In the West we have this cultural expression of “good grief!” that I find rather funny considering the many “bad” associations with the experience of grieving. As I mature in my own understanding of grief, layered upon by my own experiences with it, I have come to view it as the other side of a coin with love. Combined, the two might amount to the most complex pair of emotions that tether us all together in the human condition, or sometimes pull us apart.
Why the Bad Rap?
These “bad” associations with grief that I refer to are ones that come to my mind readily on the subject. Associations of pain, sorrow & depression, death & loss are easy for me to call “negative”, and surely I wouldn’t wish to inflict them on anyone. At the same time, I find myself wondering: What’s so bad about those feelings, after all? They happen to be unavoidable and natural parts of any lifecycle, so why am I so quick to reject the idea that grief can be good while encompassing them? The answer might lie within our cultural norms.
We’re told about each of these:
Pain
“We all go through pain”
“it makes us stronger
“it’s weakness leaving the body”
“it could be worse”
“toughen up”
“Medicate it”
“numb it”
Sorrow & Depression
Death & Loss
In my opinion, Western cultural pressures cloud our shared perspective of “negative” feelings, giving a sense that these emotions and experiences of pain, loss, and longing are intrinsically bad. Most of our knee-jerk responses to these experiences, especially with strangers, are an attempt to coax, dampen, or dismiss them for handling privately or by a doctor. A #traumainformed perspective tells us this is a shut-down response in our own nervous systems. Knowing that our pain upsets others often leads to rushing the process to “button it up”, hold it together”, and “move on”, as though grief abides by a schedule. Furthermore, I think that negative stigmatizing of these uncomfortable aspects of grief leads to our exhausting expense of energy to avoid them as much as possible, in thought, conversation, and action. What if, instead, we embraced the pain, sorrow, and loss for all the contrast they provide with the good stuff? After all, isn’t longing part of loving someone? Isn’t love, with all its positive associations, so often blamed for pain and suffering?
In Loving Memory
I’ll share a fond childhood memory of my late grandfather who passed away peacefully earlier this year. Sitting with him at the farmhouse kitchen table at the age of, maybe 5 or 6, I was coloring with artistic vigor. I became frustrated that my well-loved Crayola marker had limited ink remaining in its felt-tip core, slowing my efforts to saturate the page. Grampa gave me a bit of joyful and succinct advice in that moment of learning, telling me simply to, “Go slowly, to let it flow-ly.” As he repeated it slowly, allowing the concept to sink in, it became a lasting #mantra applicable to all manner of things in my life thereafter. He was full of wise and often silly one-liners like that, memorable. Today I’m still learning to “go slowly”, especially when it comes to processing sticky stuff like grief.
I used to think “grieving” was a process only for those in close proximity to death, and the loss of loved ones. I feared my first experience with death and loss as an adult because I felt unprepared; I thought I had never experienced true loss before. However, grieving itself has taught me that it surfaces tender remembrance of other sources of grief. We all contain our own wisdom of coping from experience. Feeling one loss might remind us of another time we felt loss, often adding to the sense of overwhelm. Perhaps this is a sign that our wise minds are searching for pre-established blueprints to protect our nervous-systems from activation by a familiar point of pain and suffering. That said, when I have staved off thoughts of grief before, hoping to avoid the pain, it revisited twofold later when grief came again in another form. Letting it arise when it does, as it does, actually feels good, later on. Withholding grief response leaves the way unpaved for future grieving. My experience with grief thus far in my life has taught me that it is not reserved only for death, but I associate it most with a sense of lacking control.
It Takes Practice
Practicing #mindfulness lets us watch our thoughts and notice, remembering that we have thoughts, but we are not defined by our thoughts and feelings. I find this practice especially helpful when sitting with sensations of grief. Instead of seeking distraction from uncomfortable thoughts, I work to support myself in stillness while allowing myself to recognize and name my emotions as they arise, or notice a busy-brain attempting to distract my own thoughts from the painful ones. At the same time, I work at recognizing the thoughts and patterns that bring the emotions with it, just noticing, and affirming for myself that it is OK to feel those things. The thoughts might not be in my direct control, but I find peace in knowing that I can steward them with awareness, and that I can do hard things like feeling strong emotions. I don’t know if this resonates for you, reader, but I hope something here is helpful in your own process…
Fear of feeling or expressing things like pain, sorrow, and loss might be what keeps us from cultivating a healthy process for them, even on a small scale. What coping mechanism can we give the proverbial child on the sidewalk who sobs at the sky when struck with the grief of a lost balloon? Instead of dismissing this reaction with, “stop crying, it’s just a balloon,” we might consider an extra #breath and moment’s #reflection to remember the joys of the balloon. Perhaps we could list the things we liked best about it, and the reasons that now cause sadness that it is gone. What if we held space for that loss, however small, and looked for ways to celebrate the joys of that balloon going forward? What if we cultivated hope for future encounters with other balloons that remind us of that one, or other sources of similar joys? I’d like to think this is what a practice in “good grief” might look like. Even though it may not reduce the immeasurable pain felt in grieving a loved one, it might pave the way for supporting ourselves in the process, and remembering well when the time comes.
Go Slowly
With all of this in mind, it makes sense that it can be overwhelming and isolating when we are faced with the inevitable challenges of grief through death and loss, on a much larger scale than that sky bound balloon. Shame around naming these experiences sometimes keeps us from asking for help or showing up for one another as support. If we don’t know how to channel and contain feelings of such intensity, and expend such energy avoiding them, I ask again: Why do we casually express “Good grief!” in our day-to-day life? Perhaps it’s a small, shared reminder.
I think of my “Papa Jim” when I consider our good friend, Grief, and I think he understood it well. His advice rings in my ears today as a sweet reminder to let grief be good. Go slowly to let it be felt, observed, even celebrated in the small ways it may manifest throughout life, in those grief-stricken moments where we’re tempted to complain because of something we can’t control. I can hear another saying he had, that “life is what happens while we’re busy making other plans,” and I think these moments may just be reminders of our own propensity for attachment when we were never really in control anyway. Perhaps, if we “go slowly” in observing these tiny examples, we can “let them flow-ly” into a larger understanding and capacity for grief, and love as it shows up in our lives. Perhaps if we can know our own truth about processing pain, sorrow, and loss, we can speak it gently as we support each other, and live fearlessly with the tools to show up when there are challenges of “good grief” to be met.
Comments