Unpacking the Four Stages of Grief

And uh yeah, if you have any questions, uh anything you'd like to interact between classes, um You can always write dpsnyc at gmail.com. That's a great way to connect. And uh Make any requests, ask any questions, seek resources. The counseling and the teaching is entirely supported only by donations. So if you would like to support my work, the three ways to do so are Dharma Punks with an X NYC and Venmo.

And then on the website there are PayPal and Patreon links and uh anything you give, no matter how small, is really helpful. So Uh despite what it seems.

As the Buddha noted, and as we have increasingly learned from contemporary cognitive science Despite what it seems, we don't actually build our experience of the world from what's actually arriving through our ears and eyes and nose and tongue and skin. Instead, our brain largely relies on replaying states from previous experiences.

So you don't just w walk into a room in your house and wait for all the light to hit your retina or all the sounds to reconstruct a sense of your living room or your bathroom, you actually build it largely through what's called uh models, reinstatements in the brain. Below our awareness we're creating sights and sounds to fill in or to create the bulk of what we see, our eyes are constantly darting around.

Three times every second our eyes are shifting, jumping about, yet we don't see a visually jumpy world. We see a stable one. And in fact, most of the times people enter a space, they don't actually look. at all of the areas, just their eyes jump about to a few places, and yet we experience the entirety of a situation. So largely what that means is that what we see, hear, touch, taste, smell. is being reinstated by our brain from these templates.

And if you ever want to catch them out, if you suddenly pay attention to an object from the corner or the an area of any room you weren't paying attention to and you really look at it, you'll find it's different. than what your brain had represented in that area. So, but it's also happening emotionally. Below awareness, our right hemisphere is constantly digging up previous neural states, reconstructing how we felt.

In similar situations, events from our past that were similar enough to what's going on now, and whatever we were feeling in the past. we will now feel in the present. In other words, it sets our body, our states of arousal.

Back to the settings they were previously. So if you go through an argument with a stranger and you suddenly feel the flash of anger and a state of heightened Physical intensity, that's because The situation the present has reminded you of previous situations and very quickly your body returns to those previous states of alertness, aggression or uh or or fear, whatever. We don't wait, in other words, for the present to be to be processed to already have an emotional

readiness, anticipation, behavioral impulses, and so forth. Meanwhile, despite the fact that our bodies are constantly returning to states in the past, So that's why we suddenly have feelings of anxiety, even though we can't there's nothing in the present to be anxious about. It's a reinstated Something in the present has just triggered an old unconscious memory of a time we were vulnerable and we start to feel panicky and anxious, even though we look around and there's nothing present.

that could possibly make us feel that way. So the body R and our emotions are constantly reconstituting past experiences. But our left hemisphere what's responsible for our conscious thoughts still believes that we're living entirely in the present. And this is why the way people have deja vu, because the conscious mind begins to realize the familiarity because in fact we are seeing

templates from past experiences. Actually sensory the actual sensory information from the world around us in the present is simply used to tweak the simulations that we live in and say, hey, wrong template. Try to use another memory to create this experience. The Buddha called the Sankara, the mental models that shape what we experience, so This is not a new idea, even though now it's by far and away the most prevalent understanding of how we perceive the world in cognitive science.

So most of the time these Reinstated memories work brilliantly. They help save energy. We don't have to recreate every situation from scratch. We can simply see these already instated memories from previous neural states. We don't have to build up a new light up all these new circuits in the brain. We simply return to old ones and it makes life feel manageable. It helps us respond quickly.

But every once in a while reality pulls the plug out from under us and it changes in such a way that our old models no longer make any sense and that creates a difficult experience and one of those times is when we become disconnected from someone that we were attached to. This can happen perhaps from a death, uh, a divorce, a sudden breakup in a long standing relationship. experience a harsh rejection. This can be the result of a parent who suddenly emotionally abandons us in childhood.

And what happens is The brain is put into a very difficult position because it continues to return to past memories where those attachment figures, those people, were present. And we return to the feelings that were associated with that person just before they disappeared. That could be a sense of warmth or love, but it also can be feelings of insecurity that was part of life with them. So there's this emotional sense that the person hasn't left yet.

