What Are You Grieving Right Now?

By Rachel Zar, LMFT, CST

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death this week got me thinking a lot about grief. When I first saw the news on TV, my initial instinct was to change the channel. It just felt like too much… too much to lose on top of a year that was already filled with loss. But instead, I made a decision to put the remote down and let myself feel. In that moment, I wasn’t just grieving the loss of this iconic woman (although that would have been enough) – I was grieving all the little losses that have come this year, and all those yet to come. I stayed in the feeling and I cried and it helped.

What are you grieving right now? We tend to reserve the word “grief” for the really big losses in our lives, like the death of a loved one. But there are many other things we grieve: the loss of a job, a home, a life stage, health, travel plans, visits with family, freedoms and rights, certainty about the future… the list goes on and on. Every transition in life, every decision you make, comes with the loss of something that came before it or the decision you could have made. So how can we cope with the normal losses that come in our lives – plus the really big ones – without leaving forever scars? How can we ensure that these losses don’t add up to lasting trauma? How can we be resilient?

I was recently struck by a quote by physician and trauma expert Gabor Mate that points to an answer:

“Trauma is not the same as pain. Trauma is not the same as fear. Those are natural responses to events. Trauma is when we get stuck around those events and their impact on us. Trauma, in some ways, is a resistance to grief. Genuine grieving is the opposite of trauma.”

It’s human nature to not want to feel bad feelings. We avoid thinking about the thing that makes us sad. We turn off the news when the devastation feels like too much. We avoid the tough stuff instead of having that hard conversation. It is good to set healthy boundaries, to allow ourselves a joyful distraction, to be able to set the bad feelings aside when we need to. But there’s also a reason your therapist is asking you to feel your feelings right now: sit in your sadness, cry when you’re overwhelmed, be OK with not being OK. It’s because the way out is through.

Grief is not only healthy, it’s imperative. Sometimes we have to feel the weight of what’s holding us down in order to find the strength to lift it off. Sometimes we have to completely lose our shit to get to a place where we can hold it together. So, if you need it, here’s your permission to grieve.