16: Grief Guilt: How to Heal Your Relationship with Guilt Throughout the Grieving Process
When healing from the death of loved ones, the feeling of guilt can often arise.
This post contains affiliate links to some of my favorite tools and resources. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Full terms & conditions here.
In this episode, you will learn about:
How guilt is normal while grieving
How to deal with guilt when it arises throughout the grieving process
Examples of when I felt guilty throughout the grieving process
Dating after the loss of a loved one
Feeling guilty for not being so grief-stricken
How many people move through the grieving process before the death of a loved one
Episode References:
Learn more about Brene Brown HERE.
Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing by Bronnie Ware
Modern Love Season 2, Episode 1. On a Serpentine Road, With the Top Down
Resource Round Up
Journal
Here are some journal suggestions: Journal Prompts: Grief Guilt
Create ceremony to honor your feelings and to help you step into this next chapter.
Be kind, loving and patient with yourself. The grieving process is not easy, and the best thing we can do is to be self-compassionate as we move through it.
*Listen to the episode for more specifics about each suggestion.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
4:54 Teaching
21:44 Listener Question 1
34:55 Listener Question 2
Have you followed and left a review for New View Advice?
Let me know what you think of the podcast! Podcast followers and ratings help bring new listeners to the show, as well as help me to continue creating content. So if you enjoyed the show, I’d love to ask you to follow and leave a rating on your podcasting platform by:
Head to New View Advice on Apple or Spotify
Click Follow on your podcasting platform
Scroll down (or when promoted) click the 5 star rating!
-
This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool called Otter. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Amanda Durocher 0:00
Welcome to New View Advice, a safe place for you to ask your most vulnerable questions about life, relationships, healing, and so much more. I'm your host, Amanda Durocher. And I believe our fears and traumas are often what holds us back from living life to the fullest. Join me here each week as I offer advice on how to move through whatever is holding you back from being your best self. Let's get started. Hi, there beautiful souls. My name is Amanda Durocher. And I'm your host. And this is New View Advice. If you're new here, this is a podcast where I answer questions about the healing process. This is a healing centered advice column. And it's my goal to help you connect with yourself. Because I truly believe that you have all the answers you seek, you just may need a little guidance along the way and a new view. Today's topic is grief, and specifically grief and the feeling of guilt, and how throughout our grieving process. A lot of us experience guilt along the way. And we're going to be talking about that through I'm going to give a little example where this has happened in my own life. And also two questions. One of the questions is about someone who lost their husband, and is now looking to date again, and how guilt has appeared throughout their grieving process. And the second person is someone who feels guilty for not feeling so grief stricken with the death of a parent. So I think those are two great conversations to have and two instances that people can really relate to. So I'm excited to have this conversation about grief and guilt. Today's episode, as you can tell is about death and the loss of loved ones in regards to grief. But we've truly go through the grieving process many times throughout our life, grief appears anytime we lose something we're attached to. So if we over identify with a job, or if we break up with someone or someone breaks up with us, or a friendship ends, or we move houses or move cities, or a big change happens in our life, the grieving process happens because we go through this process of changing and of our life not being any more what we thought it was what we thought it would be. So we moved through the grieving stages. So I just wanted to mention that because I'm so passionate about grief. And I've become so familiar with grief, because I find that I moved through it many times throughout my life, I've moved through grief, countless times, and it comes up for me all the time. And it's important to acknowledge because there's stages to grief. So I'm passionate about the grieving stages, because I think that it helps us as we're moving through new stages of our lives. So the grieving stages are denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance. And these stages don't come in any particular order. And they can come many times throughout the same grieving process, as removing layers of who we thought we were to make room for the new version of ourselves. And I'm really passionate about talking about grief and becoming familiar with these stages, and the feelings that arise throughout grief and not judging ourselves. Because as I said, we go through the grieving process so much throughout our lives, that instead of judging ourselves when we're going through a big change, and we may get angry, or we may feel depressed or sad or doubt ourselves, instead of being like, Oh, I'm in the denial phase. Oh, this is the anger phase, or, Oh, I've grieved before, I know that this is part of the process. And I think it's so important to become familiar with these phases, because I think that as we're moving through the grieving process, if we're unfamiliar with them, we can judge ourselves and maybe feel guilty. I think that's when that guilt can arise. And I also think shame can arise I think that guilt and shame can be confused for being the same thing. But as Brene Brown talks about guilt and shame are actually two different emotions and guilt is normal. And shame is actually something that I talked about. It's not a natural emotion, guilt can be helpful, and it can be a tool, where shame is something that can really hinder us so we have to remove shame from our lives. So Brene Brown gives a great example where she tells a story where her daughter was at school, and Brene Brown teaches about shame and guilt. So her teacher said to her daughter, oh my God, you're such a mess. And Brene Brown's daughter turns to the teacher and she says no, I made a mess. I am not a mess. So what this example is showing is telling yourself I'm a mess because you made a mess is shaming yourself feeling a little guilty over Oh, I made a mess. I should clean this up. That's natural and that's normal, but starting to identify with that mess like you are the mess which you are not it shame. So I just wanted to give that example because that really helps me to identify if I'm feeling shame or guilt. So the shame is really the over identification with the situation and how we're feeling. So I'm really excited to get started and let's jump on in.
