Grieving Well

Posted on December 15, 2022 by Tegan Campia, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.

Grief itself is an all-consuming experience. Meaning when we are in a state of grief, there is nothing free from it.

When we are walking around in grief, and we receive a bad review at work, or we get cut in line, or we experience any kind of simple rudeness, our wounding immediately kicks in, and we are doubly hurting.

It’s like needling an open wound— often by the mundane, inattention, or the lack of affection we receive.

So, how do we grieve well?

For starters, in community and in relationship. With folks who understand how to witness your experience with compassion.

In Community, In Relationship:
One of the worst things about grief is feeling utterly alone and like no one could ever have felt this awful ever before. The beauty of grieving in a compassionate community is that we do not have to hold the intensity and the weight of this experience alone. But you get to lean on others’ strength and softness.

In any good grief community, we get to put away the ‘measuring sticks’ of comparing how horrific, painful, or traumatic the loss was. And when we get to heal and be seen in our grief, there is a great opening that happens, and we get to explore other parts of our experience that are not just the pain and trauma but the specific way they made us feel or how they could make us laugh.

In community, we dip into others’ and our own stories. Story is helpful because it can help us create order, flow, cadence, and meaning in a time that can feel out-of-body, chaotic, or entirely separate from reality.

At memorial services, there is an instinctual tradition to tell stories about the loved ones we lost. In those moments, it feels nourishing to crawl inside a story or memory, even for a moment.

When we listen to others’ stories of strangers, we witness their wrestling to make meaning out of sadness—their ability to carve new life from loss. Then when we try and tell our stories to others, we braid meaning into the same arc of resilience—the arc of still being here against all odds.

Sometimes the story of resilience is not what is brought forth. Sometimes, the holes left in our hearts are just too big and too loud to speak of anything else. And we get to collapse and cry and be witnessed by others who have been there.

At memorial services, there is an instinctual tradition to tell stories about the loved ones we lost. In those moments, it feels nourishing to crawl inside a story or memory, even for a moment.

When we listen to others’ stories of strangers, we witness their wrestling to make meaning out of sadness—their ability to carve new life from loss. Then when we try and tell our stories to others, we braid meaning into the same arc of resilience—the arc of still being here against all odds.

Sometimes the story of resilience is not what is brought forth. Sometimes, the holes left in our hearts are just too big and too loud to speak of anything else. And we get to collapse and cry and be witnessed by others who have been there.

Being witnessed in my grief allowed the grief to become a part of me. It allowed me to honor loss alongside love. It allowed me to step into wholeness as a person. And while some days I still feel like a mess, I can loosen the grip on hating the scrambled, feeling part of myself.

I get to honor the deep feeling part of me that loves.