Grief series - 4. The dance of grief

What I think is the hardest part about grief is that it is unpredictable. Not only is everyone’s grief unique, anyone who is grieving may be feeling completely different from an hour to another. 

So we can’t just say everyone grieves differently: everyone grieves differently at different times.

But the thing is, the human brain likes to make sense of things.

In my field, many people have tried to create theories around grief.

But it is hard to theorise something that changes all the time: one may be feeling something and five minutes later, something else. 

This is why my way of working around grief is to live one day at a time. Or even one hour at a time. 

I help clients try not to plan what they are going to do or how they are going to react, to instead bring compassion for whatever they are feeling because grief is about learning: learning to grieve this loss and to live in a world where this part of your life is gone.

The model in my field that I think illustrates grief the best says that grief comes in waves. Some moments of the day you are laughing at your friend's joke or enjoying the sun on your skin. Then suddenly the wave of grief hits you and all you feel and think about is that loss and how are you going to live with it. Then it moves back.

We call this the alternating of being ‘life-oriented’ and ‘loss-oriented’.

I have come to think of this as a dance. Instead of “moving on”, we dance with grief and grow around the loss. 

Initially the loss may be occupying most thoughts and feelings. Over time, it may take less presence. But it is still there. That dance is going to be a part of you for the rest of your life.