Why am I so afraid of my grief?

Is there hope for me if I grieve?

These two questions are often asked by those who seek me out for guidance. Most of us were never exposed to all the facets of grief, and honestly, the word seems to frighten people as so many are uncomfortable with death, loss, and of course, divorce.

How often do we phrases like, “don’t be sad,” or in a divorce one of my favorites, “Don’t feel bad”- you will choose better next time.” While there may be some intellectual truth to the comments, they sadly lack for our emotional well-being. Our being goes into conflict with these phrases, and the people who said they care about us are also uncomfortable with feeling. The end result for the person in grief is frustration and confusion, which lead to emotional isolation.

Most of us have been brought up to resolve all of our issues by thinking. Thinking WILL NOT heal grief. Grief has to be felt. Grief is also not a gender issue. Another story I hear all the time. Women deal with grief better. Not true. Yes, we are socialized differently from early childhood about who can cry and cannot, but research shows both men and women are limited in dealing with emotions such as pain, sadness, and what we are told our negative feelings.

Feelings are not gender-based. There is no right or wrong. There is no such thing as girl anger, boy anger, girl sad, boy sad, girl bliss, or boy bliss. They are all feelings, and we all have them.

There is a place for our thinking brain in grief. It helps take in information, but the processing and healing that is all feelings.

Have you ever thought about what your death song would be? When I gave my father's eulogy a few years ago, I chose a verse from the bible by Timothy, which fit my father perfectly, and used the song "I did it my way" by Frank Sinatra. So many in the church commented to me afterward on how I had captured my father's essence. They were right, and I did from the space where I was that day.

A few weeks ago, I came across what I wrote and spoke that day. I saw my wounding coming through my words, but also my father's. See, my father was a narcissist. He did things his way because that is who he was. He was also stubborn, a fierce competitor, held onto grudges, pitted his children against each other, had the most infectious laugh, and fully lived his life his way, which wasn't always in the best interest of his children.

His death was an awakening for me. I woke up to see layers of wounding I carried from my mother and father that it was time to heal. I dug deeper into those programs by my teacher @lianashanti and stayed with them until my mother and father wounds were healed. It also meant looking at the wounding I had caused to my son and others. It was not easy, at times excruciating, and also a gift that I've never had words to express sufficiently. I am filled with blessings and gratitude, though.

I've learned that it is through healing our wounds that we heal our soul. That will guide us to being at peace when we leave our human body here on earth and travel with our soul. It is in what healing we do or do not do on earth that will guide that. The more I have come to understand this and heal me, I have seen my gifts guiding others to do the same for themselves. Hence my journey of awakening to the gifts to share as a death doula.

In guiding others, rituals are such a part of life and death. The song I chose for my father, today, I can see different reasoning for that choice. My father cared about himself in my childhood. He wasn't present. He wasn't nurturing. He didn't make me feel safe and secure. He didn't love me unconditionally, which are all roles of parenting. My feelings of betrayal, anger, sadness were in my words, although few saw them due to their wounding. I get that. Today, I also see my father's wounding. I hold him responsible, for we all have choices to heal. The funny thing is, "I did it my way" was perfect that day, as it opened me to seeing life with different eyes and guided me to where I am today. Now to begin listening deeper for what my song will be one day.

Do you know your song?

As I embarked on a deeper spiritual healing journey in 2012, guided by my teacher, Liana Shanti, most of what I knew needed to be released and purged. I began learning about the differences in being a helper (we can only help ourselves), the difference between healing and curing myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually and most essential for me, releasing my fears.

A few years ago, in a conversation with Liana, we talked about death and how much loss I have had in this life. The term death doula was mentioned for the first time as a gift I have held for quite a while. Fear of death was not something I had felt related to me, but as we talked, I was able to see there was some fear. Okay, deeper I went into uncovering the fears I felt, aspects of confusion emerging, and time in silence asking God and Jesus for guidance.

I always thought (ego) I was comfortable with death. Lord knows I have had sat with enough of it. I'm unsure how many deaths of relatives and friends of my family I experienced before becoming an adult, but it was a lot. I can see how those moments prepared me for my sister dying in our 20's, my brother at 39, and a multitude of other people before my parents. Add to that, I also chose grief and loss as the topic for my dissertation. I worked with hospice and ran grief and loss support groups; many of my clients experienced grief, and I had a near-death experience back in 2005. I heard Liana but struggled that I had this fear of death. As always, she was right.

I did.

Fear of death can mean many things: the body, a relationship, a situation, a dream, a way of thinking. It can be anything that must be experienced raw, fully, consciously, and then surrendered and released. In letting go, we can plant new seeds so healthy growth to take place. We become comfortable with our fear of death when we understand, time is not linear, our physical body dies, but our soul is eternal. It is in the healing of our soul (healing core wounds) that we lose our fears.

