My Blog

Tag: Hard Lessons

  • Top 5 Things I wish I Knew Before I Lost a Loved One

    Top 5 Things I wish I Knew Before I Lost a Loved One

    The hardest lessons that we learn in life are the ones where we don’t get a second chance to apply the lessons learned. The death of a loved one is one of the most painful experiences that we can survive. In my opinion, the pain comes from the unanswered questions that fill our mind after we realize we lost the opportunity to ask them. The pain comes from realizing that the reconciliation that we have been putting off because of our own pride, can no longer happen. The pain comes from the inability to picture what life without that loved one will look like. If only I had understood the lessons below, I believe that the pain wouldn’t be quite so crushing.  

    Never wait for the right time to tell someone how you feel

    I was young. I was starting to see my career skyrocket. I was rapidly moving through the corporate ranks, flying around the world for meetings, and attending top conferences in my industry. Throughout that journey, I would talk to my Mom on a daily basis. She was always there to use her brutal honesty in a beautifully tender way to let me know when I was about to do, or already did, something stupid. She has always been my sounding board.

    The last conversation I had with my mom is one that will always stay with me. The phone conversation ended with her normal joyful and light-hearted disposition giving way to a more reserved and quiet demeanor. After prying to find out what was wrong, she said there was something she wanted to talk about, but she wanted to wait for me to come back to town. I had just arrived at my hotel for a work conference and I’m sure she thought whatever she wanted to say might burden me to the point I wouldn’t enjoy the conference. Less than 12 hours later I received a call to my hotel room at 3:00 AM telling me that my mom had a stroke and was in the ICU. 

    The “right time” to tell someone what is on your heart or how you are feeling is right now. It may feel awkward, the other person might not know how to react or what to say, but if the next time you can express yourself to them is during their eulogy, then you have done a disservice to them and will cause significant hurt for yourself. Whether the feeling you want to share is positive or negative, there won’t be a right time. In my case, there wasn’t enough time. 

    The words that someone uses to ask a question do not always reflect the real request a person is making

    I’m a very literal person and I often make the mistake of thinking other people are the same way. I have a paradigm that compels me to believe that when people communicate, they are carefully choosing the words that they use to craft the clearest message they can. I’ve known that my paradigm is wrong, but I didn’t understand until after my Grandpa passed away from brain cancer. 

    As my Grandpa’s health started declining I made more frequent trips to his home to spend time with him and do whatever chores I could. Every time I would step through the front door he would ask me if I wanted a coffee. I was on the border of needing high blood pressure medication and my doctor recommended I cut coffee out of my diet. (I used to drink multiple pots a day). Every time my Grandpa would offer me coffee, I would politely reject his offer because I had to focus on my health. 

    After he passed away, as I was working through my grief, I recognized that I wasn’t listening to what he was asking. As I was growing up my Grandpa and I would drink coffee together regularly. Whether we were at his home, my home, or out to lunch. Drinking coffee was our ritual. During those declining months, he wasn’t offering me coffee because he was a good host. He was asking me to help him forget the pain of his current situation. He wanted to briefly return to a happier, familiar, and normal time. Every time I rejected his offer, I denied him what he was really asking for. My blood pressure would have been okay if I shared a few more cups of coffee with my Grandpa.

    Do not take personal any actions or statements that a bereaved person makes

    My Father-figure shared an incredible life secret with me before my wedding. He told me that in life there are three events that can facilitate the healing of almost any relationship: weddings, the birth of children, and deaths. The only way we can allow healing to begin is by opening our hearts and practicing more patience with those around us. Hopefully, they will do the same for us.

    When someone we love passes away it is unpredictable how we will respond. It is unpredictable how others will respond. It’s almost like we put our emotions into a pot, put the lid on it, put it on the stove, and turn up the heat as high as it will go. Every pot will handle that heat differently. Some will have a rolling boil while the top might blow off of others. The misapplication of heat is not the fault of the pot.

