What is grief?
Grief is the profound emotional response we experience to loss.
It can include a wide range of emotions. We associate it with sadness, often a healthy response which we may mistake for depression. It can also emerge in anxiety, anger and guilt.
Grief can also influence our physical well-being, including a loss of sleep and appetite. And it may affect how we behave, from an angry confrontation with the world to withdrawal.
How we grieve
The way we grieve is unique to each of us.
Early on we can experience shock and numbness, often appearing as though we are ‘dealing with it well’. Or we may feel overwhelmed by our grief and see no hope of emerging from it. In both cases there can be a huge range of emotional responses waiting to emerge.
Our history also influences how we grieve. We learn how to grieve from those around us as we grow up and if they struggled then we may struggle as well. And our style of relating, our attachment style, influences how we experience grief and how we bring it into our relationships.
How we can work with our grief
We think of stages of grief and this can be helpful in showing us the range of emotions we might experience and how they might change over time. However we often find ourselves going through these stages again and again with different emotions coming and going.
By allowing ourselves to experience these emotions, and seeking to understand them, we adjust to our loss. Emotions are felt less intensely; we can remember the past without the same intense pain and happy memories re-appear. And if the grief re-emerges later in life, as it may, we are able once again to give words to our pain without it destroying us.
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the overwrought heart and bids it break.
Shakespeare