How to grieve
So much can be said about grief. Its hard to know where to start! In this post I’m going to cover some basic ideas for how to connect with your grief. Grief is a profound feeling often involving pain. I can understand why people hesitate moving towards grief - because it can be so painful. Culturally, we are not always used to displaying our sadness after a loss - we often like to present that we are “strong” or “have it all together.” We use all different kinds of defense mechanisms or self protective strategies to keep us away from our grief… these can include denial, busyness, trying to focus on the “positive,” spiritual bypassing, and many others. If you find yourself engaging in these strategies here are some ideas for how to connect with your grief.
Slow down - Life gets busy and we can sometimes “forget” to grieve or be “too busy” to grieve but its important that we slow down all our activities and connect with this adaptive feeling. If you’re jumping from thing to thing check in with yourself and see what might be going on. Ask yourself am I using busyness to push away my grief? Am I using ___ to not connect with my grief? Take moments through out the day to be present in your life.
Feel the sadness - This may seem obvious but I think its worth saying. Allowing yourself to have tears about the loss can be healing. Let yourself cry. Let yourself have sadness that you feel in your body -notice where in your body you feel the sadness and let it move through you. I like to encourage clients to feel their sadness with a compassionate other, a friend or family member that can be with you as you cry and mourn.
Journal/paint/dance/sing - Journaling, painting, dancing, singing, etc are some tangible ways to connect with what you’re feeling. Paint what you feel or dance what you feel. Perhaps you’re not a big talker or writer but you enjoy other creative ways of expressing yourself- all of the arts can be a helpful way to feel the sadness, pain, and loss.
Invite others in - What can make loss so painful is the aloneness of it all. It can feel like you are are the only person that is experiencing this. I encourage clients to challenge this thought and include others in their grief. Tell trusted others about what you’ve lost - whether its the death of a loved one, the death of a dream, loss of innocence, a breakup, divorce, miscarriage, a move, these are all important life experiences that we can connect vulnerably with those around us.