Why Even Bother To Feel My Grief?
Recently I had someone ask me, “Why even bother allowing myself to feel all this grief?” In the moment, it might have been more of a rhetorical question, but it was valid nonetheless. Honestly, it’s a fair question to ask. Why do we bother feeling grief or other emotions that feel terrible and debilitating? What’s the point? Wouldn’t it be better to set yourself to auto pilot and cruise control your way until the end of your own days? Is there a way to avoid it all?
Feeling your feelings doesn’t make things magically better, or exempt you from having to feel them again. It doesn’t just “take away” your grief by allowing yourself to feel sad. So what the heck, why do it? So much of the work in allowing space for how you *truly* feel is rooted in coming home to oneself. To wash away influence and opinion and productivity, and to just be. When you look at a child who is allowed to just be, they do not apologize for their pain or tuck their feelings away. They are loud and unapologetic and raw and real. They experience the world and react accordingly. They embody what it means to be authentic. When they grieve, they sob, they quiet, they panic, they laugh, they sprint, they sleep, they become inquisitive, they sing songs about death, and they dance. When the feeling arises, they feel it. And when the feeling has had its moment, their little world softens. There is a calm in the aftermath of all intensity. What a gift to just be.
For anyone who has never experienced a significant loss in their lives, it can feel like getting pummeled. Here’s this heartbreaking loss occurring and at the exact same time, it’s cracking you open to every facet of your life and how you’re living it. You can choose to look the other way, keep your head down, and plow through on auto pilot, if you wish. Or, you can let each emotion, each sensation, be a guiding light in how to move forward. If you’re struggling, are you struggling because of your loss or were you struggling before? If you’re sad, are you sad because of your loss or were you sad in life before? If you’re shutting down, is it because of your loss or is this an old coping mechanism popping up to protect you from feeling too much? If you’re like a lot of people I know, in and out of the therapy room, the answers are usually ‘both’ to all these questions.
Grief is a unique, tragic circumstance that shines light on every unhealthy behavior, thought, and protective part that we have at play. Many people who have contemplated therapy have admitted to me they don’t think they can do it. They relate to the onion analogy - the fear that once they begin, they know it will open them up, and the layers will keep peeling back, and that this is terrifying. Some know they are not ready for this. Some will never be ready for this. And the rest dive in anxious and fearful, but with a hope that’s more powerful than fear.
If you’re on the fence about allowing yourself to feel your grief, I’m not sure if this blog is really intended to change you either way. But maybe something in here sparks a moment of reflection. Maybe that’s the point of all these blogs and ramblings, to spark interest in oneself, to ignite some curiosity of what you want home to look like when you find your way back to it within yourself. Grief will pummel you, there is no way to truly avoid that. But when the time comes on your grief journey, will you also allow it space to revitalize you? I suppose we’ll have to wait and see….
