The Grief Grinch Comes in Many Forms

It’s “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year “unless you are grieving and the Grief Grinch is stealing your Christmas.

As we know so well, Raw Grief covers the tapestry of our lives. We see and feel everything through the lens of this flattening, numbing, excruciating pain called grief.

Everywhere we look in this year of “Firsts” and now “Seconds” and “Third Christmas without them”…..has the Grinch Grief qualities.

You know, that ‘I have no energy for sending cards, baking cookies or heaven fore bid, going to parties.’ All you want to do is curl up in a tiny, little ball and hide.

Oh colleagues, friends and even some family members simply can’t get you. Still numb and in Fragile Grief after X months? years?

That place of barely holding yourself together where you will crack if they really knew how bad you felt. Remember, YOU will Grieve until you Don’t.

WAG  The Grief Grinch

Sometimes we need a lifeline to keep us from drowning in the tsunami of grief.

I offer WAG to you because I used it myself this week.

I was grieving because a beloved in my spiritual center had been moved into hospice. News came as a kick in the gut.

My heart was broken. To die at Christmas and leave her children in this state was overwhelmingly sad.

So I sat down with Willingness to Grieve the imminent. My Spiritual Sister was going to SOON lay her body down.

Awareness that this beloved soul will continue as the loving energy they are gave me comfort.

Gentleness that even the Grief Guide must sob and wipe the mascara from her blackened cheeks, I let myself wail.

So I invite you to employ WAG now.

Willingness: Are you willing to look at Grief as the Grinch?

If you met the Grinch standing beside you in the Starbucks line today,

What would you see?

What would you hear?

What would you feel?

What would you smell? (Yes, grief is often triggered by smell.)

Awareness: Notice what triggers your grief?

Notice your judgements about yourself in this grief.

Notice the critical “If only I…..”

Notice your LONGING for your Beloved.

Now write each thought down with a pencil on yellow-lined paper if you have it.

The act of writing moves these thoughts out of your mind in this moment.

Feel what it is like to move pencil on paper. Press down HARD to leave these triggering, negative thoughts on the paper.

Gentleness: If you met the Grinch standing beside you in the Starbucks line today,

What would you say?

What would you do?

How would you feel?

Kindness and Compassion were what I offered myself as I sobbed as the human being I am,

even though I know that THERE ARE Gifts in Grief. I have discovered and lived them.

Even The Grief Grinch Knows…….

You are not alone.

Reply now or order a copy of my journey through grief’s grip to living well:

https://www.beyondyourgrief.com/book-a-new-mourning/