Do you ever wish you had a guidebook for navigating the pathway of grief for yourself or for someone you love? Here are 4 paths I’ve followed in my own grief journey:
1. Be Gentle with Yourself
The emotion of grief can show up unexpectedly and can take you by surprise. Whenever you feel out of control of your emotions, you can tend to be hard on yourself, asking things like, “What’s wrong with me?” or “Why am I like this?” or saying, “I should be over this by now!”
When these emotions flare up, it can be a good time to check in with yourself with gentleness. May I invite you to dial back the harshness and ask yourself, “What’s the matter?” or “What do I need right now?”
If you’re a parent, learning to recognize and name your own emotions will help your kids learn to recognize and name their own feelings. For example, you may want to name it when you are feeling happy: “I’m feeling so happy right now! I love being out in the sunshine! What makes you feel happy?” And you may want to name it when you are feeling sad: “I am feeling sad about something, and I could really use a hug.” Even when you are feeling angry, you can name it: “Mommy is feeling angry right now, and I don’t want to say something mean, so I am going to take a deep breath and try to calm down. It’s okay to be angry, but I don’t want my feelings to boss me around!“
Once you name your feelings, you are better equipped to tame your feelings. Lysa Terkeurst writes in her book, Unglued, that feelings are terrible leaders, but they are great indicators. So it’s wise to notice what your feelings are indicating and to identify what you need in the moment.
“Do you need to be Heard, Helped or Hugged?”
Your answer to this simplified question can help you to take the next step to ask for what you need. Sometimes all we need in the moment is space to figure it out, to breathe, to get a new perspective and come back to it. Sometimes even Mommies need a timeout.
The anniversary of my mom’s passing is January 3rd, so a lot of my grief is tied up with Christmas. So after years of being hijacked by depression and deep sadness around Christmas, I have learned to put a reminder on my calendar to “Be tender in December.” I need that reminder to be gentle with myself.
How can you choose to be Gentle with yourself as you navigate grief?
2. Be Full of Grace
As you navigate your own grief or try to support someone in their grief, may I invite you to have grace for yourself and others? Sometimes grief shows up as anger. If you are feeling buried under the weight of not being able to forgive yourself, then it may leak out through uncharacteristic outbursts of anger. If you are feeling disappointment because your people don’t know how to care for you when you are sad or depressed or having a hard time making decisions, it can leak out through resentment or bitterness.
I am guilty of being the person who longs for my people to be able to read my mind. When I was about to turn 44 (the age my mother was when she passed), I had a real crisis of emotions. I was feeling fearful about death, about how to be a mom, about how to be a woman beyond the years that I had seen my mom live. A dark cloud of depression settled in, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it.
My kids were teenagers at the time, so I made sure to talk to them about it the best that I knew how. It was a place to start, even though my emotions felt like a tangled mess. I assured my kids that my sadness had nothing to do with them. I explained what I knew to be true: I was about to turn 44, and my mom had died at 44, and I was just feeling a little lost and sad. I was also realizing how young my mom really was at 44, and I was realizing how much I missed out on by not having my mom around for my young adult years.
And you know how they responded? They met me in my sadness. They snuggled up next to me and asked me what my mom was like. They showed me funny memes on their phones. It didn’t fix my sadness, but it helped me not feel alone in it. And it started with my willingness to try to communicate how I was feeling.
Rather than stuffing it down and trying to protect my people by acting like everything was fine, hoping they would read my mind, I was vulnerable enough to start somewhere by expressing my feelings. It helped me to find grace for myself and grace for others.
I wonder where you can find Grace for yourself and others in this season.
3. Be with God
We connect with God through our emotions.
If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there; if you’re kicked in the gut, He’ll help you catch your breath. – Psalm 34:18 (MSG)
As a mom, I often had trouble getting my independent children to hold my hand. When we needed to cross a busy parking lot, I would reach out to hold their hand, and they would pull away, self-assured that they could handle it on their own. But they couldn’t see what I could see. And the drivers in the cars couldn’t see my small children. In order to keep them safe, I would say to my kiddos, “Do you want to hold my hand, or do you want me to hold the back of your shirt?” I was communicating that either way, I’m not letting you go; I’m holding on to you.
And I think we can be this way with God sometimes. We think we don’t need His help. We want to be independent and self-assured. We don’t want to be the person who needs to ask for help. Like our small children, we essentially say to God, “I do it myself!” But our gentle, gracious God will never let go of us. He will never stop inviting us to hold His hand.
For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. – Isaiah 41:13 (NIV)
4. Be Grateful
Gratitude is not the antidote for Grief, but it can be a helpful Companion.
Gratitude can help us embrace the tension that comes with Grief.
I’m not talking about replacing Grief with Gratitude… “Just be thankful that she’s in Heaven now!” NO – I’m talking about Gratitude as a Companion to Grief.
Just as it is helpful to Notice the emotions of Grief and to Name those emotions, it is also helpful to Notice and Name our Gratitude.
- Look for Signs of Life! Look for Glimmers of Gratitude!
- My mom’s name is Julie, and God keeps giving me friends named Julie.
- One of my closest friends is Julie, and she is so nurturing; she cheers me on; she believes in me; she loves my kids – she just gives off really good mom-energy!
- Another Julie is much younger than me, and she is one of the most encouraging people in my life!
- I have two friends named Julia – one of them inspires a love for creativity, and the other is a safe landing spot for deep spiritual conversations.
- Another sign of life I look for is geraniums. My mom always had geraniums planted in pots on our front porch, so they always remind me of her.
- Shopping was a fun way that I connected with my mom, so that’s one way I honor the anniversary of her passing, and I am so grateful to be able to revisit that memory.
We don’t move on from Grief. We move forward with it.
These are some ways I am moving forward with grief, and I’d love to hear some ways that you have found your pathway forward. You can comment here or send me an email at reneclarkca@gmail.com
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