Engaging Grief: A 4-step guide (part 2)

Time alone doesn’t heal grief. It’s what you do during the time after your loss that brings healing.

In Part 1 of this 2-part series on grief, we talked about a 4-phase process that allows us to become active grievers, embracing a path forward through our grief instead of waiting for time to heal our wounds. Those 4 phases are:

·       Phase 1 - Face your Anger

·       Phase 2 - Face your Regrets

·       Phase 3 - Appreciation

·       Phase 4 - Wishes for the Future

We’ve explored Phase 1, “Face Your Anger” and by now you have named, validated, and even forgiven the parts of your loss that made you angry. Phase 1 takes some time to work through, but it is so worth it.

Anger turned inward

Grief hurts, and anger around loss is not only normal, but also incredibly healthy. But it isn’t always other people or circumstances that we are angry at – sometimes that anger is directed at ourselves. We have regrets, all the “could-of-would-of-should-of” moments that we so badly wish we could do differently before we lost the person or the dream that meant so much. Maybe you wish you had said more, telling her just how much you loved her and how your life was enhanced dramatically just by being in her presence. Or maybe you wish you had invested your time differently, showing up for important events or finding more time to spend together in your ordinary weekdays.

Other times it’s the things we did say or did that we regret the most. The words you shouted in anger. Your comments that crossed a line. The major life decisions that you wish we could undo. And when you remember these moments, there’s only one person to blame…and it’s you.

Phase 2: Face your Regrets

Phase 2 is exactly like Phase 1, except this time it’s not the people, circumstances, and influences outside of us that need to be named, validated, and forgiven. It’s the person looking back at you in the mirror. Making peace with yourself is just as important as making peace with others. In fact, the relationship you have with yourself is arguably the most important relationship of your life, so practicing self-compassion and self-forgiveness is an incredibly important part of healing in the grief process.

Now let’s go back to that excel spreadsheet, the note in your phone, or the pages in your journal and start listing all the things you regret. Name them all and don’t hold back.

·       What would you do differently if you had a do-over?

·       What moment gets played over and over in your mind, and you cringe each time?

·       What choice or decision do you look back on and instantly feel shame or guilt?

·       Is there something you believe you could have done to prevent all of this from happening?

Bargaining

Oftentimes our regrets are not only moments that we acted like the worst version of ourselves, but they can also be times we are engaging a stage of grief called “Bargaining”. This is our minds way of trying to figure out how the loss could have been avoided. Bargaining sounds like:

I should have made him go to the doctor sooner.

If I hadn’t of gone to the party that day, none of this would have ever happened.

If I could have just been more easygoing, he would have never left. Why did I have to be so difficult?

Bargaining is a normal and healthy part of grief. And we need to capture these thoughts and follow the same 3-step process we did in phase 1:

1.     Name it – List all your regrets and bargaining beliefs

2.    Validate it – Sit with each item on your list and reassure yourself that what you’re feeling is real, understandable, and logical. It makes sense that you feel this way.

3.    Forgive it – Choose to lay down your right to beat yourself up for the rest of your days. Engage the same forgiveness process for your own heart and mind that you did for others. Release yourself from being punished. All the self-loathing in the world won’t change the reality of this loss.

Phase 2 takes time, just like Phase 1 did. This is not as quick as a Saturday afternoon home improvement project. You might need weeks or even months to really reflect, process, and make peace with yourself for each item on your list. And that is okay, because there is no timeline for grief. There is no ticking clock or a time to beat, so give yourself space. If you have a safe person in your life, like a therapist or really wise friend who can be with you nonjudgmentally, set aside time to speak with her about your regrets. Ask her to help you validate and forgive yourself.

The healing continues

If grief is a wound, Phases 1 & 2 are all about identifying how deep the wound goes and then cleaning it out. It can hurt but it’s also imperative if the wound is ever going to heal. Phases 3 & 4 are where we stitch up the wound and it becomes a scar.

Open wounds hurt – when they are touched we feel pain and flinch. But when wounds are tended to, they heal and form scars. And scars don’t hurt. Scars say, “I used to have pain here. I was hurt in this exact spot. And I can tell you about my pain, about what hurt me and how I felt. But I’m not actively hurting anymore. I remember how I felt – but I’m not bleeding out anymore.”

