“For in grief nothing ‘stays put’. One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I’m on a spiral? But if a spiral, am I going up or down?”
C.S. Lewis
Wouldn’t it be great if we could go through the five stages of grief by just checking each one off, one after another?
Sorry to say that this isn’t going to happen. It’s not how grief works.
We often hear that “time heals all wounds.” Well-intentioned people tell us to look for closure when it comes to a death loss. However, it’s not that easy, is it?
Grief is not just a series of stages or tasks or timelines. There is no particular end point, when we can say our grief is “finished.”
Sometimes it feels like we’re going in a never-ending circle with our grief. But I like to think of grief as more like being on a spiraling path. It moves up and down…in and out…
Spirals often have a narrow end and a wide end. When we’re at the narrow end of a grief spiral, things feel like they’re closing in on us. At the wider end, we feel we have more room to breathe. Through it all, we keep moving.
On your grief journey, there will be times when you feel awful and things will be really difficult for you. Other times you will feel good and life will seem “easier” – it’s all part of the spiral.
Remember, wherever you are on your grief journey spiral, you are not alone. I am here to journey with you, to hold space with you.
You can reach me at 210-757-9428 during business hours, or you can email me.