Dealing with Grief and Loss: A Therapist’s Perspective

Grief has many faces. It can sneak up on you when you least expect it and can turn your world upside-down. It can disrupt your life in ways you never thought possible. It can shatter your world-view, your sense of self, and your relationships. Grief can become your new face and your main point of view. Grief can take your breath away. Grief can change your memories and can leave you feeling hollow. Grief can bring a lot of anger.

As a psychotherapist, I am supposed to know how to understand and manage my emotions. My work revolves around that after all. And I do know how, most of the time. But then Loss hit me, followed by Grief, and I was left shattered, surrounded by millions of pieces that used to make up my world and myself… And I was lost.

What surprised me the most was the deep well of anger that surfaced and I didn’t know what to do with it. I tried all the usual techniques, I tried reasoning with myself, and I tried journaling, breathing, crying, walking, and meditating, talking about it. It would ebb and flow but did not go away. Not at first at least. And then suddenly without expecting it, there was a moment, a random day, where I burst out laughing about something. And the sound of my laughter was shocking for me, as I remembered and realised that life does go on, even when we think we'll never be able to move forward again. I was actually moving forward right from the first moment of loss, without recognising this subtle movement. But it is always there.

It took a long time to piece myself back together. I was able to function to a level, but did not recognise myself. I wasn’t sure what this new version of me would look like. And there were physical and emotional manifestations of my grief, which made it even more difficult for me to recognise who I was becoming.

What I learned from all of this is that I keep changing. I can talk about my pain now but it took a long time to do so. I can still have days where I feel vulnerable and cry. I can still be triggered by random conversations or memories. But I now feel more confident in managing this and feeling closer to my grief. I am not rejecting this emotion any longer. I realised I spent too much time trying to push it away. The moment I accepted it, I started becoming whole again; a new version of myself, different, stronger, less afraid, more trusting of my pain.

For a moment there I stumbled, but I pushed through and I came out of it with this newfound knowledge that indeed, the only way forward is through our pain. We don’t need to push it away. It is not the enemy. It is part of our humanity and our life, our expression, our understanding of ourselves and the world, and without our pain we may not be able to understand our joy, our light. We need our darkness, our shadow, our depth; because without it, we are not whole. We need the balance of embracing all of who we are; both light and dark. Yin and Yang.

So I breathe again and I take another step forward, knowing that I don’t have to be haunted by my darkness. I can embrace it, and it supports me and blends with my light.

Together they create something new.