Accessing your own capacity for healing through grief
About four years ago, a newish friend ghosted me.
This friend and I were not particularly close or connected yet.
However...
As soon as she ghosted me, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
What had I done? Did she regret sharing the personal information she shared at our last lunch together? Had I been misattuned in my listening or response? Was there some other insensitive thing I had done or said along the way? Do I suck?
So many parts of me were worried about this situation.
And another part of me felt very uncomfortable about the fact that I cared this much.
My reaction seemed pretty disproportionate to the relatively short length and closeness of our friendship.
But once I accepted that I cared so much, I decided to get curious about the parts of myself that were so activated by the situation.
So I set up a call with my IFS coach, and in our session, I saw the story from my childhood that was taking over this event in my current life.
A story that involved a little wounded and frightened eleven year-old version of myself.
You see, when I was in the sixth grade, I showed up to school one day to realize that my two “best friends” were no longer my friends at all.
Awkward-looking and ugly-feeling at eleven years old; I was shocked, mortified and heartbroken.
I didn't block this event out of my memories. In fact, I remembered and shared it ocasionally over the years.
However, I would only allow myself to remember and share the safe version of the story. A version that rang of resilience, positivity and a gift in disguise.
It was the story of quickly making new wonderful friends, and feeling like I had dodged a bullet with the first two.
It was a happy ending. The kind we all like. One that made the story bearable for me–and digestible for anyone I shared it with.
No messy feelings. No left over hurt. No being too much.
Until, of course, when I was ghosted at 40 years old and realized…that, well. Something still hurts.
And thank goodness that at 40, I finally understood enough about how we humans and our emotions work, to get curious about the story beneath my discomfort.
Having practiced a good amount of grieving by then, I felt safe enough to revisit the feelings I had buried beneath that happy story of bouncing back and happily ever after.
And here is what I saw:
I remembered exactly where I was standing when I realized that my friends had “ditched me”. I could see me in that little sixth grade outfit that I probably spent a good anxious and insecure fifteen minutes thinking about before putting it on that day. In my eleven-year old body that was starting to be a little too chubby in all the wrong places. The little pimples on my face.
The look of sadness, embarrassment and fear in my eyes.
The tightness in my chest, and holding back my tears. And hoping nobody would notice me.
I also remembered going home that day and knowing I had to keep the feelings covered up. When I told my mom what had happened, her response was “You know I never liked those two friends. I told you they weren’t nice girls.”
As you can imagine, a good old fashioned “I told you so” was NOT what little me needed in that moment.
Nor did I need someone to tell me those other girls were bad. Or that I was better off without them. Or that maybe they were just jealous. Or to ask me what I had done to make them leave. Or to reassure me that I would make new friends.
I just needed to be able to fall apart in someone’s arms. To have my heartbreak held, seen and cared about. To have my fears and insecurities heard. To say things like, “Yeah, things like this happen to all of us at some point and they hurt really bad.” “It’s okay to hurt.” “I’m right here with you. And I’m not going anywhere.” "Take your time."
Instead, I went to my room alone.
I didn’t become a problem for anyone.
I stayed awake in my bed at night, alone with the worries and the hurt.
I figured it out on my own.
And within weeks, I was back to being a “normal” eleven year-old girl. Getting good grades and going to the movies with her friends.
And in many ways, for many years after that, I continued showing up as that "confident" and "resilient" girl to all of my heartbreaks and disappointments.
I continued to deny and repress the pain of this story. I didn't even know there was any value in making room for the painful feelings.
Until I chose the path of healing. Which inevitably calls us to know the path of grief.
Thank goodness that by the time my friend ghosted me at 40, I knew how to choose grief.
I could finally return to help that eleven year-old.
And when I did, I held her in my arms, and let her cry to me. To tell me how sad, rejected and afraid she felt. And after she had her cry, I watched her release the burden of shame and pain that she had been carrying all this time. I asked her what she wanted to do and she jumped on a skateboard and played on a rainbow. I asked her if she wanted anything else, and she said, “I want all of the other girls to know that it’s okay. That they are okay. That everyone is good and everyone can just be and play.”
