Grief and Worthiness
I read something recently that said, “Let go of the idea that the only time you’re worthy of love is when you’re at your best. You’re still worthy of love when you’re at your lowest or even when you don’t love yourself.”
Worthiness has always been a main character in my life. Childhood wounds taught me that I wasn’t important, that my voice didn’t matter, and that I should sacrifice myself for the sake of others, always. As a highly-sensitive person, I often felt like I was too much - my deep sadness and empathy, my overwhelming anger, my excitement at silly things… they often caused raised eyebrows or were shushed by others in most situations. I suppressed both the joy that was too loud and the deep hurt, and overlooked the wrongs done to me simply for others’ well-being, comfort, and peace, giving away my own peace bit by bit.
In grief, as we know, we can sometimes become even more sensitive than usual and emotions can run even more intensely. When we’re activated by something, even something well-intentioned, we can react strongly to that trigger. We can snap at someone we love, we can collapse into despair on the floor, or be moved to tears by something seemingly insignificant. When we have an innate struggle with worthiness, those intense reactions can cause tremendous guilt and shame, especially when our loved ones are caught up in the tornado of our emotions. We then turn all those swirling emotions inward toward ourselves, beating up an already fragile heart in pain. It’s irrational and chaotic, to be sure, but what is consistently rational or stable in deep grief?
Four years out from my compound grief, I admit I’m still trying to understand the balance that must be struck in feeling and managing grief and still behaving respectfully to those around you. No one does it perfectly, and missteps will almost certainly be made and apologies required, but the thing to remember is that our accountability cannot be used as a straight jacket for our grief. The emotions will be intense and erratic sometimes - that is the nature of grief - and we must feel every aching second. In a grief journey, the only way through is through.
It becomes imperative to create safe spaces for yourself: a journal where you can write your most raw feelings and thoughts, a room or place you can go when you’re overwhelmed and need to be alone, a physical activity when your nervous system is overstimulated. That said, those safe spaces must go hand-in-hand with the understanding of their necessity by those around you. There is no room for judgement in how we choose to process our grief, especially when those tools are designed for the safety of the griever and everyone around them.
For those of you who are trying to help a griever in your life, patience, understanding, and compassion must be the atmosphere that surrounds the griever. This should be your mantra. Your capacity for these will be tested. Empathy is paramount.
And for the grievers - not everyone will have the capability to walk with us on our journey, but that does not mean that our needs are too much. When we’re at our lowest, when we can’t even love ourselves in the midst of our grief, we are still worthy of love, kindness, tenderness, and empathy.