if you are navigating grief and having to make a major decision in this season of your life,
especially if you were in the early aftermath of loss, this entire episode is tailor-made
for you.
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Hi there, Brief Growers, and welcome back to the Griefgrower podcast. I am so delighted to be here with you today, as always.
If you have been going alongside me in my work for a while, welcome back, and if you are new to me and the show, hello.
My name is Shelby for Scythia, I am a Grief Coach, a two-time soon-to-be-three-time author.
I'm not going to stop saying it till the book comes out in March.
And I'm also the founder of Life after loss Academy, which is an online course that has helped dozens of grieving people
stop feeling lost, stuck, broken, and alone, and start building lives they love from the lives that lost force them to live.
As with everything else in my work, this includes not only death-related losses, but also losses like divorce, break-up, major diagnosis, and every other transition that changes your life.
Here on the show, we believe that grief is not something to get over or power through.
It is something that we grow with and alongside, and that when we stop treating grief like a problem to be solved,
and start treating it like an invitation to live more deeply, we create meaningful lives that are rich with the memories that we carry,
and the struggles that we faced, and the awareness, the preciousness of what it is to be right here and right now.
And in that same vein of like, it is a precious thing to be right here right now, I want to get into a topic that I know so, so many of you will resonate with, which is in the here and now, in this moment, in this season, I must make a decision.
I am a grieving person and I must make a major decision in my life, and I'm not sure what to do. I'm not sure where to go from here.
And I want to get into all the things that grief has a hand in that can make decision-making hard.
So this is based on a letter that I recently received from a podcast listener.
She writes, "My mom died eight months ago and I still feel like I'm living underneath a giant boulder. Every day I wake up in this body that doesn't feel like mine, in a life that doesn't make sense without her.
I can't breathe half the time and the other half of the time I'm just trying to get through the day. And now, on top of all of this, I have to decide whether or not to sell my mom's house.
The house I grew up in, the house she died in.
Everyone says not to make any big decisions in the first year of grief, but I do not have that luxury. I can't afford to keep the house. I don't know how to know what's right when everything is upside down.
And without my mom here to counsel me, how do I make a decision like this when I'm still barely surviving?
And this is such a powerful and relevant question to so many grievers out there in the world.
There is tenderness here, but there is also you can hear it in her words, a crap load of pressure. There is urgency colliding with griefs uncertainty.
And as I mentioned, I know that this person who wrote me this letter is not the only person in the world who is facing this kind of dilemma.
If you are navigating grief and having to make a major decision in this season of your life, especially if you were in the early aftermath of loss, this entire episode is tailor made for you.
And the thing that I want to get into first is something that this podcast listener mentioned. And it's something I call the no big decisions rule.
You've probably heard it before. You might have heard it from somebody really well-meaning. I'm thinking friends, therapists, strangers on the internet, and it goes like this.
Don't make any big decisions in the first year of loss.
And at first glance, it seems like really good advice. I think a lot of people are like, don't get too emotional. Don't do something you regret. Don't let your grief take control in the driver's seat.
And basically like run over all of the good things in your life is kind of the image that I get in my brain when people give this advice.
Because in fairness, the early weeks and months of grief can kind of turn your brain into mush. It can scramble who you know yourself to be, your sense of safety, and certainty in the world, and your direction about who you are, where you're going, what is next for you.
And as so many grieving people inside life after a loss academy share, they no longer trust themselves to choose anything.
What they'll have for dinner, much less, should I sell this house? Should I quit my job? Should I end this relationship? Should I move across the country?
But I want to issue something that I wrote in my second book here, "Greep Your Way," which just celebrated its five year anniversary. It came out on September 29th, 2020, if you can believe it.
But this is the January 10th entry. This is like first 10 passages of the book. Here's a thing I need you to know.
It says, "Sysaido Convention says, 'Don't make any major decisions within the first year of a loss.' But in my humble opinion, that is hogwash."
