I am well into my third cup of coffee this morning. My kiddo has been sick the last few days so I have needed a little more pick me up in the morning.
But with my third cup, let’s talk about grieving.
Most associate grieving with death and dying. I want to expand that concept.
Grieving is not just for death and dying.
Grieving is for any sort of loss.
Loss of a relationship
-a job
-a dream
-even loss of who we wanted or expected to be
All of these can be grieved and quite honestly, should be grieved.
If you don’t take time to mark loss in life, we risk dismissing intimate parts of ourselves.
Let me draw an analogy from my own life.
I lost my mother to breast cancer about seven years ago. It was a terrible and sad time for everyone as her death was somewhat unexpected. It is still sad and sometimes terrible to live without such an amazing woman.
Many people during this time said “comforting things” like, “she’s in a better place now,” or “she had such a good life.” These statements came from such good intended people, but their words failed to connect with the loss I felt. I didn’t want people to somehow “make it better.” In my mind, it will never be okay to lose a mom, however old you are.
With this analogy, I would like to connect back to the loss we experience in daily life, dreams, relationships and jobs. A step in grieving might not be finding the bright side of the sad thing. Grieving may sound a bit more like…
It’s miserable to lose what I thought was going to be a long relationship, I hate that I am experiencing this.
or
Losing the job I wanted is devastating.
or
It will never be the same without my brother here.
or
It’s sad to me that I am not where I thought I would be in life by now.
Instead of dismissing the loss, let’s work on walking through the loss, embracing it and taking part of it. When we avoid dismissing the loss we are able to put down a mental marker. That mental marker acknowledges loss and creates time and space to grieve.
Clarify:
Creating space and time to grieve does not give us permission to stay sad and depressed for forever. What it does is give you space and time to grieve and acknowledge loss.
In taking time to acknowledge grief, the problem we are fixing is the process of: “Let’s get through all the steps of grieving real quick so we can get over this.”
Grief is not linear. Grief is a messy, sometimes it is a circular and redundant process.
What can grieving do for you?
Grieving is an emotionally helpful and healthy process. Grieving will enable us to be emotionally healthy.
Grieving loss helps us believe we have gone through some sort of “rite of passage.”
Grieving and acknowledging loss can be symbolic and bring closure to our life.
Similar to a funeral when someone has passed, by participating in the ritual of a funeral, one is able to acknowledge loss and create emotional closure. This is a similar concept in acknowledging other loss in our life.
My encouragement is to embrace loss of any sort. I give you permission to take the time you need to acknowledge loss in your life and to not dismiss this part of you. Further, I encourage you to create a mental marker of time and space where you allow yourself to go through rituals that help you grieve.
Expand your view of grieving and give yourself time to grieve the lost parts of your life.
My coffee cup is empty : (
Next week, we will move to a series on anxiety.
Mental Health & Journaling 
Gews