The Unspoken Side of Grief: What We Don't Say Out Loud

Summary:

In this episode of Growth from Grief, Susan Andersen, a grief guide and yoga teacher, explores the complex emotions associated with grief and loss. She emphasizes the importance of acknowledging unspoken thoughts and feelings, categorizing them into anger, relief, isolation, regret, and irrational fears. Susan shares her personal journey with grief, highlighting the significance of naming these feelings to facilitate healing. She offers practical strategies for coping, including journaling, speaking aloud, and creating rituals. The episode concludes with a message of validation and encouragement for listeners to embrace their emotions and seek support.

Takeaways

• It's normal to have unspoken thoughts during grief.
• Naming feelings can help in the healing process.
• Silence can lead to shame and internal struggles.
• Relief can coexist with grief, and it's okay to feel it.
• Isolation and envy are common feelings in grief.
• Regret and self-blame can resurface over time.
• Journaling is a powerful tool for expressing emotions.
• Creating rituals can aid in the release of difficult feelings.

Thank you for listening!   Visit www.sueandersenyoga.com for Yoga for Grief classes and additional resources.

Transcript

Susan Andersen (00:03.383)
Hello, I'm Sue Andersen, grief guide and yoga teacher dedicated to helping individuals navigate the challenging journey of loss. Welcome to Growth from Grief, where I aim to offer strategies to transition from the depths of grief to the path of healing. Whatever loss you are grappling with, here you'll discover support to ease both the physical and emotional burdens of grief. Together, let's embark on a journey towards strength, peace, and healing. I'm so glad you are here.

Susan Andersen (00:54.19)
Hi, welcome, Growth From Grief. I'm Sue Andersen. I want to welcome you here. You know, one of the things that happens in grief after loss is sometimes there are thoughts that we have that we don't say aloud because they're too heavy, too strange. Maybe you're ashamed for these thoughts that you're having.

But I want to assure you that if you've ever had any of these kinds of thoughts, you're not broken, you're not weird, you're just human.

Susan Andersen (01:53.292)
When we experience loss and grief, there's a lot of things that we don't want to say out loud. We are afraid of being judged. People won't understand why we're feeling like this. Pressure from people, friends, neighbors, relatives, people on the street, coworkers, people who say things like, stay strong, or even worse, know, move on.

Susan Andersen (02:41.589)
Sometimes other people or even the person grieving, this could be you, think that you're doing it wrong. You're grieving wrong because you have in your head or you've heard before or they've heard before about the linear stages of grief. You the five stages of grief Elizabeth Kubler-Ross talked about.

And here's a good reminder, there are no linear stages in grief. Grief is just all over the place. You know, it's not straight. It's a bunch of lines all scrunched together. It's scribbles. It's rolling hills. It's mountains. You know, all of those kind of images that are not straight. So if you're keeping silent because you think you won't be understood or people are just going to tell you to move on, then I'm going to encourage you here to have a little bit of a different mindset.

Susan Andersen (04:10.103)
First, let's talk a little bit about the categories of these unsaid thoughts and feelings. The first one, anger and resentment. Why did this happen to me? Why did this loved one die? Why did I lose my job? Why did this happen to my house, my dog? Why?

And not just questioning the why, but anger showing up. You might even be angry at the person who's gone.  So anger is one of those unsaid thoughts or feelings, especially if we're angry and want to blame another person, the person who died or some other person that other people might think, it's unfair to be angry.

Susan Andersen (05:28.83)
Talk about relief, relief.  I have not had this experience where you are caregiving for somebody with a long illness and then you feel relief, a little bit of relief when they're gone. 

! strained relationship. This I am familiar with.  Having a strained relationship and then having something happen to that person. You think, I don't have to deal with this anymore. And then you might immediately switch to, my God, this person is gone. This person is dead.

So in these kinds of situations, you might feel relief, but you might also feel guilt about being relieved.

So that's another example.

Susan Andersen (06:40.662)
This one I think a lot of people can relate to, isolation and envy. Seeing other people move on or other people that they're gone from your life, right? You are you know, the friends you thought that you had, maybe they've drifted away because of your situation.

Susan Andersen (07:16.83)
Other people are experiencing great milestones in their life and you don't have those anymore because of your loss, your situation. And so you may feel envious or you just might feel isolated because you can't celebrate. You don't want to celebrate. And so you don't go. Perhaps this friend or other people, or you just see people that are together, and that makes you feel more isolated.

Susan Andersen (07:58.316)
A fourth example, regret and self-blame. Boy, this is a big one. This is a big one and one that, you know, self-blame and guilt, you can get stuck in and whirl around in it. It can just continue and continue and continue. I know, I know that. You might think if only I had done this or, what if I had noticed the signs? What if I didn't walk away? What if I didn't? Or what if I did? Regret and self-blame.

And by the way, self-blame, that can go way back. So if I only did this thing when 10 years ago I had this thought, my gosh, you can keep going back and back and realizing or thinking that, if only I had acted this way 15 years ago, then this loss wouldn't have happened.

Susan Andersen (09:17.696)
Random or strange thoughts. Do you ever have any of those weird dreams? Intrusive images, that's very difficult. Intrusive images. Irrational fears. Irrational fears. It's hard to admit to others that you're having these kinds of thoughts.

So I just want to give you an example in my own life, especially after Ian died, I definitely felt a tremendous amount of guilt. Not necessarily guilt for recent, prior to his death, recent events, but what I should have done when he was this age or that age or why didn't I have this reaction or that reaction. 

My friends, that guilt and self-blame, wow, that has taken me a really long time and it still comes up. And I'll talk about that in a little bit, like what happens if these things resurface and you thought you were done with them. 

