As a therapist and life coach, I help people through many different forms of loss. One of the most common that I see is “ambiguous loss,” or a loss that happens without closure or understanding such as a breakup, a move/huge transition, a miscarriage, or lost dreams. I also help people mourn the death of a loved one.
Grief can take many different forms and it looks different for different people, but today I hope to give you a strategy to help you work through grief – in all its forms.
There is no right way to grieve. Sometimes it results in an overwhelming sadness that is accompanied by loss of motivation, difficulty sleeping, or loss of appetite. It can also take the form of irritability, anger, or numbness.
Sometimes it feels scary to face the feelings accompanied with grief. There may be the fear that you will never stop feeling the pain, so it seems easier to ignore it. Choosing to not deal with the sadness, hurt, and anger that often accompanies grief, however, may leave you feeling lost, lonely, and overwhelmed. I often view the grieving experience as “waves”.
When you “ride the wave” by allowing yourself to feel and deal with your emotions, you will experience some relief from the pain faster than if you choose to “fight the wave.”
The stages of grief: denial, bargaining, anger, sadness, and acceptance are very true experiences for those who are grieving and are true for ambiguous loss as well. I used to believe that these stages were linear, but they certainly are not.
Typically, when you go through these stages it tends to be “out of order” in the sense that you can be angry and sad at the same time. Or maybe you feel acceptance one day but anger the next.
While these stages are a great reference point, it’s important to give yourself the space to feel your emotions without judgment. Everyone grieves differently and for different periods of time. If you’re working through grief in the aftermath of a loss, here are a few strategies that might be helpful to you:
In the long run, it is better to go through the grief than to suppress it, although in the moment it is much more difficult to allow yourself to feel it. By going through the grief, you will allow yourself to process in a way that allows you to heal. As difficult as this process is to experience, giving yourself the time and space to work through your emotions helps to alleviate your pain and allow you to feel like yourself again.
Wishing you grace through your healing.
Warmly,
Anastacia Sams, M.A., LMFT-C
Anastacia Sams, M.A., LMFT-C helps her clients create their very best life. She has a warm, compassionate, and gentle yet highly effective approach to personal growth work. She specializes in helping couples create healthy, happy partnerships, and assisting individuals to heal from past hurts in order to create fulfillment and joy.
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby is the founder and clinical director of Growing Self Counseling and Coaching. She’s the author of “Exaholics: Breaking Your Addiction to Your Ex Love,” and the host of The Love, Happiness & Success Podcast.
Until now you’ve been handling your divorce or break-up process well. You’ve gone through the confusion of whether to stay or go, and all the angst and hard decisions that come with leaving. But you’ve been coping.
Then you found out that your Ex is sleeping with someone new.
Now, waves of rage, pain, self-doubt, and resentment are crashing over you. “Coping” has been overwhelmed by a storm of emotion. It feels like your blood has been replaced with Arctic seawater: Frozen and stinging at the same time.
What’s worse? It. Is. All. You. Can. Think. About.
Are they on the motorcycle right now? He’s probably taking her to that restaurant I always wanted to go to that he said was too expensive. Are they holding hands right now? I bet they’re kissing. Maybe they are having sex right this very second. They probably skipped the motorcycle ride and decided to spend the day in bed. We used to do that…
In your mind’s eye you play out scenes from your life together. Except your role is being played by someone who might be sexier, more fun or more interesting. You see your Ex — the happy, sweet, fun one you first fell in love with — sharing the best parts of themselves (and hiding the rest).
It’s worst at night, when there are no distractions. The joy and passion you envision for them is made all the more cruel by the stark contrast to your own silent bed. You lay sleepless, writhing in agony at the injustice. You want to stop thinking about it but you can’t. You feel trapped… in your own head.
Believe it or not, the part of your brain that sees things in your mind’s eye cannot differentiate between something that you’re thinking about and something that is actually happening. So when you’re imagining your Ex and their new sex partner making out on the couch, you react to it emotionally (and physically) like you were seeing it happen right in front of you: Your heart starts racing, you feel nauseous, and you are filled with pain and rage.
Being victimized by these intrusive images is incredibly traumatizing. Ruminating does not bring any value to your healing process. Instead, it keeps you from moving forward.