When I chose to truly be with this part of my story–to grieve not only the hurt of losing my friends, but the absence of support that I needed from my parents–I healed this particular wound.
This is how grieving well liberates and heals.
Here are a few ideas to help you practice grieving with daily hurts and losses:
First, acknowledge that as a human, you have a story full of moments that have hurt you along the way.
Moments that matter, because they mattered to you. And because you matter.
And that for every moment or season that left a wound, you have an opportunity to grieve and bring healing to it now.
When I decided to get curious and feel the sadness of losing my new friend two years ago; I opened a little portal to the unfinished grief of losing my middle school friends.
Sometimes, a willingness to feel our pain in the present, opens the path to its origins in our past.
So every time you choose to be with a current loss or pain, you send a signal to your body that you are open to grieving other losses from your life that still need some care.
Which means, you don’t have to go digging through your past just to find stuff to grieve about. It doesn't really work that way. :)
Our day to day events present countless opportunities for grief and healing.
Here are some examples you might want to try.
Let the small disappointments matter. The coffee that got cold. The favorite outfit that doesn’t fit anymore. The walk you needed and weren’t able to take. The broken nail. The meal your child didn’t finish. The stubbed toe.
Stop for a moment to honor the pain and disappointment.
Remember that it matters.
Notice where you feel it in your body. Be with it.
Maybe say something to yourself like, “This isn’t what you wanted” or “This hurts!” or “This feels really hard.”
Try to inhale compassion for yourself, and exhale even more. Compassion in, compassion out.
Perhaps say something to yourself like, "Okay, I can get back to what I was doing now."
Let the bigger hurts be held. The insensitive comment from your partner. The look of disappointment on your child’s face when you were late. The friend who didn’t respond to a vulnerable message. The fact that nothing you do seems good enough for your six-year old.
Again, stop for a moment to honor the experience. "Wow, I am hurting!"
Notice the feelings. The irritation, the anxiety, the frustration.
Notice the stories. "It really seems like my kid is out to get me today."
Notice the feelings and stories in your body. Be with them. See them with the same love you would see a child who is in great pain.
Maybe say something to yourself like, “Oh, this hurts, doesn’t it. Yeah, this is really hard right now.”
If your child is present, send them a safety message like, "I'm sorry I can't be with you just now/help you with your feelings, I'm bringing a little bit of help to myself because my feelings got big right now."
Say something to yourself like, "I can come back to this later, too. It matters."
Reach out to another adult for support in the moment, or afterwards, if necessary (more below on this).
Note that in both of these circumstances, the first step is to stop and just notice and choose to be with yourself.
Keep in mind that after years of our pain being brushed off (especially for the “little things”), and then more years of brushing it off ourselves–choosing to say something like, “oh, this feels hard” to yourself over a canceled lunch appointment, can feel incredibly counterintuitive.
It can seem silly, or dramatic.
But the thing is, drama actually comes from trying to avoid our pain, and then it surfaces unexpectedly and overwhelms us. Ungrieved hurt grows more extreme over time, and begins to consume us. And if we don't know how to meet it and bring care to it, this can take over more and more of our days.
So also keep in mind, that any time the degree of your pain feels disproportionate to the event that caused it–there’s probably some very old, ungrieved pain beneath it.
So when you first start, you might...
Notice that even the smallest things will actually draw a tear or two.
Go numb or get irritated or angry in an automatic attempt to protect yourself from the sadness.
Feel like reaching out to someone about how you are feeling.
This all makes sense, because...
Tears are how we heal.
Going numb is how we protect ourselves from pain we were once too young to handle alone.
We are evolutionary wired to seek out a safe other when we feel pain.
Which brings me to the final thing to keep in mind for today’s email.
Some hurts can be grieved alone. But when the emotional charge is really high, we need to be helped by a loving listener. And the most effective listeners, are those who know how to go there with their own pain. And can therefore witness ours.
You may struggle with the fact that the people in your life who you wish could support you through your grief, aren’t able or willing to stay there with you.
And you can grieve that too.