GRIEF WAVE

Grief. The word alone feels so heavy, doesn’t it? 

Grief itself is a natural response to loss, our nervous system is doing what we want it to do, but it can leave us feeling so overwhelmed and alone. When we experience grief, our body and brain is influenced tremendously. Here is a sneak peek of what is going on when we experience profound grief. Our Amygdala processes emotions and can become highly active when processing more intense emotional reactions, such as fear, anger, stress, and sadness.  Our Hippocampus assists us with memory formation, so this of course plays a role in our grief response too. Our brain takes us down memory lane, reliving memories of the lost person, situation, social relationship and so forth. This can be incredibly impactful to an individual's feeling of loss, social support, and sense of self. Our Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal, also known as HPA Axis kicks in to our body’s stress response. Our body begins releasing stress hormones leading many to feeling symptoms such as nausea, increased heart rate, and elevated blood pressure. This leads into more physical symptoms as our Autonomic Nervous System, specifically our Sympathetic Nervous System, kicks into full gear. A lot of people describe this as, “fight or flight mode.” Most of us live in this sympathetic nervous system more than we live in our parasympathetic state, so think about how intense our emotions can be when we are experiencing grief. Individuals that can often rest, relax, and soothe themselves are found feeling very overstimulated, unsuccessful with coping, and feeling overwhelmed. Our body goes into this state of varied levels of neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, resulting in symptoms of fatigue, physical manifestations, weakened immunity, depressive and anxious mood indicators. I want to normalize all of that for you. Grief is indeed heavy, to say the least.

Grief Stages

Our nervous system responds in a particular way and some also believe that Grief can best be described by different stages. These stages include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Everyone grieves differently and we know grief is not a linear process. We may go back-and-forth between some of these stages, or never experience all of them. Grief can influence every aspect of our life. The weight of this can lead individuals with such a distressful emotional, physical, mental, and social impact. Furthermore, stages of grief that can impact our personal, social, relational, academic and occupational functioning as we try to navigate through it, that's why some describe grief like a wave, or even a tsunami-It engulfs everything.

Your Memories Will Always Stay with You

I think our world has a lot more growth in need when it comes to supporting those through grief. The truth is, everyone's experience with grief is completely unique and depends on factors such as past experiences, attachment patterns, coping responses, personality and the nature of the loss itself. It is not our job to compare ourselves to what we assume others may be feeling about grief in comparison to our feelings. The truth is, we will never really know someone's reality when it comes to grief.  I Have personally learned that grief is never-ending. I don’t say that to not bring others hope for healing, but we need to be realistic with our expectations of what healing will look like for ourselves. Grief is something that does not end, it changes. Life continues to move forward and it’s our job to find a way to move forward with hope, purpose and in ways that honor our loved ones, while taking care of our needs as we continue to cope with loss. We can heal from the significant pain to a state that is manageable. This does not mean we are letting go, forgetting someone we love, or pretending everything is fine. We can work towards healing and still have pain. We can work towards healing and coping that some things are completely out of our control yet impact us tremendously. We can always hold onto each and every memory. 

Fostering Healing After Loss

Peaks Therapy is proud to provide compassionate and personalized grief and loss interventions, while providing support for those navigating through the challenges of grief & secondary losses. With a personalized treatment plan, we can explore what therapeutic interventions are in your best interest, based on your functioning limitations, unique needs, coping, supports, and goals towards healing. Therapy for grief is completely unique! For example, we may explore Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to focus on your thinking patterns and behaviors relating to grief, Grief Counseling to encourage the identification and expression of your emotions in a supportive space, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy relating to your emotions, boundaries of control, values and future goals, or EMDR to address traumatic aspects of the loss and grief experience. 

For a safe and understanding space for you to work through your emotions, no matter what therapy modality we may choose, reach out. In moments when we can feel so alone, please know there is indeed support. You do not need to navigate this path alone. 

With Kindness,

Julie Shaw, LMSW

Founder of Peaks Therapy