In order to rescue yourself from the impotent madness of this obsession, you must learn and practice three new skills very deliberately, every day, until you’re in the clear: Self-Awareness, Mindfulness, and Shifting.
Self Awareness is the ability to think about what you’re thinking about, and the fact that you are having an internal experience—not an actual experience. It sounds simple, but it’s very easy to get swept away in our thoughts without even noticing what’s happening.
The practice:
As soon as you become aware that you are thinking about your Ex, say, (out loud, if necessary) “I am thinking about something that is not happening right now.”
Recognize that your vivid thoughts are activating all these scary, painful feelings, but in reality nothing bad is actually happening to you right now. You are sitting at a table, eating a bowl of cereal. You are breathing. Anchoring yourself to the reality of the present moment by using your senses creates a protective barrier between you and intrusive thoughts.
The practice:
Look: Notice what your phone / tablet / laptop looks like right now. Notice the colors, shapes, things you can see in the room around you.
Hear: What are you aware of hearing, right now? Yammering in a coffee shop. Music through your headphones. The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.
Feel: The chair under your butt. Your feet on the floor. The breath in your nostrils. The aching feeling of heartbreak in your core. Emotions are really just physical sensations. That’s why they are called feelings. Notice how your body feels, in the present moment, without judgment.
You’ve broken the obsession, and are in the safe space of reality. The third step to stop intrusive thoughts about your Ex is to intentionally shift your attention to something positive or pleasurable.
For example, you can shift to thinking about going to lunch with a friend this afternoon, or weekend plans. If shifting mentally is too hard you can also shift your attention to something that is happening in the present moment: Watching a movie, listening to music, or petting your dog.
Shifting is important because the thoughts we habitually think about get stronger. When you practice shifting, the intrusive thoughts about your Ex will get weaker.
You get stabbed in the brain with the image of your Ex having hot sex with the new person.
Shifting your awareness or distracting yourself does not mean that you are avoiding or stuffing your feelings. “Obsessing” is not the same thing as “Processing.” It’s mentally picking at a scab that you are not allowing to heal. You have to get unstuck from the obsession phase in order for healthy new growth to occur.
I hope that these techniques are helpful to you. I’d like to hear your thoughts about them. If you have other practices that you’ve used successfully, please share your strategies in the comments so that others who may be hurting can benefit from your wisdom.
— Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
Breakups and divorces are difficult any time of year, but most people find that the period between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day adds an extra layer of angst and anxiety to their breakup recovery process. Even if you’ve been making progress, encountering your first round of holidays alone can trigger a fresh round of grief, anger, and anxiety. Why?
1) You have painful old memories of (happy) holidays past.
2) You have to deal with potentially awkward social events, and difficult questions.
3) When everyone else is together, it highlights your loneliness.
On this edition of the Love, Happiness and Success Podcast I’m going to be giving you actionable advice to cope with all of it. You’ll learn how to take care of yourself, ways to manage your feelings, and most importantly — how to use this time to heal, grow, and move on to a brighter future.
Music Credits: “Dance This Mess Around” by the B-52s
Are you craving contact with your Ex, even though you know it's bad for you? Are you "stalking" your Ex through social media? Are you awake at night rehashing old memories? Are you feeling stuck in sadness, anger, or guilt, and wishing you could just let go, and move on?
Help is here.
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby is a breakup recovery expert, and she has helped countless people all over the world heal their broken hearts. Now her guidance is available to you through an affordable, online class.
Heal Your Broken Heart teaches you how to:
Decide If You Should Try Again • Release Your Emotional Attachment • Find Forgiveness • Repair Your Self Esteem • Stop Obsessing • Restore Your Inner Peace • Trust Again • Love After Loss
I have people get in touch with me with all kinds of relationship questions. “Jane” from New Zealand recently contacted me with a really common dilemma: How to proceed in an “ambivalent” marriage — one where there are both positive and also very difficult aspects? How do you know if there is hope? When is a relationship salvageable, and when has too much damage been done? How do you know if it’s time to get divorced, or if you can be happy together again?
Tough questions, and ones that many people wrestle with. There is a slew of new research out as to the prevalence of “mixed bag” relationships and the emotional and physical consequences they take, including this new article from the New York Times: The Ambivalent Marriage Takes a Toll On Health.
