I think I may have done you a disservice and I apologize. Throughout my blogs over the last year or so, I have sent a message that there’s no one right way to grieve. And I think that statement has caused harm because it’s not exactly true. There actually are grief rules that come from our families, our culture, our community, our religion and other social constructs.
Grief rules can be spoken or unspoken. However, just because there is a rule, it doesn’t mean it’s entirely right for you or reflects the entirety of your experience with grief. It’s important to understand what you’re understanding is of the grief rules you may hold (either consciously or unconsciously) so that you can get the support you need or course correct.
SPOKEN AND UNSPOKEN GRIEF RULES
When my mom died, it was the first profound loss in my life. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and the thought of being in a hospital away from the comfort of her own bed was horrible for her. We were able to arrange for hospice and I was with her during her last 36 hours. I thought a lot about what I might experience once she was gone … I knew I would be devastated and I knew we would have a memorial service.
There were a lot of things I didn’t know though. Like the morning she died, after her body was taken away to be cremated, my dad took me, my brother, my sister and sister-in-law out to breakfast. That felt weird to me, but maybe that’s part of the process of saying good-bye? I also didn’t really understand my sudden obsession with reading romance novels – was that also part of the mourning process?
The biggest confusion was how eight days after she died, I was back at work in my job as a Hollywood assistant. HR had called to ask how much time I needed and when I would be return. How was I supposed to know? So I said I would fly to LA after the memorial service … wouldn’t I feel better after that? Nope.
At my cubby, I would spontaneously burst into tears at not so great times. I think it made my boss uncomfortable even though he seemed like a compassionate person. There was this unspoken rule that I’d had my week to grieve and I should be ready to get back to business, and to keep my feelings to myself.
ANOTHER KIND OF LOSS AND ANOTHER GRIEF RULE
Back in 1988 my pug Phoebe disappeared from the driveway of our house in Laurel Canyon. My husband was inside and heard a yelp … and she was gone. We put up hundreds of lost & found posters, offered up a $2500 reward, placed flyers in mailboxes (although I know now that that’s illegal to do), consulted with a psychic, and drove around concentric circles calling out for her.
There was no validation of the loss like a memorial service that we had for my mom. There were a few nice folks who would inquire about Phoebe … but we had no idea what happened. Was she stolen? Was she lost? Was she eaten by the coyotes? It was difficult for people to know what to say when there wasn’t clarity on what happened. The unspoken rule seemed to be that I should keep my grief to myself because I didn’t have answers.
AND ANOTHER LOSS, AND ANOTHER RULE
I’ve written about being fired from my job at CBS after working there for 10 years, and the debilitating grief I felt from that experience. The unspoken rule around job loss is not to say anything or to fib about the circumstances. Otherwise you may be perceived as unhireable. For years, I didn’t even know I was grieving because no one acknowledged that there could be grief from job loss. The truth is “they” didn’t know either.
WHAT ARE GRIEF RULES?
To understand grief rules, it’s important to first understand the term for grief that is not openly acknowledged, socially validated or publicly mourned. It’s called “dis-enfranchised grief” and it was coined by bereavement expert Kenneth Doka in 1989. There are different rules for different losses. And when a loss isn’t actually seen as a loss aka dis-enfranchised grief, it makes understanding, let alone following, the rules impossible.
Doka has also researched and written about grief rules. He says that “the concept of disenfranchised grief recognizes that societies have sets of norms, in effect grieving rules, that attempt to specify who, when, where, how long, and for whom people should grieve.”
These norms, aka grief rules, put tremendous pressure on grievers to “get it right” for fear of being judged, ostracized, mocked, or thought of as less than.
Specifically in the professional realm, publicly grieving can profoundly impact one’s belonging if it doesn’t meet with the grieving norms of the organization or industry.
Think about that for another moment.
You’ve experienced a loss. Say being fired/downsized/laid off, or a passion project hasn’t been well-received or seen the light of day, or you’ve been passed over for a coveted promotion. You feel sad.
You have no clue that this sadness is grief. (Quick caveat, not all sadness is grief. Grief is the response to a significant loss. Not all losses are significant - it really depends on the depth of the individual’s attachment.)