As much as we'd like to, we cannot opt out of living because someone we love has died, and sometimes life-changing decisions must be made immediately following a loss.
If you have to make a big decision in the aftermath of loss, gather as much information as you can, call on friends and trusted advisors to help, and be sure you're as informed and prepared as you can possibly be.
And this is something that I stand by. It's not a hill I'm going to die on because I don't really believe in dying on hills. That's a podcast episode for another day.
But basically the root of this is the no big decisions rule is not practical. It's not sense-making for grieving people. Yes, your grief may slow you down. Yes, your emotions may be louder than your logic in this season of your life.
But the truth that many of my grieving clients and students know intimately is, life cannot wait for the haze of grief to clear. Sometimes decisions must be made and lost events like the death of a loved one or a divorce or a major diagnosis.
These are often these these single events are often the beginning of something I call decision avalanches where lots of decisions, small ones and large ones, must be made in the aftermath of them.
These decisions could be about your relationships, your home, your work, your finances, your energetic bandwidth, and sadly many of these decisions cannot be put off until later.
There are regularly instances when you are newly grieving where an option has to be chosen. Something must be done right now.
I want to get into one of the things that a lot of grieving people are really afraid of is making the wrong choice. There's kind of this this core fear in their brains that I really resonate with is what if I part my friend what what if I fuck this up what if I get this wrong what if I make the wrong choice and behind that fear underneath that fear is often the belief that grief makes us bad decision makers.
And I'm not going to dismiss this I'm not going to dismiss this and say grief doesn't make you a bad decision maker or grief doesn't affect your judgment or grief doesn't affect your logic in the earliest months after loss.
Your nervous system is on overdrive and survival mode all at the same time your executive function people call it like the front part of your brain the prefrontal cortex.
The part of your brain that handles complex thinking and planning and memory and emotional regulation these can all be compromised they can be down for the count they can be on overdrive it kind of comes in close moment by moment and Megan divine who's a therapist and the author of it's okay that you're not okay.
Referred to this on my old show coming back conversations on my laughter loss as putting your keys in the freezer syndrome it is essentially a experience that many gravers have where things that you used to remember easily are forgotten or misplaced or mixed up such as oh my gosh I put my car keys in my freezer.
It is very very common after any sort of loss to feel impulsive or scattered or avoidant or mentally blocked and you might feel like you have a lot of trouble weighing consequences or sort of imagining the future down the road different outcomes of your decisions but the thing that I want to.
Gently lob in your direction or reassure you of or come alongside you with is that that doesn't mean you are incapable of making wise and grounded choices it might just mean you need more scaffolding or more support than usual you might need more tools you might need more input from others you might need more information about the situation and most importantly what we talk about so often here on grief grower you might need more self compassion to do the best you can with the tools and the energy that you have.
In this particular season of your life and I want to get into like the practical of like okay we've set the table enough of like the big decisions roll the trash and I have to make a big decision and I'm not necessarily a bad decision maker I'm just a different decision maker while I'm grieving how exactly do I make a big decision while you're grieving so whether you are trying to figure out how to sell a house or whether to sell a house if you should change careers move to a different city redefine a relationship whether that's a romantic partnership or platonic or a family relationship.
These are three gentle and grounded ways to approach grief and decision making especially when you're like my brain feels broken and my heart feels heavy both of these things are true and I still have to choose something.
Number one ask yourself can this decision wait before you do the other two steps on this list ask the most basic and often the most overlooked question is this decision actually urgent.
Because a lot of times this is kind of my soft asterisk that I'll put in here a lot of times the drasticness the life changingness of loss can make everything in your life feel like it's urgent it needs to happen right now but it is very very very rare to encounter any sort of decision that cannot be delayed even by a few hours even by a few days or weeks.
If a decision can wait if you can ask for an extension if you can ask for an hour to think about it if you can ask for a week to look it over with a lawyer give yourself the gift of time but if it truly cannot if a decision cannot wait whether finances or the safety of yourself or others or legal timelines are involved acknowledge that that is true I have no more time to wait and give yourself compassion for having to act under pressure while grieving either way explore the consequences of delay.
