On Grief
Grief as a fully sensory experience:
Hear the splash of grief on the face of a child when summer comes to an end and not everything on the bucket list has been checked off. As they sense changes in their childhood approaching, when the nights cool down and the school bus routes start
See the grief in the wake of the most recent act of gun violence in a school environment, in the photo of a barefoot mother running to see if her child is okay. In the communities that feel trapped and disempowered to affect change. In the wails of family members longing for another moment, together
Feel the echo of losses in years past, of how they will vibrate through the body’s systems for years. The grief of death, of chronic illness, of breakups, of aging parents, of war, of unmet dreams.
To be human is to grieve.
Not only one thing echoes grief - it is present in our lives daily. We have a nervous sytem guidebook for it.
However, in our online society, in our fast paced, always better, always next, always producing world we have forgotten how to read those pages of the book. But I see its origin as remarkably simple.
When we drop our ice cream cones, we are disappointed (hang in with me on this). We may or may not get the chance to get a new one. We may be stuck with the dredges of ice cream left over. We may have to watch as others eat their full cones, in front of us, while ours melts on the ground.
We may not get to fix it, to repair it, to make it all better.
To clients, I often reframe that disappointment is baby grief. We know that this moment cannot be reversed. This moment has to be coped with, navigated, held and tended. It can’t be changed back to what was. Back to that first ice cream cone. And isn’t that icky?!
When we ignore our disappointments, we take the first step to bypassing the true experience of grief. No, losing someone you love isn’t the same as ice cream. But, dissapointment can lay the outline for how to cope. And, in our very fast world, we are taught to ignore this feeling. We receive messaging over and over:
It’s okay, something better will come along;
God has a better plan for you than this one
The next ice cream cone will taste, look, feel, be better for you!
“Buy this, do that, achieve this, and you’ll be better off!”
We apply this logic to so.many.things. Clothing, toys, material belongings. But increasingly to relationships, presence, values, hopes, dreams.
If we are disappointed, it must not be that something sad happened, it must be that the THING was wrong in the first place. But, what if it wasn’t?
What if disappointment is part of how we’re taught to grieve? What if the rage we felt when we were two and we saw our sibling get attention as a newborn instead of us - that shift of our parents attention - was acknowledged as normal and healthy? If being passed over for a promotion was honored as heartbreak? If when our child chooses a different path for themselves than we’d hoped, we allow ourselves to feel really. effing. sad??
What if we were held in that sadness, really held, without shame or blame or rushing out of it?
Could you hang with me, again, to imagine what that would look like?
I strive to do this in my therapeutic space: I believe it is something we owe one another.
I’d like to imagine it as a building block for a world where we can see each other more honestly. Where instead of grief and disappointment and sadness being a source of shame, they became a source of connection.
If I get really wild with imagining this world, I also like to imagine the sacredness of disappointment and grief as the start to building something new. Something that allows us to strip the noise to see that we ALL benefit from certain societal shifts, rules, expectations. Grief to make us aware of the universal suffering we all share. As a reminder: we’re all written to experience pain- and indeed will as we all lose those we love and will leave those we love as well - as a reason to ignite change to create a better world for those that inhabit it.
Grief as a catalyst for change.
To live in alignment with this dream, I strive to create a space where grief is centralized in conversations. Not always in the expected way - as a thing to speed through - but rather an acknowledgement of all the ways life doesn’t turn out how we expect. Grief as a place existing as it is: worthy of our time, attention and tending.
I see grief as a HUGE piece of the puzzle of self - our unmet needs, our unexpressed dreams, our systemic gaps or even failures, our skewed or misunderstood selves. When those I meet choose to allow this moment, their grief, to be… it opens something up. This is not to say it is easy, or a fast track. But rather together we create a crack, for the nervous system to read a book already written. A book, when read, to show us how we create something new - not as replacement - but experienced side by side.
You’re worth listening to. And so is the story of your grief.
If you are in acute grief, and are eligible to work with me here in PA, please reach out.
If not, please dial 988 for mental health help, and STAY ON THE LINE.
Here is a short list of resources for grief care:
Megan Devine: It’s Okay that You’re Not Okay. https://refugeingrief.com/
Includes books, workbooks blogs
Grief Share: https://www.griefshare.org/
A resource for finding a grief support group near you
Dr. Joanne Cacciatore : Bearing the Unbearable