But they're also not fully available. And this is why we as a species talk about ghosts and the feeling of hearing someone or seeing someone from the corner of our eye. It's because Part of the brain is still creating due to the fact that the brain is predictive. And we spend so much time with these attachment figures, the brain is predicting they're still there. The right hemisphere is not very good, doesn't update very quickly.

And so it continues to believe that the figure who we've been separated from is still available. And meanwhile, though, our left brain, which is conscious and based on thoughts, is fully aware that that figure isn't part of our life anymore. The person we've broken who's broken up with us, the person who's

moved away, died, uh and w whatever, this feeling of loss creates this unsettling state. It's a sense of, on the one hand, a hazy presence, that's still there, an image of the person that keeps on returning, uh courtesy of the right hemisphere. But also this deep cognitive realization that that person isn't available. So one part of the brain, the right hemisphere, still um is experiencing the present and going through all of these feelings associated

with the attachment figure. Whereas one part of the brain is utterly confused and has no idea why they're being bombarded with these past Memories. And this is not a case of spectral visitation, nor is it denial. It's the brain doing what it's designed to do. The brain was designed, especially the right brain, to restore

previous memories into the present to help us make sense and prepare and act quickly. And so it it and it was never the right hemisphere was never meant to quickly learn that things have changed. And the cues that relaunch these old memories. ever present it and they can be very subtle. It could be the smell of their coffee mug, the sound of keys at the door, uh l uh a time in the afternoon that would mean they'd be home soon, a specific date associated with their birthday or when we met.

And these partial reinstatements return us to the once again the recognition of the loss and once again we have to go through the pain and the confusion and the disbelief. That's why grief comes and goes and waves,'cause w um for a while nothing there's no present cues that re evoke. or reinstate the emotional memory, but then something is there. Once again we're back in the feeling that it's not true. They haven't gone away. And then also we start to even see images of them in our minds.

Uh so we're gonna talk about the process of healing uh and what what it requires from the perspective of The famous, famous attachment there is John Bowlby and Colin, his associate Colin Murray Park. w who spent the sixties studying bereavement and produced a four stage grief model which then was

uh repurposed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross into the five stages. Um but the four stages I find are more based on uh countless clinical studies built on research uh that was d uh done with widows who had lost their partners. Um and they noticed, Parks and Bowby noticed that um There's four stages that people tend to go through, numbness, then a kind of searching, followed by a feeling of things falling apart.

And eventually piecing life back together. And we're going to look at these four stages through the lens of both Buddhism and cognitive science. And hopefully something in there will help it all make sense.

So the first stage we've been talking about of grief is when the brain continuously restores old relational states, old images of the way the world used to be, and is constantly jolted by the awareness that they're gone. And this, as I said, isn't a malfunction It's simply the way the brain works. It makes sense of the present by returning us to past feelings and images. But of course, now those feelings and images are profoundly changed.

So imagine having had a hard day, you've gone through a long day of work, it was difficult, you're exhausted. and the impulse arises to reach out for a partner, to hear their soothing voice, and then only then as you see even if an image of them and the your brain has has initiated a c a motor command to pick up the phone and call them, but then the realization lands that their voice won't answer. They either won't pick up the phone, they're not

there anymore. And we go through this sense of collapse, an aching recognition that they're no longer with us present in our life, as it were. Or of course it could be a holiday or a time of year that we always associated with that person and suddenly the room that we're in fills with sensory echoes of what used to be. and were forced to re experience a gap between what was and what is now our world. And so This rusal of the present to match the past

creates a gap that the Buddha or form of suffering the Buddha called dukkha viparinama. That's the suffering of relying on something that is no longer available. Um so the brain simply refuses to update. Our old model of the world continuously reinstates. images and memories of a person who's no longer there. We might automatically set uh two places at a table or glance at the door expecting a familiar voice.

the pain is felt again This stage the Buddha also noted was uh would also refer to as Ouija, uh a state of not seeing or accepting what's true. And it's not because we're ignorant, it's simply because what's real is too destabilizing to hold and what's real is too different from everything we've experienced in the past. So our brain is which relies on reinstatements can't make sense anymore of the present.

