When Grief On The Page Feels Too Real

In this episode, I discuss how a book  can be something we look forward to until it suddenly feels like a mirror. I sit down ready to gather grief resources and instead I’m stopped cold by a story that’s too close to home. With my brother-in-law’s death still fresh, the rawness on the page makes me close the cover and cry. And, I have to admit what so many of us think but rarely say out loud: I want support, not a wave that pulls me under.

Next I share how I trya second book, hoping for inspiration and motivation, and I run into the same wall. 

That becomes the turning point, not because reading is bad, but because grief is honest. We can learn from stories and still set boundaries with them. We can look for inspiration & help after loss without forcing ourselves to absorb more pain than we can carry today. And we can release the guilt and shame that tell us tears are something to hide.

From there, I share my own written reflections about the changes and reality of our life. It isn’t a perfectly controlled schedule or environment . It’s life. Messy. Real. Not perfect. Not planned. 

As the ground  of our life path shifts, we have the confidence that we will keep our existence, our balence amongst life’s reality.  That we will get up and keep going. It’s resting, working, crying, and laughing again. Letting joy and sorrow coexist in the same memory. 

I close with a gentle, practical grounding exercise: breathe, notice the sounds around you, see the colors in front of you, and remember you are not alone.

If you needed a quiet place to land today, press play. 

Subscribe, share with someone who’s grieving, and leave a review so more people can find this kind of grief support. 

And if feels okay to do so, leave me a message on what helps you breathe when life or grief feels unbearable?

With care, 

Frances, The Caring Death Doula

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Read Grief Books

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Hello and welcome for joining me today. I'm very grateful that you're here. If you listened to last Monday's episode, I shared with you how I was going to start reading books and then sharing with you about these books so that we have additional resources and other tools for our toolbox on how to move along in life, carrying our love differently in our grief, and learning how not to feel guilty and the shame and just you know all that we're trying to do in carrying this love, carrying this grief in our lives, learning that joy and sorrow can exist at the same moment from the same picture, from the same memory. And so I picked up the book because I love the title, it represents so much what I'm trying to get across in this uh podcast and in my work. The title is Never Apologize for Your Tears, and I just love it. And I was very excited to start reading it, and I'm hoping someday to meet the author. I'm not going to go into depth about the book and the author in this episode. I will do that in an in a future episode. I just wanted to share with you today my experience, and then I'm going to be reading some words, some thoughts that I had that I wrote down after I read this book and another book, or started, excuse me, started. Because I opened this book up and I was reading it and it was interesting. It was very interesting, very good. And then she came to the part where she shared how or the night that they are waiting for their son to come home. And she tells us how they found out that he was dead. And I don't know if she is a superior writer, or if it's because the grief from the death of my brother-in-law is so fresh still. But the rawness on those pages leaped out at me and hit me so hard that I had to close the book and cry. So I left that book for a few days, maybe even a week. And I told myself I needed to get back into reading these books for myself and for you because I want us to have other resources. And I decided well, I can't I can't pick up that book. I just can't. I just can't right now. So I picked up another book called The Story You Need to Tell. And it started out really good. And I was thinking, this is going to be very beneficial. I wasn't sure quite how I would use it in my work, if I would just recommend it or if I would, you know, I could see building it into something more about, you know, stories and writing it down. And and just I could just see, you know, my creative mind was going until we hit the page where she tells us her story. And she talks about other people's stories. And once again, I had to close the book. And I'll be honest with you, my first thought was good grief. What is what is going on? What is wrong with these books? Where's the positivity? Where's the inspiration, the good feelings, the motivation, the help? I don't want to be slammed. I don't know, that's not the right word, but I don't want to be hit by by these people's stories, because obviously they're good writers, because their grief came through very hard through the pages, and I don't want to be drowning in other people's grief. I wanted something different, I wanted something more. So I took the time to write some things down. And I just want to read to you. So this is going to be a little bit of a different episode. I just want to read to you what I wrote, and I hope it touches you in some way, encourages you, supports you. So here are some of my thoughts. It's life. Not a controlled life, not a planned life, but a true life. There isn't balance in the sense of having everything under control on the calendar in its own category or time block. It's the confidence of balance that as we move, climb up or down or over, that with the shifting under us, the change in texture, the thickness of our path, we still stand, we still take that next step, we still get up, figure it out, and continue on. Not move on, not get over it, not hide the struggles, hide the tears, but pausing, understanding, or perhaps not, of resting, of working, of playing, of sitting in silence, of being alone or with others. Each step is a masterpiece. Each step is life. We wave, we hide, we smile, we cry, we sweat, we feel cold, we sit, we move, we rest, we work. But through it all we live. We live with the change, the good and the not so good. We live with hope and pain, joy and sorrow, life and death, grief and heartache, and in it all we know we are alive, we are capable, and we are not. So I want you if if you are sitting here today full of fears or pain, if you if your grief is real and raw today, know that I'm holding space for you. And when you are ready we can talk we can live, we will laugh again, we will cry. But for today, just breathe. Feel your your chest expand and release that air. Hear the sounds around you, see the colors before you pause and breathe. It'll get better, it'll be worse. But you are not alone. No matter how you feel, you are loved. You matter to this place we call home. You belong in this world. Even if you don't feel that you do, you do grief is hard, life is hard. But it is also good. It changes you change. It changes you. Allow the change. Breathe in this moment. Breathe. I am the caring death, doula, and I am here for you.