How Grief Influences Our Habits
I decided recently that I would use this medium to convey a type of vulnerability not typically seen in the age of the influencer or in my world of personal branding. To me, there’s no better place to begin than illuminating your trauma. In order to convey my perspective, I will use grief and trauma interchangeably.
When I was very young, I was faced with immense loss and had to witness my most sacred circle experience loss repeatedly. I didn’t realize it at the time, but those years set the stage for my habit formation and my thoughts about myself. I was eight years old when I first experienced the reality of death. My mother’s youngest sister passed away from breast cancer a couple of months shy of her 31st birthday. I was young and absorbing all the emotions that my parents were revealing through their behaviors so I didn’t know how I felt but there was an obvious sense of loss. However, I knew that our routines would forever be changed.
This wasn’t my mother’s first experience with this type of grief. She and her four sisters lost their mother to breast cancer when she was only thirteen. While the experience of losing her mother shaped many of her passions and who she was, losing her sister traumatized her. For years after my aunt’s passing, my immediate family was confronted with the symptoms of my mother’s PTSD. Those symptoms became our roadmap when we were faced with my mother’s death just six years later.
Trauma can affect one’s beliefs about the future via loss of hope, limited expectations about life, fear that life will end abruptly or early, or anticipation that normal life events won’t occur - Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services
One commonality that my father, brother, and I had with my aunts was the concept of collective grief; another person to commiserate with while your mind tries to cope with a new reality. How we navigated our grief individually and as a unit began to influence our outlook and prospects for our own lives. For my father, he was faced with the decision of whether he would choose a life partner again and how soon. My brother had to grapple with his contribution to society and feelings of abandonment. I had to learn who I would show up as in this world as a woman without maternal influence.
Seeing this pattern of death in my maternal lineage generated rational fears about my own life expectancy, thoughts on childbirth, a rooted position on my personal health, and what I would be able to experience or accomplish. It was a reality check and a daily reminder of my mortality that I didn’t see in my peers. I remember going through phases of adventure-seeking and what some would call rebellion. I became very sensitive to interpersonal conflicts to the point of internalizing it. For better or worse, the habits that evolved from my grief were coping mechanisms and a response to my environment at the time.
As I look internally to identify the root causes of destructive or unproductive patterns, a few examples of grief-related habits appeared to me. This is a highly subjective interpretation but they could be displayed as:
A need to be heard: A strong desire for others to know your thoughts and feelings from your perspective while you are still around to share them.
Detachment issues: Can also be read as a fear of commitment or lack of strong bonds due to the fear of abandoning someone through death.
Heightened & High Functioning Anxiety: Related to fear of finite time and a desire to get everything done before time runs out.
What has helped over the years is the continuous exploration of how my lived trauma shows up in my life. I recently shared my experience and impression of grief with Brooke James of The Grief Coach. That action was the impetus behind the discovery of habits that were a direct result of my grief and hopefully another avenue for healing.
If you or someone you love are dealing with grief, there are resources to help you process the emotion and the paperwork in relation to loss. Please visit www.thegriefcoach.co for an empathetic and realistic voice on these issues. And if you’re interested in hearing my segment, you can listen to the podcast here.