Grief Is Heavy, Deal With It

By Todd Dewett, Andersen Alumnus, author and speaker 

I lost my wife to cancer about three months ago.  I realized that loss and grief are shocking at first if you’ve not seen them for a while.  After a few weeks of feeling very sad, angry, and lost I realized it was time to start trying.  Trying to understand.  Trying to envision a future.  Trying to take steps to return to some form of normalcy. 

I decided to write this because writing about it is therapeutic for me, and because I know that many of you are also currently facing very steep challenges in life.  Some just like mine (loss) as well as many who are experiencing grief or pain for different reasons (e.g., your own health issues, projects or businesses that failed, important relationships that are damaged).  So, I wanted to remind you of a few things that might help. 

First, let me share that if you’re still at the front end of this challenge, blocking things out and trying to ignore the pain – you must stop.  Talk to a counselor of some form, read about dealing with grief (e.g., https://tinyurl.com/255vpm9t), or at a bare minimum, admit your current status to a kind friend or loved one and let them give you a little push towards healing.  The worst thing you can do is nothing.  Okay, when you are ready, remember:   

You are not alone.  As I noted, you’re not the only one feeling pain.  I know you feel alone, but so do many others.  Grief, pain, and loss all conspire and make it easy for us to indulge in self-pity.  Understandable.  Maybe for a moment even acceptable, but not for long.  When you see others every day, you’re inclined to think that they are okay, they are free from the traumatic issues you’re enduring, that it’s only you in this horrible space.  Nope.  Quite the opposite.  Most can relate, only a small few wonder how pain feels.  Just knowing this in a strange way should help you feel a little validated and connected to something bigger.  

Start sooner than later.  When things feel heavy, it’s easy to push away the hard work you need to face.  I’ll start getting better when…. Fill in the blank with any number of plausible sounding excuses.  Sure, you need a few weeks, give or take, to sit in the numbness and just exist, but you simply can’t allow that phase to persist for long.  That will allow the weight to feel as if it is growing, possibly becoming one you can’t carry.  Before that happens, you must choose to begin the process of dealing with your grief.  Make the choice. 

Process, don’t ignore.  They say time helps, and in some ways it does.  It’s not that time heals per se, but it allows for something that aids healing – perspective.  Even if you’ve acknowledged that you need to start doing the work, it’s easy to get busy and postpone it.  You are busy with family, busy at church, and of course you’re buried in your work.  Busy is good, but only up to the point that it detracts from your need to process grief.  Busy can stop you from gaining much needed perspective.  Even when busy you must pause and find time to sit and think, time to process, time to start the admittedly long process of healing.  

Get support.  Under the best of circumstances, this is never easy.  So, why do so many people go it alone?  It’s tough to admit certain things to yourself.  It’s tougher to admit them to someone else and ask for help.  You might want or need a person to let you vent – to listen to the difficult thoughts that are still swirling around your head.  Even better, after that initial pressure release, you need the help of a friend to start thinking a bit more critically, not just venting.  If you’re smart, venting with others is just about clearing out room to start the more focused process of understanding the situation and, eventually, growing through it.  

Get back to life.  The pain never really evaporates.  The goal is to make it just one thing that defines you as opposed to the only thing.  Allow it to become one thing among an increasingly larger number of things.  Thus, the goal is to live.  This is not a rehearsal!  You only get one shot.  The more you believe that and go carve out good experiences and enjoy good relationships, the more the grief is understandable and bearable.  As you accumulate more life, you gain the perspective I noted earlier.  Grief doesn’t really leave, but you can learn from it and live with it more effectively as you continue to experience good things in your life.  

Now it’s your turn to try.  Time to get to livin!  I believe what I just wrote to you.  I’m trying to make it happen myself.  Will you join me? 

Dr. Todd Dewett is one of the world’s most watched leadership personalities: a thought leader, an authenticity expert, best-selling author, top global instructor at LinkedIn Learning, a TEDx speaker, and an Inc. Magazine Top 100 leadership speaker. Todd can be reached at todd@drdewett.com