FEELINGS HAVE NO MORAL VALUE. THEY ARE NOT GOOD OR BAD, RIGHT OR WRONG; THEY SIMPLY EXIST AND NEED TO BE RECOGNIZED AND ACKNOWLEDGED FOR WHAT THEY ARE. HOW WE EXPRESS OUR FEELINGS MAY HAVE MORAL VALUE, BUT THE FEELINGS THEMSELVES DO NOT.

We are forever wanting and needing to tell each other what is right and wrong and good and bad. We especially like to do this to each other where our feelings are concerned.

As soon as you put a value judgment on the feelings of another you prevent them from being in the spot that they need to be. Now they must pretend or feel guilty, now they must deny or convert what they feel, to what they think you consider acceptable.

It is in these moments of “I’d better not say that” or “ I must be wrong to feel like this” or “it’s bad or wrong to have that reaction,” that we lose all connection to what’s really going on within us, and it is here, where grief and healing become unhinged.

How often does someone who knows little about human emotions, decide and determine what’s right and wrong, good or bad for a friend or relative to feel when they are sad, lonely and hurting.

If you are helping someone who is grieving, lonely, or lost be very carful as to what you decide is appropriate for them to feel and how they can and cannot, should or should not express themselves.

You run the risk of doing damage here and you might want to stop and ask yourself what you might want or need if you were the one hurting.

Let me give you two tangible examples of how good intentions can make a mess.

In the process I hope you might find a little relief from those who “ know” what to do and some comfort in the permission that your feelings are not good or bad, right or wrong. They are simply yours and usually just need to be acknowledged and expressed.

THERE ARE MANY GRIEVING WHO FEEL ANGER AT THE PERSON WHO HAS DIED.

It is so difficult for the person “ left behind” to express anger at the person who has died.

Imagine the reaction from others.

“How could you feel anger, it wasn’t Susan’s fault that she died?”

“How selfish of you to be angry at Sam. Don’t you think he would be here if he could?”

“How can you feel angry at Maria, all she did was go through months of horrible treatment? All she wanted to do was live and you feel angry?”

As true as all these statements may be, truth has nothing to do with what the person left alone may be feeling.

“ We made a commitment and now I am alone.”

“ You promised that you would never leave but you did.”

“We had plans and hope together and now they are ruined, lost forever.”

“ You left me with so much to cope with. The debt, the children, the future to face alone.”

See what I mean?

There is so much advice, so much sanctimony, and so little permission for the one who is grieving to feel what they do. To feel what they must.

Still, in some cases the feeling of anger at the person who has died is real and still it needs to be expressed and acknowledged before any healing can take place.

THERE ARE MANY WHO FEEL GUILTY AFTER SOMEONE THEY LOVE DIES.

They might feel guilty that they did not help the person who died enough.

They might feel guilty about past arguments or times when they fell short in the relationship.

They might even feel guilty that they are alive while the person that they loved has died.

Again those close will often try to console the one who is sad with,

“You shouldn’t feel like that.”

“George wouldn’t want you to feel guilty.”

“Don’t feel bad, you did all you could for her.”

And so it goes with so many reactions to death and with so many of our feelings.

Try very hard to resist what others tell you is good and bad, right and wrong. Try rather to own your feelings and then, express them. Once they are expressed as feeling that really just need to get out, you can begin to deal with them and in time and with hard work get past them.

YOUR FEELINGS DON’T HAVE TO MAKE SENSE.

Try and remember this,

FEELINGS HAVE NO MORAL VALUE. THEY ARE NOT GOOD OR BAD, RIGHT OR WRONG; THEY SIMPLY EXIST AND NEED TO BE RECOGNIZED AND ACKNOWLEDGED FOR WHAT THEY ARE. HOW WE EXPRESS OUR FEELINGS MAY HAVE MORAL VALUE, BUT THE FEELINGS THEMSELVES DO NOT.