The Many Faces of Grief
Grief is an emotion I’m intimately familiar with.
It can grip you from the inside and feel like it’s tearing your heart and soul to shreds. Surrendering to it can feel like diving into a deep pit with no bottom, only to be swallowed by darkness.
I’ve recently experienced a significant loss; I won’t get into the specifics, but what I do want to share is that I had been holding onto my management of this grief ever so tightly. That tends to be my default with most uncomfortable emotions – I don’t want to become unhinged for fear of losing control. But the secret is that these emotions will find ways of making themselves known.
Grief is no exception.
I’d been operating on “management” mode for a very long time, not acknowledging the deep sense of loss that was lingering inside and I finally heeded the call to express it, not because I wanted to, but because I needed to. Some emotions call to be honoured in ceremony and this is why we have rituals around major rites of passage.
In Western culture, I think we have royally destroyed the healing power of the acknowledgement of all of the faces of grief. The sneakiness of repressing these emotions is that you can believe you’re OK but when you take the time to honour them, the floodgates open up, the pressure valve blast open and out it all comes.
Last weekend I honoured the space to grieve my loss. As the grief began to rise to the surface, I tried to swallow it down, tried to only let it come out in a palatable way, tried to control its release the way I’d been taught.
“Don’t cry in front of people, it makes them uncomfortable.”
“It’s best to bury it and never look at it again.”
“Control yourself.”
“You’re too emotional.”
The more I tried to control, the more it churned until I understood that only through my surrender to it, would I find relief, surrender and release. It poured out of me; I began to cry, to wail at what was lost - and I did not stop until I felt it freed from me, and me from it.
As I reread this, I can see that from an outside perspective it can seem melodramatic, however, if you’ve experienced deep loss, hopefully it will stir something within you. For me it was tears, but for you, it might be rage, or hysterical laughter, or… something else.
An elderly woman I know lost her husband years ago, they’d been married for over 50 years and were one of the sweetest couples I’ve known. A few months after her husband’s passing, she got up one morning and decided she’d had enough of the shelving in the spare room; she’d always hated it and it had to go. She hunted around in her storage space and found a power saw and proceeded to spend the entire day sawing this shelving unit apart (it was big) to get it out of her now solo space. I’ve never seen this woman shed a tear, but this was her expression of grief.
Side note: I don’t necessarily recommend grieving and power tools, don’t try this at home.
Grief is a natural response to loss. It's the emotional suffering you feel when something or someone you love is taken away. The pain of loss can feel overwhelming and you may experience all kinds of difficult and unexpected emotions, from shock or anger to disbelief, guilt, and profound sadness.
Dealing with the grieving process can look like:
Acknowledging your pain
Accepting that grief can trigger many different and unexpected emotions
Understanding that your grieving process will be unique to you and there’s no wrong way to grieve
Seeking out face-to-face support from professionals and people who care about you
Supporting yourself emotionally by taking care of yourself physically
My work with you is all about letting the emotions out, releasing them so that the constriction and tension in the body can be freed.
Express it. Express it all.
There is so much power in learning how to be present to your emotions in a calm and healthy way rather than being an unpredictable ticking time bomb.
How does grief show up in your body?
Grief is the emotional suffering you feel when something or someone you love is taken away.
Elizabeth Kübler Ross identified the five stages of grief as, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. These are tools to help frame and identify how grief may be showing up, but it’s important to note that these “stages” are not stops on some linear timeline and mostly will be experienced in a strange spiral of an emotional scale.
Grief increases inflammation, which can aggravate health problems you already have and even cause new ones. It can batter the immune system, leaving you depleted and vulnerable to infection. The heartbreak of grief can even increase blood pressure and the risk of blood clots.
Some physical symptoms of grief can include:
Headaches
Shortness of breath
Nausea
Stomach pain
Loss of appetite
Fatigue
Emotional and physical self-care are essential ways to ease complications of grief and boost recovery. Exercising, spending time in nature, getting enough sleep and nourishing food, and talking to loved ones can help with physical and mental health.
