Companioning and the Wilderness of Grief

Companioning is the practice of coming alongside someone who is grieving. It’s sitting with them, walking with them, and being fully present not with answers but with your presence, empathy, and a willingness to avoid fixing or advising.

This is a series of articles on Alan Wolfelt’s 11 tenets of companioning. This article talks about tenet two. [Click here for tenet one].

The Importance and Power of Going into the Wilderness

The second tenet of companioning says: Companioning is about going to the wilderness of the soul with another human being; it is not about thinking you are responsible for finding the way out.

The knee jerk reaction when we suffer loss is to think something is wrong. Yes, the loss may have been wrong or unwanted or devastating, but your reaction is not. Loss results in a feeling similar to stepping into the wilderness.

It’s important to remember that in the wilderness, you don’t start looking for resolution or a recovery or you will short circuit the value to be found there.

Avoid Formulas and Quick Fix Solutions

When someone is in the wilderness of their grief, there is no formula or trick or prescription that will get them out of that wilderness.

THE WILDERNESS JUST IS!

Healthy grief is learning to sit in the desert place without needing to be lead out. Those companioning others in the desert of their grief see it as a natural and acceptable experience.

Thorough grief doesn’t predetermine the outcome of the grief journey. It supports a place of “unknowing” and is about “being with” grief not resolving or removing grief.

We often look for a microwave solutions to our problems but with grief, quick is not the experience you want to go looking for. More realistic is arduous, challenging, and desert-like.

When Torn Apart Reconstruction is Needed

When someone has suffered a debilitating loss, they’ve been torn apart and enter into a process that includes reconstruction. They may have lost their identity, their purpose, their way of life, or their future. There is no easy remedy other than to travel the meandering path that eventually results in rebuilding and reconstructing a new way of living.

When my life was torn apart by Vicky’s death, I lost my identity as a husband. I lost future dreams and hopes. I lost a friend and traveling companion. There was no fixing it. I had to enter the wilderness where it was hot, dry, and lonely.

The people who helped me the most, kicked up the sand with me. They walked in silence as I cried, reflected, and remembered. There was mystery in my loss. I contemplated my mortality as I came face to face with Vicky’s end of life journey. I learned to be kind to myself as I wondered in the wilderness and appreciated those who listened and wondered with me.

Final Thought

In the words of Alan Wolfeldt,

For transformation of grief to unfold, you have to surrender to the experience. Trying to stay in control by denying, inhibiting or converting grief can result in what Kierkegaard termed ‘unconscious despair.’ Doing the soul work of grief demands going into and through suffering and integrating it in ways that help unite you with your fellow strugglers and the greater community of people.

What has been your experience with loss and the wilderness?

Source: Companioning the Bereaved by Alan D. Wolfelt

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