What is #grief? #griefjourney #grieving #mentalhealth

Grief is not just one thing. Grief is not just I'm sad. It can be angry. It can be this very active sort of forceful, dynamic experience. It's not like a video game where you advance from one level to another to another, like, okay, I can check off denial and move forward to anger. It doesn't really work like that. It's much more parallel process of sadness with anger, with denial, with joy. And it's much more mixed in and, and sort of powerful and dynamic than maybe we would have acknowledged at an earlier time in the psychological conversation. I was trained as a trauma psychologist, so I've really thought a lot about these edge state loss experiences. I've worked with a lot of what I would call brokenhearted people over the years. But a few years ago I had of course, this sort of undesired invitation to do a deep dive into these experiences myself. All of us are going to lose our parents at some point. Many of us will lose siblings. This process of deep grief is universal.