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Grieving Loss and Change

When faced with a painful loss, people often hear that they're supposed to grieve. But most people are unclear about why it is important to grieve and what in the world are you supposed to do? What does grieving look like? They have many questions– "What good does it do to cry or to talk about it, that doesn't change anything!” "I’m afraid that if I allow myself to feel my sadness it will be overwhelming, will I ever stop crying?” "It’s been too long. Shouldn’t I be over it by now?" "Everyone tells me I should just move on with my life!" “If enough time passes, won’t I get over it?”

Grieving is hard enough without the doubts. Let's look at why it is important to grieve, and what grieving often looks like. It's important to know that although there are similarities in how people grieve, it is also a very personal and individual experience and each person's process will be different. How grief is expressed and how long the grieving continues depends very much on each person's personality and the relationship they had with the person or thing that was lost.

People may not realize that many types of loss can cause painful feelings that need to be grieved. In addition to losing a loved one, losing a job, a relationship, loss of health due to illness or disabling conditions, having a miscarriage, even the loss of a beloved pet, can all have enormous significance in our lives and cause feelings that we need to express by grieving. Grieving is really the process of becoming able to tolerate our pain so that we can face the reality of our loss and gradually come to understand it, adjust to it, and finally accept it.

Grieving serves an important purpose in helping us adjust emotionally to a painful change in our lives. Let's look at how this happens by examining what you experience after a loss and what are the emotional tasks you need to complete to move successfully through your grief process.

The Tasks of Grieving

Right after a loss

• you struggle to understand and face the truth of your loss. Your initial instinct is to resist accepting your loss – "No, it can't be!" but your task is to gradually face the reality that your loved one is truly gone, the job is really over, this new illness or disability has really happened to you. You accomplish this task by experiencing your loss day after day in different ways. Your loved one is still not there, or you still don't go to the job, or you continue to face the reality of your illness or change in ability, and as you experience these losses over and over in different ways, you gradually move this knowledge from your head to your heart and come to emotionally accept the reality and permanence of the loss.

Some time after the loss

• as you accept the permanence of the loss you will find you need to deal with the many ways the loss has changed your life . If you have lost a loved one, you need to relinquish your old relationship with them, letting go of the many ways you connected, modifying the many familiar habits and routines you had with the person. You must accept that they are gone and that you now relate to their memory instead of their presence. If you are dealing with another type of loss, how has that changed your life, affected your functioning, your habits and routines? Are there other related losses that you experience?
• You must also form your new identity. How are you changed by your loss? Does the loss of a loved one mean the loss of your role as parent or partner? Does the loss of a job change your professional identity? How do you define yourself now?

Finally….

• Doing this emotional work successfully is the best way to prepare yourself to re-engage with life. You will eventually find that your energy and attention will no longer be focused on the past, but will be more focused now on the present and future. You will feel new energy and interest in activities, and be open to new relationships.

Obstacles to Grieving
Dealing with the pain. Opening to the pain of grieving takes courage. We may resist allowing ourselves to give in to grieving because facing the feelings is so painful. It is especially difficult if we do not have people around us who are willing to help and support us in our grief. The intensity of our grief can often make us feel crazy and out of control, which can be scary. It is important to know that these are normal reactions to loss. Normal reactions to a loss include:

• crying,
• being distracted,
• having difficulty remembering things,
• feeling unable to make decisions,
• feeling unsure or insecure,
• having feelings of anger at being singled out by loss, or guilt that you couldn't prevent it
• having little energy, feeling tired

All these feelings are very common reactions to a loss, but can be distressing and uncomfortable. It is important to understand that these experiences are related to our grief and that as we heal we will return to our normal functioning.

Allowing the time we need. Doing the tasks listed above requires time and space to grieve, and often finding these is difficult. People may feel that opening to grief will disable them and that their responsibilities will not allow this. They may have obligations that don’t allow them time to be alone with their feelings. Well meaning friends may urge them to “keep busy” or to not “dwell on it”. They may urge the grieving person to “get on with their lives.” But people cannot really move on with their life successfully until they have finished grieving their loss.

Not understanding the importance of “the work” of grieving. Grieving is "work" in the sense that it takes up much time and energy. Grieving means being able to talk about your loss, talk about what happened, about memories; what you miss, and your pain, anger and despair. Talking about all these things over and over is how we come to acknowledgement and finally acceptance. We must allow ourselves to express all the painful feelings we have inside us, to cry, rage at the unfairness, express and work through any feelings of anger, guilt, frustration, or fear that, in addition to sadness and despair, often haunt the bereaved. Expressing these feelings so that they gradually lose their power is what enables us to heal. With healing comes the ability to think of our loss without the pain (if we lost a loved one, to remember our loved one fondly, think of the memories, look at the pictures with a sense of peace) and to move forward with our lives.

For people who find it difficult to talk about their feelings, they may find solace in writing about their feelings (see my article on journaling) or thinking about their loss and their feelings on long walks in nature or other soothing settings. Exercise can help us work through feelings of anger and frustration. For those who have a spiritual community and traditions, these may be helpful in providing the support needed to do the work of grieving. What is important is that you make adequate time and find opportunities to face and express your painful feelings. If you do, these feelings will gradually become more tolerable. The way people grieve will vary, as will the time it takes to heal from the loss. For some, it may take months, for others a year or more. Healing does not mean forgetting or that the person will not remain important in your life. It does mean that you find a way to continue living a meaningful life despite your loss.

One cannot grieve 24 hours a day. As you feel ready, you may wish to return to work and other activities. Having fun is important, and finding things you enjoy or that make you laugh is not disloyal to your loved one, and helps to restore your energy. However, distracting ourselves, so that we don't feel the pain at all is not healthy because, although temporarily dulled, the presence and pain of loss does not go away on its own. If we try to push the loss to the side unacknowledged, we will find that we must limit our lives to keep from thinking of our loss. We must constantly be on guard so that something unexpected doesn't suddenly remind us of our loss and our pain. We may numb ourselves to avoid feeling pain, but this will affect all our feelings. We may not feel pain, but we may not feel real joy either. It is painful in the short run to face loss and grieve, but there is a big long-term benefit. Grieving, as we need to, enables us eventually to return to and live our lives fully.

Why Might I Need Therapy To Help with My Grief?
Therapy can be helpful for people who are struggling with their grieving process. It is sometimes difficult to find time and space for grief in our busy lives. Therapy can provide a safe and secure place for people to bring their grief, especially if they are afraid that if they allow themselves to really open to their feelings they will be overwhelmed. People may feel that they need someone other than family and friends to talk to, someone who has not been affected by the grief themselves, someone who can reassure them that their feelings are appropriate. Sometimes people come to a therapist for help when they know they are feeling sad, but are having difficulty allowing themselves to feel their feelings, they just feel numb. For others therapy may help them to deal with grieving a loss over which they have complicated feelings, perhaps anger as well as sadness.

When I work with people who have experienced loss, a big part of our work is to help them develop reasonable expectations of themselves and their process. Then it is to provide them with an opportunity to talk about their loss and the many ways their lives have changed. Eventually people begin to find themselves focusing more on the future , even though they often may experience new periods of grief that feel like they are starting over. This is a time when it is important to be reassured that grief is a cyclical process, and that the work that has been done to date is not lost. The grieving process has many ups and downs. But a time does come for those who have faced their grief that they find they feel better, they have energy and interests and are ready to move on with their life, however changed.

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