Скачать или смотреть Grief is an Expression of Love

I often talk to people who are going through a death or a loss, and they say things like, “I’m doing really well! I’m staying strong. I’m staying positive.”

I think what that’s often code for is, “I’m not letting myself be sad. I’m not crying, I’m not allowing myself to grieve.”

That’s a really understandable response, because we live in a culture that has given us no skills and no tools for how to be with grief, for how to actually allow ourselves to move through these difficult situations, in a way that honours the grief. So, instead we think “doing well” is keeping it locked in.

I want to offer a different model for what it might be to stay strong. Maybe, being strong is finding the strength and the support, to be with what’s really happening, to be present to these incredibly difficult emotions.

To do well is to be attuned to what’s happening for us, and giving space to all of what’s true. Because, if we give ourselves time to move into the grief and let it flow, then we can come out again. And then we can go in, and come out.

It comes in waves. If we keep it locked back, and locked back, and it never gets a chance to move, it’s really hard to find a healing path.

I’m trying to start a little revolution about what it means to do “well” when someone’s dying, and it might mean to let your grief flow. Everybody’s grief looks different, it might not be public tears, but find your own way to give your grief space.