3 Common Misconceptions About Grief That May Surprise You

A few years ago, I met with a prospective real estate who was ready to sell her home. The client was a single woman who had lived in her apartment for almost 15 years.

Although she had a great life and career, and plenty of friends, it sounded like her life hadn’t played out the way she imagined when she was younger. I heard something beneath the surface of her words, and took a chance to reflect it to her.

It sounds like you bought this home with the vision that you’d meet someone and get married, and that never happened. And it sounds like you’re ready to let go of that vision, grieve what never was, and move forward.

She responded as though I had seen right through her into the deepest chambers of her heart — a place even she hadn’t dared to look.

It created a profound awareness for her, and helped her acknowledge unclaimed grief so she could move forward in life.

Unclaimed Grief Can Keep You Stuck

In my 16 years as a real estate agent and coach, I’ve learned that unclaimed grief is often one of the biggest hidden obstacles that keep us stuck.

In the context of a real estate transaction, unrecognized grief is often at the heart of deals that fall apart or negotiations that get stalled.

When we are feeling stuck in taking action towards our goals, unclaimed grief is often lurking underneath the resistance.

When we don’t bring our grief to the surface, it can fester as anger, resentment, fear, and rigidity that keeps us stuck from moving forward in life.

Where there is anger, resentment, pain, or fear, you can bet that grief is lurking.

Unfortunately, we live in a culture where talking about grief is taboo, and where people don’t like to confront grief.

As a result, we harbor many misconceptions about grief. Here are 3 of the biggest ones.

3 Common Misconceptions About Grief

(1) Myth: Grief only arises when someone dies

Tell someone you’re feeling grief and you might receive the question “who died?”

It’s a common perception that we experience grief only in response to the death of another person, and that person must have been someone we knew personally.

Neither of these beliefs is true.

The death of a person close to us is perhaps the most obvious time we experience grief, but we don’t need to know a person who died to feel grief.

And, in fact, we can — and do — experience grief even if nobody dies.

Moments of grief are a part of every transition, both the big life transitions and the micro-transitions that pepper our daily experience.

It’s common — and normal — to feel grief in a range of situations both big and small.

• The end of the school year.
• The completion of a work project.
• The end of a relationship, even if you ended it.
• The completion of a coaching contract or course.
• The end of summer or any season of the year.
• Selling a home.
• Ending a job.
• Moving to a new location.
• Your favorite store closing.
• Graduating from school.
• Sending your child off to college.
• Around birthdays.
• At various stages of life.
• When you sustain an injury.
• Finishing a workout.
• Coming home at the end of the day.
• The moment between waking up and getting out of bed.
• As you get into bed at night before going to sleep.
• Leaving a social gathering.
• As your body changes.

(2) Myth: Grief arises only in sad moments

Many people mistakenly belief that grief is an emotion that arises only in connection with the loss of someone or something, or other “sad” events.

You might be surprised to feel grief in happy or joyful moments. But many joyful moments are also cause for grief.

• Reaching a milestone or a goal.
• Welcoming a new baby.
• Getting married.
• Buying a home.
• Starting a new job.

If you’re not prepared for it, grief can catch you off guard in these moments.

Grief and joy are part of the same experience. When there is one, we can be sure the other is there.

Achieving a goal or milestone is cause for celebration, but it also marks the end of a chapter. Once you’ve reached that goal, the mystery of what is next opens up.

Getting married, welcoming a new baby, or moving to a new home are all moments of joy, but they also mark the end of one phase of life in the way you knew it.

Every beginning is also an ending. And endings bring grief.

(3) Myth: Grief only arises when you lose something you had

Perhaps you expect to experience grief when you experience a loss of someone you loved, of a way of life, the completion of a goal, or something else that you “had” and “lost.”

Like my client in the story above, we can also experience grief for visions and dreams that never came to be.

We can also hold grief for parts of ourselves that we never fully experienced:

• the child who had to take on responsibility too young;
• the child who couldn’t be a child because the adults in their life had no capacity to handle them;
• the parts of ourselves we have shunted away or suppressed because they felt inconvenient or out of tune with society;
• the potential we once saw in ourselves that never manifested in the way we envisioned it;
• the roles we never got to take on because life circumstances played out differently than we might have expected or desired.

Sometimes we may feel grief for a role we never got to experience, even if we never wanted it.

The Importance of Claiming Your Grief

If you are navigating a transition in your life; if you are holding back on taking action; if you are in a cycle of physical or emotional pain; if you are experiencing burnout, laziness, malaise, apathy, or languishing, it’s likely that grief is waiting beneath the surface.

Grief doesn’t have to hold you hostage. The willingness to recognize it and claim it as such is the first step to getting unstuck and finding the joy in life.

The good news is that you don’t have to do it alone.

When we share our grief and allow others to hold it with us, we free up our capacity to breathe into the fullness of life.

As a coach for mid-life women, I specialize in helping my clients consciously work through grief so they can find their joy and fulfill their potential. Contact me to schedule a call and learn more about how I can help you.