SURVIVOR’S GUILT VS. SURVIVOR’S GRIEF - Tamara L. Hanna

Guilt implies something done or not done,
culpability, responsibility that therefore 
requires accountability.

But you did not bring this storm.
You simply survived it.

We’d address guilt with judgment, sentencing, consequences, and amends.

And in a guilty system, if we can't restore justice, we remain implicated and blamed.

Those eyes of comparison invite the unconscious in us to raise defenses, produce justifications, and deflect the blame somewhere, anywhere else because guilt implies choice. It implies someone had more control. 

Guilt will spin us into furtive action to anesthetize our internal and external pain.

Guilt constricts and cuts us off from ourselves and each other. Guilt leaves no room for us to have a place of belonging in this story, and that is the home we lose.

But in the daunting expanse of GRIEF there is room for everyone. 

Everything matters if we can be brave enough to allow Grief to take us in her arms.

Grief invites us to let go of the shredded illusion altogether—that distracting falsehood that keeps us from things bigger than control.

Guilt is a swirling eddy of shoulda, coulda, wouldas…the powerlessness and shame of luck and privilege that was no more our choosing.

Guilt will silence our feelings, telling us they need to stay smaller than others because we survived. But Grief takes our hand and leads us deeper through our individual sorrow, and if we have the courage to let her do her work in us, she leads us to our deepest shared human longings:

I wish this had been different…

I wish this never had to happen to anyone…

I wish death, destruction, and loss didn't happen to anyone…

I wish we always took better care of each other and the land.

We lament the discomfort of our guilt, when in fact guilt may be easier, possibly more comfortable, and certainly more convenient than the Grief whose powerful force will bring even more of the change we ardently resist.

She will strip us of our certainty, poke holes in all our beliefs about fair and blessed and deserving. She will take us down to the unrecognizable studs of our very identity—questioned, unraveled, lost.

But she will not leave us there!

No, unlike guilt which is a dead end road to the washed away bridge to nowhere, Grief extends promises if we partner with her on this new path.

She will give us new eyes of clarity: what really matters.

Time is precious.

Divisions are pointless.

We are more alike than we are different.

We are here to love and be loved.

If we are willing to release comparison’s separation, we can wade into the waters that surround us all. Grief will tenderize our hearts and stretch our skin to hold so much more compassion for ourselves, for others, for paradox and complexity and questions that do not have answers.

She will transform us. 

And if we dare to learn to grieve well and grieve with each other it could change the world.

We will never get that from guilt.

So let us change the language that builds the prisons of our hearts and minds, and instead hold out a lantern for this dark, sacred journey of being human together.

Tamara L. Hanna, LCMHC is a Certified Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapist, specializing in grief since 2011. Her passion is to help people through grief, loss, change, transitions: LIFE. Tamara calls Western North Carolina home.

Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash.