All year, you’ve been looking forward to celebrating your son’s graduation…until it was canceled. There’s no doubt life has shifted in unprecedented ways. The uncertainty we’re all feeling is more than destabilizing—it’s causing us to mourn. And while we recognize the need to grieve profound loss, it’s harder to understand the overwhelming emotions surrounding other setbacks, such as lost income, missed family reunions and canceled celebrations.
Grief has a spectrum, but all personal losses are important. “Just like when we eat and release what the body doesn’t need, we also have to ‘digest’ our losses as a way to decide what pain to let go of,” says trauma specialist Arielle Schwartz, Ph.D. But if we believe grief is only warranted for life-and-death matters, we might dismiss or undervalue those feelings.
That’s where…
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First for Women (Digital) - 1 Issue, August 17, 2020