Making Sense of Why We Feel What We Feel in Grief.

Grief. Oof. Just thinking about the word can be heavy. It feels like a daunting topic to write about too. Over the last several years, I have faced a variety of griefs and each experience continues to teach me more about grief. Lessons I didn’t ask for, but lessons that are a part of life, and death. And change.

Grief is complicated, messy, variable and individually unique to the person grieving, as well as to the “object” or experience of our grief. Everyone responds to and processed grief differently. It is a natural emotional response to loss.

Grief isn’t reserved for the physical death of a loved one, but also includes the loss of a relationship, divorce or friendship breakup. Grief often shows with any kind of change — it isn’t reserved for the physical death of a loved one. Grief also includes the loss of a relationship, divorce, or a friendship break up. Even a wanted change, like an exciting move across the country, or a chosen change, like a new job. There can be grief of what is left behind, like neighbors and favorite restaurants when making a move, or the loss of coworkers when making a career change.

There are different kinds of grief:

Anticipatory grief - when you start grieving before the loss actually occurs. This can happen with when a loved one is near death.

Ambiguous grief - loss that is felt when the person hasn’t died but there is an emotional disconnection in the relationship, an end of relationship but the person is still living.

Grief can also show up when we feel the loss of an idea, dream, concept, or belief. A season of grief might present over the picture you had of your life at 30, 40, 50, etc and it didn’t turn out the way you thought it would be. Grief over when you didn’t have such as children or a spouse. Grief over the change of physical ability due to age, accident or illness.

Grief can take different shapes in different contexts and in various cultures.

Loss, Longing and Feeling Lost

Dr Brené Brown writes about grief in her book, Rising Strong. She outlines three elements of grief: loss, longing and feelings lost. Loss is the person, experience or “thing” that was lost. Longing speaks to an involuntary yearning for or a wanting of things to be different, to feel whole again. Feeling lost describes the disorienting feelings in grief. The phase “my world has been turned upside down” comes to mind when thinking about feeling lost in grief. Decisions can become more difficult, even every day choices that previously were made without much thought. Grief can have a slowing down effect on time. Days, weeks, even minutes and hours might feel different for a while. Grief usually creates a “before and after.” This can be part of the disorienting part of grief. Part of healing might require reorienting ourselves in every part of our lives, physically, emotionally and relationally. These are all natural responses when facing grief.

Healing in Grief (vs healing “from” grief):

“All those years I fell for the great palace lie that grief should be gotten over as quickly as possible and as privately. But, what I've discovered is that the lifelong fear of grief keeps us in a barren, isolated place, and that only grieving can heal grief. The passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it.” - Anne Lamott

I’ve always appreciated this quote by Anne Lamott. She captures some of the myths of grief, expectations held about grief and the painful challenge of healing grief. I think this normalizes some of the misinformation and pressure to “get over” grief, change, loss. It’s more complicated than that and honestly, I think some of our losses deserve the honor of our grief. We grief when we lost something/someone important to us. There was love, value, connection there. It reminds me of another quote by not a writer, but a friendly honey-loving bear: “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard” by Winnie The Pooh. Grief hurts because there was something important, someone we loved. Grief, while painful, honors that relationship, the hope and willingness for us to dream. That said, it is only by grieving that we can move through grief. We must face it, feel it (all of it). We don’t have to walk the grief journey alone, I encourage you, if you are in grief of any kind, talk with people along the way. Share your feelings, your pains. Acknowledge the sorrow. Be careful not to compare your grief. Grief is as individual as each person who grieves. Your grief will look different than someone else’s. Stay on your grief path. Honor your feelings and take it step by step.

And of course, I always recommend finding a therapist to help you process your grief. Someone who can ask questions, whiteness your grief with you. Help to move along the path of grief.

Steps through grief:

Name the loss.

Recognize all of your feelings. And feel them. Don’t distract, numb or avoid them.

Resist comparing. Everyone’s grief looks different.

Seek support.

A Sixth Stage of Grief:

Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Institute have researched and educated about grief for decades. She developed the widely understood stages of grief including denial/shock, depression, anger, bargaining and acceptance. In new research and with approval from the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a sixth stage has been added: finding meaning. David Kessler appeared on a podcast discussing his new book, Finding Meaning, and this newly identified stage of grief. Take a listen with the link below:

https://brenebrown.com/podcast/david-kessler-and-brene-on-grief-and-finding-meaning/

Meaningful quotes on grief:

“Each person's grief is as unique as their fingerprint. But what everyone has in common is that no matter how they grieve, they share a need for their grief to be witnessed. That doesn't mean needing someone to try to lessen it or reframe it for them. The need is for someone to be fully present to the magnitude of their loss without trying to point out the silver lining.” -David Kessler, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you’ll learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.” -Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler

“And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.” -Maya Angelou

"Our grief is as individual as our lives." - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” - C.S. Lewis

"We get no choice. If we love, we grieve." - Thomas Lynch

“Tears are the silent language of grief.” - Voltaire

“Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.” - Haruki Murakami

“Don't run away from grief, o’ soul. Look for the remedy inside the pain because the rose came from the thorn and the ruby came from a stone.” -Rumi