Your grief scares you.
You wonder if you’ll be one of those people who can’t move past your loss.
Will you develop “complicated grief,” whatever that is? (It sounds more like an affliction than an emotion.)
You question your reactions.
Why can’t I cry? When will I stop crying? Is grief supposed to feel so much like anxiety? Is stress blocking my ability to grieve? Will I ever feel like myself again? How long will that take? When will this end?
Craving certainty, you search the Internet to figure out “Is my grief normal?” Your browser serves up page after page of grief models and articles.
None of them help, because none of them truly describe your personal experience.
My friend, take heart.
It isn’t the information that’s the problem. You simply haven’t asked the right question.
Your grief experience emerges from a mix of details about you, your loved one, your relationship, and this specific moment in your life history.
So, your real question is “Why does my grieving make sense, given my circumstances?”
And don’t ask Google.
Go inward.
Only you can answer this question. And you can only do it through self-reflection.
Unique Context, Unique Grief
If I heard your story, I’m confident I could explain how your reactions make sense, given who you are and what you’ve been through.
But you’ll believe it MORE when you can explain it to yourself.
Despite what you may hear about grief stages or what you should or should not be thinking/feeling/doing, you will grief and do the work of mourning in your own singular way. ~ Alan Wolfelt, grief therapist and expert, Understanding Your Grief
You are the expert on you. If you take the time to pull together the details of your story, you’ll discover the factors influencing your grief experience.
So, let’s set the context. Describe the following details surrounding your loss:
- Your personality, character, beliefs, and upbringing
- Characteristics of your loved one and how they died
- Characteristics of your relationship and how you affected each other’s lives
- Your family background
- The quality of your relationship friends and family who share your loss
- Other crises, stressors, or losses in your life coinciding with your loved one’s death
- Your past experience with death and loss
- Your level of physical or mental health
- Your financial circumstances
- Your age and gender
- The rituals (e.g., funerals) that were held to honor your loved one’s death.
As you work through these details, your grief will start to make sense. And you’ll begin to understand how to tend to it.
This is a valuable process, but it takes dedicated time and focus. Journaling and sharing your thoughts with others are keys to its success.
Express Yourself
For this self-reflection to work, you HAVE to get your thoughts out of your head. That means getting your answers to the above questions on paper AND sharing them with compassionate friends.
Don’t multi-task. This practice won’t work if you try to think your way through it. You’ll get derailed in one of two ways.
Your tricky mind may hijack your thoughts. It wants to protect you from the discomfort of grief.
One minute, you’re reflecting on your situation. The next minute, you’re watching kitten videos on Instagram.
“My mind Is like a bad neighborhood. I try not to go there alone.” ~ Anne Lamott, writer
Worse, you might get trapped in rumination. Your mind will loop repeatedly through the details of your loss, embellishing them with darker and more dramatic thoughts. Rumination amps up your anxiety and makes you feel worse.
So, expose your reflections to the light of day. They’ll lose their scariness, just as nightmares do when they’re described out loud.
Journaling helps. Writing slows down your mind so your imagination can’t get the best of you.
Plus, writing your story puts distance between you and your thoughts. They’ll look different on paper. More objective and less ominous. That space will allow you to breathe.
Talking to compassionate others helps even more. By listening, they validate your experience and strengthen your faith in yourself.
You need one of your most grounded friends with top-notch listening skills. Ones who know what it means to bear witness to your story without interrupting. No rushing you. No unsolicited advice.
Your best grief companions know you need to find your own way through grief.
Benefits of A Pro
Some of us are lucky to have friends with top-notch bereavement support skills. And we’re comfortable in reaching out to them for support.
But often, we feel like we need more or different care than our friends can provide.
If you feel stuck in your grief, I encourage you to consider working with a grief-informed coach or counselor. The fundamental tools of our trade are deep listening and inquiry. Both methods can help you find your own path forward in a relatively short amount of time.
Grief-informed professionals can be particularly helpful if you’re grappling with multiple losses.
It’s not unusual for the death of a loved one to coincide with other significant losses, or even cause them. That’s when the guidance of a professional really helps.
Taking Stock
Grief therapist Alan Wolfelt wrote “The wilderness of your grief is your wilderness…”
It emerged out of your life history and relationship with your loved one, and many other factors.
To make it through this wilderness, it’s important to assess the terrain.
The reflection exercise in this post is how you take stock. If you do it, your grieving process will start to make sense.
Your grief may still feel wild and unmanageable. You’ll still need time. You’ll still need good grief companions.
But you’ll stop worrying so much about your grieving process. You’ll focus your attention on figuring out how to heal.
And the insights you gain through self-reflections will point you in the right direction.
Want to Know More About Grief Coaching? Let's Chat.
Do you feel stuck in grief? Worried that you'll have to live in deep sadness for the rest of your life? Let’s chat.
I'll tell you about how my grief coaching program can help you consciously engage with your grief so you can feel better more quickly and start seeing progress toward grief recovery. We'll also talk about other stressors that may be interfering with your process, like family conflict or anxiety over living alone.
Click here to schedule a call. Rather connect through email? Send your questions to cindy@shadowlandscoaching.com.
Get A Griever's Guide to the Shadowlands of Grief
Have you recently lost someone dear to you? Or are you worried about someone who has? Download your free copy of A Griever's Guide to The Shadowlands of Loss. It covers some key elements to grieving and a few helpful strategies that can ease your experience of grief.
