My friend who is well acquainted with grief called last week and asked me a question that I’ve been thinking about ever since: “How are you handling your grief … are you welcoming it when it shows up?”
It’s an interesting twist and a perspective I hadn’t considered. I might want to befriend my grief, given that it’s here to stay. But since hospitality is my thing and welcoming people is what I love doing, it didn’t take me long to realize that “welcoming” grief is not where I am. Pre-COVID, when someone showed up at my door, I’d be thrilled to see them and would normally say, “I’m so happy you’re here!” In considering “welcoming grief,” I can’t imagine ever getting so comfortable with my grief that I could say that in earnest. I’m no stranger to grief, which can occur with loss of any kind, and I’ve lost many significant people in my life, including:
my 16 year old cousin when I was 5
several aunts, uncles and cousins who died at young ages
my paternal grandmother in 7th grade
my maternal grandmother and 93 year old great grandmother in 11th grade
my mom four days before my 30th birthday
friends my own age in 2012 and 2014
and by far the hardest loss of all, was the recent death of my otherwise healthy, 55-year old husband, who died in December after a 14 month battle with glioblastoma.
Besides death, I’ve experienced loss through a broken engagement, loss of trust, loss of dreams, loss of friendship, and in the midst of three international moves, I experienced a loss of security, my sense of identity, and the loss of two beloved pets.
Despite all the grief I’ve experienced, it doesn’t get any easier to talk about it, or feel it. People who know me, experience my nature as sunny, enthusiastic, joyful, and inspiring. Painful emotions aren’t my thing, and the last thing I ever want to do is bring someone else down. Until 7 years ago, I avoided pain at all costs by keeping busy, numbing difficult emotions and burying my feelings. It took a toll on my physical, emotional and spiritual health and had a negative impact on all my relationships, including my relationship with myself. The problem with burying feelings is that when you bury them, they’re buried alive. That means they can erupt at any time, especially the next time you suffer a loss.
I remember very clearly in October of 2013, ten months after losing a dear friend to cancer, I sat on the couch in my family room with a heavy heart and felt …. numb. I looked around and knew intellectually that I had so much to be grateful for, but I couldn’t drum up a shred of gratitude, much less joy. I felt completely disconnected from myself and others. I made a decision that day to seek out healing and wholeness, no matter how long it took or how uncomfortable it made me feel. My friend’s untimely death made me realize that life is too precious and short to waste feeling numb. I could no longer tolerate my fear that painful emotions were the glue that held me together, or that I’d disintegrate if the tears I bottled up for so long began to flow. I was sick of being self-condemning, self-protective and self-reliant. I contacted a therapist referred by a friend, and my healing journey began. Within a matter of weeks, I made a decision to stop drinking and get in touch with my feelings. I cried buckets of tears, but to my delight, I discovered that I didn’t melt like the Wicked Witch of the West like I had imagined, into a puddle on the floor with no skin, no bones … nothing left but a pool of tears on the floor. In fact, within a very short time, once I allowed myself to feel the painful emotions I had buried for decades, I began to feel gratitude return, contentment, and yes, even deep felt joy. With work, my marriage improved and my relationships grew deeper and more genuine. And for the first time in a long time, I felt fully and completely alive. It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns after that, but once again, life felt worth the struggle.
I’m finding again, as I learned through the years, that grief almost always catches me by surprise. Welcoming it is a stretch, and I’d say that my response to grief tends to be more along the same lines as a robo-call at dinnertime: “Uggghhh … it’s YOU again.” There’s an old addage that “what you resist persists,” so I’ve learned to allow myself to sit down and make space for my grief when the waves hit. The old me would become busy to numb the pain, but the new me knows that the healthiest response is to sit and let the emotions move through me. The old me would swallow hard to stop the tears, trying to literally bury the grief, while the new me knows that letting the grief come up and out is necessary to prevent it from being buried alive.
We all know grief, and while it can be collective, it’s also very individual. Everyone grieves differently. During present COVID times, grief has been named the universal feeling that is being experienced, due in large part to loss of health, connection, freedom and security, to name a few losses. As the death toll rises and economic instability increases along with rising unemployment, once you add in social isolation, it makes total sense that feelings of grief will surface. Any loss, left unprocessed, takes a toll on our physical, emotional, spiritual and mental wellbeing.
