I am sorry this blog is so late. I had two trips far too close together and too far apart. One was in Las Vegas and the other in Albany NY. Since I travel by car, it is hard to keep current in the blogging department. I am home and will try to do better.

There is an interesting little tid bit in one of the stories found in the Old Testament of the Bible. Seems that Moses was trying to get his people out of Egypt by calling down various plagues on the Egyptians. One of them was a plague of frogs. Frogs everywhere. Slimy, croaking, nasty frogs in the bed, under foot, crawling over children; makes one shudder to think about it. Finally the Pharaoh had all he could stand and asked Moses to get rid of the frogs. When Moses asked when he should do so the Pharaoh said, "Tomorrow."  

I read a speech by someone built on this story. The name of the speech was "One More Night With The Frogs." He would do something about his problem some other day. 

Watching people hurt and waiting for them to get ready to find help is about the hardest part of my job. I honestly think only a small percentage of people in grief seek any kind of help. The vast majority seem to suffer in silence and tell the world they are fine.

I do not mean to imply that everyone in grief needs professional help. Nor even that everyone needs to join a grief group or attend seminars. All of these are helpful of course, but they are not a necessity in every case. But everyone in grief does need someplace to talk about their feelings. Some place that gives them permission to grieve without fear or shame. The best thing to do with grieve is to openly and honestly grieve. 

It may seem more safe to go off into some cave and suffer alone, but grief shouted to the wind does little in the way of  relief.

As I sit and wait, I have wondered why do we find it so hard to seek help? What are we afraid of? I am not sure that I know all of the answers to that question but from my observations I think some of the reasons are:

Fear of intimacy

Crying with someone is about as intimate an experience as there is. It is hard to let someone into the deep parts of our souls, and that is what it feels is happening when we let ourselves loose in someone's presence. Intimacy is harder for some than for others. Folks who have been betrayed in the past find it hard to trust again. Folks who have been made fun of or put down usually just want to go off and hide. Folks that have always felt a great deal of pressure to perform find it hard to stop putting on a good front. And of course, most men find sharing feelings to be much harder than do most women.

Fear of weakness

Somehow we developed the idea that not showing our grief was a sign of strength and dignity. I wish Jackie Kennedy had broken down at her husband's funeral. We have the mental picture of her standing strong on the steps of the capital while John John saluted and the press drooled all over themselves with how dignified and strong she was. We seem to be convinced that shedding one public tear will brand us as wimps for the rest of our lives.

Conquering our fears and deciding to quit sleeping with the frogs is only half the battle. Finding someone safe can also be difficult. Safe people are the ones who will just listen and not try to take our grief away from us or fix it. We need companions who will recognize they have no magical words to say, but that it helps to just let us talk. Those kind are hard to find but not impossible. We can even help create them by telling them up front that we do not need advice or counsel all we need is a safe place to let our feelings fly. We need their ears, period. Finding a safe place and safe people and deciding to actually let them help is the only way I know to stop sleeping with the frogs. Good luck.

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