Grief/Loss Spotlight

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Grief is a deeply personal and complex journey. It is the intense pain that accompanies loss. The pain may feel equal to the amount of love we had for the person, job, or relationship that is no longer in our life. The magnitude of our pain may also reflect how much our identity and our way of life relied on who or what we have lost. In essence, we have lost a big part of ourselves too. 

Understanding grief can help us navigate through the emotional journey and find healing in our own time. Here are some key points to help us better understand grief:

Unique Experience

• Grief is not a one-size-fits-all experience. Each person will process and express their grief in their own way.
• There is no “right” or “wrong” way to grieve. We must respect and honour each person’s unique grieving process.

No Timeframe

• Grief cannot be neatly packaged and resolved within a specific timeframe.
• The deeper the love or attachment to what we’ve lost will likely result in a longer or more complex healing journey.
• It is important to allow ourselves and others the time and space to grieve without judgment or pressure.

Emotional Range

• Many emotions are experienced with grief from shock, sadness, anger, guilt, confusion, and even relief.
• Conflicting emotions are a normal part of the grieving process, which requires patience and kindness.
• How we process grief emotions depends on our personalities and preferences, e.g., introverted personality types may prefer time alone to heal through journaling, reflecting on memories, or visiting memorable places, whereas extraverted personality types may prefer sharing stories, attending group events about loss, or organizing fundraisers or charitable events in support of lost loved ones.

Physical, Mental and Social Impact

• Physically, grief can result in fatigue, appetite shifts, and disrupted sleep patterns.
• Mentally, grief can result in concentration issues, memory fog, and heightened symptoms of anxiety or depression such as regret, loss of motivation, racing thoughts, and persistent worry or rumination.
• Socially, grief can affect our relationships causing us to withdraw or seek support from others.

While there are several types of grief  and models associated with what people typically experience as a result, seeking therapeutic support is an important part of healing.

What can be expected in therapy?

1. Addressing physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual symptoms of distress or pain, to identify areas of main concern and immediate solutions to stabilize one’s health.
2. Making sense of the loss – the whys, what for’s, what if’s and if only’s.
3. Exploring one’s attachment to the lost loved one, or source of loss, including how one’s way of life, identity, or daily functioning has been impacted.
4. Identifying and experimenting with coping techniques that honour one’s unique attachment, needs, and voids associated with their loss.
5. Revamping techniques to support emotional and social growth, as well as hope based on one’s readiness / desired pace.
6. Activating new ways of living that honour who or what has been lost and provide meaning in one’s new reality, based on one’s readiness / desired pace.

Kathleen’s message

Like many of you, I have endured many deeply painful losses in my life and have journeyed through the muddied waters of grief more than I ever thought I would. Grief is sneaky and it’s dirty. Each time I felt like I was being shaken like a rag doll by savages. Each loss felt like I was being ripped apart and trying to function with less and less of me until I found a meaningful way to exist again.

My first traumatic experience with death was when my brother’s best friend committed suicide in his early 20s (I was an early teen), and his mother who I considered an aunt told me that love can’t always save someone who means a lot to us. I was always mindful of that until when it couldn’t help me heal the pain of losing my first parent, my mother, at 37 despite having lost my best friend at 23 to leukemia which was confusing enough. Losing my mom was the most painful of all the losses I endured, it felt like the earth had fallen away from me and I didn’t know where to stand or even how to stand anymore. It took a while to see her beauty in my mind again after witnessing her horrible demise to cancer, but it started with feeling her beauty in my heart everyday by incorporating her passions into my life.

There is hope and life after loss. I would be honoured to join you on your path to healing. There is no easy way around it, but having a partner who has been through it will make it feel a little less hard.