Many of you are aware that there have been several losses in my family in recent months. This issue of Natural Passages reflects some of things that I needed to remember so as to begin the healing processes.

We have a wide range of readers for this newsletter. As we continue to try to meet at least some of the needs of everyone, we have explored a brief discussion of how men grieve. It is fairly straightforward.

The second article is a much more in depth look at male existence and how we address regret, and therefore anxiety and guilt, for having failed ourselves. This article is not an easy read. It may confound you and yet with some effort it could lead to insights that are invaluable.

Your feedback on the usefulness of these articles would be appreciated.

We have finally resolved the scheduling conflict and established dates for the Father and Son weekend. The weekend will begin on Wednesday, August 6 and end on Saturday August 9, 2008.

Sincerely
Herb Stevenson

The Common Misnomer of Men

Many of us were raised to pursue the happy and/or mature life instead of our experience of life. A happy and/or mature life for many men is to avoid sadness, grief, mystery, ambivalence, and any other less than happy and/or mature aspect of life. Unfortunately, this perception of life means that we must deny or bury at least one-half of the normal experiences of life. When we are able to embrace, without being consumed by, the less pleasant aspects of life and acknowledge that this too is part of whom I am, we are able to find more appreciation and contentment in whom we are and how we are in the world. Two areas that, often, are the most difficult for men are the acceptance and expression of grief and regret.

Five Stages of Grief/Loss

Grief is a somewhat complicated and misunderstood emotion. Yet, grief is something that, unfortunately, we must all experience at some time or other. We will all inevitably experience loss. Whether it is a loss through death, divorce or some other loss, the stages of grieving are the same.

Much to my own dismay, I was reminded that there are five stages of grief. If we get stuck in one stage or the other, the process of grieving is not complete, and cannot be complete. Thus there will be no healing. A person MUST go through the five stages to be well again, to heal. Not everyone goes through the stages at the same time. It is different for each person. You cannot force a person through the stages. They have to go at their own pace. You may go one step forward then take two steps backward, but this is all part of the process, and individual to each person. But, as stressed, ALL five stages must be completed for healing to occur.

The five stages of grief are:

1-Denial - "this can't be happening to me", looking for the former spouse in familiar places or, if it is death, setting the table for the person or acting as if they are still living there. Other signs are that there is no crying, accepting or even acknowledging the loss. For some men this is somewhat problematic. Recent studies have shown that some men simply do not cry. Family and cultural norms simply do not allow it. This has been the case for me and my family in a rural, low-income setting. Men were not allowed to cry, especially in public. However, paradoxically, (and now somewhat humorously to me now), we could mourn the loss of an animal. To this day, mourning is deeply personal and mostly internal, except when, for example, our wolf recently died. Digging his grave was a time of deep remembering and sobbing.

2-Anger - "why me?", feelings of wanting to fight back or get even with spouse of divorce, for death, anger at the deceased, blaming them for leaving. Typically, men do not blame the person that died, though we might blame an ex-spouse for a divorce. Yet, feelings of anger and irritation is often expressed during these periods towards others. One way or another, the hurt from the loss needs to be released and it is generally through anger.

3-Bargaining - bargaining often takes place before the loss. Attempting to make deals with the spouse who is leaving, or attempting to make deals with God to stop or change the loss. Begging, wishing, praying for them to come back is common as a means to fill a deep hole that we have avoided most of our male lives. As a child, I lost my grandfather. I wondered what I had done to deserve such deep loss. I pleaded to do better at being a good boy. When this did not work, I simply acted as if he had never existed rather than deal with the loss. Many years later, I had to face the loss and complete some rituals that would enable me to acknowledge my loss and the value he had been in my life. My single memory of him was always trying to borrow my nickel. I would push my hands deep into my pockets and he would tease me about giving him that nickel. As a ritual, I visited his grave, and planted a nickel with him, a symbolic way to heal the wounds of my loss.

4-Depression - overwhelming feelings of hopelessness, frustration, bitterness, self pity, mourning loss of person as well as the hopes, dreams and plans for the future. It includes feeling lack of control, feeling numb or, perhaps, feeling suicidal.

As men, we often experience a period of purgatory, where life can’t quite move on. We are stuck between the past and the future. It is here that much of the deepest mourning occurs. Keeping busy seems to support our efforts to get through the day, yet often we cannot remember a thing that we did. Because many of us “do not want to talk about”, it can linger for quite some time. Finding a buddy, a men’s circle, or a spiritual person to acknowledge the loss and your struggle can be very supportive.

5-Acceptance - there is a difference between resignation and acceptance. You have to accept the loss, not just try to bear it quietly. Acceptance is realization that it takes two to make or break a marriage, realization that the person is gone (in death), that it is not their fault. They didn't leave you on purpose(even in cases of suicide, often the deceased person, was not in their right frame of mind). It includes finding the good that can come out of the pain of loss, finding comfort and healing. Our goals turn toward personal growth. Stay with fond memories of person.

Personally, I write stories about the person or friend so that I can fully appreciate how blessed I am to have had enough of a relationship with the person to experience loss. The funny stories help remind me of the love of life between us.

Some additional tips to consider are: Seek support. Know that you will survive and that you will heal, even if you cannot believe that now. To feel pain after loss is normal. It proves that we are alive, human. But we can't stop living. We have to become stronger, while not shutting off our feelings for the hope of one day being healed and finding love and/or happiness again. Helping others through something we have experienced is a wonderful way to facilitate our healing and bring good out of something tragic.

