Grief and Adaptation to Change

Grief has always been part of the both personal and group evolutionary process of mankind as long as mankind has existed. To interfere with Grief by using legal or illegal drugs often just ends that individuals forward progress in life. In my own life grief of the loss of my father brought about Asthma into my son's life for the first time at age 11, and set the stage for my divorce 9 years later. It also brought about (indirectly) a custody battle for my then 5 year old daughter which eventually caused me (partly) to get a heart virus and almost die at age 50. However, if I look at the grief just in my own life around the death of my father in 1985 and the death of my mother in 2008 I see each was a very important catapult into the future in my life and my children's lives. If, by taking legal or illegal drugs we become more out of touch and dysfunctional permanently than we would have been without taking anything, then we have harmed not only ourselves but also directly and indirectly harmed everyone we know and to some degree society itself.

So, my point of view is that if necessary visit your local Grief Therapist or minister or friend to help you through your grief but all the while seeing that grief is a necessary step towards a realistic look at your life now and your life into the future. In many cultures grief can catapult a person into a whole new and meaningful life if they let it. It can catapult someone when they lose their mate into another good relationship and travel to new and different places and climates. Grief is awful but often leads to a new life and new hopes and dreams. It is a natural element of change in the history of humankind and often leads in the end to better lives sometimes than before. Once again Descartes philosophy holds true, "There is nothing so bad that no good may come from it and nothing so good that no bad may come from it." Generally, as I watch life on earth this philosophy is usually just the way things are here on earth.