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It's not the uncertainty that concerns me. It's dealing with the pain of loss despite knowing that the person who left is doing their own work to move on. Missing someone hurts.
Sidney,
I totally sympathize with you. I am sorry for your loss and pain.
Grieving is a natural part of loss. You love someone, share your life, happiness and sorrow, support each other and become a part of each other life. One day he or she is gone, and now you are facing loneliness and grieving about your loss.
As you said, you are not concern with the uncertainty, and I am not going to question it. Though the majority of us concern with the uncertainty day in and day out. It could be some small or important things, but this is a human nature to fight, be concern and afraid uncertainty. This is why we make all kind of plans, to escape uncertainty.
When someone is gone, and we continue our existence, our attachments to this person stay with us. If you can, you should examine your attachments. They are based on all kind of fears. And this fear makes us suffer more than anything else. Parting with attachments could be a long and uneasy process, but it can bring a positive result.
Sadness is not based on fear. Sadness is based on Love. We can love someone, see his/her problems and it makes us sad or very sad. Loss of our loved one can bring a lot of sadness, and it could be painful as well. When we are sad, we are concern about others, but when we are affected by our attachments, we are concern about ourself.
You should remember, that nobody is perfect. LCS is not perfect, and consequently NPMR and PMR are not perfect either. This is why we have so many problems, all us, nobody is excluded. Our main and only goal in any life is to learn about ourselves and others and improve ourselves. If we'd like to say it in MBT metaphors it will be - reduce entropy and become Love. That's it. Sounds simple enough, but we all know, how difficult it is to improve ourselves or reduce entropy.
Consider your grieving as a learning process, very difficult, but a necessary one for your growth. Unfortunately in a good time we are not interested in learning anything. Why to be bothered, when everything is good already? At the same time, a difficult time pushes us to find a solution, search and research for another answer, makes us to look into ourself and see why we are not happy, why this pain is not going away?
Don't blame yourself for your grieving. There is no standard how we should proceed with our loss.
Dr. Victor Frankl, a psychologist, in one of his books tells a story about one patient.
This patient was an elderly man who lost his wife to cancer a couple or years ago. They had a long good life together, and he could not accept, that she was gone. He had several sessions with Dr. Frankl, but his pain was not getting any better. One day Dr. Frankl asked this man - have you been a strong support to your wife in the most difficult times in your life? This man said, yes, he was stronger and had always supported his wife in the difficult times. Now, said Dr. Frankl, think about a reverse situation, when your wife would survived you and have to face alone the same kind of grieving, that you are going through. Would you wish her to go through this? Or is it better, that this is you, who are living now and having this pain of loss? Without any hesitation a man said, of course it is better, that I have to grieve now. She will be lost without me, and it would be horrible even to imaging this.
Next time this man came to Dr. Frankl's office he was feeling much better. He was able to look at his situation from a different perspective. He was not healed and continued his grieving, but a new point of view made it much easy for him.
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pp 111-115] We can discover this meaning of life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. The first, by way of achievement or accomplishment, is quite obvious. The second and third need further elaboration.
The Meaning of Love
Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the essence of another human being unless he loves him. by his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features of the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true...
The third way of finding a meaning in life is by suffering.
The Meaning of Suffering
We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation--just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer--we are challenged to change ourselves...
But let me make it perfectly clear that in no way is suffering necessary to find meaning. I only insist that meaning is possible even in spite of suffering--provided, certainly, that the suffering is unavoidable. If it were avoidable, however, the meaningful thing to do would be to remove its cause, be it psychological, biological or political...
There are situations in which one is cut off from the opportunity to do one's work or enjoy one's life; but what can never be ruled out is the unavoidability of suffering. In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end. In other words, life's meaning is an unconditional one, for it even includes the potential meaning of unavoidable suffering...
[In Auschwitz] the question that beset me was, "Has all this suffering, all this dying around us, a meaning? For, if not, then ultimately there is no meaning to survival; for a life whose meaning depends on such a happenstance--as whether one escapes or not--ultimately would not be worth living at all."
http://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meani ... 807014273/
Lena