Grief as my Greatest Gift

I want to talk about something that I have not shared so freely here. But I feel that it's only for people who may want to read or who are ready to read it - if anything in this post triggers or activates you, please reach for support with someone you trust or reach out.

There's a grief that I have, that I never knew was grief.

It felt so shrouded in shame.

I never knew that, what I was feeling was something that other people were feeling. But nobody said. Maybe because they too felt the shame. Maybe they didn't have the words. Maybe because it wasn't so clearly defined as grief.

It was a grief that I felt, thought made me a terrible person. I thought that I was going crazy. I thought that I couldn't take it anymore and it was all my fault.

My greatest grief in life is combined with my greatest love in life.

And that is Grief and Motherhood.

In being a mother there have been so many stages that I realise, upon reflection, that the process I went through, was of grief. They were a passages of grief that I was tending to. However, how it was responded to from the outside, my outer self included, was that I was not well, I was anxious, fatigued, not coping, a terrible mother and it was pathologized as something that was wrong with me.

And this is something I have seen and felt in other mothers. The validation of our experiences can feel stripped away when someone tells us that how we’re feeling is down to something that’s ‘wrong with us’. When in fact it may be that we actually need to grieve. To grieve for our children that were not born, grieve for the birth that we never had, grieve for not giving birth, the home structure we imagined to raise a family that didn’t happen, grieve the network of support that wasn’t there for the mother. The reality is that, rather than the mother doing something wrong, or having something wrong with her, it may be that the mother is simple going through a deep processing of grief. Whilst also, raising a child or children at the same time, with the aim of surrounding them with love, meeting their needs, playing and creating the safety they need to live well, to the best of the parents’ ability.

To grieve and raise children is. a. lot.

And I’m not excluding fathers in this either. To father and to parent whilst grieving is one of the most challenging things to go through. But here in this post I refer to mothers more, because, well I am one, so don’t feel it fair to speak for a view point that I haven’t embodied. But also because of what mothers go through that aren’t always acknowledged enough; the range and level of emotions and hormones that occur for a mother before, during, upon and after having a child. And of course, there’s the matter of pregnancy or not having pregnancy, giving birth and how the baby was welcomed to the world, as well as breastfeeding and bottle feeding. And deep within us there’s the experiences of our ancestors, our grandmothers that have fallen upon mothers’ shoulders, throughout history, that can weigh heavy.

I wonder how much easier, softer and more allowing the process of grieving would be if we knew that it was grief that the mother was feeling?

The most challenging thing in this I feel, is that for grief to be felt, space and time for the mother is needed.

And this can be seldom found in motherhood.

But it is crucial.

So how can we carve out time for mothers to grieve?

• Bring yourself up the list and ask yourself, ‘what do I need?’ and see what you can give to yourself.

• Ask for help. Ring someone you love and trust and ask if they can sit with the baby for an hour while you go for a walk on your own or have a lovely long bath.

• Call someone you trust, ask them if they have space to listen, for you to talk to them and share how you’ve been feeling.

• Join mothers and toddler/baby groups and maybe see if there’s any parents that you can build friendships with, to support each other through parenting.

• Give yourself permission to have spaces in time of nothingness - days, weeks or months of simple living; freeing yourself from pressure of ‘doing’. Sometimes to grieve, a free calendar with minimal socialising (perhaps only with people that make you feel amazing), a home that isn’t pristine but functions well and permission to live presently with how you’re feeling, is an enormous gift to give yourself.

• Journal a little each week or everyday if you can. Just noting anything that is coming up.

• Spend more time alone, bond with your baby and reduce any pressure of having to go to allllll of the groups. Sometimes we just need to reduce the ‘noise’ in our life.

• Move your body. Allow the grief to move through you; dance, stretch at home, put the baby in a carrier and go for walk, lift weights in the garden, do some yoga in the living room, if you can try swimming, in the outdoors or a pool, whichever you prefer.

• Follow your intuition and own needs. Trust that this moment doesn’t last forever.

• Join a community of support. There are groups that allow spaces to share and speak of grief. Speak to your health visitor to ask for help, speak to a counsellor, seek out alternative therapies and healing that you are drawn to.

My own grief became magnified when I became a mother. And today I know that the experiences I have had and supported my family with, have fed my drive and vision to bring change, to help women and mothers to remember how incredible they are, that how they feel is not a reflection of who they are as mothers and that they are valid in how they are feeling. Motherhood is incredible. But there is no doubt that it is f***ing hard. And that is where I want to help bridge the gap of shame and grief in motherhood. You are still an incredible mother, if you experience the grief that it can bring.

Motherhood is a constant pull between holding our children close and letting go.

It is a constant pull between love and grief.

And that is why grief is my greatest gift, because sitting right beside it, is unfathomable love.

‘Embrace your grief, for there your soul will grow’

- Carl Jung