You can’t “shake off” the feelings of grief — in great part because you don’t even know you are grieving because there’s no acknowledgement of it.
Let’s say you figure out that you are grieving, but you’re not being acknowledged or validated in your grief. You don’t have permission to mourn.
How does that affect your sense of belonging? Your ability to move forward ? Your passion, your drive, your self-esteem? It affects it profoundly.
CONTRADICTIONS ON THE RIGHT WAY TO GRIEVE
So I apologize for the disservice of saying that there’s no one right way to grieve because it’s not true. Social constructs tell us that there is a right way to grieve, or that you can’t grieve at all because your loss is not recognized.
Consider the following contradictions that my clients have shared with me. (Names have been changed to protect confidentiality.)
Family upbringing dictates one way to mourn and community dictates another:
Eliza: “In my family it was a sign of love and respect to cry big at the funeral - the louder the better - but then my friends looked at me like I was crazy for being loud when my favorite aunt died.”
A company and an employee define “authenticity” differently especially as it relates to grief:
John: “This company I was interviewing for, it was just a small production house, said that authenticity was really important. They didn’t want people to pretend to be something they weren’t. Well, I got the job and it was going great until a few months later my dad suddenly passed and I brought a little tiny urn of his ashes in, to sit on my desk. People looked at me like I smelled really bad. That was really hurtful. It wasn’t like I was walking around boo-hooing all the time. It was just my way of keeping pops close.”
Failure is an integral part of the entertainment industry culture which is reflected in an unspoken rule of how quickly one should “bounce back.”
Richard: “After my pilot didn’t get picked up, I got a flurry of calls and texts and emails saying how it really sucked that that had happened, blah, blah, blah. I mean it was great that people reached out, but then a month later I was still feeling really sh*tty and all anyone wanted to know was what I was working on or to sh*t on the sh*tty network which I was happy to do, but I was feeling super bummed out and talking sh*t or what was next wasn’t really helping. It was like time to move on buddy. Walk it off. I just didn’t have it in me. I think there’s something wrong with me.”
TIME TO COURSE CORRECT
I was challenged to write this blog when I was doing research for the five part Imposter Syndrome series I wrote in August. I had come across this Harvard Business Review piece, Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome, by Ruchika Tulyshan and Jodi-Ann Burey. They posit, and I agree, that “feeling like an outsider isn’t an illusion — it’s the result of systemic bias and exclusion.”
So when Kenneth Doka says that grief rules are societies “attempt to specify who, when, where, how long, and for whom people should grieve,” my hackles go up.
It’s time to question industry, business, corporate, social and cultural norms as opposed to ourselves. If you’ve experienced a significant loss, you don’t need permission to grieve.
That being said, I know it helps sometimes for someone you trust to “give” permission as a way to validate your intuition and feelings. My wish for you is that you get that permission from your inner circle or a mentor. Don’t listen to what you think are the grief rules that you are required to follow.
QUESTIONS FOR YOU
A few questions to help you unpack the grief rules you may be living with:
How was death spoken about and treated in your family? When someone died, what were the rituals that occurred, if any?
Did you have a pet when you were growing up? When the pet passed, what happened? How did you feel? What was the response to those feelings?
What are other times when you experienced a significant loss?
How do you feel about those losses?
Is there judgment or shame around them?
How were those losses acknowledged and validated by you and others?
How did you mourn, if at all?
What is your relationship with those losses today?
Grief in my family was not spoken about or even acknowledged. We were a family that prized stoicism. There was no special consideration when my beloved hamsters died. When my sister married and moved out, I was heartbroken and didn’t understand that I was experiencing the loss of our relationship as I knew it. The unspoken rule was “it’s not like someone close to you has died.” But then when my mom died, I didn’t know how to grieve other than showing up at the memorial service.
Rules around grief do exist and can be spoken or unspoken. As a gift to yourself, consider what you believe about grief and the “proper” way to mourn. And then open yourself up to the possibility that there is no one right way to grieve and no one has the right to dictate who, when, where, how long, and for whom people should grieve.
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Are There Grief Rules?