Grief

Grief is everywhere! Our experience with COVID 19 has and continues to bring us grief. In my business coaching practice and in my own life grief is at the forefront. Grief is the loss of normal. Grief is the death of something. In the businesses I collaborate as well as many others I know all of us are dealing with grief. What was normal, the way we did things is gone. And when there is a loss of normal it is replaced by fear. We are grieving because we are fearful about the future. In the United States we are grieving as a society because we miss each other. With COVID 19 we are hearing grief in almost all aspects of our society. Why? We are collectively dealing with the loss of the world we knew. And when each of us is grieving it is harder to connect. Why? We have to become vulnerable to the situation that is causing someone else to grieve and reconcile it with our vulnerability in our situation. When we feel vulnerable, we don’t want to connect. Yet, shared vulnerability is the way to connect. It is the way we can collectively come together and grieve about the loss of the world we knew. Grief is definitely the loss of normal. And the worst loss is yours. When we are focused on ourselves it makes it even harder to connect with others. We are driven because we are social beings to come together. COVID 19 is causing us to be and stay apart. In the businesses I work withi The Woodlands and Houston we are emphasizing the need to share vulnerability. And the results have been very positive. It gives employees a sense of belonging that they had lost as many of them now have to work remotely. But it has also been very challenging. Very often when two people are grieving, albeit differently, it is like two empty tanks trying to fill each other. And then there is another component to grief that can disintegrate relationships. It is judgement. Before I get into this, let me say that judgement is fine. We, you, and I just need to be aware of how judgement works. Interestingly, in the area of grief, judgement demands punishment. When we are grieving, we can punish ourselves with guilt and shame. We can talk about what we might have been able to do to prevent the situation we are grieving about. Or we can blame and punish others. Or we can do both. This separation easily happens when we are not vulnerable. If we are not willing to let others witness our grief and if they are not willing to let us witness theirs, then our judgements can become skewed, leading to separation. In grief, the worst loss is yours. But you must be able to look at the other person’s grief through their prism, which is being vulnerable on your part, in order to connect with them. When you do that, you can make things better for both of you as you move through the crisis, which in this case is COVID 19, together. Read more