Your grief is valid
How are you feeling? Now, how are you really feeling?
My flatmate asked me this question twice the other day. She knows me too well. She knows I’m one to brush off my own feelings and distract myself by helping someone else. My thinly veiled coping mechanism... Anyway, by her asking this simple question twice, it showed me she really cared and that she was there to listen to how I really was. So, now I’m asking everyone twice. Giving people two chances to open up and share. And a lot of what I’m hearing back pertains to loss. We’re grieving the lives we had like a second ago. We’re grieving normalcy, stability, safety and connection. Oh my friends, we’re carrying so much grief we don’t even recognise the feeling.
The day the topic for this piece was suggested to me was the day my uncle died. Yep... After a relentless, 5 year battle with cancer he died in the middle of this horrible global pandemic. It seems heartbreakingly cruel. My little brother, trying to make sense of it, said that my uncle would have preferred it this way. To pass in a world where no one can make a fuss. But, urgh no. The fuss is good. The fuss allows us to celebrate their life and to share our grief. Stuck in solo iso, I’m quickly realising that grief is not made to be carried alone.
Yet here I am writing this piece in the days that follow my uncle’s death. The days, that in any other time, I would have jumped on a plane back to Australia and into my dad’s arms. I would have been surrounded by loved ones and been helping organise (what should have been) a giant funeral. Instead my mum and I are trying to work out how we get our 70+ year old relatives on Zoom for a wake. Ask me twice and I’ll say that I am feeling so sad for my aunty. I am sad for my family. I am sad for me. But mainly I feel numb because I am also really, really sad for the world.
Usually, when we’re having a tough time, it’s just us. Our friends, family, work, etc flock around us and hold our hand until we’re ok. But what the flip do we do when literally everyone is going through the same thing and we’re terrified to touch each other?? It’s almost funny, right? Well, maybe we’ll find it funny one day. But for now, we find ourselves lugging around the weight of so much loss - all by ourselves.
Big or small, we’ve all lost things that are important to us. Cancelled concerts, postponed weddings, gym memberships, our daily coffee from our favourite barista. Oh and then what about the people who’ve lost their jobs, homes, businesses and family members? Quick one, I wish I didn’t have to list those things in any order. Because to you, not being able to go to the gym could feel incredibly huge right now. That daily sweat-fest could have been the thing that brought you purpose, or eased your anxiety or the thing that boosted your confidence and made you feel sexy. My point here is that all grief is relative to the individual. David Kessler, a grief expert (Please Google him. Listen to his Podcasts. He is very smart.), says that, “The worst grief you carry is your own”.
Ok. Cool David, then why do I feel as though my grief isn’t valid? Why do I feel that I can’t mourn a death? Why do I feel that I can’t be sad about my postponed trip to Europe? I actually know the answer to this. I just did a rhetorical question to make this conversational and make you think I’m smarter than I am. Well, I feel like I can’t grieve my own losses because there are people doing it so much harder right now. Sure, that’s true. But guys, my grief is valid. Your grief is valid. Your sadness is real. Please take away the judgement. There’s no right or wrong way to feel right now. This is all so unprecedented. Like I mean, come on! We just started a new decade. A decade that we raised our bubbles to (prosecco not iso bubbles) and said cheers to the hope, wonder and adventure that 2020 promised. We allowed ourselves to dream big for a second… Then bam! Just like that, we had to pack those plans into a box and squash them in between the canned legumes.
So, where to from here? We’ve all lost a lot, what do we do with that grief? David says heaps of catchy things like, “you can’t heal if you don’t feel”. Seriously, look up Dr. Kessler. Then let yourself feel. If a wave of sadness washes over you, don’t fight it. Give yourself permission to cry. If you feel happy, be soooo happy. Share that happiness and do not feel guilty for it!
Because friends, we all process grief differently. In our own time and in our own way. So as you work through your own losses, know that everyone is doing the same. I’ll leave it up to you to find what helps you, but some tried and tested tips include; a presence practice, a gratitude practice, journaling on how you’re feeling, yoga, meditation, binge watching shit reality TV. Ok, I made up that last one. But basically, find connection, find meaning, find hope. None of these are instant fixes. They are like lunges. You have to do them everyday to get a booty.
Now, I don’t know how or when this will all end. But! The thing about collective grief is that we’re all going through it together. Which means we’ll get through it together. And until then, ask your people how they’re doing. Then ask again. Then listen as hard as you can to what they have to say.
