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People often ask me for a roadmap for grief. How to make it end more quickly, how to help, what to do? Grief is mysterious and confusing. And while it’s not as much something to be mastered as it is experienced, there are some surprising things to know about grief that may help us in our own grief or help us relate to those who are grieving.
Grief is not linear
Thanks to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, one of the most well known teachings on grief is the 5 Stages of Grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. While there are general trends in the process of grief that do lead to acceptance, one of the most important surprises to know is that it is not a linear progression. We put a great deal of unnecessary and unfair pressure on ourselves and others when our expectation is that one should move through these stages in some sort of formulaic fashion. You will move through grief at whatever speed you need to. You may add stages not listed, you may skip or repeat a stage. You may have a sense of progressing one day, only to find yourself feeling “stage one” the next day. Don’t lose heart; there is a trend towards healing in the process even as you find yourself ebbing and flowing. Be kind to yourself and to others as they bounce around this progression. Acceptance is typically the final destination, but the journey is personal and cannot be raced through.
Grief is not just an emotion
Grief is most certainly felt. It’s a sadness so deep I wish I could invent a new word to describe it. But it is not just an emotion. It is a presence. It does not only exist inside where you feel things. It exists around you like a mist. Sometimes it is as if you can see it approaching before you feel it. I often describe the arrival of grief in those moments as being on a beach with a clear sky above and seeing a dark wall of clouds hovering over the depths of the ocean. You know it is moving towards you and your experience of its arrival will depend on the form that storm will take or the energy you have. Its presence is hard to judge by the looks of it. Sometimes at the beach it looks dangerous and intimidating but it blows right over and releases the sun again. Or it thunders to ensure you know its power, but then it just sprinkles a little and moves on. Or it parks over you and dumps every drop of water that has ever been. This is the way of its presence. Sometimes we can brace ourselves, sometimes we can walk away from it, and sometimes it’s not as heavy as we expected. All are ok, all are part of the process, none last forever.
Grief triggers are tricky
Triggers for your grief are unique to your story. They are realized more clearly over time. Some are more obvious and can be prepared for. You may know walking into a given situation that something will be difficult for you. You may decide it’s better not to go or be ready to take care of yourself while you’re there. Others will catch you off guard when none of your defenses are up. The threads that are connected to our pain are fine and sometimes entangled. From time to time, one gets pulled that we didn’t expect or even know about. Let yourself feel whatever you need to feel when that happens. Over time, the triggers are less sensitive and you will be better equipped to identify them and manage them. You will likely need help investigating those triggers at times, which leads me to the next truth about grief.
Talking Helps
There is no “fix” for grief, but there is help. Talking to safe people about your grief is an incredible part of healing. Sharing your pain, your loss, your longing with a trusted person validates your emotion, keeps you from isolating in your loneliness, wards off the deep dive into depression and anxiety, and can lead to clarity. Your heart deserves to be heard, your loss is worth being seen, you do not have to experience it alone.
A note to the listener: Resist the urge to try to fix or offer advice. In grief we want to know we aren’t alone, but it cannot be fixed. Your presence and your willingness to sit with someone in their pain IS the help. It can be awkward and uncomfortable, but you are a lifeline in your leaning in to listen.
Good Grief
Maybe you’ve heard the saying, “Good grief?” It’s used as an exclamation when something shocking happens. I’ve always noted the oxymoronic nature of that phrase. Grief surely doesn’t seem good. But surprise! There can be some beautiful things that come out of grief. It is rarely seen immediately, it is the fruit of perseverance and hard fought patience. The reason for the grief is that something is not the way it was intended to be. If it were, we’d feel right at home in our grief. That dark wall of clouds is a large and loud and obvious reminder that there might be more to hope for. This presence that feels like an enemy, a hated, unwelcomed storm, can become the very thing that forges faith and hope. Sometimes grief does a work in us that we couldn’t do in ourselves. When grief gives birth to things like faith and hope and perseverance it may actually be good grief. Hold on friend, there is hope.