5 Healthy, Healing Ways to Grieve
No matter what suffering or grief has come into your life, you can choose a healthy grief option. Photo by Jony Ariadi
About nine months before the word COVID was part of everyday vocabulary, Greg, a terrific husband, and father to two young sons experienced a stroke that left him unable to work. Greg lived with daily despair, unable to be actively involved with his sons or share in partnership with his wife. This family hung on by a thread. Just when they saw a tiny ray of normalcy, COVID-19 threw another curve ball resulting in severe isolation. As distancing guidelines and quarantining became more familiar, their community was ravaged by a wildfire and two evacuations. Fortunately, their home was spared, but the school he had taught at for 19 years experienced devastating damage and his classroom, still filled with personal items, was reduced to ashes. Greg thought often of ending his own life.
LOW-GRADE GRIEF
This family, along with countless individuals and families is living with a new collection of losses. These losses generate grief. Whether we are facing collective grief or personal losses, we might be experiencing brain fog and emotional fatigue. The pressure to keep up with daily demands and the influence of news that rocks our lives is taxing on the body, mind, and emotions. When death does not occur, but loss or trauma steals away our peace, freedoms, health, physical capacities, or finances, we still grieve. Often our low-grade grief can leave us feeling sad, angry, hopeless, out of control, wiped out, or disoriented. Mental health is at risk when loss and trauma go unattended.
THE SPECTRUM OF GRIEF
In the best of circumstances, grief following the death of someone important is painful and sad. Gwen, a mother of four and wife for 60+ years, died surrounded by her adult children and her husband by her bedside. They had spent weeks prior to her death loving her, sharing memories, and discussing various topics that Gwen greatly enjoyed. Few, if any, regrets remained. Her last breath came with gentle sighs of relief from her family. This was an uncomplicated death. The subsequent grief followed with few complications or places to get stuck in their grief.
On the other hand, when someone dies alone, by suicide, violence, or accident, grievers are thrown into a turbulent sea of distress, filled with complications of anger, hatred, blame, regrets, and unresolved hopes and dreams. This is complicated grief. It requires purposeful and intentional action to grieve well. How grievers grieve makes all the difference for their hope of a positive future.
Often, Grief expresses itself in simple to complicated ways, depending on the trauma of the loss.
Most grievers are somewhere on the spectrum from gentle to complicated grief. You might find it useful to evaluate your stories surrounding death or loss that have been important to you. No matter where you place your grief and loss on the line, you will benefit by learning about healthy, healing grief.
After our son died of leukemia at the tender age of three, I found myself as a 28-year-old grieving mom unprepared to even understand I had options as I grieved. Instinctually, I leaned hard into the strength of God who promised to heal my broken heart. Little by little, I discovered a few beautiful tools for healthy grief and have been sharing them with others ever since.
What can we do to live well through unprecedented global events as well as personal catastrophes? Five choices may help comfort, support, and bring healing for the disruption that death, trauma, and losses create.
1. ADMIT THE GRIEF.
Acknowledge the losses. Do not allow them to lurk or hide from view. I do this by putting them on paper. I allow my messy, random, heartbroken thoughts and feelings to find expression written down. Grief expressions need to reflect the characteristics of grief that are disorganized and unpredictable. Sketches or poetry are also useful ways to release and acknowledge grief. What would you do?
2. GRIEVE THE LOSSES.
It is okay to be sad and grieve about the postponed wedding, the home that was destroyed, or the business that may never open again. It is appropriate to feel pain, anger, frustration, and despair when the life of a loved one has ended. Feeling the feelings is quite different than traveling through 5 stages. The experiences of grief are more like a spiral that recycles our various emotional and physical reactions until we work them through and come to peace or acceptance. What are some of your emotional and physical reactions to your current losses?
3. YOUR GRIEF IS UNIQUE.
Each person grieves uniquely, so do not compare your grief or loss with another person’s grief experiences. How could this help promote better acceptance toward others? How could giving yourself permission to grieve in your own way help you?
4. MAKE CHOICES THAT WILL COMFORT AND SUPPORT THE ENORMOUS SHIFT YOUR LIFE IS TRYING TO HANDLE.
Here are a few ideas: Do something “normal” each day. Put your random, disorganized thoughts and feelings on paper. Walk regularly, taking in peace from nature and noticing lessons of the natural world. Listen to music. Practice spiritual habits of quiet meditation or prayer. I find reading a story about Jesus or a poem from Psalms helps encourage me. What would you do for spiritual self-care?
5. MOVE AWAY FROM ISOLATION AND SEEK CONNECTION.
When we keep ourselves socially connected with the people we love, our perspective improves despite deep pain and sadness. Facetime, Zoom, phone calls, old-fashioned letters, church fellowship, and grief support groups are good steps. What other practices will help you stay socially connected?
I met Greg and his family following the fire. Both Greg and his wife had no understanding of healthy, healing grief. Despair had taken root in their lives, while hope became an elusive cruel joke. As we worked together, each of them found the words to express their feelings. New empathy and connection grew between them as they listened to each other’s pain. They put into practice healthy, healing grief practices and now they are moving forward with hope and courage.
HEALTHY HEALING GRIEF RESOURCES
If you are looking for help with your grief, please visit more of this website. You will find several resources to assist you.
The book, Comfort for the Day, Living Through the Seasons of Grief
Grief.YouHaveOptions, our online grief course will be your guide to healthy, healing grief.
A quick look at some Scripture grief support to comfort you.
Karen and her husband, Steve work as Grief Educators and are certified grief coaches. Their website, www.comfortfortheday.com is helping countless individuals and faith & business communities learn how to experience healthy, healing grief.
©Karen Nicola 2022
