Embracing the Waves
When I’m working with leaders (and myself) as they struggle through painful transitions, they sometimes wonder why they can’t get over what they’ve lost years, even decades later. I remind them there’s no timetable on grief.
We come by our confusion naturally. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s classic “On Death and Dying” has transformed care for terminally ill people. It has also encouraged us to see grief as an orderly, linear, 5-stage process of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
But we’re getting Kübler-Ross all wrong.
Grief experts Pauline Boss and Alan Wolfelt argue that the five stages everyone talks about are for the dying, not the living. And so when we apply her framework to others (or ourselves)—whether we’re grieving a loved one, a lost job, or a family member’s problems with substance use—we’re using it in a way Kübler-Ross never intended.
Misapplying Kübler-Ross’s five steps also encourages us—especially Americans, who approach every aspect of life as a series of check-off boxes—to see grieving as a standard process that ends with a definitive resolution or “closure” if we do it “right.”
The problem is that grief is always messy. It’s always unique. And it never reaches “closure.”
If we lose a job, we can get over the shock, find new employment, and recover financially. But every so often, something will trigger our memories, and we’ll feel a wave—of resentment or sadness, of guilt or self-doubt, or even of happiness or warmth. And then the wave will slowly ebb away.
To get better at managing the waves, we need new skills.
Imagine embracing what you can’t control.
Imagine redefining and reshaping the role you play.
Imagine navigating the gray spaces where you feel so uncertain and unsure.
Imagine connecting with others in new ways.
Imagine discovering new hopes to replace the dreams you need to leave behind.
Imagine how you can use your experience of adversity to help others.
How might having these things for yourself change your life? Book your free Discovery Session here.
