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Key points
- Many people incorrectly equate the experience of grief with sadness.
- Any kind of ending, not just death, can bring people into grief.
- Grief can present as different emotions, such as anger, irritability, or anxiety, making it hard to identify.
- Through active engagement with grief, we can recognize that it is, in fact, love.
Despite the universal nature of the grief experience, many people have the mistaken understanding that grief is a temporary feeling one “moves on” from. This type of thinking is pervasive in our culture. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. While grief does morph and change as time unfolds and healing occurs, grief never completely ceases. Acceptance of a loss doesn’t mean the end of grief: our loved one or relationship or job will be forever missed. Grief is not something to overcome or to view as “bad,” but rather something we need to learn to live with, to befriend, and to recognize as a “good” and beneficial force in our lives.
In addition to misunderstanding the long-lasting nature of grief, many people don’t understand its nuances. The causes of grief are more varied than you may realize. Grief also presents in ways you may not expect. For these reasons, the best approach to living with grief may come as a surprise.
What Brings People Into Grief
Grief comes up a lot in my work as a therapist. Often at first glance, however, neither I nor my client recognizes it as grief. We tend to associate grief with death, but not all grief involves the death of a loved one.
Recently, I spoke with Alex Mammadyarov, a therapist based in New York who specializes in grief, about what can cause grief. She advised that “Any kind of ending can bring about a sense of grief, whether we have chosen for that ending to happen or not.”
Grief can arise from estrangement from someone, such as a parent, sibling, or child. It can present after the loss of a relationship or the ending of a job, a way of life (think of the Covid-19 pandemic), a natural disaster, or a move across the country. Even a positive event, such as a high school graduation, could trigger grief.
When your teen graduates from high school, they will likely be moving out of the house and on to college or a job. Watching my toddler learn to walk, I felt the pain of an ending because I will no longer have the delight of watching her crawl.
How Grief Presents
If you ask most people to describe grief, they will probably say it is a form of sadness. However, grief can also present as other feelings.
Mammadyarov tells us that grief presents differently for each person.
“Grief is like an umbrella for all the other emotions that can fall underneath it," she says. "Some people experience more anger, irritability, or anxiety. There's a fear of the next bad thing happening—like bracing, or waiting, for the other shoe to drop.”
I recently lost someone I love to cancer. At first, in addition to feeling heavy and sad, I experienced racing thoughts and buzzing in my chest. I found myself frantically scheduling lab tests and other routine medical appointments in an attempt to calm down, not realizing that the anxiety I was feeling was really grief. More recently, it has shown up as irritation. I find myself disproportionally upset by a patch of traffic or a long line at the grocery store. Fortunately, I’ve learned to ask myself in these moments, “Could this be grief?” It’s remarkable how often the answer is yes. When I understand that, I can soften to the grief, shed a tear or two, and move on with greater groundedness.
Grief can manifest as different symptoms in the body. Following a loss, you might experience increased fatigue, issues with sleep, or changes in appetite or energy level. I have noticed my body feeling heavy, as if it were made of lead.
The fact that grief can come in waves makes it harder to identify. You may think your grief is over, complete, but then one day, a wave hits and you feel the loss so viscerally it’s as if it has occurred all over again. Anything can trigger these waves. A memory floods in, and suddenly you’re bobbing in the waves of grief.
Ways To Live With Grief
Learning to live with grief is a lifelong practice of self-curiosity, self-awareness, and self-acceptance. Since grief never ends, we need to become comfortable in the discomfort of it. We need to know what we are dealing with.
Mammadyarov agrees with this approach. She says, “To first be with the feelings, I think we have to name them and accept that they're there. So often, people want to immediately push it out of the way before even naming it. A lot of invalidating of their own emotions happens.”
This approach signifies an active engagement with grief. You appreciate that it is not something that happens to you; it’s something you perform, a skill you hone, a practice to nourish, a way to live. As I have continued to practice this, I have come to realize that, at the end of the day, grief is love.
Learning to live with your grief is a lesson in how to love yourself, your friends and family, and the very precious impermanent nature of life itself. A sense of awe and gratitude springs from your grief-stricken landscape, offering a new appreciation for all that is, as it is, knowing how quickly it all goes.
Today, I felt grief as love when I kissed the inside of my young son’s hand—a hand I hold as we cross streets and walk on steep trails, a hand with the softness and tenderness of youth. Inevitably, his youth will end, yet my love will always remain.
