Love is a four-letter word spelled T-I-M-E.

-Dr. Edith Eger

This ongoing heightened level of grief from the pandemic is getting really hard, wouldn’t you agree? I think we’re all ready for some normalcy right about now (although how you choose to define normal is completely up to you!). The sentiment that keeps showing up in my life is that I’m so very grateful for so many things and at the same time I’m grieving so very much. I’m grateful for all the extra time at home and I’m grieving all the lost outside of the home adventures. I’m grateful for the slower pace of life and grieving the excitement of seeing new places. I’m grateful for the closeness of our immediate family while grieving seeing family and friends near and far. What are you feeling grateful for right now in your own life? What are you grieving right now in your own life?

Along with the global pandemic, here are some things that may be triggering feelings of grief for you:

1. Important dates coming and going
2. Holidays being different now
3. Kids growing up
4. Life looks different than on TV and in the movies
5. Life continuing forward
6. Vacation spots not being visited
7. Old pictures of the way things were
8. Birthdays being celebrated in a different way
9. People moving on
10. Rights of the passage being missed like baby showers and visiting newborn babies and their parents in the hospital.

What would you add to this list?

Grief symptoms can differ from person to person, but here are some common grief symptoms to look out for in your own life:

1. Shock
2. Body aches and pains
3. Numbness
4. Sadness
5. Anger
6. Isolation
7. Exhaustion
8. Feeling like there’s a fog covering over you
9. Anxiety

Do any of these ring true for you?

The transition into motherhood can also be bringing up feelings of grief related to:

1. Changes in your relationship with your partner.
2. Career changes like moving from working outside of the home to working inside of the home as a stay-at-home mom.
3. Your pre-pregnancy body
4. Your expectations of motherhood being very different from the reality of motherhood.
5. Sleep changes like no longer being able to sleep through the night, sleep in on weekend mornings, or take a nap when you were tired.
6. Your relationship with your family may be different now
7. Your relationship with your friends may be different now
8. Your birth experience may not have been what you wanted or expected.
9. Thinking breastfeeding would be easy versus how hard it often is in real life.
10. Your pre-mom life when you had alone time and time to devote to self-care.

You may also be grieving this lost year when you were ready to try getting pregnant, but put your motherhood dreams on hold because of the pandemic or another extenuating circumstance.

Focusing on what you’re grateful for can be a helpful way to offset some of the grief that you’re currently feelings. Still create time and space in your life to process and feel the grief, and also create time and space in your life to bring in more gratitude. Both can both be very healing during this hard time.

 

Process Grief