Good Grief
In the Catholic tradition, today – November 2 – is celebrated as All Souls Day, a special day to remember and pray for all those who have died. It’s a feast that I didn’t pay much attention to when I was younger – let’s face it, I was probably too distracted by the delights of my Halloween candy. And luckily for me, I didn’t experience any significant losses as a child.
That changes as we age, doesn’t it?
Death is a part of life
I guess the older we get, the more grief and loss we get to experience. That’s certainly been my experience. And I’ve watched so many others face the reality of losing loved ones – more and more each year, it seems. So I thought it might be appropriate to take a cue from All Souls Day and reflect on loss, grief, and mourning.
After all, I’m a life coach, and while it might sound pithy or punny, it really is true that dealing with death is a part of life. An important, tender, profound part.
Let me say from the outset that I am not a grief counselor, nor a therapist. But I am someone who has experienced deep grief and who has walked with others through grief. That doesn’t make me an expert, but it does open my heart to understanding and compassion.
Drowning in grief
Through the first 8 months of 2018, I experienced the death of three significant loved ones, as well as other relationship losses and major stressors at work. By the autumn of that year, I was drowning in grief.
I needed to learn to mourn in order to begin to heal.
Grief is what we think and feel on the inside when we experience a loss. Mourning is the outward expression of those thoughts and feelings. Mourning helps us to be active participants in our grief journeys instead of passive witnesses.
A life preserver
I learned about the difference between grieving and mourning from a book that came to be a helpful companion in my long and difficult journey: Understanding Your Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart by Dr. Alan D. Wolfelt. (I also deeply appreciated the guided journal that pairs with it.)
I know that not everyone will find a book and journal helpful in the midst of grief. In fact, I had been gifted the book early in 2018, but it was many months before I even had the desire and energy to open it. I’m glad that I finally did. That book helped me make sense of what I was experiencing, and the journal provided a safe space for me to begin to express it.
Dr. Wolfelt shares “ten touchstones” which are basic principles to learn and actions to take to help yourself engage with your grief and create momentum toward healing.
I appreciate that they are not stages or phases – because I so often felt like I was “going backward.” These touchstones won’t be – and don’t have to be – addressed in any particular order, and we often come back to some of them again and again throughout the journey.
I also appreciate that while the touchstones aren’t a “checklist towards completion” of a grief journey, they do include some “work” that I could do to be an active participant in my grief journey.
There is so much goodness and value in this book; I won’t try to summarize all of it. But I’d like to highlight one section that was particularly helpful for me.
Touchstone 3: Embrace the Uniqueness of Your Grief
I struggled with so many aspects of grief and mourning, but one particular challenge I created for myself was minimizing my experience by reminding myself of all the other people who had experienced similar losses.
Touchstone 3 helped me realize that in order to heal, I needed to honor the unique experience I was having as I grieved EACH of my losses, and ALL of my losses collectively.
Dr. Wolfelt provides twelve reasons why our grief is unique:
Your relationship with the person who died
The circumstances of the death
The ritual or funeral experience
The people in your life
Your unique personality
The unique personality of the person who died
Your gender
Your cultural background
Your religious or spiritual background
Other crises or stressors in your life right now
Your experience with loss and death in the past
Your physical health
As I journaled through the many questions for each of these “12 why’s” I could feel my grief shifting. Giving myself permission to honestly write about my loved ones, our relationships, the love we’d shared, my own background, the other things in my life that were complicating the grief was an important step for me.
But I’ll be honest – when I say the grief shifted, I don’t mean that it lessened or lifted. In fact, honoring the uniqueness of my grief opened up more emotion, deeper hurt, and stronger pain. I’m sure that sounds “bad.” It certainly didn’t feel good. But as I look back now, I see that it was good. It was necessary. It was mourning. It was a first, tiny step toward healing.
Strength for the journey
If you’ve made it through the most intense periods of a journey with grief, I commend you. If you’re one of the lucky ones who’s not yet traveled this path, perhaps you’ll take away some nugget from this reflection that will help to guide or sustain you when it’s your turn. If you’re in the thick of it now, I offer my compassion and genuine support.
Touchstone 8 is “Reach out for help.” It’s an important one. Whether you’re reaching out to a family member, a friend, a support group, or a helping professional, it’s important to seek out and receive support. Especially now. The calendar has turned to November, and with the holidays approaching, this is often a challenging time of year for those who are swimming in grief. (It was for me; sometimes still is.)
Sometimes coaching is a good modality for support. As a life coach, it’s been a humbling privilege to walk with others as they carry the weight of grief and learn to mourn. Other times, I might need to offer a referral to a licensed therapist who can provide a different level of care. If you’re carrying grief and aren’t sure where to turn, know that I’m available for at least an initial conversation to offer support and a perspective on what kind of help might be best.
A final prayer
My prayer for you: On this All Souls Day, may you be reminded of and comforted by the love that unites you with your loved ones. May you be strengthened as you befriend your grief, learn to mourn, and slowly step toward healing. And may you be assured that as you engage in this essential but often painful work, you are held and loved by the One who loved you into being and will never abandon you.