Navigating Grief

"One of the most powerful things about grief is when we recognize grief for what it is. A deeply complex experience that has a lot of emotions connected to it."

Grief can be uncomfortable. Many of us don’t like to feel those distressing feelings, and so the idea of experiencing grief just feels overwhelming. There is often this question of “what do I do with it?” or “how do I get over it?” but grief is not one of those things that you get over. You learn to cope with it. When you cope with grief on a daily basis, some days that grief is less intense and other days it’s more intense. It comes and it goes but it doesn’t disappear. When you can shift your mindset from “getting over it” to “coping with it”, it can start to help grief feel more comfortable.

I think one of the most powerful things about grief is when we recognize grief for what it is. A deeply complex experience that has a lot of emotions connected to it. When we give ourselves permission to feel it, the grief shifts. And when we give ourselves space to feel the emotions and express them however we need to in those moments - running through the memories, the hopes, the dreams, the loss - we’re able to start to work through the experiences in a different way.

Allowing ourselves to do this, and take the time to do it without expectation, helps us work through the complexity of grief. This also helps us release some of the pain connected to the grief, and we start to shift into a more calm, settled space.

When we try to avoid grief, disconnect from it, numb it out or pretend it’s not there, it just bubbles.
It’s like a boiling pot that just bubbles and bubbles and bubbles and eventually it bubbles over, but we just don’t know when. Then, when it does bubble over, oftentimes it can be destructive to the space around it, or burn the person standing next to it. The more we avoid grief, the more it bubbles and builds. We resist the feelings of grief because it feels uncomfortable, but isn’t it better to feel uncomfortable for a little while then consistently distress for a long time?

So how do we pick ourselves back up and learn to cope in healthier, less distressful ways for ourselves and those around us? How can we navigate this complex experience and continue to keep moving in a forward motion, no matter how small or insignificant it may feel sometimes?
Stay tuned for the next blog as we continue the conversation.

Til next time,
Julie