What makes “ambivalent marriages” so confusing is that relationships are constantly evolving. There is no “final destination” unless a couple divorces or someone dies. What might be true in one season of life doesn’t stay put forever. It changes.
In fact, couples do a dance of intimacy over decades: Coming together, then pulling apart, then rediscovering each other, then being preoccupied with other things, and then delighting in the new person their partner has grown into while they weren’t paying attention. During the hard times that all marriages weather, people can feel extremely ambivalent about their relationship, and wonder whether it will ever get better. But the space you’re in right now can always change. That hope for change can keep people hanging on for a long time.
[tweetthis]”Where there is life, there is hope.” — Cicero[/tweetthis]
I’ll share with you Jane’s question, and my answer, and we’ll plunge into the multi-faceted, messy, ever-evolving reality of relationships and the confusing paradoxes of attachment. As we do, I encourage you to think about your own situation, and the current opportunities (and challenges) in your marriage.
Here’s what Jane asked:
“What usually happens in a marriage when there are both reasons to divorce AND reasons to stay? How do people resolve their ambivalence about their marriage and decide whether to end a relationship or work on it? Here’s the situation…
A husband in his forties is not happy about his marriage, because:
However, there are also some reasons for saving the marriage:
Here’s my response to Jane, about my perspective of the possible strengths and challenges of this marriage.
Jane, this sounds like a very difficult situation that is causing a great deal of pain and unhappiness for both of the partners. I also know that this kind of situation doesn’t just explode into being overnight — it takes many years of hurt feelings, negative experiences, and resentment to get to this point. This is a great example of what can happen when a couple waits too long to get good marriage counseling. Sometimes the wounds and hurts pile up to the point where an attachment is broken beyond repair.
However, I’d caution you against using a “pros and cons” list to attempt to figure out what the most likely out come will (or should) be. Love is a mysterious and powerful thing, and what you’ve shared with me speaks to the possibility that there may be a profound attachment remaining between these two people. If they had the opportunity to explore that with each other in a safe place, all kinds of amazing things may still be possible for this couple. The warmth of empathy, compassion, and responsiveness can bring love back to life — particularly if it’s been disguised as hurt and anger.
They are still fighting. I know this sounds very odd to think of arguements as a positive thing, but when people are fighting it means that they are feeling hurt, and trying to get the other person to understand them. This means that they still care enough about each other to be hurt. Their (angry) attempts to communicate mean that they still want the other person to understand them.
People who are really, really done with a relationship simply disengage all together. They don’t get hurt, angry or offended. They don’t care enough about their partner one way or another to be hurt or perturbed by anything they say or do. They stopped expecting anything better a long time ago.
What I hear is that this couple still has a longing for connection, but perceives each other as being unavailable and emotionally unsafe. There is enormous opportunity for healing and growth for even the most tormented marriage when people can still open up to each other (and hear) how much pain they are feeling about their disconnection, loneliness, and longing for closeness and companionship.
The fact that the husband is suspicious of his wife (and resents the time she spends away) tells me that he really wants to feel loved by her, and have her attention. I wonder what could happen if he could share that longing with her in a vulnerable way? In a badly damaged marriage, people require a competent marriage counselor to be able to create and maintain the emotional safety necessary to do this productively. But amazing things happen when it does.
Having been the marriage counselor who creates safety for couples to have those kinds of new conversations, I’ve had the honor and privilege of witnessing the magic that can happen when people realize that they’ve BOTH been hurting, and wanting the same thing: Connection, emotional security, and love. It’s like they discover each other all over again. I’ve had sessions where all three of us were moved to tears by the beauty of two hurting people realizing they both need the same thing.
If I’ve learned anything as a marriage counselor, it’s this: Love is powerful, it can overcome seemingly enormous obstacles, and that you have no idea what’s possible, until you try.
In my opinion most troubling thing about this situation, and one that may signify that the marriage cannot be repaired, is that the “positives” are largely centered upon conveniences and efforts to protect themselves from other kinds of losses. (Financial losses, losing friends, risking the business, losing the security of the “housekeeper / provider” arrangement). Only at the very end does this vignette allude to the possibility that there may be some remnant of affection, or attachment that would be lost if they split.
