What’s Puzzling About Grief

The messages of peace that proliferated during the winter holidays transported me back to a profound moment from this past summer. 

During my son’s bar mitzvah in June, our rabbi, Rabbi Gary, spoke about peace in such a way that I now associate it with a different symbol than the ones we’re all familiar with:

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Ever the illustrative teacher, Rabbi Gary described how peace can be likened to the creation of a puzzle.
 
In his metaphor, each of us is a puzzle piece with unique curves, points, edges, and ways of interlocking with others. If we discover how our “pieces” connect while retaining our distinct “shapes,” we complete the puzzle — achieve peace. 

I find this interpretation of peace not only approachable but also very useful. It’s useful in part because we can apply it to our individual selves as well as greater society. In the metaphor, what’s necessary isn’t major change, as advertisers try to make us think. What’s necessary is understanding who we are and where we fit. Of course, experiencing peace on a personal level is a prerequisite to realizing peace on a larger scale. 

Viewed another way, one could take the metaphor to mean that each person is a puzzle, psychologically speaking, made up of many pieces that need to join together. For instance, each of us is probably made up of, at minimum, a protective piece, an inspired piece, a doubtful piece, and a purposeful piece. What makes our puzzles especially interesting (READ: challenging) is that life experiences introduce new pieces and alter or even remove old pieces, making our individual puzzle an ever-evolving, fluid piece of art.
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One piece that inevitably gets introduced into and likely alters each of our puzzles is grief. This is true because everyone experiences loss of some kind during their lifetime. 
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Typically, it is very difficult to figure out how the grief piece fits into our puzzle. Grief is a particularly unusual piece. When first introduced, grief requires us to reorient the whole puzzle, assembling a new self in relation to this new contender. At first, this can be troubling, intimidating, immobilizing.

The first, critical step is about giving the “grief piece” space to exist. Shutting it out only perpetuates that unbalanced feeling. Beyond space, it is about embracing this teaching from grief expert, David Kessler: “We often believe that grief will grow smaller in time. It doesn’t. We must grow bigger.” 

Part of growing bigger is learning to let go of the pieces that no longer fit in our puzzle. This is preparation for what we aim to do through the Grief Recovery Method — help people let go of the pain associated with a loss.  

Indeed, the process of letting go is a puzzle and art in and of itself. More importantly though, it’s a significant piece in the creation of peace.
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