Creating Agency Toward Healing
Who's in Control During Grief
Thank you for joining me in The Pause Place. Holding space for you in grief, feelings of loss, and your journey toward hope.
Navigating a grief journey often feels like riding a rollercoaster. I may have chosen to have a child (go on that ride) but I can’t control what happens. There’s zero control as you’re whipped back and forth, up and down. Fortunately, a roller coaster ride ends and you have control over whether you ever go back on.
Not so much with grief.
I was reading through my journal from March 4th, 2014. Pretty random but not really. Having kept a journal through the lives of my children and my grief gives me a lot of writing to reflect upon and see how my grief journey has shifted.
This was six years after losing my son, Nick, to leukemia. I wrote to him about how I was struggling. Yet there were so many good things happening within the foundation I ran at the time to support children with cancer.
I was constantly caught in this push and pull of missing my son, trying to have some semblance of normalcy in my life and my family’s, run a foundation, and write. Yet what could be normal any longer when our family had been broken? A veil of sadness obscured our family’s vision.
It controlled my ability to move forward—even a little bit.
There were those beautiful moments of having teens with cancer connect with other teens who wanted to make a difference in Nick's name including his younger brother. As much as I wanted to give back and find my normal, I kept slipping into a depressed state of sadness.
In this journal I wrote two columns.
The first column read:
What Can I Control?:
What I put in my body
What to have in the house for food
Clothes I wear
What I do during my time day, night, weekend
How much I want to exercise and what type
How people affect me
How I handle my grief
Clutter in my house
How much I spend
What I spend my money on
My personal space and protecting it
My perceptions of myself
My personal goals
How much time I spend on the computer social networking
Events I attend for the foundation
The second column read:
What I can't control:
Nick’s death
Nick not being here
The constant presence of grief
Other people's actions, choices, feelings
How they react to grief
People’s life journeys
Other people's junk and clutter in the house
The economy
People's problems
Others’ perception of me
I look at this list now and realize that I was searching for anything to have control over. The fact that I couldn’t control my son’s death ate at me. That all of my love couldn’t save him broke something inside.
Even if I could have controlled what was on that list, I didn’t have the capacity. The list was very detailed yet vague because I had to reach for anything to have agency over. Writing it out grounded me, and there are hundreds of lists (often the same list over and over again) year after year as I struggled to gain my footing in this grieving life.
Yes, I had control over what I ate but food shopping took time and energy.
Sure I could watch what I spent but shopping was a distraction as was FaceBook scrolling.
Grief controlled me for a very long time.
It still has moments of grasping me in its claws. Sometimes grief just is and if I tried to control it, the feelings only became worse. Sitting with my grief, choosing to spend time with a friend. That I could do.
The clutter in my house was completely out of my control at that time. Yes, it was clutter but they were a lot of Nick’s things. How could I get rid of anything that he held, loved, cherished?
By this time, I had switched his bedroom to be my creative space but that took the support of a close friend to do the majority of it. I had no ability to remove his swim trophies, Lego models, books, martial arts décor. It went deeper than the logical act of removing clutter. I couldn’t control the emotional connection to the objects. Once I understood that I didn’t have to do anything before I was ready, the clutter no longer controlled me.
I slowly went through Nick’s personal items as it felt right. (I’ll share that another time.)
Instead of making a list of what I can control, now I shifted it to how I can live with Intention and Love:
What I have influence on:
Who I spend my time with
Doing what brings me joy
How I nourish my body
Personal health, space, and boundaries
Self-Talk
Self-Love
Connection with Nick
How I connect with others through my writing and programs
I feel a lightness when I read this list where that list from 10 years ago felt heavy and inaccessible.
Now I come from a place of ease and openness.
What I can’t control is more important than ever:
Anybody else in any way
Nick’s Death
What people think of me
People’s reaction to my grief
What I can support
Others’ journeys
The economy
The Universe
When it finally sunk in that I can’t control anyone, the universe or the economy for that matter, I felt free. I could take care of myself, control how I spoke to myself, thought about myself, even how I handled grief. I now have that capacity.
I felt empowered and able to make the choice to live a life of joy.
I can’t control when the thought of my son brings tears to my eyes. Frankly, I don’t want to. I have so much love for both my sons. I’ll never stop missing Nick, because he’s a part of my DNA—a soul connection forever entwined in my journey.
But now I know I have a choice as to whether grief controls my day or blocks the goodness in my life.
This is by no means an overnight or ending journey. It took years of digging deep, clawing my way out of darkness, falling back in and being pulled out by strong hands until I could pull myself out and see the light within me.
Making lists in my journal gives me control over what to focus on. Doing one small piece of that list grows agency, making it easier to do more.
I have control and boundaries around my grief, not the other way.
It takes time, so have grace with yourself as I often do when even the lists don’t ease the hurt.
What eases your grief and gives you agency?
Always here for you during your journey.
Please share with someone that you know this could help.
Thank you for your willingness to share your grief, Janine.
My first shock from my disease with grief and trauma was also ten years ago. Time can give us space and grace. And how you describe how you've shifted over the decade while holding space for love and joy resonates so much.
This especially is beautifully put and pulls at my heart strings:
"It took years of digging deep, clawing my way out of darkness, falling back in and being pulled out by strong hands until I could pull myself out and see the light within me."
There is this feeling empowerment when we realize where the love can shine even in the darkness and continuing to allow ourselves to feel the grief while knowing that it's tethered with profound love.
Thanks, Janine. This is a heartfelt post. Thank you for opening your journal to us and sharing your experience and thoughts. I appreciate and witness all you've gone through. Sitting alongside you in mutual empathy as you read your journal entries to us.