Amanda Durocher [teaching] 4:59
For a while now I've known I wanted to talk about grief this week in particular, because this week is the anniversary of a close friend of mine who died in my early 20s. And his death sparked my healing journey. And it sparked my change in my life sparked a new chapter for me. And in screenwriting, we'd call this my inciting incident for any of my screenwriting friends out there. And around this time, every year, I really start to put my life in perspective. So two times a year, I honor my friend Dolan, and it's his birthday, I honor Him and also on the anniversary of his death. I have both these days in my calendar. And really, the dates are ingrained in my mind. And each year at these two dates, I honor his life, I honor our friendship, and I honor how much I've learned through His death. So his death brought meaning to my life. And that's such a gift. But I will say that there are days that that's also made me feel guilty, I feel guilty that he had to die for me to get here, right. But the truth is, it's just not how life works. And I don't need to feel guilty over it. It's more powerful for both of us, I believe his spirit and for me if I viewed the gratitude, and the gift he gave me through his life. So I try to live each day by honoring his life by being the best version of myself by remembering him by honoring him by not taking my life for granted anymore. So his death was that moment were for me, I had been living on autopilot. I had been depressed, anxious, just thought, you know, that's just how life is I had no idea my life could be any different, hadn't started to look in the mirror at myself, and the things that needed to change in my own life and the traumas I needed to face and the healing that needed to be done. And when he died, I broke the way I was living, I could not live that way anymore. And for me, I became really angry. And really, I think some people when people die, they become more afraid of death, because they see that their life is fleeting. And for me, I went the opposite way where I was like, I should just kill myself, honestly, like, what is the point of living if I have to feel this fucking shitty, I was so depressed, I didn't want to be that angry, it brought up the grief that had happened previous in my life that I had never healed, that you'll find happens if you don't move through the grieving process, the next time somebody dies, you just have more grief to move through, it doesn't just go away, you have to move through the grieving process. So that's why so many people are uncomfortable with death, because they have never dealt with their own grief. So each time somebody dies, it just gets heavier and harder. So it's so important to move through these phases. Because now when somebody dies in my life, I'm able to move through these phases a lot quicker. And also to not judge myself along the way. That doesn't mean if somebody really close to me died tomorrow that it wouldn't take me years to heal from it a year or two years, I don't know. But I wouldn't judge myself because I'd be very familiar with the process. So I mentioned this, because I think that moving through the stages of grief, and not shaming ourselves and not guilting ourselves is so important. So for me this week, actually, coincidentally, my grandfather died as well. So it's kind of a perfect time for me to be doing a grief episode. Because I found myself having some feelings about that feeling some grief, it wasn't an unexpected death like my friend Dolan's was. So I don't feel the same feelings not even close. I think a lot of us have experienced that when somebody dies of old age, it's not doesn't have the same punch as when somebody dies young because when somebody dies young, it doesn't seem fair. And there's all these other emotions. And you see how short your life is where my grandfather was 88 You know, he lived a good life, he was happy. So it's just more of a celebration of life for him than feeling the absolute grief that I felt with my friend Dolan. So as I mentioned, each year I honor his life by spending time in for me, I spend time in meditation, I usually go on a hike and find a place in nature to and just sit with him I set with where my life is at. I believe in spirit. I believe that when I sit in Mother Earth, and I asked Dolan to come sit with me that he does, and you can believe what you want, but I believe that there's a higher power. I believe that our loved ones become angels who watch over us. I believe that they're cheering us on. I believe that they want us to live our best lives. And they don't want us to sit in grief and they don't want us to be depressed and they don't want us to never move past their lives. They want us to see their life and to take the gifts from it. They want to see us live our best lives. They're some of our biggest cheerleaders. So throughout this process throughout my healing process with my friend Dolan and Another type of guilt I experienced was I actually felt guilty for his death, I gave myself the burden that it was my fault. I put on my shoulders, that in some way I could have stopped this tragic event that no one could have stopped, that no one's responsible for that is honestly just tragic. But I felt so much guilt, because that was my human mind trying to make sense of an unsensible event. So you may find in your own journey with grief, that you've done that