Understanding how stress plays a sizable part in the Grief Process and ways to decrease it to make grieving easier.

At one time or another, we’ve all experienced periods of intense stress in our lives. Some of these stressors might include: food, housing and job insecurity, political unrest, family issues, enduring abusive relationships, trouble with or losing a relationship, being in poor health or losing a loved one through death.

Unlike short bouts of stress involving just one or two stressors, trying to survive a world pandemic is a huge sustained stressor that includes many of these factors at the same time. Think of the ramifications of all this. There is nothing greater than trying to survive so much of this at once. Although it doesn’t make it any easier, the insane amount of stress you may be feeling is being felt by many, worldwide.

Who knows when it will end? How many more will this pandemic claim to itself? When will the consequences of it play out? Will we find our way through this in one piece? So many questions up in the air with so few answers. So much doubt and fear. So many feelings of helplessness. So many subtle, and even outright threats of violence, too. You can feel the deep rumble of fear and uncertainty. With emotions high, it can feel like we are living in a powder keg on the verge of a spark. We are really living through something quite extraordinary… and something so very serious.

Our lives have been changed forevermore. With all this rapid change coming at us, with so much loss, many of us will need to work our way through some version of a grief process – just to get to the other side of this darkness. We may already feel the tremendous weight of this now, if not later. The intense stress we may experience, added to our loss, has the capacity to make things even worse. You see, grief and stress have a lot in common.

Just a reminder that the grief process has several identifiable steps, depending on which version you read. To make it easy, I will go with the most tried and true steps. They don’t always go in order and some of them are more prominent than others.

• shock, denial and disbelief
• bargaining, feelings of helplessness
• sadness and/or anxiousness
• anger and/or rage
• coming to terms with what’s so
• acceptance

If you find yourself in the Grief Process, you might be experiencing one or more of these steps. That’s perfectly normal. How long it takes to heal, depends on how long it takes to get through the steps of the process, without trying to resist going through them. There is no set time frame. Every person is different. But, almost every one of these steps in the grief process, except the last two, happens to come along with a great amount of stress. Hence, it is possible to add even more stress on top of the already existing stress that naturally comes with grieving a loss, or several of them at the same time. Not surprisingly, feeling these human emotions can be extremely stressful. It’s no wonder at all why people try to deny feeling them in the first place. But… the only way out is through. So, a word to the wise… go through with as little resistance as possible.

Just remember a few simple things that everyone already knows, but forgets to use, especially when stressed.

• Be kind to yourself and others. In times of crisis, it is common to see people either being their weakest self or their greatest self. The power comes with choosing which one you will be in any moment. Here’s a hint. Being your greatest self is more empowering and really makes a big difference in the world around you.
• Remember to breathe. You hear it all the time as some sort of cliche, but breathing really does regulate stress levels and is such an easy thing to do. Do it by breathing deeply and it will relax your brain and body. It will give some temporary relief… at least until the next time you breathe deeply.
• Look for ways to empower yourself. When it seems that things are going the wrong way, the human default is likely to feel victimized. However, no matter how bad it may be, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness are of no help. Instead of being on the defensive because something is happening to you, realize that it is happening to many of us. Be on the offensive and take control, wherever you can find ways to be helpful and move hope forward. It may be small, but you will not stay frozen and numb as you will be in motion.
• Move your body. Take a walk, run or bike ride. Exercising your body is a great stress and anxiety reliever. Walk in place if you can’t go outside.
• Feed your spirit. Meditate, pray or listen to/watch whatever will relax your brain and body. Make it something that will nurture, recharge and feed your spirit.
• Practice gratitude. Appreciating what you do have is so much more powerful than focusing on what is missing. Experiencing the “glass half full” rather than the “glass half empty” is always more empowering.
• Surrender to the process. The grief process is an amazing healing process that, if not resisted, has the ability to completely cleanse and mend. It is our brain’s natural process to follow so our brains can heal from the trauma and turmoil that has been inflicted. Not surrendering to what is in our best interest, which is our healing, creates even more stress than the stress that already exists. Surrendering to “what is” – IS NOT weak, it is smart, as we will get through our pain, way quicker, and… will heal much deeper.

In this world, there is no way to get around stressful situations, or the grief that contributes to them, as this is just a part of our human experience. As you go through your grief process, remember that – although painful, each of the steps can be very therapeutic, as going through many of these steps is so necessary for us to heal and be refreshed.

And remember, many people fall into a “stress trap.” If you didn’t get it the first time, a “stress trap” is when you keep adding stress on top of already existing stress. The simple exercises above can help greatly. You just have to do them.

There will be plenty of grief in the times ahead of us. We will not soon forget the pain and stress this pandemic has caused, but let’s do whatever we can to hold on, and however we can, get each other through this truly extraordinary challenging time. Hopefully, before to long, we will find ourselves out of this darkness and into the light of a new day.