So for instance what are the financial costs of waiting as opposed to starting this process ASAP or what are the emotional consequences of acting now versus later sometimes a positive consequence could be get more time to decide and a negative consequence would be like you have more anxiety about the outcome because the notes happening down the road or what are the relational or community impacts of deciding quickly or slowly will other people be impacted by this in other words sometimes the kind of general awareness.
Of how actually urgent a decision is can ease off the pressure to make the perfect decision or to know what you're going to do right now one of my very favorite grief artists slash poets slash illustrators Morgan Harper Nichols has a illustration that she shared many many years ago on her Instagram and it was just one simple sentence it says you do not have to have it all figured out tonight or something of that nature or everything does not need to be figured out tonight.
And oftentimes kind of when relying awake at night and the grief is crashing into us at the end of the day when the mask of I'm fine falls off that's when we feel oftentimes this urgency to make a decision to move in a direction to figure out how we're going to get out of this thing or start this thing or end this thing and a lot of times the things that we think about aren't as urgent as we think they are they just feel urgent because grief feels urgent and so kind of teasing those things apart can be really really helpful when it comes to making a decision do you actually have to decide this right.
Now or can it wait can you gather more information gather more tools give yourself more time to process and think so on it so forth.
The second tool I want to offer you so after you've asked yourself is this actually urgent is to make a pro and calm list I'm a big fan of lists I love writing things down lists are great for grief brain and a simple list whether it's on paper in your notes app scribble on an app can this can go a very very very long way in helping you see clearly what feels like it's tangled and messy in your life.
And I really want you to be thorough with this so don't just do like pros and cons of right now this moment consider the impact this decision might have months or years or even decades down the road and also don't just consider how this decision impacts you think about how this decision will affect others in your midst emotional social mental physical relational outcomes these all belong on your pro and calm list so as you're making list do like initial knee jerk.
Pros and cons pros cons then ask yourself the question what impact what pros and cons can I anticipate or predict in the future if any and then how will this affect other people pros and cons in the future if I can think of any and then how will this affect me emotionally socially mentally physically financially
financially relational anything I haven't thought of and it might be worth sort of bouncing ideas off of other people or off of other grievers which we do a lot in my factor loss academy of like anybody else had an experience like this so they might have input of things that you haven't thought of yet and that leads me right into number three which is to call and wise counsel this is something I will recommend for almost any scenario because grief can make us want to isolate ourselves from other people but big decisions are sometimes too heavy to work with.
To have you to hold or to figure out or to tease apart all by ourselves so for a big and life changing decisions selling a house any relationship changing careers moving away consider pulling together a team and your team can include different like flavors or different categories of people so maybe trusted friends who listen more than they fix in life after loss academy we refer to these as your grief allies you might also consider
there are a piece of grief coaches who understand grief and the connection it has to decision making and all the ways that your brain is affected by both of those things because your brain is affected by grief but your brain is also impacted by decision making and those two can be in a sort of battle or in a sort of combat and there's also ways that they can compliment each other.
You might also consider depending on the situation that you're in calling in experts financial legal real estate medical career who can offer clarity and answers and what does this mean or what does this online item mean or what does it look like to shift from this sort of job path to this sort of job path without necessarily pushing an agenda or decision or an answer on you and this is a kind of like a me inserting because I always want these people in your life to be doing something if there's anyone in your circle who said
let me know if there's anything I can do which is like a dreaded thing that people point in grievous direction as like that's helpful and you're like no it's not actually helpful but if somebody says let me know if there's anything I can do either a ask them to refer you to someone who might be able to help you make this decision or ask them if you like them enough and you feel close enough to them to invite them into this process ask them to sit with you as you go over your pro and con list that you made because even just hearing someone say I'm here that makes a lot of sense or have you considered excellent.
