Good Grief
There's a difference between being defeated and being humbled.
A few months ago I received an email from the Canadian Armed Forces. I was being recruited.
I knew they were desperate for citizens to enlist, but not that desperate. I’m not sure I’m really combat material. Sure I can run. Sure I’m a team player. But I draw the line at cargo pants and guns, mainly the cargo pants.
The email went on to say that a small department within the Armed Forces was looking for a Psychotherapist to speak at a conference for their HOPE volunteers: individuals who have lost loved ones in combat and now volunteer their time supporting newly grieving families. And it was my job to help them hone their peer support skills.
Put me in, lieutenant!
A few weeks later I found myself in front of 30 volunteers with 3 hours of uninterrupted time to share my approach to grief work. And unsurprisingly, the group was made up of some pretty remarkable people. Individuals I’d easily describe as Olympic love warriors. Each was living in the landscape of grief and profound loss, yet somehow they held light for others navigating fresh tragedies. These volunteers were human lightkeepers, lifelines for those who had also lost a child, spouse, or sibling.
We discussed primary and secondary emotions, the autonomic nervous system, our windows of tolerance and some core concepts of experiential therapies. I led a meditation and facilitated conversations on grief. But the most powerful moment came when we discussed one of my favorite quotes, words I often share with clients facing loss:
Though they have died, the relationship continues.
The room rumbled a collective Mmmm. The kind of sound we make when we hear something we already know but are hearing out loud for the first time. A whole truth turned inside-out. And for this group, the relationships they’ve lost are still alive. Their child might be gone but the relationship is alive and breathing, their spouse might have passed but the love has only gotten stronger.
There’s something deeply comforting about naming the aliveness of these relationships. We all need to hear that we’re not mad for feeling like our lost loved ones are still with us. Spirit is real. Energy is real. Oneness is always present. Though they are gone, the relationship continues.
And of course, as life would have it, the past few months have been marked by loss happening all around me. Not just globally, but in the lives of my friends and my clients, and the loss of my father-in-law. Suddenly the tools I offered clients felt much heavier in my own hands.
Thus, the past month has called me to reflect on life and death a little more than I’d prefer. So, here are 3 things (I think) I know for sure:
1. Death makes us all a little woowoo
Death has a way of breaking down the walls we've built for ourselves, ushering in a spiritual awareness whether we're prepared for it or not. I find it remarkable that after 7 years of university, dedicated to academia and research psychology, my sense of connection to something transcendent has only grown stronger. If anything, I'm more spiritually anchored now than when I began.
I know that our loved ones are not just present on birthdays and holidays, but beside us as we wash dishes at the kitchen sink. They kiss us on the forehead when we’re sleeping. They remind us to laugh it off, to read more books, to do the damn thing even if we’re scared. And for god's sake, just eat the chocolate.
They’re in every hug we share for just a few seconds too long, every I Love You we say out loud, every cardinal on the fence, every dime we find on the ground, every set of chords on the piano, every new project we take on at home. The relationship continues whenever we muster the courage to allow their presence inside. At first their presence has the ability to break us, bring us to tears. But anyone who has ever grieved knows that the very same presence will one day bring us comfort.
2. Grief doesn’t get easier, we get bigger
Time seems to heal all wounds not because we become less sad, but because we expand. As we build our capacity to feel the pain, we also build our capacity to feel the love. It’s both. (A cold and broken hallelujah.)
And in my opinion, this is exactly the kind of work that can be done in therapy. We’re not here to help people get rid of their sadness. Nor are we here to walk people through the five stages of grief. Grief doesn’t have stages, but seasons. Seasons we move in and out of. And good therapists can help people find ways to weather these seasons in ways that feel more anchored, where we have space to feel our feelings without having to run away or give up on love. Spaces where we can unpack how loss from the past comes roaring back when loss happens in the present, and to grieve it all the same.
3. Loss Wakes Us Up
Death seems to be our culture's best kept secret. A thing we don’t talk about until it’s absolutely necessary. We’re bad at planning for it, bad at bringing it up, bad a letting it in, bad at letting it go. Yet it’s the only thing we can know for sure. And one of the things we don’t have much control over.
So when death comes knocking it’s almost like we’ve walked in on an affair. Our false sense of permanence vanishes. Betrayed. Very quickly we’re forced to accept the fragility of our lives. We quickly lose our care for perfection, more money, a better body, and would do anything for more time, more touch, more closure.
Loss teaches us about life better than any other therapeutic intervention I can offer. We return to our origin story of quality time as the most important thing we can experience as human beings. We’re reminded to soften our hard edges, to move from liberal and conservative and into a space of shared humanity, a collective undoing of aloneness built into our DNA.
Grief once felt like an adversary to me as a new therapist. But time has played me well. At some point in the turbulence of grief we face an essential decision: do we armor ourselves against the pain, or try to anchor ourselves in the truth that grief happens in waves.
There's a difference between being defeated and being humbled.
The HOPE volunteers seemed to accept the inevitable return of sorrow because they understood the exchange: the pain of losing the most important people to us, this breaking open, is the price for the precious gift of loving and being loved. It is the cost of living a full life.
Though they have died, the love continues. Let it in. Share it. Soften.