What Would Happen If We Got Real With Grief?
This Monday, Dr. C is going real on grief. She is calling out the insufficient and unrealistic narrative that too often gets circulated around grief. Dr. C asks readers to join her in pondering how to change the conversations we have when it comes to grief. She invites readers to consider their own experience and bring that to their meaningful relationships.
For an experience that we all go through as humans on earth, I continuously find the available resources on grief insufficient. What do I mean by this? I often am left with a feeling of annoyance that grief support is always wrapped up in flowery undertones. I regularly say to myself “Has the person who created this actually experienced loss of a loved one?” I never feel like it’s raw and real enough to grasp what we actually go through living life with grief. There is a break in the system.
Am I alone in this?
To me, grief is fucking hard. It’s messy, scary, unfamiliar, confusing, and shitty. Why don’t we say that more? Grief is fucking hard and it’s shitty. It has no timeline and does what it is going to do. How are we suppose to process and regulate the intense emotions involved in grief, if we are bombarded by an unrealistic portrayal of them?
Now, before you come for me and this opinion-it is not lost on me why. I get that humans are uncomfortable with distress and we would prefer to be uncomfortable for the shortest amount of time possible-or avoid it altogether. The problem is, that isn’t grief. Grief isn’t comfortable. Grief doesn’t follow rules or fit nicely in a box. Grief is not a construct designed by Hallmark, it’s a real-ass tough life experience. When we find ourselves in the thick of grief, I think we are often angered by the lack of depth of the conversations and support we receive.
Do you think these things are related? Do you think the continuous flowery undertones enable the cycle of insufficient support? Do you think that if we started actually realistically describing grief out loud and sharing our experiences that it would change what support looks like? This is a place mentally I go often. Pondering and wondering how in the safety of our meaningful relationships, we could change the narrative. Attachment is kind of my thing, I believe relationships are a crucial point in healing. I believe magic happens when we are willing to be uncomfortable (safely of course).
Today I invite you to reflect on the conversations you’ve had in your life around grief and ponder with me on the following prompts:
How many conversations about grief have I had?
How would I describe my experience of grief?
What sentiments have brought me comfort in grief?
What do I wish more people knew about grief, based on my experience?
What needs to be said out loud more?
Be mindful, lead with love, and don’t forget to listen.
Dr. C
Is Mental Health in Your Vocabulary?
Today Dr. C invites readers to reflect on the meaningful relationships in our lives and if those relationships involve conversations about mental health. She urges readers to be willing to be uncomfortable and begin to confront and smash stigmas around discussing mental health.
Think for a moment of the meaningful relationships in your life. Think about each individual person, what they mean to you, how much you cherish the relationship you have with them, and the purpose they serve in your life. Think about who they are and what you know about them.
How often do you ask them about their mental health?
Time and time again, clients, friends, and family members tell me how infrequent conversations about mental health are in their lives. I could retire if I had a dollar for each time I was told, “Dr. C, you are the only person in my life that asks about these things.” Ok, I couldn’t actually retire but you get my drift here.
Now, of course I understand that not everyone is a therapist, that people aren’t always sure what to say, and that socialized constructs add to the stigma around mental health. In understanding all of those influential factors, I’m left with curiosity as to what to do about it. How do we begin to change this? As with any growth point in life, developing this skill requires us to be willing to be uncomfortable, not have all the exact answers, and open to learning.
That being willing to be uncomfortable part seems to really get in our way, doesn’t it? So much so, we will come up with lots of self-protecting excuses. Yes, they are excuses. Some of them may sound familiar: “I wasn’t raised like that.”, “I don’t want to be nosey.”, or how about this one, “Oh me and so & so don’t talk like that”. Those are all examples of stories we tell ourselves to avoid being uncomfortable.
It’s ironic right? That we can logically and emotionally truly care for someone, yet never ask certain questions or talk about certain topics-simply because they are uncomfortable. Today I urge you to consider the enormous value on the other side of that discomfort. On the other side of that discomfort is the smashing of social and societal stigmas. On the other side of that discomfort is a new level of knowing your loved ones. On the other side of that discomfort are relationships that involve real life shit. On the other side of that discomfort is the difference between someone suffering in silence and someone having a safe place to say the inside stuff out loud.
Our mental health is who we are. How can we claim to have meaningful and loving relationships if mental health isn’t even in our vocabulary?
Be mindful, lead with love, & don’t forget to listen.
Dr. C