Do you know where to begin when you’re grieving? Most of the time, we suspect we simply wait until it hurts too much, then allow ourselves (or don’t) to burst like a dam until the tears stop applying emotional pressure. This week, we’re going to talk through how to grieve with intention when we notice all those griefs we’ve disallowed ourselves from feeling over the years.
I spent a few hours with friends this week, talking about how the experience of grief is never simple. It’s not simple in the way we express it, the way we live through it, the way we understand it. Grief is one of the most complicated experiences of life, and that’s just it – it’s also a part of life that we cannot avoid, no matter how insulated or careful we live.
But here’s where I laugh every single time someone wants to talk with me in a curious, “Tell me about your work” kind of a way. Because ultimately, I tell them, “Grief is simple, but grieving is not.” When we think about the complicated nature of grief, we begin to notice how simple it really is. We grow attached to something or someone, and when it leaves us, we lose a part of that attachment.
Not in a way that we stop caring about the thing or the person we’ve lost, but in a way that we are altered from expressing our attachment as we did before. Grief is simple in that it makes sense – of course we feel heavier emotions when something in our life changes. And grief is complex – of course we feel confused about why we’re so derailed year after year about the same loss or by each new loss as they come.
Grieving has layers. And we have no understanding of what or how we grieve until we come into a conscious awareness of grief in our lives. We can assume we’ll carry on after losing our job, resilient as ever, but can we truly know, unless we live the experience? And when we are kids, and move away from our best friends, do we understand the weight of a friendship loss then? Or does it really settle in when we’re older and we lose a friendship against our will?
Recently, I spoke with a friend who said they lost a parent, and the depth of that hurt was how they realized they’d been carrying untended grief their entire life. This is pretty common, too – we experience grief in small doses of awareness because that’s what makes sense. Our understanding of the world around us can’t just crumble; it has to be peeled back and exposed with care and intention – layer by layer.
So what can you do if you too realize you’ve been grieving for years, and are just starting to notice how deep those layers of loss are buried? It is no small thing to name our losses. But without first naming those losses, we will struggle to find the place that needs our care and intention first. Whether we are dealing with collective traumas or individual griefs, we must pull away from the comforts that keep us isolated. The armor of our ego, pretending we’re fine and strong through it all, only serves as make-believe. Can that armor make us believe we’re okay? Of course – right up until we recognize how much heavier it becomes with each new grief event.
We are called into the depths of our stories. Of who we are. Of the places we have come to fear the most simply to find that our shadows in this life are opportunities for care and compassion. When we begin to take care and offer compassion to ourselves, we learn more about who we really are. That ego self who projects a version of strength is stuck, misaligned with values that do not serve their wholeness. Stuck with values that feel familiar but not quite right.
Has that ever happened to you? A few years ago, someone very important to me but a bit removed from my personal life died. I hadn’t lost touch, but we hadn’t remained close. When they died, I felt so much conflict of wanting to honor who they were as themselves and to me, but the way I’d begun to express myself through life necessitated a different value system. The boundaries hurt, and choosing my new value set wasn’t easy. But it did give me a chance to learn what embodied boundaries feel like.
When we grieve, understanding how grief and boundary work and attunement feel in our bodies is necessary. Somatic work allows us to invite the body back into the conversation about life and loss. The body is something we cannot overlook when we consider the layers of grief – the layers held and hidden in our physical selves also deserves care and compassion.
As we develop our new awareness of care and compassion, and aim that consideration toward our physical selves, we are able to delve into the interconnectedness of our spirits as well. We are not isolated humans! But in grief work, we tend to isolate ourselves, assuming this approach returns a better result. Surely, if we can get quieter and limit the outside interference, we can sort through what ails us, right?
While this can be a helpful approach short term, ultimately, it trains us to isolate long term, too. Our work in grief must be inclusive, bringing ourselves and others toward one another in a way that feels like attunement, not just a vent session.
Those vent sessions, as cathartic as they might feel, are often the reason we can’t tolerate being with others while we grieve for more than a few minutes. It is the work of the griever to name their losses and teach others how to hold space for them, too. And it’s not fair, I’ll give you that. But if we want to heal in a way that allows us to have safety when we return to our more regularly scheduled programming, we can’t pretend a quick vent and topic change is effective.
When we share our pains, we must also develop restraint in how we share, for the sake of marking space. For silence. For reflection and compassion to settle into the conversation where we can teach our people what it means to tolerate the discomfort of grief without rushing to repair.
It is in the space of distress tolerance that our layers can peel back for care. When we recognize that distress is not permanent, that our grief is not static, and that our social support is capable of being present, we will feel the safety we need on a bone-deep level. Put another way, we feel it somatically, and can experience the security of a stable and caring relationship with ourselves – not just with others.
Humans who trust themselves are practicing attunement with the self we often struggle to know and love the most. How easy is it to criticize the hurting self within us when we don’t know much about them? We’re taught culturally to dismiss and move along quickly so as to keep productivity and efficiency front and center. But for those of us who grieve, we also know that mode of living just does not serve any longer.
This is it. This is the chance you have to stop performing your life and start embodying it. Even the hardest parts where grief is buried deeper than you suspect. Let yourself explore what you are carrying. Let yourself confess the layers of loss – if only to yourself in a mirror.
When you face yourself – your harshest critic – with curiosity and compassion, the care begins to surface. Naturally, you are drawn toward the parts of you who need you the most: Those younger parts, left to grieve on their own. Those scared parts, trying their best to create safety with outdated tools and strategies. You are the person you needed when you were younger, and while again, that isn’t fair, it’s also the start of creating conversation about who else and what else you need now as you continue the intentional work of peeling back your layers to make way for healing.
Thank you for listening to episode 198 of Restorative Grief. This project of grief work through my adult life is only a “project” in name to make it sound less ongoing and more manageable! It might seem silly, but it also makes the work less intimidating. If you’re feeling intimidated by all the possible layers of loss in your life, you’re not alone. This is a great time to consider joining the Restorative Grief Project, my free online coaching group. It’s lowkey and low engagement, meaning you can simply see the prompts and reflect as you feel drawn.
If this is your first time listening to the podcast, thank you for being here. This is perfect moment for you to hit that subscribe button and to leave a five star review so other grievers can find this resource, too. Thank you as always to the patrons of our show; if you’re interested in workbooks for each episode and bonus monthly podcasts, you can become a Patron for as little as $4 a month. And as always, before we go, one last thing. Please remember, the only solution for grief is to do the work of grieving. Thanks for listening. I’ll see you next week.
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