Now soon this process becomes even more uh disorganized and the mind uh as a result, tries to look for a way to make the pain go away. And it begins to, in most cases, we search for a reason or an understanding to make sense of it all, because throughout our lives we've always looked for a kind of simple understanding a set of words or ideas to make emotions make sense so that we don't have to feel emotions.

In other words, the left hemisphere likes to inhibit the a emotional states of the right by coming up with a s an idea that hopefully will make all the pain go away. Uh in trying to figure out what it all means, we might scroll through old photos, replay voicemails, feel compelled to visit.

The places or objects we share together. We might obsessively retell the events to other people. We might look towards Um internet gurus or self help books or uh looking for any cosmic sign to make sense of what it all meant in the hopes that in making sense of it all we won't feel the pain of the loss. The Buddha described this as Tana, craving. In this case it's not craving for pleasure, it's simply craving for a way out of our emotional distress.

And this seeking a way out is natural. It's the brain simply trying to protect itself from uh pain, from dukkha. But uh every search for a meaning to make sense of it all leads to dissatisfaction. Because of course healing is not an intellectual left hemispheric process. Grief resides in the emotional right hemisphere. It's not available to language. It doesn't understand ideas. It understands experiences. It has to experience over and over. her again the loss before it can begin to accept it.

At this stage, things can go pretty sideways. If people are not willing to go through uh and feel the feelings. Um sometimes instead of gradually accepting the loss, they split it off. They compartmentalize it. And they tuck it away where they don't have to feel it, look at it, so it never gets processed. The pain is just waiting just outside of consciousness, frozen, but it still plays havoc on our emotional mind. And when this happens we start another kind of search for a replacement figure.

Uh the predictive brain simply runs those old models trying to find someone else to match. the figure that's been lost. So we latch on to people and very often individuals will seek new relationships that won't work. Simply because they're based on an urgent and desperate need to bury wounds from the past? And we might idealize uh people we barely know, projecting onto them everything we needed from the figures.

that we're no longer with And this is very often going to create fantasy bonds trying to undo the original loss by enlisting a bystander to provide us a do over. It never works as we're not connecting really with the lost figure. We're simply trying to resurrect them. Uh eventually, no matter what strategy we take, hopefully the uh compartmentalization falls apart.

And the br brain can no longer maintain i its illusion we don't function, the old models we relied on fail. And this is the darkest part of grief. not only because of the sadness, but because now our emotional mind has no map that can help us make sense of life. Everything that we relied on or uh ex or expected to be there is not present. Old routines feel meaninglessness, sleep and appetite falter. Uh this is called in various spiritual traditions the dark night of the soul.

In Buddhist psychology, this is also known as dukkananas, when a profound awareness of loss and impermanence produces intense despair and the collapse of our sense even of our sense of self, and what is revealed is the ultimately empty nature of reality.

Bye! If we stick with it, if we just stay with the slow and painful replays, the emotional pain as it arises and passes over time. without any conscious effort simply being present and open to the process, the brain begins to rebuild. It doesn't forget the people or the figures we've lost. It learns to include them in our life. anew, a new predictive model to make sense of the world begins to take shape.

Uh this underlying prediction no longer expects the person to walk through the door. Um it carries with it, as we'll see, a recognition of just how fragile. life is, but it also carries in us uh felt presence of the people who have been in our lives, except now we no longer experience them as partially present. We know they're no longer there, they're just images or of figures that we can revisit like we consciously recall memories from our past.

We might find ourselves talking to uh people who are no longer with us in our thoughts or feeling, their influence and our choices. sensing the feelings we experienced when we were with them. And this is when the pain finally begins to loosen its grip.

uh long enough that we can begin returning, reintegrating with life. We tell the story of what's happened to people who we trust, people who can listen well. We express it in writing. Um Uh until it feels speakable and no longer too painful to utter. Uh, and the feelings as they arrive become more bearable. We create simple rituals that allow us to

r return to that feeling of the relationship when it was at its best. We might light a candle or visit a place that we both enjoyed. We might make our favorite meal. Uh, to honor the connection we had with the figure that's lost. Um reintegration means we hold the loss without fighting it, nor do we let it take us over. The relationship continues. In a new form that doesn't paralyze us.

