Is Growth even possible with Grief?

(From my Growing through it, from Grief to Growth blog)

I think I will start by saying that all opinions within my posts are my own, based on my lived experience and from what I have learned and studied in the last few years. It may not fit with your experience and that is okay, we each have our own path and our own journey and our own ways of living and interpreting life after the death of our loved one(s). Part of my path, my journey - I believe is to share through writing. I find it cathartic and it may also help another person. If it helps just one, it will be well worth sharing.

Based on my own experience I believe that growth can coexist with grief. They are not mutually exclusive nor are they at opposite ends of a linear spectrum (like a bereavement starting and finishing point - it can be a big ole squiggly mess at times and that’s okay). Just because you experience some growth after the trauma of grief doesn’t mean you are magically healed or that all pain has gone forever.

There are ebbs and flows along the way and we must take each as it comes. For example, yesterday was Mother’s Day here and I wasn’t really prepared for it this year. It kind of crept up on me, which perhaps was no bad thing. I enjoyed parts of the day with my daughters and I also spent time with my son at his grave, lying down on the grass in the sunshine talking to him, thinking, pondering, feeling all the feelings that came up and crying all the tears. I then cleaned his headstone and surround and felt like I was being a mum to him all over again. There were many mixed emotions and all of them were okay. Understanding that was a big part of my growth.

To experience growth we need to be gentle with ourselves and give ourselves permission. I think we have to allow ourselves to experience the depths and pains of grief but also remain open to the possibility of viewing the world differently in some way as a result of this. We must first allow ourselves to experience all and any emotions without judgment, without fear and always immersed in self-love and acceptance.

Finding self-love in grief can be difficult, but I believe it is key and a lot of the strategies I have used have helped me to do just that. I will be sharing the strategies that I have learned through my counselling, sensorimotor psychotherapy, CBT, studying our mind and habits, studying grief and through communicating with fellow bereaved parents locally and across the world (thank you internet). I believe these strategies can help with adjusting to any bereavement and not just child-loss.

That being said I can only speak from my experience and I wouldn’t want to tell anyone how to experience their grief, I am not qualified to advise on such things. But if you are interested in following along with how my views, outlook and attitude have changed as a result of my deeply transformative experience you are more than welcome to join me. I’ll be sharing weekly snippets.