Waves of Grief:
Waves of Grief is a powerful image for not only grief but also for the healing process and for ways of coming together as a group to promote that healing.
One of the more commonly expressed ideas about grief from people who are grieving is that rather than being a constant feeling, feelings of grief rise and fall like waves in the ocean and at the shore.
While waves occur in the ocean all the time and wash up on the shore all the time, they are always more intense during storms. Between storms, the waves are more gentle, they are less high and they come less often. The waves between storms are still there, they are just not as overwhelming.
The image of Waves of Grief is a good model for how our grieving effects us too. Over time, grief tends to ebb and flow, rise and fall in its intensity and to contain both storms and calms along the way. Slowly, as time passes, while the waves of grief still remain, rather than overwhelming storm-type waves being dominant, the grief waves become more gentle and come less often, just as the waves in the ocean do after the storms have passed.
In both waves on the ocean and in waves of grief, it is good to remember that the waves are often stronger than we are. As we’ve talked about before, if we try to fight them, we will use our energy in that fight and have less energy available for healing once the waves have passed or calmed.
Waves of Grief is a model of flow, of acceptance of not only what has happened in our lives, but of acceptance of the waves of grief themselves, how, as and when they come over us. It’s about not resisting the waves but of learning to surf and ride with them even in the pain that they bring as they come over us and eventually, move us towards healing and wellness.
In a sense, we have to learn to “drown proof” ourselves, to learn to bob up and down and stay afloat in both the large waves and the small ones, through the storms and through the calms. If we can, we need to find ways to let the waves take us where they will for a while as we rebuild our strength and begin to learn to gain some control over where the waves take us.
As part of this image also consider embracing the idea that: Waves of Grief equal Waves of Love! Each time a wave of grief crashes over you, no matter it’s intensity, mixed with the pain and feelings of loss and sadness remember that we grieve because we love! You probably wouldn’t be reading this without the love that you have for your spouse or partner.
Hope vs. Hopelessness: Looking for some light…
When the waves of grief crash over us, they can cause so much sadness and pain that sometimes feelings of hopelessness can occur, especially early on when the waves crash over us hour after hour, day after day, week after week. It sometimes gets to feeling like we will never get any relief and the pain will remain that intense forever.
I’ve heard people say about their grief, that “this hurts worse than anything I’ve ever experienced”. “No one can be hurting as much as I am”.
It can feel that bad, and it can feel that unique. It can make us sick or sick-feeling all day long and for day after day. It can often make us cry at times like we will never be able to stop. It can keep us from eating and sleeping and it generally messes with everything in our lives as wave after wave crashes over us. It can feel that bad and that hopeless!
Fortunately, for a large number of us, with time, if we just hold on and learn to “bob up and down”, as the grief waves become less high and come less often, we start being able to catch our breath between the waves. We can then slowly begin to take control back into our own hands. We can start to learn to live again and begin building the next part of our lives.
To help us deal with the pain and the isolation we may feel during the storms of our grief, one thing we can do is to find ways to come together and tell our stories. We can share that pain, dilute it by the sharing and find some relief by letting it be expressed outside of ourselves and by learning that we are not as alone as we thought in what we are feeling and going through.
Telling your story is important…
The Value of Support Groups:
As I suggested earlier, a valuable thing, especially in the early part of your grief journey, is to be part of some type of Support Group where you can tell your grief story, over and over if you need to, to people who understand your need to do so.
Support Groups and the people in them offer a place where it’s always ok to grieve and cry and where no one is telling us to “get over it” or “suck it up” and move on. They are a place where we all understand that it takes time and sometimes a lot of time and we only find healing as and when we find healing. Although we can work on it, we can’t force it to happen any sooner than it does.
These ideas, are why and how we developed the different parts of the Adaire House program and why we encourage people to participate in both the Support Groups and the social events. By attending both types of get togethers, we get both conceptual information about grief and grieving and some time to talk about our grief at the support group meetings. At the potlucks and social events, we get a number of less formal environments to share our journeys and our stories when we need to and to help each other to navigate the storms.
Because we have people at different places along the way, from a few months to a number of years into their journeys telling what they’ve learned, this can give you ideas and things to think about that you perhaps haven’t considered yet, as well as new ways to understand what is happening to you.
Again, a very important part of the group experience is that it will let you know that you aren’t alone in what you are experiencing and that sharing your grief journey with others will help to create healing over time. Learning that what is happening to you isn’t as unique as it seems to be, helps you feel less isolated and can be a strong part of the healing process in its own right as it helps you to weather the waves of grief that sometimes threaten to overcome you.
Becoming each others “Friends in Grief”: My Hope…
I’ve talked about this a number of times, but though it may not be obvious, especially early in our journeys, as we listen and share our stories and the pain and sadness and other emotions we feel, we are also learning about each other. We are building strong bases on which friendships can develop as we help each other to work through our grief, as we build the foundations upon which the next part of our lives and the people in them will rest.
As time goes by, especially if past friends and relationships change or fall away because of our changed lives, these new “friends in grief” can become the core of the people we journey forward with.
Our present and future social lives, conversations and interactions can all build out of these friendships because we always have that basic commonality of “I get it, I know how you’re feeling” that creates a comfort and familiarity no matter our backgrounds or beliefs.
They can also be the people who toss us a life-ring and help us ride out the waves of a particularly stormy sea. Connecting with others who share this journey and letting each other know we are there to help in whatever way we can is a very important gift we can give each other.
If people have been surviving grief and sharing their journeys for as long as there have been people and grief, then we can and will survive it as well.
Getting other help:
Please seek out professional counseling if dealing with your grief begins to seem too overwhelming. Many of us were care-givers in some way during our lives, let someone now help you in your need as you may have helped others in theirs.
Questions:
- How do the waves of grief happen to you? What does it feel like?
- Does your grief make you feel isolated?
- Does your grief make you feel hopeless?
- Does it help to know that others share many of the same feelings and experiences during their grief?
- How do the waves come differently for you now if you have been grieving for a while?
- Can you see a time when you can perhaps start to live again in a new way, perhaps with the people you are meeting and becoming friends with through a support group?
- Would you be willing to start doing other things besides the meetings and potlucks together as friends? What would that look like? What would you like to do if you had some friends to do or share it with?