“Grieving is as natural as crying when you are hurt,
sleeping when you are tired,
eating when you are hungry,
or sneezing when your nose itches.
It is nature’s way of healing a broken heart.”
Doug Manning (1979)
We associate grief with the feeling that invades us after someone’s death. But grief can result from other types of losses…
…the loss of our peace of mind and our sense of security, like what many of us felt when the war started in Ukraine.
…or the loss of a friend. Sometimes, losing a friend is not necessarily losing him, as if he disappeared from our lives forever. It could just be a reconfiguration of the relationship, which is no longer what it was, and that could be enough for us to feel mourning.
…or a divorce, the loss of a job, of health, of a home, of something that was important to us.
Other times, we may feel grief when we lose a part of ourselves. Joseph Campbell said that we have to continually die and that this is fundamental to our growth and self-realization (and, damn, I had to insert Maslow here to act smart).
Anyway… What I want to say is that we can feel grief in different ways.
And we have the right to feel sadness about what has changed and was, in some way, good or comfortable in our lives.
Often, people around us react with typical toxic positivity when we try to express our sadness after losing something.
They say:
Nevermind, it’s over [pat on the back],
or take your hand off your chin, don’t think about it anymore (thanks for that, Jorge Palma),
or sorrows do not pay debts.
What I think is important to say about grief is this: we really have to feel it, and go through it.
In this journey, the bravest thing we can do is give ourselves permission to experience all the emotions that come with it. And validate them:
feeling this is shit,
I am in a moment of suffering.
And we can even say quietly to ourselves:
I’m sorry you’re going through this.
This does not imply that we should fold our arms and do nothing to feel better (I suggest some exercises below). What I’m arguing is that we don’t get around or bypass our suffering. We walked through it.
And it always helps me to recognize these two unequivocal truths:
1) suffering is part of our human condition,
It is
2) tomorrow the sun will shine again.
“Do you accept a mourning prescription?”
If you are currently in a situation of grief and mourning, here is a helpful exercise you can try. It’s called a “grief prescription.” In the same way that a doctor prescribes medicine, you can prescribe yourself a specific space and time to deal with your feelings.
Step 1: Select an expressive activity that makes sense to you: it could be writing in a diary, making a drawing, recreating memories. The objective is that, during this activity, they allow themselves to experience all the thoughts and emotions associated with the situation. They can vary and try different activities on different days.
Step 2: Choose a time and space for this exercise and set aside 30 to 45 minutes. This time should be yours alone. Choose a quiet place (your home, for example) where you won’t be interrupted.
Step 3: Make a commitment to continue with the exercise. They may think that 45 minutes of experiencing difficult thoughts or emotions is pure masochism. But reframe it this way: in the remaining 23 hours and 15 minutes of your day, your emotions will be at their most calm. And the control will always be in your hands: if you feel overwhelmed, you can always decide to stop and do it another day.
If you choose to write and need a release, you can start writing with one of the following phrases (you can use them on different days):
Today, I remembered…
If I could tell you something, I would tell you that….
The worst moment of the day is…
One of the things I miss most is…
In addition to sadness, I feel…
A quote that expresses what I’m feeling right now is…
Additionally, you can use the writing examples below to try a different approach:
List a list of activities they can do to feel better;
Identify your support system: who are the people you can lean on, who can help you or have helped you in difficult times;
Create a phrase that comforts them and that they can turn to in moments when they feel saddest/bereaved.
If these exercises are helpful to you, please share back your thoughts. I always enjoy receiving your reactions!
“When there is a big disappointment, we don’t know if it’s the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times