Show Notes:
Bereavement is the term used to describe the holistic experience of loss, including the emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and social experiences.
Grief is the word used to describe the emotional component of bereavement. Loss is the experience of being separated from something or someone that we love and care for. In other words, loss is the separation, and grief is the emotional reaction to the loss.
Loss is a normal part of the human experience. Even though loss is a normal and expected part of life we continue to have difficulties with it because it is a painful experience, and humans are wired to avoid pain.
We work very hard at avoiding pain, and the death of loved ones is not something that we can avoid. These losses bring up a lot of stuff for us, maybe the unfinished business of a conversation we didn’t finish, or actions we regret, so death brings a lot of discomfort to our lives.
When someone we love has died, or when we have experienced another major loss, the way we can make it less painful is to know that the pain of the loss is not going to kill us. We can talk about it to people who will just listen and witness our pain. We can think about how the pain teaches us about who we are. It’s important for us to not feel alone with the pain of a loss.
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought out a lot of feelings of grief and loss. We can help ourselves and others live with these feelings by increasing the kindness we offer to others and to ourselves.
It is important not to compare our grief with others’ feelings of grief. The important part is your own experience of the loss, rather than comparing it to others’ loss.
It is important to take the lessons of the loss, learn from them, and figure out how to move forward; not forget where we’ve been but to take those lessons and apply them to the next part of life.
When we are supporting someone who has experienced a loss, we can best do this by offering our kind, gentle, and non-judgmental presence. We don’t have to know the right things to say, we can simply listen without interrupting.
In 1969 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross developed her Five Stages of Grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. A colleague later developed a sixth stage: making meaning. These stages are meant to describe the commonality of the human experience vis a vis grief and loss, but noting that this is not a linear process.
Grief moves us around. We have to learn who we are after a significant loss. We are changed by the experience.
Some common reactions to a major loss are: an initial shock period where the body and brain are not able to process the information, there’s also a change in breathing – people have a feeling of tightness in the lungs, there are changes in eating, sleeping, and exercising patterns. There is a period of evaluation where people think about their last conversations and list their regrets with that person, along with asking themselves if they played a part in the loved one’s death (could I have done something more? I should have done more…).
People also find themselves needing to be more in contact with nature or want to be home by themselves to process the experience. Others want to talk to God, and others aren’t interested in that at all. Some people return to church if they weren’t attending for a while. There is a period of personal reflection.
The most important part of the process of bereavement is not to judge our reactions to the loss. Everyone is unique in this.
There are three Burdens of Grief: (1) The loss of the person through death, (2) We are forever changed when somebody we love dies, and (3) Navigating a world that is not as sensitive or kind to people who are experiencing grief.
After someone has died, we develop a new type of relationship with them. The relationship exists, and it continues but it is not the same. It exists inside your heart and in your head rather than in a physical manifestation.