Most of my life has been spent as a quiet person. I certainly know times of boisterousness and leadership, but for a large part I am content not to fight for the need to pontificate more than those around me. In having this stance, there are all so many situations where the experience of calmly observing have taught me many lessons and insights.
In being quiet, I have also learned to share my time with others while simply listening. Sometimes as a friend, as concerned party, as one who wants to aid if possible, and as a one simply curious. As the years rolled on there came many commonalities among peoples' situations. Oft the details were amiss when compared to another instance, but more times than not the situation was all too familiar. It is in this vein that I take the different ways we wear both Pain and Grief.
The sources of these two emotions can be as different as possible, or about the same issue and circumstance. For instance, think of the death of someone close. Most likely you attended a wake, burial, service, memorial, of some kind. Think of how different the presence of each person attending may have been. Who was burying some expression for the person who had passed away? How many were talking about them as if they had merely taken a trip to a far off land? Who was nervously holding back outbursts? The many types of differences start to add up. Here is where the pain and grief become important.
Pain and Grief share common elements. They are certainly different feelings, sometimes linked together, but not with necessity. But one shared attribute that I find in them is their privacy in ownership. The expression of each can range from highly public to completely private, yet they are two feelings that come deeply from the heart. By originating at such a core level, do they fall into a place that leaves us individually to choose how we express them? There is the Other side of these feelings where one can NOT control how they manifest. E.g.- A badly broken leg will usually throw all caution or privacy about the pain away immediately.
Examples of this latter scale discounted, we see the choice we make in sharing or refraining from letting the world outside know our inner feelings. One may have a close person, or maybe pet be lost in some way, and express it openly to others. Yet, another may go on indefinitely without making this knowledge public in any way. The differences can both be understood and justified as healthy lifestyle patterns. But, the rub comes along when the two collide. Choosing to express one way and have a similar situation expressed completely the opposite somehow puts a strain on the differing parties. All too often with only one side knowing there is discontent among them.
What are the core reasons we choose to share our different approaches to pain, grief, and other feelings with those outside of our inner haven? Habit, modeling from others, expectations given us or taken on by us, the conditions of the moment, and many more influences may have their weight on which way we communicate them. The biggest question I have developed over time is: "why is our way all too often the preferred way in which we like to see others behave?" I have heard it all too often, about how 'so-and-so did this or that in a certain way and that was just so inappropriate'. Is it the intensity of these emotions that encourages many to stand pat with their method of expression being the best way? Maybe it can be accounted to the frailty of these circumstances.
What can be lost or forsaken if all are welcome to express these feelings in Any way they seem appropriate? Comfort? Control? Containment? How are understanding are we of others and ourselves? When next the situation approaches that has Your Face of Grief or Pain showing, what will you consider?
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