Hello and welcome to Dear grief guide.
A podcast where each week I answer one anonymous letter from a listener feeling lost, stuck,
heartbroken or overwhelmed in the midst of grief.
My name is Shelby Fercitya.
I'm a grief coach and author and I'm here to help you create a life you love from the
life lost forced you to live.
Let's get to today's letter.
Dear grief guide.
Recently a friend texted me and told me that I am quote coddling my trauma and grief
and that I'm putting my feelings first.
This message came at an extraordinarily low point since losing my dad and I feel devastated.
I have lived my whole life giving and caring for others, always putting their needs above
mine.
This person knows that and yet they still sent me that hurtful message.
I feel like this is the one time in my life where I should be allowed to be sad and not
have to do everything for everyone.
I hate people and I hate life.
Even during my grieving process I've done my best to support the people in my family
and people who are close to my dad and still I got hit with this soul destroying comment.
It is the worst and most hurtful thing anyone could ever say to me and I'm so angry because
this person has seen and known grief themselves.
Seriously, how could they say that to me?
I would really appreciate some comfort or acceptance.
I feel so alone and misunderstood.
Thanks.
Crushed caregiver.
Hello there crushed caregiver.
Thank you so much for writing in because this letter demonstrates the power of a single
text, a single interaction in absolutely destroying a grieving person who is trying their
best to make it through the day.
I want to validate you immediately in a phrase through a phrase that I use quite often with
clients that I'm working with who are lamenting that they're worried that their grief has made
them selfish or that people are going to think they're focused on themselves or that they're
coddling their trauma or that they're using grief as a crutch.
Grief is inherently selfish because it's happening to you.
Grief is a selfish, if you'd like to call it self-indulgent experience because the person
to whom the grief is happening is you.
You are the thing, the living organism that is at the center of your grief experience.
And let me tell you something else.
We all need to coddle our grief.
I think people use the word coddling in the negative as if you're babying a toddler who's
angry that they can't get their way.
But grief makes children out of all of us no matter how old we are and who we've lost
or what we've lost.
We enter into the state of need.
We revert back to what we were when we entered this earth.
Babies, infants in need of care.
Metaphorically we need to cease outpouring because we don't have the energy capacity ability
to do that often when we're grieving.
And instead our arms reach out, our voice is cry out.
We reach ourselves out in the hopes and with the intention of sometimes for the first
time in our adult lives being cared for by others.
Asking for help and being allowed to receive it.
Grief is something that is injurious to the soul, to the mind, and the body, and to reach
out and to receive care and to treat grief in and of itself with attenderness and
a constant attention and a desire to help it.
I'm sorry I just can't agree with this shaming definition of coddling at all.
Your grief, my grief, everyone's grief, even the grief of this person who made this comment
towards you deserves to have their grief comforted and loved and cared for and paid attention
to.
The thing I want to logistically ask you is how close are you to this person?
And if you've been listening to this podcast long enough or if you've ever worked with me
in any sort of one-on-one or group capacity, you probably know that I'm a pretty big fan
of cutting people off quickly.
If they cannot be there for you in your grief, maybe a block for a week, a block for six
weeks, or just a ceasing of communication or a dwindling of communication until you
have more energy to return to that or to be exposed to that.
But if this is somebody that you're extraordinarily close to and have been close to for a long time,
it seems you're close enough to their grief story and to have supported them in some capacity
through their grief, I wonder if you're close enough to them to check them on this and say,
"Hey, did you mean to send that to me?"
Or did you mean to say that to my face or did you hear what you just said and really prompt
them to think about the words that they just lobbed in your direction as if it was nothing
at the worst and hardest moment of your life and you may not get a good response, you may
not get a bad response, you may get no response at all.
But I wonder if you are close enough to them and if you have the capacity to what would happen
if you invited them to take a closer look at those words.
You could even include how they made you feel.
Did you mean to send that to me because it sounds really hurtful and this is the worst
moment of my life, this is the worst hardest season of my life?
I'm really trying to make it through here and that did not feel good.
Did you mean to send that to me?
I would not feel afraid of sending that because honestly at this point all things considered,
what do you have to lose is what I would be telling myself in that scenario.
Now whether or not you take the same action I would is neither here nor there, you know
pressure, if that does not resonate, if that feels very, very scary or just not who you
are in the world and how you prefer to show up, feel free to set that down.
You are not required to act on that, but I wonder if that's not something that resonates
with you, maybe this will.
You say that this person has seen and known grief, but I wonder if they have ever let themselves
feel grief.
I wonder if they have ever given themselves the grace and the permission to let grief make
them selfish, to sink into the fullness of that experience and allow themselves to have
it and to move through the emotions and the incubation period of grief and the coddling
and the constant attention that grief requires, especially in the early days, did they let
themselves have that?
Do they feel they have that permission or did they shame themselves out of grieving and
call that growth and call that progress because sadly that happens so often in our society
people think that if they stay busy enough or that if they suppress their emotions enough,
that they are no longer grieving, that they've moved on, that they're over it and that they've
checked the box, they're done and that other people can very easily do the same.
But their grief is not your grief and they may not have the tools that you have to give
themselves permission to feel and experience all they really need to feel and experience
in their grief and in that case, an exercise I can offer you for as much bandwidth and room
as you have is to open up a space of compassion and your heart for their inability to allow
themselves and by extension you, the grace and permission to simply experience grief, to
allow grief to make them and you "selfish".
Lastly, I don't necessarily want to plant this idea in your brain because it sounds like
this person is somebody that you're close to in your life but because of what you highlighted
in your letter, the ways you've been giving and caring for people your whole life, it may
be worth pausing and asking, how does this person specifically benefit from that caring and
giving behavior?
That essence, that identity of who you are or who you have been leading up to the loss
of your dad, is this a person who may be consciously or unconsciously rushing you to get
back to being that old self, that old version of you because they gained something from that?
Are they ready for you to become a caring and giving person again because that's who they
need you to be in the world?
And if that's the case, this really may be a person who cannot come with you into life
in the after, they may not be able to comprehend, accept, recognize, be okay with all the ways
that grief has changed you and you deserve friends who are capable of that.
I wish you love, I wish you luck and I'll be standing by, should you choose to send an
update?
That's all for this episode of Dear Grave Guide.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
If you're feeling lost, stuck, heartbroken or overwhelmed in the midst of your own grief,
check out my free workshop Grow Through Grave, three ways to stop feeling stuck and start moving
forward.
I'll give you three easy, actionable tools for navigating life after loss and show you
how you can create peace, stability and compassion right there in the middle of grief's
confusion and uncertainty.
You can find the workshop link in the show notes.
If this podcast helped you feel a little less alone in your grief, please subscribe and leave
a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening.
And be sure to share Dear Grave Guide with a friend, because you never know what someone
you love is going through.
You can submit your anonymous letter for the show and find additional grief support at
shelbyforcitya.com.
Dear Grave Guide is performed by Eddie Goldstein, editing by Ruth Spence of Celebio.
Until next time, I see you.
I am so proud of you and the work that you're doing in the world.
And I love you.
Because even through grief, we are growing.
[Music]