You’re Not Wrong …
Grief is wildly confusing and contradictory.
Here are guidelines that I’ve developed over decades to support you in your journey of loss.
🥴 It’s good to cry, but not too much and not publicly.
🥴 It’s important to mourn, but not too long or it will take over your life.
🥴 You gotta talk about your feelings, and make sure they are clear and ordered…
🥴 …but don’t overshare your feelings because it will make people feel uncomfortable and they’ll stop wanting to hang out with you, furthering your sense of isolation.
🥴 Quickly find closure so you can get on with your business even if you’re still having big feelings. Repressing, negating and suppressing emotions is a strong assist in this arena.
🥴 Learn to live with the hole in your heart and hope that someday maybe it will possibly (probably not) go away.
🥴Watch out for grief triggers and do your best to mask appropriately when you do get triggered.
o Pro-tip: Identify all exits and the nearest bathroom when you’re in a professional setting for ease in slipping away unnoticed.
🥴 When you’re drowning in grief consider numbing the pain with food, alcohol, weed, work, exercise, video games, binging streaming services… but remember to do this with discretion.
🥴 Alternatively, you could methodically work through Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief in this order: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. You can be confident that there’s light at the end of the tunnel if you do it exactly right.
Okay, clearly, I’m being facetious with these guidelines.
Most people cling to the idea that there’s a right way to grieve and if only they could figure it out then all will be right with the world.
Hard truth: there is no one right way to grieve. It’s unique to each of us.
Specific to the Kubler-Ross’ stages of grief, they’re not designed to be linear, although they could be. They were designed to give understanding and perspective to people’s feelings of loss to help support them. As I said above, grief can be wildly confusing and contradictory.
My personal experience, and for most of my clients, is that we bounce through these stages of grief, sometimes returning to the same ones - which creates an opening for those “gremlin” voices that say we’re not doing grief “right.”
Let me say it again: there is no one right way to grieve.
🚫 I’ve heard people say things like “If only I could cry.” Many people I know grieve deeply and never cry. Crying can be a powerful release, but it’s not necessary. If you don’t cry over a loss, it doesn’t mean that you’re not grieving!
🚫 Mourning doesn’t have a timetable. Some people find rituals as a powerful container to have their grief witnessed and feel “complete” afterwards. Others find their grief comes at them in waves, diminishes over time, and then comes back like a tsunami. It’s not because they have done something wrong, it’s just the nature of that particular loss.
🚫 There’s a deeply mistaken belief that you MUST talk about your feelings. Some people don’t self-express in this way or don’t have the words. They may express it in other ways like movement, art, music, work, etc.
What you can do is:
😌 Be self-compassionate. Meet yourself where you are at, without judgment. Hold space for your feeling, in whatever form that takes (journaling, talking with friends, going to therapy or joining a support group).
😌 Identify the meaning you are creating for your feelings of loss. Some people judge themselves negatively for having sad feelings for too long, or the feelings are too big, or the feelings are contradictory. If the meaning you have created is hurtful, use your support system to help craft a new narrative.
What are the beliefs and rules you hold about grief?
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