Life & Therapy

Today seems like a good day to write about grief, since a good portion of our country is feeling profound grief due to the election outcome.  Most people do not deal with grief very well, whether it is their own grief or the grief of another.  It is not something many of us have been taught about or given good examples of.  So, when we lose something or someone, it can be difficult to know what to do or how to grieve.  Some of us are afraid that the grief will overwhelm us and we fight it.  Some of us don’t fight it but then don’t know how to ask for help when we are stuck in the grief.

A crucial thing to know about grief is that we all have our own grieving processes with their own paces and times, and that there is no right or wrong way to grieve.  There are many ways to avoid feeling the grief to begin with, but even in the avoidance, there can be wisdom.  We may not be ready to grieve or in a place in our lives in which it is safe to grieve.  A person in a war zone cannot afford to grieve in real time, whereas someone who has stability and support and time can.

There are some traps that keep us from getting to a place that we can grieve, and if we are indeed ready to grieve, it is good to know what our traps are.  These are in no particular order, nor is this an exhaustive list, but here are some traps that come to mind:

Getting stuck in wishing things were different.  It is a trap because we are preventing ourselves from facing the loss in front of us by trying to go back in time.  Things are not different and we are sitting here with something that needs our attendance.

Getting stuck in blaming and pointing fingers before we allow ourselves to feel grief.  It may be someone’s fault, but the injury needs our attention first.  Feel the grief and let it pass when it is ready to pass.  If there is someone to be held accountable, you will be much more clear about it after you grieve.

Beating ourselves up for something we could not have foreseen that we wish we’d done differently.  If we could have foreseen these things or done them differently, we would have.  Now we won’t do them again, but before we can move forward, we need to feel the sadness and the grief and the shame.

Trying to minimize or discredit our grief by saying that someone else has it much worse somewhere else.  That may be true, but by allowing ourselves to feel real grief (which is not the same as feeling sorry for ourselves) we can connect with others in the world through shared grief.

Bypassing grief altogether by withdrawing into or flinging angry cynicism.  This is a way to keep ourselves isolated from others by either throwing our pain at them like a hot potato, or shrinking away from them by retreating into a bitter cave.

If we are ready to move past our defenses and feel safe enough to grieve, it is important to know what our style and pace of grieving is, and what kind of support we require.  I am a person who grieves by talking it out with someone I trust deeply and then crying, violently and for as long as I need to cry, which has varied from one big episode of tears to weeks of crying jags.  I don’t want advice, I don’t want to be told that everything happens for a reason, I just want to cry.  I cry until the tears dry up, and I am immediately launched into problem-solving mode.  This is my way and I’ve grown comfortable with saying so.  My husband has a much slower and quieter style of grieving that requires less contact.  We’ve learned to respect each other’s grief processes and paces and we each know how to ask for what we need, because we know how we grieve.  I ask to be held while I cry, and I ask to be heard while I talk and talk things through.  He asks for the time and quiet space he needs.

Knowing how we grieve helps us to let others know how to help us.  This is important because when we communicate our needs to others, even if we need some space, we allow them to support us.  It is important to feel that support when we grieve, and it is important to be able to give that support to others when they do.  The grief will someday pass, and when it does, our energy will be freed to move us forward again.

For more on grief and loss, go here.