too, that you have done the what ifs in your head? What if I had called him? What if I was there? What if, what if, what if, and the truth is, that's just not helpful? Those are all real human thoughts. But those were the thoughts that got me to really go to therapy, because nobody really understood why I felt that way. Because it was in no way my fault. And there was absolutely nothing anyone could have done. But again, my mind was so traumatized by such an an imaginable trauma, that it was trying to rationalize that I could have controlled it, right. That's a coping strategy. Control is a coping strategy. So when we play back things in our head, all the things we could have done differently, it's because we're trying to control the outcome for the future. But that's one of the great lessons we learned from death, we can't control it, we cannot control when people die, we cannot control that people don't live forever, and we can't control when we die. And that is something that we have to accept. So as I moved through the grieving process, one of the layers I had to heal was accepting that I wasn't responsible at all for this tragic event, accepting that nobody was responsible for this tragic event that something tragic happened that no one had control over. And that I needed to release myself of that guilt, so that then I could move through the grieving process. So for me, that was actually one of my first steps to moving through the grieving process was to allow myself to feel all my feelings and to talk through with a therapist, that there was nothing I could have done. That that was a coping strategy that my mind was trying to use to cope with all the really difficult feelings that had just arrived in my life. The visual that I'm getting to help kind of describe this is that you have this house that you've perfectly cultivated, you've picked out every piece of art, and it looks fantastic. And it feels a little empty, because it doesn't have those homey de cores that you get over time. But you've cultivated it so it looks perfect. And then an earthquake kit, and it shatters everything in your house. So all your perfectly curated pictures, the vases, the books, everything comes shattering to the floor, all at once. And you're left to pick up the pieces. But you had been controlling your home by putting every single piece in a perfect spot in your house, so that your house was spotless. So you thought, but with one little event, an earthquake. Everything shatters. But you're trying to pick up glass with your hands, you don't have the tools necessary to pick it up, but you can't ignore it anymore. So that's just a visual, I got to kind of explain how it can feel what such a sudden death is that your whole world is shattered. And you don't always have the tools to pick up the pieces because, for me, it was the first traumatic event I was forced to deal with. It wasn't the first trauma I had experienced. But it was the first event that I could no longer ignore. Because it rattled my house to its core that none of my other coping strategies worked, I could no longer sweep everything under the rug. So that was another time I felt guilt throughout the grieving process. And then another time that I find guilt can arise in the grieving process, or at least it did for me was that I had this unconscious fear as I was healing that as I healed, and the more I healed and the more I loved myself throughout this process and I forgave me I forgave Dolan, I forgave life, because that's really who I had to forgive. I really had to become in relationship with life. And realize I couldn't control life that life is its own, that life has its own heartbeat. And that the more we can be in relationship with life, the easier our lives will flow. And I had to look at the fact that I started to feel guilt as I moved through the grieving process, because a part of me felt like the devastation I felt was like honoring him, right, like, I'm so devastated. I'm honoring my friend's life. I think about him all the time. Every moment, I'm honoring his life and the more I healed, the less I thought about him, and that's not a bad thing, right. But I felt guilty over it. I felt guilty that his death wasn't the only thing I thought about every day, all day. And I had to see that as I healed that I didn't forget him. I just didn't live in trauma brain. I just didn't live in the replaying anymore. And I actually am honoring his life more by not being so traumatized, and by healing and by talking about his death now, right, I'm honoring him by talking about the grieving process by how much it changed me by how much his friendship changed my life, how his death brought such healing to me, and how his friendship meant so much to me. And it's better now that when I think about him, it brings a smile to my face. And it makes me so happy that I knew him. And it makes me so happy that we got to spend the brief time we did together, rather than it making me devastated and falling apart. So there's a few times I felt guilt throughout the grieving process. So I just also want to say to anybody who finds that as they're grieving, they can have some guilt, it's normal. And the best thing we can do is to bring that awareness and when we feel guilty is to start asking ourselves questions, and not judging the thoughts that arise. So how you could do this is if you find yourself feeling really guilty, like for