Today’s episode is the last episode in a 3 part series about teaching others about grief.
Again- if you like this podcast or have found it helpful for you on your grief journey, please share it with a friend. This helps this podcast get out to more moms who need this message, and helps me see that it is helpful and that I should continue to do this work and message! Today we’re going to dive into letting go of your own fear, and grief comparison.
Letting Go of Your Own Fear
Many people are scared to be around someone who is grieving. What do you say? How can you know what they need? Do they want to talk about it? Are you reminding them of their loss right when they were having a good time? Are you overstepping your boundaries?
So many questions. I want you to know that you probably WILL do something wrong. You probably WILL say or do something that causes pain to your grieving friend. There is just no way we can know what will affect someone at any certain moment in time. With grief, one comment can be painful, and a week later it might not be. It depends on how they are feeling in the moment, their state of mind, where they are in their grief. It depends on many things.
One thing you can say to help in situations when you are unsure is simply admit that fact. Tell your friend that you don’t know what to do or say in this situation. You are feeling so helpless and you want to help so bad, you just don’t know how. This can open the doors for conversation about what could be helpful, and connect you in learning to navigate these waters together.
One of my family members told me that they really need me to communicate with them as well. They said they don’t know what I need and how they can help, but they really want to help and do things that support me. This was a reminder to me as a grieving mother that my friends and family were there for my husband and me, but we needed to work and communicate together to navigate these unknown waters.
So please, let go of your fear of messing up. I want to share some helpful ideas of what to avoid. You might forget, but it is better to mess up and be there trying again than to abandon your friend and leave them in the time they need support and love the most. Realize first that you cannot fix the problem. We would all love it if we could just swoop in and fix the problem, make the pain go away. There is nothing you can do to make the pain go away, or to fix what has happened. Their child is gone. There is no coming back. When you say things that are trying to fix the problem, they are hearing that their grief does not matter to you, and that they cannot confide in you.
Here are some examples of phrases trying to fix the problem.
-Anything that begins with “at least”(at least you have other kids, at least you had (x amount) months with them, at least they are in heaven, at least you know you can get pregnant, etc.)
-Just don’t focus on the negative
-Look for the positive in your life
-You just need to get over it
-You just need to have another baby
-God knows best, you need to let it go
-Everything happens for a reason
-They are happy in heaven
-God knew you couldn’t handle (x amount) kids
-You are so strong (we feel shattered and broken, can hardly get through a minute, far from strong)
-God will never give you more than you can handle
-When will you be back to normal?
-Aren’t you over that already?
-God must know you can handle that.
-You’ll be together soon.
-It was his time.
-You just need to go get a job.
-She’s in a better place.
-I don’t know how you do it (we don’t either, and we didn’t choose this life)
Some of these phrases could be true, but most of them are just downright painful. Even if your grieving friend might believe that God has a plan and that their child’s life was in God’s hands, this does not mean they are ready to hear that or accept that. Saying those kinds of things does not allow them to grieve and work through and process their emotions.
As I once heard someone else say, “their brain knows this, but their heart is not ready to hear it.” This is a small list of things said that can hurt, but the bottom line is this: you cannot do anything to fix, change, or grieve for your friend. When you say those kinds of things that are trying to make it better, you are telling your friend that they shouldn’t be feeling the way they are feeling. If only they focused on another thing, they would feel better. They really just need to be able to voice their thoughts without judgement. Your only job and role is to support them, validate them, and love them in their grief.
It’s not your job to grieve for your friend. It’s not your job to tell them how they should be grieving, how they should be doing it differently, how they should find joy, or how they should find things to be grateful for. That is up to your friend. This is your friend's trial, one that they are faced with every single day. Every day, this is their reality. Please let your friend grieve in the way they need. It is up to your friend to do the work of their grief. It is up to your friend to decide where they will go with their grief. As someone who loves them and cares for them, your job is to support them, because they need support more than anything else right now.
