Grieve The Little Losses

Make sure you’re taking time to grieve. Grieve loss.

All of us have lost something in the middle of this pandemic.

Whether it’s our routines, dreams, hopes, celebrations, anniversary plans, birthday plans, visits to see family, vacations, jobs, financial security, graduations, last goodbyes, health safety, play dates, child care support, peace etc.

There’s a very helpful tool counselors share with those that are processing stages of grief.

It’s to take 10min.

Take 10min in your day. 10min to grieve. Set a timer if you need to.

Close yourself in a closet, go for a drive, take a shower... just take those 10min and tell yourself...This is the grief time...and just see what emotions come up. What expressions come up. Let your body, mind, soul, just process. Just do whatever it needs. And then after those 10min you step back into life.

This exercise I thought was super weird when it was first suggested to me in the summer to help process years of unresolved grief from my Third Culture Kid (TCK) childhood. But I tried it. And it was really shocking how just giving myself those moments to feel whatever I want to feel and express it however I need to express it, really pulled up a ton of buried feelings. But over time these moments just didn’t pull forth the same emotion as they did initially as it processed through.

In these times we may not identify all of our loss as something that we need to grieve and somethings may really just be disappointment. But there’s a lot of things we may not realize are grief. And that’s ok. But it’s important to take time to process those emotions too. To feel them vs stuff them down and just keep going.

What is one thing you think you might be grieving the loss of right now? Has anyone else ever tried the take 10min to grieve tool?