Grief

Grief

Lets talk about loss.

A little while ago I had a series of losses in quick succession. It broke my heart, several times over.

Loss though dark and sad, is a necessary part of life, all things are born, grow, bloom and pass. How we receive that loss is what makes it more or less difficult to manage.

Generally speaking the literature goes to the stages of grief developed by Psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross after observing the terminally ill. The stages are recognised as Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Do they always occur in a linier fashion? No. Do they repeat sometimes? Yes. Are they all the same length? No. Does everyone experience them all? No.

The five are sometimes adapted to the seven stages. These are;  Shock and Denial, Pain and guilt, Anger and Bargaining, Depression, The Upward Turn, Reconstruction and Working Through, and finally,  Acceptance and Hope. In any case, the theories similarities outnumber their differences. The idea being that the beginnings of grief are usually charactised by big, overwhelming emotions. Emotions that help us numb or defend ourselves like shock, denial and anger. These emotions help us keep some distance or distraction while we integrate the new knowledge. When we can or are ready  we move into a quieter time of reflection and meaning making, before working out the process of integrating the change into our understanding of our worlds.

I often discuss the stages with women that I work with, particularly in times of involuntary change, but I caution it is important not to get stuck on the theory of grief. Why? Because the process of this introduces our cognitive mind, which always brings the “Shoulds”. We should be doing it this way, we should be up to that stage, we should be feeling this or that. A should in the middle of grief is never helpful.

Grief is both a universal and very personal experience. No matter the event that caused the grief it leads us to questions of our greater meaning,  who are we? Why are we here? What is the purpose of all of this? These questions are painful and deep. And the answers are typically as varied and intimate as the people who experience them. These questions are MUCH more important to the process of healing and integration than any assessment of the should of where we are and what we should be feeling.

Can we avoid grief, and its associated suffering? No. Can we move through it with grace? Yes. It is possible to grieve and to suffer, with grace and gentleness.

Be mindful of your perception of the size and therefor legitimacy of the grief. Consider the saying “well nobody died so its not all bad”, all loss is experienced as loss at our body and nervous system level. Grief is grief.

If youre dealing with grief, try to be gentle with you while you process. Try to allow your body to do the things she knows how to do. Yell if she needs to yell about the injustice of it all, cry if she needs to cry at the sadness of it all. Sleep if she needs a break from her conscious mind. Using creativity can be a helpful mechanism here, music often speaks to people in these times, as does drawing and writing.

As you sit with your grief and allow your body to express whatever it is that is happening internally, try not to judge. Try to observe yourself as you would a child, noticing if something is too hard right now, or when there are little moments of meaning making. Rituals can be helpful to celebrate these as well as the memory of what was lost.

We are all born into a world that will experience grief. How we allow ourselves, and our children who are watching us, to feel that grief and make new meaning (integration and hope) is what will ultimately contribute to our longer term wellbeing.

If you’re struggling to manage on your own, to sit with the feelings, or allow the ones that frighten you, or to make meaning out of the great “Why’s” do consider seeing a therapist. The space between a therapist and a client can provide a container that makes grief feel safer to process. You are deserving of feeling safe.

As always. Gentle with you.

A