Bid farewell is an undeniable moment in life that we will experience. It always never been easy for each of us. When we undergo separation from the people who already connect and have bonded with us, it affects our lives so much. It’s not only about mixed emotions but also affects our mental and physical stability. The symptom is clear. We might feel anxious, sad, and unmotivated to do anything, making us lose focus, feel weak, and feel grief.
Goodbye is a sign for us to get the most out of life. What we have done, what we will do, what we are doing, what we are saying, listening, it’d be a part of our journey. No matter its insignificance, each of them will be our memory.
Goodbye doesn’t always have to be considered a negative situation that will scratch our journey. It could mean the process of embarking on a new journey or into something better. It doesn’t have to be full of sadness and tears. It can be tears of joy.
Grief is the actual emotion that most people experience when they lose someone special. When we are attached to someone, a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens is activated automatically. The nucleus accumbens is linked to reward and pleasure, which often sends us a signal to do the repetition or to avoid something.
The bright side of a separation or bidding goodbye to one particular thing could help us realize how blessed our lives have been. It might be hard to accept immediately, but we will recover. An end isn’t like the end of the world. Since you can still read this content, it’s a new beginning to something.
When we need to bid goodbye to one situation or stage, it could mean that it’s telling us that “we are holding on to something that no longer exists or serve us any better, and it’s time for us to move on and shift our direction to what we deserve, which is better and different.” Adjusting to life without something or someone that been a part of our journey is not easy, and it’ll be so normal if you find yourself struggling to adapt to those situations. But, since you have conquered it once, you need to adjust your life once again, the activities that you did together, the emotions and feelings when you react or communicate with them, and also you need to shut down your old predictions over the things they usually had done for you.
Is grief = depression?
No, it’s different. Grief is the cost of love; both can happen simultaneously, and they can also happen one at a time. The reason for people to experience grief is clear (because they lose someone). Depression is a feeling that you don’t have the groundline to explain why you hate so many things.
There is a type of grief that we called it complicated grief. Complicated grief is prolonged grief that might also activate the nucleus accumbens.
How does this happen?
When your loved ones are alive, there are some moments when you feel rewarded by seeing their picture or memories recorded of them. But after they’ve died, there are two scenarios. The 1st, you will adapt to the loss and stop getting this reward sensation. And the 2nd scenario is that you will feel sad and unable to move on. The 2nd scenario is what we call complicated grief.
Grief isn’t easy to deal with, so we need a solid support system. The role of the support system is also critical here. When experiencing this emotion, we need someone or a group who can become our emotion pot to balance our emotions. If you don’t have these support systems, you can do activities to express your emotions, such as writing a diary, poetry, writing lyrics.
Is it different from the mourning we experience when we lose someone
we love vs. someone we’ve admired?
There is a process called ambiguous losses. It means we don’t have to be in someone’s presence to attach our emotions. Many of us have a role model or someone we admire, and we don’t have a real connection with them. “We know them, but they don’t know us.”
And the mourning and sadness that we are feeling are what we call parasocial grief. It happens because we lose someone who gives us a realization and perspective about the world through music, film, legacy, or impact, which we are letting the bond created.
Let’s discuss more the levels of stress…
What are the upside of low-moderate stress and the downside of chronic stress?
Moderate stress does have some benefits. It can increase nerve growth, improves memory, and reduce fear. When chronic stress appears, it activates your survival instinct. The more it happens, the more it becomes a default setting. When it’s become a default setting, it will disrupt a variety of brain functions which is the downside of having moderate stress, reducing the cognitive domain’s memory, affecting how you make decisions and visuospatial function, and making you lose focus.
Our lives are full of chapters; they’ll end when we leave this world for good. Undergoing a separation or bidding farewell to someone or something we love isn’t the end of our journey. That separation moment is just a chapter we need to close to open up a new one. We always need to have blank pages to keep the story alive. The end of one chapter doesn’t mean that it will disappear into dust. It will be recorded, and it will always be there.
Sometimes we feel it tough to move on because we are afraid to deal with the pain of loneliness and emptiness. As always, when we are in a recovery phase, let’s not force ourselves to heal instantly. We need time and space to let go of all the past.
“Learning to say goodbye is learning to grow.” (Exploringyourmind.com)
There is no timetable for it, and no matter how much time we take to recover or how many wounds we have, we still have a beautiful soul. When the first outbreak happened, we tend to doubt and question our capacity to accept, but as time goes on, whether we made the right decision or not, made the right expression or not, did we react well, let’s believe that we are managed to move on from all the heartbrokenness.
Sometimes we forget that we have a lifespan and nothing is for eternity. We are impermanent creatures. We don’t have the power to define and know the right timing for everything.
“Sometimes good things fall apart, so better things can fall together.” Marilyn Monroe
Here are three ways to grieve healthily:
- Being there and spending time with whoever experiences grief is one of the best ways to comfort them (For the support system).
Don’t let others define your reactions and responses because the pain won’t disappear just because you ignore it. - “The only cure for grief is to grieve.” Earl Grollman
- Remember, you still have the chance to live and a life to lead.
References:
https://www.lifeisheavenyouhave.com/post/why-it-s-always-hard-to-say-goodbye
https://www.science.org/content/article/why-its-hard-say-goodbye
https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/grieving-changes-brain
https://www.americanbrainfoundation.org/how-tragedy-affects-the-brain/
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/grief/bereavement-grieving-the-death-of-a-loved-one.htm
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/theres-pleasure-in-your-pain/articleshow/3151164.cms
https://tinybuddha.com/blog/if-its-hard-to-say-goodbye-your-lifes-been-truly-blessed/
https://exploringyourmind.com/its-so-hard-to-say-goodbye/
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/grief/coping-with-grief-and-loss.htm
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