Covid-19 has not only brought about immense loss of life, thousands of loved ones gone too soon, but it has also restructured our daily lives and doled out a lot of disappointment, economic instability and pulled back the veil on several festering wounds in our societal structure. And the rapidity of all this change has left a lot of us reeling.
In a matter of months, this pandemic completely changed the way we operate within our society: working from home, masking up before entering buildings or standing on spacing dots at the grocery store, meetings, birthdays and holidays being held online, staring a people through plexiglass and face shields, and avoiding all close contact with anyone you’re not quarantining with. Not to mention, the cancellation of sports games, concerts, vacations, family reunions, summer camps and so many more events we were looking forward to.
Throughout all this change, I have watched the world grieve all of these losses. The stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) are everywhere throughout the national and global dialogue about this pandemic. It is important to note that the stages of grief are not linear for most people. Although grief is universal, the experience of grief is unique to the griever. Someone can experience all stages one minute, only to start back a denial later that night, while someone else may never get past denial.
So, what do you do?
1.) Try to name and identify the emotions that you are having. It can help lessen the impact once you shine light on your experience, but it might not go away.
2.) So, it is also important to allow the feeling you’re feeling. Pain, disappointment, grief, depression, are all part of the human experience and feeling them, though uncomfortable, can allow them to process.
3.) Develop a practice of self-compassion. Grief can be slippery and elusive to pin down, so we can sometimes feel like we’ve lost control. This can cause deep depression and sadness in some, while in others it produces a need to control more of their environment, body and life to produce a sense of security. Both are completely understandable reactions.
People often say “time heals grief”, but I haven’t found that to be true. Grief can often reformat the perception we have about the world, our mortality, and prioritize what truly matters to us. Whenever we experience loss, the word “forever” gets an updated definition.
Personally, I think of grief like a chain wrapped around a tree (stay with me here, I promise it’ll make sense). Loggers often leave the chains they use wrapped around trees in the woods. Overtime, that resilient tree grows around the chain, eventually consuming it entirely within it’s being.
Grief is that chain. In the beginning, the grief you experience is a very prominent part of your life. The hurt is constantly visible to you and maybe even to your loved ones around you. But over time, your life continues and you begin to grow around your grief. It doesn’t go away and you are forever altered, but it decreases in pain and prominence. And because you are resilient, it may be a beautiful driving force for you to cherish the life you do have and prioritize the things most important to you.
Grief is hard, but can be a powerful facilitator of change.