    As people try to find a path through their own grieving journey they may inadvertently hurt those around them. A family friend described the phenomenon as “hurt people, hurt people.” This beautifully concise statement is not a law, but it reframes what may feel like an attack against us into a plea for help. I made the mistake of taking things personally. This not only damaged my relationships but also stunted my own healing from the family loss.

    You don’t know people nearly as much as you think you do

    Growing up I spent a good amount of time with my Grandpa. Not as much as I wish I could have of course, but I am grateful for every moment we had. I could tell you just about anything you’d want to know about him. His hobbies, his military career, his dedication to his church and community. He is my Grandpa after all.

    One of the most powerful traditions following a death is for friends and other family members to share stories of the deceased with the grieving family. I learned that when my Grandpa was in high school he would race the school bus that was carrying his future bride of 63 years. I knew my Grandpa was a bit of a rascal when he was young, but all that was going through my head was, “My Grandpa did what when he was a kid?!”

    To borrow a line from Shrek, it’s not only ogres that are like onions. People have layers too. The nature of your relationship with a person will determine which layers of their story will be revealed to you. Sometimes we can stumble upon these different corners of the people we love, but oftentimes they will remain hidden. As people share stories about your loved one, listen carefully. You will learn that your loved one was stronger, braver, smarter, funnier, and kinder than you ever knew them to be.

    The best story in the world is hidden in your family members

    After hearing some of the stories about my Mom and Grandpa I had a few questions. Questions that I would have loved to ask them. Questions that only they had answers to. “What could have possibly been going through your mind when you did that? How did you feel after that happened to you? Why did you think that when none of your peers did? Who inspired you to become the incredible beacon in this world that you are?”

    Unless you are lucky enough to find a journal that the deceased used to capture their feelings and thoughts, many of those questions will go unanswered. Personally, I have struggled with these questions and many others that are more significant. While I won’t be able to learn the answers to all of the questions I have. I am still able to learn the answers to different questions that I am coming up with daily. I recently learned that my Great-grandparent’s relationship started because mail was delivered to the wrong person that happened to share an identical name. 

    By learning about the people in our family we open an epic saga with more twists and turns than the most talented authors can craft. The saga is gripping not only because of yesteryear’s foreign customs and practices but because at the end of the winding storyline, you actually make an appearance. You gain an appreciation for life, your place in it, and for the people around you that is impossible to put into words. The best way to find motivation, community, and strength is by discovering your own origin story. Selfishly learn about yourself by generously listening to the stories of the people you love.

    Conclusion:

    As awkward as some of these practices are, I’ve tried to incorporate them into my life. I’ve noticed a significant improvement in my own mental health and wellbeing. If you have never lost anyone I hope that you think about adopting some of these lessons. For those of you who have lost loved ones, what do you think about these lessons? What is the most impactful lesson that you have learned from losing a loved one?

  • Farewell Father Poem – The Power of Poetry

    Farewell Father Poem – The Power of Poetry

    Art has an undeniable ability to touch parts of our hearts that are often locked away and only accessible through our subconscious. Not every piece of art has the keys to unlock the guarded door, and we can’t predict if a sculpture, painting, or song will be the arrow that pierces our soul. Even if you aren’t typically able to understand art, like me, we can still appreciate great art when we see it. During my darkest hour of grieving, after we had lost 5 of our relatives and then had to put our cat of 17 years to sleep, I came across a poem that struck at my core. It simultaneously hurt to read the truth it carried and healed much of the pain I had been enduring up to this point.

    At a Glance

    A Story From My Grief Journey – Hidden Source of Pain

    After experiencing so much loss in a short period of time, the pain of losing a loved one had become commonplace. Through all of the hurt, I constantly asked myself why? Why do I feel so much pain? Why is it that I still have so much pain surrounding my Mother’s death when it was over 3 years ago? Why can’t I seem to find any kind of closure? Why can’t I just move on!

