Sometimes, while going through loss, the ability to process gets stuck.

There are a lot of different tools to address this. But only if the time is right. Sometimes getting stuck is the acknowledgement of how impossible this is, or feels. If time passes, and the ability to process has not changed, there are some ways to explore it.

Dr. Karl Lehman believes there are five parts that must be successfully navigated to process pain. 1. maintain organized attachment. 2. Stay connected. 3. Stay relational. 4. Navigate situation in a satisfying way. 5. Correctly interpret the meaning.

For some brains, this works.

Some people need to check to see if their emotional faucet is able to come on. As in a bathroom faucet, negative and positive emotions flow through the same outlet. When it is scary to feel, the faucet gets turned off and the person stops being able to feel.

An exercise to discover clues on why things are stuck is to ask internal binary questions. Is it my soul or my spirit that is struggling? Is it with the Lord or with man that I am upset? Is my body in agreement with my spirit or my soul?

We can also scan truths that we hold as eternal or constant in our life. If any of those no longer feel true, that is a clue on where the pain got stuck.

How about the understandings we have of God. Is he still good? Does he still heal? Do I still feel his faithfulness? Has anything changed?

If we know the voice of our body, we can ask, where in the body is this being held? Is it my shoulders, or my digestive tract, or my heart?

Are there any previous situations that are coming to mind regularly, that don’t seem to connect to this one?

In other words, are there any trees that are birthing seeds/thoughts in the heart that are obscuring the path forward? These would be circular thoughts I can’t stop thinking.

How is hope? Can I describe what it looks like? Are my emotions involved in hope at all?

Do I need more cognitive answers, do I feel a need to solve a problem that can’t be solved?

Drawing a map of where I experience things inside of me is another tool to locate where movement has stopped. Where do I feel joy? Where do I connect with God? Where does anger go on my map?

I also ask my spirit if there are any spiritual hindrances involved, in addition to my humanity and current imperfection.

When I have enough clues, I float strategies. There’s no altogether right way for everyone. Part of the process is having permission to buy in to the strategy that is right for me. And there is no way that will always work, for every time I experience loss.

The pain the brain knows, when I can’t be with the one I love, attachment pain, is some of the worst pain the brain can know. It must not be minimized.

When it is able to be processed, it also opens up levels of intimacy with the Lord that are exquisite and transformational.

I bless each reader with the gift of finding their pathway and the peace it yields.