81. Grief Note: How I Untangled a Toxic Belief

About the episode:

In today’s Grief Note episode I talk about a time when I untangled a toxic belief—or story—I was holding related to my friend Lauren’s death.

It’s not uncommon for us to create stories around our loss. David Kessler talks about how when we create a story “that is not true and is not helpful,” we can “get stuck in the narrative.” In other words, stories can complicate our grief.

There are a million different stories we may tell ourselves around a loss. Such as, “it’s my fault they died,” “I was a bad friend/daughter/partner/parent because _____,” “I will never be happy again,” and on and on and on.

I found that I was able to untangle my story—which had become a knot in my heart—by writing about it. By switching perspectives, I was able to recognize that 1.) my story wasn’t true or helpful, and 2.) I had the power to stop believing it.

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Quotes:

“So much of grief is us attaching stories to explain, to explain everything, to make things make sense. But sometimes that sense-making can cause more suffering.”

“And David Kessler, a very celebrated grief expert, has talked about another way of also kind of sorting through and untangling our stories. And one that I really liked is treating it like you're a lawyer in a court of law. Would you be able to prove without a shadow of a doubt that that story is true?”

“Because when you really start to investigate, these stories will crumble apart. And sometimes all you need is that shadow of a doubt to kind of create that crack in the story, which can help guide the untangling to begin.”