Good Grief

When I first graduated and began to work “in the field” – a long, LONG time ago – I knew less about the populations I wanted to work with and more about what populations I wanted to avoid. I didn’t have a niche, but I knew what seemed too hard to work with. I found myself avoiding at first what I considered “the doozies”. I avoided the psychotic disorders. I avoided autism. I avoided trauma. And I avoided grief.

The universe is funny, though. As my career expanded I found myself suddenly working with all the populations I initially thought were “too hard”. Instead of avoiding, opportunities offered me the chance to lean in. I found myself working specifically with these populations, deepening my expertise and learning just how not limiting or difficult any of these diagnoses can be. Even grief.

Grief I think I initially avoided, not because I felt insecure in my skills; I avoided working with it because I think I wanted to avoid dealing with it. Unfortunately for me, death – and grief – is something I am intimately familiar with. I found the depths of it murky and uncomfortable. To help others in that space, I’d have to be willing to enter that space, and I did not want to do that! For me, in my early career, grief was to be avoided, personally and professionally.

As I got deeper in my career, though, I discovered that even grief could not be avoided. Not professionally… and not personally. If I was going to be a therapist of any decency, I would have to a) make sure I did the work and training to help others manage grief responsibly and b) tackle my own. In order to separate myself from the experience of others I would have to first sit with it myself. I guess before I could be helpful to others in their healing, I’d have to try to heal, myself.

And that has been the beauty of the work that I have done with my clients processing their grief. It has allowed me to see that the depths of feeling, the murkiness, the sometimes physical pain of loss that I felt is real. Through their progress and insight and effort I have been inspired to be braver. And through this work, I continued to be affirmed in my personal belief that the line between grief and love is almost imperceptible, and on the other side of that grief is a depth of love that continues to sustain us long after the loss. Sometimes, when clients explore moments that particularly resonate, I will self disclose that I too have suffered great loss. I do so to explain a sometimes unexpected emotional response, because hey, sometimes I get caught off guard. But recently a client who has worked through a significant amount of loss reflected on that disclosure and asked if our conversations ever trigger me. It was an honest question and I gave an honest answer. I told her that instead of triggering me, it resonates with me. It validates the realness of what I felt, and also how far I’ve come. My journey is different from my clients, but their strength gives me hope on the tough days. The way they express love affirms just how much the heart can hold. My clients have taught me that grief has a purpose. I now believe that grieving is literally what we feel as our spirits heal from the wound of loss. Healing from any injury is difficult. It takes time and it is uncomfortable, and even when we have recovered we may find ourselves not fully healed to our original state. But what the process of healing teaches us about ourselves is invaluable. The gratitude that grief can give way to can be life changing. And what I know, from my own journey and from witnessing those of my my clients, is that grief – even as painful as it is – can be the door to a deeper connection with the very life we live. What an intense, overwhelming,daunting, and beatiful concept to consider. Good grief!