Death and dying – grief

Grief is triggered by a range of circumstances. You might feel grief about death – impending or past, of humans or pets, your own or someone else’s.  You may also feel grief about a separation or divorce, loss of a job or house or other important part of your life such as health, or loss of competence or capacity in some way. Or you may have more existential grief about the state of the world or helplessness about the plight of others.

Grief is difficult. It is usually messy. There is no right way to do grief. It will happen as fast or as slow as it happens. Your job is just to have and express the emotions that arise. Grief is normal and like every other normal thing – like a sneeze or itch, allow the experience to be and just work your way through it.

If you are supporting someone else through grief your only job is to be there and to listen. That is enormously powerful and if you can manage your own emotions as well, it will help you to not turn their grief into something about you. You can also google for more ideas on how to help someone else with grief.

The main model of grief recognised in Western society is the Elisabeth Kubler Ross 5 stages of grief model. These stages can occur in any order and often recur. To more deeply understand the origin of this theory and hear about Kubler-Ross’ research listen to this two part podcast episode from NPR The Queen of Dying.

Lisa Tonkin’s Growing around grief model enriches the Kubler Ross 5 stages of grief model and provides a different way of perceiving what is experienced in grief that might fit better with your experience.

There are many good books on understanding and processing grief.

I like this podcast interview with Helen Macdonald from Conversations with Richard Fidler (19 Jul 2016) – a beautiful story about a woman processing the death of her father.

And in this interview with the winner of ALONE Season 1 (Australia), Gina Chick talks about her experiences with processing grief.

There are also many information and support services for grief and loss in Australia