me if I felt guilty about like, Oh, my God, I didn't think about Dolan all day today. I'm horrible. It's like, why are you horrible? bringing that awareness? Like, why are you saying You're horrible? Well, because I'm not remembering him. And it's like, well, you're remembering him right now. Do you remember anybody in every present moment? No. And then I invite you to find a way to honor the person you love. Right? I honor my friend Dolan every year on his birthday and his anniversary, not because I'm devastated or not, because I am still grieving. It's because I loved him. And what can I do to remember him and to reflect on my own life, because I find every time I honor him, and I bring to my forefront of my mind death, like this conversation we're having, it puts all your small problems into perspective. I might not have a year. Why am I so worried about social media following? Right? What can I do to love myself? Now? What can I do to love life? What can I do to want to feel more alive every day? You know, for me, death has really taught me an appreciation for life. And it's made me love life more, it's made me see how valuable life is. And instead of fearing life, or living with anxiety, or living in constant depression of the past, it's made me want to move through my blocks and to heal so that I can enjoy the time I have here, so that I can love the people in my life. And the only way we can really love the people in our life is by loving ourselves. First, you have to fill up your own cup first. And then what overflows from your cup is able to go out into the world. But if you are not taking care of yourself, then you're not able to really show up for others. That's when the resentment comes in the anger, the annoyance, the distraction, the non real vulnerable connection, you have to be there for you first. And I learned that through death. And I am so grateful to have moved through the healing process. I'm so grateful to be having this conversation. And I'm so grateful that you're here listening. I'm just so passionate about death, I think it can be one of our greatest teachers. I don't think death is a bad thing. I think it's inevitable. We all die at some point. All our loved ones will die at some point. So why do we focus on the past? And what we could have done or feeling guilt or regret, and not allowing ourselves to just move through the process? Why do we just stay there? When really, life short data shows us that, or even if somebody is old and dies, right? A lot of times when people are on their deathbed, they have regrets. They lived a long life and they still have regrets. There's this book called The Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware. And I'll link it in the show notes. And it talks about how everyone who dies because this woman worked in hospice and everybody who died, their regrets fell into five categories. And I mentioned these five regrets because I think it's so important for us to realize that life's short, and we can learn that through grief. And we can learn that through the death of loved ones instead of living in fear for the rest of our lives. And then ending up with these Five Regrets can we learn from the people who have lived and have lived their human experience, and have had these regrets and choose to have the courage to live a life that honors ourselves and where we won't end up with these regrets in the end? Because that's my goal. So I just want to tell you what the regrets are so that you can maybe reflect on them and see if this is something that maybe you fear. But the Five Regrets of the Dying are one. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me to. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. Three. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings. For, I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends, five, I wish I had let myself be happier. For me, I hear these five regrets. And it's a reminder, it's a reminder of what's important, and that when our life ends, what's important to us is love of self, love of others, and happiness. You know, I think people I see people do this in my own life all the time, play down the importance of happiness. And that's my goal in life is to follow the happy, and that is not traditional. But when you hear these Five Regrets of the Dying, I mean, doesn't it put into perspective? What's important? Where your time should be? should you really be in that job? Is it time for you to retire? Should you pick up the phone and call that friend or that family member that you had a little tiff with and the fights been lasting too long? Are you ready to finally feel those hard feelings so that you can live a life authentic to yourself? So you don't regret that? In the end? Are you ready to start doing what you want to do and stop caring so much what others think I was terrified to start this podcast. But if I let the fear of what others thought of me, stop me, I wouldn't be here. And I'm here. Because I have that knowledge that when my friend died, I chose, I chose that life short. And happiness is the most important thing to me, living a life joyful and free. And I only got one shot here. And I wasn't going to waste it. So I got a little off topic there. But I'm just so passionate about grief. And I just think we could have this conversation for hours. And I hope you learned something in this. And let's jump into two questions.