    That question of “why” plagued me for years. Rationally I know that everyone will die. Logically the people that we are closest to will hurt the most to lose. The question of “why can’t I just move on?” was answered when I learned about Dr. Tony Walter’s New Model of Grief. After months of reading, I still couldn’t answer what caused the intensity of my pain.

    It wasn’t until I stumbled upon the most powerful poem I encountered during my grief journey that I finally understood. Three lines and only 13 words. Those 13 words provided me with clarity of not only my own grief but exactly what I had seen in others. Those insightful 13 words are:

    “I have lost. Not the memory of my father, but my father’s memory.”

     

    An Excerpt of Farewell Father, by Stefan Molyneux

    (You can view the entire poem by clicking here)

    The Effect on My Life

    After hearing those 13 words from the poem, I understood that my pain was coming from the idea that I might lose my Mother’s memory. As I mentioned in my post about The Top 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Losing A Loved One, I talked to my Mom daily. Even though I talked to her daily, there is still so much that I don’t know about her. Ultimately I was afraid of losing the things that I did know about her; the nuances of her personality, the quirkiness of her sense of humor, and the tenderness of her heart.

    After her second stroke, our roles reversed, and I was more of a caregiver than a son. Our conversations turned from her history and experiences to ensuring she took her medication and ate that day. Then, all of a sudden, without my input, I could never ask her another question. The great privilege of learning about her was no longer available to me because of the third stroke, which ultimately claimed her life. There were many serious (or maybe “important” is the right word) topics that I wanted to talk about, but I wanted to wait for the appropriate time. Now there was no time, no conversations, and no answers.

    Nearly 3 years after my mom passed away, I lost my Grandpa to brain cancer. We had over a year together from his diagnosis to his passing. Throughout his declining health, I began helping with some chores, hydration therapy, picking him up if he fell, and staying by his side when he was in the hospital. While the hospital visits were not the best reason to be together, they were a huge gift to me, and I like to think that he also enjoyed our time together. We talked about my Mom (his daughter), shared tears about our loss, and we talked about his experiences through life. 

    I always knew my Grandpa, but I only knew him as my Grandpa. Through those conversations, I was able to see a sliver of him as a soldier, a friend, a community member, a father, and a husband. His lessons about the importance of dedication to wife and kids became the foundation of what I am striving for in my own family. I had time to ask questions and learn from my Grandpa before I lost him.

    The biggest difference between losing my Mom and losing my Grandpa is the number of intentional conversations we had. With my Mom, I didn’t recognize that there was a time limit on our time together, and I put off those intentional conversations. With my Grandpa, it was a race to collect, just like the poem referenced, as many stories from his exclusive library as possible.

     

    Recreating The Library

    After someone is buried, it is common for the people in attendance to share their fondest memories with the surviving family. I realized that those conversations are actually like the process of returning a book to the library. The stories comfort the family because the family reclaims a part of the person that they have lost. While it is impossible to rebuild the entire library, we can preserve enough to have a very good representation of the person we lost.

    I found the process of collecting as many of these memories as possible to be the best medicine for the pain immediately following my losses. On the long road of healing after my losses, I occasionally fall into low spots. By returning to the library of memories I collected and focussing on the incredible life of the person I lost and their impacts on the people in their lives, I quickly put myself in a much better mood.

    This idea is what inspired me to begin developing a website that will allow me to easily collect stories and memories, store them in a safe place, and return to them any time I wanted. I noticed that as people shared stories with me about someone I lost, I would often be reminded of another story. When I would share the story I was reminded of, it would inspire the listener to share a different story. The more people that participated, the more stories I could collect. The more stories I could collect, the less my grieving journey hurt.

     

    Conclusion:

    You never know what will inspire you. You don’t know when it will happen. You don’t know the magnitude of change that will come. For me, thirteen words from a poem inspired me to embark on a quest to ease the pain of losing loved ones for as many people as possible. The biggest piece of advice I can give you is to start collecting books for your library!

