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition. He writes the ‘Children and Grief’ column for Bereavement Magazine and has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, and Today. He is the author of Healing Your Grieving Heart, Healing a Teen’s Grieving Heart, and Understanding Your Grief. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The Mourner’s Book of Faith

30 Days of Enlightenment

By Alan D. Wolfelt

Center for Loss and Life Transition

Copyright © 2013 Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61722-162-0
CHAPTER 1

Day 1

Feel Your Loss

A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you. And then you have to put it back into the sky. And it’s the most painful thing you’ll ever have to do and that you’ve ever done. But what’s yours is yours. Whether it’s up in the sky or here in your hands.

~ C. JoyBell C.

Verily, with hardship, there is relief.

~ Quran 94:6

Someone you love has died, and more than likely you feel torn apart. It’s as if someone literally removed a part of you, and where that part used to be there is now just a hole. It’s empty, dark, lonely, and uncomfortable — and most of all, it’s painful.

I am sorry you are feeling this pain of loss, for I have felt it myself. I commend you for not avoiding your pain. It is tempting, when we hurt so much, to try to patch ourselves up quickly, yet this does not work. Pain and grief have a way of demanding our attention. It’s best to grab the hand of faith and walk into your pain. It is by moving through your pain that you will — slowly, eventually — reconcile and integrate your loss.

Of course in the early days, weeks, and months of your loss, your pain might be overwhelming. You might constantly feel the deep sadness that comes from living life without the person who died. During these times, remember to take breaks from your grief. Dose your pain by doing things that soothe and comfort you. Sit in nature, take baths, lay yourself down for naps, and spend time with people you love.

In many of my books I outline the “Six Needs of Mourning.” The second of the six needs is “Embrace the pain of the loss.” It is a vital step in your journey of grief and mourning. Even though it is easier to stay busy and avoid, repress, or push away your pain, I encourage you to fully experience your pain as much and as often as you can. Maybe today you can only touch it fully for 15 minutes. That’s OK.

Remember, an easy question can have an easy answer. But a hard question must have a hard answer. And for the hardest questions of all, there may be no answer — except faith.

~ Charles Sheffield

Sharing your pain with others is cathartic, as is sharing your joys. Make a date with a good friend — one who will listen and not try to take your pain away — to share photo albums of your life with the person who died. Tell her stories of how you met, the special times you shared, and what you love and miss about this special person. Let the tears flow, and welcome words and gestures of comfort. Joining a grief support group is another way to embrace your pain.

Your pain will never completely go away, but if you actively mourn, over time it will soften. Buried pain, on the other hand, will not. Repressed grief can lead to depression. If you hold in your pain, you will feel stuck, and you will not live and love fully. Have faith that moving through your pain is the best thing to do.

We never know when our last day on earth will be. So, love with full sincerity, believe with true faith, and hope with all of your might. Better to have lived in truth and discovered life than to have lived half-heartedly and died long before you ever ceased breathing.

~ Cristina Marrero

Personal Reflections on Faith

Each night before going to bed, say out loud, “I have faith in my pain and the wisdom and healing it brings.” Sit in silence for a moment, and visualize your heart opening and your mind unfolding.

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Day 2

Befriend Faith

Faith is realizing that you always get what you need.

~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

What does it mean to have faith? While the Merriam -Webster dictionary defines faith as a “belief and trust in, and loyalty to, God,” it is much harder to define on a personal level. At its core, faith is trusting in something without concrete, tangible proof. Yet more so, I think of faith as a state of being — the honest, real place from which we operate and approach life. Faith brings together strong internal and external convictions and beliefs about how to live our daily lives, what happens after we die, and what we believe about God. Faith may be a hard concept for you to hold onto right now.

People who adhere to religious beliefs find comfort in the proclamations their religion makes about death and the afterlife. It is reassuring to imagine the person who died in heaven, sitting at the side of God. Many religions teach that the soul lives on. In the Hindu religion, the soul is reincarnated according to karma, or actions, in the previous life. Christian faith believes its followers have a forever place in heaven. What do you believe about faith and the afterlife?

In its simplest state, faith is like a wise companion walking beside you, sometimes taking your hand and stepping ahead to guide you. Befriend faith. Welcome the feelings of loving assurance that having faith brings. There is a famous Christian poem called “Footprints” that you’ve probably heard. In it, a person has a dream that she is walking the journey of her life with God, each making footprints in the sand. Yet at the lowest points of this person’s life, there is only one set of footprints. She asks, “Why when I needed you most, you have not been there for me?” God replies, “When you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”

To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.

