hidden grief

how do you know if you have hidden grief?

Unprocessed grief can look like:

• anxiety

• depression

• chest pains / tightness/ heaviness

• a knot in your stomach

• numbing and dissociation as coping mechanisms

• anger and irritability

• a need to fix and rescue … cloaked as just ‘helping’ — especially if you’re in a helping profession

Grieving means allowing yourself to feel all the feelings that weren’t necessarily safe to feel when the transgression happened. The ultimate goal of grief is to come to a point of acceptance — acceptance does not mean liking or condoning what happened. It means you’re no longer trying to fight reality.

F E E L I N G S

Let’s recap all the feelings that grief could entail: anger, disappointment, sadness, hurt, sorrow, confusion. The process of reconciling the past with the present can also bring up cognitive dissonance: once upon a time, the parents who felt so formidable growing up, now being old and frail… And yet the memories echo in your mind, your shoulders tense up when they approach, even though you now know they can’t hurt you anymore, don’t have power over you anymore… Evidence that your body remembers what your mind tries to erase.

You can imagine just what an undesirable and often daunting prospect this can be. Especially for all my wonderful achievement-focused, driven and intelligent female clients: allowing yourself to feel these feelings might mean letting down defenses and tapping into a seemingly scary well of feelings.

Anger, especially, seems extra taboo.

The programming of guilt, duty and obligation towards parents, especially in Asian cultures, often inhibits us from tapping into this anger consciously. But based on my observations and personal experiences, anger comes out anyway… It makes me think of the Chinese saying 纸包不住火 (‘paper can’t wrap fire’ literal translation) — the truth comes out anyway.

Things to know about grief — especially when grieving the million tiny metaphorical paper cuts of childhood:

• It doesn’t last forever

• It frees up energy for more joy, love, creativity — whatever good stuff you want more of in your life

• Helps you be more present to the good that’s already in your life

• Prevents you from perpetuating the harmful patterns of the past

• Helps you meet reality as it is — meaning you’re no longer investing energy into ‘what could be’ or ‘what ifs’ — you’re seeing what is and working with that, which frees up SO MUCH energy

  The only way out is through — if you allow yourself the grieving process, a whole new world opens up to you.

  Think of it as stepping over the threshold — after death (of old ideals, fantasies, versions of yourself…), rebirth.