Making Space for Grief in the Midst of Change
In the midst of my personal development journey, I’ve been reckoning with the real impact of change and what is required of me to make intentional changes in my life, despite a career in change work for the last decade or so. One aspect of change that I’ve been sitting with and talking to clients about is true change means the end of one thing and the start of something different. The change could look similar to what was before but it will still be different. Naturally, endings often come with feelings of grief and loss – sometimes these feelings are overwhelming like a tsunami, sometimes they’re subtle like a quiet rain -- even when I’m excited for the change. The pandemic has forced us all to change in some way, if not multiple, which makes me think about how many of us have been experiencing a tsunami of grief and loss for a few years – and in my opinion, we are not okay.
Why are we feeling grief?
Regardless of whether we are changing on purpose or forced through circumstance, change requires us to let go or stop one thing and start doing something else. The action of stopping or letting go is loss. Here are a few things I’ve lost that have been causing me grief in the midst of my own change
Certainty of what I am doing
The person I was when I knew what I was doing
Routines and practices that effectively met my needs
Peace of mind; manageable stress
Ease; Manageable responsibilities or lack of duty
Ignorance about my own areas of growth
Comfort of knowing my actions would lead to specific results and outcomes
I’m realizing that even changing one thing may require many smaller changes. For example, I desire to be more open to conflict; however, this means I have to become aware of when I’m in conflict, be able to discuss why, learn to manage my emotions, challenge or disregard negative thoughts about myself or others, monitor and prevent myself from becoming defensive, acknowledge when I am defensive, and actively listen to things that I disagree with. All of these changes feel overwhelming. Additionally, people who are already open to conflict struggle to empathize, or have patience or understanding of why I can’t do “this one thing” – this results in feeling isolated or alone in the midst of hard things and more feelings of loss.
What can we do about this?
Change and growth can be painful – I think we should take time to acknowledge this. I think we would feel connected, belonging amongst our peers and colleagues, and validation about our experience. As a former mental health practitioner, one of my favorite movies is Inside Out. This movie is about a young girl who suddenly moves from the Midwest to San Francisco, and the journey of how this change impacts her mind, which is run by emotions. In the movie, the characters attempt to conceal or suppress the feelings of sadness but this creates more chaos and poor decision making; however, once sadness was acknowledged, the characters could move on with openness, hope, reassurance, and more. I think we all could benefit from acknowledging the grief and loss that comes with intentional and unintentional changes. Another thing I notice in this movie is when sadness is acknowledged, which can be uncomfortable, others characters would connect and be more collaborative about how to move forward. Grief, and all of our other feelings, are energy that is meant to flow—when we block energy it piles up and it can implode or explode. We can begin acknowledging the loss that comes with change by making space to allow people to express how they feel or how the change feels so that we don’t lose momentum towards the changes we desire to make.
I am a social worker and I think about people, feelings, and behavior, so it’s easy for me to suggest talking about feelings. However, talking about how things and people feel might be a necessary change during this time in our lives. The types of changes and transformations we need today may require a level of connection at a human level that includes sharing and acknowledging how we feel. Afterall, feelings are a communication tool that guide us on how to behave and act, and I’m interested in being more responsive to our feelings than denying or avoiding them to enable inclusivity and innovation. If you or your organization are going through changes and want support getting through the hard and messy parts, reach out to me or my team – we’d love to help you make change happen.