Today, we are joined by marriage and family therapist Brian Burns to discuss grief. Brian starts the conversation by defining grief and the five different stages that someone goes through when experiencing grief. He explains what complicated grief is and how grief ties into getting divorced as it is the death of your marriage. Brian provides excellent tips on noticing the signs of getting stuck in grief and how to cope with complicated feelings. This episode is full of great information and steps on moving forward in your life after the event that causes grief in your life.
[2:27] Brian defines grief and what it can look like. [8:15] Brain talks about his experience dealing with internal struggles after dropping children off at college.[10:35] What is complicated vs. uncomplicated grief? [14:49] Where do people get stuck with grief, and how do they cope with the feelings? [18:20] What does it mean to take care of your life? [22:30] What is the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) score? [23:43] What should you look for when finding a therapist?
The five stages of grief are denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance; however, they don't happen linearly. Each person handles the stages of grief in a different order and, at times, goes back to the stages multiple times. Complicated grief is what a person experiences when handling something that shouldn't have happened, such as the death of a child or divorce. It is something you cannot understand that wasn’t supposed to happen. This is different than uncomplicated grief, which is something that was expected to happen, such as someone dying from old age. To move through grief, you must take charge of your life. Understand who you are, what's important to you, who you want to be ten years from now, and who you are as a parent. When you have answers to these questions, you have resilience which helps you handle the situations that come your way.
“When you lose a marriage that was important to you, that never is ok, that's never the way it's supposed to be. But it is what happened. So acceptance means the ability to tolerate or manage or shoulder the new reality and still have a meaningful, happy purpose-driven life.” - Brian Burns
“Divorce is complicated grief because even if you are in the position of choosing it because your seeing the marriage is no longer healthy for you or anyone, there's still the what ifs, there's still that sense of what does this mean about me, could I have prevented this, what could my partner have done, did I choose wrong?” - Brian Burns
“When life kicks you in the ass, that's a chance to take the exit that you choose, to take control in a way that leads you to a life of more meaning, more knowledge, more experience, that is just as happy and fulfilling as the one you lost, or that was taken from you.” - Brian Burns
Psychology Today for Therapy
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