    What do you think of this poem? Are there any pieces of art that have helped you on your grieving journey? Is there a piece that you want me to cover? If you are curious about the website I used to collect and store memories, join our mailing list to receive exclusive updates!

  • The Best Method for Healthy Grieving

    The Best Method for Healthy Grieving

    If you are like me, when you are in the middle of being swallowed by grief, you are hoping that anything will come to lift you out of that negative place. You can engage in many activities that will temporarily dull the pain of your loss, but they come at the expense of your future. In this article, you’ll find some of the healthier practices that can help you work through your pain today without sacrificing your future self.

    Admittedly, the title of the article is slightly misleading. There is not a single method or path that leads to the most healthy grieving process. That said, there are several common traps to avoid and several positive actions you should try to employ. The purpose of this post is to help you navigate the minefield that I experienced during my grief journey.

    This is going to be a longer post. For those of you that would like the highlight reel, here are the major bullet points to aid your grieving journey. If you’d like a little more detail, you can either click on the topic you want to explore more or scroll down for the rest of the article.

    The Traps to Avoid

    Healthy Grieving Tips

    The Traps of Grief

    Don’t Be Surprised By New Emotions

    Throughout my childhood and adult life, I’ve received positive feedback about my ability to keep a positive and even temperament despite the situations that surrounded me. I actually came to pride myself on being (I’m going to create a new word here)” “unrattle-able.” Then my Mom passed away. 

    For the six weeks she was in the ICU, I was able to keep my cool while talking to hospital staff or family. I was with her as she passed. In the first hour after, I felt like the world was muted. The sounds of the machines that had been keeping my mom alive disappeared. I couldn’t hear the rush hour traffic outside anymore. Time just seemed to melt away. After that hour passed, I was consumed by anger. To this day, I can’t tell you what I was really angry at, but I was willing to direct it at the first person that dared to, in my opinion at the time, misstep.

    I have never been angry like that in my life. Like I mentioned in the article about the Top 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Lost A Loved One, hurt people have a tendency to hurt people. I was projecting my pain onto others. Anger was my surprise emotion. It very well could have been depression, relief, confusion, hopelessness, contentment, and even joy that our loved one is no longer in pain. After your loved one passes away, emotions (or the lack of emotions) are going to come to you. Recognize those emotions and try to reframe them into more positive expressions. Just don’t be surprised when you may be feeling an emotion for the first time or stronger than you have experienced before.

    Grief Recovery Doesn’t Happen On A Timeline

    Today, more than 3 years after my Mom passed away, I am still grieving losing her. I am able to talk about her, and the negative feelings surrounding her death are mostly gone. I still have moments of sadness when I think about things like her missing the birth of my firstborn child by 4 months. Overall those sad moments are becoming fewer and farther between. 

    I was able to get to this same stage of grief recovery for my Grandpa in a significantly shorter time. I may have reached this stage faster because I have more experience now, but I think it is because I had so many more intentional conversations with my Grandpa. In my post about the poem “Farewell Father,” I talk about how the source of my pain came from the list of unanswered questions that I had. I was able to get more of those answers from my Grandpa before he passed away than I did from my mom. 

    There are so many different factors that can affect your individual grieving timeline that it is impossible to make a one size fits all plan. I can tell you that your experience will be unique to you. Don’t compare your experience to anyone else’s. Don’t try to rush through it. Let your grief unfold as it happens. You will recover in time.

    Prematurely “Moving On” and Forgetting Can Prolong Your Pain

    When I lost the people I care about, in moments of weakness, I would wish that I could forget about them. My pain was too great, and I was sure that if I could remove them from my memory, I could finally move on. I mistakenly believed that the faster they were left behind, the faster I could move forward. Looking back, I can see how I caused myself more pain. 

