Grief takes a toll. It can be sudden – getting fired, losing your home in a fire, loved ones disappearing in an instant. Or it can grow slowly, such as small emotional pains such as a chronic illness that leads to increasing disability, emotional distance from loved ones that widens over the years, or a partner besieged by dementia. These little pieces add up and keep going until you’re down to such a heavy weight that you can finally call it: BAD.
Sometimes grief presents itself as “normal life” and makes you struggle to identify the reasons why you feel deprived. Any transition, even a positive one, can trigger this feeling – moving to another city for work, starting a relationship, having a child, or the retirement of a spouse. Endings of various stages of life can cause grief; mourning what your life was and who you were before this passing.
Whatever form grief takes, it has profound effects and needs attention. Writing about your grief can help ease its burden. in a.d 2023 interviewsLisa Shulman, MD, FAAN, is a professor of neurology at the University of Maryland and the author Before and After Loss: A Neuroscientist’s View of Loss, Grief, and Our Brains explained
The brain’s response to traumatic loss can lead to increased anxiety, which can disorient and disrupt sleep and increase disturbing dreams at night and intrusive thoughts such as flashbacks during the day. Understanding these brain mechanisms has led to interventions such as journaling and art therapy that can help restore emotional and cognitive memories.
Brittany Cowart, LCSW, is director of grief services at The Full Circle Grief Center many benefits of journaling during griefsuch as:
- A grief journal offers a simple outlet that requires only pen and paper or a computer/tablet.
- Journaling doesn’t require us to speak out loud if we’re not ready.
- We can take small but firm and honest steps forward, this is the only way to get through grief.
- According to experts, the task of reconstructing our personal story is very important in the healing process. A grief journal is a way to give ourselves a safe, reflective space to repeat the truth and heal.
A journal is a time to put aside any external judgments and express to yourself everything that is happening inside without anxiety or criticism. Inevitably, strong emotions will arise, whether it is shock, depression, or even hopelessness. It’s important not to hold back when writing about your feelings, especially about things that seem unacceptable.
Remember, this is only for you, only for your use, freedom, personal experience. So write down the darkest thoughts you have, especially feelings of guilt, disturbing memories, or recurring nagging regrets that may be bothering you. Freely express any anger you may have at yourself, at others, at what you have lost. In this way, the pain of loss can be more easily endured, and the emotional chaos that engulfs the days and nights can be marked with even a little space to breathe.
Dr. Shulman describes her personal experience of journaling to process her grief after losing her husband to cancer,
It just wasn’t effective at getting things off my chest. It was also meditative and allowed me to get to the heart of something I was deeply saddened by. It was also very helpful to read my own words about what was going on. Often when we experience emotional trauma, the magnitude of it is overwhelming. Giving it a clear definition makes it feel controlled. And taking the time to put my feelings into words helped me connect and identify the sadness I was feeling.
Cowart offers magazine tips Writing Bones: Freeing the Writer from Withinby Natalie Goldberg, including:
- Move your hands.
- Don’t pause to reread the line you just wrote.
- Do not cut the line. Even if you write something you don’t want to write, leave it, let it be.
- Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar.
- Don’t think or be rational. Let your right brain take over.
- Keep it simple (…you can choose) journal about your feelings of sadness, use a starter sentence or a sadness journal, or draw/paint your sadness.
Also, journaling instructions, such as:
- Today I really miss…
- The hardest time of the day…
- I felt so much…
- I feel most connected to the person I love…
- I can respect the person I love…
- A comforting memory of a loved one…
- Some of my grief triggers are…
- I could use more…
- I could use less…
- I am grateful for…
- My favorite memory of my beloved …
- My hardest memory of a loved one is… because… it makes me feel…
As an alternative to these tips, she suggests writing a love letter to your loved one:
- Tell them what you love and appreciate.
- Remember a favorite memory the two of you shared.
- Tell them what happened in your life after their death, how you grew and changed. How you remember and honor them.
When experiencing a loss, whether it’s a personal loss, someone you care about has declined or died, or even a public figure you admired has died, it’s normal to be reminded viscerally of your own mortality. It can go through the grief of loss and stress it deeply. It is equally important not to censor such concerns – your health, your life, your future – in the face of loss. These concerns are human and natural, and should be taken into account during this turbulent time. There is no right or wrong, right or wrong to feel or think.
Grief is deeply personal and it is also universal. At some point, we all lose something or someone dear to us and pay a heavy emotional toll. Each person grieves in his own way, depending on his nature and life circumstances. For example, some may focus on gallows humor, some on incessant weeping, some on thoughtful silence, and some on practical matters. Many people go through all of these reactions.
Even within families, people’s grief can be experienced at different times and in different ways. This is why it is so important that we give ourselves and others unlimited amounts of grace. And because there is no timeline for grief, this offer of grace is integral to a more harmonious and lasting relationship going forward. During this time, you can write about all your reactions to others, whether you are heartbroken for them, angry with them, distant from them, etc.
Grief changes lives. It is often difficult to recognize ourselves or our lives through the cloud of pain. Routines can feel alternately comforting and meaningless. It may seem impossible to imagine anything else, to imagine that it will always be different. Taking time to feel and express your feelings in this private writing space can bring you back to a slightly softer place, offer snippets of clarity, and create some much-needed space to breathe.
