Grieving Alone
We as people were created for community. We were created to be in relationship with other people, to experience life together. I believe that is why so many of us will do things for acceptance. It is a natural given desire to belong. We need it to be healthy and happy. We need to be affirmed and known by people, something beyond just a surface interaction.
One of the concepts that we talk about in Grief Recovery is “grieve alone”. We talk about how that is a myth. Something that we learn, yet isn’t really true. The reason that grieving alone doesn’t work is because we as people weren’t created to grieve alone. We were created to go through the grieving process with other people. People that will hold us with their eyes and let us know that they are with us, for us, and will be there as long as we need.
Unfortunately, most of the society that we live in doesn’t support this process. We are given the thumbs up for “getting over it” or being strong. If we are still feeling badly after a loss, many well meaning people will offer solutions. They will try to fix us. I know I’ve done this in the past to hurting people before I realized what they really needed. My ears to listen and my eyes to connect. That’s really it.
When someone tries to fix us when we are grieving the result is that we feel judged. So we often will put on a face and pretend we’re feeling better when we’re not. Or we go in to isolation. I know I’ve done both. As a child, I learned that feeling bad wasn’t acceptable. The more losses I went through, the more deeply the message was communicated that the only way to be accepted was to put on a good face. So I did that for years. So much so that I almost completely lost who I really was.
Learning to accept and express has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Unraveling from the pretense and stepping in to me was a struggle. Yet, one well worth the hardship because it was a freedom I’d not experienced before. It also helped me to understand that though I’d cried a river of tears alone, I hadn’t really gone through a grieving process. Why? Because I wasn’t really grieving, I was just crying by myself. Grief is only expressed in relationship, in community and most definitely in safety.
I am grateful for the safe people who have shaped my life and helped me to grieve. Who have listened without judgement. They have given a precious gift far more valuable then someone who may have had all the answers. They helped give me my identity back. They helped me discover who I really was and what I stood for. They also helped me realize how much I want to be that for others. How important it is to believe in people, to affirm them, to love them and to listen. It’s the greatest gift of all.
