One of the things we all have in common is we all will suffer loss at several times in our life time. Actually we can count on it being a rather consistent part of the human journey, it is inevitable. For these losses not to impact us and challenge us would be to expect ourselves to be “not human”. It’s not about “will we grieve”, it’s about “how healthy will we grieve” that will allow these to be opportunities for growth and strength rather than times that our soul diminishes and we get stuck in elements of grieving.
When we think about grief, we usually think about the death of a loved one. But, there are many types of grief. We grieve over loss of a job, moving away from your home town, loss of a friendship, everyone is grieving over the impact of the Pandemic in our lives, or even life not turning out exactly how we thought it would.
Even good things in our lives can have an element of grief. Graduating from college is an accomplishment, but can also include grieving over loss of your college life. A child’s wedding brings joy and a sense of loss or grief as they transition into a new stage in their lives.
Often we experience cumulative losses and therefore cumulative grief. Moving to a new city means giving up our house, our friends, our children’s school, your church, gym and even your grocery store.
Recognizing the various griefs we experience in life doesn’t mean we wallow in misery and don’t recognize the positive. But, we do need to acknowledge loss and grief and allow ourselves to process through it. Often, with cumulative grief, people wonder why they are feeling down, or are irritable, having trouble finding joy in their lives, or are feeling particularly anxious. Even a number of very small losses can affect your emotions or sense of well-being.
It may be as simple as acknowledging that you are sad over a loss in your life, that you wished it had turned out differently. Allow yourself to feel that, talk with a friend about it, see a therapist. Or journal about it.
Large losses, such as a loss of a loved one or infertility, loss of a significant job, diminishing health or bankruptcy especially take time to work through. Many in our culture expect us to “snap out of it” or “move on.” Or if we have enough faith then it wouldn’t bother us. Grief is a process and it takes time. We can’t hurry ourselves through it. We have to walk through it.
Everyone processes grief differently as every individual is unique but we do see that most people will have moments of shock and denial, we usually feel some level of anger which is normal and to be expected, times of discouragement or depression and physical mourning responses like tears. People generally go in and out of these stages, back and forth but if we know how to process them well then the next time we hit a stage the intensity will slowly diminish and the stages will begin to spread out and eventually we begin to accept what has happened and see the future more hopefully. If we grieve in a healthy way we can ultimately find meaning in our human experience of loss and actually find growth and strength in the journey.
We must think marathon and not a sprint however when it comes to grief. We don’t speed grieve. Studies suggest the death of a close loved one can be a two to five year process. Many would say we never get over some losses. That is true, we don’t get over loss, we get through it.
A therapist can offer support through the process. For many people, just knowing that what they are feeling is normal and learning the stages of grief and how to walk through them helps tremendously.
If you are experiencing loss of any kind, we encourage you to find therapist or pastor who will walk with you through your grief.