"Am I Grieving Right?"
YOUR GUIDE TO LOSS AND LIVING FULLY
LIFE WILL CHANGE YOU, SOMETIMES WITH YOUR CONSENT AND MOST OF THE TIME WITHOUT IT.
Am I right, or am I right? There are changes in life we initiate, and then there are the unplanned initiations that change us.
John Lennon sang, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
We don't plan for diagnosis, divorce, and death. We're taught how to acquire things but not what to do when we lose them. We try and fix loss with our heads, but it's not our heads that need attention; it's our hearts. As a result, we're ill-prepared for loss, and it shows.
For example, I did a Google search on two keywords, "manifesting" and "grief."
Here's what I found:
Manifesting about 1,080,000,000 results
Grief about 488,000,000 results
See the difference between our "Googled" attention on acquiring vs. losing? Even though we are not searching for loss, it's something that we'll all find. I know that with grief education, community, and resources, our experiences with loss can be generative.
LET ME EXPLAIN
Hi, I'm Libby, a Keep A Breast friend, grief coach, grief advocate, and grief educator. I didn't always do grief work. Loss wasn't on my vision board when I graduated high school in 1994. But after a series of devastating losses and a profound grief experience, I knew I had to share what I knew about the cycles of change in a method I created called GRIEVE BETTER.
Grief first arrived in 2015 when my grandfather died suddenly. Then my Dad died in an accident 45 days later. Finally, a career I very much tied to my identity imploded about a year after my Dad's death. I was suddenly overwhelmed by the unmet hopes, dreams, and expectations for my life.
"GRIEF DOES NOT CHANGE YOU, HAZEL. IT REVEALS YOU." ― JOHN GREEN, THE FAULT IN OUR STARS
If you're already a card-carrying member of the grief club, you know there's you before and after the loss. One life ends, and another life begins with a health diagnosis, the death of a loved one, or the ending of a relationship.
This blog is in support of KAB’s commitment to becoming our own best advocates. Did you know National Grief Awareness Day is August 30th? It is, and I believe educating yourself on grief and loss is the key to living fully.
Keep reading to learn more about grief and tools to grieve better.
FIRST, LET'S START WITH THE BASICS. WHAT IS GRIEF?
The Grief Recovery Handbook offers a couple of definitions:
Grief is the natural and normal response to a loss of any kind.
Grief is also the conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior.
Unresolved grief is often about what we wish we would have said or done differently, better, or more; it's also our unmet hopes, dreams, and expectations for our life.
HOW DOES GRIEF IMPACT THE MIND AND BODY?
Grief brain is real. Your short-term memory and ability to plan for the future and take action are all impacted. In addition, digestion, sleep, energy, and overall sense of well-being get hit too.
Grief can make you feel like you're going crazy, but you're not. We all struggle to understand ourselves and the world around us in the face of profound loss.
You might say things like, "When things get back to normal," which means "when things get back to familiar." The brain doesn't like change. So when a loss occurs, the brain registers it as an error that, to move forward, has to be resolved.
That's why many people might find themselves stuck and unable to move forward.
WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF LOSS?
Until my Dad died in 2016, I thought grief was primarily something you do after the death of a loved one. I didn't know that there are over 43 different types of losses we can experience. For example, the loss of a job, the death of a pet, a move, a friendship ending, financial loss, or a health diagnosis.
Loss is beyond the 3 Ds, (D)eath, (D)ivorce, and (D)iagnosis. It's also the 4th D, (D)idn't ask for change.
The pandemic brought massive amounts of change all at once. We experienced changes in routine, how we work, and how we play and connect. Our hopes, dreams, and expectations for the future were put on hold. Many of us also experienced the intangible losses of safety, trust, control, faith, and loss of identity.
LET'S CHECK-IN.
How many of the 4 Ds have you experienced over the last few years? What losses have you given yourself the permission to grieve, and what losses have you minimized or "tried to get over"? It's important to note that a recent loss can also bring up past losses and reveal unresolved grief.
SO, AM I GRIEVING RIGHT?
There is no right or wrong way to grieve; we all do it and do it in our own unique way. And while there isn't a right or wrong way to grieve, we can do it better with education and support.
Contrary to popular belief, there are no five stages of grief we go through after a loss. Grief is messy and cannot be neatly categorized. Elizabeth Kubler Ross's work was on Death and Dying, not grief. She was very specific about this distinction in her books, yet the media and universities have attached her work to grief. This common misinformation has confused and hurt many grievers throughout the years.
"We don't "get over" grief. We learn to "walk with" grief. Grief changes us. It rewrites us. And we, in turn, rewrite our lives with it." Susan David, in her book "Emotional Agility."
So, how do we grieve better as we navigate loss and change?
