What is Anticipatory Grief?
Anticipatory grief is the grief that we feel before we actually experience the total loss. This grief can go on for minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or even years.
It can come in the form of the loss we feel when a loved one is diagnosed with a devastating diagnosis such as dementia or Alzheimer’s, or ALS, where we watch them slowly fade away from us either physically or mentally or both. Their physical bodies are still here with us, but they are not the same person we have always known, loved, and counted on. Our reality shifts, and we can get confused in our feelings because we can still see this person, touch them, and interact with them, but they are not the person we once knew. We miss not only how they were but our relationship with them as well.
There can be multiple layers of loss in anticipatory grief. With Alzheimer’s, we lose our emotional or intellectual connection to the person, but we can also lose a parent, a partner, or any other way we are connected to them. We can lose our independence as they lose theirs if we are their primary caregiver. We can lose our health with the stress we carry worrying about their health and taking care of them. We can lose our peace when we don’t know what they would want as medical decisions come up, and we’re forced to make them if we haven’t had those tough conversations earlier. We lose our childhood when a parent fades from us, and we have no one left who has witnessed our young selves and can tell us about how we were as young children.
Anticipatory grief is a single loss multiplied and felt as a constant threat of losing something else. It is waiting for the other shoe to drop and feeling like you can’t grieve until the loss occurs, but then feeling guilty that you want to be on the other side of the loss, where you anticipate healing. It is wanting it to end and not wanting to lose the person or thing simultaneously.
Anticipatory grief is duality. It is holding both hope and fear, pain and love, peace and unrest all in the same breath.
How do we sit with both?
Becoming clear on what you’re feeling is essential. It can be messy; as I said above, it can be both/and. It can be “I want them back to who they were, and I want them to let go,” all in the same breath.
What are some ways to process what you’re feeling?
Get coaching or therapy. Talking with someone else can help you process your thoughts and feelings in a non-judgmental way, allowing you to move these feelings and not carry them as shame or guilt. Holding it in can create a sort of poison within us as we try to suppress it.
Journal about it. Write down your conflicting feelings. Release them from you. Burn them, shred them, bury them, compost them. Or keep them in your journal if that feels supportive for now.
Spend time in nature. Tell the forest how you feel. Let it hold you while you sob. In Human Design, trees and plants all have defined Spleens, which helps create that good feeling you get when surrounded by nature.
Work with an energy practitioner, get acupuncture, massage, chiropractic, reiki, or whatever feels right to you.
Join a grief group where you can talk about what you feel in a space where others can understand what you’re experiencing and are willing to talk about it.
Write down three things you’re grateful for each day, no matter how small, and even if they’re the same three things every day. Hold on to what grounds you.
Put your feet on the earth, in natural water, in the sand, or plant a garden or flowers.
Move your body.
Take care of yourself and remember that this is not a sprint. Anticipatory grief is a bit of a marathon, and you’ll need your energy and reserves, so take care of yourself. Nourish yourself with healthy food, move your body, take time for yourself, and spend time alone if you need or connect with others.
Allow yourself to be where you are. You don’t have to like it, but when you can accept what you feel and the circumstance, you can choose how you want to respond to it and be in relationship with it. You can take back your power by choosing your response to the situation. It may feel like you don’t have any choice, but you’re always in choice, even if that choice is just to accept it or not. The more we resist, the more energy we waste and the longer we can suffer or struggle. When we can surrender to what is, we empower ourselves to be creators of our lives, flowing with what is and life’s natural rhythms.
If you’re struggling with anticipatory grief, I offer one-on-one grief coaching sessions, or you can get on the list to be notified of my next grief group here.
