This is part 2 of a 3 part blog series on exploring grief & loss. In this post, I will reflect on how to navigate the whirlwind of emotions through the grieving process, and explore how we find meaning through continuing bonds with our loved ones who have died. I will also share my personal loss experience and how I have found meaning through this journey; this personal narrative is a continuation from part 1, so if you’d like more context here it is.

The Complexity of Grief & How to Cope

Six months after my friend Jill died, I was still waking up and thinking, “Will today be the day I feel better? When does grief end? When will I be healed?” Through continued work and reflection with my therapist and the support and wisdom from people in my life who had also lost loved ones, I began to accept the reality that I would never “heal” but instead would learn to live with and alongside my grief; I needed to find a way to integrate Jill back into my life in a new way.

On his podcast Healing, David Kessler, a psychologist specializing in grief and healing work, reflects with interviewee Tyler Henry that our grief doesn’t stop or end - we grow around and through it. My life would never be “normal” or the way it was with Jill’s physical presence in the world, rather I would grow into a “new normal” and way of being in the world without her. This was both relieving and unsettling for me to acknowledge and sit with.

As bereavement therapists Darcy Harris & Howard Winokur highlight, healing is more about care and process than cure and outcome. The grieving journey is our body, mind, and spirits’ way of processing our loss and re-integrating our person into our lives in a new way. Poet Andrea Gibson references their therapist’s analogy that going through grief is like stitching a wound; in Andrea’s words, “often the up and down is a really healing place to be.” Andrea describes feeling joy then immediate sadness in the aftermath of their loss, and how at first these emotional extremes felt erratic and unhealthy to them. This resonates with how I felt back on campus during the fall semester of my senior year; I remember feeling at peace and happy being in the moment with friends then immediately emotionally crashing and bursting into tears when a song came on that reminded me of Jill. It felt like the wind was taken out of me, and I couldn’t breathe. I remember feeling angry at the unpredictability of this emotional response in my body and embarrassed that I couldn’t move forward and better manage my emotions. After my breathing slowed and my tears stopped, I would then feel intense guilt - what right did I have to feel joy and happiness when Jill was no longer here?

"Stages of grief" represented as a curved line, next to "My Process" represented as a messy web. — Safe Alliance

In reality, there are many complex emotions we navigate through the grieving process. Kate Inglis, who experienced one of her premature twin babies dying in childbirth, highlights in her memoir Notes for the Everlost: A Field Guide to Grief: “Every one of your emotions, outbursts, or lapses in social grace is 100 percent normal. In this extraordinary loss, you are ordinary. That is good. Your rage is normal. Your speechlessness is normal. Your running-off-at-the-mouth is normal. Your inability to know what you need is normal.” Inglis continues, “Know you don’t have to be whole to be normal.” It takes time to stitch the wound and to wrap our heads around a new reality that is so disorienting and different from the reality we once knew when our loved one was physically present. It is ok and normal to not feel “whole” for a while, and you are not alone in this journey; there are many wonderful resources and people filled with wisdom to support you in feeling better in your mind and body.

Inglis profoundly writes that “grief is most intolerable when there’s a gap between what you need and what you’re getting.” Finding community in others who have also lost someone they loved is a helpful way to find validation and support from people who do understand in some capacity how grief disrupts our functioning and understanding of the world. When we feel seen and understood by someone who has also experienced profound loss, it allows us to extend more care, grace, and compassion for ourselves when we believe and internalize that our complex (and at times conflicting) emotions are valid. In her book Grief is Love: Living with Loss, Marisa Renee Lee reminds us that an important part of the grieving process is learning how to acknowledge and be honest about our feelings, even when “our feelings don’t align with the expectations of others.”

I have a vivid memory of laughing out loud at Jill’s funeral, which Lee also describes as an experience she had at her mother’s funeral (I felt so seen when I read this!). I remember laughing at the absurdity of this moment and how much Jill would have been so embarrassed (and amused) by having hundreds of people gathering around to talk about her. People were looking at me, and I still remember the embarrassment I felt - but once I started laughing I couldn’t stop, until eventually the laughter shifted to tears. I also remember some people who had experienced loss prior to this coming up to me afterwards and offering validating comfort – and feeling understood and held in that moment was important. Find a community, support group, therapist, friend, colleague who can support you when you need some emotional grounding during this time; as Lee emphasizes - it is essential to find your “grief partners.”

In addition to finding community in grief and extending care, compassion, and grace towards yourself, it is also important to find ways to move your emotion through your body. In her interview on “Healing,” Dr. Laura Berman, whose young adult son died from an overdose, states: “Our emotions need motion.” Dr. Berman describes how she would build in a daily practice to “go and move some emotion” for weeks following the death of her son. For 10 minutes a day she would allow herself a daily pressure release, which included a body scan or meditation while lying on her bed - giving herself space to check in with her body and noticing and allowing herself to do or feel whatever somatic responses, emotions, or reactions came up for her. Sometimes this would include screaming into her pillow, crying, laughing, howling, shaking her limbs, or lying in stillness and silence. If we don’t create and allow opportunities or space to move our grief emotions through our body, these emotions will manifest and eventually surface in more undesirable ways. In the lack of control and unpredictability that comes with the grieving process, this is one practice we can control and offer to ourselves.