Amanda Durocher [listener question] 21:50
Dear New View Advice. My husband died two years ago, and it was sudden and devastating. And I've been grieving him ever since. Recently, I met a guy who I really like he's kind and funny. And I find myself wanting to date for the first time since my husband's death. The thing is, I feel guilty. I'm afraid of being judged. I'm afraid I'm not ready. And I'm afraid that it's not going to work because I'm not fully healed yet. What should I do? Thank you so much for this question. I think this is such a common question for anyone who finds themselves dating after grief. So anyone who has lost a life partner, a husband, a wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever it may be, who's lost a romantic partner to death, I think everyone goes through this process of guilt and confusion of what it means to start dating again. So thank you so much for this vulnerable question. First, I want to start with, I'm not going to tell you what to do. You know, that's not what I do here. I want to guide you to figure out what's best for you. So you sound conflicted. You know, you're trying to decide if you're ready to date. So I want to help give you the tools and some guidance to figure out if you're ready for this next step. So first, I want to say that your fears are normal. Do not judge your fears. And you listed three fears here, which I'm sure are just a few of the many thoughts running through your head. But you said I'm afraid of being judged. I'm afraid I'm not ready. And I'm afraid it's not going to work because I'm not fully healed yet. These are three very common fears. I think that these are fears that people who are dating and aren't going through grief and dating at the same time have I think a lot of people are afraid of being judged. I think a lot of people are afraid even after a breakup that they're not ready to start dating again. And and I love that you've brought the fear to light that you're afraid it's not going to work out because you're not fully healed yet. So I'm here to reassure you about these three fears. So one afraid of being judged. So this is the one that you're going to want to start sitting with yourself and seeing what you want. Because it does not matter what other people think. Other people one did not experience the trauma you experienced. So they're not allowed to put themselves in your shoes and judge you. You know, in your body what's right for you. It does not matter if someone else thinks it's too soon or whatever. Well, how do you feel? Are you ready to start dating you can be you might not be, but it sounds like you're excited for the first time about a romantic partner. And that's not a bad thing. You know, my guess would be that your husband doesn't want you to be alone for the rest of your life. He's up there cheering you on to start dating when you're ready. I know that and I think that your fear of not being ready is very normal. And I think that you can sit with it and decide or you could even go on a first date. And if you're not ready, you're not ready and you just let the guy know if he's a nice guy. He'll come Lately understand, and your fear of not being fully healed. And I'm going to be the one to tell you that we're on our healing journey for the rest of our lives. So don't put that on your shoulders, don't put that on your back, don't burden yourself with not being fully healed. I don't even know what fully healed looks like, I don't know what that means. I don't know anybody who's fully healed. The truth is, we're constantly going through the healing journey, and you're moving through this grief. And if you're sitting with your feelings, and you're allowing yourself to have your feelings, then you're doing the best you can. You know, so for you one of my suggestions for you to know, if you're ready, which you might not ever feel ready, you know, this is one of those situations that you might always have a lot of fears. And you might just have to do it to see how you feel. You know, sometimes we just have to do the really hard thing. And then the answer becomes really clear. So you can even treat your first date as not a date, it could be a friend age, just spend more time with this person, and see if that feels good. And just let the relationship naturally arise and not put so much pressure on it. I think that that's okay, if this person is willing to be patient with you. So my first suggestion for you is that I think you should really journal about this, I think that the guilt is running thoughts through your head, and you're judging yourself, because guilt and shame and judging often go together. And so I want you to journal and I'm gonna give you three journal prompts, you can throw out whatever you want. But these are three suggestions I have for you. One, what is my biggest fear about starting to date? And I want you to free consciousness journal. I want you just let your thoughts out. What are all your fears? I think you listed three, but I bet you have more. And keep journaling to get that clarity, right? Just allow yourself to free right? If you need me to give you a number write three pages for that answer to what do I need to do for myself to feel safe enough to start dating again, because my guess is that it doesn't necessarily feel safe, you experienced an extreme heartbreak with a partner with a husband, who died unexpectedly. So my guess would be that there is an inner child who needs some safety and some boundaries setup around dating. So whatever that looks like for you, but ask yourself what you need to feel safe around dating? Is it day dates? Is it not to call it dating? Is it just dinner? Is it casual? Is it like what do you need to feel safe, because take it slow, you know, you don't have to rush into this. Or you could you know, whatever feels good for you. But allow yourself to create safety around the dating process. And that will probably involve a lot of boundaries for you and a lot of communication of those boundaries. But free right, what you need to feel safe around dating. Three, what feelings are arising when you think about dating? So this is going to involve you maybe taking a few breaths and dropping into your body and drop into the feelings? Are you feeling excited and nervous? Are you feeling extreme