Wellness Connection

Grief....the LONGEST Goodbye 🦋

Grief by definition is deep sorrow: a feeling of deep distress caused by loss, disappointment, or other misfortune suffered by oneself or others.

Most people think grief is only associated with death of a person, but there are several things that can cause grief, for example: any expected or unexpected loss of a life, a relationship change, or a different outcome to a situation.

Sometimes you make choices to end things that aren’t the best for you, that doesn’t mean the choice was easy or that you won’t grieve the change; Sometimes a relationship changes as it should because of different stages in life like when a child leaves home for college or to support themselves, just because you’ve prepared them for this and this is the next step for them as a young adult and you are excited for them doesn’t mean you both won’t feel grief as the dynamic of your relationship changes and you learn to navigate life together in a different capacity; Sometimes when you have a goal or plan and the situation doesn’t work out like you’d hoped and prepared for despite doing everything right or trying your best doesn’t mean you won’t grieve the outcome and feel defeated.

Grief is a never ending journey that comes in waves 🌊 …just when you feel like you have made progress in moving through the big emotions that accompany grief, something triggers one of those emotions and BOOM 💥 you have another breakdown and feel like you’re never going to fully make headway over this grief mountain 🏔️

🌿Depending on how you are moving through your grief could affect your body in different ways.

-Emotionally grief can show up as sadness, anger, irritability, fear, insecurity, insufficiency.

-Physically grief can show up as trouble breathing, respiratory symptoms, changes in appetite, blood pressure changes, body aches

-Mentally grief can show up as depression, lack of motivation, isolation, fatigue, inability to concentrate

🌈No one else gets to decide what YOUR grief journey will or should look like as each person play a different role in the situation differently and will experience a different dynamic.

Journal or Meditation Prompts: What are you grieving? How is your grief showing up for you? Are you allowing yourself time and space to grieve and feel?