The Four Pillars of Healthy Grieving
Recently, a dear friend died rather suddenly. It was a shock to all of us who knew her. Even at the age of 82, Jane was a force. Kind, loving, generous, and full of life, she continued to work full-time until two months before her death. Jane had the energy of a 30-year-old; she was active in the arts and politics; she was an educator, mentor, and public speaker. Her death has left a big hole in the hearts of many. A week after she passed, her husband of 50-plus years spent the afternoon with my husband and me.
Sitting in our sunroom after eating lunch he asked, “So, how do I grieve? Can you tell me how I can get through this without sinking to the ground and never wanting to get up? I don’t want my life to be over; I’m not that sort of person. But she was my best friend. I don’t know what’s next, what my life is going to look like. And I’m crying all the time.”
Our friend’s response echoes what many of us experience in the initial phases of grief. There is shock, confusion, collapse. Nothing seems real or permanent anymore. At the same time, the reality more firmly sinks in that nothing really is permanent, and when a partner or family member dies, we begin to seriously wake up to that fact.
As we sat together in grief that afternoon, our friend went on to say that he was familiar with Kubler-Ross and the stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, but even though he was experiencing all of those feelings, it wasn’t helping him. He still felt stuck, paralyzed, confused. Of course, he was. Grief takes time.
Our culture avoids the reality of death, and when someone dies, no one really knows what to do or say. So, we give advice, or we try to rush through the grieving process. But when the grieving person finds that the grief is just as strong a month later, six months later, they begin to think, “Is something wrong with me?”. But grief has its own timeline. I often tell people that we experience grief in waves. After a few weeks or months, we feel respite from the overwhelming sadness that weighs us down like an anchor. And then, we’re hit with another wave, just as strong as ever. If there is regret that accompanies the grieving process, this makes the process more complicated, and it may take even longer to sort things through.
Although grief takes time, healthy grieving also requires other supports to be put in place so that isolation, withdrawal, or hopelessness don’t set in. When the three of us were sitting in the sunroom, I couldn’t help myself from eventually putting my psychologist hat on. I told our friend that grieving needed to be balanced with other things. He asked what they were, and I told him that I thought four components needed to be in place during the grieving process.
I called them the Four Pillars of Grief.
The first pillar is the grieving itself. Honoring the grieving process is a way of honoring your loved one. When you feel the depth of your pain, you are also feeling the depth of your connection. Reframing it in this way can be helpful because it can lead you to feelings of gratitude for what the relationship meant to you both. Grieving is also a way of remembering, reviewing, and slowly adjusting to the change in your daily rhythm. And in doing so something gradually shifts in your relationship. The person is still there with you, but you carry them inside of yourself.
The second pillar is surrounding yourself with a support system. This is especially important during the initial phase of grief. I spoke about this with our friend, and he said, “But I don’t want to be a burden to my friends. I don’t want to bore people by crying all the time and talking about Jane over and over again.” I assured him that good friends, truly good friends, won’t see you as a burden and won’t get bored. Simply sharing the grief and sitting with the grief together helps everyone in the circle of friends. Simply listening and being with a person in their grieving is the greatest gift a friend can give. Also, attending regularly scheduled events, such as a book group, a grief group, or finding an exercise buddy or coach are ways to create structure within the week as well as provide companionship and support.
The third pillar is having consistent things to look forward to. We always need things to look forward to, and this need doesn’t change during the grieving process. Of course, in the first days and weeks, a person’s energy level is low and they still may be in a state of shock, so the idea of looking forward to something may seem foreign, even disloyal. People often say, “How can I look forward to anything, be happy about anything? That feels like dishonoring my love for the person.” But, participating in your own life is not being disloyal. Grieving is not the only way you can hold onto your loved one. You can carry them in your heart. Planning even small things to look forward to actually pulls you back into life. Ask yourself if your loved one would have wanted you to go out and enjoy yourself in some small activity. Generally, the answer people find is “yes”.
The fourth pillar is finding something that gives you a sense of purpose. Meaningful, generative work, something that gives back to others is one of the balms for a grieving heart. It not only connects you with others in a way that makes their lives easier or more joyful; it is a way for you as the grieving person to focus on something other than the grief. For people who are retired, reengaging in something with a sense of purpose may be a bit more challenging. What I frequently tell people is to find ways to use your gifts and talents to engage in making things manifest, or bringing things into being that haven’t yet been created. This can range from volunteering to creating beauty in the form of art, poetry, or gardening. Or it may involve starting a business, a small discussion group, or community activism.
Loss often feels unbearable, and going through the grieving process is one of the most difficult challenges we face. But death can also bring gifts to the living. I believe, and I have also personally experienced profound insights and gifts that only the experience of death was able to provide. Death of a loved one forces us to change our routines. And if we’re open enough, we discover that death can change our assumptions and our perspective as well. Essentially, loss and death present us with a choice - to either grow or slip into resignation. Although we are all going to die, as long as we have breath, we have a responsibility to live and live well.