Moving Forward Without Moving On: Learning to Coexist with Grief

One of the greatest fears after loss is that healing means leaving our loved one behind.  It doesn't.  In this podcast, Marilyn Burns shares how it's possible to move forward while continuing to carry love, memories and meangful connections with those who remain forever part of our lives.

How do we move forward after losing someone we love without feeling like we're leaving them behind?

In this episode of Hope After Loss, Marilyn Burns, M.S., L.P.C.C., explores one of the most common fears grieving people face: the belief that healing means forgetting.

The truth is, grief isn't something we "get over." Instead, we learn how to carry our loss alongside our love, memories, and hopes for the future.

Marilyn shares insights from both her personal journey as a bereaved mother and her decades of experience as a mental health counselor. Together, we'll discuss how grief changes over time, why joy and sorrow can exist together, and how finding a "new normal" doesn't mean letting go of the people we miss.

If you've ever felt guilty for laughing again, making plans, or rediscovering happiness after loss, this episode is for you.

You don't have to choose between honoring your loved one and living your life fully—you can do both.

I'd love to hear from you.

What has helped you move forward while keeping your loved one's memory alive?

Share your thoughts, questions, or experiences at hopeafterlosspodcast@gmail.com.

You may hear your question featured in a future episode.

 If this episode touched your heart, please subscribe, follow, rate, and review Hope After Loss. Sharing this podcast with someone who is grieving can be a powerful act of kindness. 

Thank you for listening to Hope After Loss: Conversations on Grief.

If this episode spoke to you, please consider sharing it with someone who may need support and hope today.

This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health treatment. 

If you have a question or a topic that you would like me to gently explore,
 you’re welcome to email me at [your email].

While I’m not able to provide individual counseling through email,
I would be honored to hold your question and possibly share it in a future podcast, so others may feel less alone.

