Navigating the Waves of Grief
I wish could tell you why. Why today the topic of grief swirls in my head. Why this week of all weeks, grief wants an outlet. All I know is that it has been knocking on my mind’s door and has persisted. And so is the way of grief. It persists until it is heard, until it is felt.
I am no stranger to grief. For many years, though, I did not have a name for this vast tidal wave of emotions. One minute everything was calm, manageable. Sometimes even moments of joy, hope, and love shine through. Other days grief felt like a tidal wave or tsunami. I could be overcome by it and barely able to breathe. And what was even harder on these days is having no idea what caused the rush of emotions. I felt scared to feel the emotions and did not even quite know how to feel them. But the grief came whether I was ready or not. And other losses did not stop just because one loss occurred. It seemed it was one loss after another, and I could not grieve the first thing, because thing 2, 3, 4, 17 happened.
Grief is more than the loss of a person. It is found in the job loss, the hopes and dreams that have gone away, the friendships that have ended, the marriage that ended, the health we no longer have, and more. Grief can feel like we are tossed about on a wicked sea with no end in sight. And the more we try not to feel the grief, the more we try to stuff it down, the more we deny our circumstances, the more we prolong grief’s course.
I tried to stuff, numb, ignore all the waves of emotion inside of me. It did not work very well. I often found myself depressed, angry, and overwhelmed. Until I addressed the losses of my life, the storms of grief were always in the distance. As I addressed these losses, I often felt like I was barely keeping my head above water, and at times felt like I just wanted to sink. Until one day. The one day when I woke up, and I did not have nightmares. The one day when I woke up, and I experienced peace for the first time. The one day when I woke up, and I knew the storms were over. I had survived. I knew I was on my way to living rather than just existing.
There is no easy way through grief. However, there are things you can do to help navigate the ocean of grief:
1) Feel it to heal it
Maybe you are worried you will not make it make it back from the swells of grief if you let yourself feel it. However, if you numb one emotion, you numb them all including joy, love, and hope. While the pain of grief may feel overwhelming, you will make it back it from it. You can feel this emotion and still remain standing.
2) Ask for help
Asking for help is one of the bravest things you, or anyone of us, can do. Grief is hard to navigate alone. When we ask a safe and trusted person to walk with us through this journey, grief becomes a little more bearable. Not everyone has a safe person in their lives. Sometimes we must ask for help outside of family and friends. Finding a therapist to help you through these turbulent times is not weakness; it can be one of the strongest things you do.
3) Allow yourself time
No one gets to determine your journey of grief or how long it will take. This is your journey. No one can endure it for you either. It simply takes time. And the more griefs you are having to navigate, the longer it may take. Give yourself space and time to make it through the journey.
4) Don’t compare your grief journey
The grief journey is unique to the individual. You cannot expect one person to grieve like another person or even as you might grieve. While there are healthy and unhealthy ways to grieve, being mindful that your journey may be different than another person’s (even within the same family) does not make your journey or that person’s journey “wrong” or “right.”
Ecclesiastes 3 tells us there is a time for everything including mourning. However, Ecclesiastes also reminds us that there is also a time for healing. Walking the grief journey will be your time of mourning that will lead to a time of healing so that you may embrace a time of joy.