Saturday, March 12, 2022

The Grieving Brain

 From The Next Big Idea Club:

Grief is the wave that knocks you off your feet, like being underwater and spun head-over-heels, with the fear that the moment will never end, and you will not survive. Grieving, on the other hand, is how the feeling of grief changes over time without ever going away.

Grieving means that the hundredth time a particular wave of grief sweeps you off your feet, you may still want to escape, but it will also be familiar. You have probably learned by this point that you will survive the moment—horrible as it is. You may have learned how to comfort yourself and give yourself kindness, and begun to acknowledge that you carry a grief that may unleash itself at any time. That change in grief over time is grieving.

If you expect that grieving means you will no longer feel grief, then you will be disappointed. The wave will crash over you in six months, or six years, or six decades after your loved one died. Grief is the natural response to loss, to the awareness that your loved one no longer walks this earthly plane. Grieving means that you will react to these pangs of grief differently over time. And so, grieving takes a long time.(Read more.)
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