In my own journey, I’ve researched and applied various grief methods, and I’m fascinated by the neuroscience of happiness and wellbeing. I’ve been intentional to make space for grief, and to intentionally incorporate practices that are proven by neuroscience to increase wellbeing. Throughout the process, I’ve come to understand two things. First, processing painful emotions is a prerequisite to fully experiencing positive ones. Second, our culture doesn’t do grief well. Interestingly, while my faith has anchored me through hard times, I’ve been disillusioned to notice that the church isn’t much better at grief than our culture.
I’ve been incredibly grateful for the support we received while my husband was sick, and for many weeks after he died. But, being in a couple of grief groups in recent months, I realize I’m not alone in feeling that after a short time, grief is pretty isolating. Friends and family move on and the expectation is you will too. In addition, many grief groups are based on models that are lacking. Often “stages of grief” implies that grief is a problem to be fixed, or an emotion to get through, and carries an expectation that the quicker you can get to your new normal, whatever that is, the better. In reality, the new normal is likely to include grief, potentially forever in varying degrees, because where love exists, grief persists, even after finding new meaning and purpose.
David Ferguson and Bruce Walker created a whole body of work around the relational barriers that are created when accumulated emotions prevent people from connecting in their pain. They describe us as having a limited emotional capacity that they liken to an emotional cup, and when we reach the limit, our cup overflows with negative emotions and behaviors that prevent us from meeting others in their pain.
Think for a moment of your coffee cup, and imagine emotional layers filling it to the brim. At the bottom, there’s hurt, with some anger to pack it down, and a little fear as well. Top it off with some guilt, condemnation and anxiety … do you need a bigger cup yet? How much room is left for positive emotions like joy, hope, contentment, gratitude? Maybe a cappuccino foam serving? The problem with this overflowing emotional cup is that when something else comes along, an unusual stressor or something out of your control (hello, COVID) the cup starts leaking. Think of it like an ice cube being plopped into your emotional cup, creating a splash that reveals all the symptoms that that are no longer hiding beneath the surface ….
Depression sets in
Tempers flare
Behavior changes (ie, critical and controlling, impulsive, OCD)
Stress related illnesses occur
Energy and concentration decrease
Appetite and sleep are disturbed
Addictions surface (ie, alcohol, disordered eating, retail therapy, pornography)
Ability to experience positive emotions declines.
It’s impossible to selectively numb emotions, so any attempts to sweep painful emotions under the rug while allowing positive emotions are futile. Our capacity to experience JOY, love / romance, peace, gratitude, and contentment diminishes the more we resist the pain that comes in life. And let’s face it … pain is a reality for all of us, because we’re not living in a perfect world.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a heaping serving of painful emotions in my cup, with space for only a cappuccino foam serving of JOY. So, what’s the solution? Well, for starters … commit to emptying the cup. The root of the word emotion is mot meaning “to move” … emotions are meant to move and flow, not stagnate or accumulate. Judging your emotions as “good” and “bad” is unhealthy and shuts them down. Emotions aren’t good or bad, they’re information. The healthiest response to emotions is to get curious and ask yourself “what is this emotion telling me about myself, others, and the world?” Ferguson and Walker found that painful emotions have the power to move us to action to: seek comfort in our hurt; offer forgiveness when we’re angry; drive out fear by perfect love; confess rather than cling to guilt; and let truth and faith annihilate shame and condemnation.
I’m on a mission to help people to be able to share grief and painful emotions as easily as happiness! Starting with myself, and while working 1:1 with clients, I aim to facilitate grief and to inspire the hope of creating lasting joy. In addition, I’m rolling out a group coaching program in the fall to do the same in community. My dream is to live in a world where people are so integrated that they’re able to share each other’s painful emotions and double each other’s positive emotions.
Want to know what to say to someone who’s grieving? Stay tuned for next week’s blog. And if you have one insight from reading this, please message me. I’d love to hear what resonates for you! If you would like a taste of what it’s like to work with me as your coach, book your complimentary coaching session here to see if my coaching is compatible with your needs.
