Do you welcome your grief?
I have a friend who is grieving the death of her father. As we walked together, she was crying from time to time and would say, “I’m such a crybaby! What would my father say about me if he could see me still in this state? He would not be happy with me right now because I’m still crying over his death after two months!”
It is common for people from the Baby Boomer generation to have been brought up by emotionally uninformed adult parents and were made to internalize grief and sadness and keep these emotions to themselves. Repressing such emotions often creates inner side effects of shame and guilt. I could see those feelings active in my friend as she mourned and cried about the loss of her father. I witnessed the shame she felt about having big and continued intense emotions with her grief which didn’t go away after two months. This is very common among uninformed grieving people. Grief is a process that will take months or years to integrate and may become part of one's life.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross talked about the 5 stages of grief. She did right by us to share such great information about some of the emotions she identified that her subjects experienced through their grief. Interestingly, the context in which she initially identified these emotions was from people receiving a terminal illness diagnosis. But it was taken to another level when Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler popularized the 5 stages in their book: On Grief and Grieving, Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the 5 Stages of Loss, and making grief a predictable and linear process. The first stage, second stage, third, fourth and fifth stages of grief.
More recent scientific research on grief informs us that grief is not a linear process of stages, and it does not restrict the scope of emotions to only five of them. Grief doesn’t follow a linear process of denial, anger, bargaining, hopelessness/depression and acceptance. They may all be part of grief but so are many other emotions such as shame, guilt, fear, envy, joy, happiness, resistance, apathy and many other emotions.
Grief is an individuated and personal experience. A person may experience grief in different ways depending on the nature of the death, the rapport with the deceased, their life context at the time, and so on. Grief is often experienced in waves, throughout the day, throughout the weeks, months and years following the loss or whatever the nature of the grief is. Trying to describe grief as a linear process can be helpful to make some sense of what one is experiencing. But it can also be misleading if you're experiencing something very different. Grief usually looks more like a tangled ball of emotions thrown in an active ocean with waves of all sizes.
Most of us grieve the way we have done or were permitted to do as children. I was taught that sadness and grief were feelings to quickly get over. If we came crying to either of our parents, we were distracted by drinking a glass of water, blowing our nose in a tissue and promptly sent back to whatever we were doing. Distraction was the method my parents used. If we had a dispute, we were made to apologize and hug each other to make up. That was the whole process. We were not given the chance to express our experienced emotions to help us make sense of them and integrate them.
As an adult, I know I will tend to dissociate, feel numb, and recluse when I feel grief and sadness. I’m still learning and practicing being with sadness and grief consciously. I don’t mean wallowing and making it a lifestyle, I mean being with it and letting it be with me for the duration it will need. You know, like having a relationship with my uncomfortable emotions. Letting it be ok to be sad, mad, or upset for my own reasons and taking my time understanding and caring for my emotions.
When I’m ready, it’s important for me to express myself and usually I do so by having a good talk with someone I trust. I have also used expressive dancing in times of prolonged grief or intense emotions, and it’s been truly beneficial. Writing in a journal without editing or holding back anything that wants to be expressed is also a great outlet for me. And sometimes words are not sufficient or can get me stuck, and movement will help get me out of my head.
I now have easy access to nature, so I go for walks in the forest. It’s always soothing for me to be surrounded by trees, following creek water, walking on moss, pine needles and being in touch with the earth. Or in the wintertime, snowshoeing along the trail I made, feeling the cold on my cheeks, watching for animal tracks in the snow. Anything that will help soothe my nervous system and allow me to move passed my immediate emotional reactions to find more ease with being with my uncomfortable feelings.
And, I still need to talk to process my emotions. I need to be heard, listened to and acknowledged. There is nothing wrong with that. On the contrary, it is a basic human need which I honour.
Because my need to express myself is fundamental, I have naturally developed the skill of listening to others, especially in times of grief and experiencing difficult or uncomfortable emotions. As a grief coach, I know the value of holding space for someone who is working through complex and uncomfortable emotions. Listening without the urge to fix, distract, or change other people's intense feelings and emotions is valuable and perhaps not that easy to find in our immediate surroundings.
As a grief coach, I respect that each individual has their own grieving pace of mourning. The most important thing during active grief is to give space to whatever emotions are running through us. Making sense of and giving space to the emotions passing through us takes time, lots of time. This is when we are working on processing and adapting to the changes we are facing.
Perhaps you are grieving the loss of a beloved one, or because of divorce/separation, or relocation, retirement, pregnancy loss and termination, empty nesters syndrome, the effects of menopause, and the list goes on. We all experience and feel grief, but we don’t all mourn freely and consciously. Grieving and mourning consciously allow us to integrate and use these experiences to grow, and develop resilience and compassion.
Maybe you feel you don’t have time because there’s too much going on at the moment, or in your life right now with work, with the kids and all of your responsibilities. This may be true. Grief is loyal and will wait for you though, when you are ready. It won’t simply go away.
When you can give yourself the time to mourn the grief you are experiencing, it will meet you there. And, if you wish to have someone with grief experience and knowledge support you through this process, know that I will create with you the space you need to do so, in privacy, confidentiality and safety. With compassion, nonjudgement and practical tools, my grief coaching space is ready for you when you are, I will meet happily you there.