Hint: That's Grief

[With contributions from Mila Bernabo and Constance Quinn DSW LCSW-R ]

Grief is just love with no place to go. -Jamie Anderson

Early in my mental health journey, my therapist stunned me with a wide-eyed look of shock and disagreement after I nonchalantly referred to myself as a “deep feeler."

His definition of a deep feeler was something like, a person with a broad emotional range, one that easily noticed nuanced emotional states, and felt each of them meaningfully and differently.

But I’ve always been more of a “I feel bad” kind of person, not so much a “I feel lonely” or “I feel unwanted” or “I feel lost” kind of person. (I have “good” states too, to be fair..) As it turns out, I wasn’t a deep feeler. I was a “blunt feeler," or perhaps a “delayed explosive feeler.” I tended to just ignore my feelings for so long – what good are these pesky unhelpful emotions – that when I finally felt them, I felt them intensely. But feeling something powerfully because you’ve ignored it is definitely not the same as feeling it deeply.

One of the nuanced [1] feelings I never quite learned how to feel was grief. I remember as a kid, losing our family dog suddenly and feeling extremely “bad” – and feeling a deep sense of sudden emptiness – but I don’t recall that I grieved. As an adult, I've experienced other personal losses (deaths of loved ones and colleagues) and had similar reactions. I’d do some intellectual processing of what happened (reflecting on the person), and separately, experience the physical symptoms of mournful pain (uncontrollable tears) but never the two at the same time. I learned later from my therapist that this is an evolutionary protection: separating intellectual processing from a physical experience had some value to keep early humans safe. It doesn’t help to be mentally dwelling on the consequences of the bear eating you as you’re trying to run from it!

As I tried to make sense of my random crying fits, I discovered that the crying wasn’t actually happening randomly. It was occurring in situations where I felt the most safe. Not necessarily physically safe, but emotionally safe: during a conversation with a soul friend, in a place that was full of fond memories, or in the car when I felt fully in control.

That therapist taught me a technique to help me grieve more fully, by integrating the two experiences – the intellectual processing and the physical expression – by “adding in” thoughts about the person when the crying would begin. (Perhaps the inverse would be possible for those that can cry on command, but alas…) In practice, this meant during the times that I would begin feeling that intense physical sadness, I’d intentionally try to think deeply about the person (or dog), what they meant to me, my regrets, my fond memories, etc.?

This was scary. Feeling it all together was very intense. It almost felt at first like I was “wallowing” or just making things worse, but for me, it helped a lot to integrate my grief feelings so they weren’t so confusing anymore. [Disclaimer: I am not a mental health professional; I have no idea about the clinical value of this process - consult your own!] While this may all sound obvious and come easily to those with more evolved emotional brains or stronger mind-body connections (apparently that’s not me!), it may be useful for you if you struggle with this as I have.

But what does all this have to do with recent events?

It’s easy to recognize grief when it involves death.?

It’s somewhat easy to recognize grief when there is an ending of something deeply emotional, like a romantic relationship. (grief and heartbreak are always a bit of a tangle)?

But it’s not as easy to recognize grief when it’s about a complex life change. The end of a role. The end of a life stage. The end of a connection to a company. The end of a set of values or a dramatic change to a culture.

Grief is hard to identify when it’s related to something that’s still kiiiind of there. The company is still there, but it’s not what it was. (or I’m not part of it anymore). I still have all my skills but I’m not practicing them in the same way at the same place. Most of us experienced some version of this early in the pandemic, as we grappled with sudden changes to our lives and routines. (Hint: That was grief we were experiencing then, among many other emotions!)

These life moments that involve dramatic change deserve to be grieved fully. It’s why many cultures have funeral rituals, or why we sometimes burn our ex’s letters, or take a moment as we hang our pet’s collar up on the mantel for the last time. (Shit, now I’m crying.) Grief-triggering events inevitably leave us forever changed. It’s important to process these endings so we can integrate, grow, and move forward.

Grief is the price we pay for love. –Queen Elizabeth, 9/11

When we don’t fully process our endings (or when we don’t even realize we’re in a grief process in the first place!), we can become what I’ve seen called “grief stuck” – stuck in one of the phases of grief (or even prior to them). These are well known (denial; anger; bargaining; depression; acceptance), but becoming grief stuck also prevents us from what David Kessler [2] refers to as a sixth phase of grief, the meaning phase, or what Tedeschi and Calhoun refer to as “post traumatic growth." [3]

Growth in grief takes many forms – perhaps something as simple as, grief as a way to learn to grieve! Grief as a teacher of compassion, of relation to endings, of worthiness, safety, or identity. Of moving through change. As a muscle for resilience, or taming the inner critic. As a provider of perspective to challenge or renew your values and priorities. A helper to uncover who you are without the job title.

In my own life, I’ve realized just how much my own grief processes were the key to writing my next chapters after loss:

• As my dog moved through a very lengthy dying process, grief helped me to learn that often the simplest, uneventful shared moments can be profoundly beautiful.
• As I grieved the end of my Google career, it was actually the most radical self-acceptance that I ever experienced. I learned how to let in positive, emotional feedback, to let myself see the difference I had made in people’s lives, and was able to move on knowing that my work there was complete.
• As I grieved the endings of relationships and homes, I learned what aspects actually meant the most to me about them – from an objective place of reflection – rather than from a place of hurt and loss.

Where are you today, in this moment, as you read this? (not your physical location, though I hope you’re somewhere cooler and less dusty than I am..)? Where is your mind? What are the quality of your thoughts? How is your heart??

Are you grieving a major life change? What is your relationship to grief? In what part of the grief process do you find yourself??

Have you allowed yourself the permission, the space, the time, the safety to process??

This may feel like a lot to ask, and certainly may seem less urgent than updating your resume, scheduling calls, or working on the next big thing. But even a brief reflection and check-in can help tend to (or just name/identify) the grief. The more we give it some space and acknowledge it, the better we can move through it and find the meaning it offers.

This process of grief will look differently for each of us. There is no right or wrong way. There is no timeline. It is uniquely yours. It is undeniable that grief nurtures growth; we are forever changed. We cannot be the same, nor should we be. The page has turned. Grief allows us to pick up the pen again and begin the next chapter.

What will you write?

[Thanks again to Mila Bernabo and Constance Quinn DSW LCSW-R for their help with this article! Among many other assists, they crafted most of that beautiful final paragraph.]

Footnote 1: For more on nuanced emotional states, this HBR article is good!

Footnote 2: David Kessler, The Sixth Stage of Grief

Footnote 3: Post-traumatic growth, from the APA