Understanding Grief: Five Key Insights from a Grief Counselor You Should Know

If you are lucky enough in this world to love someone, the universal truth is that you will also experience grief. Our loved ones are never here with us long enough, and the grief we feel in their passing is directly linked to their importance in our life. Every loss is unique yet their are similarities that connect us in our shared humanity. Here's some tips from a grief counselor to help you in understanding your own grief or support someone who is grieving:

flowers and base that says In Loving Memory

1. You are not going it wrong.

   
   

   We humans have a tendency to compare ourselves to others, it's what brains do. But then we also tend to rank people and situations in some sort of tragedy hierarchy, and judge ourselves based on that. This is not Grief Squid Game, there is no winning or losing! Just because your coworker suffered a "worse" loss than you and seems to be handling it "better" than you does not mean anything.

   
   

   1. Grief is individual, you are going at your own pace.

      
      

   2. You don't actually know how they are doing, a lot of grief is very private.

      
      

   3. What does "better" even mean?! If better means "less grief" then I would very kindly challenge that! The goal is not to have less grief, or quieter grief, or no grief (although that might be desirable some days). The goal is to move through the grief, and that involves feeling it however you feel it.

      
      

      Some people cry all the time. Some people are really angry. Some people have a strong sense of relief, particularly if the person who has passed was very ill, in pain, or if the relationship was not a healthy one. Some people are numb. Some have strong regret, or guilt. These are all valid emotional experiences, and the emotions may shift quickly or feel stagnant.

      
      

      Some people take extended bereavement leaves, some people are back to work in a few days. Some people are widowed forever, some remarry quickly. Some people want to talk constantly about their loved one, some people need breaks from talking about them. The behaviors we exhibit do not quantify our grief.

      
      

2. Grief is physical.

   
   

   Grief is not just mental or emotional, you may feel it throughout your entire body. You may be more fatigued than you have ever been in your entire life. Your body might hurt, a soreness or an ache that you can't quite place. Brain fog, sleep problems, lowered immunity, digestive issues, restlessness/anxiety, headaches, chest pains, trouble breathing and more.

   
   

   Listen to your body and care for your body. Rest is the upmost importance, and if that means your are in bed for an extended period of time then that is what your body needs. You may have no appetite, but we know you need food so try to get something in your body. Don't judge it's nutrition or if you are cooking or not, just put some sort of fuel in your body to keep it going, one day you will cook again.

   
   

   Continue any ongoing medical treatment. This is not the time to stop taking your medication or other health essentials.

   
   

   Caring for your body is essential throughout grief, however it is crucial in the first few days and weeks. Your body is in shock, you are dealing with the unfathomable, and if your day consists of crying, taking your prescription meds, grabbing a nap and eating some toast that is really really important.

   
   

   Support person tip: There is a reason people give food when someone passes away. Not only is it kind and we want to help but don't know how, the concept of feeding oneself, or feeding a family, becomes insurmountable. So food is a big help.

   
   

3. Grief should be shared.

   
   

   Grief is not meant to be a solitary experience. We are given the message to stay quiet, not make a scene, that there is a "time and place" for "messy" emotions. But I would argue that this is completely the time for a scene, or big feelings, or at the very least an acknowledgment that our life is never going to be the same, because it is not.

   

   group hugging at funeral

   We need to talk about how we are feeling. We need to share memories of our loved one. We need to be angry and devastated and wonder out loud if we will ever be the same again. And we need people to hear us. To cry with us. To not try to make it better. To not fix it. And to definitely not ignore it.

   
   

   (Anyone see the movie Midsommar? It's a horror movie about grief, as actually many horror movies are. But there is one scene toward the end when the main character acknowledges her grief and is wailing, and the community encompasses her and begins wailing with her. It's very powerful).

   
   

   Support person tip: If grief is an ocean, it is very easy to feel like we are drowning. While you can't make the ocean disappear, ignoring that I am constantly treading water does not help! You can't pull me out of the ocean, it just doesn't work that way, I am forever connected to this ocean. You don't have to jump in the ocean with me. But maybe you could be that person in the boat who floats alongside those nutty people who swim across huge bodies of water. Be my companion, squirt some electrolyte drink into my mouth and tell me that this is the hardest thing I've ever done but that you believe in me and I can do it and that I'm not alone.

   
   

4. Grief can be constant, or come and go, or both.

   
   

   We have a lot of preconceived notions of what grief looks like. And, it rarely looks that way. Have you ever noticed that in a tv show if a character dies it is very common for there to be a time jump in the story line? One episode the remaining characters are at the funeral, and the next episode is a year later. Why is that?

   
   

   Well, grief is sad! And then we get sad watching characters on a tv show that we have a strange attachment to being sad, and then everyone is sad . But my other guess (which I'm hesitant to say because it sound harsh but I really think it's true) is that grief is boring!

   
   

   Grief is grey. Grief feels endless. Grief is being stuck in the saddest version of Groundhog's Day there is, and every morning when you wake up you have to remember all over again that your loved one isn't there. And today is going to be the same as yesterday as the day before that...

   
   

   And yet, at some point you have to go back to work. You have to feed your cat or renew your driver's license or go to the dentist. At some point you will socialize with friends, or make a new friend. At some point you will laugh again, or have fun, or not think of your loved one for a bit, and then will get hit with a grief wave. People in grief utilize compartmentalization because if feels like that is the only way to get through the day. So if you are stuck in Grief Groundhog's Day that is normal. And if you are overall functioning okay, but then have a Grief Flair that catches your off guard and sends you reeling, that is normal too.

   
   

5. Ugh, the guilt.

   
   

   While I did say that grief can be very specific to the individual, one person's grief does not look like the next person's grief, one commonality is Guilt.

   "Why did I not make them go to the doctor sooner?" "Why did I not see the signs?" "Did I do everything that was in my power to help them?" and so on. We unconsciously adopt a Hindsight Bias, which is based on three pillars; misremembering, inevitability, foreseeability. So, we don’t remember something accurately, we tell ourselves the outcome was inevitable, and that we therefore should have been able to foresee what eventually transpired.

   
   

   We can begin to look at each pillar and assess them. "I should have made them see a doctor sooner". Well, what else was going on for that person, for yourself, and in the greater context of the situation that they didn't see a doctor sooner? Should you realistically have foreseen this coming? Would an earlier appointment have changed the outcome? Unfortunately, for a lot of these questions we don't know the answer. But keep in mind, if you would have known this was going to be the outcome, you absolutely would have done something differently. But you didn't know, because you are human.

   
   

   I also believe, and have experienced the scenario where I would rather blame myself all day long, and focus on all the things I did wrong, than just accept the randomness/brutality/devastation of the grief. The guilt becomes a self flagellation distraction from a horrible pain, the worst pain. But guilt can also keep us stuck in that pain. We begin to associate our guilt with our connection to our loved one. But it isn't guilt that keeps us connected, it is love.

   
   

   How can you begin to release yourself from guilt? If this is proving difficult I would highly recommend seeing a grief counselor for support.

   
   

6. Bonus tip- Time

   
   

   You know this but it bears repeating, grief takes time. There is not rushing it or going around it. It is possible to bury it, but it will come out somewhere else. Time will not make it disappear, but it will enable you to find a way to coexist with it. Be gentle with yourself and give yourself all the time you need.

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