The Rural Mindset Podcast™ Episode 36 - Honouring Grief

by Erica Leniczek August 9, 2022

Grief is a widely studied emotion & can be challenging to talk about because we all grieve differently. It's complex even through its stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, but that's not the only time we feel grief; we can feel it when there's an anniversary, when we are missing someone during some kind of event or certain circumstance, or in those quiet moments.

We have found that grief isn't really finite and doesn't particularly have an agenda. People can grieve in different ways and for different reasons, not just death. We can grieve the loss of sense of self, injury, loss of trust, and many more; essentially grief is an emotional response to loss. There are many aspects of grief other than the emotional response though, some of these include: physical, cognitive (brain), behavioural, social, cultural, spiritual, and philosophical dimensions of grief. If you think about it, different cultures grieve in various ways, we go through various stages of grief, we might behave differently throughout the phases of grief.

Here is how I cope with grief:

1. Honour the situation or person through celebration, scholarships, etc.

2. Journal about it. Write yourself letters

3. Scheduling grief - schedule time on the hard days (anniversaries, birthdays, etc.) that you know are coming, listen to your favourite sad song on the way home and allow yourself to feel grief, or schedule a phone call to talk about that event or feelings with a friend so that you know you can have that emotional release.

Sometimes grief can sneak up on us and I would like to invite you to figure out why. Perhaps you are doing something where you would like them to be there, maybe you would normally do that thing with them, maybe you are struggling and would normally chat with them if they were still there. Perhaps you would behave in a different way or be doing something different today if whatever event didn't happen. This aspect is what makes grief so complicated.

Don't forget about grounding and self-care tools to help you like going outside, nutrition, and exercise and how these things are integral to help your body feel better when you're not feeling the best emotionally.

Listen to Episode 36 Here

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If you’re looking for more great food & ag focused podcasts to listen to you can check out the Positively Farming Media playlist on Spotify. There you will find all of the podcasts on the Positively Farming Media Podcast Network just like The Rural Mindset Podcast. | Listen to the Positively Farming Playlist on Spotify