The pain of grief

I think that early grief is so painful we just want the pain to end. Pain is not a pleasant experience and its function is mainly to let us know that something is wrong or out of balance with our bodies. Unfortunately, it also tends to cloud the mind. It does not let you focus on anything else but the pain. You begin to say things like: " This won't go away.", "I can't take this any more.",  "I don't want to live like this anymore". These statements start a repetitive cycle that gets us stuck in our pain which leads to suffering. We do what we need to do to try to get brief relief from the pain, but in the blink of an eye it seems as if it is back. This is the body letting us know that it is still not back to normal. It has experienced a tremendous trauma and it will take take time to heal and bring it self back into balance. Eventually, we have to come to a point where we can gain enough strength to no longer resist the pain, but we can begin to explore the pain to see where it takes us. We then can begin to change our minds so we can say things like, "I can." and "I will."  We have endured the darkness of the cocoon and have re-emerged in the light as a butterfly, just like our children who have made the transformation from the physical nature of this life to the spiritual life of the next.