It’s exactly a year since my dear friend Pytrik passed away. I still can’t believe she is really gone. Cancer took her from us way too early. She was diagnosed four years ago, and so she was sick for three years before she died. She went through several intense treatments, putting all kinds of chemicals in her body because she desperately wanted to live.
We spent a lot of time together when she was sick. Long walks in the forest, deep conversations, and expressions of wishes for the future. The last time I saw her, she said she hoped I was able to face the difficulties in my life to come. I didn’t expect the grief that came with her loss to be one of them.
Learn how to suffer
Grief works as a chronic stressor; it rewires the brain and interprets it as emotional trauma or PTSD, using the same set of processes. Death is an inevitable suffering, and yet many of us shy away from it and are unprepared. What I experienced with my friend is anticipatory grief: we knew it was coming soon, but we didn’t know how much time she was given. We were prepared in a sense, only to find out that nothing can really prepare you. Eventually, her health deteriorated quickly, and it became a more natural feeling to accept that death was near.
At first, I felt satisfied for the time I’d spent with her during her illness. It almost felt like it made the grieving process easier. I went abroad to take some time off, and I quickly started working again, back to normal.
During grief, stress hormone levels increase, and brain activation patterns can change. It impacts the brain and can worsen your memory, cognition, and concentration. I experienced this years before when I suffered from chronic stress without realizing it.
Over time, grief can affect:
- attention
- memory
- decision-making
- the ability to choose words and express yourself with the right language
- information processing speed
- cognitive functions that rely on movement and depth perception
Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh says:
“If we can learn to suffer we will suffer much less.”
Moving forward with grief
Neuroplasticity, or the ability to alter neural connections, can compensate for traumatic events by forming new neural connections and helping you adapt to new situations or environments. If you feel like losing a part of yourself by losing a loved one, that’s also how the brain feels.
Pytrik was more than a friend; she was like a sister to me. Even though we were best friends in high school, we later also had consecutive months where we hardly spoke. But we always got back to long phone calls or in-person quality time. It was never a question of whether she was always going to be part of my life. She was family, and it feels like a part of me is gone.
Grief is uncomfortable. You don’t need to move on from the loss; you can move forward with the loss. Grief doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it’s mixed with other emotions. You don’t get it until you do. When it’s your front row at the funeral.
Although grief doesn’t only have to be when someone dies. It can be a loss of a job or a loss of a relationship, something that impacts your identity. I started to recognize these similar ways in which my body responded to this loss. The symptoms of chronic stress surfaced, and like before, I couldn’t immediately put my finger on it.
I often felt sad and down, and I lost interest in things I normally enjoyed. I had difficulty concentrating and withdrew emotionally from other relationships. I’ve been feeling overwhelmed. With everything that is happening in the world, I mostly connected it to the negativity of the news. Until I realized I still couldn’t talk about Pytrik without crying.
Grief leaks out
Our inner world is a loud, crowded place that is invisible to others. Our outer world is the land of logistics. The grief in our inner world needs support, the chaos in our outer world needs order. We often bury the grief or detonate it like a bomb. Both aren’t helpful. If we try to avoid emotions, grief leaks out into places we don’t expect.
Detonators take the form of overspending, overeating, overworking, and over everything. I recognize myself in overworking, like I did during the chronic stress period years ago.
For our inner world, self-awareness is important. Meditation is my life’s savior. But for the outer world, I only now start to look for tools to handle grief. Meredith Wilson Parfet mentioned in her TED Talk four steps on how to bring order in the chaos:
- Define the crisis: what is going on exactly? Build alignment with the people you work with.
- What are the trade-offs? In grief, we go into denial and wishful thinking. Map it out, use decision trees, and make the hard choices concrete.
- What do you want to prioritize, and how can you prioritize yourself? Choose to grow and focus on kindness and discipline.
- What is the next right thing? Make a list and just do what comes next.
I’m feeling exhausted and ashamed. Am I still grieving this loss, one year later? I isolate myself without others noticing it, I think. It’s more of a subtle detachment. It makes me realize that I need to prioritize healing to rebuild and reconnect.
Suffering = pain x resistance
Sky Jarrett talks about a mindset shift and finding possibilities of joy while grieving.
- You can experience grief or any sense of loss.
- Joy is possible despite the grief. They can exist next to each other.
- It’s a full body experience: you might feel exhaustion. Do something to move your body.
- You don’t need to be ashamed or apologize. Discuss your feelings in community with people who are on a similar journey.
- Grief doesn’t have an expiration date. You’ll carry it with you for the rest of your life. It will come in waves.
Sadness and pain of loss will always be there, but the degree to which we suffer is a choice.
Resistance is an amplifier of suffering. Acceptance is an antidote.
Rituals can help.
Breathe through the discomfort and give yourself permission to grieve. I learn from these YouTube videos that it will lead to understanding love and compassion in new depths and realizing that you’re powerful to your wildest imagination.
Sources:
Healing Your Brain After Loss: How Grief Rewires the Brain, American Brain Foundation
How your brain copes with grief, and why it takes time to heal, NPR, 2021
We don’t “move on” from grief. We move forward with it | Nora McInerny | TED How to Handle Grief at Work and Beyond | Meredith Wilson Parfet | TED
Finding Joy in Grief: A Radical and Mindful Approach to Grieving | Sky Jarrett
This is the first blog of a new series of 1000 daily blogs, inspired by my friend Elja Daee, who is a blogging professional. Not sure if I can pull it off, but I’ll try it anyways.
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