I was able to see that my understanding of death was intellectual, and I needed to become comfortable with a visceral or cellular awareness. The healing versus curing became profound for me at that moment. To release my fear of death wasn't about curing symptoms. It was about healing all the imbalances in my body that led to my being sick. It was a journey of going within, looking at all of my wounding, my shadow, and then transforming all of those experiences and understanding even if I died during this healing. It was okay as I would be taking this new "healed self" into my next life.

How powerful is that?

Within my own body, the imbalances were many. I had been told in 2005 that I only had months to live. I chose to ignore that message and begin healing my body. My journey started with detoxing the physical body, which opened me up to understand death is a part of life. I also began to learn how to balance my energy field, which leads to balancing the body. In this process, I began healing my body, my spirit and became more comfortable with understanding that I would be okay no matter what happened. In the healing I was doing, I was connecting with the divine in a new way. I would be okay if I was here on earth or transitioned to a new realm.

And that is when my fear of death was released. Death is inevitable, but healing is a choice.

Often, when I'm with clients and their families preparing for death, we discuss the importance of rituals and discuss each person's feelings at the moment. A client had shared with me 3 or 4 poems she had found on death that touched her. While each of them had meaning to her, I was struck that all of them discussed holding feelings back. A couple of them asked that you don't cry or be sad. Excuse me. Someone I care about is leaving their earthly body, and I'm not supposed to feel? That makes no sense. All of us are entitled to the feelings that show up. Some of them may be messy. That is okay.

Holding feelings denies us of our grief. It denies what we felt for the person who is no longer here. Yes, it may hurt, maybe uncomfortable; it may even turn you inside out. Yet, how beautiful is that – to know another person meant that much to us. Sharing and acknowledging our feelings is a lovely way to remember the person we have lost. Here is one of the poems sent to me.

Peace my Heart by Rabindranath Tagore

Peace, my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet.

Let it not be a death but completeness.

Let love melt into memory and pain into songs.

Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest.

Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night.

Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence.

I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light your way.

Children do not experience death, loss, or grieve in the same way adults do.

Phrases I hear from adults about their children who have lost someone are:

They don’t need to be involved

It’s better to keep them distracted

They do not need to learn about death

They do not understand

Sadly, none of these assumptions is true. Children know and see way more than we think they do, and their feelings need to be felt, not buried within. It’s the adult’s uncomfortableness with death and grieving that is being projected to the child. Children need to grieve. It will just look and be different.

Your children need to have space to speak, share and have their needs met when someone they love dies or when they have been exposed to tragic events where people have died.

In working with grieving children, it is important to create a safe, quiet space where they can express themselves. Sometimes, children want to talk. They have questions about what death means, where the person has gone, and most of all, are they (the child) going to be okay. Sometimes they want to be held, play, color, or draw. Acknowledge what they need and know they may bounce from one thing to another quickly. The age/development of the child will also determine this. Our children will be watching us and how we are handling grief, and they will internalize it and use what they observed for themselves.

If you are unsure about your grief, reaching out to a grief professional can be helpful for your children. Involve children in whatever rituals you are holding, activities, and conversations about the deceased love one, but be mindful of doing at a level they can understand.

When my sister died, my son was seven. He was around for all conversations about my sister. He had gone to a funeral home a few months prior for another death in our family, so he was familiar with the funeral home. Even so, I took him to the funeral home before my sister’s showing to share what was going to happen, and a place where he could go that had toys, books, and art supplies if he wanted to step away for a bit. I also let him know that there would be many people there, and no one was more important than him. He was also involved with picking out the flowers he wanted from him, what he wanted to wear, and when he asked if he could leave something with my sister, that was a yes, also.

Be prepared. A child may act differently from what you usually see as they also need to make sense of loss. Some children may withdraw, others may act out, and some with being louder, full of questions, or hide. It’s best if we let them acknowledge what they are feeling and give them space. Be present to them, listen to them, acknowledge that their feelings are real, and provide them with time to experience the loss in their way, the same as you are doing.

I am often asked how long it takes for the pain of losing someone to go away? My answer is always the same. That is up to you. There are many types of grief. Today, I am talking about acute grief. In acute grief, we have to learn and accept the reality that someone we cared about is no longer here, and we need time to grasp the fact it takes time to grieve. Intellectually we know the person we loved is gone. Emotionally, it takes longer and depends on our comfort level of feeling our emotions and working through the layers of grief to internalize and understand.

In the beginning, you may feel grief 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I've found that in naming our feelings: (sadness, anxiety, fear, anger, guilt, frustration, loneliness) and begin to feel them without blame and shame, healing begins. Remember, this takes time. Each day may be different as you are traveling through all of your feelings. Some days will be easier than others. Be gentle with yourself. Some days you will be able to function and other days not so much.