So why is it important to name these unspoken matters?

Susan Andersen (10:49.438)
If you stay silent, silence brings shame. You're internalizing all of these thoughts and feelings.  It's hard for you to heal if you're keeping all of these things inside. so speaking allows them to release. It brings more light into yourself. And remember that when we talk about unresolved emotions or thoughts that get stuck in our bodies, we can become physically sick. 

So as scary as it might be to talk about something, speaking about it is eventually gonna make us feel better and also maybe we don't feel alone because other person that we're sharing with or people, they can admit that they have these same thoughts too or similar thoughts.

Susan Andersen (11:58.248)
Here's another thing to think about when we keep these things inside, when we don't talk about them, the more we avoid these feelings, the more power they hold over us. We want to release, you want to release. You don't want to keep these things inside and avoid them. It's scary to let go, but once you let go, wow, it really feels good and you're releasing the power that these thoughts and feelings had over you. And you're opening yourself up to love, to compassion, a little bit of joy, all of those things.

Susan Andersen (12:52.617)
Talking about them or putting a name to these feelings or thoughts, it doesn't make them feel bigger or doesn't make them bigger. It just allows them to release, to move through us. It has a name. We can know how to deal with it. We can take some action and we can release it from ourselves.

Susan Andersen (13:19.855)
Also, another thing that's important is validation. To know that it's okay to have these contradictory feelings because this is part of the complexity of grief. Grief is not simple, it's not linear, it's not easy, it's not easy. But when we allow the release and we name these thoughts and feelings, that's when we're opening ourselves up.

So I want to just mention to you, again, from my own experience, I talked about the guilt that I had, right? The guilt, the regret, things I didn't do when my son was X age and I should have done this or I should have done that. That really had a hold on me for a long time. Now, for those of you who are listening that you're new to this podcast or to my website sueandersenyoga.com. I'll tell you briefly that my son died by suicide in 2012 and it's now September of 2025. So we're talking 13, almost 13 and a half years since he's been gone. 

And I will tell you that I've done a lot of work trying to release grief to open myself up, to let these thoughts and feelings out of my body. But about, I don't know, beginning of this year maybe, maybe about a year, I started having these feelings again about guilt and regret. And they were just running around my head. I couldn't get rid of them. So I went back to a counselor, a one-on-one counselor.

Susan Andersen (15:23.049)
And went in and talked about each of these things. And we started way back, right? Way back, even way back when I was little. So not just way back when, you know, Ian was a child, way back when I was a child and try to uncover like, why am I holding these? Why am I holding onto these things?  And to uncover that was such a relief. And it was not easy.

None of this is easy, but it's a relief. And so what I'm sharing with you is that we do the work, and I'll talk about practices that you can do, we do the work, we do as much as we can do at a particular time. And then things may resurface because we didn't resolve at all. And when they resurface, keep letting them out. Find the outlet that's going to work best for you. 

So let me talk a little bit about what those practices might be. Journaling is a great one. Journaling, just taking your notebook, writing down whatever you're thinking. Nobody has to look at this. Just write all of these things out. Let them come out of your head. Let them come out of your body. Write them all down. You can close the book. You can tear the paper out and tear it up. You can burn it. You can do whatever you want with it. Nobody needs to see it, but you've gotten these thoughts out of the pot, out of your body, out of your mind.

Susan Andersen (17:11.292)
Here's another one that I did. So I definitely did the journaling and just writing everything. I did keep most of these notebooks, but nobody's seen them. So speaking aloud in a private setting. So you're in your car, you're in your shower, you are out taking a walk, you're at the cemetery, you are wherever. You feel like you can unburden yourself speaking aloud and not be embarrassed by it. Nobody else is there, so you can just talk it out and let it go.

Susan Andersen (17:56.452)
Early on, it might be really helpful to work with a therapist one-on-one or in a group. I tried a grief group. I tried working with a therapist. I spoke to my pastor. So I had some conversations with trusted individuals and also in a group setting. And the group setting allows you to kind of validate things too, right? Because you come to realize that you're not the only one feeling this way.

Susan Andersen (18:41.576)
And lastly, creating a ritual. So I love creating a ritual. I like the experience of it. I like the tactile nature of it. So things that I like to do to get rid of these difficult feelings is writing something on a piece of paper and burning it in a safe place, obviously, writing on a rock, you know, or painting a rock and then throwing it in the water as an act of release.

Susan Andersen (19:27.076)
Also, yoga, movement. If you're really holding on to something that's really difficult, you know, anger, resentment, you could make the movements even stronger. So pounding into a pillow, boxing, even just, I think they call it shadow boxing where you're just using your hands and kind of pretending you're boxing. But those kind of movements... there's also a pose called wood chopper in yoga where you bring your feet a little bit wider than your hips. You bring your arms overhead making a fist and you take a big inhale and as you exhale you bend your knees and you forcefully bring your arms down and you shout. So you could shout, ha, or, you know, whatever you want to shout, but you're using your voice and you're using your body to help release this difficult emotion or thought.

So whatever your feeling or holding inside, remember this is part of your human experience and you are not wrong for feeling it.

Susan Andersen (21:04.444)
I encourage you this week to notice one unspoken thought. ust one. And instead of pushing it away, just gently acknowledge it.

As I close this episode, I want to leave you with this thought. May you feel less alone in your silence and may your truth find safe places to be spoken.

Susan Andersen (21:45.158)
So I'll just take a nice deep inhale.

Exhale with an open mouth.

Susan Andersen (21:56.392)
Take one hand to your heart and place the other on top of it. "My grief is valid. My feelings belong."

Thank you for listening to this episode of Growth from Grief. Find more resources on my website, sueandersenyoga.com.