How Individuals Engage with Cultural Norms and Customs Associated with Grief - Essay Example

Course name: Professor’s name: University name: City, State Date of submission: Introduction Grief is a strong emotion which is sometimes overwhelming that people experience when they lose their loved ones or when they or someone that they love has been diagnosed with a terminal disease. People find themselves feeling numb and untouched from their daily life. Grief makes people forget their daily activities[Nei11]. Personal experiences of grief differ and are influenced by the magnitude of loss. On the other hand, mourning is ‘grief gone public’. It is allowing our internal experience of grief to come outside. Mourning helps us to stop grief. It is very important to mourn since it helps us avoid using pain avoidance acts such as abusing drugs, isolating, eating disorders and many others. Ways in which our experiences of grief and our practices of mourning are socially constructed In all societies,loss is categorized in a certain order. Death of a family member is considered as the most important form of loss by most cultures and societies. Our cultures dictates the way in which we deal with loss[Dok02]. To some cultures, when one dies they celebrate him or her while to others they mourn the deceased. Most studies show that we learn how to respond to loss from our culture. Lofland looks at grief by using the modern penchant that expresses ones deepest emotions and the modern temperament that aims at giving free play to one’s inner feelings[Lof11]. When experiencing grief in our current living situations we tend to give way to strong feelings of loss. In most cases people let themselves to experience grief for a long period of time and surround themselves with activities that help keep their concentration away from loss. In the past, these was not the case since privacy was not encouraged. Child and adult mortality rate was high and felled spouses were quickly replaced since it was necessary and also because of need of survival. The bereaved of the past did not only lack the situation necessary to care for emotional understanding but also denied themselves the ability to experience deep feelings. This kind of cultural beliefs of the past shows different perspective on feelings about feelings. These can be shown by the fact that they did not go for honeymoon after marriage. Today honeymoon gives a couple the chance to experience inner feelings towards each other. From the way Lofland presents cultural and situational variables, I am concerned of the way in which grief experiences in our society today vary[Lof11]. I recently went to visit a close friend of mine who had lost his wife to support him during the difficult moment. During my visit I saw that there many variables listed by Lofland in his situation. He had isolated himself from the rest of the society. I noticed that he had photos of his deceased wife on his table suggesting that he was going through them. He had taken the possessions of his deceased wife. The way he handled grief showed similarities to the way most people in our culture deal with grief. These left me asking myself a question. What if he approached grief differently, would it have altered his grief experience? These leads to the question of our state of mind. Today the question is how long one deal with grief and mourning will must before they let go and accept the reality. A lot of importance is given to sharing and truthfulness with ones emotions rather than aggression, repression and denial. Today people attach a lot of feelings to grief. A lot of songs that express ones feelings have been written. There is a lot of areas where emotions can be seen being manifested. Examples are movies, books and TV shows. In my experience, a good example of these is the twilight novel which was later acted as a movie. These novel shows not only the feelings between a girl and a vampire but also how their feelings changed the actions of those close to them. According to psychiatrists, psychologists and other helping professional, grief is an emotion that is located within a person who experiences loss[Hal01]. They agree to the fact that grief might at times feel overwhelming but it is important for a person to feel grief. Grief is associated with several facts. The amount of grief that one experiences revolves around intensity of loss, how one was brought up, culture and so forth. There are various ways in which a person handle grief. It is manifested through various emotions. At first one will feel helpless and anxious[Bon04]. Secondly, one will go through a phase of anger. According to psychologist Linda these kind of emotions are not weird and one should allow them to happen. It is important for a grieving person to go through these emotions knowing that they will go away after sometime. To some people, these emotions take long to pass while others may require professional help. According to psychiatrists and psychologists grief need time of adjustment. One should give himself or herself time to deal with the emotions associated with grief. The death of loved one is considered as the most traumatizing form of grief. Grieving a loved one can be seen through some physical signs. One may reduce the amount of food he or she used to eat and also fail to sleep well or the vice versa. Grieving and mourning is experienced in 5 stages[Axe14]. These stages are witnessed everywhere in the world the order in which they follow differ from one person to another. Firstly, people go through denial and they isolate themselves from others. If a person or a family member contracts a disease that has no cure or a close person dies, one will refuse to accept the reality. These is acceptable and helps in dealing with intense emotions. It works as a defense mechanism that prevents a person from getting into depression because of shock. It is short-lived and sees us through the first phase of pain. Secondly, there is anger. Here one gets in touch with reality and starts feeling pain. A person feels angry complete strangers or his/her friends and family. Even though a person knows that the deceased did not chose to die, he or she may get upset because the dead has left them behind and caused them pain. It is associated