06/26/2025
Born Into It
You lost a loved one and you’re happy?
Here’s what you are doing right…
Its all about getting comfortable with your new identity without that person. That’s what time helps with. Time doesn't heal the wound but it aids in the processing of the new identity. The grief work still has to be done. We don’t miss our special person or love our special person less over time. All losses are about getting comfortable with our new identity after the loss. It is about how we identify with who we think we are as human beings in that moment and who we will or wont be without that person. We define ourselves by who we associate with, who we don’t associate with, with possessions we have or possessions we don't have and when parts of that association change, we often feel robbed and our identity is rocked.
Why do we build foundations, tell stories and make movies where life is based on the premise that we are in control of things we are clearly NOT in control of? We act as if everything is permanent when we know nothing is. Why don't we teach our children about change like we do the ABC’s? What if we processed and accepted our lives were in flux and ever changing? So that we taught our children to live in the moment and in gratitude for that moment. Wouldn’t nt this be better than being surprised and denying that we are constantly changing, assimilating, and evolving from within every cell in our body. When we look at change as the expected constant, life is easier. The changes becomes more like little tweaks, small pivots, even fine lines, silver linings.
Learning to assimilate who we are in every moment is freeing and scary.
…And it’s the difference between healthy healing and living with the raw wound. It’s why some people can still find a different kind of happiness after a loss and others cant seem to move forward. Neither person is better. Some of us just naturally assimilate, some of us have better support systems to begin with. Grief doesn't discriminate. It affects all of us. It doesn't care if you are rich or poor, kind or mean, a giver or a taker. No one of us is better or worse for how we respond to grief. We are each different and different losses mean different things to each of us.
Why is my job as a grief therapist so important? Because grief is incorporated in every part of our lives and change is the only way we grow, its around every corner, under every stone. We get scared and say that wont happen to me, that could never but it can and it does. We can’t just support people who are going through the major “socially acceptable” losses, the obvious ones society barely dares to understand, and barely tolerates. Bc then we are invalidating ourselves as we rob others of their grief and growth. With grief comes the beauty of growth, of compassion that is born from real understanding of loss.
This acceptance, this letting go, this assimilating, the learning and rebirth with pieces of the old identity into a new identity is a fact of human living. This growth IS what makes us progress as humans. This is our evolution and the only way we move forward. Like it or not, you don’t have to join the Grief Club because we were all born into it. So slow down, don’t judge. Just observe. To the brave hearted, I dare say, embrace it, sit with it, let it move through you, and you will be amazed at the beauty on the other side.
