"The answer to the pain of grief is not how to free oneself from it, but how to support oneself in it." ~ Unknown
Since I lost my husband Matt to cancer over eight months ago when I was only thirty-nine, I have noticed so many changes in myself, and one of those changes is a strong sense of protection that I have over my grief
We live at a unique time in history. The world has turned on its head because of the coronavirus pandemic and, at the time of writing, the UK had just recorded 100,000 Covid-related deaths, many of which were not related to Covid.
This is an obscene crowd of grieving people, and considering the fact that not all loss is related to death, I suspect that everyone in the country is experiencing grief at some level right now.
But I worry that this universal loss is so ingrained in our daily lives that it is now considered the norm to be traumatized.
The news of more deaths no longer seems to shock us. We are becoming detached from one another in order to survive and protect ourselves, and this is reinforced daily by messages of stay-home and social distancing.
Our human need for closeness and connection has become secondary to the very real threat to life we are exposed to, and therefore we willingly adhere to these new rules – we wear masks and stay away from each other, we withdraw and we don’t complain about the psychological wounds we are exposed to because the alternative is worse.
There is a collective feeling of numbness, a well-known coping mechanism for extreme stress, and I can't help but adjust to it from my own fear response.
Sometimes I also feel numb, and I can certainly see the reasons for introducing this defense mechanism, but that is why my grief now feels like a gift to me: I am grateful that I connect with my pain and her can accept and fear. This is my cure; I move through life like I know I should.
We were not made to deny or suppress our emotions, we were made to learn and grow through them because emotions are energy and energy is needed to move. If I refuse to give room to my feelings, they will be trapped inside of me.
I know because it has happened to me before. Grief is strange, it is the most painful and intense experience I have ever had, and yet it is recognizable to me too. I know I've felt it before, but in a different form and at a different time.
Deep down I also have an inner knowing that I should feel it. In the past, I was afraid of the enormity and intensity of my feelings, as well as anyone else I was close to. They would withdraw when I put them on, so instead I would hold them back and do whatever I can to keep them down.
The result? Years of suffering with anxiety, depression, and unexplained physical illnesses and ailments that I now understand as a manifestation of my trapped trauma.
Bessel Van der Kolk defines trauma as "seen or known". Really being seen means risking vulnerability, but we are consistently ashamed to be truly vulnerable in our society, a society that rewards busyness and productivity beyond our human needs.
Unfortunately, this mutual refusal can prevent us from healing. Our culture lacks tolerance for the emotional vulnerability that traumatized people experience. There is little time left to deal with emotional events. We are routinely pressured to adjust too quickly after an overwhelming situation.
So we have a problem. At a time when more of us than ever have to accept vulnerability in order to avoid re-traumatizing ourselves with disconnection with others, we also struggle with a sense of internalized capitalism. Which one do we choose? Authenticity or attachment?
I believe we need both, but I also believe it has to start with authenticity, and here's why.
My grief feels sacred to me, as if it were the last piece of my love for Matt that I still have, and for this reason I refuse to let it pass me without really experiencing and appreciating it .
I realize that the authentic, broken self is just as important as the joyful, whole self, and that I cannot expect to experience one without the other.
I don't want to drift into a false identity in which I'm always “okay” or “good” or “not bad” when someone asks, because that's really all I can say in these moments. I can't tell the truth because the truth is unspeakable. There is an unspoken rule that we should never expose our pain too deeply. We need to include it in a short text message or five minute chat to maintain the illusion that we have time for compassion in our culture
But we all know that this is not the truth when you live as we are subliminally told – with a full-time, demanding and demanding career and a mortgage you have to pay with a family to support you You have to take care of and a social life Stick to a strict routine that includes time to exercise, meal planning, and aligning your appearance with what is currently considered socially attractive, and with just enough free time to catch the latest Netflix -Drama pointless to consume.
There is really little to no time or emotional energy that would be required to fully observe another person's pain. So we turn away from it instead because we know that if we dare to look a grieving person in the eye, we can locate the universal phenomenon of grief within ourselves and find some affinity for it. And that raises all sorts of questions that go against our busy lifestyle that we have to grapple with.
When I have too many superficial exchanges, however well meant, I end up feeling more disconnected and lonely than if I hadn't had an exchange at all, so I choose loneliness instead.
Some pains cannot be spoken of, they can only be felt, and for me this can only happen if I have the space and the time to intentionally tune into the feelings without having to cognitively handle them at every opportunity . However, without a witness to my pain, I never really feel seen or known.
The more time goes by, the harder it is to bring Matt up in the short conversations I can still have or express my true feelings.
I am aware that my grief will become less relevant over time as more and more people experience their own losses. But I barely began to come to terms with Matt's death. He died during the pandemic, and I'm still living in the same pandemic eight months later. I have been locked away for my own safety and the safety of others, so the real effects of my loss and associated trauma will not be fully felt until the threat has subsided.
My brain has been geared towards survival for almost a year – how must that affect?
I fear that the rawness of my pain is temporary and if I don't fit into the cultural narrative of grief I will be rejected and it is this fear of rejection that continues to pull me away from sitting with my pain. I've become overly sensitive to other people's reactions and I can sense when my pain is too rough and uncomfortable for them. Therefore I avoid the loudest and most costly part of me entering the conversation to make it more comfortable for them
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But … I've noticed that a pattern occurs when I prioritize the comfort of others over my authenticity.
I'm starting to suffer. I experience feelings such as fear, anger, and guilt, and these pull me away from the purity that is my grief. Pain and suffering are not the same. Pain is a necessary component of healing and growth, but suffering is a bypassing the raw pain below.
I believe that the key to healing is to accept the suffering of loss throughout life. The loss happens continuously, but we often forget to experience it because we glorify the illusion of always being strong, sane, and resilient.
Fear is a block for healing. It activates our survival brain and keeps us there. We never feel safe enough to process our emotions and instead continue to suffer.
Alice Miller, the renowned Swiss psychologist, coined the term “enlightened witness” to refer to someone who can recognize and hold your pain, and this becomes a cycle. Once you have acknowledged and witnessed your authentic pain, there is room to become an enlightened witness of another.
That's why I believe that there are so many people at the moment who are suffering unnecessarily. We are all afraid to face the human state of pain because we are afraid of losing our attachment to others, so we mask it and avoid it and deny it at all costs.
I am afraid of losing my bonds with others. I'm scared of ending up alone and I'm scared of never being loved again. But I'm more afraid of having to sacrifice my real self in order to get this love.
So, I swear I will not put my grief on hold, and I welcome you to join me. As deep as the pain gets, I encourage you to sit on it and honor it as a true reflection of the great intensity of being human.
About Claire Wright
Claire is a creative, person-centered counselor and supervisor working with all ages but specializing in trauma healing in children and adolescents. She loves helping others reconnect and regain their own spirituality and authentic selves. You can find Claire's services here on Facebook.
Since she lost her husband in 2020, she's also been writing her blog Forever39, where she writes him letters to help her come through her grief. You can connect with Claire via her blog here.
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