You can always suggest ideas of ways they could find support and help- support groups, facebook groups, grief programs, grief books, journaling, meeting with other grieving mothers, exercise, but don’t be offended if they do not do what you suggest. They really need to find their own path. Things I would encourage to advocate against are things that have negative repercussions like alcohol, gambling, drugs, self-harm etc. Those can be very dangerous and scary. Even though it’s not your choice and not up to you to control their actions, you can offer healthy ways of facing emotions rather than turning to negative coping mechanisms
Grief Comparison
Have you ever been in a conversation where you share something that is difficult or hard in your life, and the person you are talking to says something like, “oh yeah? Wait until you hear what is going on in my life! You don’t have it all that bad!”, or “think of this other family, they have it so much worse than you. Imagine what it would be like if you had that life.”
Did that make you feel seen? Did it make you feel like you could share again?\ It’s a different story if you decide for yourself that you can find the strength to dig deeper for yourself, because others have it worse, but it’s quite disheartening when someone else decides that for you. That your story is not enough. This one is very hard.
There is so much comparison. There is a comparison between losses, different types of losses, the way losses happened, and between life situations. I think it’s probably the way our human mind works. We try to put ourselves in the other person's shoes so we can try to understand. Many times we fail miserably at this.
If you have a loss of some sort in your life, do not tell your grieving friend that, “I understand what you are going through, I lost my aunt/mom/pet/friend/sibling”. While I completely support that your own grief is valid and real with your loss, telling your friend that you understand what they are going through will most likely not be helpful. If you are trying to be helpful, you can mention you know your own feelings of grief through your loss, and you are trying to understand a piece of their grief through it. You validate their loss and try to empathize without trying to compare or convey that you have a full understanding of what they are experiencing.
Even within similar losses, say child loss, we all have our own story. I cannot say to another grieving mother that we have the same experience because we don’t. We have the universal experience of grief, but the way that grief manifests in our lives, and the memories or lack of memories we have are each our own experiences. Grief is truly personal and unique to each person.
There is a sense with many different types of losses that their loss wasn’t big enough to justify their grief. Other people want to try to make it better. When someone loses an adult child, the people around them try to make themselves feel better by saying, “at least you got “x” many years with them”, and “at least you were not taking care of them every day, it would have been so much harder if they were a baby”. Then on the opposite end of the spectrum, when someone loses a baby, the people around them might say, “at least you didn’t know them very long, imagine if you lost a teenager how much harder that would be?”.
When you think about it, do those sound like things that would be helpful to say? When you say those kinds of things, even behind their back, it is not acknowledging their pain that is very real to them, it is trying to minimize it so you can feel better. At the end of the day, their child is gone, and a family is in pain. Your friend is in pain, and trying to minimize it- which is what “at least” or fixing statements and sentiments do- to make yourself feel better will only stop your friend from talking to you about it.
I think often that we can just say I’m sorry. I’m sorry you know this pain. I’m sorry you are experiencing such a horrible trial. I’m so sorry you have to go through this, I wish I could change it for you. You can say that this is just so horrible, I’m so sorry this happened to you. Any of those types of things that just empathize without comparing your loss to theirs. We don’t need to compare because they are each their own. Sometimes we get caught up in the comparison of losses that we forget to connect over the fact that we have such great losses.
So there you have it, that’s the last part in the 3 part series in teaching others about grief. Of course there are so many other things that I didn’t cover, so this is not a blanket series, and now you’re all good and understand everything. Grief is unique for each of us, so one of the most important things is having that conversation with the one you love, to see, what does help you? Is this true for you?
If these feel true for you, share them with the ones you love, so they can try to understand your grief journey just a tiny bit better. The ones who love do want to understand, and they are just trying to help, even in their totally fumbling, maybe messing up like crazy way. So let’s teach them to do better.
If you like this podcast, and found it helpful, I want to invite you come check out Grieving Moms Haven, my monthly community for Grieving moms, where you can learn positive coping mechanisms, find a safe space with others who understand, and learn life long skills that support you as you learn how to carry this weight of grief in your life.
There are group coaching calls where we do guided meditations, tapping meditations, breathwork, and just talk, knowing that everyone in the group is also walking the path of child loss
You can come check out Grieving Moms Haven at www.grievingmomshaven.com
