The Grief No One Sees

🌟Weekly Inspiration🌟

This month, let's consider grief and loss. The holidays are approaching, and often this time of year is challenging for those who have lost someone dear. Obviously, we grieve when someone we love dies. We also have many displaced families who lost everything in the LA fires last year and will be spending the holidays elsewhere after losing so much. Sending love to all the tender hearts out there experiencing these acute losses currently. 💙

We also commonly grieve when there is loss without death (ambiguous loss). Examples of this might be: divorce, moving away from home or community, having estranged family members, chronic illness in the family, loss of the life you imagined, loss of identity in some way, loss of hope, or loss of a dream. There is a long list of ambiguous losses, and many people affected by these losses come to therapy as part of their healing process. These losses can be painful because others might not recognize your grief or minimize it.

Some people say that all therapy work is actually grief work, consider that for a moment. Even for children and some adults think it's so easy to be a kid (it's actually not). Developmentally, they are growing and changing all the time, which is a pattern of stretching, letting go of old parts, and morphing into a new self. Lots of grief and loss are embedded in their formative years. These unseen losses are confusing for kids (and us), thinking "Nothing died, so why does it hurt?" It can be helpful to give yourself and your kids permission to grieve what's changed, what's gone, or what never was.

"Grief is just love with no place to go." —Jamie Anderson

Ask Yourself:

What ambiguous losses am I grieving? Have I ever considered this as a loss before?
In what ways am I aching that no one can see?
Do I underestimate my children's experiences of grief and loss?
Did my children grieve during COVID? Did I? If not, why?
Isn't the gradual loss of innocence a grief and loss process (finding out about Santa, realizing the world is sometimes unsafe, recognizing that your parents are flawed humans, etc.)?
What loss might your family be carrying that hasn't been named?
What permission do I need to give myself and my child?

Go Dodgers! I ❤️ LA!