Are You Sabotaging Your Grief Journey?

This article is going to require you to be a little bit brutal with yourself. The goal of the telling the truth principle is to create a baseline so that you know where you are starting and can decide how to move forward with your grief. Of course, you want to feel better. However, I’m not going to lie–you might be holding your own growth hostage.

There are four ways you might be sabotaging yourself. It’s your job to read the descriptions, reflect on your thoughts, emotions, and behavior, and be honest if any of them apply to you.

Sabotage #1: Suppression

The first way you might be sabotaging your healing is by suppressing your emotions rather than allowing yourself to feel them. While it might seem preferable to drown your sorrows in wine, overwork for the sake of distraction, or numb yourself with Zoloft and
Ambien, what you’re actually doing is stalling your forward momentum.

Allow yourself to feel all the feels, as sucky as they may be. As the rawness of your emotional pain fades, it will become easier to feel your emotions while pursuing the regular activities of your life.

Sabotage #2: Self-Victimization

My depiction of the second way you might be sabotaging your healing might sound pretty harsh. Please think of me like a blunt best
friend who has no filter and doesn’t mind telling you what you need to hear even if it hurts. I like to call this sabotage self-victimization because some people seem to enjoy becoming the victim.

They get used to people pitying them, feeling sorry for them, and giving them extra attention because of their loss. It feels good to be supported and cared for. If you find yourself getting “addicted” to receiving attention—people bringing you meals, checking up on you,
doing extra things to help you, and sending you social media messages full of love and support—it can be very difficult to admit that we’re feeling better and to let that attention go.

But playing the victim holds you back from moving forward.

Sabotage #3: Guilt for Moving On

The next way you might be sabotaging yourself is by feeling guilty for moving on. Perhaps you feel like it’s too soon or like you’re betraying your loved one, as if they could somehow see that you’re starting to come back to the land of the living and will be deeply offended.

In the first year following her death, I often felt like my daughter could somehow see me. Any time I caught myself doing something healthy—laughing, for example—I’d feel guilty. I’d picture her out there floating around in the ether thinking, Why isn’t Mommy crying that I’m dead? How can she be laughing? Isn’t she sad?

Let me tell you, it sucked. Truly, truly sucked. It’s normal to think things like this for a while, but if you are unable to move forward for fear of hurting your loved one who is no longer here, you’re only hurting yourself. Depending on your religious and spiritual leanings, thoughts like these might be more difficult for you to discount. Over time, I learned to temper them with more rational ideas.

Death is for the dead. Life—and grief—are for the living. We can choose the stories we tell ourselves. Ask yourself: Is my guilt story helping me?

Sabotage #4: Fear of Judgment

Finally, you may be sabotaging your healing because you’re afraid of being judged by others. I have seen this sabotage so many times in my grief work. People WANT to get their shit together, but they’re afraid that other people will think poorly of them if they DO get their shit together. We’ve all heard the comments from people judging a widow or widower who decides it’s time to start dating again—like God forbid someone still has love to give and wants to find someone with whom to argue over morning coffee.

“Wait, you’re hanging out with friends? You’re going to a movie? Your child only died a few months ago! I could NEVER do that.”

My darling griever, I once ate at a local restaurant and caught myself laughing at a joke. I frantically eyed the room, convinced that people were thinking I was the Worst. Mother. Ever. And that I obviously didn’t truly love my child.

This is sabotage of the fourth kind. Fear of being judged is real, but you can’t be afraid to move forward in your healing process because you’re afraid of what other people will think. Who cares what people think or expect from you? Seriously, fuck them! This is
YOUR grief journey, and yours alone. You don’t have to get anyone’s permission to laugh or love or feel better.

If you believe you are sabotaging yourself in any of these ways, congratulations! The first step in emotional healing is awareness—and then acceptance. Don’t judge yourself, just admit that you’re holding yourself back and make the decision that you don’t want to do that anymore. You want to move forward. You want to start healing.

Check out Brooke’s other writing on Open to Hope: ‘You’re SO Strong’: A Misunderstanding of Grief – Open to Hope

Brooke Carlock

Brooke Carlock has been punched in the face by grief on more than a few occasions, but she keeps getting back up and hopes to inspire others to do the same. She is the creator of the “Grief Sucks with Brooke Carlock” YouTube Channel and host of the “Mourning Coffee” Podcast, and cofounder of Live Like Libby, a nonprofit organization that provides dance scholarships in her late daughter’s honor. She has also been a middle school English teacher and freelance writer since earning a bachelor’s degree in English from West Virginia University and a master’s degree in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University. Her writing has been featured on Emmys.com, Open to Hope, Scary Mommy, and Filter Free Parents. Now an empty nester, Brooke resides in a tiny house by herself, which makes her introverted heart happy. When she’s not making videos, providing grief support, writing books, or wrangling middle schoolers, she enjoys reading historical fiction, baking, and going to farmers markets. She lives in a small town in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.