You can’t see or hear me right now but I just took a very deep sigh before starting to write this post.
That’s because the past two weeks have been super emotional for me. I’ve never shared with you guys what my day job is, and for this post to make a whole lot of sense I think I should. Yes, I do coach women on the side, but my primary day job is a Hospice Aide.
Working in the field of hospice can be so fulfilling, so eye opening, at times rewarding, and sometimes very hard to get through a day and even a week. That has been my experience lately. Recently our company said goodbye to two patients that I had built a very strong bond with. While I know that them passing was the ultimate ending for them, that doesn’t make the transition or experience any easier.
As a hospice aide you do create a bond with your patients. You’re seeing them almost every day, you’re assisting them with all kinds of activities of daily living, and you spend a lot of time with them. Time spent getting to know your patient in order to build trust with them, to help them and their families through this very emotional experience. So about 90% of the time it’s impossible to not create an emotional bond with them.
And the two patients that our company recently said goodbye to were patients that I had spent a lot of time with over the past 4 months. And yes, there was a very strong emotional bond created between us.
So, saying goodbye to them was a very hard experience for me, especially because I have not had to deal with the reality of grief in a very long time. It took me by surprise, took my breath away, and left me feeling numb, lost, and completely alone. But that’s grief for ya. You never know what that experience will be like for you until you have to go through it.
How I have been managing my grief over the past few weeks is what inspired me to write this post. I know you may be thinking how does grief correlate with my well-being, to which I say in a lot of ways. Grief has a direct impact on our emotional, mental, and sometimes physical health. We all experience and deal with grief in our own ways.
Sometimes in ways that are positive and acceptable, and sometimes in ways that are negative and worrisome. So, I wanted to be able to share a few tips about managing your grief that have helped me find acceptance, understanding, and emotional stability over the past few weeks.
Tips for Managing Grief
Let it out
I’m not the type of person who likes to cry in front of others, so no shame or judgment from me if you’re the same way. But I do want to encourage and reassure you that it’s ok to cry, whether you’re alone or in the company of others. Something I have learned about crying over the years and with reassurance from my therapist, is that crying is good for our nervous system.
It’s a way to flush out negative toxins, built up emotions, to clear the clutter and confusion from our mind, and to really feel whatever emotion is alive in you in that moment. When we suppress our tears, we are not giving ourselves permission to heal from the tragic or upsetting experience. Instead, we are telling ourselves that crying is not ok, it’s a sign of weakness and we need to be strong in this moment.
But that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, crying is ok, it’s not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength, and you don’t need to be strong in that moment. You just need to be human and vulnerable. Letting it out when you feel those emotions building up is the start of acceptance and understanding about what has happened, ultimately clearing a path for you to heal.
Talk to someone
Another way to manage your grief is to talk to someone about it. I’ve never been the type to have vulnerable conservations with everyone in my life, but I do have at least two people that I know I can turn to when needed. It’s important to have people like this in your life because nobody can do life alone. It’s too overwhelming at times and when those moments show up in your life you don’t want to solely rely on a nice bottle of Stella Rosa and your favorite tub of Ben & Jerry’s.
So, find someone that you trust to be able to sit down and have these hard and vulnerable conservations with. And because I do know that it may be hard to develop relationships like that, I also want to encourage you to reach out to a therapist to talk to. Therapists are great listeners and they provide great support through moments like these. You can talk to them for as long or as little as you need to. They are simply there to be of service and support for you in the ways you need it most.
And because I do know that therapy isn’t free and not always cost effective for a lot of people, I also want to encourage you to reach out to your supervisor and leaders of your company about supporting you through the grieving process. They may be able to offer you bereavement resources to take advantage of, extra time off, or temporary flexibility in your schedule.
Don’t be hard on yourself
This was a really hard thing I was dealing with for one of my patients. Without going into full detail, this patient’s death was very sudden and unexpected for the time that it happened. And it haunted me for days because I had just spent time with this patient not even 24 hours before their passing. While I know that I had absolutely no control over the passing, there were a lot of circumstances surrounding the situation that I had a lot of misplaced guilt with.
Even though there was a lot of compassion and validation among the company about knowing we as a team did nothing wrong, I just couldn’t help but so hard on myself about their passing. It wasn’t until I fleshed the whole experience and detoxed all my emotions that I was able to find peace with what had happened. And I know that this is not an easy thing to do, especially when the circumstances are very sticky.
But I want to reassure you that everyone has a clock that is slowly ticking away, and when their higher power tells them it is time to return home, their soul will do so. And that is something that we have no control over. It can be a very hard truth to accept and understand, but it’s the truth none the less. So, if there is absolutely anything that I hope you take away from this post, it’s knowing that no matter what tragic experience is leading you to face the reality of grief, know that it is not for not.
It’s not your fault or anybody’s fault, and if the tragic event was something that resulted in death, their higher power was ready for them to come home. Life happens, sometimes at an insurmountable speed, and no matter what the ultimate outcome is, we can only control what we can control.
And that is the trajectory of our life.