~ Alan Wilson Watts

Maybe your faith is not based in religion, but more in a belief in a higher power, a force of light and love in the world. When you tap into this power, you may feel faith that there is a higher order to things, and you generally have faith that things will turn out OK. Faith feeds your divine spark — your soul.

Whether you practice a religious faith or experience a more generally spiritual faith, I urge you to tap into it often during this time of loss. Let it counter your pain and carry you. Wrestle with it, if you need to. Either way, welcome faith as you would a friend.

Faith is universal. Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary. Some of us pray to Jesus, some of us go to Mecca, some of us study subatomic particles. In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves.

~ Dan Brown

Personal Reflection on Faith

Take a minute to do a word association exercise around the word faith. What other words companion faith? The words trust, hope, and belief in God are all close cousins to faith. Create your own definition of what it means to have faith.

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Day 3

Contemplate God

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature — trees, flowers, grass — grows in silence; see the stars, the moon, and the sun, how they move in silence … We need silence to be able to touch souls.

~ Mother Teresa

All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired.

~ Martin Luther

When you think about the word God, what comes to mind? Do you carry an image, as many of us did in our childhoods, of an old, wise man? Or is God more of a feeling or state of being for you? The dictionary defines God as “the supreme or ultimate reality: the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe.” Do you adhere to the Christian God, the Islam Allah, the Bahá’í Baha, or the Jewish Yahweh? Or are your beliefs more spiritual, like the Unity movement’s definition of God, which states: “God is Spirit, the loving source of all that is. God is the one power, all good, everywhere present, all wisdom. God is divine energy, continually creating, expressing, and sustaining all creation. In God, we live and move and have our being. God [is] Life, Light, Love, Substance, Principle, Law, and Universal Mind.”

Is God in your view a loving God or a vengeful God? Do you fear punishment if you step out of line, or are you assured that you will be loved and forgiven for your missteps? A principle of faith in the Jewish religion is that God “will reward the good and punish the wicked” and that the “dead will be resurrected.” Quakers believe that “God is love. The light of God is in every single person. A person who lets their life be guided by that light will achieve a full relationship with God. Everyone can have a direct, personal relationship with God.” Adherers to Bahá’í believe in the “oneness of humanity” and the “common origin and unity of purpose of all world religions.” Finally, the Christian Bible states that “God is love.”

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us.

~ John Lennon

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

~ Voltaire

It is important, during this time of grief, to consider what God means to you. If you don’t believe in God, think about what having faith means to you. Ask yourself if you adhere to any universal truths. What are they? Do you believe people are basically good and kind? Do you believe that if you stay honest and live with integrity, you will find serenity and peace? Buddhists adhere to four noble truths established by Buddha on human suffering. One is Nirodha, which means “an end to suffering,” where the mind experiences complete freedom and liberation, and Nirvana is reached.

Pin your faith on the beliefs that make sense to you at your core — ones that are positive and can carry you forward in your journey through grief and mourning. If you feel questions rising about faith and God, consider doing some exploring of the major religions and spiritual lenses of the world. Talk to your friends and family about their beliefs in God. Watch for common themes and truths that strike a chord. Start where you are and explore what God means to you.

Personal Reflection on Faith

If you had to name five universal truths, what would they be? These ideas define your faith. Keep the ones that empower you to live and love fully for the rest of your days here on earth and consider redefining the rest.

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Day 4

Express Doubt

Faith never stays put. It’s always challenging, always questioning. That’s what makes it real.

~ Patrick Carman

Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.

~ Paul Tillich

Maybe you are wrestling with your faith after the death of your loved one. Death (and other significant losses too) shake our foundation and leave us unsure of where we stand in our beliefs. If you are wrestling with your faith right now, that’s OK. If you are mad at God, be mad. If you are questioning God, question. Being angry at God, or having doubts about God, speaks of having a relationship with God in the first place. I’ve always said to myself, “God has been doing very well for some time now, so I think he can handle my anger.”

