Grief is a complex and deep emotional response that individuals experience following a loss of any kind. It is natural, it is universal and it is incredibly painful.
We will all grieve for many circumstances in our lives. It's interesting, however, given this is a universal experience that so many of us feel deeply uncomfortable with grief. We lock it away, we don't share our experiences, and we don't allow those around us to feel sad, angry, guilty, or even relieved in the face of loss.
For the most part, we don't allow each other to feel whatever it is that we feel in the face of loss.
It's not surprising, given our systems and structures don't support grief either.
When your loved one dies, whether it's a grandparent, friend, sibling, partner, or god-forbid your baby or child, you may be blessed with 1 day of paid leave to grieve. We may allow your sadness while you plan a funeral, and pack up their belongings, but then please wrap it up and go back to work, and to the life that you lived before.
But here's the rub. The life you lived before no longer exists. The person you were before no longer exists either. How do we plan for this? How do we support this?
While we're not supporting someone to adjust to this new normal, we also don't use language around loss.
How often do you actually hear someone use the words death, dying, bereaved, suicide, baby death, termination, palliative care, voluntary assisted dying? There are many more words than these that we have wiped from our everyday language and our everyday experience.
It's no wonder then, that when we are faced with circumstances that force us to use these words or to experience these events it can be so shocking. so overwhelming. Words fail us and those around us, as they have many times before.
What I have seen from sitting with grieving clients for over a decade is that there is no space for their grief. They feel stifled by these societal expectations, the masking of grief, the euphemisms that people use, and their grief becomes bottled up with no place to go. It becomes stored within their bodies, and something that is to scary to face, because that's what we've been taught. Isn't it Elsa from Frozen who says, "Conceal, don't feel. Don't let it show." I wonder where she got that message from.
Perhaps this grief appears at bedtime, sneaking out of the corners of their eyes under the cover of darkness. Perhaps it appears in anger and frustration, and displays of emotion that feel so foreign. Perhaps it's in the overwhelming fatigue and brain fog present in grief.
So, when I say "Let's do grief differently", this is what I mean.
Grief Guide is a place where you can show up in your grief, however you need to. You can take off the mask of societal expectations and show your authentic self. You can talk about the complexity of emotion present for you, and that it's not one or the other. You can feel sadness and relief. You can feel regret and sorrow. You can feel anger and deep yearning. You can talk about your loss and also the life that has been present before this event. You can use their name, and introduce me to your loved one who has died. Please do, I would love to meet them.
Author, Trent Dalton writes with great wisdom, “The only cure for grief is to grieve. The only cure for hurt is to hurt. Every tear is a tribute. Every tear is a memory, every memory is a treasure.”
Welcome to Grief Guide, I'm so glad you're here.
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