When we lose someone or something we loved, we build a new understanding of what life is like without them each day. It may take months or longer before you heal physically, emotionally, and energetically. It's important to incorporate self-care, share what you are experiencing, and when you're ready, you will have a sense of understanding life without your loved one.

In my years of guiding myself and others through grief, one aspect I don't think the majority of us understand is how deep grief is. Many underestimate or want to fly through grief. That isn't a great idea.

Many of us are unaware of the grief layers and attribute them to anxiety, depression, or even an illness.

Our grief responses can be expressed in many different ways. Here are a few examples.

*In the beginning, you may feel sorrow, blame, guilt, sadness, low mood, or depression

*Depending on the loss and how you react, you may not believe it's true, or there may be anger, a sense of trying to find or reach the person who died, or just be preoccupied with thoughts of the person, pet, or other loss.

*There may be an overwhelming fear in the loss, sicknesses that appear, feel disorganized, lost, filled with anxiety and or confusion, and for others, exhaustion or lack of desire for many things, including living.

*You may see changes in your behavior without understanding why you are crying about everything, just not the loss. You may withdraw from those close to you or activities. Many may turn to coping mechanisms, such as emotional eating, drugs and alcohol, sex, shopping, or a myriad of other tools they have acquired through the years.

Any of the above can be experienced by themselves or in combination. It all depends on how you grieved when the loss happened.

The first time grief hit me at layers; I had no idea what to do with them was with my sister's death. Her death was a total surprise and rocked my world. In looking back, I can see that I pushed a lot of my feelings aside so that I was able to care for my son and my family. I kept telling myself. I had accepted her death and that I had grieved, but I hadn't and carried that with me for many years. In many ways, I shut down, and soon the physical issues with my health began appearing. Others in my family turned to alcohol, withdrew from activities they enjoyed, became short-tempered, angry at others, and stuck in a place emotionally of keeping her alive.

The acute grief we all experienced was intense. I remember just wanting to be curled up in a ball and not have to face the world anymore. I experienced changes in relationships with people telling me I was different now. I wasn't as light and carefree. I remember returning to college after her death and sitting in classes and never hearing a word said. I had trouble remembering things that prior would have been so easy. My ability to think and process with clarity was gone. I couldn't sleep, and I didn't want to do anything or be around anyone. My world and all I knew were different.

In acute grief, what I experienced were normal reactions. Each aspect was a part of the grief layers I needed to experience. Thankfully, I didn't stay stuck there. Others do. It took time, but one day I grasped that it was okay to express my grief in the ways that worked for me. I had many telling me to get my stuff together. Others were upset. I decided to withdraw from college and move back closer to my family and regroup. I heard all kinds of chatter about what I was and wasn't doing, but the reality was, I needed to grieve, and I did. As I went through the acute grief, I changed, and aspects of myself were gone.

In that process, I learned that those grief layers and deep, and it's best not to underestimate them.

One of the things I learned living through grief, studying grief, and finally feeling my way through grief is there are many layers we have to heal besides the loss of the person who died. During my studies in grief and loss, I learned the term secondary loss.

Secondary losses are all the different layers that are now gone with the loss of the person we loved. It can be the loss of the relationship, needing to sell a home because without the other person's finances, you cannot afford to live there, it could be leaving a school that was familiar to the child who's lost a parent, and so much more.

Secondary losses are often overlooked, yet grieving them is important in the healing process. It is the loss of the roles that person has played in your life (spouse, child, sibling, friend, sexual partner, travel companion, boss). It can be the loss of meaning and the joy you felt when you were with that person, as well as your comfort, the hopes and dreams you had for the person and or your relationship.

After my mom died, my dad shared with me that he was managing well through the day, but 8-11:30 at night were the worst. That was when my parents watched sports, possibly a tv show, and then the news. He told me of sitting in his chair, and throughout the night, he would turn to talk to her about the game or something in the show, and she wasn't there—this, along with her death, needed to be grieved.

After my sister died, I did not only lose my sister, a dear friend, my son's aunt, but my business partner as the catering company we had dreams of growing was now gone too. All these need to be grieved.

In a marriage, you lose the spouse, but often you also lose your best friend, your sexual partner, the parent of your children. Each of these is a loss and needs to be grieved individually otherwise;, you will carry that pain with you.

Another aspect to consider is all the assumptions and expectations we had with the person we have lost. My dad always believed he would die before my mom. I never expected to lose siblings at the ages of 23 and 39. I always believed my sister would get married and have a family and that my brother would see his son grow up. All of this needs to be grieved.

In secondary losses, aspects of our world have been turned upside down. A sense of security may be shaken and unspoken or spoken anger at another person or God for the person we loved no longer being there, or we lose faith in life and believe everything is unfair. All of this needs to be grieved too.

In my grieving experience or when guiding others, secondary losses are often overlooked and cause lingering unresolved grief but are so important to our healing.