Good Grief - Part III

Written By Alisa Burpee

By now you’ve learned what grief is and what to expect in the process of grieving. Today let’s focus on what you can do to adaptively move through grief and heal. Let’s return to the domains of life affected by grief:

Emotional

  • Maintain your sense of attachment to your loved one. Trying to pretend they meant less to you than they did is a clever strategy to avoid pain, but ultimately a harmful one.

  • While maintaining your emotional connection to them, make accurate predictions about when you will see them.

    • For example, “I care about them and they are gone.” “I miss them terribly and I will never see them again.”

    • Notice how this is is holding two truths simultaneously: my love for them + my deep sorrow they are gone. This is how we integrate the loss.

  • Set aside 15-30 minutes as often as you can to feel deeply into your attachment to the person. Think about your relationship to them in a rich way while consciously not engaging in counterfactual thinking (e.g., should’ve, could’ve, would’ve) or magical thinking (e.g., “If I don’t think about what happened, then it’s not real”).

  • Anniversary dates including their birthday, your wedding anniversary, the date of their passing are going to be especially hard. Figure out what feels best to you, make a plan, and get support.

    • For example, get a babysitter or ask your partner to watch the kids for one day so you can go to their favorite place in nature, watch their favorite movie, and get a massage. You may feel like distracting yourself or remembering them. Either way, care for yourself.

This requires dedicated effort. Expect it to be hard and know this is the most adaptive pathway through grief.

Cognitive

  • Don’t avoid thinking about the person who died

  • But do resist the urge to engage in counterfactual thinking

    • As Andrew Huberman notes, this is “an infinite landscape of unprovable possibilities” that inevitably leads to guilt. And while guilt is not always inappropriate (it is helpful in motivating us to make amends with a living person, if we have actually wronged them), it is precarious in grief. It is a way of assigning ourselves more agency than actually exists which is a slippery slope with a harsh trade off. We may feel more in control if we assign blame to ourselves but then we feel ever more guilt for our perceived failure.

  • Engaging in bargaining or negotiating with reality will ultimately interfere with uncoupling the attachment (that is vital to hold onto) from your prior cognitive map that is no longer accurate. As explained in Part II, our cognitive map is like our GPS destination of where to find our loved one. If we don’t update this neural circuitry, we will continue to reach for that ever elusive glass of water.

  • Hold the grief to the present – stay oriented to the present moment, current space, and time. This can feel like a tight rope walk. It is normal that the mind will drift but keep bringing it back to the present.

Behavioral

  • Allow yourself to slow down, rest

    • Take time off, work remotely

    • Take a bath

    • Sit with a loved one and be held, cry

  • But keep your grief moving

    • Take your grief for a walk

    • Go watch a sunset

    • Meet with friends even if you worry you will be as animated as a bump on a log

  • Ask your grief:

    • What does my grief need today?

    • What can I do with my grief today?

      • You may not know what you need, but keep listening and it will become clear

Think about processing grief like the composting process. Don’t let it rot. Give it air, sunlight. That’s how you get back to flourishing.

Spiritual

  • Where we place the new GPS coordinates of our lost one depends on our spiritual beliefs or religion

    • Ask yourself, “What do I believe came of them?,” “Where are they now?”

      • “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”?

      • “Molecules”?

      • “Heaven”?

      • “Stars”?

      • “Back to the source of the universe?”

  • It can be useful to find a symbol that was meaningful to them

    • perhaps when you see a rainbow or a hummingbird, you think of them

    • let these little signs nourish you

No matter what you believe happens in death, it is important to be clear with yourself about what you believe


Social

  • Take as much time away from social obligations as needed

  • Feel free to cancel last minute, your people will still love you. They may feel disappointed you can’t join- this is because the love you. If they make you feel bad about it, they are not your friends

  • Try showing up even when you don’t feel like engaging just to see if you feel better after

  • Don’t expect yourself to engage in the way your normally would - let yourself off the hook. It’s unlikely they expect you to “act like yourself”

Physical

  • Consume salt

    • The Thanatologist Cole Imperi prescribes fried chicken!

  • Surround yourself with plants, your pets, your nieces & nephews; beings that are full of life

  • Engage in creative expression (with no judgment!) like painting, art for the sole purpose of expression/movement

  • Go to book club, you don’t have to read the whole book - you don’t have to read the book at all

Design rituals that would have been meaningful to your loved one

  • Take their ashes to a beloved place in nature or visit their grave site

  • Gaze at the stars on the anniversary of their passing or birthday

  • Throw a Halloween party because it was their favorite holiday

  • Play music that reminds you of them

Onward. Know you are not alone.



Resources




Alisa Burpee
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Experiential Avoidance

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Good Grief - Part II