grief is a universal human emotion
I have experienced grief and it often shows up in therapy with my clients. A person may choose to enter therapy to help them process grief over a loss. Clients in therapy may naturally feel grief over people or things they no longer possess or things they failed to learn in their upbringing. Grief can also show up when a person is letting go of and healing old ways of being and thinking in their lives or acknowledging feelings of loss about things they failed to receive in childhood (ex: emotional safety, connection and securit).
Grief is a universal human emotion.
Grief often shows up in our journey as human beings.
As a healer and human, I may simultaneously feel my clients grief, the collective grief of society and my own personal grief all at once. I am grateful for mindfulness and consistent self-care routines which help me hold space for others while also helping me let go of what I no longer need.
Grief is a universal human emotion.
I am in full support of Western society normalizing grief and showing up for it.
There were an estimated 4.5 million deaths as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic. My heart and prayers go out to the world as a whole. As a culture who values knowledge, information, feeling in control, problem solving and finding answers, we will suffer more if we approach our grief and emotions with this mindset.
How often do we encourage each other to “stay strong?”
Especially when a loved one dies. The bereaved are often encouraged to be strong and are expected to get over the loss at some point or another (ps, it doesn’t work that way).
Change is certain and there are things in life in which we will have no answers for. It is in our best interest if we start to entertain the value in learning how to suffer, becoming curious about it and relaxing our judgments about our emotions and the unknown. Obviously we need to learn functional ways of processing our emotions while still showing up for life.
Today, businesses and professionals carry out many of the duties once carried out by family systems. The new methods practiced today distance us from death and what comes with it. It can also contribute to an avoidance of death. Restoring Aunt Anna’s body with red lipstick and eye shadow to reflect a more “life like” state may also contribute to our avoidance of death.
Learning to consciously grieve gives us the opportunity to revisit and inquire about how we deal with emotions and suffering in general.
As the earth has seasons, we as humans also experience our lives in seasons. There is a time for birth and a time for death. A time to build, a time to nurture, a time to destroy. With every loss there is a gain and we must subtract before we multiply.
What can we gain from our collective grief as a society?
Could it possibly allow us the sacred opportunity to have much needed and necessary conversations about loss, grief, bereavement, emotions, connection, love, change, meaning and more?
Reflection & Writing Prompts
1) How would you describe your relationship with your emotions?
2) What are your thoughts and beliefs about grief? What do you think about your beliefs after identifying them?
3) How did your family deal with loss and grief when you were coming up?
4) How do you deal with your grief?
To live is to grieve. To live is to simultaneously be losing and gaining all at once. Nothing lasts forever. The more things change the more they stay the same. Detachment, present moment, enjoy, live out your purpose, follow your potential, aim high, always.
Dr. Londyn Miller
