Fear. Anxiety. Worry. Probably most clients can relate to at least one of these during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But there’s another emotion that very few people are talking about, even though it’s probably just as common: grief.
So we asked Joan Borysenko, PhD, and Rick Hanson, PhD to share some thoughts that could be helpful for clients who are feeling a sense of loss right now. Have a listen.
Click here for full transcript
Now we’d like to hear from you. Do you have any clients who are feeling grief because of the pandemic? What have you found most helpful in sessions?
Please let us know in the comments below.
´What can be found´ in the midst of a crisis? From Ron, stroke me like a lightning. Meaningful perspective that invites to take action seeking, searching, exploring, discovering, creating…
I would also add: what have we, and are already finding….? I believe it’s not only to wait for the light at the end of the tunnel but the constant light shining on me, on us, on all; from me, from us, from all. Thanks!
Thank you – these are wonderful insights and tips. Yes, grief has been here from the beginning. 2 months into a new daily routine, a new world, a lot of loss & gain can be noticed, felt and helping clients name it has been helpful. I appreciate hearing about liminal time and would love to learn more about the steps/stages of Crisis. Separation, Place of Uncertainty….anything else? Its very good to understand.
Yes, it’s important to allow ourselves to feel the pain of the losses and also to see what the gains are – a time to reflect, re-evaluate perhaps?
Thank you for this video. As a Licensed Social Worker who just began not even a year ago towards my LCSW, working in a private practice this was powerful. It’s true, no one knows how to feel and it’s okay to feel all of it. However, I’m going to get personal because even though I know this intellectually, since January before all this has occurred I have dealt with the worst grief I had Ever felt before. I have had so much loss and death in my life but to this level? Never. I lost my soul sister and 10 days later my two cousins to a house fire. This new reality is maddening, however being able to help clients now who may not have those skill sets to through the grief. I know I went through this for a reason.
It was lovely to see you,talking about your situation and about grief and hope as well. I went to see you when you came out to Wellington New Zealand where I live. Ive noticed how important it is to be more real about my experiences, even as a therapist, because the best healing ive noticed lately in myself and others is that they no longer feel so alone with their overwhelming feelings, so they are freed from the shame. Some people even feel a relief at the slower pace and increased closeness with those they live with. Ive felt more in touch with my mother, who died almost 3 years ago, but I talk to her every day. Thank you for your presence, Rick, i even noticed your hair had grown a bit, and i thought it suits you and youre there in real time and i felt you are with me going through this too, a great comfort, thank you, maria
Thanks for this. As a Crisis Responder with a Victim Services agency I deal with so much grief with my clients. Imagine having your child die or a parent or spouse, and everything in the world changes about how we can respond (No human contact as we always have done), families having to suffer alone, the way funerals are conducted with only immediate family if they do one at all. I grieve with the clients, my heart breaks for them and yet I must remember to take care of myself as well and recognize some of the new emotions I have been dealing with. I had not realized that grief is likely underneath them.
I have chronic PTSD, and I have been in this same shit (sorry about the language) for years now. I was wondering why I more edgy than normal. I mean, for once, how I feel on the outside matches what is happening around me. There is actually a clear and present danger, being over 50 and overweight. It never crossed my mind that it could be grief that I am feeling. Thanks for the insight.
In times like this Pandemic that we go through feelings of grief n losses, anxiety .seems to be more intense only because of drastic changes beyond our control. So taking steps like
Awareness – slow down thought patterns and be within n be aware of all that is around you..sharpen all your 5 senses see smell taste touch n hear.
Forgiveness – start with yourself and go through with silent forgiveness for others who have hurt you or those whom you may have hurt. One of the most powerful practises I have applied
Acceptance- fully accept the past situation and look with awareness of the present This will create a space in the mind which is needed in healing oneself
Let it Go – Address the situation no need to drag it on like an invisible baggage…becomes a burden.Time to let it go wholeheartedly….
