A large man with a warm smile stood at the hospital elevator, holding a bouquet of flowers.

“How are you today?” he asked.

I wasn’t good. There was a burning lump of grief in my chest and throat.

I was on my way to be with my mother. She’d lost consciousness right after Christmas and no one expected her to wake up. I was on my way to her room to wait for the last ride back to her nursing home.

As I tried to respond, the lump swelled until it felt like it might strangle me.

I finally managed a smile and replied, “Not bad, considering I’ve spent the holidays here with my mother.”

The man nodded, “I know what you mean.”

Then, blessedly, he talked about his ill loved one until the elevator reached my floor.

When I described my encounter in a grief support group, a friend replied, “You know, you didn’t have to protect him from your grief.”

“I wasn’t,” I said “I was protecting myself. It felt like the pain could kill me.”

Productive Pain

You have to feel grief to heal it.

Most of us understand this. And we’re ready to dive in, feel the full impact, and be done with it.

Unfortunately, grief doesn’t work like that. It always takes a while to completely heal from a significant loss.

That’s because it takes a while for the full recognition of loss to sink in. Our fact-using brains quickly grasp the reality of a loved one’s death.

Our intuitive and instinctive self learns more slowly, through a series of rude awakenings. Those moments when we seek our loved ones and suddenly realize they’re no longer here.

It takes months, even years, to completely realize our loss. It’s time-consuming, fatiguing, and maddening.

And absolutely unavoidable.

To fully heal from grief, you need to commit to getting better. And you need to pace yourself. This requires finding ways to make grief more tolerable.

Affect-dosing is one of those ways.

Dosing Grief

Affect-dosing is a conscious practice of grief encounter-and-avoidance. You take time to deliberately immerse yourself in grief. Then, you step away from grieving to recover and replenish your strength.

You can’t completely control the movement of grief through your life. But you can develop a sense of control by committing time and attention to your internal experience of grief.

“When you come to trust that the most intense pain will not last forever, it becomes tolerable” ~ Alan Wolfelt, Understanding Grief

A good mindfulness exercise can help. It provides a process with a defined beginning, middle, and end. It gives grief some boundaries.

I like the RAIN method, created by clinical psychologist and meditation teacher Tara Brach. RAIN is an acronym for Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture:

Recognize: Search for the tugs of grief. Focus your attention on it. Where do you feel it most? It’s often in your chest, throat, or solar plexus.

Allow: As you turn your attention to the physical sensations, describe them. What are the qualities? How intense? How much territory does the discomfort take up inside your body? Can you find the edge of it? How do the sensations change over time?

Investigate: What’s fueling your grief today? Is it an anniversary or holiday? A particular memory? Regrets about your future? Are you feeling other emotions, like anxiety or anger? What’s behind those emotions?

Nurture: Talk to yourself compassionately. Say things you’d say to a grieving friend. “It’s understandable I’m sad right now. I just lost my partner and best friend.” “Of course, today is hard. I have to make all these decisions by myself, and I don’t want to.”

A soothing gesture may help, too. As you talk to yourself, gently place a hand over the part of your body that aches with grief. Or place both hands over your heart.

I also like to remind myself that whatever I’m feeling now, I’ll feel different in an hour or so. And that this bout of pain is helping me heal.

Stepping Away

It’s important to deliberately spend time with your grief. It’s equally important to step away from it.

That’s why I like to deliberately end a session of conscious grieving with a micro-ritual.

Micro-rituals help you transition out of your intense inner focus and allow you to reconnect with the outer world. They include a behavior, a symbol, and sensory experiences.

For example, you can wash your hands and face. Drink a glass of ice water. Brew a cup of hot tea.

Step outside. Breathe fresh air into your lungs. Feel sunshine on your face.

Choose any simple but powerful gesture that signals “that’s enough for now.”

I can’t tell you exactly how long a grieving session should last.

You’ll learn, though. You’ll learn that grief has an energetic pattern. It builds and recedes. With practice, you feel a shift and restlessness that indicates you’re done for a while.

Recover Between Waves

After the micro-ritual, it’s important to pivot your attention toward something engaging or distracting.

Ask yourself “What can I do right now to feel better?”

Maybe you need some amusement, like a puzzle, a walk, or a Lifetime movie with a guaranteed happy ending.

Maybe you need to chat with someone else. Which of your good grief companions is most likely to make you feel better right now?

Or possibly a small accomplishment will boost your spirits. Clear off your kitchen counter. Pay the bill. Water your plants.

The objective is to keep your mind busy so it can’t ruminate on your loss. When it tries, you want to gently remind it that you’ll go back to grieving soon.

But first, it has to help you win this crazy-hard level of Candy Crush.

Finding Hope

I know all this seems like an unbelievably tidy way to deal with grief. Emphasis on the word “unbelievably.”

It’s true. You won’t always be able to manage the movement of grief through your waking hours. Especially early on.

That’s not the point of practicing the techniques in this post.

Rather, these practices are a form of emotional strength training.

You’ll learn that surrendering to grief makes you feel more in control of the experience. By learning to bend toward it, you realize it won’t break you.

This is what it looks like to build your tolerance to grief.

And that tolerance will carry you forward until, gradually, you feel more like yourself.

And that life, once again, is worth living.

Want to Know More About Grief Coaching?  Let's Chat!

Struggling over the death of a loved one? Grief coaching can teach you coping skills to get you through the worst of it more quickly and forward into a hopeful future.

My coaching uses proven methods for helping people adapt to life after loss. You’ll learn exactly how to work with intense emotions, so they cause you less suffering. You’ll know how to recognize your own healing progress, giving you hope that life can feel easier again. Grief coaching also helps you get clearer on what matters most to you. You’ll start to recreate a life after loss that truly feels worth living.

Rather connect through email? Send your questions to cindy@shadowlandscoaching.com.

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