with guilty which brings more pain and anger. Thirdly, vulnerability and helplessness makes one feel the need to control how things happened. One tends to wish for the things they could have done if they knew something bad was going to happen. In the case of terminal disease one wishes that they he or she had sought medical attention in time or to get a second opinion from another doctor. On other the hand, in the case of death of a loved one, one starts imaging the things they could have done while the person was still alive[Hal01]. These kind of emotions makes us pray to God for a chance to change the situation that we find ourselves in today. It a type of defense mechanism that helps in lowering the amount of pain we are feeling. Fourthly, there is the depression phase. There are types of depression. The first one is where we go through practical implications that are brought byloss. Regret and sadness are witnessed here. In these type phase of depression one is worried about the cost of the burial. Also one worries that in their grief he or she isolates those who depend on them. These is calmed by basic reassurance. The second one is more private. In these people secretly prepare themselves to wish their loved ones a goodbye. At times all one requires is a hug. Lastly, one goes through acceptance. Very few get to these phase. Calmness and withdrawal are the main features in these phase. Dealing with grief varies from one person to another. It is believed that nobody knows the amount of grief that the other person has to deal with. What others can do is try to be there for you to cheer you up and show you that you are not alone. Giving yourself the chance to go through grief and all the emotions that come with it helps you deal with it mare fast. Resisting these grief will only prolong the natural process of healing. Loss of a loved through death brings profound challenges to our adaptations as humans. We respond to these loss with a couple of hard-wire reactions which includes weeping, disorientation, and longing for the deceased[Dok02]. Moreover, these behaviors are commonly associated with predictable psychological symptoms which include difficulty in breathing, sweating, dry mouth, problems in digestion, and choking sensations. All these symptoms together with restlessness, and insomnia can be taken as responses to stress of being left by the dead. With all these it can be said that a grieving person is trying to agree and reconstruct a personal world of meaning that has been destroyed by the loss of a loved one. These shows how a person accepts the reality and gives their best to deal with it so that they may get their lives back on track in absence of the deceased. On the other hand, many sociologist look at the social shaping of grief and how individuals engage with cultural norms and customs associated with grief. The social way of looking at grief and mourning show several features of grief system, each of which has as public and a private aspect. Some of these features are local cultures, rituals and discourses that show the importance of loss in a given human community. These cultural rituals whether from the catholic funeral mass, Jewish shiva, or the secular memorial service have one thing in common. They all provide for “an emotional chaos of grief, following a symbolic order of events, and facilitate a construction of shared meanings of loss among family members, community or even a nation”. In all forms of grieving, these rituals have three basic dimensions that help in meeting the need of the bereaved and the large social system. Firstly, there is the transformation of mourners self-sense that allow them to look at and react to their relationship with the deceased. Secondly, both the deceased and the living transits to new social status. The dead transit from being an active member of the society to someone present in the spirit word. On the other hand, the living let’s say a woman whose husband has died will transit from wife to a widow. Lastly, people try to connect and communicate with the dead through events like the Jewish Yizkor which follow certain procedures and customs or informal ones like conversations about the deceased among the living. All these forms of dimensions and cultural practices show that there is an existence of a social bond[Fie06]. It also shows the recognition of change in status for those directly affected by the loss. Social systems are viewed by the amount of attention they give to death or loss. Although these forms of social practices may appear to follow some certain church practices, they are carried out by communities across the word and change a little due to race. These is viewed by different professions as divergent discourse of problematic grief and may require medical attention or spiritual intervention. In most cases, grief may course competing demands within the person experiencing it. This leads the person into depression. When one is in depression he or she tend to isolate his family members, family and the society at large. There is difference in the way men and women deal with grief[Kis02]. Women like talking their way through grief. They process the grief by talking about how they feel. They like talking about the deceased person. They focus on reliving the memories they had with the dead and the events that the deceased will miss sharing with them in the future. On the other hand men don’t like talking about their grief. Men are more concerned with fixing things. Since death cannot be fixed they feel powerless. Men do not like the idea of seeking support from others. They feel that talking to people about their grief will not help solve anything or bring back the deceased from the dead. Conclusion To every one grief is the same and does not care about one’s skin color, religion, gender, living standards or culture. We all mourn our loved when they die. Emotions occur to everyone experiences loss of any type. Even though people have their unique way of dealing with grief, in the end it all amounts to the same thing. References Nei11: , (Neimeyer, 2011), Dok02: , (Doka, 2002), Lof11: , (Lofland, 2011), Hal01: , (Hall, 2001), Bon04: , (Bonano, 2004), Axe14: , (Axelrod, 2014), Fie06: , (Field, 2006), Kis02: , (Kissane, 2002), Read More