Grief is lonely: here are five ways to find support
One of the most meaningful gifts I gave myself as a new griever was to sign up for a grief writing group at a now-closed literary arts center in my neighborhood. It was led by the late Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno, a poet acclaimed for a poetry collection written in response to the murder of her daughter, Leidy. The young nursing school graduate was strangled in her apartment by an ex-boyfriend, and Bonanno’s poems offered an unblinking portrait of grief and loss
I had no idea what to expect when I signed up for her classes. But as a writer and poetry lover, I felt drawn to the description, to a practice that would take me out of my head and onto the page. My dad had been dead less than a year, and it would be months before I started therapy. I had never unearthed my grief in a group before, but I would find that being with other grievers was the salve I didn’t know I needed.
Week after week, we showed up… to read and discuss essays and poems, to write and creatively engage our hearts in telling the stories of our loss. The writing was therapeutic but even more healing was the supportive presence we offered each other, a place to come and be witnessed — no judgment, no fixing — in all of our brokenhearted tenderness.
Here, I was no longer lonely in my grief.
Yet there is a unique loneliness to grief that is one of its searing, undeniable truths. The friends who drift away, uncomfortable with our pain or thinking we just need space; the absence, especially when a loved one has died, of the one person we would turn to for care and understanding; the isolation of being physically distanced from our support systems; our own unease or perceptions about sharing our heartache — these can all make grief a desolate, insular experience.
For many, that loneliness has been heightened even more during the pandemic, with limited in-person gatherings and the diminished capacity of those who typically serve as bulwarks to be there as they navigate their own challenges and crises.
Still, you deserve to be seen and validated in your grief, to find a haven where you can safely be with and give voice to your pain.
Here are some tips for coping with loneliness:
Acknowledge you are lonely: The temptation in our grief-averse culture is to push away the hard, the awkward, the ugly, to minimize our true feelings lest we risk making others uncomfortable. But the comfort of others is not your responsibility. Your grief is asking you to stand in its center, to own the ways it has upended, and maybe even razed, your life — and to speak from the rawness of your truth. You might be tempted to say you’re fine or doing OK when someone asks, but that’s a disservice to all you are carrying, to your own well-being. You might think talking about it will make it harder or more real, but not talking about it also can amplify your suffering. Acknowledge your loneliness as a normal part of your grief journey. And if someone asks, reach for a response that invites support and nurturing. Admit you could use some company. Share you’ve been feeling isolated. Let them know you’d love to find a time where you can be together, even if virtually, to share what’s on your heart.
Seek the support of other grievers: This might look like joining a grief support group, many of which have had to go virtual during the pandemic. But it could also be joining a yoga class, an art class, a workshop, a special gathering or any other event focused on grief and loss. You never know who you might connect with in that space, whose energy or story or listening can plant the seeds of a friendship you both need. Community grief spaces can also affirm that you are not alone in your experience, that, yes, there are actually people who understand, who may have gone through something similar, who will hold space for the stories you believe no one wants to hear.
Expand your awareness: Being in community doesn’t always mean being with other humans. But you can be supported and held in your grief wherever you feel peace, joy, calm, grounding, a sense of connection to something greater than yourself. That might be spending time in nature, listening to the trees, the rocks, water, wind. Noticing the sky. Feeling your feet rooted to the earth, attuned to the mycelium taking care of so much we cannot see, generating new life. You may feel held by or in the ocean, letting your tears fall to merge with the salt of the sea, remembering your own body as so much water, too. At any given moment, you can ask yourself who and what are you in communion with? Spirit, your guides, your ancestors, any of the elements of the living, breathing world? You may even wish to create an altar to deepen your connection to the ever-present support systems available beyond your human kin.
Begin a journaling or writing practice: In an On Being interview with Krista Tippett, the poet Naomi Shihab Nye said, “Very rarely to you hear people say they wrote things down and felt worse.” In the grief writing class I took after my dad died, I found writing not only a way to hold my thoughts and feelings but a kind of compassionate witnessing. There on the page, I could explore moments, memories, experiences as a means of release and revelation. I could bring to the surface parts of myself that wanted to be seen and bring my dad closer, too. Sometimes writing brought fresh insight and perspective, sometimes yearning. Sometimes it was the only place I could connect to what was true for me in the churning of my loss. Journaling, while still a solitary practice, is a way to be with ourselves outside the ordinary rhythm of our lives. A dropping into our interior world where we can honor and be faithful to our own grief process, while learning to connect with what we truly need and what matters most to us as we strive to find our footing in our new reality.
Try something new: This may seem counter-intuitive. Why carve out the time for a new hobby or interest, or why finally commit to doing the thing you’ve always wanted to when it takes so much just to make it through the day? Yet, if the energy and desire are there, taking up something new — a craft, a sport, a leisure activity, a class or volunteer project — can open you to the possibility that there is room for more than suffering inside your grief. It can give you something to look forward to that breaks the monotony of seclusion. You may meet new people this way (which can be daunting as you decide how much of your story you wish to share), but the greater benefit may be discovering parts of yourself you’d forgotten or abandoned — talents, reserves, skills, strengths you might not even have known you possessed that will serve as reminders: you are more than all this pain.
There will be times in your grief when you want to be alone. And that’s OK. But you also deserve to be companioned in your sorrow. To gift yourself nurturing moments of connection. To reach out and invite the warmth of the people and places that can hold you in all that hurts.