Does this grief belong to you?
Generational grief or trauma refers to situations where a grief event was so powerful within a family that it was carried on to the next generation and sometimes multiple generations thereafter.
When I’m working with clients, 99% of the time, the emotional triggers showing up in sessions have not originated with my client. Yes, there are events that occur in their lives that reinforce a particular emotional pattern, but as we begin digging, we can see that the roots are further back in their generational lineage.
Are you aware of any emotional generational traits you may be carrying on behalf of family members? Did you know that you can heal those patterns?
How do you get through the grieving process?
Here are five simple bullet points on how to go through the grieving process:
Acknowledge your pain.
Accept that grief can trigger many different and unexpected emotions.
Understand that your grieving process will be unique to you.
Seek out face-to-face support from people who care about you.
Support yourself emotionally by taking care of yourself physically.
To clarify, simple is not necessarily going to be easy. I KNOW it’s not easy. It might feel nearly impossible, but please remember that you don’t have to do any of this alone.
You may not be accustomed to reaching out, in fact, some people actively shut others out when they’re going through painful emotions (it’s me, I’m people… and actively working on being more compassionate!). This is a perfect time to let others offer care and compassion towards you.
If someone reaches out, offering to bring you some food or to go for a walk, these are some simple ways you can receive support. You can accept these gestures without a need to reciprocate, this is a time to allow yourself to be cared for.
Laughter is the best medicine
When I was grieving the end of my marriage, I prescribed myself laughter. I vowed to consume only that which made me laugh; TV, movies, books, time with friends who made me laugh. I needed this to counterbalance all the sadness, anger and feelings of failure and fear I had swirling around within me.
I NEEDED this humour to come from outside sources because my internal humour was dormant – if you know me, that’s really a huge bummer in my world because I absolutely love to laugh, it’s one of the ways to my heart.
Physical benefits of laughter
Boosts immunity
Lowers stress hormones
Decreases pain
Relaxes your muscles
Prevents heart disease
Psychological health benefits of laughter
Eases anxiety and tension
Relieves stress
Improves mood
Strengthens resilience
Not to mention that it strengthens relationships, attracts us to others and helps us diffuse conflict among so many other things. Laughter eases the tension of so many emotions and all-around lightens everything up.
Go find something to laugh at today. And then share it with me in the comments below!
Emergence from grief
It will pass, eventually. It may feel like you will be in this state forever, but one day you will notice that this grief is being released. You’ll notice the slow return of the ability to feel pleasure and joy again, the return of a present and future thinking thought pattern along with the return of desire for reaching out to others and re-engaging in life.
You’ll still feel tender, sometimes more than others. Use that tenderness to help you walk with more compassion towards yourself and others.
When I was grieving the end of my marriage, I prescribed myself laughter. I vowed to consume only that which made me laugh; TV, movies, books, time with friends who made me laugh. I needed this to counterbalance all the sadness, anger and feelings of failure and fear I had swirling around within me.
I NEEDED this humour to come from outside sources because my internal humour was dormant – if you know me, that’s really a huge bummer in my world because I absolutely love to laugh, it’s one of the ways to my heart.
Physical benefits of laughter
Boosts immunity
Lowers stress hormones
Decreases pain
Relaxes your muscles
Prevents heart disease
Psychological health benefits of laughter
Eases anxiety and tension
Relieves stress
Improves mood
Strengthens resilience
Not to mention that it strengthens relationships, attracts us to others and helps us diffuse conflict among so many other things. Laughter eases the tension of so many emotions and all-around lightens everything up.
Go find something to laugh at today. And then share it with me in the comments below!
Emergence from grief
It will pass, eventually. It may feel like you will be in this state forever, but one day you will notice that this grief is being released. You’ll notice the slow return of the ability to feel pleasure and joy again, the return of a present and future thinking thought pattern along with the return of desire for reaching out to others and re-engaging in life.
You’ll still feel tender, sometimes more than others. Use that tenderness to help you walk with more compassion towards yourself and others.