Thank you for allowing me to walk beside you.  Until next time, be gentle with yourself.  Learning to walk with this pain begins one day at a time, one choice at a time to love yourself. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning. It's a beautiful Sunday morning here in Ohio. And today I'm moving into episode eight, moving forward without moving on, learning to live alongside grief. You know, healing doesn't mean forgetting. It means learning how to carry love, memories, and loss with you as you continue to live a meaningful life. And hopefully that is something that you look forward to again after losing someone that you love so dearly. Welcome back to Hope After Loss. And I'm Marilyn Burns, MSLPCC. If you've ever worried that healing means leaving your loved one behind, you're not alone. Many grieving people tell me I don't want to move on because it feels like I'm abandoning them. They're afraid that their loved ones will think that they don't care about them anymore, that life wasn't important when they were on the earth. And you know, that's a belief system. And the good news about that is you came up with it. And the other good news about it is that when you're ready to stop thinking like that, you can. And that's when things will, I can tell you guaranteed, will start to change for you. Today I'd like to offer a gentler perspective. What if healing isn't about moving on at all? What if it's about learning to move forward while carrying the love, the memories, and the connection you still have with the person you've lost? So let's talk about that for a little bit this morning. Grief isn't something we complete, and that's the thing to remember. It's not a beginning, middle, and an end to an experience. It really isn't. It is something that we learn to walk with and live with. And the sooner that we embrace it as a real part of a fact that we've loved that deeply. We've connected that deeply, that we feel such an emptiness when someone has to say goodbye. So that says something about us that we are able to connect. There is no timeline for this healing process, for this walking gracefully with something that is so troubling on all levels. I call it like when I'm talking to my clients about it, I say it's like walking with a pebble in your shoe. Some people laugh at me and say, no, it's it's more like a boulder for me. Well, and I I get that. In the beginning, it it certainly feels like it's walking with crutches and you're you're stumbling and you're and you're falling and you're trying to get up, and sometimes you don't want to get up, but you realize you have to. And you know, we have to be careful about what society expects from us because returning to who we once were, I don't know. I mean, yeah, that's gonna be a little difficult when you look at it that way, because you're gonna have to establish who you are now, and you're gonna have to learn to embrace that person. And who you are now is someone who's building up a lot of perseverance and a lot of courage and a lot of strength and a lot of determination. And these are all very important qualities and characteristics that you're fine-tuning on a day-to-day basis, whether you realize it or not. And so it's not for society to tell us like how long this is supposed to take, but our will to choose is playing a huge role in this. We have to realize that we are 100% responsible for learning how to comfort ourselves, learning how to support ourselves once we lose someone significant. And this loss that we're experiencing, it does change us, and that's okay. It has to be okay with us because it's a consequence of what has happened, it's a reminder that we are able to love, that we have gone deep with someone or something, and that describes us, and it describes us in a loving way. So, you know, you might want to take a minute here and just think about what expectations have you felt from others about how you feel you're supposed to grieve, because this is tied into your belief system. And when I say that you're responsible for comforting yourself and loving yourself, if these beliefs that you have are painful and they're not helping you to stabilize or to feel stronger, then I mean, why hang on to them? You created it, you get to throw it out whenever you feel like it. And when you're ready to take better care of yourself, I think you'll realize that you're gonna have to be a little kinder and a little more loving than perhaps you have been. And that gives you some hope and something to look forward to. Because when we are ready, we start to realize that, huh, I've had a pretty decent day, and guess what? I've still lost my dog, or you know, my father just died. In my case, I had a funeral for my best friend on Monday. And, you know, these are things that really can open our eyes and our heart to the fact that we're doing something, we're walking and living with grief without knowing how to do this, without having a script. You know, everyone's asking, well, what books should I read, or what should I do, or what, you know, well, I mean, you're gonna figure it out whether you read something or not, because it's happening, it's happening in the moment, whether you know how to do it or you don't. It is still a part of what's going on every day. So we have to look at things like how our sense of identity changes after loss. In my case, I was a mother of two children, and I lost my one son, Christopher, as you know, in 2007. I was a mother of three fur babies, and I lost two of them so far, and it changes like who you are and what makes it easy to define yourself. Oh, I have two children. Oh, I have three dogs. Well, you know, we have to be willing to open our mind and our hearts to now what. And so, you know, when I grasp for, well, where's the now what? I always look at it might be easier to define who you are now since you've been trying to do this, and you are stronger, and you really are amazing. You got up and you cleaned the house, or you went to work today, and you actually concentrated, or you went to the grocery store, and when you got in there, you remembered what it was you went in there for. I mean, these are things that we can't minimize or even take for granted, because I've said it in my past episodes, you know, you've got to remember your brain's scrambled up here. You know, it's different than what it was before you had to go through this. So if you're having a good day, that means you've really come a long way with this. But that doesn't mean you're gonna have a good day tomorrow. Okay, it just means that you better have a deeper appreciation for progress and celebrating progress when you recognize it because it might not show up tomorrow, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen yesterday. So, you know, when we look at why some of these old routines no longer fit, because our definition of self might be starting to change. And so if we change gracefully and respectfully with it, it's gonna be a little easier on everyone. Discovering who you are now doesn't mean that there is something that we need to cry over every day, it also can mean that there is something that we need to recognize has changed us and has strengthened us and has helped us to really build a more solid, profound definition of who we are. And we do have to give ourselves permission to evolve, and we can't take into consideration if someone across the table thinks it's taken us too long. Remember you're fully responsible for comforting yourself and for helping yourself to open your heart to love again. It's our job. And so when we look at what kind of a thought is holding us back from that or what kind of a belief system is getting in the way of that, be willing to reconsider that. Again, remember, I'll repeat this so often because it's so important. Remember that you are responsible for supporting yourself and loving yourself and helping yourself to walk gracefully with this. So watch your conclusions and the way in which you accept someone's looks or words. These are all the adult decisions that we have to make that will help us to be that person, that new normal person that we are. I used to think back on, you know, after my son died, it was so hard to laugh. So I would fake it, you know, I'd fake a laugh. And you know, it actually would sometimes just give me a sore throat because I I wasn't comfortably laughing. And then, you know, I remember a time when I really did laugh. I laughed, I belly laughed, and and I ended up crying because I thought I would never do that again. And then I realized, you know, I belly laughed, and my son is still not here. Like this week, it was hard for me to listen to some of the music that I shared with my best friend, and I realized when I was able to sing the words to some of the songs that we enjoyed listening to, that I did it. And my best friend is not going to suddenly appear, but I was able to still enjoy a song that we used to both love to sing to. And so that doesn't mean that I forgot her or I forgot that I had a son, it doesn't mean that at all. And I don't have to be afraid of ever thinking that these two or all the others that have passed in my life are going to believe that I forgot them. That is not a loving belief system. That doesn't help me to be in the moment and feel what I'm really feeling. It creates a lot of guilt and a lot of shame. And I'm telling you, we can't hang on to these things. They are not good for us to do. It's up to us to let go of these things that are in our way. And it's some of these beliefs and some of these thoughts are definitely in our way. One thing I've learned is that grief and joy can coexist. And I love it when I'm aware that I've had a great day. And guess what? My son's not coming back, and guess what? My best friend's not going to suddenly call me. It's a wonderful feeling to know that you've reached that point. So it's something to celebrate, not to feel bad about. And experiencing moments of happiness doesn't mean you've stopped loving a person that you've lost. In fact, allowing yourself to feel joy can be one of the most beautiful ways to honor them. My son was a prankster, he loved to laugh. And I made a promise to him that I would try to see the humor in the moment. Because when I can and when I do, I know I'm honoring him. Love doesn't disappear because you smile again. I mean, that's ridiculous. Your grief doesn't diminish at all because you've had a good day. Both things are existing together. So it's good to just realize that and be willing to accept it. So let's take a look at this in a different way if you will open your mind and your heart to it and hold space for change. Okay? Finding meaning and purpose after loss is our responsibility. Allowing ourselves to be nurtured and supported and loved, that's our job. And you know, we're not saying goodbye to anyone, we're saying hello to what we are naturally experiencing in the moment instead of denying it. So thank you for spending this time with me today. Remember, okay, please remember that moving forward doesn't mean leaving your loved one behind. You're not ever going to do that. They're in your heart, they've had real experiences with you. They happened in your lifetime. And so you're not leaving them behind. You're walking through life with them, with their love, their lessons that they've left you, and the impact they had on your life became a part of who you are. You don't have to choose between remembering them and living fully. You can do both. And guess what? You're doing both. So if you'd like to share your story with me, ask a question, or suggest a topic for future episodes, I'd love to hear from you. And you can email me at HopeAfter Loss Podcast at gmail.com. I might not get back to you as quickly as you send a message to me, but that doesn't mean I won't get to it. Until next time, I want you to please be gentle with yourself and remember, even in the midst of loss, hope remains. And when we're talking about loving, let's start loving ourselves today. Thanks and enjoy your Sunday. Looks like it's gonna be beautiful here in Ohio.