When Grief Affects Your Mood

It was one of those days. You know what I’m talking about; when you wake up tired and you can’t quite sort out how you’re going to do all the things? There have been a lot of these kinds of days for me lately, as we’ve been in the full tilt of holiday energy. Sometimes I can remember why it might be harder this year than others. Sometimes I forget. When I forget is when things get more complicated.

I’ve found over the years that the holidays, as nice as they can be, also hold a lot of grief for me. I miss my mom, who died almost eight years ago now. And I miss my dad, who died almost one year ago. I think about them as I take out certain ornaments, remember things from when I was little, hear pieces of music that I know one of them really enjoyed. I find myself wishing I could just say one more thing to them, real quick, and then we can go back to the way things really are.

Isolated and Alone

If I’m not paying attention and tending to grief in a conscious way, the feelings become bigger and a bit confused. They get attached to people I live with or work with, and can turn into misunderstandings, grievances, or resentments.

For example, I can find myself looking for reasons to be annoyed with my partner as a way to find an explanation for why I feel so bad. Or I can take things personally that have literally nothing to do with me. I can forget to ask for help or talk things through with people who would otherwise be happy to help and commiserate. And then I feel alone.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Grief is Sneaky

I caught myself in this cycle on “one of those days” and marveled at how sneaky unconscious grief can be, and how much havoc it can cause in a life. As I sat, drinking my morning coffee while looking out the window, I asked myself with a little bit of frustration, “what is your problem?” The impatience I was leveling at myself pushed me into a bit of a corner, which got me to a place where I could acknowledge how sad I am and how much I miss my parents. And I realized that the churning agitation I had been feeling had everything to do with that.

Once I homed in on that, I asked myself the following questions, in an effort claim for myself the path I wanted to go down for the day. I share them with you in the hopes that, if you can relate to this at all, they might be helpful or give you ideas about questions you could ask yourself.

The questions are:

What adjustments do I need to make today to soften the edges of my emotions and increase tenderness to myself?
Am I upset about something in my life right now that needs attention, aside from the grief I feel?
Is there anyone I need to talk to about how I am feeling, especially people who might be affected by the mood I am in because of how I am feeling?
Would it be useful to ask for support in some way? Can I name what support might look like for me?

More Space When Grief Affects Your Mood

Once I took myself through this process, I felt clearer on what I needed to do, most importantly, for myself. I needed to give a lot more space to the grief I was feeling and treat myself more gently. For each of us, that will look different but knowing what helps us feel cared for is important.

And notice, the questions I asked myself just had to do with that day. My goal was not to make sweeping changes that put a lot of pressure on me to feel better. I was just looking at that day, knowing that tomorrow would be another day that may or may not feel the same as this one. And I decided, “I’ll deal with tomorrow when it comes. Today I’m doing this.”

It really is all about taking it one day at a time, as consciously as we can.

Bradie Hansen is co-author of The Long Grief Journey: How Long-Term Unresolved Grief Can Affect Your Mental Health and What to Do About It (Compassionate Grief Book for Healing After Loss): Blair, Pamela D., McCabe Hansen, Bradie: 9781728262666: Amazon.com: Books

Bradie Hansen

Bradie McCabe Hansen is a licensed psychologist- Master, who’s been in private practice for over twenty years. She has worked with children, adolescents, and adults, especially around issues to do with depression, anxiety, grief, addictive or abusive use of substances, developmental transitions, and trauma. She is the co-author of the newly released book The Long Grief Journey: How Long-Term Unresolved Grief Can Affect Your Mental Health and What to Do About It as well as the article “The Wisdom of Regret”, published in the Assisi Institute Journal. In addition to Bradie’s clinical work, she teaches weaving and helps to manage the fiber studio at the Shelburne Craft School in Shelburne, Vermont. Certified as an Archetypal Pattern Analyst and a Weaving a Life Leader, Bradie has the unique opportunity to help people use weaving and fiber craft to work through life stages and passages, grief, and moments of choice. As a psychologist, Bradie worked with individuals around complex life experiences for many years, but it was the sudden and traumatic loss of her mother in 2017 that opened her eyes to the lived experience of long-term, complicated grief. Grief altered her capacity to socialize, complete mundane errands, and carry on with many of the responsibilities that had previously been part of day-to-day life. After a particularly challenging time of sleeplessness and stress all to do with the rigors of grieving, she found herself learning how to weave on a four-harness, counterbalance floor loom that had come into her possession. Her teacher showed her how to thread every heddle, and sley every dent in the reed. The repetitive and mindful motions required for dressing a loom helped her find her way back to herself. While Bradie was already teaching children about the wonderful world of handcrafting, the gifts she received from weaving were expanded, and she now tries to bring the healing potential of handcrafting to clients and students. Bradie shares, “There was no thinking my way out of the pain I was feeling. No problem solving could get me through it. No timeline applied. But engaging in something as tangible as weaving helped me to connect with myself and with the threads that connect all people to each other. Weaving is a part of our ancestral DNA. Through the simple process of interlacing threads, I was able to weave comfort over my broken heart and find my way back to community and my own creativity. Now, I just want to share that gift that I received when I was at my lowest point with other people.” You can reach Bradie through her website: www.healinghandcrafting.com and you can find her book, The Long Grief Journey, on Amazon. Additionally, Bradie and her co-author Pamela Blair will be regularly contributing to the Long Grief Journey Blog which you can find here: https://thelonggriefjourney.com/blog-2/