“Almost all therapeutic work is grief work,” I remember one of my psychology professors saying. This stood out to me as ringing true. We feel grief in many dimensions of our life, in loss, of course, but also in change, even in renewal. We can feel grief when we enter a new phase of our lives, longing for times when things seemed simpler or easier. We can also grieve for a past self and wish to feel like them again. You may have not allowed yourself to fully grieve the complex parts of yourself. Sometimes we want to simply “get over” our grief. Ultimately you will find that processing your grief is possible in therapy.

When we feel sad, we can numb ourselves or turn away from the uncomfortable feelings to cope with the internal pain. We grew up with messages like, “Nobody likes a sad sack.” or, “Don’t be a party pooper.” or, “Put on some lipstick and you’ll feel better.” We are taught that “wallowing in pain” is what weak people do. The irony is that, in fact, wallowing in pain is what strong people do.

Getting over Grief vs Moving Through Grief

Dr. Gabor Mate said, “All of western medicine is built on getting rid of pain, which is not the same thing as healing. Healing is actually the capacity to hold pain.” We spend so much energy keeping “bad” feelings away that we unintentionally equate any emotional discomfort as not being “good.” When dealing with grief, the opposite is true. We need to pour the energy we use keeping pain at bay into surrendering to it in order to move through it.

So, how do we feel grief without completely succumbing to it? Firstly, we do not focus on “getting better,” or “returning to normal.” As hard as it may be, we take each step of the process as it comes, trying to hold the despairing feelings with compassion while maintaining a core sense of self as you focus on healing. And how do we do that? We reach out, to friends, family, and perhaps most importantly, to a therapist.

Healing the Grieving Hole in Your Heart

An important thing to remember about grief, is that it is not a permanent condition. Grief can visit us throughout our lives, but it does not have to move in and stay forever. The key to dealing with grief visitations is feeling them. Sometimes, when you experience deep grief, it can seem like there’s a hole in your heart. Rather than crawl into that hole and feel the grief, you can fill the hole with guilt. This is another way we avoid the discomfort of processing grief; we defend against it by blaming ourselves. That’s how hard truly dealing with grief is – we would rather feel shame than grief! The truth is, we need to learn how to be in close relationship with grief.

You Don’t Have to be Alone with Your Grief

Another truth about grief is that we cannot go through it alone. Processing grief is not the time to isolate, but rather the time to thoughtfully engage with those that you can trust, be vulnerable with, and be honest about the pain you are experiencing. Maintaining key relationships with caring people is vital to productive processing. Therapy is the best place to safely navigate deep pain with an experienced clinician holding the full range of your feelings with empathy and unconditional positive regard.

If you want to process your grief in therapy, please reach out. I help people integrate grief and experience greater hope.

Have you ever been driving somewhere, and a memory from the past suddenly overwhelms you and you forget where you are going? Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and began to worry about all the things you need to do, until the thoughts take over and you cannot fall back to sleep? Or have you ever had a perfectly normal day, when all of a sudden, a negative thought creeps into your head and snowballs into a sadness that you can’t shake off? This is rumination, persistent negative thoughts that hijack our minds, interfering with normal activity.

Many clients turn to therapy because they cannot get out of their heads or worry too much. Rumination is common, normal, and most of the time, temporary. In some severe cases, it can become continuous and negatively impact daily functions. More common temporary rumination is the mind’s way of letting us know we are anxious, and we can do something to help soothe ourselves out of this state.

Do thoughts have you, or do you have thoughts?

The way I like to describe rumination is that it feels like thoughts have you, rather than you having thoughts. It’s as though your thoughts are dragging you away from your centered self. Thoughts are in control, not you. Here are a few techniques that can get you back to feeling that you are in control of where you mind goes.

1. Move your body to reduce worry

A great way to unlock ourselves from rumination is to move our awareness into our body. If you find yourself ruminating in bed while trying to fall asleep, hug your knees tightly to your chest and then alternate that position with a long, big, full-bodied stretch. You will find that you naturally inhale deeply on the stretch and exhale slowly when you crunch you knees to your chest. Do this a few times. You might even want to exhale with aahhh, shhhhhh, or hhmmm sound, which stimulates the vagus nerve system, helping to promote inner balance and relaxation. 

If you’re driving, shoulder rolls can help bring your focus to your body and you can keep both hands on the wheel! Try inhaling as you roll the shoulder forward and up, and exhaling as you roll them back and down. Try to trace the widest circle your shoulders can make. Again, you can add a sound on the exhale – and the best thing about doing this when you’re driving alone is that no one can hear you. So, make the sounds as loud and weird as you want. A sense of playfulness can also help ease our way out of obsessive thinking.

2. Touch your body to reduce worry.

If you find yourself ruminating, you can give yourself a gentle face massage, or lightly tap the tips of your fingers on your face, head, neck, chest, and shoulders. This body stimulation will aid in notifying your brain that you are safe and not in harms way. It will signal to your brain that it’s OK to relax. You can also alternating tapping your right and then left thigh, which activates your right and left brain, aiding in re-orienting and unhooking from repetitive thinking.

3. Focus on your breath to reduce worry

A tried-and-true method that has helped many of my clients fall back to sleep or bring them swiftly out of a rumination episode is a ten-count visualization. This works best with eyes closed or soft inward focus, so do not do this on the road! Tune into your natural breathing rhythm. When you’re ready, visualize the number one in your mind’s eye as you exhale. Conjure the number so that you see it in front of you, almost like the number appears in your mind floating. Do this for each number all the way to ten, and then begin again with number one. This is the key – always return to one after you reach ten. Some nights, it might take three rounds before you fall sleep and others, ten or twenty. Keep at it! If you find your mind returning to intrusive thoughts let them glide by and return to your ten count visualization.

If you can’t close your eyes, but you need a breathing technique to re-center yourself after you have moved or touched your body out of rumination, a simple box breathe can help. Visualize your inhale moving up the left side of a square, extend or hold the inhale as you visualize tracing the top line of the square, exhale as you visualize tracing down the right line of the square, and extend or hold the exhale as you visualize tracing the bottom line, completing the square.

Freedom to be.

Repetitive thoughts do not have to drag us away from ourselves. They are signals that we need some reassurance, re-calibrating, and re-centering. Activating the body is a powerful way to exit the hamster wheel of obsessive thinking and anchor ourselves in the life force of breath, and just be.

-Arianne MacBean