Note: Names have been changed to protect the privacy of those mentioned.
Maya’s Story
As a career naval officer, Maya’s husband Jack spent much of their married life at sea. When Jack died after a long illness Maya found herself coping with the pain of loss by pretending Jack hadn’t really died but was instead on a prolonged mission away from home. When the stress of keeping up such magical thinking began to confuse and frighten her, Maya became my grief support and stress resilience client in order to increase her mental grief resilience.
Peggy’s Story
When Peggy’s husband Dave was first diagnosed with a terminal illness Peggy found it difficult to concentrate, her mind always anticipating how and when and in what ways Dave would lose functioning before dying. Peggy’s son, a doctor, was concerned about his mother’s symptoms of mental anguish and prescribed anxiety and depression medications to help ease Peggy’s preoccupation with impending loss.
Peggy became my client three years after Dave’s death. She was finding that as she went off of the medications her son had prescribed she was overcome with mental noise – intrusive, negative, repetitive thoughts – about Dave that “grabbed her mind upon waking, and wouldn’t let me go even in sleep.” In our work together, Peggy came to understand that medication does not belie the need to process the painful and uncomfortable thoughts that are often a part of the mourning period.
The Pain of Loss Can't Be Avoided - But it Can Be Dealt With Skillfully
As can be seen in Maya’s and Peggy’s stories, there are many mind-based signs and symptoms of grief:
- Confusion
- Difficulty concentrating
- Increased “mental noise” or “mind chatter”
- Disbelief or magical thinking
- Preoccupation with loss
- Repetitive intrusive, negative and/or self-focused thoughts
- A mindset of “This shouldn’t have happened.”
All of these symptoms highlight feelings of anxiety – and quite often overwhelming anxiety after the death of a loved one. When mental resilience is lacking, the mind can sometimes unconsciously engage in these strategies as a way of avoiding grief or as a way of shifting attention away from painful truths. Avoiding grief has the effect of prolonging the pain of loss and as Peggy’s story highlights, trying to mask the pain of grief through medications does not mean that grief is now healed, but rather only temporarily hidden.
Mental Grief Resilience
Mental resilience/ mental grief resilience is the ability to successfully adapt to and recover from difficult or challenging situations and events, including those of profound loss. Mental resilience is characterized by:
- Mental flexibility
- Good attention span
- The ability to focus
- The ability to incorporate multiple points of view
- The ability to problem-solve in order to move forward
- The capacity to remain hopeful even when facing setbacks
- Recognition of what can and cannot be controlled
- An action-oriented and strengths-based approach to stress and loss
- Viewing change as a challenge or opportunity
All of these characteristics can be compromised in the mourning period and may require the learning of new resilience skills to increase mental grief resilience. Improving your mental grief capacity can aid you in mental clarity and calm and being present to what is with greater skill as you navigate your individual grief journey.
Betty’s Story – an Example of Mental Grief Resilience
Betty’s story is a story of being present to what is.
I recently ran into Betty who I hadn’t seen in over 20 years. When I told her that I was writing a blog on mental grief resilience she said, “I have a story to share that might be helpful to others.” Her story is this:
“When my first husband was dying of esophageal cancer our children were worried that I wasn’t grieving right or enough. They and I were witnesses to my husband’s slow decline and physical pain. It was upsetting to them but they didn’t seem to think I was grieving as they were.
In their concerns about me my children talked to my husband’s oncologist - his cancer doctor - who then decided to talk to me. He asked me, “Are you doing okay? Your children are worried that you’re not really grieving. Are you grieving? This is a hard situation; it’s natural to grieve – cry, show emotions. It’s okay if you do these things.”
I told the oncologist this: “Every day I am present to what is. My husband is still alive and I am present to that. When my husband is in pain, I am present to that. I try to be present in each moment about what I see. What I feel. What I experience. It is part of the whole and I accept that.”
“After my husband died I continued to be present then too as I grieved.’”
For Betty, being present after her husband’s death included noting what her body, mind and spirit were telling her would be helpful on her grief journey – and making sure that she balanced meaning (navigating the depths of loss and what that loss meant to her life) with good self-care, including pleasurable activities.
We Can Learn to Work Skillfully With the Mental Energies of Grief
As I noted in the blog on Improving Your Grief Resilience Part 2: Physical Resilience, it can be helpful to think in terms of energy and a need for energy management when processing grief. From a stress resilience perspective, there are three approaches to calming the mind and working skillfully with discordant mental energy:
- Attention refocusing or energy refocusing to elicit the relaxation response (see more on the relaxation response in part 2 of this series). Body scanning, progressive muscle relaxation exercises, visualization and breathwork techniques can all aid in accessing the relaxation response.
- Energy transformation. HeartMath and other heart-centered practices such as lovingkindness and some meditation practices can be helpful in transforming mental energies by positively affecting mental processing and the physiology of stress.