Gratefullness – Being grateful is an art to be practise daily….relieves burden from within. Allow us to feel how amazing it is to be a Human Being…as we are all part of this amazing Universe…truly all our problems are minscule and tempirary.
Smile n the world smile with you.
Beautifully said and very helpful and comforting thank you. I am experiencing ongoing grief myself feeling deeply sad and weeping often and it is wonderful to have the acknowledgment and confirmation that it’s ok and I’m not alone. I am a grief counsellor and this is an added level of grief to the losses my clients are already grieving. I can further support them by voicing this grief which is very powerful and healing of itself.
Kate Kaszonyi
New South Wales
Australia
Thank you for validating what so many people are feeling today!
Dr. Judy Y. Martin
Kevin, A Lot Of Therapy, After seeing a great deal of loss, Employment, Wages, Security, Personal Physical, &, Social Contacts, Death Abounding Here on The East Coast, as Well as Every Where One Turned, I was Taken Back by the Amount of Anxiety, my Wife, (of 30+yrs.), was, &, wasn’t Showing until It came to a Head. As I Paused,&, Reached for Tools that I had been Taught, We Began to Share Our Deep Seated Emotions, Brought on by What We were Witnessing, And The Anxiety I was Seeing Turned into Sign’s of Grief ! After sharing my own sense of Grief, I was Able to show My Wife that I was Taught That Grieving Loss is OK, &, A Natural Expression Being ! I’m not a Therapist, but In My Own Therapy, I was Taught that suppressing Grief,&, Pain, can be very Unhealthy, &, We Should Embrace Memories of Good / Happy Times, giving Us the Balance to Deal with the Here, &, Now ! Letting My wife know, as others did for me that Suffering is An Option, not a Necessity !
As a Spiritual Director and Coach who accompanies people in grief quite a bit, normalizing people’s feelings, whatever they are, is so important. People mostly need just at least one person with whom they can be completely honest to provide a safe/brave space where people can just say ANYTHING about their feelings with no judgment and no attachment.
I have also been creating simple, personalized guided meditations for some clients to assist them in holding space for their own feelings.
I also find this practice to be helpful. 1) honoring and giving voice to our own feelings without judgment, followed by 2) visualizing a web of connection to all the others who are currently feeling/have felt those similar feelings, 3) breathing in (rather than pushing away) the grief/anxiety/fear of others, and then 4) breathing out peace/calm/compassion (or whatever is the right antidote to your own pain).
Thank you for this and thanks to Joan and Bill for talking and sharing about grief impacting all of us at this time. Validating and comforting.
speaking this all the time to people
That helped me understand why I felt the way I did yesterday…I am alone away from my home in Scotland, out in my little flat in Cyprus when this pandemic broke. I do not know when I can return back home. I am very fortunate and well looked after by neighbours and have contact with family and friends. So I did not know why I had an emotion that I couldn’t comprehend …I was in meltdown I went looking to see see how the virus biologically worked and what the true statistics where to enable me to differentiate from all the fake news that is about… I see now it was a form of grief and I can be kind to myself. I know we’re all in the same boat and I felt selfish for the way I was feeling and this showed me I was behaving normally and that’s a relief thank you very much. namaste
Thinking of these feelings as disenfranchised grief can be helpful. Disenfranchised grief is the constellation of feelings that arise from any type of loss, (death of an estranged loved one, death of pet, loss of innocence and safety, loss of finances and financial security, etc.) for which we feel it’s not okay to experience. Inner thoughts or comments from others such as, “I was never close with him/her, you’ll get another dog someday, or you’ll bounce back…” can throw us into shame or guilt and prevent us from acknowledging and emotionally processing the loss.
Once you can give yourself permission to feel your loss, despite these inner thoughts and external comments, you can begin to find your way toward an experience in which you can embrace and honor your connection to what has been lost.
