Let's talk about grief.
Today, I’m thinking about grief, in part due to this beautiful Facebook post from my friend, Fonda Clark Haight. In her post, Fonda writes:
[A]ll of us are grieving in one form or another...if not a loved one then the world death toll from covid....or the past couple of years of lost time....or the loss of the way of life that we had all come to expect. The widespread grief resulting from the Covid pandemic is a healthy reaction to a sick world.
Grief certainly explains so much of what we see and experience all around us every day. Maybe it’s people with short tempers, who flare up at the smallest thing—after all, anger is one of the “stages” of grief, though of course nothing about processing grief is linear. Maybe it’s the fact that so many of us feel heavy or tired, clouded by brain fog or fatigue, lacking motivation or get-up-and-go—the physical descriptions of grief held and expressed by the body.
Maybe it’s the way we rush around to try to make things as “normal” as the before times, resenting things when we are faced with proof that things are not, in fact, the same as they were prior to this pandemic—denial, anyone? Or maybe we’ve actually noticed a spike in anxiety and depression, without understanding why they’ve shown up because we don’t see an obvious trigger—when the trigger is ubiquitous, and everyone is exposed to it, it’s easy to expect that we would all react in the same way, but that does not take into account our individual and communal experiences.
If you come from a culture with tremendous grief already, this extra trigger may hit harder than someone else with less loss—or, conversely, you personally may “manage” it better than someone who has little to no experience with grief.
As my friend Fonda says in her post, perhaps in addition to living in a world that includes long-haul Covid, we are also living with “long-haul grief.” New reasons to grieve pop up all the time, whether the cause of grieving is the loss of a specific person in our lives, or a reminder that our lives remain changed from what they were at the start of 2020.
What you can do when faced with ongoing grief
Here are a few tips on navigating the grief process, regardless of the cause. Maybe it’s the loss of a loved one or a relationship. Maybe it’s the loss of a job or the possibility of a new one. Maybe someone you considered a friend has betrayed you or moved on. Maybe it’s sorrow over a diagnosis (yours or someone else’s).
The following tips can help you find a way through.
Acknowledge your pain. Stuffing it down or pretending it doesn’t exist? Yeah . . . it doesn’t work, and it also means that it will come back to bite you in the ass when you least expect it. Recognizing your feelings and labeling them as part of grief is a healthy way to start to deal with it. Allowing your grief to wash through you and then pour out, whether in the form of tears or laughter or something else, is important.
Don’t judge yourself (or others) for your emotions. You may not cry at all, and instead be furious at the world. Or you may find yourself laughing at a memory or story one minute, then crying the next. Every person reacts in their own way, and grief is a pro at eliciting unexpected emotions.
Only you will have your precise grieving process. After all, there is only one of you in this world. And your grieving process may differ, depending on things such as what/who you are grieving, where you are in your life journey, whether you’ve had enough sleep and food . . . Basically, just accept what comes. If you have dry eyes over the death of a parent, but lose your shit over the loss of a friend’s pet, that’s okay. There’s no “right” way to grieve. Give yourself grace and don’t let anyone tell you you’re doing it “wrong.”
When you can, be around supportive people. They can be people who are willing to discuss how you’re feeling, or people who are willing to accept you and your moods even if you don’t feel like talking things through. Spending time with others who love and/or support you can go a long way toward reminding you of your connections to this world, and to remembering that you aren’t alone.
Take exquisite care of yourself. Put yourself to bed when you are tired. Make sure you stay nourished and hydrated, even if you don’t always feel like eating or drinking. Move your body in ways that feel good. Get outside into nature, which is a great healer.
As we head toward autumn (and school, and flu season, and possibly Covid and Monkey Pox issues), I hope you will take exquisite care of yourself. (Of course, if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you probably know that already, but here is a prior post about that.)
If you are finding that things are too overwhelming for any period of time, please talk to a medical or counseling professional to assess whether you might have tipped into depression. If so, get whatever help you need to find your way back out—including enlisting a friend or loved one to help you navigate getting what you need.
Sending you much love, and hoping that sunnier days (though not necessarily HOTTER ones) are on the way for us all.
P.S. Looking for a way to shake yourself out of the doldrums and get to work on a goal for 2022 that you’ve been putting off? I’ve got you, boo! Join me next week for GET STARTED NOW. This is a “pay what you want” planning hour, with coaching to get you past your imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and any other blocks that are holding you back. Find out more and sign up here.
