I recently was surprised by a bout of residual grief.
I had anticipated that some memories and feelings would come up during a recent weekend workshop I attended on grief and loss, as well as an All-Saints Day event I was invited to where my parents were going to be honored. However, the waves of emotion that I felt were much more intense than I anticipated, and I was knocked on my tail emotionally for a good two days.
Now, with a little perspective, I can see that the pandemic and the fact that our family wasn’t able to have a celebration of life with friends for my mother, only a graveside service, was partly responsible for the intensity of my feelings. So, when I was able to gather with her friends for the All-Saints Day event, I was truly able to celebrate my mother’s life with people who knew her deeply. I was teary the whole time. I also felt loss for my father who had died in 2017 and had a huge funeral spread out over 3 days. It had been a totally different public grieving experience and yet I still felt deep pain over that weekend, even though I feel very complete with him.
So I want to share something that I learned at my “Play Therapy with Grief and Loss” workshop provided by Amber Johnson, one of the owners of Heartland Play Therapy Institute. She shared a concept that I had not been familiar with before, but which totally makes sense. She shared that recently grief/loss is not seen as reducing over time. The loss stays the same, it is us who change. We grow around the grief.
What I learned that weekend was that I still had grief to process and once I did, I felt lighter. I felt like something I wasn’t aware of that needed to be cleansed, was, and it was good that I had felt those feelings and shed those tears.
Each week in my office, I am still sitting with the effects of the pandemic. I hear story after story of the stress, challenges, and lingering effects. So, as we wrap up 2022, even though we are almost two years away from 2020, I’d like you to maybe do a little inventory of what residue still remains for you and your loved ones. I’d also encourage you to set aside time to process your thoughts and feelings with a safe person, maybe your therapist, maybe a family member or friend. I’m very appreciative of my partner at the workshop who held space so I could personally experience some of the tools I hope to bring to my clients. It might not feel good going through it but once you get to the other side of letting yourself feel the loss, you will, I hope, feel some release.
If you are looking for additional resources on grief, I recommend the work of Dr. Alan Wolfelt at www.centerforloss.com.
Best wishes for the holiday season and special hugs for those of you missing loved ones this year.