The greatest griefs are silent.

In an era of such a focus on wellness and self-help, it is negligent to not explore what fuels us emotionally. For those who shy away from formal therapy, the internet is abundant with sources. So many ways to fix yourself. For we all need fixing in some manner or another. For some, the idea of having to talk about things can be paralyzing. Not all of us can express the myriad of emotions we want to convey -- share the feelings we want to share -- even with those whom we are closest to. Because of this, sadly, so much can be lost in mistranslation by those around us. And while baring one’s thoughts and feelings can be scary, silence can in effect be deadlier. Realizing this, and moving past it, is critical to happiness. While we can choose to ignore the heaviness we may sometimes feel (insert reasons here), and trudge along in a world where we keep deep communication to a minimum, we can also try to understand that there is another way. What is transparent to some, is still a foreign concept to so many. Accepting and buying into the idea that we need to talk about things can be a salvation. For communication is key, both with one’s self and with the people around us. In order to have relationships and in order for them to be healthy, we have to learn how to talk.

“The greatest griefs are silent.” So says Wally Lamb in I Know This Much Is True, his best-selling novel currently a series on HBO. The griefs we cannot talk about are the ones that can consume us. Quietly. And in effect silence us. Often even unbeknownst to us. Certainly, they can manifest themselves when we let our guard down -- when we drink, or open up to a stranger, or see a movie that connects to our grief, we can maybe for a minute, show our uninhibited faces. Then, the mask goes back on. Why is it so hard for people to talk about their feelings? Is this just the way it is? Living one’s whole life with this belief can be a disaster of epic proportions. It’s a waste of years and years and likely a hammer on the coffin of many relationships. The regret that follows can actually block happiness. What if there was another way? What if people could realize that while communication is hard it is, more importantly, necessary?

Author and success coach Hal Elrod tells us in The Miracle Morning whatever “you need to overcome or want to accomplish is possible for you, no matter what your past or current circumstances. It begins with accepting total responsibility for every aspect of your life and refusing to blame anyone else. The degree to which you accept responsibility for everything in your life is precisely the degree of personal power you have to change or create anything in your life.”

Lamb’s protagonist Dominick spends years regretting that he pushed his wife Dessa away. Years. Unable to deal with grief, he goes through the motions of life, hardly living. We learn early on that his silence in his marriage costs him dearly. Along the way, he starts realizing, much to his astonishment, that he is filled with rage and pain. Anger from his childhood. Grief over an unimaginable loss. Add to that, fear of responsibility for his paranoid, schizophrenic twin. Unable to process any of it, he loses the best thing that he ever had. And it’s just too late. Then comes his story, of finding another way. Of hope. And of course, whether it’s Dominic or any of us, we cannot always see outside of ourselves what is going on. Perhaps, for those who are lucky, it falls upon the people around us to convey to us what they see.

We all know people in crisis, humming along ignoring the many elephants in the room. Sometimes that is even us. And a new normal is born. A normal that you cannot put a name on. Yet you know it is just the opposite of normal. If kids are involved and affected then what about the elephants that become normalized for them? Difficult things in life never come easy. Fear of asking for help confounds things. Having said that, it is painstakingly clear, no matter what the motive, how dangerous it is to ignore a problem. How dangerous it is to silence it. For the amount of energy consumed in looking the other way, in preserving one’s status quo, what if we put that energy to talking, no matter how scary, and maybe solving instead? A useful starting point is to reflect and discover that we all have our own currency. Said differently, we all have some motivation to awaken, and realize the dire need for change? Some could say the answer is simple: happiness. And the hope for that can maybe, just maybe stifle some of the fear.

While it may seem easier to drift along in the minefield of I am fine, imagine if instead, we questioned and wondered and actually thought about and talked about, how we got to the point where we are -- moving from there, to where we want to be. To bring it back to Elrod, “it really doesn’t matter who is at fault—all that matters is that you and I are committed to leaving the past in the past and making our lives exactly the way we want them to be, starting today.” Life is fluid. Life is movement. Life is growth.

Sources:

Elrod, Hal. The Miracle Morning: the Not-so-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life before 8AM. Hal Rod International, Inc., 2012.

Lamb, Wally. I Know This Much Is True. Harper Collins, 1998.