    One of my favorite quotes about bereavement comes from a research paper by Dr. Tony Walter on The New Model of Grief. He quotes a family friend that said, “..we should keep the spirit of the deceased alive, that we acknowledge them as a continuing member of our family and community. We are who we are in part because of who they were, and we are denying reality if we try to leave them entirely behind.”

    I don’t think that we ever really “move on” from someone that has had a significant role in our lives. Whether that person is deceased or still alive, their absence from our life is painful. The solution is not to remove the person from our memory but to find an appropriate place for them. We should recognize their contributions to who we are. 

    Focussing On Your Grief And Loss Will Intensify Your Pain

    After my Mom and my Grandpa passed away, I recognized that my thought process was pretty negative. I quickly corrected my behavior after my Grandpa passed, but there were still multiple times that I would slip back into it. As I would stew in that negativity, everything and anything that other people did just frustrated me. I would have thoughts like, “How could this person disrespect MY Mom that way?!” and “There is no way that Grandpa would approve of this!”

    In reality, my Mom wasn’t being disrespected. My Grandpa probably would have just chuckled at whatever was happening. Because I was focusing on my own negative feelings, I convinced myself that my deceased loved ones would feel the same way. After I made myself believe that my loved ones were being disrespected, I only made myself more angry, for a longer period of time, and at a higher intensity.

    The secret I discovered to avoid focussing on my grief was to help others with theirs. As I talked to my friends and family about their fondest memories of my deceased family, I could see that they enjoyed sharing those memories, and selfishly I enjoyed being reminded of certain personality quirks that I had forgotten about. Instead of focusing on the negative feelings, focus on remembering the deceased’s character and all of the good they contributed to this world.

    The Roadmap Of Grief Recovery 

    Be Honest About Your Feelings

    I am a very reserved person. I rarely let anyone know what I am experiencing on the inside. That trait serves me well in many situations, but healing from grief isn’t one of them. I didn’t want to share my feelings with anyone because I didn’t want them to feel the weight of my depression. As I tried to deal with my grief alone, I became incredibly lonely. 

    I had to meet with the estate lawyers, I had to organize the funeral, I had to contact the creditors, and I had to (try to anyway) be a good husband and father. It all became too much. When I started to ask for help, I was surprised how many people were able to step up. In fact, they were eager to do whatever they could for me. They were only waiting for me to say what I needed. As an added bonus, they felt better knowing that they are able to do something that helped me.

    There were a couple of people that were a bit “too helpful.” Trying to be as honest but still respectful as possible, I thanked them for all of their support up to that point and explained that now I needed some time for myself. They didn’t take any offense, and as quickly as they came to help, they then gave me space. If you don’t know what you need, that is a great place to start with people. You can always say, “I just don’t know yet.” The key is just being honest.

    Give Yourself Permission To Be Alone

    Not everyone finds comfort in groups. I’m an introvert. While I can function in groups, I feel exhausted by the end of the affair. So many of the events that follow someone’s death involve gatherings of people. Many times as a surviving family member, others will want to interact with you. Everyone who comes to you has the best intentions, but sometimes you need a break from it all.

    There were several times where I turned off my phone and went for a drive. I mentioned earlier that you can help yourself by helping others with their grief. I genuinely believe that, but there is an exception. You have to take care of yourself first. Just like in the safety briefing on an aircraft (that every single passenger removes their headphones to listen to), you must secure your own oxygen before helping others. 

    If you burn out, then you hurt yourself and those around you. Take time for yourself. 

    Excuse Yourself From Grief and Administrative Tasks Periodically

    My Mom was the first person I lost. I felt that to be a good son, I had to take care of everything by myself. The only way I could do it all was by sacrificing my sleep and relationships. In the middle of the night, as I was trying to finish the handouts for the funeral, I hit my wall. I was trying to avoid my grief by focussing on the administrative tasks. Grief engulfed me.

