Real talk: I am not doing well right now.
It’s hard to ignore the elephant in the room. I desperately want to talk about anything besides COVID-19, but I find myself at a loss when I try to move on to another topic.
Although I am very lucky to still have a job, my last day in the office was over a month ago. Now that I am home 24/7, my days are all running together. My attempts at keeping some semblance of a routine have faltered. I feel sad, scared, frustrated, and a million other emotions that shift with little warning. One day I am working out, eating well, being productive, and feeling hopeful, and the next I just want to curl up in a ball on the couch and not move.
The unknown can be utterly exhausting. When all of this started, we were led to believe that life would more or less return to normal after a couple of weeks. However, we are now all dealing with the harsh reality that we have a long, hard road ahead of us.
As I mentioned in a recent post, there are many emotions that I am navigating right now. However, there is one in particular that I keep coming back to and yearning to understand more deeply:
GRIEF.
Western society has done us a great disservice in how it teaches us (or doesn’t teach us) about grief. I am pretty in tune with my emotions, but naming grief is new to me. Like many people, I grew up largely thinking that grief was what you felt when someone died. I never took the time to look at it more deeply. It is only recently, in the face of a pandemic, that I have slowly started to break down this part of the human experience and learn more. This exploration of grief started in an unexpected but organic way.
In 2015, I was at a crossroads in my career. I was looking to find more purpose and meaning in my job. Through an acquaintance, I heard about something called the Yellow Conference. I did a little research and signed up for the two-day conference. The experience of listening to socially conscious entrepreneurs speak and connecting with other women pursuing their passions left a lasting mark on me. Yellow Co.‘s motto is “a community of women creating meaningful work”, and they are truly that. A community. Even though the main hub for their operations is in LA, I have been able to remain connected through a digital membership platform.
A month ago, they began hosting a weekly “Coffee & Check-In” video chat featuring Yellow Co. founder Joanna Waterfall and therapist Rebecca Ching. The first week that I joined in, Rebecca spoke a truth I didn’t realize I was missing. What many of us are experiencing right now isn’t just anger or sadness. What we are experiencing is grief, plain and simple. Grief isn’t just what we feel when someone dies. Grief is when there is a loss of SOMETHING. A marriage, a relationship, a job, a way of life, etc. As a way of continuing the conversation, Jasmin Jenkins, grief guide and founder of Fall Up, joined us the following week for a special conversation about the four invitations of grief as she has identified them.
The Four Invitations of Grief
- The invitation to pause
- The invitation to connect with your breath
- The invitation to feel
- The invitation to heal
Over the course of these two conversations, I began to see grief in a new way and to explore what it looked like in my life. After voicing some of my thoughts regarding grief on Instagram, my sweet sister-in-law sent me a link to researcher and author Brené Brown‘s recent podcast episode titled “David Kessler and Brené on Grief and Finding Meaning“. David Kessler is an expert on grief and loss and was able to give words to what I have been feeling in a way I was unable to do myself. David co-wrote On Grief and Grieving with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. Elisabeth was a Swiss-American psychiatrist and the author of 1969’s On Death and Dying, which established the five stages of grief.
Through learning more about grief, I have realized that it isn’t just one emotion. Each stage of grief has its own emotions attached. It is important to note that the stages aren’t linear and that everyone processes grief in their own unique way. This also means that even though we may be experiencing the same loss, we are all grieving differently. There is no right or wrong way to grieve.
The Five Stages of Grief
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
As you read over the stages, you may notice some emotions that you have been dealing with lately. Chances are that with everything going on in the world right now, you have likely dealt with at least one of these stages in the last month. We are experiencing a collective loss of the world we knew. Even after everything has gone “back to normal”, it won’t be the same.
While this is a hard truth to accept, there is still hope. David Kessler recently published a book about a new, sixth stage of grief:
Finding meaning
It is important to understand that you likely won’t find meaning in the loss itself. Many losses are senseless. The meaning comes from the moments that arise out of a loss.
I don’t see any meaning in the devastating coronavirus pandemic that is affecting all of us. However, I am finding meaning in the moments it is creating. I am learning how to spend more time reflecting. I am cherishing quiet moments when I can read and learn and dream. I am appreciating having more time with a spouse who is often traveling for work. I am enjoying the opportunity to watch the seasons change.
My hope is that in time, no matter how you are being affected by COVID-19, you will begin to find meaning as well. We are all in this together, and we will make it through. In the meantime, we need to allow ourselves to experience the grief of this collective loss so that we can all move forward. Together.
Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash
