“Everyone grieves in their own way.”

I see this statement a lot on social media and understand the sentiment. The problem, though, is I grieved by ingesting alcohol and drugs. I see other people grieving by eating while others grieve by binging Netflix. 

We weren't taught much about grief or how to deal with unresolved emotional pain from the past. Nobody sat us down and told us what to do. At best, we saw a bunch of adult role models bury their sad feelings, be strong, and keep busy. And that's what we emulate. Then, we search for distractions, too. 

The problem is that when we say everyone grieves in their own way, the advice stops. Then, you're left to figure it out by yourself. 

Society likes to lay out so many distractions, and there are new ones every day. We're grieving in our own way, and we're quickly picking up diversions, which are turning into behaviors and bad habits and killing us, frankly. 

But there's more you can do. If you are a grief group leader and want to help others, make sure you know what you're doing. I can't tell you how many people have come to our program after searching or sitting in other programs and telling me, "I just waited to figure out the plan, and they didn't have one for me. And then I looked, and I found you guys." But it doesn't have to be us; it can be someone or something else, but make sure someone has a plan for you. Don't let them say that time will heal.

Make sure someone has a plan to help you because we don't learn how to grieve in this society. Our modern society doesn't know how to do it. We have a lot of distractions, but we don't have many ways to teach people how to reflect inwardly and look at what's unfinished emotionally.

I can't tell you how many people I work with who are grieving. We can have pain, hurt, sadness, and unfinished emotional business around relationships and experiences. There's a ton of work that we can do. But when you just leave someone with everyone grieving in their own way, we're not doing the best we can for people. 

Contact us at the Grief Recovery Method Institute if you've realized that time is not healing your wounds. We can help.