THREE WAYS TO GRIEVE BETTER
#1: GIVE YOUR LOSS A VOICE
You can begin by acknowledging and naming your losses by exploring which of the 4 Ds you've experienced. Making a list can be therapeutic, and then sharing this list with a trusted friend who can be in listen-mode vs. fix-it mode can be profound. Grief is to be shared, not fixed.
It's important to note that grief makes people uncomfortable because sitting with someone in their grief means meeting our own grief too.
We can only meet each other to the extent we have met ourselves.
Who can sit with you?
#2: GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO FEEL IT VS. FIX IT
What do you reach for first when you don't want to feel? Short-term energy-relieving behaviors are what you do when you want to distract yourself from painful feelings that follow a loss. Some examples include alcohol, drugs, food, shopping, work, sex, binge-watching tv, fantasy, social media, over-scheduling, planning, anger, and exercise.
Toxic positivity and platitudes also get in our way of feeling. Platitudes are the intellectually accurate yet emotionally useless things people say after a loss.
For example, with a diagnosis, "You'll get through this; you're a fighter." "Stay Strong," etc. While all of this may be true, what you're feeling at the moment is anger, sadness, disappointment, etc.
While the statement was intended to soothe or protect the person from painful thoughts and feelings, it has the opposite impact. Platitudes often dismiss or invalidate the person's thoughts and feelings.
It's ok to not be ok.
Instead of fixing or avoiding it, begin to build the capacity to feel it by noticing and naming it. Brain imaging studies have shown that when we name how we're feeling, the emotionally reactive parts in the brain start to calm down.
#3: BUILD CAPACITY TO FEEL WITH EMOTIONAL COURAGE
Try the following technique the next time you experience a difficult emotion. This practice is designed to help us build the capacity to feel as we move through the cycles of change.
We can’t heal what we don’t feel.
Important note for those who have experienced trauma, be gentle with yourselves and this practice. Grant yourself permission to take a break at any time from the intensity of grief.
SKILL: THE NAME, NOTICE, AND INCLUDE PRACTICE
Prepare by sitting quietly, closing your eyes, and taking a few full breaths. Bring to mind a current situation in which you feel stuck, one that elicits a difficult reaction, such as anger or fear, numbness, shame, or hopelessness.
For our purposes, I'll use the example of anger in this practice.
STEP 1) NOTICE WHAT'S HAPPENING.
Get curious. Start to become aware of the emotion, feeling, or sensation that is arising within you. Where is it located? How does it feel? Can you be with this emotion? Allow the experience to be there, just as it is. Watching the emotions come and go.
STEP 2) NAME THE EMOTION AND VALIDATE YOUR EXPERIENCE.
Bring your attention to where you experience the emotion and say to yourself, "I see you (emotion) anger." Stay there as long as you like, noticing and naming. Emotions can be guideposts. Psychologist Susan David shares how the way we deal with our emotions shapes everything that matters. She discusses the powerful strategies of emotional agility during her TedTalk on Emotional Courage.
STEP 3) INCLUDE THE EMOTION AS A NATURAL AND NORMAL PART OF GRIEF..
Now say to yourself, "Anger, I allow you (or I am building capacity to allow you) to be part of my experience." Allow life to be just as it is.
Notice how including the emotion as part of your experience makes you feel. Continue noticing, naming, and including.
STEP 4) REPEAT AS NECESSARY
The idea of this practice is not just to feel better, but to get better at the act of feeling. As we build our capacity to be with grief, we also develop our capacity to be with our own aliveness and joy. We’re developing emotional courage. This practice increases our emotional range and our willingness to be with uncomfortable emotions and pleasurable emotions.
One of the best books I can recommend for loss is from Pema Chodron, "When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times."
Pema writes, "Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing.
We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved.
They come together, and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again.
It's just like that.
The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy."
Keep A Breast community, I am right there with you feeling griefy, groovy, and then right back to griefy.
I practice letting go of "when things get back to normal." Instead, I am focusing on building a new familiar. We’re better together! For more griefy tools and resources follow me on IG @libberated. You can also join my 8-Week in-person Grieve Better Method Program locally in Encinitas or take the Grieve Better course online. Visit GRIEVE BETTER for more.
References: James, John W. and Friedman, Russell P. The Grief Recovery Handbook. 20th Anniversary Expanded Edition. New York: Harper-Collins, 2009.
LIBBY CARSTENSEN
CONTRIBUTOR
Change is constant, and change we didn't ask for can leave us feeling chaotic. Here's where Libby Carstensen can help. She's been a Master Educator at Chopra (as is Deepak Chopra), a leadership and life coach, and a meditation and mindfulness teacher specializing in grief and loss.
What we make change mean can lead us to expand or contract. Through Libby's online classes, workshops, and programs, she'll show you how to resolve your past to create embodied change in the present. So don't just feel better; get better at feeling!
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