If you have you considered XYZ this can relieve the shame or the stress and the isolation that often gets in the way of making big decisions while you're grieving and this is kind of a bonus on top of the bonus of calling in wise counsel if you worry person who believes you can connect with ancestors whether that is loved ones who have died spiritual guides invite them into this conversation too.
If you were talking to this letter writer this podcast listener who said I'm selling my mother's house the place where she died if you believe that you can connect to your mother if you've listened to past episodes of grief wars where we talk about how to connect to loved ones who have died you might ask your mom what would you want for me what would you want for us if there are multiple people making this decision with you or if you could be sitting beside me right now what would you tell me what would you reassure me of what doubts would you have if any and what's the number one thing you would need me to know and let them know what you want to do.
And let their perspective let their insights become a part of this wise counsel that you are gathering together if you are grieving a loved one who has died or a pet who has died let them be on your team as you make this decision and that can feel also like there is a caring for your grief and caring for your heart component that may not have been present at the beginning when you're beginning to spiral about how am I going to make this decision call them in see if you get any sort of clarity or any sort of response
back whether it's a sign or a phone call or anything else that pops up in your midst that makes you think of them because that could lead you in a direction that maybe you didn't consider before.
Another thing I want you to do beyond kind of these three things is to prepare for the worst and this is not to be a bummer this is to be prepared so to ask yourself the question instead of how I make this big decision ask yourself what's the worst that could happen
because when grief dominates your day to day it is normal to spiral into fear and ask things like what if I regret this what if I fail what if this ruins everything somehow and instead of self-gast lighting and telling yourself I'm overreacting or I'm just being emotional or being irrational
I actually argue that is very important to answer these questions very literally take them seriously instead of letting them just loop on your brain unchecked like a record player that's gone off the rails so get very specific after you make this pro and con list after you consult the wisdom of others ask yourself what is the worst case scenario if I make this decision
and then once you've answered that question take it one step further and ask what would I do if that happened so for instance if I can't sell my mom's house in the time that I need to I'll move back to my home state or back to my home country and hire a realtor in my mom's town who can take charge of this process for me and we'll check in once a week I don't know how real estate works but if that sounds reasonable that's a decision you could make
if all of our mutual friends side with my soon to be ex as a result of this breakup and I am left friendless and alone in in the desert I'll make a list of family and supporters that I do have in my circle and consider joining group therapy to process my heartbreak maybe reach out to some acquaintances or friends after that
but if the worst happens if your ex takes all your mutual friends with you you're gonna you have a plan you have something you're going to do after that
if I leave this job and I can't get a new one immediately after quitting I will work part time in a coffee shop while I send out my resume to 10 new workplaces per week like if the worst happens if this actually comes to pass because you're craving person you know that the worst can happen because you've lived it what are you gonna do
this is not appeasing your fear or playing into anxiety this is something I want to to really ground you in right now making a contingency plan for fear does not make it real you are not manifesting your anxieties into existence you are preparing yourself
and what these scenarios do what if and then planning for the what if it puts power back in your hands especially to time when it can feel like things are really out of control and what it also does is turns down the volume of what if
what if things go wrong in your brain and that is never not helpful when you're trying to make a very big decision
the thing I want you to do after this though after you've predicted disaster I want you to ask what's the best thing that could happen as a result of this decision
because one really nefarious thing that grief does is crowd out the possibility that good things will ever happen ever again
but something we forget especially in the early days of loss is that not all consequences of change are bad
I'm gonna say that one more time something we forget especially in the early days of loss is that not all change is bad
so flip the script what if the worst happens and ask yourself what is the best case scenario of this decision
what positive results of other people in this situation or who have made this decision experienced what might ease, connection or peace look like in the midst of this decision making process or what unexpected surprises might be on the other side of this
this is not me painting over your fear with toxic positivity this is what I like to refer to as strategic hope
because while grief is extraordinarily powerful it does not have the ability to stop good things from happening to you ever again
and so allowing yourself not only to imagine the worst but also to imagine the best both things are equally likely