- Mind-based attention focusing or energy focusing. Techniques aimed at strengthening the ability to focus on just one thought at a time include mantra meditation techniques, thought-stopping and more.
There is a lot of crossover between these approaches; all three approaches can be used to process mental symptoms of grief.
Tools and Techniques for Improving Mental Grief Resilience
Stopping Time/ Resting Your Mind in the Present Moment
Look out a window at home. Focus on just observing a flower, bird, the sky or any other object your eye lands upon. Just observe whatever your point of focus is without thoughts, judgments, categorizations, stimuli or analysis. For example, try not to compare the color of this flower to that flower and try not to name the flower or decide whether or not it is beautiful etc. For 3 – 5 minutes just try to observe without thoughts, listen without planning ahead, feel without judging. This is a practice for helping you to live in the present – to live in the here and now.
Thought Stopping with Cue Controlled Breathing
- When you notice disturbing or anxiety-provoking thoughts, internally shout “stop” to yourself.
- Shift your attention to your breathing. Begin taking slow, even, deeper than usual belly breaths.
- Next count your breaths on each exhale going backwards: as you exhale, count 4; exhale again and count 3 etc. Each time you reach 1, start over again until any feelings of inner tension or anxiety diminish. Try to keep the mind as empty as possible as you focus on counting each breath.
- Continue to breathe deeply and regularly, saying to yourself “breathe in” as you inhale and “relax” as you exhale, until you feel balanced/relaxed.
Mantra Meditation or Single-Pointed Focus Meditation
Repetition of a mantra can both induce the relaxation response and quiet and calm the mind.
- Sit upright in a comfortable seat and in a quiet environment. Begin by focusing your attention on the breath moving into and out of the body. Deepen your breathing as you continue to focus your attention on the breath coming into and out of the body.
- Repeat a single positive word or simple phrase to yourself in your mind/head. The most effective coping mantras focus on an attitude you would like to embody (safe, calm, peace, let go etc.).
- Repeat for 15-20 minutes or until you feel physical, emotional and/or mental tension lessen or disappear. You may want to begin with 3 – 5 minutes a day and work toward 15-20 minutes.
Both-and Thinking
When we experience the stress of profound loss it is not uncommon to engage in “either-or thinking.” For example: “Either the grief I’m feeling goes away right now or I won’t be able to handle it/work/get out of bed/be happy again.” We engage in either-or thinking as an unconscious attempt to make sense out of uncertainty; rather than providing certainty, however, either-or thinking instead increases our feelings of hopelessness and helplessness regarding our ability to cope.
Engaging in both-and thinking can provide a more positive way to live with uncertainty brought on by loss by helping us to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time, thus strengthening our mental resilience. Some example of both-and thinking: “I acknowledge that I am grieving right now and I know that eventually I will be able to move forward with my life.”
Some Essential Mental Self-care Tips for Grief
Here are some basic – but essential – self-care tips for maintaining or improving mental resiliency when grieving:
Maintain supportive relationships. Strong relationships with friends, loved ones and members of your faith community or other groups you belong to can be sources of support, acceptance and guidance, providing you with a sense of belonging and mental rest, as well as safety and security, as you process your grief.
Set goals or intentions. Proceeding after the loss of a loved one with an intention of “I can get through this” is a hallmark of mental resiliency. Your positive intentions can be fulfilled by setting daily, weekly and even monthly goals. An elderly woman once told me this story of how she got through the devastation she felt in the weeks following her daughter’s death:
“I didn’t want to get out of bed every day but I did. I made everything into a ritual, the same thing at the same time, every day: Get out of bed. Make the bed. Have breakfast. Wash the dishes. Shower. Dress. Put on my makeup. And always, always, I put on my jewelry. I didn’t want to do all of these things but I made sure that I did them. At the beginning this was all that I could do for the whole day. Then as time went on, I was able to lengthen my day with other activities: Take a walk. Talk to friends. Make my husband’s dinner. Every day I had a goal and a mantra: Make it through. Make it through. Make it through.”
Related Remembering A Life Blog Posts
The Four Tasks of Mourning
The 5 Stages of the Soul and Grief Processing
Journeying Through Grief: Death, Memories & Healing
The 5 Things We Cannot Change
From Death Denial to Death Acceptance
Grieving and Healing After a Loved One Dies by Suicide
Faith & Grief
The Process of Accepting Difficult Grief Emotions
Grief and the Language of Emotions
Related Remembering A Life Podcast Episode
Grief Re-imagined: 50 Creative Strategies to Build Resilience
Other Resources
The Grief Recovery Handbook by John W. James and Russell Friedman
Grief and God by Dr. Terri Daniel
The Language of Emotions by Karla McLaren
10 Helpful Tips for Resilient Grieving by Claire Bidwell Smith
Living Through Loss by Nancy R. Hooyman and Betty J. Kramer
www.massgeneral.org
www.self-compassion.org
www.heartmath.org
www.heartmath.com
