Why Talking About Grief Matters So Much

Years ago, I never would have imagined that I would write and talk extensively about grief. 

But as so many of us learn when we lose someone, it’s a topic our hearts ache to acknowledge and discuss. 

I think it’s especially important to talk about because there are so many assumptions made about grief and grieving people: assumptions about what grief looks like and how long it should last. Assumptions that put so much expectation and pressure on the heart of a griever.

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But, grief is a lifelong journey that changes and demands different things from us as we go.

It’s exhausting. It’s unpredictable.

It’s personal. It’s painful.

It’s isolating. It doesn’t follow a linear path.

It doesn’t go away because the love we have for who we lost never goes away. 

It’s something we learn to let in, in our own time and way.

It’s something we learn to process at our own pace. 

Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash

When asked why I am so passionate about talking about grief and why I think it matters so deeply, a few main reasons come to mind: 

It helps us to voice the depths of grief we’ve experienced.

When we are given a safe space to grieve around someone who bears witness to our pain, it is such an incredible thing. It shows us that we are seen and we can open up about our loss and what it’s felt like. 

It helps us to gain a deeper understanding of others who are grieving.

Grief is extremely personal, and there is no one-size-fits-all way to process and experience it. The more discussions we have about grief, the more we will see how it impacts the people around us. 

This helps show us that it is okay to grieve in our own way. It is okay if our grief looks different than someone else’s. And it is more than okay to seek the help and resources we need along the way.

This helps us to understand our own personal journey while also being aware of those journeying around us and how their path might look as well.

Talking about grief helps us honor those we’ve lost. 

For so many grieving, they yearn for a space to say their loved one’s name, to talk about them, and to hear other people’s memories of them. 

This may be too painful or too soon for some, and that is absolutely okay. Everyone will need to respond to their grief in a way that feels right to them and along a timeline that feels right for them. 

But when the heart is ready and the time is right, the space to talk about a loved one: to remember and be reminded, can be such a gift. 💜

But I think that’s why talking about grief matters so much. 

It helps us to open our eyes to the pain of others and see how they may process it differently. 

It helps us to remember that there is far more going on in a person’s heart than what we see.

It helps us to remember that while we each have our own personal experience with grief, there are others who are hurting and who are processing deep emotions and heartbreaks just like we are. This can be an important reminder that we aren’t alone.

We can honor the love and the loss and how it shapes each and every one of our stories. 

We can show others that it’s okay to feel the complex and ever-changing emotions that follow a loss, and it’s okay to talk about them. 

Through talking about it, we can help to change the conversation surrounding grief to one that centers around empathy and compassion for our own processing and the processing of another. 

And that’s why conversations about grief are so important.

Because your grief matters. It will always matter. 

And the love you hold for who you’ve lost matters. It will always matter. 

Photo by Christina Deravedisian on Unsplash

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