Accepting the emotional elements as natural is essential, of course. Focusing on and appreciating what you still have in your life is helpful to balance emotions. Most importantly I find it helpful to give my clients a true sense of their inner strength, psychological resilience. Coping with grief then is much less challenging. There is also a fear that grief will never go away and that causes anxiety and the pain to increase. Using on the good in your life to relieve some grief helps greatly, though grief has a way of overriding that if we are not careful. Trying not to grieve is a mistake. and subconsciously will be expressed in many unhealthy ways. There is a need to know that though a sense of loss will always remain, the pain diminishes over time and we then we are able to call on happy memories to bring good feelings back into our consciousness again. We cannot allow ourselves lose consciousness what has brought us smiles and happiness and fulfillment in the past. It is one of the elements of our beings that gives us inner strength to deal with the now .
I am not a therapist, simply a soul working on her life journey. I want to thank you for this free opportunity. I lost my mother on Feb 2 and was planed and attended her Celebration of Life On Feb 29 in a different state with family and friends. I have experienced tremendous guilt when I say, “I am grateful she (and I) didn’t have to go through C-19.
Yesterday, while conferencing with my therapist I began talking about how grateful I was for my mom’s life and wisdom. I have found myself NEEDING to talk about her, but it seemed selfish in the midst of C-19. I am familiar with grief, but mixed with the other emotions of these days, I tend to forget that the feeling is GRIEF. My therapist responded, “ You didn’t have time to grieve your mom, because you came home and C-19 had hit!” She gave me “permission” to not DO anything and allow the feelings to wash over me.
Thank you for validating what I am feeling!
Thank you so much for sharing this with us! Giving the sadness in myself and others a perspective. It is very helpful. Merci
Many thanks for providing a caring community.
I am not sure that insight is very helpful to clients under this circumstance.Accepting feelings is a must.
But denial also can have a place in survival,coping repertoir.
Whatever will emerge after this pandemic, the some losses will be permanent.
So living our best in spite of it all and helping others
while defocusing on our anxieties,fears,griefs may be another approach.
Thank you for naming it so rightly as grief, and giving language to this experience. It is indeed a liminal space we move through together, in our individual ways and increasingly isolated lives. It can be challenging going through it, experiencing it myself, and working as a healing presence for others going through similar emotions and experiences. Thanks for this.
I am not a therapist – just a regular person who happened to listen to the video of Joan Borysenko and Rick Hanson and has always been interested in personal development. It was extremely helpful to hear Joan’s thoughts about grief and the description and reason for the different stages, which I could so much identify with. That in itself is very healing and to know that it’s normal and necessary to feel those feelings.
Also loved Rick Hanson’s acknowledgement of the losses and gains and it’s usually both alongside each other. I recently came across a second hand book (before covid) of Joan Borysenko titled “guilt is the teacher, love is the answer”, not knowing anything about her. It’s an old book but full of wisdom and interesting ideas, so I was happy to actually see Joan speak! Thanks to both Joan and Rick!
So so helpful!!! Thank you for posting these snippets of information. Very grateful
Listening from UK, supporting staff nd elders in a care home, gains the spirit of support taking on broader roles cheerfully; encouragement from elders speaking their own experience. Keeping hope alive for vaccine nd treatment nd understanding of immune system health response to Covid eg re-emergence of existing or is reinfection possible… how fo we safely stop isolation.
Losses not being present with loved ones dying, simply finding loss of unconscious lip reading, expressions of connection nd limiting therapeutic touch when a hug seems so important,
Clients I see have been experiencing a myriad of emotions which make them think there’s something wrong with them. I have been normalizing their emotions as grief and Joan’s explanation of grief is extremely helpful. I’ve also found that some clients who had worked through difficult feelings are experiencing a reemergence and feelings of regression. Listening to how important it is to remind people that they haven’t lost their core or the progress they made is so important. also the good and the bad. Thanks so much, these videos are so helpful!
