Members Perspectives: Befriending Grief
Sixteen months ago I lost my mother to metastatic breast cancer. Everything changed. Margins dissolved. Rivers reversed course. Nothing made sense. In the year that followed, I oscillated between throwing myself into work with a manic fury and not having the energy to get out of bed. Both avoidance strategies. Both inadequate to sooth my pain. Avoiding grief is like trying to dodge your shadow. It can be done, but only if you stay out of the light. Whether I was shading the world by huddling beneath my covers or entranced by the glare of my computer screen, one thing remained the same—I had never felt so alone in my entire life. A tug of war was going on, both within and around me, between my own needs and an immense pressure to get on with my life—to get back to work, get back to socializing, get back to being the person I used to be. I yearned for validation of my experience from outside and sought permission to grieve on my own timeline, in my own way. Most of the time I had no clue what that would even look like.
Our culture told me to cope with my loss by curing grief. By letting it go like some self-revelatory song. While that may be a plausible solution after going through a breakup or not getting that series A funding you needed, “letting go” and “moving on” are neither realistic nor helpful solutions for dealing with life after loss. And, if that is our prevailing reaction to one another, we create a community where suffering is met with platitudes rather than compassion, with rational prescriptions rather than curiosity, with avoidance rather than acceptance.
Loss changes you. When we ignore this fact, the experience of grief becomes entangled with shame, and the burden of healing is placed entirely on the bereaved.
The strange thing about grief is that buried beneath the suffering there is something excruciatingly beautiful. Loss exhumes it, if you let it. Loss can awaken undiscovered strengths and cultivate profound compassion towards the suffering of others, a place where understanding triumphs over judgment. I’ll be the first to admit that gratitude is hard won in a situation like this, but the truth is that this experience has allowed me to uncover a courage and fortitude that I did not know I possessed. I do not know how this will change my future, but I have faith it will, and for the better. So how we can shift our collective response to grief—and to suffering in general—in order to better support each other and our communities? There’s no right answer to this question. But I believe we should endeavor to stop averting our eyes and pretending it’s not there. We must shed expectations about timelines or how to get grief “right” and instead emphasize an understanding that loss is painful, messy and unpredictable. Grief is not something we fix, but something we carry. If we can tolerate the discomfort of sitting with the pain long enough, we open ourselves up to the strength that can emerge from it, rather than being afraid to go back out into the light.
Daniela Tempesta, LCSW is a licensed psychotherapist in San Francisco specializing in working with millennials. She is also the CEO of Boncora Biscotti, a family business that she took over after her mother’s passing in an effort to keep her mother’s legacy alive.
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Resources
If you or someone you love is struggling with grief, here is a list of resources that may be helpful. This list is not in any way exhaustive but rather a starting point for exploring various ways of getting support.
People To Talk To: The Dinner Party Hospice by the Bay Mindfulness Care Center
Things To Read: Modern Loss The Rules Of Inheritance Grieving Mindfully When Things Fall Apart Wild
Creative Ways to Engage With Grief: Refuge in Grief - 30 Day Grief Writing Course
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Member Perspectives are real stories from the Battery Powered community inspired by program themes and events. The views expressed by the authors are their own, and not necessarily endorsed by Battery Powered. To share what’s on your mind, contact [email protected] with the subject line “Member Perspectives.”
For more information about Battery Powered’s Mental Health theme, visit: https://www.thebatterysf.com/batterypowered/givingtheme/mental-health