By Tracy Washington

Here we are at the last round of court hearings, meeting with attorneys to settle division of property – this day marks the end. I’m glad it’s over. As I sat in the lobby of the courthouse completely stunned, the reality that my life was about to change forever hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m tired. I’m tired of fighting. I’m sitting across the table from a stranger. How did this happen? After this day I don’t have to be concerned with this mess. But I’ll be lonely; the intimacy that we once shared is gone. The dreams and plans that we made are gone. I feel like a hollow shell that was once filled with hopes, dreams and expectations. All I feel now is uncertainty.

According to the Grief Recovery Handbook written by John W. James and Russell Friedman, the definition of grief is “the conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior.” Loss is something that we all experience in our lives at one time or another. It’s unavoidable. The pain experienced by loss can be devastating, leaving us with unanswered questions and lifelong emotional pain. You can’t describe to anyone exactly what you feel because they can’t understand it. They claim they “know how you feel,” but in actuality every relationship and experience is unique to that individual. No one really knows how you feel but you and sometimes we don’t even know how we feel.

The overwhelming aspects of grief can make it difficult to sort out our own emotions. Grief is an emotional response to loss; it is not intellectual. Since most of us were socialized to divert our feelings to our intellect with phrases like, “Don’t feel bad, she’s in a better place,” we tend to try to use that idea to deal with all of our emotions. The net result is that we try to heal our emotions with our heads, which is something like shopping for milk in the hardware store. Logical reasoning does not lessen the pain of a broken heart. The heart screams out to communicate what it feels but the brain informs us that if we tell the truth, we will be judged or criticized for expressing what we truly feel. An internal war ensues and we try to reason away the pain, but that rarely works in the long run.

When we’re allowed to express our true feelings in a non-threatening, non-judgmental atmosphere, we’re more apt to tell the truth and rid ourselves of emotional baggage. Grief is not about the head, it’s a matter of the heart.

Tracy Washington is a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist, Speaker, Author & Life Empowerment Coach and can be reached at Tracy@FashionYourSoul.com.