Grief Intelligence

For the past 30 years, I have worked with thousands of grievers. I have sat with widows and widowers, the young and the old. I have offered tissues to bereaved parents in their inconsolable grief. I have normalized, educated, listened to, and championed those grievers who, through tremendous pain, still chose life.

In the decades since my book, Transcending Loss, was published, I still see misinformation and confusion around grief. Principally this comes from the widely held myths that grief should be easy, that grief should be short, that grief ends with closure, that people should get back on with their lives unchanged, and that ongoing connection with the deceased is somehow pathological.

And so, I’m offering 7 principles in this primer on grief intelligence.

Most people don’t learn these lessons until life thrusts them on the roller coaster of major loss. However, if we can get the word out, then perhaps a new generation of individuals will feel more supported and understood when it is their time to grieve.

1. Grief is a normal reaction – Grief is the natural emotional and physical response to the death of a loved one. Although our society desperately wants to avoid the messiness of deep sorrow, there is no way out except through the pain. Typical numbing techniques, such as medications, alcohol, and food are only temporary distractions to dull the pain.

Letting oneself grieve by going directly into the pain – in manageable doses over a long period of time – is healing. Avoiding the pain simply forces it to go deep into the heart where it subtly affects emotional and physical health.

2. Grief is hard work – Grief isn’t easy and it isn’t pretty. It involves tears, sleepless nights, pain, sorrow, and a heartache that knocks you to your knees. It can be hard to concentrate, hard to think clearly, hard to read, and easy to forget all the details of life that everyone else seems to remember. Grievers frequently feel that they’re going crazy and they sometimes wish to die. This doesn’t mean that they’re actively suicidal; it just means that they’re grieving.

3.Grief doesn’t end with closure – Closure is an idea that we like because we want to tie up our emotional messes with a bow and put them in the back of a closet. But grief refuses to play this game. Grief tends towards healing not closure. In other words, the funeral can be healing. Visiting a gravesite can be healing. Performing rituals, writing in journals, making pilgrimages to special sites – all of these things can be personally meaningful and healing, but they will not bring closure. Closure is relevant to business deals but not to the human heart.

4. Grief is lifelong – Although we all want quick fixes and short-term solutions, grief won’t accommodate us. Many people want grief to be over in a few weeks or a few months, and certainly within a year. And yet, many grievers know that the second year is actually harder than the first. Why? Because the shock has worn off and the reality of the pain has truly sunk in.

I let grievers know that the impact of grief is lifelong just as the influence of love is also lifelong. No matter how many years go by, there will be occasional days when grief ‘bursts’ through with a certain rawness. There will be days, even a decade later, when sadness crosses over you like a storm cloud. And likely, every day going forward will involve some memory, some connection to missing the beloved.

5. Grievers need to stay connected to the deceased—while some might find it odd or uncomfortable to keep talking about the long deceased loved one, or find it disconcerting to see photographs of those who have passed on, it is healthy to keep the connection alive. My heart goes out to an older generation of grievers who were told to cut their ties to their deceased loved ones, to banish all remnants of them, to pretend as if they never existed. Such unwitting cruelty! Honor their birthdays and departure days. Know that their physical presence may be gone from this earth, but that they remain in relationship to the griever in a new way, beyond form, a way based on spirit and love.

6. Grievers are changed forever – If you expect to eventually be back to your old self, you will be quite disappointed. Grief, like all major life experiences, changes a person irrevocably. Think about it for a moment. Would you expect to remain unchanged after getting an education, getting married, having a baby, getting divorced, or changing careers? Life is full of experiences that add to the compost mixture of your life – creating rich and fertile soil. Similarly, grief teaches you about life, about death, about pain, about love, and about impermanence. While some people are changed in a way that makes them bitter and shut down, it is possible to use grief as a springboard for compassion, wisdom, and open-heartedness.

7. Grievers can choose transcendence – Transcendence has to do with having perspective, seeing in a new way, holding pain in a larger context. Seeing one’s grief from a larger perspective allows it to be bearable and gives it meaning. Perhaps it means reaching out to others who suffer. Perhaps it means giving to a cause that will result in helping others. Grievers who choose transcendence recognize that they are not alone, that they are part of the human condition, and that they are amongst all people who experience love and loss. They use their pain in a way that touches others. The pain is still there, of course, but it is transformed.

So I invite you to reflect on these grief principles, how they might be true for you and how they might be true for someone you know and love. Share and share again so that we might spread grief intelligence far and wide. Perhaps we can effect a change so widespread that all grievers will know what to expect and can be comforted, at least, by that knowledge.

Ashley Davis Bush, LICSW has thirty years of experience as a psychotherapist in private practice. She is also the author of ten self-help books, including the new book Light After Loss as well as her classic books, Transcending Loss and The Little Book of Inner Peace . Ashley is trained in EMDR trauma work as well as Emotionally Focused Therapy. She is a Reiki master and spiritual director who draws on many healing modalities. Ashley has been a sought after public speaker, podcast host, Huffington Post contributor, and frequent radio and television guest throughout her long career. She and her husband, also a psychotherapist, divide their time between Guatemala and New Hampshire.