Divorce Grief: What Is It and What Can You Do About It?

November 13, 2017 Carrie Doubts

Divorce is one of the most deeply painful experiences you can go through in your life. This is true if you were the one left behind or if you decided to end the marriage. Even if the end was a long time coming, and somewhat inevitable, what often surprises people is how heartbroken they feel when the end actually comes.

Divorce is a death – the death of your marriage and all the hopes and dreams you had of “happily ever after.” With the death of your marriage comes a whole host of secondary losses. Grief comes knocking at your door, insisting to be let in whether you want to or not.

Can You Really Die of a Broken Heart?

March 14, 2017 Carrie Doubts

I’m writing this at the end of 2016, which carried the sad news of the death of Carrie Fisher. She left us all too soon at the age of 60 – and what was tragically to follow a few days later was the death of her mother, Debbie Reynolds.

This led me to ponder the question, “Can you really die of a broken heart?” It certainly seems to be so given these events.

Grief...It's Complicated Sometimes

March 31, 2016 Carrie Doubts

We all like to be reassured that we are normal when we are going through something for the first time. Like that rash is a normal response to your eating something you are allergic to. Good to know.

When you are going through a time of grieving, it can be so helpful to know what physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral experiences are considered normal. Grief counselors do a lot of work in “normalizing” the experiences of someone in deep grief. You relax when you hear the words, “It’s perfectly understandable that you are feeling/thinking/behaving in this way. It's normal.” Whew.

Your Right to Grieve

January 10, 2016 Carrie Doubts

Stories of loss and grief are part of the fabric of my work. A young woman mourns the loss of her first trimester pregnancy and the baby she will never know. A man shares about the loss of a colleague for which he secretly held a flame of unrequited love. Another woman tells about her boyfriend’s sudden illness and death on the eve of their engagement.

Most people are able to share their stories of grief openly. Some are not. When a secret relationship (or one that others don’t know about or understand) ends and you feel that there’s no one to talk to about your loss, you carry it alone. This grief becomes complicated by other issues heaped on top of your sorrow – guilt, fear, resentment, depression. Often what happens in these situations is that the person shuts down and fails to grieve.

The Shape of Grief

February 23, 2015 Carrie Doubts

I want to say something about the shape of grief. Grief is not linear. It’s not a rectangle, either. It doesn't behave itself and stay within a neat box of “stages.” You don't go “through” it like passing through another country on your way home, never to return. I hear so many of my clients exclaim, “Oh no, I thought I was done with this,” when they are experiencing a grief trigger. This is especially daunting when it happens several years after their loss, just when they think they are emotionally in the clear and the crying is behind them.

The reality is, when you are grieving, you can feel like you are going through the same feelings over and over again. It can be so discouraging and frightening to feel like you are in an endless loop of pain and sorrow. There's another way to look at grief that I hope you will find helpful...

Joining the Choir of Humanity

November 4, 2014 Carrie Doubts

What is a community? The definition of the word is a group of people who have a common characteristic, history, interest, location. It comes from the latin, communis or communitas. It implies unity or uniting.

There is a community that is beneath the radar in our society that we all have an opportunity to do a better job of serving. This is the community of people who are grieving a significant loss in their lives.

The Energy Levels of Grief

April 13, 2014 Carrie Doubts

It’s been reported that it takes people 5-8 years, on average, to recover from a devastating loss.

Dealing with loss leaves you vulnerable to developing depression or anxiety disorders, or increasing dependency on drugs or alcohol as a means to cope. These more serious conditions often lead people to seek treatment from a therapist or counselor, and there are many, many excellent, dedicated professionals to which you can turn to get the help you need if that is what you are going through.

However, most of the people I speak with about their loss are experiencing the normal, natural responses to loss – and that is grief.

Navigating Through Emotional Storms

November 21, 2013 Carrie Doubts

We all have our emotional ups and downs – highs and lows, peaks and valleys. And, when you are dealing with loss and grief, it seems like you get to spend a lot of time in the valleys. Not everyone experiences anger as part of their grieving processes, but many do, and part of what is distressing is that your anger can come out of nowhere when you least expect it. It can be upsetting to feel anger towards yourself, the person who left, the doctors, the courts, at God even. Know that anger is a normal and understandable emotion at this time, because of the extreme stress you are dealing with.

Underneath it all is pain and a sense of a loss of control. Nothing is as it should be. It’s as though a typhoon has blown through your consciousness and you know your life will never be the same again. You didn’t ask for this.

Empathy 101: Five Tips for Supporting People in Grief

June 19, 2013 Carrie Doubts

There are times when I feel I must apologize for my fellow human beings when my clients share what people have said to them or some of the thoughtless ways they have been treated at their time of loss. I believe that people mean well. It’s just that most of us don’t have a very comfortable relationship with strong emotions like grief, anger, or hopelessness. When feelings like this are expressed in our midst, we will tend to gloss over it or try to shut it down entirely.

Learning to tolerate other’s reactions to your grief can be one of the most painful, yet necessary tasks of rebuilding your life after loss.

Featured

Mar 22, 2024

Joy Rising

Mar 22, 2024

Joy is my true nature. It is the Soul’s currency. It’s just easy to lose sight of the joy that I am when it’s been blanketed in heavy snow for so long during the winter of grief. But, like the crocus will break through in spring, I trust that it is inevitable that joy will also rise from the depths. You can’t keep joy down forever.

Mar 22, 2024

Jul 5, 2022

Grief Is Not a Problem to be solved

Jul 5, 2022

Grief is not a problem to be solved. It is a message that wants our attention.

Jul 5, 2022

Aug 7, 2020

Divorce - A Hero's Journey

Aug 7, 2020

The Hero’s Journey is the path that heroes take as part of their development from immaturity and potential to the embodiment of mastery and freedom. It’s a transformational process.

Because of this divorce, you are on your own Hero’s journey, your own process of transformation.

Aug 7, 2020

Apr 27, 2020

In Sickness and in Health

Apr 27, 2020

This little phrase that’s tucked into wedding vows carries little meaning when you are young and standing in front of the officiant with your beloved. And yet, it’s a solemn promise to love and support your spouse, no matter what.

Apr 27, 2020

Sep 30, 2019

Anger - the Most Unloved Emotion

Sep 30, 2019

Anger is an emotion that has a lot of bad press. Most often what we experience is people inflicting their anger onto others. When you’re angry, it’s easy to lash out on your loved ones and those who least deserve it.

Because of its destructive potential, many people are afraid of anger. When this is the case, anger is often denied and left unexpressed.

Sep 30, 2019

Sep 3, 2019

Grieving the Loss of a Pet

Sep 3, 2019

An Elegy written for the passing of my beloved Cotton

Sep 3, 2019

Feb 20, 2019

She Has a Name - A Love Letter Written in the Midst of Divorce

Feb 20, 2019

I never thought I would be divorced. Marriage was for life. Or so I thought. Or so we thought. It was a holy expectation, a deep commitment to the lifelong. Through better and worse. Through the drama and mundane of life. We made vows before God and family and friends. We uttered them meaningfully.

Feb 20, 2019

Jul 17, 2018

What's Love Got To Do With It?

Jul 17, 2018

I’ve been studying Love lately. Both how it relates to me personally and to my work as a coach. I work with people who are going through a dark time in their lives – what was once their joy (a loving intimate relationship) is now their deepest despair. In exploring their loss and pain, the question inevitably comes to love: “How will I ever feel safe to love again?”