Coping With Grief - Strategies for Healing
A very common question people grapple with is how they should deal with a loss.
How can I grieve as quickly as possible?
How can I grieve without experiencing any discomfort?
Or even, how can I get out of grieving altogether?
In 1969, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described five common stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While it was helpful for some to have these spelled out because it normalized feeling a wide range of emotions in response to grief, it also carries these implications that grief is linear, and that the grieving process is all about what you’re feeling rather than what you’re doing with those feelings or how you’re responding to them.
If your feelings look different, or you express them in different ways, does that mean that you’re doing it wrong? What if you feel like you’re taking too long to grieve, or you’re not doing it in a way that looks or feels acceptable to others? The short answer is, if you’re grieving in a way that’s not causing imminent harm to yourself or others, then you’re grieving the best way that you can.
Your Feelings are Valid
It’s important to acknowledge and allow any and all feelings that come up in the grieving process. This doesn’t mean that you have to like them, but it’s likely that the more you try to deny them or push them away, the more intense they will get, and the worse you’ll feel about them. Sometimes people have feelings about their feelings in response to grief. They might be confused that they feel angry when they would expect to feel sad, or they might feel guilt or shame about feeling less than what they feel is warranted in proportion to the loss. But there are no feelings that are incorrect in the grieving process, and there is no amount that is too much or not enough.
By adding on these narratives about what you’re feeling that shame and blame, you’re adding insult to injury. The more you can be compassionate to yourself in your grief and look at your feelings from a place of acceptance and curiosity rather than judgment, the more comfortable the process will be. The guilt and shame don’t do anything to eliminate whatever it is you’re feeling, they just add on more discomfort.
Focus on Narratives and Actions
Feelings and thoughts are mostly involuntary, and if you can really embrace this, it really depersonalizes them. Whatever thoughts and feelings come up during your grieving process, try to accept them as just that, feelings and thoughts that will come and go that don’t say anything about you, the loss, or your relationship to the loss, they just are.
What you do have control over is what you tell yourself about your feelings and your loss, and how you chose to channel those feelings. You can harness whatever feelings you’re experiencing into an energy that can be used to honor them and your loss. Feelings are our body’s way of communicating with us: what is your feeling asking forfrom you? If you’re sad, do you need to connect with others or something that makes you feel energized? If you’re angry, do you need to do something to expel energy? What narrative would you like to have about your loss, and what is the one that you’re holding currently? Is there something that you can do to shape your narrative into one that feels in alignment with what was lost? While you’re not in control of the feelings you experience in grief, you are in control of your actions, and you are responsible for minimizing any potential damage to others and yourself. Grief is not an excuse to treat others badly or to hurt yourself.
Rituals & Memorials
Something that often provides closure for people in grief and loss is finding a way to physically manifest the grief. This could look so many different ways, and it’s important that it feels genuine and authentic to the individual. Sometimes sharing treasured memories with an important other can create meaning and reconnection. Sometimes creating or doing something tangible, like making a photo album, creating art, or spreading ashes can create a sense of closure in honoring the loss. Connecting with others (in whatever capacity feels manageable for you) is often helpful for grief. Some lean into this more than others, but the important thing is for it to be something that is chosen by the grieving person. This could be spending time with friends and family and grieving with them, or it could be something as small as watching a team that feels like a community for you.
It Takes However Long It Takes
This is probably one of the hardest things for people to hear, but you can’t expedite your grieving process. It’s going to take however long it’s going to take, and there’s no such thing as grieving too fast or too slow. We tend to make judgments about the grieving process of others, but we cannot possibly know what someone else is experiencing internally or what they need in order to work through their loss. You are only responsible for your process, not the process of others. However, sometimes connecting together in grief and sharing rituals and memories can be helpful.
It’s Ongoing
Very few people explain their grieving process as something finite that they were able to work through and never experience uncomfortable feelings from ever again. This isn’t to say that we never get over a loss, but that the longing for what was lost doesn’t just disappear. We grow around the wound that was left and add to our ability to cope with it, and add more relationships, connections, and experiences to our life that counter act some of that grief with joy, but it’s never gone. This speaks to how deeply we love and attach to others.
The pain you feel may never go away entirely, but it will hit you less and less, and when it does hit, you will be better able to hold those feelings over time and know what you need to take care of yourself.
