What can I learn from grief?
My grief can stop me cold in my tracks. It can freeze me in time. Over the last month, I have been learning a lot about my own grief: what role it plays, how it expresses itself, the value in sharing it, and not keeping it stuffed down for, oh you know, 7+ years… lol.😬
As many know, I have spent a large part of my life working in the crisis intervention field. I found my way to this work by starting in student services at Acadia University. It was there that I very quickly learned how to hold space and tend to grief and suffering. Doing so was and still is incredibly meaningful for me. I don’t consider myself an expert in either trauma nor grief but have learned how closely related the two can be.
From day one on the job, I was shaken awake to a larger realm of suffering present in our world as I responded to my first attempted suicide. Not long after this, followed a death of a student due to alcohol poisoning. I spent four years in student services. There were many challenging experiences throughout my time, and it was my fourth year that really tested my capacity.
Our team was responding to multiple, ongoing, tragic, fear-inducing, and frustrating events simultaneously. Numerous suicide interventions, mental breakdowns that were jarring for me to witness, ongoing mental health monitoring, physical and sexual assaults, acts of violence, threats, a meningitis outbreak (including a death), a flooded building because someone used the sprinkler system as a clothes hanger (lol), plus the normal over-intoxication, holes in walls, silly pranks, and misbehavior that often occur on a college campus.
It felt like I could barely keep up with it all. Over the year, I watched myself go from believing in the “good in everyone,” to becoming skeptical, resigned, and cynical. The summer came, students left, and I did too. I moved across the country, found a completely different job, and proceeded to try and “forget” that year.
Funny thing about grief, it doesn’t like to be stuffed away or forgotten.
Recently, I caught up with my friend and previous colleague who I worked with in that final year in student services. Over breakfast, reflecting on our time working together, I said to her, “That year doesn’t even feel real. I feel like I am a separate person from who I was then. I don’t talk to anyone about that time of my life.”
Hearing myself say these words, I had a moment of realization. I had disassociated from those experiences. Disassociation is a natural, normal trauma response. That moment of realization came and went and I continued on with my life, just as I had done before.
Two months later, I found myself in a somatic experiencing session with my practitioner, Lucy (she is the best, hire her). Somatic Experiencing is one of my favorite modalities of therapy that uses the body to guide healing. Having worked with Lucy for well over a year, one would think that I would have already brought up the events of my final year in student services to work through; however, when I say I had blocked the events out of my mind, I truly mean it.
It didn’t even occur to me that it would be useful to look at those experiences from that year. In my most recent session with Lucy, she began to guide my exploration. One question led to another, and I started to see all the faces and situations I responded to during my time in student services. All the painful moments started pouring through my brain, begging for my attention and I began sharing each of the incidents with Lucy, letting each up for air.
Up until that session, I didn’t want to expose anyone to the pain and suffering so I kept it quiet, tried to forget, and stuffed it down. As much as I tried to forget about it, pain and suffering will always look for ways to come out to be seen. It wants to be observed so that I can see all the lessons available in that pain, and it wants me to integrate those lessons.
Here is what I am learning about grief:
Grief isn’t meant to be held by one person. It is meant to be held by the community. This is something I am learning from my dear friend and teacher, Z. Grief rituals are a lost art, and they have a role to play in helping us move through the suffering present in this world.
Slowing down is a key skill in moving through grief and trauma. If I am “not okay” it is likely because I need to slow down to see more clearly all that is happening so I can integrate the lessons and information.
Grieving is a skill we can develop and it can take many forms. How we move through grief will be unique to each person and each moment. It is also something I am getting better at over time, especially with the support of my somatic practitioner.
Letting myself cry full-out is supportive. When working abroad, I had a co-worker tell me that people in the West need to re-learn how to wail because they are currently holding all their pain in. That comment stuck with me, and I get what they mean now. Wailing feels great. Pretending I have my shit together, and attempting to be all stoic and monk-like is way more uncomfortable and far less graceful than giving it a good cry.
Grieving makes space for joy and connection. I always feel better after moving through grief. I noticed this, especially after my most recent Somatic Experiencing session. Joy and delight came more easily and I felt a renewed sense of capacity to be in connection with others.
“I get to grieve.” I heard adrienne maree brown say this recently in a video, and it resonated. Grief will occur for everyone at some point. It is part of our time on this planet. And it is a gift and privilege to have the space to grieve.
It has been very eye-opening, relieving, and normalizing to share my experiences from my last year in student services. Even writing it out to share is part of my reclamation of that significant time in my life. Good. Grief. 🙃
What have you learned from the grief in your life? If you feel called, please do share!
I write this with gratitude to all those I have worked with in Acadia Student Services. To my California Crisis Line buddies. To our first responders and health care workers. And my greatest gratitude to all the students who shared their pain and suffering with me regardless of how that pain and suffering presented itself.