    For the next 2 days, every time I tried to tackle the administrative tasks, I was trying to confine my grief. As I repressed my grief, I was overwhelmed by guilt. Eventually, my wife, with all of her grace and wisdom, encouraged me to take a break. She encouraged me to disconnect from everything, if only for 30 minutes. I drove to my favorite fast food joint and ordered my favorite milkshake: peanut butter, chocolate, and banana. That short break was exactly what I needed to reset my emotional state.

    As you wrestle with grief, know that it’s okay to still experience some joy and happiness. You don’t need to be sad all of the time in order to honor your loved one. The companies that need copies of the death certificates can wait a few days before closing the accounts. Take time to do something that will make you happy.

    Engage And Embrace The Community That Shares Your Loss

    After losing someone you care about, it’s hard to know what to say, let alone who you should say it to. You might know that you want to say something, but you just can’t quite figure out how to express it. The other people that were close with the person that passed away will all be feeling the same way. There is also a long list of reasons why communication might be challenging between two people grieving the same loss. Two of the biggest reasons are the different speeds at which people grieve and the many different styles that people grieve. 

    When you are ready, you should reach out to other people that knew your loved one. That small gesture gives them (and yourself) permission to start a conversation. It might be stop-and-go or a bit awkward, but as you both share memories about the deceased, you will recreate an image of them that will help both of you heal. In my experiences, I was able to rediscover my relationship with the deceased and, in a way, meet them for the first time. Everyone I talked to knew a slightly different version of my loved one. These conversations are not only the best way to honor the deceased but also the best way to begin healing your own emotional pain.

    Preserve Your Positive Memories

    There are two practices that I found to significantly improve my state of mind and expedite my grief recovery. I struggled with my grief for 3 years before I finally learned these lessons. 

    The first practice was recording all of the positive memories and stories I had about my loved ones. I started asking family members for the stories associated with some old photos I found, I asked about what my loved ones were like before I was around, and most importantly, I listened to every word that they shared with me. 

    I started to record all of the stories. I started to compile the photos that had the most significance to my family members. I watched hours of home videos and took notes about what was in each video. By putting all of these written, video, and photographic memories together in one place, I made something that I can return to when I miss my loved one. I also created something that I can use to introduce my children, that were born after the death, to my loved one in the same light that I remembered them.  

    Practice Gratitude At Every Opportunity

    The second practice that helped me most throughout my grief journey was simply recognizing how many people cared about my loved one. As I had conversations and collected memories, I learned how much other people genuinely cared about my loved one. 

    Author Douglas Wood said it best in his book, which is appropriately named The Secret of Saying Thanks, “The heart that gives thanks is a happy one, for we cannot feel thankful and unhappy at the same time.” 

    When I started to thank people for the friendships they shared with my loved one (I know it can sound a little weird to say it out loud), I started to recognize how many people actually cared about me also. The more gratitude I expressed, the more support I found, and the faster my pain started to subside. I finally found myself being able to cheerfully talk about the people I’d lost. The key was simply to start saying thank you to the people helping me. Who would have guessed it?

    Conclusion:

    At the end of the day, the best method for healthy grieving is the one that you create. Because of the many factors that personalize our grief experiences, it is impossible for anyone to tell you what your journey will be like. I sincerely hope that some of the practices I covered in this post will help you. You can put many of these methods to work in your daily life. The more you flex these muscles today, the easier it will be to use them when you need them.

  • What Being A Social Worker Taught Me About Grief

    What Being A Social Worker Taught Me About Grief

    As a social worker, I helped people work through grief in many different settings. I worked in hospice for a while, but issues related to grief and loss were a common focus no matter where I worked. They were no less central for the people I saw at community mental health clinics, crisis response programs, or substance use treatment centers than they were for my hospice clients.

    One of the greatest challenges of being a human being is dealing with loss, especially the loss of people we love. We resist change in every form it finds us in, and death is the most painful kind of change. The hardest challenge any of us ever face is accepting when someone who was at the center of our universe is no longer there for us or with us.