Thank you for this.Grief seems to be the exact thing most are feeling lately. I appreciate this
Very helpful, thank you
I have a client who seems to be feeling it. And I’m experiencing it very strongly myself. Sometimes I feel happy, positive, founded. And at times the grief is almost overwhelming.
Thanks for your words of wisdom. From what I have been experiencing from client so far, is the uncertainty and disruption of finances. Some are worried about the disconnect they feel from their family members and the frequent phone calls from love ones(especially) parents saying they are lonely, or depressed. This is causing addition chaos for families. I tried to reassure them that its a process we are all experiencing; and it is normal to feel the way they do and this too shall pass. I also encouraged them to focus on things they can do to feel better; whether it is reading; taking warm baths; writing etc.
So helpful for pulling this knowledge and skill into one experience. The brain scatter of treating many clients collectively. Thank you so much.
Noticed some of the stages of grief in the pandemic. Shock & disbelief that this is happening, that the world has come to a halt. Then restlessness, agitation, anger. Despair seems to be setting in now that it is going on longer and the statistics are mounting. Fear is also brewing as people don’t know what will happen and many wonder how they will feed their families. As a mental health community, we must carry the message out that these are normal responses to an abnormal situation. Thank you for providing these messages for us to give language to he dynamics.
Thank you for your informative posting. Here’s something for you:
GRIEF FABLE
The small child we once were did not die, but still lives deeply embedded in our consciousnesses. How we treat our inner child – whether with love and compassion, or with blame and censure could have a powerful effect on our recovery from life’s losses.
Losing someone to death is a foreign concept to our innocent inner child who does not understand how someone she loved and needed could disappear into thin air, never to be seen again. Has she been abandoned for something she did or said?
The inner child who has the same name as you tries a variety of primitive strategies to bring her needed one back. She wishes and prays with all her might, but cruel God doesn’t answer her pleas. She pouts and stamps her feet in rage. She weeps inconsolably and keens in long wails in hopes that her loved one hears her. She races around from one room to another, one task to another, as though to find some hidden key to unlock the door that is keeping her significant other from walking back into her life.
She pulls out other tactics. She plays mental movies of images of her beloved over and over, as if to recreate a visceral, nearly real memory of him (or her) – how he smells, how it feels to hug him, the sound of his voice, and pretends that he is sitting across the table from her at breakfast. She thinks that if she makes her memories strong enough, her lost person will come back and materialize before her very eyes. She is exhausting herself. She may elect to shut her whole body down and enter into deep withdrawal. She sleeps days at a time with one ear cocked to listen for the return of her desperately yearned-for other.
Nothing works. The truth hits her like a cold bucket of water thrown in her face. He is never coming back.
On a deep, visceral level, she realizes that she can’t go on this way forever. Two choices are placed before her: She can continue to resist what happened…what is real…and remain in her dark bedroom with the curtains drawn, or she can surrender and agree to accept life on its own terms. Not hers. Ultimately, and with great reluctance, and with her heart still feeling the pangs of yearning, she yields. She lets go. She elects to be alive. To be in this world. After all, she did not die. He beloved other did.
With her hands, she takes her memories of life with her beloved and tucks them into a pocket deep inside her heart. They will stay there for the rest of her life. Sometimes she will pull them back up and revisit them. Next, she steps out into the bright light of the now and looks around. Everything seems fresh and new. She has agreed to live again, to smell flowers, to listen to birds singing, to the sweet smiles of others, and, if she’s lucky, to comfort new sufferers who are now traveling the same path she did.
Somehow life seems strangely better now, her heart is more tender. She has weathered the deepest storm life presents, and she has survived to embrace it once more. She feels more self-assured than ever before. More grounded and real. Her deepest lesson from all of her struggle is that life is a gift. That it is precious. It is not to be squandered by living in the past, but that life’s moments are be savored in the present. — (c) Sandy Jones (Brevard, NC, August, 2020)
That was very helpful. Thank you.