In the aftermath of the terrible, barbaric events in Paris what are we left with? For those who are directly affected and their families and friends there will be a range of feelings and emotions and an understandable and incalculable amount of grief.  For those of us who don’t know any of those innocent victims, we have become grievers too. We have now all experienced a loss of safety, a loss of trust and above all a loss of innocence. This sort of event really could happen to us. Will we now re-think how we live our lives and relationships?

Yes, most of us can say that we don’t know anyone who has died or been injured but the truth is that as members of the Family of Humankind we are all affected whether we knew someone or not. Why? because events like this engage us in that Family by reminding us of our own memories of events that have happened to us and of our own loved ones who are no longer here.

We are united in our compassion and sadness for what we are capable of doing to each other. Since sadness is the most common emotion attached to death our brains start searching for what we know about sad feelings. We will summon up all that we know and remember about our own losses that caused us to feel sad. Those losses won’t just be around death, but also about divorces, estrangements, loss of a pet, job losses, health issues etc. Sometimes these losses leave us with unfinished emotions of things that we wished we had said or done differently. Maybe there were things we wanted to thank a loved one (or not so loved one) for, or to apologise for but we never took the opportunity.

The grief will not be just about the death and loss but also about the changes in the familiar patterns of behaviour and ways of life and being that will inevitably occur. This will be for everyone who is affected even for those who were not directly involved but are in this larger Family of Humankind.

The Grief Recovery Method that I teach helps people to recover from the effects of loss and grief, and is the opportunity to complete these unfinished emotional statements and to start moving forward in life again. These attacks will leave a huge amount of unfinished emotional business and many, many grievers.

Events like these in Paris teach us that life is fragile and can be taken from us in a flash. These stories and images that we see in the media must be used as a reminder to live our lives as fully and honestly as possible in real time, as we never know when our time maybe up.

If you have been affected by this and wish to look at your own feelings, I can help, so call me now. Sue Holden Grief Recovery Specialist 07941273589 or email: [email protected]