Lionheart Grief Coaching

When we lose someone we love, it’s like we’re handed a heavy backpack to carry for all the days to come. This is our grief.

Over time, we can build the emotional strength to shoulder it more easily, but we never put it down.

For some, this may come as an unpleasant shock. After all, we have heard from so many people that there are stages of grief, leading us to falsely believe that if we can just do the steps we’ll be “done.” Maybe we even imagine we’ll get a certificate of completion when we reach the final step of acceptance. It can feel good to imagine an end-date, but when reality sets in and we experience days where we are angry or in denial we wonder how we can be back there again? Clearly, we’re doing it wrong.

Except we’re not. Below is an incredible illustration of fantasy vs. reality when it comes to grief:

When we can accept our varied emotions as part of the grieving process and totally normal, rather than engaging in self-judgment that we’re not “over it” yet, then we find ourselves on the true road of healing. And when we have a difficult day after a series of “good” days, we can compassionately remind ourselves this is part of the process. Nothing is wrong with out grief experience- there’s just something coming up right now that is asking for our attention.

We are more likely to get curious about the emotions that are coming up and find the truth of that moment when we understand our grief evolves but it doesn’t end.

What is often forgotten when we think about grief is it evolves with time. We don’t just grieve the person, we grieve all the experiences and milestones they will miss and we can’t pre-grieve those experiences- often we don’t even know they’re going to come up until we’re in the middle of an experience and it impacts us like stepping on an underground landmine. Here are a few examples:

• The first trip to the grocery store- not buying items that only your person enjoyed
• Birthdays and anniversaries (theirs and yours)
• First/last day of school and graduations
• Weddings
• Watching a movie you saw with your person
• Listening to music you shared

The list can go on and on. Because our person is lost to us forever, these experiences will forever be missing someone important and each experience demands our attention- attention to the loss and all the emotions that come with it. Accepting this is part of our lives now (integration) gives us a sense of control where control is incredibly limited. Instead of saying, “Not this again, what’s wrong with me?” we can say, “Hello again, what do I need to feel today?“

This change in mindset is what increases our emotional strength to carry the grief backpack. In order to become strong we must have the courage to engage with the pain of our loss over and over again as we move through our world without the person who has died.