Building a relationship with grief in 2020: Creating contact & ritual to let that shit go
It's said that, "To tame a beast you have to speak it's name". Grief is just that… or was that for me; an insurmountable sense of loss lurking under my bed. It was waiting for a low point in my psyche to infiltrate and pounce— rendering me helpless. This is what I thought grief was. A monster. An unknown and dark path that I was not ready to embark on. And truly one that I never quite had to endure.
But after the tragic death of my mother in June 2020, I find that grief is just a part of me now. Making grief out to be bigger and more estranged from myself does not help me cope with it. I engage with grief every single day. Not because I want to, but because I HAVE to. Grief moves with me and in me. And pushing grief away is not the same as releasing it.
We, as in western culture, are taught to keep pushing through our emotions and to dismiss them -— to replace them with superficial 'wins' and busywork that makes us feel like we are progressing. Holding on to this thought pattern does no good. Especially those of us who may have been touched by 1 or more tragic deaths in this wild fucking year.
“...pushing grief away is not the same as releasing it. ”
My mom passed from a pulmonary embolism in late June- at the height of the raging coronavirus and lockdowns/ travel limitations in most states. How COVID times made this even more devastating: This could have been prevented or at least perhaps caught if my mother had been able to go to her doctor in June of 2020, when she was experiencing upper respiratory symptoms. But with the various lockdown restrictions in place from March to June of 2020, doctors visits for what my Mom was convinced was 'just a sinus infection' were out of the question. Fast-forward to the call I got one fateful Saturday of my Mother's death, then weeks of shock & disbelief; unable to get out of bed and wailing/crying until I had no energy left to exist, then a lonely & disjointed funeral; distanced from my family & loved ones, then months of more crying and anti-depressants, and 3 therapists, annnd here we are? There's much more to this story, but back to grief.
All of this to say, grief never left my side through any of this. No matter how much I tried to feign normalcy. Even on my 'best days' where everything went as well as it could, grief still colored some pieces of my life; in the knick-knacks my mom gave me, or me recognizing her sound in my own laughter. So with grief ever-present, only exacerbated by current and relentless Pandemic, what was I to do with it?
“Making grief out to be bigger and more estranged from [the self] does not help [to] cope with it.”
I began by breaking grief down...
According to Wikipedia, "Grief is the response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, cultural, spiritual and philosophical dimensions. While the terms are often used interchangeably, bereavement refers to the state of loss, and grief is the reaction to that loss."
"The grief associated with death is familiar to most people, but individuals grieve in connection with a variety of losses throughout their lives, such as unemployment, ill health or the end of a relationship."
"Loss can be categorized as either physical or abstract. The physical loss being related to something that the individual can touch or measure—such as losing a spouse through death—while other types of loss are abstract, and relate to aspects of a person's social interactions."
“[We] are experiencing devastating and traumatic amounts of loss: loss of ‘normalcy’, loss of connection, loss of direction or goals, loss of plans, loss of sense of self, loss of community, and deep and ever-lingering loss of hope.”
While I experienced bereavement with the death/loss of my Mom, I believe that collectively and fatefully in 2020, the world and its many communities is experiencing devastating and traumatic amounts of loss: loss of 'normalcy', loss of connection, loss of direction or goals, loss of plans, loss of sense of self, loss of community, and deep and ever-lingering loss of hope.
Whether you choose to deal with it or not, this communal loss is seeping into our lives. This communal loss comes in tandem with the daily traumas for which we won't even know the effects or extent of until maybe decades from now. We have to honor this moment. Putting our heads down and trying to shove past this constant grief & loss (like many other things) is SIMPLY NOT WORKING.
We must stop.
We must take care.
We must slow the fuck down.
We must not take any moment or human connection for granted.
And we must sit with our grief.
For ourselves
And everyone around us
To be better.
So why not invite grief in. Sit with it a while. Talk with it over tea, like a long-lost friend. Quiet it's fears. Quell it's rage. Quench its thirst for contact and acknowledgement. And then, when it's time, grief will leave accordingly.
“This communal loss [in 2020] comes in tandem with the daily traumas for which we won’t even know the effects or extent of until maybe decades from now. We must honor this moment. ”
These regular visits with grief become easier and easier tp deal with — more familiar. And with time, grief will be something you can sit with and grow with — not a monster to be tamed or thwarted, but a notion to remember how things once were and to honor that state. The goal here is not just to engage until grief is gone (because it will NEVER be completely gone), but until we can manage it.
This is a deviation from 'woo’-talk but I am a real person after all. So, if anyone is a fan of the Netflix show Big Mouth, here's a nice analogy. In it there is a character named Jessie who deals with Depression & Anxiety.Depression is actualized into the character of Depression Kitty or, Kitty Beaumont Bouchet, which is cast as a huge & sultry purple cat (voiced by Jean Smart, the mom on Kim Possible, for all you 90's/early 00’s kids!). The Depression Kitty is out to make Jessie stay in bed for days being avoidant en lieu of dealing with her problems head-on. *SPOILER ALERT* (It's a cartoon, not a prestigious drama — calm down.) In season 4, Jessie conquers her Depression Kitty; not by banishing it to the realms of the cartoon closet (fated to return), but by providing acts of service to friends that then make the Depression Kitty a more manageable (and normal house cat) size.
This is how I picture grief now. It's not a scary monster or a dark & twisted energy looming over me. It can be managed and is truly only as intimidating as I make it out to be. But, it is something that I personally have to deal with and create channels for release regularly. I treat grief like a post-it note to take out the trash; if you keep ignoring the reminder to deal- it WILL get out of control.
Here are some lovely quotes that have made the grief more manageable, Depression Kitty size:
“To weep is to make less the depth of grief.” — William Shakespeare
“While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.” — Samuel Johnson
“Accepting death doesn’t mean you won’t be devastated when someone you love dies. It means you will be able to focus on your grief, unburdened by bigger existential questions like, ‘Why do people die?’ and ‘Why is this happening to me?’ Death isn’t happening to you. Death is happening to us all.” — Caitlin Doughty
“Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.” ― Haruki Murakami
If there's one thing that this year has taught us, it's that loss and grief touches EVERYONE. If you are living in a world where COVID-19 and it's social & cultural repercussions have not affected you or at least someone you know, you are not living in a world vested in reality. We must make a home within ourselves to express this grief — communally.
To honor grief and highlight some release rituals that have helped me on my journey, I will be leading a Communal Grief Release Ritual event in partnership with The Alter this month!
On Friday, December 18th at 6PM CST, a free mini-workshop via Instagram Live @thealterchicago will take place. In this offering, I will be leading a guided visualization & meditation dedicated to loss & grief.
TW: Themes of loss, grief, trauma, and bereavement are to be expressed.
Event info here.
I will likely have a recording of the guided meditation used with a free PDF to accompany it. Stay tuned on the blog!
And now, a meme which I'm certain will not have a great shelf life, but sums up 2020:
Meme by Ari Antwine
Sources:
Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm