3 ways we avoid our grief--and why it's not working
Were you taught how to be with your sad feelings? Did anyone model it for you? I'm guessing not.
Live in the Chicagoland area?
I’ll be at the Annual Printer’s Row Lit Fest, the largest free outdoor literary event in the Midwest, tomorrow (Sept. 5) selling copies of all my books, including the latest one (above). I’d love to see you if you’re in the area! Come, say hello.
One of my daughter’s closest friends is currently in hospice care.
I feel so much grief around this, and yet my heart is warmed by the gifts that surround her. Her beloved community is rallying around her in such beautiful, compassionate ways. People signing up to stay the night with her. Her favorite snacks and drinks filling the space. Color and texture and art and photographs adorn the room.
Even when there’s so much to grieve, these young people are being bold and brave and bountiful. That’s what’s possible when we fully embrace what’s happening.
Unfortunately, grief and loss are realities many people want to run from. If you’re one of those people, I want you to know that it’s not your fault.
You’re not doing grief wrong.
You were never taught how to meet your grief.
You’ve simply been taught to push against bad feelings instead of opening the door and letting them in.
Give yourself some grace. Pour yourself a cup of coffee. Take a couple of slow, deep breaths. Let’s talk about it.
As a culture we’re grief-illiterate. Many of us don’t have the emotional vocabulary to name what we’re feeling. That’s not an accident. We were raised by parents who belonged to a generation where survival was the highest purpose.
There were meals to be cooked, fruits to be canned, clothes to be scrubbed by hand, chickens to be raised for eggs and meat, and vegetable gardens to be tended to. No one had time for feelings.
If you as a child were crying, they had to find the quickest way to shush you—so they could get on with their never-ending list of chores. So they said: “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about” or “Don’t be so sensitive.”
Ouch.
Yes, that hurt. But it also taught you to shut down your feelings, stay quiet, and not be a big bother to your hardworking parents. And you carried this programming into your adult life believing that was the way to feeling in control.
That programming doesn’t vanish. It springs to life when we meet loss on our human journey—and we don’t know how to be, what to do, where to go.
Here are 3 ways in which we try to manage our grief—and why it doesn’t work.
Avoidance #1: Numb it with wine, chocolate, Netflix…
Medicating our pain numbs it in the moment. But grief isn’t the same as toothache. Our pain won’t disappear as the days and weeks and months roll by—if we don’t face it and deal with it. Grief is the best stalker I know. It waits patiently.
Pushing grief down is like trying to hold a beach ball under water. At some point our hands will grow tired, our grip slackens, and the ball bobs to the surface of the water.
In the same way, trying to numb grief is exhausting. Not all the wine and chocolate in the world is enough to numb it.
Feeling your feelings is, by no means, a walk in the park. I remember endless tears pouring out of me in the weeks and months after my mother died and my husband’s question: “Haven’t you cried enough?”
His insensitivity hurt me AND also it felt as if I an ocean of tears to cry.
If ‘numbing’ is how you’ve been trying to manage your grief, gently explore the question: What am I afraid of feeling?
Avoidance #2: Trying to figure it out vs feeling it
The mind is always looking for a way out. It’s looking for a solution, a story, an answer to a problem or a struggle.
When we’re grieving, we ask our mind: Why is this happening? How can I make it go away? Could I have done anything differently?
The mind is great at problem-solving. But grief isn’t a problem to solve. Grief is an experience to be felt.
Grief is held in the body and needs to be felt in the body, not up in the head.
What does that look like? Crying. Breathing. Feeding yourself in all the ways that feel nourishing. Moving. Making art.
As long as we’re trying to “figure it out” we’ll be stuck in our heads with no escape route. When we allow ourselves to feel, grief can find a way out. It can find release.
If ‘figuring it out’ is how you’ve been trying to manage your grief, gently explore these questions: Where in my body do I carry the weight of grief? Can I give myself permission to feel it?
Avoidance #3: Staying Busy
This is perhaps our most favorite way to try to beat grief.
Distract, distract, distract away from sadness. Just keep doing, doing, doing. The belief is that days will roll into weeks and months and grief will simply fade away like an old watercolor painting.
Sadly, this strategy doesn’t work as my clients—who have tried to avoid grief through busyness and failed—will testify. I’ve supported a number of clients who have had to face their grief ten, twelve, even fifteen years after the event happened.
Grief is a patient stalker. It waits for as long as it needs to.
Staying busy is just a matter of delaying the grief experience—because someday our grief will force us to face it.
Here’s another downside of shutting down. When we shut down what we need to feel, grief trips us up when we least expect it to. Something trivial triggers a big emotional reaction in us. Maybe a car cuts in front and we lose it. And then wonder: Wow. Why did that get me in such a crazy way??
Or, we feel numb to much of what’s going on in our lives: the joys and the sorrows. Compartmentalizing grief minimizes our capacity for joy, wonder, and curiosity. We walk through our lives covered in bubble-wrap.
If ‘staying busy’ is how you’ve been trying to manage your grief, gently explore the question: What am I afraid of feeling if I stop and allow myself to feel?
Grief is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. It takes stamina and staying power. If you need some support and gentle guidance, please check out these offerings. Or forward this newsletter to someone who needs it.
With deep care,
Uma