Episode 014: A Few Thoughts on Grief and Living Happier
Inspired by an article I read, in this podcast, I am talking about handling the everyday little transitions, struggles, and periods of grief we experience. Giving ourselves some grace.
+ Read the Transcript
I struggled with the title for this episode this week because grief has such a bad name and gets such a bad rap. And because grieving is a very painful, challenging topic. We all hate going through grief for a variety of reasons. But today, I wanted to talk about grief because a couple of weeks ago, I read an article, and if you've run into me in the past couple of weeks, you've heard me talk about this article. I've posted on Facebook, I've written about it in my newsletter. It has resonated with me for a variety of reasons. And the article's called Everything Doesn't Happen for a Reason by Tim Lawrence. (Since recording this episode, Tim's website is no longer available, so the link has been removed)
I love this article because the author does such a great job of talking about grief and how our tendency in society and Western culture is to ignore grief. And one of the big things I'm discovering as I work with clients and as I navigate my journey in living happier, and I've talked about this for years, that live happier is a combination of all the positives and the negatives.
When people hear the phrase, Oh, live happier, they assume it's only sunshine and light and perfectly wonderful things. And that is not what I'm talking about. The purpose of living happier is a daily, intentional living structure. And so that means that every day we make decisions based on our highest priorities and our deepest values.
And we live authentically in trying to make those priorities fit. So when we're living happier, we're experiencing all there is to life. We experience the grief, we experience the sadness, and we experience the gray days where we don't want to get up off the couch. And we also experience the days of joy and happiness and laughter, and those days can be all in one big, giant day.
They don't have to be two separate major things of, Oh my God. Today is a day of grief or, Oh my God, today is a beautiful, lighthearted day. Those 2 things can happen within the hour. Last Sunday, for example, I was crying my eyes out one second. And the next second, I was rolling on the floor laughing. So that is living happier in a nutshell.
But the reason I love this article because he talks about how in our culture, we tend to belittle other people's grief, and we tend to belittle our own grief actually. And that's the piece I wanted to talk about more: how we handle other people's grief is how we handle our own.
So yeah. The critical thing about grief is that we grieve things all the time. We grieve age, the loss of a parent, or the loss of a loved one. When we think about grief, we usually think about death, but I would argue that grief comes when we move or lose a job or when our kids go off to college, our kids start school for the first time, or we lose a pet.
With any change or transition, there's some level of grief that occurs with that. And so we need to be giving ourselves and each other a lot more room around it. So the Tim Lawrence argument is that many of us have these little platitudes that we say to make ourselves feel better. And one of those platitudes is everything happens for a reason. So we comfort ourselves when something tragic happens by saying everything happens for a reason, and hopefully, something positive will come out of this. And we just move on. And I would argue that, as human beings, we aren't meant just to move on. We aren't meant to suck it up, soldier on, keep going. We are meant to stop and pause and have a moment of grief. And when my clients come to me, and they're usually pretty high functioning, they have their jobs and their families and are doing okay in life, but they're exhausted and stressed out, and their priorities are all jumbled around.
And usually, it's because there've been a few grief incidents that have happened. Job changes, loss, death, transition that they haven't processed all the way through. And so, giving ourselves that space to process things all the way through is critical. That can happen with a friend that can happen with a therapist; it needs to happen. We need to give ourselves more room to feel the pain, feel the sadness, and stop trying to justify what's going on. And so I see it a lot with myself; I will litany off everything that's going wrong.
I wake up, and I feel sad, and instead of just letting myself feel the sadness, I'll justify why that sadness is. Okay. So I'll go through a litany of this happened, and this happened, and this happened. And then I might let myself feel that sadness for maybe a second. I rush through onto the next thing, saying to myself, suck it up, soldier on, at least you're not as bad as that person.
I think it's a big reason why I hate the phrase "think positive" because I have a powerful, visceral reaction to thinking positive because I think it pulls us out of grief, and a lot of my clients, don't need to think any more positive than they already do.
They're not walking around thinking negatively. They might be walking around feeling negative but not allowing themselves to think it all the way through. The problem isn't that we're a bunch of negative, bitter, and miserable people. The problem is we don't give ourselves room to feel what it is we're feeling at the time.
So we are so inundated with think happier and be grateful and suck it up and move on soldier on. Your attitude is all that matters. And when we do that, we're bristling against what's going on. And our bodies are saying, this is hard right now. This transition is tough. If you're getting ready to send your kid off to college in the next year, or you're looking at a job transition, or even if you're, struggling in your marriage, that stuff's hard stuff, it is full-body contact stuff.
And it requires being present and noticing what's going on and a big exhale of, Oh babe, this is tough right now. And we need to be giving that to ourselves. We need to be giving ourselves that big exhale and allowing ourselves some room around this stuff is hard. Instead of suck it up, soldier on name, the things you're grateful for name, be positive.
All of those mantras, everything happens for a reason. They keep us out of our bodies, and they keep us out of being present to ourselves. My reminder is to be kind to yourself and whatever it is you're going through. Whatever it is you're dealing with right now.
It's okay. It's okay. To feel scared and lost and confused. It's okay not to know what to do next. It's okay to admit that it's okay to go to a work friend and say, I have no freaking clue, and this is happening. I'm overwhelmed. So give yourself that big exhale because that's living happier it is just admitting, Hey dude, this is hard. I'm struggling.
And I'm admitting it right along with you. I appreciate Tim Lawrence for writing that article it inspired a lot of thought for me and my clients and everyone I've talked to about it. So I want to end this segment part with a quote. That was one of my favorites from Pema Chodron,
"We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem. But the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together, and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again; it's just like that the healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen."
Room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. To me, that is living happier, doing all of that, making room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. And I hope you will allow yourself some room around whatever it is. You're feeling grief around today this week, this month, or this year. Allow yourself some time to fall and some time to come back together again
+ Weekly Ritual Challenge
One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.
This week's ritual: The Five Senses Meditation.
Now, as you probably know, if you know anything about me, I struggle with meditation, but this is a meditation that I actually enjoy doing. It takes just 30 seconds, and you don't even have to close your eyes. Just pause for 30 seconds and get in touch with your senses.
What do you hear? What do you feel? What do you smell? What do you see? And what do you taste? Take 60 seconds and just go through those five questions and I guarantee you, it will, I'll help you live happier.