terror? Are you feeling sad and happy? Allow yourself to honor however this is making you feel. Because I think that the guilt is also coming from conflicting feelings that are arising, which is very common. This is a complicated situation you're navigating. So in a situation you were ever prepared for you ever hoped you'd navigate grieving and dating, and it's okay to date and to grieve. I recently watched the first episode of the show Modern Love on Amazon Prime. And I bawled my eyes out the whole time. And it's about a woman who's in a new marriage, but she's still grieving truly the first husband she had. And it's this beautifully done story about how complicated it is to date and to love after death. No one is asking you to forget your husband. No one's asking you to even stop that grieving process. And no one except you is asking you to date. So only do it when you're ready. Which it sounds like you may be but if you're not, that's fine too. But sit with what you need and allow yourself to have those conflicting feelings. I think that can be hard for us sometimes when we're excited and scared at the same time. And we can get confused. So allow yourself to journal about all the feelings you're having. Because it's okay to be feeling a lot at once. I think that could really help you get some clarity on what you want to do. Because the fears are always going to be there. And I think that's a belief that a lot of us have is that the fears may go away and maybe one day we'll be fearless being fearless is really showing up with the fears and having the courage to do what we want to do to do what we need to do to be brave and vulnerable. In the face of fear, despite having fear, you know, I've found that the fear never really goes away. And that just it starts to fade as I do more things that I'm afraid of. But then there's just always something else, a new step, a new venture, that's just as scary and that I couldn't do until I face the first fear, but there's just constantly face to face. So don't judge yourself for having fears around this. And I advise that you be patient, kind, and loving with yourself, you know, take the time to really reflect on this, to write about these three journal prompts. Or to even just sit with these questions and a meditation and allow yourself to have all your hard feelings. You know, I could see anger arising that you're even put in the situation, sadness, that life isn't exactly what you expected, there's so many feelings. So allow yourself to feel what you need to feel. And to just not judge yourself, just allow the feelings to move. And how you can do that is really through this journaling process that I recommended. And it's really just intentionally bringing these feelings up. So let's say you are angry, right, I'm angry that I have to date again, I'm angry that my husband died, and I have to date again, and just like, bring that awareness there and just be like, That's okay. It's okay, I'm angry. Today, I'm gonna let this anger move through me, I'm moving on an angry walk. That's what I do. I listen to angry music, and I stomp my feet. Or I'm gonna let myself angry color, you know, pick out like a picture of like lion and just scribble on that page, just like, get all that anger out, you know, just allow yourself to move through whatever feeling it is, and don't judge it because the feelings do move. Once we removed that judgment. One other suggestion I have for you is to create a, if you're feeling guilt around dating, again, is to create a ceremony around dating, and to create an intentional time to honor your husband, honor the love you had, honor the relationship you had. And to assure yourself that you're not forgetting Him by starting to date, and to forgive yourself for any judgments that may have arose. And to just do it honor ceremony of that relationship. And it doesn't mean you're putting it on the shelf, and you'll never remember it. But just giving yourself that intentional space, which I really think is really powerful through ceremony, and allowing yourself to honor that relationship and to step into this next chapter, which could be dating for you. And I've talked about on other episodes, but to create ceremony, I really believe in picking an intentional time. And setting aside time where you can be alone, I recommend doing in nature, or doing in a quiet place in your home. And maybe writing a letter to your husband, and then burning it. Or then burying it in Mother Earth or writing a letter to yourself, giving yourself permission to move forward. And then doing something with that letter. So like I said, you can burn it, bury it, throw it in a body of water. But I find that ceremony is a way for us intentionally to move through something because we are intentionally bringing up something we're struggling with. And in ceremony, we're really asking a higher power to come in. And to help us through it. So you can be asking your Higher Self, the universe, God, Sophia, whatever word you use, to describe that bigger power. And just to ask for help on moving through this into the next chapter. And also letting a part of your consciousness know that you are ready to step forward. So I find the ceremony really powerful in my own life. And I think that this could be a helpful practice for you, as well. So I hope you found something in this answer helpful. And I just want you to know that you're not alone. I think this is something everybody goes through who's lost a partner, a life partner or a romantic partner, and that these are real feelings. And the best thing you can do is be patient kind and loving with yourself. And sometimes loving ourselves can be the hardest thing, but it's the most important. And the more grounded you feel, and the more you're taking care of yourself, the more that you'll be clear about these next steps you're looking to take. And also just remember, there's no wrong answer. If you're not ready, you'll know it in the moment. And you'll know it on the date and then you won't go on a second one. There's no wrong answer here. So even if you go on the date and you realize you're not ready, that's not a problem. No reason to judge yourself. It's just information. You can take some time to reflect on that. So I'm sending you so much love today. Thank you for this question.