Continuing Bonds and Finding Meaning

At Jill’s funeral, I remember feeling disappointed and sad that the complexity of Jill as a person - her beautiful insecurities and raw sense of adventure - wasn’t highlighted in the way I felt would be authentic to her. These emotions reflected my own internal wrestling with how to honor and bring the essence of her spirit into my daily life; if I couldn’t have her physical presence, how could I still honor her legacy and keep her spirit present? Fast forward to months later on campus - I began the work of finding ways to integrate Jill into my life on a daily basis.

Continuing bonds theory (coined by Klass, Silverman and Nickman) is when people who are grieving find ways to remain connected to the loved one who died, and this bond helps them to move forward in their lives after this loss. Harris & Winokur describe continuing bonds as “the bereaved maintains a link with the deceased that leads to the construction of a new relationship with him or her.” Elenaor Haley, M.S., a co-founder of What’s Your Grief, highlights the effectiveness and importance of continuing bonds in acknowledging that grief is ongoing and that it’s healthy to stay connected with your loved ones. Additionally, continuing bonds validates not only that these behaviors are normal but that they may actually help you cope through the grieving process.

Top square: line drawing of person alone says "We don't leave deceased loved ones behind. Rather, we carry them with us throughout out lives." Bottom square: same person says to a new person, "Can you stay close?" — What’s Your Grief

Litsa Williams, MA, LCSW, another co-founder of What’s Your Grief, has a wonderful post highlighting 16 Tips for Continuing Bonds with People We’ve Lost that I recommend checking out. Some of my favorite suggestions she mentions include, with a few of my additions:

talk to your loved ones who died (yes, talk out loud to them!)
write letters to them
look through photos or make a collage
establish rituals in their honor
talk to others about them
finish a project they were working on
take a trip or adventure in their honor
adopt a new hobby
go through items that belonged to them
make their favorite comfort foods
live your life in a way they would be proud of

Many communities across the globe have rituals or community-based healing built into societal practices and norms (and have been doing so for centuries), and we have seen incredible strength and resilience that comes from creating intentional collective space to process and heal. Writer Rebekah Mejorado describes how Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is just one example of many across the globe that provide annual time and space for grieving, honoring, and celebrating our loved ones who have died; and Madison Carrasco writes how “each year, as we simultaneously celebrate Día des los Muertos and grieve the death of my mom, I feel free.”

In Notes on Grief, Chimamamda Ngozi Adichie reflects: “I finally understand why people get tattoos of those they have lost. The need to proclaim not merely the loss but the love, the continuity…It is an act of resistance and refusal: grief telling you it is over and your heart saying it is not; grief trying to shrink your love to the past and your heart saying it is present.” By keeping and maintaining a bond with this loved one and honoring their legacy and values, you are keeping their spirit alive and allowing their essence to thrive in your current, present life.

When reflecting on how to remain connected to your loved one, here are some questions Lee invites us to consider:

“What feels right to you?
What brings you a sense of comfort?
What about your relationship with your person was uniquely yours?
What about their values did you always admire?”

How has your person’s life and death transformed you as a human, and how will you honor this in your life? I invite you to consider and reflect on this as you move through the grieving process.

Losing Jill became a part of my identity and lived experience. Over the past 13 years I have woven her into my life, she continues to show up in beautiful and profound ways. I write letters or reflections to her in a journal - and this ebbs and flows; some months or years I have more to say…but it is always there for me to connect with her. When I’m riding my bike while listening to Earth, Wind & Fire (a shared favorite of ours and instant mood lifter) and feeling the wind on my face, Jill’s energy is with me through her love of nature, music, and physical activity. When I watch my toddler’s strong-willed energy, especially as she attempts to climb and jump over the greatest of obstacles, I think of how she is embodying Jill’s adventurous and joyful spirit - and I smile as I imagine Jill’s one-of-a-kind infectious laugh at the wild things my daughter does. And when my birthday comes around, the day I shared with Jill earth-side for 21 years, I have my yearly rituals that I do to celebrate her life and honor our friendship.

I will forever be stitching my wound, but now - more often than not - I’m at peace as I do so.

Biking in Copenhagen, 2020 (personal photo)

Grief is complex, and this often shows up in challenging ways when the circumstances surrounding our loved one’s death and/or our relationship with that person were complicated - especially when our community and society fails to support or validate us in the ways we need and deserve. In Part 3 of this blog series, I will talk about the challenges of anticipatory & disenfranchised grief, and navigating ambiguous loss.

If you are grieving the loss of someone you love, we are holding you close in our hearts and minds and are here for you at Room to Breathe. We invite you to explore our therapy and yoga/mindfulness offerings to support you in your grief journey.

Join Margy for a grief processing workshop, Stitching the Wound: Caring for Ourselves in Grief on Sunday, October 27th at 3 pm. Learn more + register here.

Margy offers a weekly, virtual grief & loss support group on Thursdays, so please reach out if you’re interested in learning more: Margy@RoomToBreatheChicago.Com.