Grief
So many of us from an early age are taught to push away our pain in some way: to hide it, dismiss it, detach from it, medicate it, etc. Relationships can become places where our pain gets magnified as each of our defensive strategies for reducing harm to ourselves ends up causing harm to others or isolating us further. To break out of this pattern of perpetuating pain and being its recipient, many of us need to learn to grieve well. This involves being able to return to how we have been harmed and allow ourselves to experience the full impact of those experiences with another who won’t employ their own defenses against experiencing or sympathizing with someone else’s pain. Grieving releases the energy we spend mentally, emotionally, and even physically trying to prevent similar harm from happening to us again. We can then live more fully in the present and with greater awareness of who we are and how we want to be in relationship.
Loss
Of the many pains that we endure, loss can be so difficult to come to terms with. Often with loss there are no further opportunities for us to do or say what we might have wished to with whatever we have lost. This lack of resolution can lead to lasting scars if your loss is not grieved well. Together we will remember what was, imagine what might have been and grieve what cannot be. Having another to bear witness amidst this process without requiring you to react to your loss according to some prescription can enable you to fully grieve what has happened and find some resolution.