And we give new meaning. We might start taking care of others or creating something in their honor or living by values that have been sharpened and Etched in us by laws. At the deepest level, this form of reintegration is grounded in the Buddhist insight of Anata. the full wisdom of ex knowing everything is fragile, fleeting, is never to really be repeated. Um it's a wisdom that comes from uh seeing that all love and all things really matter partially because they don't last forever.

And we meet life with far greater tenderness and appreciation because if you know nothing that everything is fragile and if you know that everything is subject to the possibility of loss and that no situation is gonna continue on into the future. then you value each moment and each relationship that you maintain with a s you cherish it because you know just how uh how vulnerable all things are.

And this is extraordinary. The brain remaps reality to include the absence, but also a new learning, which is that the brain becomes less fixated on its predictive models and more capable of of uh adapting to change. Uh an example of a man who once leaned on his partner for daily advice, now hears himself uh now finds himself, I should say, hearing her or his voice when making decisions. Or the daughter used to

call her father before making every big decision. Now uh c volunteers with kids to remind her of of how great it is to have a caring presence. In each case the predictions about the person are no longer returning. Um we're beginning to live with. The knowledge of loss.

In Buddhist language, this is a stage of upeka, a stage of equanimity, a stage of where we stop fighting the impermanence of all things and we begin to live with the truth. All this might be too overwhelming if we go through it alone. It's essential to connect with others. who are also grieving. In Buddhism, the Buddha in the first noble truths taught that in all lives there is birth, aging, sickness, death, and loss. No one is exempt. And the Buddha constantly in the suttas instructed people

to meditate and to be with others who had experienced loss. Like in the mustard seed sutta, one of the most famous teachings of all the Buddha instructs Kisa Gotami, She was a woman who lost her only child to a snake bite, uh, and she had not accepted the loss. He instructed her to go to a village and said she would find peace if she could uh fine if she could get uh five or three mustard seeds from any household. Now mustard seeds were incredibly plentiful back then.

So it seemed like an easy task, but the Buddha said to her, You can only get those mustard seeds from a house that hasn't known loss or pain. So Kisa Gotami went from one house to another and they were all willing to give her mustard seeds, but Every time she would say, but uh I have to get these seeds from a house that hasn't known loss.

every householder would say, Well, but we have we just lost our grandmother, our daughter just moved away, our son is far away or no longer talking to us, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Kisa Gatami experiences that loss is universal, and through that experience of connecting with others, she finally begins the process of reintegrating the loss of her son into her life.

Um and one of the practices that's exceedingly common in contemplative practices and also into contemporary grief practice is to in a safe way that's not overwhelming begin the practice of connecting with figures that have lost we've lost or are no longer available to us in ways that are no that are not overwhelming or not too painful, but also creates a sense of returning to the wisdom and the feelings of the positive feelings that they brought to our lives.

So with that, I'm gonna lead us through a meditation with that practice. So thanks for listening to this talk. I hope something in it was worth your attention. And now what I'd like you or encourage you to do, I should say, is or invite you to do is to find a comfortable seated position. Take yourself off screen so you don't have to worry about how you look when you meditate.

So let's close our eyes.

So you might for example first bring your attention into the upper chest, and as you breathe in, Become aware of how this area of your body feels and then as you breathe out. Slowly. Slow exhalations. With those exhalations, try to Release any tightness, contraction, and the muscle groups Opening up the rib cage and the that area, making lots of room for the breath. You might move down to the belly, and as you breathe in, just become aware if any muscles are impeding.

The expansion Or if there's just this tightness there, and then as you breathe out, just use the exhalation. to release those muscles, the abdominal muscles You might bring your awareness to your hands or to your buttocks or to your jaw or to the muscles around your eyes. Just move around the body. Inhalation, become aware, exhalation, release, soften, relax.

universal, so just bring your attention back to the present and just promise whatever thought grabbed hold of you that you'll return to it in a little while.

You're safe here.