It was once thought that there were five stages to grief - that we all encounter denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance in the face of losing someone we love. Today’s science wholeheartedly refutes that model, with research studies demonstrating its fallacy - not everybody experiences those five things, there are no set stages to grieving that you have to pass through.
Instead, it’s now understood that grief looks different for everyone, it’s as individual as your fingerprint. I like to think of this as good news: in my darkest days, when our 12 year old daughter Abi was killed, I wasn’t interested in sitting around and waiting for ‘time to heal’, I wanted to find which ways of thinking, acting and being worked best for me. I call this ‘being an active participant in the grief process’. Understanding the highly individual nature of grief and being proactive about finding what works best for you is a new proactive approach that I call Resilient Grieving.
Resilient Grieving doesn't imply that you tough it out, deny your grief, or attempt to be falsely positive - we’re not talking toxic positivity or happiology here. Instead it suggests there are a multitude of ways of thinking, acting and being - supported by science - that might help you manage your loss better. Knowing everyone is different, and every loss is different, it encourages you to actively seek out the strategies that might work best for you.
The first step is to accept the loss has occurred. Please don’t confuse this with coming to terms with your loss - that, of course takes time - but grieving starts with acceptance. Somehow you have to force yourself to accept that this awful thing has happened, that there’s no going back and this is your new reality. Bloody, bloody, bloody is all I can say to that.
Of course this is the easiest thing for me to write but I accept that it’s the hardest thing to do. If you’re reading this, the truth is you have accepted the terrible truth, and let me reassure you that understanding that truth, and coming to terms with the revolting reality come over time. It takes time for your poor heart, brain, mind, and world to catch up to that. Give yourself time.
When Abi died I was overwhelmed by the helpless tone of the standard grief literature and advice, all those people telling me we were now prime candidates for divorce and mental illness, suggesting we should write off five years of our lives to her loss, and telling us to watch out for family estrangement. What I needed most was hope, and thankfully, my own field of resilience psychology painted a very different picture: I knew, for example, that the most common response to a wide range of potentially traumatic events (including bereavement) was resilience. Later, in my research, I would discover that most people cope with grief with the assistance of family and friends, and don’t require clinical attention by mental health professionals (Aoun et al., 2018; Jordan & Neimeyer, 2003; Stroebe et al., 2007). Yes, grief is awful and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but the truth is that humans are hard-wired to cope with loss, so have hope you can and will get through this.
In the early acute phases of grief, those painful, tumultuous early days, shut out any preconceived ideas of what you should be doing, what grief should look like, and go with your gut instead. Do what you need. Listen to your body, your head, your heart, your soul. Ask yourself, is what I’m doing right now - the way I’m choosing to think, act, or be - helping or harming me in my quest to get through this next minute/hour? Resilient Grieving is about listening to yourself and your needs, growing your self-awareness, and putting yourself in the drivers’ seat of your grief journey. There are no rules here, do what works for you.
There can be so many conflicting emotions associated with grief - guilt, anger, confusion, bewilderment, regret, frustrations and fear - now is not the time to add to those by being harsh on yourself. Acceptance also involves lowering your expectations of what’s possible right now, and enduring that with a large dose of self-compassion. Grief is exhausting and may test you to your limits, so don’t make it harder on yourself by setting unrealistic standards. Accept the difficult emotions for what they are - all part of grief - know that it won’t be like this forever, put aside all ideas of how you should be behaving, what you should be feeling, and remind yourself that everybody struggles and suffers, that just makes you human. What do you need to do to be a bit kinder to yourself right now? For me, the answer to that question is usually pretty simple, sleep. I take myself off to bed or head for the couch and drown out my sorrows with some mind numbing TV.
The stand out finding of resilience research is that nobody does well alone. From the day you are born to the day you die, humans are social creatures who need other people to survive and thrive. Having said that, grief can be hard on relationships and so many of our clients report how lonely, misunderstood, and judged they feel. If that sounds familiar to you, please know you are not alone - but equally, don’t get isolated in your grief. It’s absolutely okay to put frustrating friendships on hold for a while, but don’t get to the point that you’ve got no one to talk to, and don’t leave the house. In our courses we work with people to identify the different types of support they most need, and to overcome the barriers to getting it. The most frequent barrier? Expecting your friends/family/colleagues to know what you need. Sadly, they’re not mind readers, you’re going to have to tell them what you need. Help them help you by giving them one task. Accepting help is paramount when you’re grieving. This takes bravery and vulnerability, I know, but you can’t do this alone.
Look, I’m not going to pretend that any of this is easy - grieving is tough, not what we wanted, hard to believe, and constantly draining and exhausting. But, if you want to survive this loss, you’ve got to look around you and notice what you’ve got to live for, who and what else is relying on you. When Abi died a little voice in my head reminded me to ‘choose life, not death; don’t lose what you have to what you have lost’. I knew it was time to fight for life, to do everything I possibly could to keep what was left of my family unit intact, to work out ways for us to survive her loss.
What works for you will be different to what worked for me, but in my work with clients, these five steps seem to shine through as useful. The initial acceptance, the prevailing hope, the self-awareness to do the things that help not harm you, the self compassion to lower the bar when things aren’t so good, and the bravery to reach out for the support you need - these are the foundation stones of Resilient Grieving.
As one of the students on our A Better Way to Grieve course said to me last weekend, “your work made me realise this loss doesn’t have to break us, that there is a way of reframing this that gives me hope”. Have hope, get curious, be determined and kind - to yourself and all those around you. Grief is tough, but you can survive.
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Our next live course, Grief & Growth, exploring how grief has changed you and what the future might hold, runs in October. Limited spaces available.
You will learn practical tools and techniques to ensure you are as empowered and prepared as possible to get your life back on track, and work towards a greater sense of control and calm.
