All Blog Postings by Mary
Modern Day Grief
Archive notice: This is a historical post from Mary’s years of blogging. Some older posts may mention products, courses or shop items that are no longer available, as Mary now focuses her time and energy on supporting widows inside her private Facebook community. The guidance and stories remain here as a free resource for widows.
For current ways to connect with Mary’s work, you can:
- Read her book on Amazon .
- Request to join her private Facebook group for widows .
How does our modern day grief compare to the many traditional mourning customs of previous generations?
In Queen Victoria’s day widows wore black for a year as an outward display of their grief. In many cultures today widows move their wedding rings to their right hand after the one-year anniversary.
Recent generations have worked hard to minimize mourning traditions, seeing them as old-fashioned, irrelevant and morbid. But over the last few years I see a gradually swing back as people realize mourning is important to our mental health. It’s important to let ourselves experience the fullness of our grief.
Here are some traditional tips that may help you:
Allow a widow the time they need to fully grieve in the best way for them. To repress their grief may lead to anxiety, sleep problems, relationship difficulties and more.
Bereavement can be a time of immense loneliness. Look for friends that are good listeners and at not quick to tell you what you should do or feel.
There isn’t “one” way to grieve. Every widow has her own history and her own way to cope with her grief. It’s important to march to your own drummer.
In many ways a serious loss never stops being a loss. It’s important that the widow takes her time to acknowledge and understand her loss. She needs to do this in her own way.
Widows may be heart “intuitive” in their grief – emotional, expressive and in need of support from friends and family. Other widows go by their “head knowledge” and are private as well as non-verbal. Both styles of grieving may cause the widow to retreat into no activities, but most will eventually return to a social life.
Contrary to current self-help, not all widows need to learn how to express their feelings. Grief is a process of adapting to an unwanted life as a single and everyone will adapt in their own way. Also, not every widow needs to weep and talk at length about their feelings.
It would remove the burden of how to grieve if widows didn’t have to hide their tears or on the other side they weren’t constantly being urged by her friends to talk about their feelings. Maybe you need to cry, but maybe you don’t. Also, you may need to talk it out or you may be private and not want to share your feelings.
Mourning is not a straight path that suits everyone. This is your grief journey – do it your way!