Podcasts and Perspectives of Grief
Podcasts and Perspectives of Grief
On being allowed to feel when the whole world is feeling, too.
by Sara Kernan
The lonely feeling fills my chest, my lungs as I breathe in the air of my home. This weekend continues this season of makeshift masks and stay-at-home orders. The walls in my home, though safe and with everything I need, feel constricting, and seem to get smaller by the end of each week. Saturdays are no longer open for adventure and time together, they are just another notch in a countdown that none of us can find the end to.
But I am safe. I am healthy. There is so much to be thankful for. I feel guilt and shame pushing down the tightness in my throat that I feel, that tickle that threatens the tears are locked and ready to go.
But today’s itchy feeling of loneliness is hitting a little harder this week. Whenever I feel that way, I like to fill the silence. Usually in the form of podcasts.
I spend a lot of time alone so I consider myself a professional in this area. Between 2 cross-country moves in 9 month period, I know what it’s like to have limited in-person interactions. I just have never had to do it when everyone else is doing it, too. One thing all this alone time has taught me is podcasts are a strange comfort when the walls feel too close together. Something about being a fly on the wall to a conversation with people I have never met that makes me remember that I’m not alone even when I’m alone.
Today's podcast is from my friend, Brene Brown. I say friend not because we actually know each other but someone’s writing and speaking can’t change your life without you considering them a kindred. There is a community in words, a shared commitment between author and reader.
She’s sitting down with David Kessler, an expert on grief, to talk about “Grief and Finding Meaning.” I’m sitting down with a puzzle that I’ve done a thousand times but will make more challenging by doing all the sky pieces first.
They talk with the cadence of old friends. The conversation addresses the elephant in every room across the globe: COVID-19. We can’t not address it. Not when our grocery stores are now a point of stress and the pattern of our lifestyles has been altered. Quickly he makes statements that rock me back into focus. I open up the note on my phone that’s labeled “groceries” and jot down his comment.
But then I’m really stopped. Stopped to the point where I hit the 30-second rewind, brace myself to hear the words again, and sit in awe.
“The worse loss is always your loss.”
This sounds so counterintuitive because it's not the way a lot of us are trained to weigh grief. Instead, we make our grief less than when we compare it to others'.
Oh well, my mom didn’t die. At least I have a job. I should consider myself lucky, others have it harder.
There's a lot of grief being broadcasted in our country right now. There are a lot of feelings to feel. But that doesn't make your feelings, whatever they are, any less real.
We create this spectrum of grief and anything below a certain measurement isn’t worth processing, just meant to be stuffed down.
They continue by talking about how grief isn’t pie. Your grieving doesn’t leave less grief pie for everyone else, you don’t have that kind of power.
They continue by talking about how grief isn’t pie. Your grieving doesn’t leave less grief pie for everyone else, you don’t have that kind of power.
You can hold grief personally and have a perspective for others' at the same time. Your lament for your own loss doesn’t discount that yes, others may have it harder by how we view grief in a traditional sense, but the worse loss will always be yours because you’re the one feeling it.
Perspective and grief are not exclusive. Brene Brown continued, “when we practice empathy with ourselves and others, we create more empathy.”
Own your grief. And if you have a hard time permitting yourself, hear it from me and my puzzle and podcast reflection. What you’re going through? It matters.
Your loneliness in an empty house.
Your fear of going into your essential job.
Your frustration at the grocery store and facing empty aisles.
Your longing for community.
Your overwhelmed heart with all the kiddos at home.
Your canceled trips or celebration.
Your loss of work.
Your loss of community.
Your fear.
Your loss of routine.
Your adjustment from work-at-home.
Your restlessness.
All of it, any of it, anything beyond, it’s all yours. So let’s grieve together. I promise you’re allowed to.