Facing Regret

As my father approached his death, we were leaning on the car one day talking, when he looked at me with a deep, piercing set of gentle eyes and said that “I wish I had realized sooner that life is not about working hard and long enough to buy things.” The angst filling his eyes suggested that he deeply felt the finitude of choices he had made as well as the gnawing regret that he had not chosen differently. I looked into his eyes and wondered if it was his way of saying he wished he had spent more time with me. I decided it was his way of making peace with some regrets. I smiled and said “we do the best we can.” He nodded and seemed to relax. Nothing more was said.

Modern men often are plagued with regret about some aspect of their life, whether it is related to dreams unfulfilled, to missing the mark in a major project, or to making decisions in haste that later lead to a wish to have done differently.

A conscious and choiceful life is rarely filled with regret because the person tends to be fully-present in the choice-making process. From an existential perspective, regret occurs when we have “a profound desire to go back and change a past experience in which one has failed to choose consciously or has made a choice that did not follow one’s beliefs, values, or growth needs.” (Lucas, 2004, 58) It is a painful blending of existential anxiety and existential guilt that can be experienced as angst and/or anguish.

How We Create Regret

Making Mistakes

In terms of our day-to-day existence, to live in good faith means to be fully present in the moment and consciously live in a way that is congruent with one’s beliefs and values. Life is choiceful. When we make a mistake in decision, deed, and or understanding of the future, if it is in good faith, we will experience a modicum of regret and likely learn from the situation as we move on in life. We know that we based our decision, deed or understanding of the future on what we knew in the moment. However, if we make a mistake in bad faith, that is, incongruent with one’s beliefs and values, then we can become painfully aware of having chosen poorly without the ability to correct it.

Failing to Choose Well

My first marriage ended in a disaster, just as it began. I agreed to marry someone for all the wrong reasons, totally inconsistent with my dreams, goals and values. Even though I received support from all of my family and friends that it was simply nerves, my body quivered on the wedding day from the sense of falling into a deep cavern. Suddenly, I experienced a deep sense of having sinned against my self by not trusting my inner truth or in not using my inner authority to choose what’s best for myself.

In basic terms, every decision involves relinquishing an infinite number of other choices. “To choose means to relinquish or even kill other choices or possibilities” (Lucas, 2004, 62) Interestingly, in not choosing by literally not choosing and following the road of least resistance or as in not consciously making a decision consistent with our circumstances, facts, and personal values, we choose. Hence, when we act out of habitual thought patterns created from parental and other influences, such as “it’s the way men in our family do things”, a choice is made, albeit semi- or unconsciously. In failing to consciously choose, we withdraw from our responsibility to live well by creating our own life. Generally, “these are moments in which we acted without purposeful, conscious choosing. We were not present; our experience was more characterized by a divided consciousness, and hence we were living in bad faith” (Lucas, 2004, 59-60) to oneself. Existentially, we feel guilty because at some deep level, we become aware that we have abandoned and betrayed the self. “It is a sense that I abandoned myself at that moment and instead serviced another reality at the expense of my current experience, needs, and choices. The effect is that at some level I feel that I have let myself down... and I am acutely angry, despairing, and full of regret” and there is nothing I can do about it.

Having left graduate school to get married, in my later years I revisited the decision to get married and stay together for sixteen rocky years, rather than violate the family values. Suddenly, the weight of the decision and the loss associated with whom I had become versus the person I had aspired to be fell on me like the darkness of a deep well. Now, I listen to myself and make decisions based on the man I aspire to be, making a difference one person at a time.

Failing to Live One’s Potentialities

Existential regret can be also understood through failing to live one’s potentialities. This is seen when “we consciously consider our choices and let ourselves down by choosing to do what is easier rather than responding to our inner values, integrity, beliefs, potential, and knowledge.” (Lucas, 2004, 60). Abraham Maslow believed that even though we have a predisposition towards self-actualizing, we also can defend against growth. In the latter case, defending against growth, we will tend to experience regret because we took the easy way out or chose to do less than we are capable.1 He foretells that, “if you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you’ll be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life. You will be evading your own capacities, your own possibilities.” ( Maslow, 1993, 35)

References

Block, Peter & Peter Koestenbaum (2001) Freedom and Accountability at Work. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.

Koestenbaum, Peter (1971)The Vitality of Death: Essays in Existential Psychology and Philosophy. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood.
.........................(1974) Existential Sexuality, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall
.........................(1978) The New Image of the Person: The Theory and Practice of Clinical Philosophy, Westport Connecticut: Greenwood
........................(1979) Managing Anxiety, Millbrae, California: Celestial Arts.
........................(1987) The Heart of Business: Ethics, Power and Philosophy. San Francisco, California: Saybrook Publishing.
........................(2002) Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness—a philosophy for leaders. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Lucas, Marijo, (2004) Existential Regret: A Crossroads of Existential Anxiety and Existential Guilt, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 44. No. 1, Winter, 58-70.

Maslow, Abraham, (1993) “Neurosis as a failure of personal growth”, In M. Vich (Ed.) The farther reaches of human nature. New York, Penguin.

May, Rollo(1983) The Discovery of Discovery. New York, Norton.

Some things to think about

What mistakes have you made?

Did you learn from them or do they still plague you?

Describe a time that you chose well for yourself?

Describe a time when you chose poorly and in bad faith towards yourself?

What would you do differently, if given the chance; what prevents you from being yourself?

Footnotes

1Maslow referred to this as the Jonah complex where we are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments, under the most perfect conditions, under conditions of greatest courage. We enjoy and even thrill to the godlike possibilities we see in ourselves in such peak moments. And yet we simultaneously shiver with weakness, awe, and fear before these very same possibilities. (1993, 34)