The act of grieving is a part of living. It is a normal, natural process that human beings must engage in to address and recover from loss. Everyone will go through grief at some point in their lives, and many people will experience grief multiple times. Understanding and normalizing the grief process is important, as many people believe they will be stuck in it forever or that they are weak for going through grief. This could not be further from the truth.
Grief is not always associated with the death of someone we care about. It is normal to grieve the loss of a job, a change in health status, the end of a relationship, the loss of a pet, or any significant change that can alter how we feel. The human brain needs to grieve, but it also wants to heal.
There are stages of grief that everyone goes through when they experience a loss or change. These stages are not linear, nor are they compartmentalized. They often overlap, and people who are grieving may enter the stages multiple times. It’s important to understand that our brain places us into these stages at the times it needs to in order to heal. The brain knows what it’s doing. The key is to allow it to move through whatever order and duration these stages require so healing can occur.
Denial is generally the first stage people go through. In denial, the brain engages in psychological numbing to protect us from experiencing too much pain too quickly. Denial means we are stunned, numb, and in disbelief. The numbing wears off at some point, when our brain is ready to begin tackling the pain associated with grief. If we did not have the denial stage of grief, we would be completely overwhelmed by incredible pain, and the damage to our psyches would be almost impossible to heal from.
Bargaining is another stage of grief. This is when we try to negotiate or bargain our way out of a situation. We may ask for more time with a loved one, pray for a different outcome, or look back and think that if circumstances had been different, we would not be in the situation we are in. We bargain with circumstances, God, or anything that might pull us away from the loss we are dealing with.
Anger is an important stage of grieving. It is often when we start to accept the reality of the loss. We may blame ourselves or others for the situation and sometimes lash out toward those in our close inner circles. The important thing to remember about the anger stage is that we don’t want it to be detrimental. I ask my patients to take their anger and use it like fuel — make it make you better. Run the 5K, the 10K, and then the marathon. Work out so hard that you have the best arms and abdominal muscles you’ve ever had. But don’t take it out on yourself or others.
An example of productive anger that I often use is John Walsh from the TV show
America’s Most Wanted. Walsh’s son, Adam, was abducted and killed, and he used his anger to create a show that helped catch thousands of predators.
Being on the receiving end of anger can be tricky. If someone you love is grieving and experiencing anger, please remember that this is a normal stage and that the person you care about is showing you their anger because they trust you. For a year after the death of my father, I had to take a deep breath every time I spoke with my mom. She yelled at me for a solid year. She did not do this with my brother. I soon realized that she trusted me enough to show this side of her pain and that it wasn’t personal. I was her sounding board for everything under the anger umbrella — sorrow, sadness, fear, and all the other ugly things we don’t like to talk about.
Depression is also a phase of grief. This is when we feel the profound sadness associated with loss. During this phase, we experience a lack of energy, feelings of despair and hopelessness, and basically the yuck that comes with experiencing a significant loss. This is the phase when we don’t want to get out of bed or deal with the world. While it is normal to feel this way, it is critically important to practice the basics of resilience — hydration, nutrition, rest, and exercise — to maintain your health.
After the loss of my therapy dog, Tyra, in 2020, there were several mornings when I told myself that pulling the covers over my head instead of working out was a much better option. I refused to give in to this and forced myself out of bed for about two weeks. I knew that allowing myself to slip would create a hole that I would eventually have to dig myself out of. You will not have your best workouts during depression, so plan simply to move your body and work up a sweat, however that looks. Exercise is nature’s antidepressant. Don’t stop moving.
As we start to heal, we reach the stage called acceptance. This is when we no longer struggle to accept the loss and begin to come to terms with its reality. We start to lean into our new normal and move forward to create a life with grief as part of our history. We do not simply move on, but we do start to come to terms with the loss. Reaching acceptance is where the brain wants to end up, but we can’t skip the other steps to get there. The brain only allows us to reach acceptance when we have done the work and fully grieved.
The analogy I like to use for experiencing grief incorporates the waves through which grief tends to present itself. When the loss happens, it is as though we are standing on a beach and a massive wave crashes on top of us. This wave knocks us down and makes us feel like we are going to drown. Just as we think we aren’t going to survive, the wave subsides. We stand back up, think we are through it, and then another wave crashes on top of us.
This will continue unless and until we lean into the waves. By leaning into the waves, I mean allowing ourselves to feel our feelings when they come up. When profound sadness hits, we cry. Crying is a healthy emotional release — it is not weakness. Human beings cry, and this is normal. When anger hits, we go for a run. When we don’t want to get out of bed, we make ourselves do so. We allow ourselves to feel the feelings and let them out. We vent, cry, write in a journal, and talk. Let it out. I remember a tissue commercial after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that repeated the words, “Let it out.” So let it out. When we do, the waves slow down, become less violent, and more tolerable. This means we are healing.
Another important thing to understand is that allowing ourselves to grieve does not mean one of those waves will hit during critical performance times. Grief does not surface when aviation professionals are managing emergencies, engaging in tactical flying, or dealing with other high-stress situations. The waves come when we have the time and space to deal with them.
One thing I learned early in my life is that Type A personalities (I am one of them) tend to want to think their way through grief rather than feel it. As tempting as this is, it only delays the inevitable grief process. Grief waits for us to come around, and the more we put it off — trying to avoid it or think our way through it — the longer it lingers until the process inevitably happens. It’s like being in a pool with a beach ball and spending all our energy trying to hold the ball underwater. Any time there is a distraction or a stressor, the ball slips from under our hand and resurfaces. Grief does the same thing: try to shove it underwater by avoiding the grief process, and it will continue to resurface until we deal with it head-on.
The investment in going through grief is worth it. The outcome is wisdom, which makes us better, stronger, and wiser. Another outcome is a healthy brain that has been able to return to some semblance of normal. This is called healing. I want to finish this article with one of my favorite quotes from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the author of On Death and Dying. In this book, she writes:
“The reality is you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to.”
