Grief is a highly individual process, as unique as the people experiencing it. Everything from our personal histories and culture to personality traits and temperament affect how we experience and cope with a major loss in our life.
That said, based on my own work as a Christian Hospice Chaplain for the last fourteen plus years, it seems to me there are some common themes in the stories of people who manage to grieve well. Here are the top three to help you think about and navigate your own grieving process in a compassionate, constructive, and healthy way.
Don’t Put Time Limits On Your Grief. A common question people who mourn a significant loss is: Is it supposed to take this long? Most of us understand that grief is normal and inevitable after a major loss. But the duration of grief is not as well understood. Many people think that it should last for a year but no more. Some people think it may last for a while but should feel much easier after the first couple of weeks. Unfortunately, there isn't a way to know how long your grief “should” last. It’s important to acknowledge this inherent uncertainty instead of fighting against it by putting artificial deadlines on your grief, which often backfire.
Grief does lessen with time, but how quickly and to what extent is difficult to predict. If you experience a major loss, you will always feel some sadness and grief when reminded of that loss. And while that can be hard to accept, it makes sense if you think about it: If someone or something was a major part of your life, it’s not realistic to think that just because you’ve gone through a grieving process, you will no longer feel sadness or regret when you’re reminded of it. Grief is about learning to accept and manage our sadness around loss, not to eliminate it.
For one thing, everyone's life and circumstances, and the nature of their loss is unique. This means even if the superficial details look similar, comparing grief is always an apples-to-oranges comparison. Sure, you and your co-worker both got laid off. But maybe your coworker had his identity wrapped up in his work, which would mean his experience of loss would be more than yours. Or maybe on the contrary and unbeknownst to you, he had been itching to switch careers anyway, so this loss was actually an opportunity for him. Every situation is unique.
The second reason to avoid too much comparison when it comes to grief is that it’s usually invalidating. Baked into most comparisons is a subtle evaluation that our grief should look and feel more like someone else’s. The implication is that there’s something wrong with our grief. Consequently, in addition to feeling bad about your loss, you’re feeling bad about feeling bad. This second layer of painful emotion will only make processing your grief harder and longer, so it’s best to avoid the comparisons and remind yourself that even though it seems like a simple comparison, it’s never that simple. Grief is complex. And complexity doesn’t lend itself well to superficial comparisons.
Spend Time Grieving Intentionally. This one sounds strange, but it’s based on a key idea in the mechanics of emotion: What we resist, persists. When our mind sees us fighting with or running away from something (including an emotion like sadness, for example), it learns to see that thing we're running from as a threat. This means the next time something triggers your sadness, your mind is going to go on high alert, increasing your anxiety and overall level of emotionality. Trying to avoid difficult emotions only makes them stronger in the long run.
But if you flip this idea on its head, it leads to a counterintuitive but powerful solution: By deliberately approaching difficult emotions like sadness, we can train our brains to become more comfortable with them. While the pain of sadness will always be there, it’s a lot easier to work through and bear when it’s not also overburdened with fear, shame, frustration, and all sorts of other difficult feelings that come from training our minds to think of sadness as dangerous.
Practically speaking, one of the best things you can do is to make time to grieve and be sad on purpose. Carve out some time on a regular basis to approach your grief and sadness intentionally and willingly. So, you might make out ten minutes each evening and write in your journal about the sadness you’re feeling or about the memories that are most painful for you. When you approach your grief willingly, it signals to your own mind that what you’re experiencing is painful but not bad or dangerous. This is probably the most powerful, yet underutilized technique for managing grief that I know of. Every single time I’ve recommended it to a loved one, who has followed through with it consistently, they’ve reported surprisingly positive results. Like a good friend who listens compassionately, grieving intentionally validates your pain and suffering.
These are the top three themes that help you think about and navigate your own grieving process in a compassionate, constructive, and healthy way. I pray they are a blessing to you! John T. Catrett, III Scissortail Hospice Chaplain 306 North Main St., Suite E Bristow, Ok. 74010 918.352.3080