Widowhood: Understanding The Journey And Healing

This talk reflects on the profound loss of a partner or spouse to death. It normalizes the experience of needing to 'feel to heal' and reminds us that we are wired for resilience. Specific journal prompts guide you on the powerful practice of journaling, a tool that facilitates healing on the grief journey.

Transcript

Hello, My name is Ashley Davis Bush. I'm a clinical social worker. I have been working with grievers for over 35 years, Which has been quite an honor and a privilege. I'm also the author of quite a few self-help books, Three of which are specifically for bereavement. And today we're going to be talking about widowhood, Losing your partner or your spouse, Which is a very important topic and of course affects millions of people. So before we begin, Let us get settled. I'm going to ring a bell and then I'm going to talk a little bit about the nature of being a widow. And then I'm going to offer you some journaling practices to use for healing, To help move emotion through you. So let us begin with our bell practice. I invite you to settle into this moment, To close your eyes if that feels comfortable, And to come to center, To let yourself be here now, Open to whatever needs to arise. May we go on this journey together. When you lose your partner, It is a huge devastation to your life, To your heart, To your being, To your soul. It may feel as if half of you has been ripped out of your body. And you are likely going to wonder, How will I survive this? As I said, I have worked with grievers for 35 years and I have heard a very common theme, Which is, After losing a partner, How will I survive? That is a key question. Amazingly, People do survive, Even when they think they cannot. But when you lose a partner, You lose the person you trusted, The person you did finances with, The person who may have been your very best friend, The person whom you had children and grandchildren with, Perhaps, The person who you went out to dinner with, And socialized with, And went to dinner parties with, And had fun with, And shared your life with. Now several things will impact your grief journey, One of which is the manner of death. Was it sudden and unexpected? Was it traumatic? Was it a long illness? With a long illness, I will say that often people feel guilty for feeling relieved when their loved one dies. And yet, Relief is extremely normal. You're relieved for their part, Because they are out of their suffering, They're out of their illness, They're out of dragging it on, If you will, And probably suffering. And you're probably also relieved for yourself, So that you don't have to be the caretaker, And the vigil sitter, And the person who is so worried day and night as a caregiver. So it is very common to feel relief after a long illness, Just as it's very common to feel shock that has a hard time resolving if this death was traumatic, Unexpected, And or out of the life cycle. Meaning someone who dies in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, Maybe even 60s. Of course we never want to let go of our partner, But it is more common once you're in your 70s, 80s, 90s. The other thing that is a factor is the length of the relationship. Were you partners for one year, Five years, Ten years, 20 years, 30 years, 50 years? And not that longer makes it harder, Shorter makes it easier, Shorter makes it harder, Longer makes it easier. It just is something to notice, Because every person has their own relationship. And that's the third factor that can really impact your grief journey. What was your relationship like? Were you deeply in love, Madly, Truly in love, Sweethearts for life, Which is rare and special and a great blessing? Were you bickering kinds of, You know, Spouses? Were you sort of the quote-unquote old married couple who complain and bicker and criticize each other, And yet there's a deep, Deep love underneath it? Or were you actually in a situation where you felt distant from your partner? All of these are possible. All of these are part of human nature. So these factors just are part of your journey. They make it unique. One of the factors about grief is that it comes in waves. It will come in waves intensely in the first year. And in fact, People often don't realize that a few months is not long enough to complete the grief journey. You will still be tearful. You will still be triggered. You will still be feeling so many waves of sadness that almost are like tsunamis that just knock you to the ground. That is all very normal. Even wishing that you could die to be with your loved one is a normal response. Now when I say that, I also mean that you don't have a plan to execute to exit your body, But just the desire to be with them is very, Very normal. And again, The question of how will I go on? People are resilient and they do find ways to go on, But you have to feel the pain. You have to grieve. You have to let yourself feel every feeling from anger, From blame, From guilt, Depression, Anxiety, Sorrow, Despair. All of it is important and necessary. Let me also say the caveat that even though people quote-unquote move on, They do so by bringing their loved one with them. Because your loved one is forever in your heart. And the love is stronger than death. And in a free practice about