Amanda Durocher [listener question] 35:00
Dear New View Advice. I'm feeling confused about the death of my father. He died a few months ago. And I find myself having conflicting feelings. To be honest, I thought I'd be more upset than I am. He is my father. But the truth is we weren't close. And I hadn't talked to him in years, we had a tumultuous relationship. And let's just say that he's the main reason I started doing healing work. He was abusive on so many levels, and I finally cut off our relationship a few years ago. It's not that I never think about his death, but I feel guilty that I'm not more upset. A part of me feels relief. Is that horrible? Am I avoiding feelings? Or do I really just not care? Thank you so much for this question. I think that this is a raw and honest question. And I think that others will be able to relate to this question because of your honesty. And I want you to know, your feelings are valid, your feelings are real, there is nothing wrong with you, I think you asked if you're horrible, you are not horrible, you are human, and you're having a human experience. And life is not black or white. Life is complicated. And so for you, I don't know you well enough to really know if you're just avoiding your feelings. So you could be in the denial stage of grief. But what it sounds more like to me is that you actually grieved this relationship a long time ago. So what a lot of people will find is that when we have toxic parents, or toxic family members, or a toxic partner, that we can grieve these relationships while we're still in the relationships. So the fact that you cut off your father from your life, is a sign to me that you probably grieved this relationship before making that choice. And why I say this is because you went through the stages of grief in order to cut him off, he abused you for a very long time from what it sounds like. And you eventually chose that your life would be better and healthier without him in it. And that must have been a very hard choice to make. So why I think you already went through this grieving phase is because what I find in situations with toxic parents, toxic family members, is that before you cut them off, you go through denial, you go through denial of the fact that you need to cut this person off from your life to have a healthier life, then you start to bargain with yourself, you start to have thoughts like this personal change, they're never going to change, yes, they will change, maybe I can just see them at Christmas, maybe I can talk to them less, then you go through the anger that you actually have to cut them off. It's not easy, and it's not fair. And then you also go through the anger of having a parent that treated you abusively, that is not fair, no child, no matter how old they are, deserves to be abused by their parent. No person deserves to be abused by anyone. And so many of us have parents who gaslight us and tell us it wasn't that bad. And try to convince us that their feelings are more important than ours, or that we're just taking everything too personally or that we're crazy or that we're too emotional note, you realize you weren't crazy. You realize your life would be healthier without your father and in. So you cut him off. And then I'm sure you were sad before or after, you know, and then you went through an acceptance phase, that cutting him off from your life and not talking to him was the best decision for you. So though he was alive, you had already grieve that loss. You know, I saw this recently with how I mentioned my grandfather died this week. And he definitely was a lot older. It wasn't unexpected. So I wasn't as sad as with my friend Dolan. But I found myself judging myself for the amount of grief I felt because when my cousin died in May, who died by suicide, I was devastated. And I was heartbroken, I had so many feelings. And when I found out my grandfather died, I was sad. You know, I had a few tears, but that was about it. And I found myself feeling guilty for not feeling worse. And when I sat with it, what I really realized was that the grief isn't really there because I've already felt it. So for you, I invite you to see if this is true for you. If you have already grieved the relationship with your father, and I invite you to see if you fully grouped up, because what also could be happening here is that you have grieved parts of it. But I would sit with your inner child, or I would journal with your inner child and see if she has anything else to feel about her father or if that's fully healed. So my first suggestion for you is to really dive into your inner child work and to check in with your inner child and how she's feeling Did she have any more feelings about her father? Or has she already accepted that that relationship ended long ago. So you can do that in a meditation by sitting, breathing. And in your third eye, or in your mind, visualizing this inner child, trust whatever age arises, and ask her how she feels about her relationship with her father, and see if there's anything that arises. You can also journal and just ask yourself in a journal question, Do I have any unresolved feelings with my father, and allow yourself to just free right? Or have you already accepted that he was an abusive father who wasn't a great father. But I do find personally, these are very deep wounds, our relationships with our parents are core to our beings, they shaped our lives. So you may also be avoiding some tough feelings you want to feel. So you may have already grieved the relationship, but you still may need to heal part of that father wound because like I said, I think those two wounds the mother wound and the father wound are unfortunately, wounds that are very complicated, have a lot of layers. And as we move through the healing journey, they continue to come up and heal up and heal up and heal. And that's okay. And I found to no longer judge when my father wound arises or my mother wound, and to just sit with that layer that arises. So that might also be something you could do as well, is to ask yourself, if there's any unresolved feelings, my second suggestion to you is the same I gave to question one, but just be patient kind and loving with yourself. These feelings may not need to arise right now. The way you'll know if you're running from how you're supposed to be feeling is by checking in with how present you are. You know, when we're in stress response, or fight or flight, which is what I learned in the month of August, by really detoxing my body off fight or flight is that that stress response is oftentimes are a way of keeping ourselves safe, or we think we're keeping ourselves safe from feeling really hard feelings. So if you find that you're totally fine, but you're super stressed, you're not present, and