When Grief’s Second Wave Hits You
Pro tip: Bring your floaties!
Society likes to tell us that grief is a one-and-done event. That after the funeral or after the first year or after “time heals all,” we’ll miraculously be over our grief. We won’t feel pain or heartache or nostalgia any more.
But grief doesn’t work that way.
Grief is not an event. It’s an experience. And living with loss means living with grief — making room in your life to interact with grief… especially when you least expect it.
There’s a phenomenon in the world of grief that I like to call the aftershock. Some people call it the second wave. Some people call it the other shoe dropping. Some people call it re-grieving.
Whatever you call it, I can define it for you like this: “the feeling of your loss happening yesterday.”
You wake up one morning or your driving home one night and all of a sudden you’re hit with this MASSIVE WAVE of sorrow. Or loss. Or pain. Or longing. Or loss. However grief shows up for you, it shows the hell up and totally blindsides you.
That is the second wave.
Why Does The Aftershock Occur?
Our brains are not capable of processing all the consequences of grief all at once. Especially in…
