Grief has been a big part of my life lately. Grief can come in many forms but it’s basically mourning the loss of something or someone. I remember one of the first times I dealt with grief, I was 10 and my grandfather had passed and I saw my dad crying. I was sort of mesmerized. I had never seen my dad cry and to be honest I never really did again until my mom passed.
We didn’t really talk about grief in my house. My mom had lost her father several years before I was born and I remember her talking about it at times. She would get this far away look and she would tell me little stories about him. Often, she would smile while telling me, but it was one of those wistful smiles, a happy memory but one that is mixed with sadness.
When she would tell me the story of his passing it was always with sadness and guilt. She had been pregnant with my sister at the time and he was in the hospital in a pretty dire situation. Back then, many medical procedures were still new and risky. She had gone home to clean up, at the insistence of others, and he had passed while she was away. You could tell she had never forgiven herself for what she evidently deemed an unforgiveable act.
I get that, but perhaps there was a reason she wasn’t supposed to be there. I know for me, I’m kind of glad I wasn’t with my loved one, namely her. It allowed me better memories to keep as I moved forward. But for the caregiver in her and for the daughter that was close to her father, it was hard to let go.
My mom was my rock. She was my friend. She was the family glue. She took us through our first journey with cancer and all the lovely things that come with it. When she passed, I felt gutted. I remember thinking I finally understood what people meant when they would use the phrase “waves of grief”. There were times it would come and literally knock my knees out from under me like a wave in the ocean can do.
According to psychology type people, there are 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
After my mom passed, people would often take particular joy in telling me about these stages and which one I must be in. It was odd, yet comforting. Having a name for it, made it easier to process. It also made me feel like there was an end to the hell. That when I reached that final stage and made my way through it, I would be done. This had to be the illusive “time heals all wounds” thing everyone was talking about it.
If only that had been true. No one told me that you will go through these stages all your life. You my run them all in a matter of minutes. You may just have one hit you at any given moment. Grief and healing are not a linear experience.
When I started figuring that out, to me the “waves of grief” statement took on a new meaning. The waves can be different sizes and effect you differently and they come throughout your life. For me, more often than not, they came without warning and took my knees out again.
And of course, there was also no end. But time did change the emotions. There were times that the intensity of the grief changed, but there are others when mom could have passed yesterday.
One of the biggest reasons for that new wave? Triggers happen. Trauma triggers. Those are fun. Are you familiar with the antiseptic smell in a hospital? I remember the first time I walked in a hospital after she passed and the smell hit me. I crossed the threshold and stopped. My poor husband was behind me and ran right into me! I was frozen in place and apparently turning green, and was not completely sure whether I needed to find a bathroom or trash can post haste. He gently pushed me through the door and guided me where we needed to go. At the time I didn’t even know what a trigger was and just did all I knew to do and that was push forward. Even if it was in a fog.
People also don’t tell you how often grief will be a part of your life. A few years after mom, I later lost my sister and then my dad to cancer. And various aunts and uncles along the way as well. For a while there I wondered not when it would end but, if it would end.
And every time, those same stages would come with varying intensities.
How often have you experienced that same grief over the loss of something else, like a job? Or a friend?
They can throw you for a loop quickly. Some of it for me was comfort zones. For the jobs. I fell into a comfort zone and suddenly it was gone with the job loss.
I’ve lost friends and relationships that were like family. Those cut deep. It’s one thing to have a someone you love no longer here and therefore unable to love you on Earth but its quite another to have someone down the street and know they just don’t want you anymore. Now you are adding some betrayal in there with the grief.
I digress, the point is, there are many things in your life that can trigger the emotion of grief.
It can be as simple as losing a car. That first car that you had for years and it just finally gave it up or became more expensive than it was worth. A breakup can do it. A child moving away can trigger grief from that separation.
Grief takes many forms and everyone handles it differently. The stages don’t change, just how the person reacts to it.
You have to consider what the grief triggered. Loss and death are fairly obvious, but it can also bring up feelings of abandonment. I have health issues and that can often trigger those feelings again as I wonder if it’s something hereditary.
If it’s a lost relationship, feelings of being unworthy will undoubtably surface. The “I’m not good enough” feelings. The “I’m not worthy of their love” is a popular one as well.
The work to get past those triggers is important. And that may not even be a reasonable solution. First you have to identify the trigger then understand how to address it.
What are some ways you can do this work?
- Mindset work where you reprogram your “I am not good/worthy” feelings to affirmations help. This is where you learn to love yourself and everything about you.
I have a side note with this. I have also done work with an astrologist and a human design expert. This gave me insight into how I’m wired and why I do things the way I do. This is not to make an excuse. This knowledge can help you operate at your highest capacity. You start to recognize things about yourself so those triggers start to really make sense. How you handle your job and co-workers makes sense. You may discover that one reason you aren’t operating at your highest is you aren’t in a job that suits you and the way you are wired. This is one I never would have thought of before, but it is invaluable to learning who I am and why I am fabulous!
- Learning to recognize your victim mentality. Do you find yourself making excuses or blaming others? I did this a lot. I was planted in the comfort zone of being a victim. When I started to see it, I was able to turn that way of thinking to positive as well. To take responsibility for my own actions. I wanted a business. I had to stop blaming having no time. I had to accept the choices I made on how I spent my time and be realistic about what I could do with a full time job. I had to set realistic goals and then action items to reach those goals. That went for business or life or relationships. I had to learn to look at myself first, identify the issue and then address it honestly.
- The other thing I had to do was learn to recognize when it wasn’t me. I had to learnwhen the feelings of others was their projections onto me. It wasn’t that I wasn’t enough. They had those feelings about themselves and would either put others down to make themselves feel better or call themselves helping when all the time they were ones that needed the growth.
Now not to say there weren’t things to learn for myself as well, but taking the time to recognize what was happening created a huge change in my attitude and outlook. Again, I identified the problem and determined if it was me or them. If it’s me, I can adjust. If its them, I have to bless and release. This isn’t my issue to bear.
- One more was triggers. Things from my past come back all the time. So do old reactions to things that happened before. Some are literal trauma responses. Again, identifying the issue and then working on that solution. The trigger is abandonment… why? Was it back to feeling not good enough? We talked about that one already! Like I said, triggers can come in a variety of forms – recognizing it is the first step.
- The loss in death was always harder, at least for me. Some of these other things we can have at least some control with, but with death you can’t.
I still found myself having to identify where I was angry, the core of the emotion and sometimes I have to just sit with it. I have to let it pass through me and let it run its course so to speak. Sometimes allowing grief to wash through in that way can be very cleansing. It can take the energy of those emotions and let them start to fall away.
Working with a coach is a great way to work through some of the things. Mindset especially. But there may be more that needs to happen. A counselor, psychiatrist, or psychologist may be necessary. Some wounds and traumas go deep and need deeper help. Some coaches are equipped for that, I have a friend who is a counselor and does both. Some, however, aren’t.
I’ll be honest, I think a lot of this road is acknowledging you need help and then having the courage to ask for it. Having the courage to speak and be vulnerable. That is a huge first step all by itself. The inner work can be hard and painful. Holding a mirror up to yourself is not always the most fun thing, but when you start to really love who’s looking back at you, your life will change. The grief of letting go of you the old you… the one that doesn’t work for you anymore… that is grief worth going through. I’ve cried many tears with a coach in my life, but the result is so freeing and worth every tear.
Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.