    Loss always hurts, but how we deal with it determines whether it breaks us open or shuts us down. A broken heart can be, or become, a full heart. A numb heart can’t become anything else until it feels again. As long as we avoid the pain, the heart is a closed chamber where no healing can reach and where no further growth can take place.

    While mental health issues have many causes, unresolved grief was at least one piece of the puzzle for most of my clients. The things we do to avoid grief can cause complications that only compound over time. For some people, unresolved grief can contribute to depression or anxiety; for others, it can lead to substance use disorders. For some, the result of grief resisted is subtler, not so much a disorder as a life less fully lived, where joy is rare and everything is gray.


    Ultimately, what I learned about grief as a social worker was that it’s an unavoidable part of being human, but that most of us go to great lengths to avoid it. We fight and we resist it. We blame ourselves, because guilt and regret, as hard as they are to feel, hurt less than simple loss does. But the only way out is through.

    There is no one right way to grieve, and healing grief doesn’t have to mean “moving on”—some relationships, and people, stay with us, in our hearts, forever—but grief has to move through us. We have to follow it on the journey it takes us on and get to the other side, or else we get stuck. To heal, we first have to feel the sadness and pain. Everything else comes after.

    Where Does the Journey of Grief Take Us?

    The grief journey begins with acute grief, the initial period after a loss when our emotions are at their most intense. It’s not unusual for the first reaction to grief to be shock or disbelief. Before we can feel anything, we must first process the grief intellectually and give our brains time to register that yes, this person is really gone. As soon as we do this work, the feelings start to come.

    Sometimes the sadness is soft and receptive, and sometimes it’s like a roar, searing and fiery and loud. Sometimes the sadness dances with anger. At other times, it takes turns with tender hope or even happy reminiscence. The only universal truth about grief is that it is a process, not a state.

    The famous “five stages of grief” described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross illuminate contours of the grief process, but they’ve been misunderstood. People think these five stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) are supposed to always happen in the same order, or that everyone always goes through all five of them. But not even Kubler-Ross herself meant for them to be understood that way. Not everyone bargains or gets angry, for example. These stages make for common scenery on the road of grief, but not all routes lead through all of them.

    That said, there is a general truth to the model, which is that people who resolve their grief successfully move from acute grief to integrated grief, or from pain to peace and acceptance. Integration is what happens when the emotions you feel about the loss no longer keep you from participating in life or from feeling joy or hope. You come to terms with the loss; you move from fighting or arguing with the pain to feeling it acutely, and then, finally, to weaving it into the larger emotional tapestry of your life. The sadness may still come and go, but it eases up and weaves in with feelings of love and appreciation.

    When you’ve integrated your grief, you still sometimes feel sad, but you can now smile when you think of that person. You can feel and enjoy their presence in a different way, as part of you, as an emotional or spiritual presence. I agree with Dustin—and Dr. Tony Walter—that the real purpose of grief is not to “let go” of the person you’ve lost, but to “find a secure place for them” inside of you. You must discover the new reality this person has in your life now that they can no longer be physically present.

    Common Grief Traps

    Think of grief as a river. Its natural action is to flow. But while grief is powerful, we are clever, and we have all kinds of tools and mechanisms we can use to stop its flow. We can build a dam that keeps the water of grief pooled up out of sight and the rest of life “dry.”

    When we do that, though, we also dam up the core of our emotional energy. We block the waters of joy as well as the waters of sadness. We can eventually stop up the entire course of our lives if we build that dam well enough. We can stay stuck in a gray, dry land for years.

    From what I’ve seen, learned, and lived through, I would say that these are the five most common grief traps people use to block the flow:

    • Using alcohol or other substances in excess to numb or alter natural feelings.
    • Withdrawing from other people and the world to avoid talking about the loss.
    • Obsessively trying to “re-write” what actually happened to deny realities about the loss.
    • Focusing on details or aspects of the loss that generate or maintain anger and blame.
    • Refusing to do healthy things that feel good as a form of self-punishment.