continuing bonds, I will talk more about that phenomenon. For right now, I am talking about how to move some of the emotion. How to feel in order to heal. How to have pain with a purpose. And the purpose is to heal. The good news is that your psyche is wired to be resilient and knows how to do this. You just have to give it some support. And part of that support is patience. Part of that support is not judging your emotional tenor and your emotional world. And part of that is being around other people who understand and can support your journey. That they don't try to talk you out of your pain or tell you, You're doing so well. You're so strong. You're fine. The problem is they don't want to talk. They can't, In fact, Tolerate your pain because it's painful for them. I am giving you permission to feel the pain. Again, You have to feel in order to heal. So one of my favorite practices for helping emotions metabolize and move along is journaling. I myself have been a journaler my whole life since I was 8 years old. And I journal to move emotion, To process feelings, To reflect on my life, To chronicle my journey. And that is part of what you can do with a journaling practice. So I want to give you a few prompts that might help you going. One would be that they say, Especially in the Buddhist world, That grief is a teacher. So here's the prompt. What is grief teaching me about life? What is grief teaching me about death? What is grief teaching me about myself? What is grief teaching me about love? You could reverse those prompts by, What am I learning about life as a result of my grief? What am I learning about death as a result of my grief? What am I learning about myself as a result of my grief? And what am I learning about love as a result of my grief? Another different line of journal inquiry is, What would my partner think about how I'm grieving? Just reflect on that. Would they be impressed? Would they be saddened? Would they be shocked? Would they be supportive? What would your partner tell you about your grief journey? Another prompt is, Who do I want to be with my grief? Or how do I want to be with my grief? This is important to reflect upon because you do have some say in that. And one phenomenon I often hear is that a griever I'm working with might say, What choice do I have with regards to continuing to live? And I will often say, You don't have a choice that your partner died, But you actually have a lot of choice about how you grieve. And when I say that, I mean you can resist it. You can stay in bed all day, Which might be appropriate in the first few weeks. You can withdraw from people. You can alternately engage with people, Get out of bed, Decide to make meaning, Choose to feel your pain, Choose to sometimes push yourself to go out and socialize. So you actually have quite a bit of impact on how you want to be grieving and how you want to do your journey. And I would also say that self-compassion is a big part of that, So that you can ride the waves of grief. You can say, Okay, It's a hard day today. I'm going to lay low, Or I'm feeling more energetic today. I'm going to make a phone call to someone I haven't talked to in a while. So it's part of flowing with the waves of grief and also deciding how you want to be with your grief and who you want to be with your grief. And the last journal prompt that I'd like to share, I call it the magic wand question. And the idea or the question is that I can take your grief away from you if you want, But the catch is you never would have known your loved one. So the magic wand question or the journal prompt is, Would you accept that deal? Would you accept the deal that your pain is erased completely 100%, But the catch is that you never loved them, Never met them, Never knew them, Never shared your life, Never had all the years you had together. Would you take that deal? As you can imagine, Most people say no. They would not accept that deal and that the pain is the price for the great love and the great partnership and the great life that you enjoyed. So that journal question hopefully can start the the hinge towards gratitude because eventually the pain, The sorrow, The tapestry of emotions starts to give way to other emotions such as a deep and profound gratitude, A compassion towards yourself and all grievers, A dialing into love that fills your heart, And a sense of purpose that you had the life you were meant to have and you're grateful for it and you're going to carry that love forward. But until you get there, You have to work through all the feelings. They're all important. They all must be honored and acknowledged and expressed and felt. So the last piece to journaling without any specific prompts is write about your feelings. Write what you feel. Write what's coming up. Write about what's on top. Write about fears, Concerns, What's on your heart. Just let it rip on the page whether you're typing it or handwriting it. And in a few months time, You might want to read part of that and say, Oh my goodness, Look what I was feeling in March, But here it is June and I feel differently. Emotions are like a river. They have to flow. They move. They come. They go. They ebb. They flow. So let it flow. Try these journal prompts and be very kind to yourself. And I wish you much peace along your journey.