How to get through grieving
Going through grief means feeling a lot of pain…
Not being able to choose and having to let go of someone or something that was important to us, hurts. It hurts a lot. It can be so painful that we can get to a point where we feel like we’re about to shatter into a million pieces because the feelings seem both overwhelming and unbearable. The emotional intensity of grief sometimes seems to go far beyond words. As much as it has been attempted over the centuries, just like with love, words fall short for describing what loss feels like. We identify mourning through experience and even though we know that certain losses are coming, we can’t really prepare.
It’s easy to recognize loss with a loved one’s passing or when we go through a breakup, but it’s not just those situations. We go through the stages of grief when we are faced with any type of loss where what has gone was important to us. That is to say, we must mourn and change when that which was/continues to be emotionally significant, ceases to be. This can shake our whole foundation, creating a lot of fear and anxiety towards the uncertainty of what our lives will be like after loss.
Is grieving bad, dangerous or harmful in any way?
We tend to act as if it were, but no. Grief is a natural part of life and it represents the end of a cycle, where depending on what was lost and how it happened, our life is redefined. We can grieve many things: romantic partners, parents, children, friends, projects, countries, jobs, expectations and also ways of being or lifestyles. Even when the change is something desired, to a certain extent, we go through grief and when in this process, feelings from previous losses reactivate.
Grief isn’t something that you get over, you need to go through it. Imagine grief as a tunnel, in which we all have the possibility of coming out differently from how we entered. What does this depend on? It’s not just a matter or time, as is usually believed, but rather the personal work that we are willing to do throughout the process. Because grief is exactly that: an inevitable process and it’s up to us how we deal with it.
Why does it hurt so much?
I think one of the main reasons is that we live in a society that is very afraid of sadness, in which showing pain is understood as weakness and vulnerability feels too dangerous. We have learned to try to repress and control how we feel, not showing too much; this doesn’t take us anywhere good. When we suppress our feelings, you might get some short-term relief, but sustained over time, the pain gets worse. As a result, different areas of our lives are negatively affected, harming relationships and even giving way to symptoms or diseases based on unprocessed emotions.
And what about time?
While we do need time to heal, by itself it’s not enough. How long grief lasts depends greatly on how we regulate our emotions and how we deal with stress. Wanting to speed up the stages of grief actually generates anxiety and creates dynamics where we punish ourselves for not “being ok.” We desperately need to learn to be more patient and in that, question what we have been taught to do (or to not do) when we feel pain. I want to emphasize that how we face pain goes back to our first bonds and that the ways in which our caregivers connected to their emotions.
Ok, now I understand grief, but how do I go through it?
This is a complex issue that I will get into more. Nonetheless, here are three tips that will allow you to experience grief in a healthier way:
1. Willingness
It means consciously choosing to feel any and all emotions that may arise; it is a state of emotional openness. We allow ourselves to feel, even when it’s uncomfortable. By doing so, we learn to navigate different emotions and sensations and in consequence, what we experience doesn’t stagnate. Willingness allows us to build a healthier relationship with our emotions and thus, we feel better with ourselves and with the world.
2. Pendulear
If you remain in pain too long, you suffer unnecessarily. If you avoid pain, it only gets stronger. So what do we do? Balance through pendulation. This means, like a pendulum, being able to oscillate between grief and other emotions. Pendulation is being able to get close to pain and then move away, connecting to what feels good. You can imagine this as allowing yourself to be in a fetal position and cry and then go online to watch a funny video.
3. Compassion
Lovely concept, not enough practice. It implies being able to see and treat yourself with kindness, understanding that what you are going through is difficult and that what you need most at this moment is not criticism, but love. Compassion is a form of self-care, a philosophy of life that can be summed up in treating yourself well. It’s not pity or sorrow, it’s a state of understanding towards pain and what it implies, recognizing the challenging nature of the process you’re going through. It is a concept that usually comes easily when it comes to others, but not so much when it’s about us.