based on this decision that you're making it gives your brain it reminds your brain and your heart and your mind and your body
that this does not have to end and disaster just because you are being forced to make a big decision while grieving does not mean that decision will end and disaster
it will end somehow it will have consequences some sort not all bad not all life ruining or ending
I want to remind you sort of as we wrap up here that the goal of these exercises and the thing I want to relate to this listener too is not certainty
you will not find certainty through any of these exercises not 100% anyway because you will not and cannot ever know with total certainty whether or not you're making the right decision
I want to remind you that that is true for a griefy decision after a major loss but if you think about it it is true for most other big life decisions as well we are all out here doing the best we can making the decisions we can with the tools and the information and the energy and the ability that we have in any given moment
and honestly that's kind of okay in fact it's very very human you might feel as if you were in a worse state or you're more compromised in terms of the resources that you have right now
and yeah that's probably a bit of your reality but what I will say is that you do not need certainty in order to make a good enough choice for you right now
you just need a lot of support and self-compassion and the kind of self-trust that comes with not abandoning yourself as you are trying to make one of the biggest decisions of your life
and set another way the decision that you make right now in the midst of your grief does not have to be perfect
in fact it cannot be it is not possible for it to be because nothing in this world is perfect what this decision has to be is grounded in what you know for sure
oriented towards what you need and designed for or intended for what feels most aligned with who you are
all of that happens with the caveat of in this moment in this version of your life with the foundation of your grief being true
so if you are feeling stuck or frozen or afraid of choosing wrong take a breath and maybe hit replay on this episode as many times as you need
and take heart that you are not weak or broken or incapable of moving forward what you are right now is a grieving person living in a society that pressures us to get it right when in reality there is no one right way
there are just thousands of possible outcomes and only you and potentially the people you're making this decision with know which choices are good enough
considering the time and the information and the tools and the resources that you have available to you in this season and you deserve space and support as you figure things out
if you are interested in getting more support for figuring out a big life decision granted I am not illegal or medical or real estate professional of any kind I am just a grief worker who can ask different sorts of questions about decisions and holds space for you
I hope you will join us in life after loss academy we make so so much room for the sticky and complicated decisions that grief often brings and with that we do not rush answers or insist upon you must be certain of this
we ask reflective questions we reinforce your existing supports systems and come alongside you to be another support system
and we learn all the time every day how to live with and alongside grief instead of pretending that big old loss that just happened does not affect your choices and we do all of that together
so if you are staring down a decision that you did not ask for in a life that lost forced you to live I hope you will join us in life after loss academy
I would love to help untangle your knots and to hold your grief and this big decision with care and to find a way forward that honors both your past and the future that this decision will have an impact on
and you can join us in life after loss academy through the link in the show notes or at shall be for sithia.com
thank you so much for joining me today as we talk about grief and decision making and I would love to know have you made a big decision while grieving how did it go what did you do to prepare if anything and what was the result
how are you right now in this moment in the season and maybe also what would you tell yourself looking back you can also find a way to get in touch with me in the show notes
that's all for this episode of grief grower thank you so much for joining me today if you're looking for grief support beyond this show you can find free workshops blog articles and my signature what's your grief supports diocuis at shall be for sithia.com/links
and if you'd like to get support from me for your unique loss experience once again you can join us in life after loss academy my online course and community as a student I will walk you through my five step grief framework for rebuilding after loss and you can get live coaching from me every single week to answer your questions replays are always available if you cannot attend live
if this podcast felt validating comforting educational or otherwise helpful to you as you make a big grief decision please subscribe and leave a review on apple podcasts or on Spotify and be sure to share grief grower with a friend because you never know what someone you love is going through
grief growers hosted by me shall be for sithia and the theme music is composed by addie goldstein until next time grief growers I see you I am so proud of you in the work that you're doing in the world and I love you because even through grief we are growing
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