I talk about grief fairly regularly. Not as much as I used to because I feel like I keep saying the same things and people don’t need to hear them again, AND I really prefer joy. LOL But I talk about grief because when my kids and I went through our massive life change in 2010 and 2011, we had no where to talk about our grief. We were given the names of “grief centers” or therapists or books or classes or groups, and really, we just needed to have conversations. However, grief makes people uncomfortable. Our feel good society doesn’t want to talk about anything that makes us uncomfortable. Stuff like that is relegated to “mental illness”, but it isn’t illness. Honestly, the most mentally healthy thing you can do is talk about grief and dying and the journey through loss of whatever form, whether it be through death, divorce, or loss. 

People who have lost everything to wildfires need to talk about it. People going through divorce need to talk about it. Losing everything you’ve worked for, losing a loved one, losing a marriage you dreamed would end differently shatter pieces of you that need to be healed, and they don’t heal in the dark. They heal by experiencing love and life in the midst of the loss. 

I used to talk about “life after loss” or “on the other side” of the loss or around the “big empty place left behind.” But the truth is that isn’t how it works. You find life in the midst of the loss because that loss never fully goes away. You will never find a way to fill that hole. Never. But life and loss are not mutually exclusive. You learn to see life even with the reality of that loss and catastrophic change. Joy and sorrow are not the polar opposites they are portrayed as. They are different expressions of the same Experience DNA. 

I talk about grief so people have a space to walk through the journey. I talk about grief because it needs to be talked about. 

Holding grief in is horrible on the body. Grief isn’t just a mental or emotional thing. It effects the body in so many ways. Grief has been tied to autoimmune disorders, fibromyalgia, AHDH, along with the common issues of depression and anxiety.

Grief needs a place to breathe. Give both sides of the Grief DNA room to talk. Talking about it won’t make it worse. It gives the mind and body a place to process, and there is a lot to process in loss. It isn’t just emotions. It’s how it changes your role in life or how you see yourself. It changes the dynamics of life. Loss is so much more than sadness, and healing is so much more than being happy again. There is a lot of processing and rebuilding that has to happen. Talking without judgment or pushy advice coming at you is a great place for that process to happen. That is mentally health stuff right there.

Instead of categorizing grief as a sickness to be avoided, talk about it. Share it. Give yourself grace with it. Journal through it. CS Lewis wrote the book “A Grief Observed” about his journey with grief after his beloved wife died. 

Feeling grief is actually mentally healthy. Stuffing it or hiding it in your emotional and mental attic is the cause of mental and physical illness.

I know a lot of people experiencing grief right now. Some of it because a loved one has died. Some because a relationship has died. Some because they literally watched their lives go up in smoke. 

And this is what I would tell everyone about grief.

Grief is handled well over lunch or coffee with a listening friend and a box of Kleenex.

Composition books like we used in high school or college make great journals. I prefer to write on only one side of the paper because ink can bleed through, but it is a great place to put all the thoughts you don’t think others will understand. It never tells anyone about the rage, the times you feel like you hate someone for leaving or hate someone who didn’t make the effort. It doesn’t judge you for questioning why God let this happen or didn’t make that happen. It’s a neutral party that is always available to listen, and if you decide to throw it away or burn it later, it can feel like a great moment of closure.

Grief is the weirdest roller coaster ever. It’s okay to have good days and bad days, good moments and bad moments. Grace is the best way to handle that. And trying to “pull yourself together” only adds to the neurotransmitter storm going on in your head, so maybe just breathe, have a coffee or sweet tea, and let it be what it is but let it pass.

Laughter is fantastic medicine. Don’t be so committed to missing someone or something or some lost part of life that you  refuse to experience good things. You aren’t being disloyal to the person you lost if you still feel joy. You are being alive, and being alive should include laughter.

Seek joy. Joy is a glorious life raft, and it won’t show up like an Amazon box at your door. Seek it. Pursue it like you were looking for that last piece of cinnamon gum lost in the bottom of your purse. Remember when cereal boxes put toys in them? Remember how you or your kids would dig through that box to find that toy? Okay, that is joy. Life is your cereal box. Find the joy.

Be okay with the friend(s) who will sit with you in the silence or in the sobbing. I have a friend whom I rarely get to see in person, but when I totaled my truck and had to clean it out, he sat on the phone with me while I cried, put everything in a box, and said nothing. He called the day after I lost Patton and cried with me. He called the day after my brother died and said nothing while I cried on my end of the phone. He is the king of being comfortable with silence. It is amazing to me how healing just having that presence is. It felt awkward on my side, but he was solid. Let someone sit with you in the silence while you cry or breathe or feel the shock.

Grief doesn’t have a timeline. It is different for every person and every loss. It doesn’t really ever go away, and the only thing that lets you feel better is life. Grieving well and living well go hand in hand. Let yourself … or your family member or friend … do both. ❤