Allowing the grief

I had a very productive therapy session yesterday. My new assignment is to allow myself to miss people when they are gone. I am to feel the feelings, neither repressing them nor condemning myself for having them. Where possible, I am to contact a supportive person, share my feelings and allow myself to be comforted. Sigh. Perhaps this sounds simple to the reader, but I assure you it is painfully difficult to rely on another person. However, I have been putting this into practice. Last night I leaned on Mark a little. Today I shared some of my sorrow with Becky. The amazing thing was, that I only needed to feel sorrowful for about 15 minutes, shed a few tears and then I felt better. It reminds me of my little children. When they are hurt,frightened,or angry, most of the time, if I take time to hear what they are saying, really listen, validate there feelings and comfort them, the emotional storm blows over pretty quickly. Perhaps it is the same for me! This is good news, because though I will need to fall apart from time to time, mourning doesn't entail that I fall apart all of the time. That is definitely good news!