“Grief is just love with nowhere to go.”
Grief is something no one is ever prepared for. Grief can be complicated. It can be unpredictable. It can hit you right away or surface weeks, months, or even years later. And grief is a deeply personal experience that is different for everyone.
Many models have explained grief, its stages, and how to process it. One of the most popular models associated with the process of grieving is Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ 5 stages of grief. It suggests, however, that grief has fixed stages. To a lot of the bereaved, this is not what it is like. We tend to go back and forth experiencing different emotions.
The Four Tasks of Mourning
One framework that could help us understand and go through grief is J. William Worden’s The Four Tasks of Mourning. It moves away from fixed steps and suggests no specific order to the tasks. You can go back and forth from one task to another over time.
The Four Tasks of Mourning model allows the bereaved to go through grief in an immersive way. It allows one to deeply connect with their emotions and eventually adapt to their new life without their loved one in the best way they can.
Detailed in his book "Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy," these are Worden’s Four Tasks of Mourning:
Task 1: Accept the Reality of the Loss.
“Acceptance is an act of grace that leads to transformation and healing.”
- Iyanla Vanzant, Acts of Faith (1993)
There can be some form of denial when we lose someone we love. We often read and hear that “acceptance is the key.” In the Four Tasks of Mourning, it is a crucial step to go through. You could look at it as a “key” to get to the other tasks.
Acceptance doesn’t mean giving up, it means you stop fighting your new reality without your departed loved one. It means seeing your world now for what it is.
Task 2: Process the pain of grief.
"There is no grief like the grief that does not speak."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Many of us tend to avoid pain in general. It’s natural for us to protect ourselves from pain. In grief, though, pain is also a natural thing. Instead of moving away from pain, we must allow ourselves to acknowledge and feel it.
This does not mean that you must go through the pain alone. You can talk about it with trusted family members or friends. If it gets too difficult to talk about your pain, you may try writing. Some people find comfort in writing in a journal or writing letters to their departed loved ones.
Task 3: Adjust to a world without the deceased.
"Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated."
- Alphonse de Lamartine
Losing someone can change you in many ways. It changes your routine. It changes your perspective. It might require you to change your plans. Grief can bring about different kinds of changes, big or small.
Suddenly, you’re having coffee alone because you lost your coffee buddy. Your usual cooking for two suddenly becomes for one. You usually go out as a family on weekends, but now you’re incomplete, and it feels wrong to have fun.
It’s difficult to adjust to your new world without them, but it is important to try to adapt and not get stuck. Adapting and adjusting pave the way to moving forward.
Task 4: Find an Enduring Connection with the Deceased while Embarking on a New Life.
"When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure."
- Author unknown
Moving forward with your life without your departed loved one doesn’t mean forgetting them. It means living your life despite the loss. It means honoring their life with how you live yours. There are many ways to honor and celebrate their life, like creating a memory box, having custom jewelry in memory of them, and even getting a tattoo.
What you shared with your loved one, all the memories and moments, will never go away. Their love will remain with you, and you will carry it with you as you make new memories.
Your Grief Journey
Grief would look different for everyone. Your grief journey is your own experience. Though it would seem daunting to face, there are tools to help you go through it.
The Four Tasks of Mourning is one of several models of grief that can help you to better understand and process your grief. There are also many outlets available to explore in your grief journey, such as journaling, meditation, art therapy, and music.
If you or someone you know is interested in grief journaling, our Dalamhati: A Guided Grief Journal could be a good place to start. It has spaces to document your loved one’s life, blank pages to write letters to them, gratitude exercises, and heartwarming poems and quotes.
Remember, we grieve, because we have loved.
