What To Do With Grief
There comes a time when you realize that grief is now a part of your life. You know you’re sad. You know something’s off. You feel lonely. You also feel lots of other things.
You’re grieving but now what? What do you do with all this stuff going on inside of you?
Many people think they have to go through the stages of grief. They think they have to follow a path of first feeling shock or denial, then feeling angry, that they should bargain their feelings, get depressed, and then finally accept their loss.
Expecting yourself to naturally move through the stages of grief can be troublesome and could cause more pain. You may think that you’re grieving wrong if you find yourself skipping a stage. Or you may force yourself into setting unreasonable time limits for important aspects of your grief, limiting you from an authentic mourning experience.
But it makes sense if you would rely on the stages of grief as a roadmap or playbook for your process. If you didn’t, what else would you do to grieve in a way that best serves you?
I wish I could say the answer was universal and everyone could follow the same grief recovery protocol. However, grief is unique to everyone who encounters it. Your grief journey is like no other and the exact things you will need to grieve will be different from the people close to you- such as your partner, sibling, friend, parent, or child.
But there are some guidelines for your own grief journey that can provide you a customized road map. This will help you know what to do with your grief. Think of the guidelines as resources or options that can be accessed when needed.
However, know that you make the rules for your grief. Only you truly know where to go, what to do, and what will best serve you.
Begin with acknowledging that grief needs to be expressed. Grief will create a lot of feelings. Some of these include sadness, hopelessness, guilt, loneliness, anger, depression, and/or confusion. This can feel quite heavy inside your heart or body and finding ways to express these feelings will help.
One of the common ways to express heavy emotions is to cry. You may find the need to cry for days, weeks, or even months. You may get to a point where you tell yourself that you’re done with all the crying and you’re over it. However, you’re really not. There’s still more tears. There’s still more to express.
If you find yourself in a situation like this, give yourself permission to continue the process. Set time aside to cry. Create a sacred space to express the feelings associated with the tears. Let things happen naturally. Just show up to the feelings and let them flow.
Speaking of setting time aside to cry, it’s important to make time for all of your grief. I see too many people stuff their emotions to show the world (but really only themselves) that they’re fine and that they’ve moved on with life. I can see why this can be desirable but I also see how it complicates matters for the grieving process. Forcing yourself to move on often gets you stuck. But you don’t know that you’re stuck because you’re feeling so much fatigue or exhaustion.
Make time for your grief. Schedule time to be with the feelings. During this time, play soft music, journal, or walk in nature. Make art. Play an instrument. Do whatever you can to let these feelings move through you.
You may find solace in the support from someone you know. Talking about your grief is quite helpful. After all, we are social creatures. There are numerous grief support groups that are easy to join. You can also talk to a grief counselor. They may serve as a good sounding board to reflect back to you many of the emotions involved in your grief journey.
Grief may cause you to serve others. You may feel called to start a cause, organization, or business. I know of dozens of people who have created non-profit foundations to help others with loss. These organizations are very special. They are strong and meaningful communities that offer a lot of support to someone who is grieving.
As an example, I have a colleague who lost her son to opioid addiction. Eric was her first son and was a tremendous role model to his younger brother. When Eric passed, his family was pretty devastated for quite a while. They were heart broken.
Each of the family members did what they could to express their feelings of grief. Eric’s mom, Marieanne, felt a calling to honor her late son and also serve others who grieve the loss of a loved one by suicide and/or substance abuse addiction. Marianne started the non-profit Eric’s house in Paradise Valley, AZ.
Grief has a mysterious way of creating a calling to do good. Is there something of service you feel called to do for others pained by grief? If so, let your grief be a guide and source of inspiration. Honor your loved one by doing something helpful for others.
One of the more important things to do with your grief is to share your story. Sharing your story means communicating your grief experience to others. You don’t have to write it- like in a book format, nor does it need to be memorized. Your grief story is ongoing and always evolving.
You can share your story socially with friends who are good listeners. You can share your story with family members. Support groups are also good places to share your grief story. Some people even submit their stories to news publications or other media outlets.
Sharing your story helps validate your feelings. It helps you normalize your grief and the way life is now, after your loss. It may even help to feel more accepted and less like a grief outcast. There is something very powerful about the telling and retelling of your story.
Somewhat related to the stages of grief mentioned earlier, Dr. Alan Wolfelt has created the Six Needs of Mourning. They help further define a set of guidelines to help you know what to do with grief. These needs of mourning include:
- Acknowledging the reality of the death. This involves gently confronting the reality that someone you care about will never physically come back into your life again.
- Embrace the pain of the loss. It is easier to avoid, repress, or deny the pain of grief than it is to confront it, yet it is in confronting our pain that we learn to reconcile ourselves to it.
- Remember the person who had died. This need of mourning involves allowing and encouraging yourself to pursue the relationship through memories, dreams, and physical objects that link you to them.
- Develop a new self-identity. You confront your changed identity every time you do something that used to be done by the person who died.
- Search for meaning. When someone you love dies, you naturally question the meaning and purpose of life.
- Receive ongoing support from others. Because mourning is a process that takes place over time, this support must be available months and even years after the death of someone in your life.
These needs of mourning are not really stages you will go through. They are more intended as principles to understand and live from- while on your grief journey, as well as things to look out for. They also provide some action items, or things to do, to help you grieve in natural and healthy ways.
It’s easy to get caught up with a “go” mentality for grief. On the contrary, one of the best things to do when feeling grief is to slow down. Slowing down helps you discover previously unknown gifts from the silence. You may find yourself more in touch with your heart, which may hurt at times, but may also feel sacred, enriching, and enlivening. Being in your heart helps you feel the awe of life.
Hopefully by now you’re thinking that although there’s many things to do with grief, there isn’t an exact protocol to follow. Grief is complicated and doesn’t really work with steps or stages that are to be followed to a T. Yet, by doing some things like making time and space to express feelings, sharing your story, and doing things to honor your special loved one will all help. It may feel like a very long time to feel better again but that’s okay. Grief is always about the journey and never about the destination.
Reid Peterson is the Creator of the Grief Refuge app. Grief Refuge is a daily companion to help support people on the grief journey. Download for free on iOS or Android to get daily support.
