Bad At Grief

Bodhi and I have rekindled our offerings this year at Expressive Wellness, and most recently presented a workshop on SoulCollage® and music for grief and ancestral connection (a nod to upcoming Día de los Muertos) in Augusta. We had a group of counselors and therapists come together to learn the modality of soul collage by experiencing it themselves. As part of the process, we integrated songwriting and music-based relaxation techniques. 

The group was wonderful and so open to the experience. We did note that more than one person during introductions said they were excited to register but somewhat put-off by the topic of grief. Twice, we heard “I’m bad at grief.” 

I’m bad at grief! 

I’ve been thinking about that sentence ever since. It assumes grief is something you can be graded on. But who wrote the rubric? Mostly stage models, the idea of ‘closure,’ and a culture that wants grief to be quick and private. When people say they’re bad at it, they might mean they cry too much, or can’t cry, or feel numb, or feel relief, or are still in it years later. Each of those is just grief taking a form. Rather than wondering if we’re grieving correctly, we could ask a better question- “what helps me stay in relationship with what I lost?”

Bodhi and I have been teaching about grief for years, including training for NAMI Maine and CCSME and a songwriting workshop with UMaine during the pandemic. We’re comfortable talking about it. But hearing that sentence twice in one room was a reminder that being comfortable with grief as a topic doesn’t make us immune to the fear of doing it wrong. 

Death is the most obvious cause of grief, because society expects some amount of mourning after a life ends. But even there, grief takes many forms. In palliative and hospital settings, we see anticipatory grief: patients and families grieving before the loss has happened, practicing it in advance. The same thing shows up collectively. Many people are grieving the state of hte world and a changing climate, losses they can see coming but can’t yet name or mourn. 

Some grief is easy to see coming. Other grief is easy to miss entirely. I have a special interest in the grief process of people with developmental disabilities- which is often overlooked. I’ve noticed in day programs, if a client expresses sadness over a family loss or absence of a colleague, the staff will redirect by changing the subject to ‘something more positive’. While it’s not helpful to become stuck in rumination on loss, expression of the feelings that come up is important. Many people with disabilities are living within a care structure- day program, group home, all staffed. Professional boundaries often dictate, appropriately and with kindness, side hugs vs deep hugs- and that redirection of the need for comfort can cause the grief to become stuck. 

‘Stuck grief’ isn’t a formal diagnosis, but it overlaps with two concepts worth knowing. Ambiguous loss, a term from Pauline Boss, describes loss without clear endings or resolution. Disenfranchised grief, from Kenneth Doka, describes loss that isn’t openly acknowledged by society. Doka specifically names people with intellectual disabilities as a group whose grief is often overlooked. If someone can’t put their feelings into words, they are often assumed not to need an outlet. This is where expressive arts can be so helpful. Stuck grief, unexpressed, can show up in the body as sore muscles, neck pain, fatigue, or flatness and irritability. 

Part of the work of grief is rest and distraction. It is okay and even necessary to take breaks from facing the loss. If you’ve ever felt you should be crying more, processing more, or doing more, this is permission to set it down for an afternoon and take a walk, watch something silly, or make dinner. Grief isn’t a task that needs constant attention. We move toward it and away from it, and the moving away is part of the work. 

Artistic expression allows us to approach grief from a new angle, without needing to understand it in words. People who may feel they are grieving ‘incorrectly’ can practice the imperfection of improvised music or messiness of fingerpaints and collage- and that gives space to expression in a container or form that can be witnessed outside of our feeling bodies later. 

Coming back to our Soul Collage workshop, we focused on ancestral bonds and family losses- in this case, the goal isn’t avoidance or detachment, but continuing bonds. We closed our workshop by creating an altar of images of our loved ones and singing about who they were to us and what they gave us.

If you’ve ever told yourself you’re bad at grief, I’d invite you to make something messy this week, a collage, a voice memo, a song with no tune, and see what it holds.

Related Reading: https://www.mainemusicandhealth.com/blog/2018/11/3/grieving-songs