When people don’t really care that much about the other person’s presence in their lives, but are instead focused on maintaining the lifestyle or conveniences that marriage affords, it implies that emotional detachment has already occurred. The partners are focused more on themselves rather than each other. People who are very self focused sometimes have difficulty doing the work of repairing a relationship, which is developing empathy and appreciation for the needs, rights and feelings of the other, cultivating emotional safety for your partner, and showing them that you love them.
However the fact that this couple has had positive experiences with each other in the past, still relies on each other for companionship, “might still like each other” and “can’t imagine life without the other” signifies that there may still be a powerful attachment bond making them feel cared for by aspects of their partnership.
The presence of an attachment bond would explain why they still care enough to feel hurt, or worry that the other is being unfaithful, or feel annoyed that the other spends too much time at work. This tips their hand — revealing their longing for love. They still want each other, they just don’t have any idea how to find each other again.
In my experience, even in couples who do divorce, I’d say that 90% of them don’t really want to end the marriage. They are just unhappy with the way their relationship is. They don’t want it to be over, they want it to be better better …but they have no idea how to fix it. So divorce seems like the only solution to an unsustainable situation.
What marriage counselors understand is that just because you don’t know how to fix it, doesn’t mean that it can’t be fixed. If there is still an attachment, if people are willing to be vulnerable with each other, and if there is a willingness to show the other person that you do still care about them there is always hope and opportunity. But many couples need help to see past the hurt, anger and blame, and reach for love instead.
The bottom line: I don’t know what is possible for this couple. But neither do they, currently. What I do know for sure is that this couple needs a good marriage counselor who can help them talk about their pain, and create new understanding between them. If they can connect with the part of themselves that still wants to love and be loved by this person, they may be able to achieve a whole new chapter of connection, affection, intimacy, and the deep, meaningful relationship that can only be EARNED by walking through the dark woods of disconnection… and finding each other on the other side again.
I know that this probably sounds like an infomercial for marriage counseling, but think of it instead that someone who cares about you is letting know know that there is always hope, that change is always possible, and there are people who can help you. If you want to take a chance on marriage counseling, make sure you work with someone who is competent to help you. Here’s a tutorial that can help you find the right marriage counselor for you: https://www.growingself.com/marriage-counseling-questions/how-to-choose-a-marriage-counselor/
Thank you for your question, and I wish you both the very best…
It’s a bit embarrassing for me to say this, as a marriage counselor, but I know a lot about how to help you recover after your breakup. In fact, I’ve worked with many people as they walked through the anguish of rejection and loss. I’ve walked alongside countless clients as they manage the anxiety, the depression and the obsessions that always come after a cherished relationship is severed. I’ve even written a book on the subject of how to recover after a breakup.
I know what you’re thinking: “She must be the WORST marriage counselor ever.”
The truth is that many, if not most relationships can be mended if both people are willing to try. But the fact is that if one person is simply done, the best marriage counselor in the world can’t put it back together. In these situations the best we can often do is provide comfort, support and guidance to the person who is left sitting on the therapy-couch, alone.
And that is exactly what I’ve done for many, many people over the years. Now, I’m something of an expert on the subject of how to recover from a breakup. On this episode of the Love, Happiness and Success Podcast I’ll be sharing with you what I’ve learned about why it’s so hard to get over your Ex, why most people feel like they are going crazy after their relationship ends, and simple things that you can do to help yourself recover from a breakup.
Because I have a book coming out on this subject in November called, “EXaholic: Breaking Your Addiction to Your EX Love” I’ll be discussing this topic over the next month or so. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter, “The Love, Happiness & Success Express” if you want to get a round-up of all the articles send to you.
Are you craving contact with your Ex, even though you know it's bad for you? Are you "stalking" your Ex through social media? Are you awake at night rehashing old memories? Are you feeling stuck in sadness, anger, or guilt, and wishing you could just let go, and move on?
Help is here.
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby is a breakup recovery expert, and she has helped countless people all over the world heal their broken hearts. Now her guidance is available to you through an affordable, online class.
Heal Your Broken Heart teaches you how to:
Decide If You Should Try Again • Release Your Emotional Attachment • Find Forgiveness • Repair Your Self Esteem • Stop Obsessing • Restore Your Inner Peace • Trust Again • Love After Loss