Phase 3: Appreciation

This next phase of the grief process directs us to find gratitude, a much-needed soothing balm in our freshly cleaned out grief wound. It’s time to turn our focus away from anger and regret, and instead process the good parts of our story. Go back to your phone, computer, or piece of paper, and list of all the parts of your story for which you can be thankful. Here are some questions to guide your discovery, along with answers I’ve heard from especially resilient grievers.

What do you appreciate most about what has happened since your loss?

I found my voice along the way. I learned to stand up for myself.

I never knew how strong I could be. Somehow I got up every day and went to work and did my job even though everything was falling apart at home. That was no small feat.

I really saw my friends and family rally around me in a way that blew me away. You always hope that people will show up for you if you need them, but they really went above and beyond.  I feel so loved by my people.

What do you appreciate the most about the person you lost?

His smile. The way he made me laugh. How he always believed in me and was my biggest supporter.

That he’s a sloppy liar! That he didn’t cover his tracks and that let me see what was going on so I could do something about it.

What do you appreciate about yourself?

I can ask for help when I need it. I’m brave enough to say when I’m not ok.

I’m really engaging this grief process. It’s a lot of work to do this well – therapy, journaling, talking with friends, praying. But I’m all in and I’m trying really hard.

I’m proud of leaving. I’m proud of my boundaries. I modeled self-respect for my children and I can hold my head high when I tell them my story.

Depending on the type of loss you endured, your Phase 3 list may be easy to generate or you may have to search deeply to find anything you appreciate at all. You may easily recall 1,000 things you love about the person you lost to cancer. But the spouse who left you high and dry? That’s a tall order. In that case, I’d encourage you to look elsewhere in the story to find gratitude and express appreciation. Somewhere in your story is a person, a character trait, or a choice that deserves your gratitude.

This is your grief gratitude list. Keep adding to it. It’s a living and breathing document, growing all the time as you embrace this journey of resilient and active grieving. Notice the parts you appreciate. Capture them and review them often.

Phase 4: Wishes for the Future

In this final phase of the grief process, we take time to think about the future.

Looking into the future and developing specific hopes is important when we are grieving. So much of this process has involved looking back. We’ve examined what happened or didn’t happen, what we wish we had or hadn’t done, and even what we are grateful to have gained along the way. In this final phase we turn our gaze forward, and we start to dream about life after active grieving.

Some pain remains, but it’s ok

To be clear, there are some losses that we will always mourn. The loss of someone you love dearly will never become a pain-free experience, and we wouldn’t want it to be. Birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays will always jump out on the calendar and we will grieve those days in a new way. At the same time, being in a season of deep, active grieving forever isn’t what we want for our lives, and it’s not what our loved ones want either. We always have our scars. And we will always dip into moments of grief. We will never forget.

Hope grows

On the other hand, there are some losses that we grieve which our ongoing story can rectify in some way. Take divorce, for example. Perhaps the loss of a marriage full of high expectations is devastating in the beginning. But as you engage grief you notice hope for a second chance at marriage, love, and partnership. It becomes clear what you want in a spouse and you hold hope that will find such a person. Married again, but this time in a healthy relationship, as the grief and loss of the first marriage fades into the background. You still have your scars, but now they are like battle scars. They tell the story of your strength and resiliency. You don’t mourn the loss of your first marriage anymore.

And so back to your inventory you go.

·       What are your wishes for yourself?

·       What do you wish for others?

·       What hopes do you have for the relationships in your life?

·       What do you wish for the relationships that are no more?

Take time to think of all you hope for, and let this list grow and evolve over time. As time passes, come back to this list and write down when and how these dreams come to fruition. This is a record of your hope fulfilled. 

The journey isn’t always a straight line but it does move forward

This concludes the final phase in this grief process, but grief is not a linear journey. We can vacillate from anger to sadness to hope right back to anger again. That’s normal, and now you have a guide to how to engage grief constructively. Feel free to loop back to any previous phase at anytime to take another pass at deeper work should the need arise.

I once had a pastor tell me, “Grief is best processed when it’s treated like a cup of hot tea. It’s not meant to be gulped or sat on the windowsill to cool off completely. But rather, we must sip slowly on grief, taking it in one sip at a time.” My hope is that this process gives you a framework for your “sips”, and that you can use this tool in a way that helps you the most.

This work is also not to be done alone. We need consistent and safe people on this journey with us. I encourage you to reach out to family members, friends, and religious leaders that you love and trust. And if you’d like a counselor trained in grief to come alongside you, we’d be honored to pair you up with a therapist that specializes in resilient grieving.