Grief as an Invitation to Softness
“You’re a tough cookie.”
This is something I recall my mom saying often throughout my childhood … probably because I was tenderhearted and sensitive growing up.
I cried easily, embraced the sentiment in every situation, and disliked the tension that sometimes manifested in my friendships. I can recall beginning my journaling practice in second grade, with the pages of my journal filled with emotion-laden rants and declarations about what it meant to be a good friend. Ah, the memories!
So I’m sure my mom repeated this statement to me in an effort to toughen me up. Both she and my dad knew what it was like to work hard and simultaneously experience the pressures of being the sole Black face in a sea of white people. They’d had to toughen up in their own worlds and only desired the best for their children. I know my mom meant well over the years.
Nevertheless, I believed the mantra so much that when my mom died – just prior to my 38th birthday – I’d already rehearsed three decades of “being strong” and demonstrating what a “tough cookie” looked like. The day after my mom died, I accompanied my brother to the movies to watch the new James Bond film. Of course, some of what I felt was shock, but I also knew how important it was to exhibit strength and poise in the face of loss … even on day two of grieving.
Add this to a couple more years of grief avoidance after her death and you have quite a mess.
Though I finally made the decision to pursue therapy to help address all that accompanied grief, I felt stunned by my therapist’s recommendation to “relax into the pain” of loss. What did that even mean? I thought at the moment.
My friend, grief can harden you.
It can drive you to put up emotional walls in order to protect yourself. It can make you numb to joy, gratitude, and connection with others. It can dull everything, including how you see the world around you. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Grief also has the potential to break you open, make you softer and more gentle, and strip away what doesn't really matter. But you have to allow it to do so.
My hardened ways lingered throughout the first year following my mom’s death. But my body knew ‘going hard’ wasn’t the way. I knew something had to give from both a physical and spiritual perspective. I knew that I needed a change.
Friend, prior to my mom’s death, I thought strength meant holding it all together. But grief taught me that strength often looks like softness. For me, that looked like allowing myself to unravel.
I found myself curled up on the floor of a hotel room. I found myself – the version of me that cried, didn’t have everything all figured out, and allowed herself to be fully supported and comforted in the arms of others.
What might grief be teaching you?
What would it look like to find yourself – that softer version of you?
I challenge you to take a moment to reflect on these two questions and jot down your answers.
Now I’ll be the first one to say that I don’t believe our loved ones die to teach us divine lessons. However, I do believe that we can discover things about ourselves, others, and even God as we make our way through the grief process.
Grief has taught me that it’s OK to slow down, seek out support, and not have everything figured out. In my role as a licensed psychologist, it’s also taught me to sit with other’s pain in a much more empathic and compassionate way. I’m definitely not the same person I was in 2012, both personally and professionally. And for that, I am grateful.
What about you?
xo, Mekel