You might find that others send you the message that showing your grief is a sign that your faith is weak. Maybe you have heard people say, “She’s in a better place,” or “It’s God’s will,” or “God called her home,” and these sayings feel like a dismissal of your grief and pain. These folks probably mean well and are trying to comfort you, but there is no denying that the message is that you shouldn’t feel sad, and you shouldn’t mourn. Yet faith and grief can, and should, coexist. You might find comfort in believing the person you love is in heaven yet at the same time miss her terribly. Feeling this pain is a sign of strength, not weakness. It’s a necessary part of your journey through grief.

Maybe your faith feels like it’s been turned upside-down. If you need a time-out from your long-held beliefs or your regular worship services, take it. Going into “exile” for a while can be a way to honor your healing. If people try to drag you to a place of worship and you don’t want to go, dig your heels in and tell them you’ll go when and if you’re ready.

If faith never encounters doubt, if truth never struggles with error, if good never battles evil, how can faith know its own power? In my own pilgrimage, if I had to choose between a faith that has stared doubt in the eye and made it blink, or a naive faith that has never known the firing line of doubt, I will choose the former every time.

~ Gary Parker

Faith doesn’t mean you never doubt. It only means you never act upon your doubts.

~ Orson Scott Card

When you are ready, allow yourself to express your faith in varied ways. Attending a church, synagogue, mosque, or other place of worship, reading scripture, and praying are only a few ways to express your faith. Appreciating the beauty of nature, meditating, and expressing yourself through music are other ways to voice your faith. Remember, this is your unique passage through grief and loss. Control your own sail.

Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.

~ Frederick Buechner

It’s natural and perfectly OK to question your faith at this time. Having faith and openly mourning are not mutually exclusive. Being upset and openly mourning does not mean you are being “weak” in your faith. Remember the Bible quote that states, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

~ Alan D. Wolfelt

Personal Reflection on Faith

Are you experiencing doubt in God? Are some of the truths you’ve always carried feeling untrue to you now? Explore these feelings of doubt with a good listener or through writing, art, or another form of self-expression.

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Day 5

Adopt a Daily Spiritual Practice

God is an unutterable sigh, planted in the depths of the soul.

~ Jean Paul Richter

You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.

~ Swami Vivekananda

Mourning is a spiritual journey of the heart and soul. When someone you love dies, you open to a world of feelings, emotions, and mystery. Your pain might feel as if it is cracking you open. Your open heart is a “well of reception” that invites your soul forward. Your soul is the primary essence of your true nature, your spirit self, your life force — what I call your “divine spark.” Your divine spark has been muted by your suffering, but it never goes out. Feed it as best you can, every day.

One way to do this is to adopt a daily spiritual practice. For you, this could be praying each morning upon awakening or sitting in silence in nature each evening. Maybe it is more formal and involves going to a place of worship regularly and attending services and study groups. Or possibly it is informal, as in checking in with a best friend each night on how you are doing emotionally and spiritually.

We all fall into daily routines. Make it a part of your routine to commune with your spirit every day. If you are unsure where to start, ask others about their spiritual practices. Spend time with people who embody the faith you wish to live.

Remember, there is no right or wrong way to have a spiritual practice. Stop and ask yourself, “What feeds my divine spark? What makes me feel centered and balanced? What opens my spirit?” Get creative. Sit in a room surrounded by candles. Lie in the grass and gaze at the stars. Take a road trip to a remote, beautiful place. Visit a stupa or monastery and commune with the monks.

A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life.

~ James Allen

Live one moment at a time and that moment for God. Don’t think of a holy life, for that will drown you by its immensity, but remember that a holy life is a series of holy moments.

~ Anonymous

Sometimes spiritual practice happens on its own. In other words, our souls seek out what they need. Maybe driving home from work you have the urge to pull over and walk around a city lake or take off your shoes and wade into the ocean. Or maybe you want to build a fire in the middle of July or crank the music louder than you did as a teenager and lose yourself in its power. Do it. This is your soul, your divine spirit, asking for expression. Welcome its release.

Your spiritual understanding is yours and yours alone, even if you adhere to a certain faith. How you commune with your spirit or feed your divine spark is uniquely yours to decide.

Personal Reflection on Faith

Just as you exercise and feed your body every day, exercise and feed your spirit. What is your soul yearning for today?

(Continues…)Excerpted from The Mourner’s Book of Faith by Alan D. Wolfelt. Copyright © 2013 Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.. Excerpted by permission of Center for Loss and Life Transition.
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