you're unable to sit with yourself, then to me, that's a sign that there might be some hard feelings there. So just constantly check in with yourself with how present you're able to be, and maybe you do feel neutral about it. And don't judge yourself for that, as I said, I think you already went through this grieving process. I think so many of us go through the grieving process before relationships end or before death, even with letting people go. So then when they die, we've already come to terms with the fact that this person is not going to be in our life anymore. And that's a huge part of the grieving process, when we lose a loved one, we're coming to terms with the fact that we're never going to see this person again. And if you already came to terms with that, you know, I also just want to bring an example for other listeners to who might find themselves judging themselves for not feeling worse when things and they talk about how in relationships, how in divorces, oftentimes, one partner will ask the other partner to change, and that partner won't change, or they'll make fun of them, or they'll brush it off. And the person will soon realize that that person is never going to change, they're never going to listen to them, they're never going to respect them. So they start grieving the relationship while they're in it. And then at the end of that grieving process, they don't really feel that same love anymore, so it's easier for them to let go of the relationship. So I use that example, just as another example of what it looks like to go through the grieving process before. A lot of people go through the grieving process, right. So most people go through the grieving process at death, most people go through the grieving process during a divorce, not before it. And I also just want to quickly say that, yes, he was your father, but he was also your abuser. So that's a very complicated relationship. And I don't know how extreme the abuse was, but it was extreme enough for you to cut off this relationship. So I can totally see how there might be mixed feelings there. He was your father, but also your abuser. You know, it's okay for you to be relieved. Because, you know, if some of the people who abused me died, I can't say I'd be devastated. I don't wish death upon them. But I can't say that I would grieve in any sense of the word, I probably would feel relief to relief, knowing that they couldn't touch me or anyone else again. So be kind to yourself. This is complicated. You know what's best for you. You know, where you're at, you know, how you're feeling and be kind with yourself. The best thing you can do is not judge yourself, and to be kind with yourself. So, I know I didn't offer too many suggestions here, but I really think for you journaling about this and getting to the core of how you're feeling sitting with it. Meditation, allowing your feelings to rise and allow yourself to feel your feelings. And not judging yourself and being compassionate with yourself will do wonders. And I hope having this conversation helps and I'm sending you so much love today.
Amanda Durocher 45:18
Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of New View Advice, I'm quickly just going to do a resource round up. So this is where I quickly recap the resources I recommended for this episode. So for this episode, I recommended journaling I recommended journaling to both people who are grieving and feeling guilt through grief. And so all this some journal prompts on my website that I mentioned in this episode. But journaling is such an amazing practice to help you get in touch with yourself to help you figure out why you're really guilty because guilt is usually a sign that there's another feeling we're avoiding, or that there's a fear that we need to bring to our consciousness, to I suggest creating a ceremony or an intentional time to bring this guilt forward and to heal and to bring this guilt and this grief forward to move through and to allow yourself into the next chapter of your life. Three, sounds simple, but it can be insanely hard is to be kind and patient with yourself. I know it sounds so simple, but actually loving ourselves is one of the hardest things while we're do. And allowing ourselves to feel our feelings when we've been programmed since birth not to have feelings, or how we feel is wrong or not to be vulnerable. Allowing ourselves to just feel our feelings can be so hard. And in that practice of allowing ourselves to feel our feelings, being kind of patient with ourselves. It's also a practice of learning not to judge ourselves, learning not to attach to those thoughts in our head, and to start to bring in that awareness. So when we find ourselves going down a rabbit hole is to bring in that awareness. Which what does that mean? It just means to start asking yourself question. If you're calling yourself means names, start asking yourself why or start telling yourself, Oh, you're being really hard on yourself today. So cultivating awareness. Some people call that the witness. But bringing in that third party presence is going to do wonders for everybody going through grief. Because grief is something we all experience. But we don't talk enough about it as a society. So a lot of us feel guilt over it. Or it brings up a lot of hard feelings. And we don't want to feel those feelings. So we judge it and we shame it and we stuff it down. But really it never goes away until we heal it right the only way to heal is through heal it, you got to feel it. So thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of New View Advice. I would love to ask you to share this episode with a friend family member or someone you think this episode could help somebody may be going through the grieving process or feeling guilt over grief. If you feel called to do so, I would love to ask you to share. And even if you don't know a person to share on social media or any way you know possible, the more people who know about newView advice, the bigger we can get and the more conversations we can have. And I'm just so grateful to be here with you and to be able to have these conversations each week. I'm so passionate about talking about topics that other people shy away from because I know when I was going through my healing journey, I felt so much shame over trying to have these conversations in the wrong settings and being shut down. ignored, rejected. So I'm so passionate about being someone who's happy to talk about anything, no shameful secrets here. So thank you again for joining me Amanda Durocher for another episode of New View Advice. As always, I'm so grateful to be here with you and to offer a new view on whatever you may be going through. sending you all my love. See you next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
