By Freda Friedman, PhD
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12 May, 2021
Grief is an inevitable part of life and never more ever-present than it has been this past year. We are dealing with grief over loss of loved ones, jobs, stability, disruptions in relationships, plans, and dreams. The toll has been enormous and overwhelming. I want to share some of what I have learned, professionally and personally, during and before this terrible year in the hope that some of these suggestions and reflections will help to support productive, healing processes for you and others in your world. What is Grief? Grief is intense sorrow and sadness due to loss. The stages of grief, as proposed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss American psychiatrist, are a blueprint many of us know: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Too often these stages are viewed as a linear process that begins with denial and moves through each step sequentially. However, grief can zigzag across the stages in no particular order and even skip stages in some people. Grief is fluid; it comes and goes like the tide. At high tide, it can come crashing in and almost drown us in pain and sorrow. But eventually, like the tide, it recedes and a gentler pain drifts in for a while. The strength of the waves is often unpredictable, but one thing is for sure – the waves become forces of life that continue to impact our lives. There is no such thing as “closure” for grief. As Pauline Boss, Ph.D., author of Ambiguous Loss states: “Once you become attached to somebody, love them, care about them…[even after] they’re lost, you will care about them.” Healing: What It Looks Like and What Helps Healing, like grief, comes in many forms. Just as there is no one way to grieve, there is no “right” way to heal. Similarly, healing does not progress in a straight and tidy linear pattern. It may occur slowly or in fits and starts. Healing is a process that takes time and space. However, there are resources and words of wisdom that can help in the process. Here are some suggestions as you approach your own healing. Express your grief. Put into words or pictures descriptions of the shape, size, and image of your grief. For example, your sorrow may be wrenching and ever-present like a knife in the back, a huge weight crushing your chest, or a bomb exploding in your head. Whether you share these descriptors with others or just write them down for yourself, the process of moving the experience of grief out of your body and into words or pictures is healing. Sometimes people also find comfort in the poetry of others as they work to process their grief. Stay present with your feelings. It is natural to want to push away painful feelings thinking they are too intense to bear. People use alcohol, drugs, and other unhealthy behaviors to ease the pain. These coping mechanisms can help in the short run but, by masking the pain, they can prolong or make it worse in the long run. Instead of pushing away your sadness and loneliness, bring your awareness to your difficult feelings and allow yourself to sit with them. Remember the tide metaphor – eventually the wave of grief will ebb and the pain will ease. Plan for especially difficult days. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and other meaningful days may trigger a particularly strong grief reaction. Anticipate that these will be difficult, give yourself permission to grieve, and plan ahead ways to nourish and comfort yourself on those days. Ask friends to spend time with you or gather family members to share in a meal or activity. These can be done virtually or in-person if safe to do so. Practice self-compassion. Kristen Neff, Ph.D., one of the leading experts on self-compassion, writes “self-compassion involves recognizing that suffering and personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience – something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to me alone.” While it is difficult to practice self-compassion while grieving, it is an essential part of healing. Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun and author of many books, reminds us that self-compassion is “having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves, all those imperfections that we don’t even want to look at. Compassion isn’t some kind of self-improvement project or ideal that we’re trying to live up to.” Be gentle and patient. Psychologist Taryn Gammon, Ph.D. has an analogy for grief and healing. She thinks of grief as an infant or small child. “In the beginning, it needs almost all of your attention and care. Your grief may feel like a full-time job. At age four or five, the grief still needs your love and attention but you will have more space for other parts of your life. As the years pass, this older grief won’t require 100% of your time and energy like it did when it was an infant. However, you still need to be present with your grief when it decides to drop by. Your grief, like someone you care about, needs your patience and your love in order to heal little by little.” How to Help Others Many of us feel at a loss on how to help someone in their grieving process. We don’t want to say or do the wrong thing and cause even more pain on top of their already painful loss. However, there are simple actions we can take to help others. Listen. Listening is the very best thing that we can offer for a person who is grieving. Connecting heart to heart is often much more valuable than any words we could ever say. “It’s really not about what you say, it’s about being present and reminding each other that we are not alone,” says Brené Brown, a hugely popular and inspirational author, lecturer, and clinician. Grief needs a listening ear. Often, that is the most healing thing you can offer. Forget the apologies for “not saying the right thing,” or for inadvertently triggering a memory of loss or grief for a friend or client. It’s ok. Most people who have experienced loss want to talk about it. Ask them what they need and want. They may not know exactly but if they are able to tell you then respect and respond to it. I have a good friend who tragically lost his son at the age of 19. Here’s what he said about listening: “When people inadvertently say something that triggers memories of my son and I tear up or appear upset, they apologize all over the place. What I tell them is that I loved my son and it brings me comfort to talk about him, to share stories about him. So I welcome the opportunity to do that.” Practice empathy. Empathy is the practice of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. By remembering our own moments of grief and pain, we can really empathize with someone. This courageous act of vulnerability is what drives human connection. Try not to offer silver linings ("at least she didn’t suffer too much”) and instead recognize their pain without trying to minimize it or take it away. Simply being present for their sadness and loss can be enough. Remember that everyone grieves at their own pace and in their own way. The friend I quoted above, who lost his son, said that in the aftermath he was in shock and tearless for several days. He felt judged by many of his friends and family for not being more expressive, for “not falling apart.” Several days later he went to his son’s apartment, saw his son’s favorite t-shirt, and realized he’d never see him wearing that again. That is when it hit and the floodgates opened and stayed open for days. Over the following weeks the gates opened and closed many times, often with little advance warning or awareness of a trigger. Grief can feel like a never-ending tunnel in which there is no end or even light. While the sadness may never fully go away, healing is possible. If you would like more help in your healing journey, Cathedral Counseling Center has licensed therapists with experience in grief and loss. - Freda B Friedman, Ph.D. LCSW has been connected with Cathedral Counseling Center for more than 20 years as a clinical consultant, working on developing and implementing the program in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and more recently, adding a variant, Radically Open-DBT (RO-DBT) for over-control. She is a clinician with more than 30 years of experience working with individuals, couples, and families across the life span and facilitating many different types of therapeutic groups. Her particular areas of interest and experience include severe personality disorders, trauma, grief, loss and life transition issues, and working with families dealing with mental illness. She has lectured widely and written articles, book chapters, and a book on these topics, including Surviving a Borderline Parent, which has been translated into several languages.