    One of the most healing things we can do for our grief is to tell the story of the person we lost and what they meant in our lives as fully and completely as possible. Grief traps are generally anything that keeps us from doing that.

    Of course, the easiest way to not tell the story is to avoid thinking about it whatsoever, which is what we do when we use alcohol, other substances, or other compulsive behaviors to numb or distract ourselves. The trickiest grief traps, though, are the ones we fall into when we think we’re “dealing with it” by thinking about it all the time, but are actually trying to deny what happened.

    One common way we do this is by focusing on “what ifs.” We come up with endless scenarios for how the loss could have been prevented, often blaming ourselves or at least casting ourselves in the starring role in the story of How This Person Could Still Be Here.

    Sometimes, we blame another person. The hardest is when someone actually is to blame, fully or in part, for another person’s death. But there are ways to find justice that don’t require us to hold on to anger. The greater stories of our loved one’s lives are more important to memorialize than the details of blame. We have to find those greater stories in order to heal.

    The hardest grief to work through is complicated grief, which occurs when your relationship with the person you’ve lost was complicated. For example, you might be grieving an abusive parent with whom you later partially reconciled, or a sibling who died as the result of self-destructive behavior you spent years trying to get them to stop.

    Navigating and healing from complicated grief is challenging, and it often requires professional help. But there is one simple truth about it: you have to find a way to tell the actual, full story of that person and what happened in order to heal. Leaving things out doesn’t honor that person; making peace with the whole truth of who they were, and who they were to you, does.

    What Helps Us Heal

    There are ways we can cope with grief without trying to block or stop it. Think of these less like a dam and more like a little boat you can pilot down the river. These coping methods make sure you keep moving with and through grief until you reach the ocean of integration, healing, and acceptance:

    • Talk to as many people as you can about your grief and about the person you’ve lost.
    • Do something creative to honor their memory and to make something tangible you can touch, see, or share to remember them by.
    • Keep doing the things you’ve always enjoyed doing, even if you can’t do them as fully as you usually do.
    • Reach out to a therapist or other professional for help if you need it, especially if you’re dealing with complicated grief or a violent or traumatic loss.
    • If you have spiritual questions, seek out professional clergy, a book, a practice, a program, a group, or a peer who can help you work through them.

    Thinking and talking about the loss are necessary to heal. Grief is a natural process, not a disorder, and doesn’t always require therapy to address. But it’s hard to work through grief without talking to someone. Peers, friends, family, or members of a faith community can often provide the understanding and support you need.

    However, to avoid common grief traps, like getting lost in anger or trying to “re-write” the story of what happened, sometimes you do need professional help. When your grief is complicated, or your loss was traumatic, you need to talk to someone who can engage fully with you in exploring all the complicated, difficult feelings that friends and family might shrink away from or try to shut down. Any time you feel frustrated or hurt by responses from friends and family, it can help to reach out to a therapist, support group, or clergy person, depending on your specific situation and needs.

    But not all the work is done through talking. Sometimes, to make a space for a new kind of relationship with the person you’ve lost, you have to actually make a physical space for them. You might want to set up a shrine or memory corner of photographs and mementos from your relationship, for example. You might want to draw, journal, write a story, or find another a way to put your memories, thoughts, and feelings about them into something you can see and hold.

    It can also help to spend some time doing things you used to do with the person who has died. You might even want to try an activity they loved to do that you’ve never tried before. It can help you remember them clearly and understand them better. But it’s also possible to get a little lost if you don’t keep doing the things that you love, and that make you who you are. Over time, you’ll start to feel that person there with you, in your heart, and be able to integrate your awareness and memory of them with your whole life, not just the activities specifically focused on them. You might be moving on to a new phase of your life, but you’re taking them with you.