Big Grief and Little Grief
by Juliet Funt
When you hear the word, grief, you will undoubtedly think of the aftereffects of someone dying. But, actually, there are dozens of experiences that qualify as grieving. In The Grief Recovery Handbook, grief is defined as a "change or loss in any familiar pattern of behavior." Let’s look at some patterns of behavior. Your neighbors move, or you move; the kids go away to school, or the kids come home from school and move back in with you. You get divorced, or you get married. You used to have Snickers bars in the vending machine at work; now there are only Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, and you don’t like them. Snickers at 3:00 was your special thing, but now they’re gone. That’s also a grieving experience.
I remember right after my father passed away that the director of a choir in which I sang asked me what it felt like. I said that it felt like someone was removing the foundation of my house while I was sitting in the living room. The impact was massive, and I was very, very sad as expected. But there were a whole bunch of other symptoms that I didn’t realize were connected. I, who pride myself on being a rather warm and gracious lady, had these frequent, strange moments of hostile grumpiness. The guy at the seven-eleven was counting my change too slowly, and I wanted to rip his head off! I lost my keys and credit cards and purse. I was anxious and unable to concentrate. This was actually incredibly normal. Grievers of any level or variety can have thin, thin skin. They may lose focus, they may lose things. They are sometimes very hard-pressed to find it in their ability to really pay attention when you're talking to them. If you're experiencing a lot of grief, change or loss, and you're also experiencing those personality traits, you're perfectly normal. You're perfectly normal. Did I mention that you are perfectly normal?
The change guru John Kotter talked and wrote often about something he called assimilation points. He said that we have a certain number of these points in our body and heart and, as various changes in our life pile up, we deplete them. An easier way to think about it may be to say that we have change coupons. These are little coupons of strength that let us deal with change or loss in our environment, and we only have a certain amount of them. So, if we happen to be transitioning at work and getting a divorce at the same time, or we’re refinancing our house at the same time that our cat passes away, then we’re very low on coupons. During those times of a lot of change, it is extra important, triple important, to be gentle with yourself. Be easy about judging yourself for perfection, for neatness at home, for your perfect diet, for anything else that you push yourself on, because your system is low on coupons. And similarly, if you're a parent, or you're in management, and you're looking at the people around you, you are obliged to ask yourself how many coupons do they have today? Have they gone through so much loss and change that I just can't expect from them the same things that I would expect if their reserves were up to stock?
It helps to work on tolerating ambiguity. It is not a happy thing for most human beings to have ambiguity in their lives. We like hand-holds; we like black and white; we like “marry me” or “divorce me.”
We like to KNOW, and then we can relax.
For everyone I know and meet these days, change and ambiguity are at record levels. People are grieving jobs, homes and lifestyle comforts with which they have had to part. Ambiguity of the future is weighty and exhausting every time we turn on the news or pick up a paper. Sometimes just using the word "ambiguity" in your mind and giving yourself a label for that slippery experience can begin to help you feel better and have more mastery over it. Once we label an emotion, we separate ourselves from it and become more powerful. Next time you feel off, ask yourself, “In what areas is there ambiguity in my life over which I have no control?” “ How can I stop trying to control the uncontrollable?” This will free up a huge amount of energy.
As a humorist and a bringer of lightness in my work, I hesitated a bit before sending out a newsletter with an article on grief. But several years ago I went through a certification in a process based on the wonderful book, The Grief Recovery Handbook, I mentioned earlier. In my opinion, it is the ultimate source on this topic for every variety from the death of a pet to the loss of a relationship. During the certification process, I learned - and take a moment to remind you now - that until we pause, breath and shake hands with what are often mislabeled as the darker emotions, we cannot be free. We cannot be truly joyous. Any laughter we enjoy will be shallow. So as much as you can tolerate, sit in the middle of all of the change and ambiguity around you and take little breaths. Do what feels productive and loving to yourself and others one minute at a time and see if slowly you can learn to inhale all the way and know that you will still be OK.
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