When we talk about grief, we talk about the loss of loved ones. We talk about the tragic losses of catastrophic events, the loss of pets, and friendships that fell apart. We talk about miscarriages, failed IVF cycles, and birth strategies that don’t go as planned.
What we don’t talk about is the grief that happens when things go our way: the grief of identity change.
When we become a parent, we don’t lose our identity. There’s no switch that you throw that replaces you with a stranger. It can feel that way, though because this new layer of identity gets glopped on.
This happens with all sorts of change: when we change jobs, move homes, switch schools, or get a new car. Sometimes the new layer is fairly transparent and the change feels minimal, like having to take a new route to work for a few months.
Sometimes it’s thick and that’s where the grief comes in because we can no longer see the person we once were. They’re still there, at the core of it all. But there’s this layer of permanent newness between us and them.
Photo Credit Alex Green via Pexels
We don’t talk about how natural it is to grieve that change. That person without the layer won’t ever be back even if, in the future, we do go back to how it was. There will always be a residue of the change that remains.
Imagine you left home. You went to college and lived on the other side of the states for a few years. Now, you want to set up shop in your home town so you move back in with your parents for a couple of months while you get your feet under you. The house is the same. The neighborhood is the same. The people are the same. But it feels different.
The sadness we feel here can be described as nostalgia, but that’s a fancy way of saying, “a softer, healed grief for a time in the past.”
Grief happens all the time in sneaky ways
It happens after you get that first positive pregnancy test that you’ve been waiting for when the reality of the change ahead of you settles in.
It happens after you bring babe home and officially add that layer of “parent” to all that is you. You can’t go back to being a not-parent. This is a part of you now.
What surprises some parents is that it happens with your second kid, too. Because now the dynamic is different, and you’re a parent of two.
It happens with the third. The fourth. You get it. It happens because your identity shifts every time. And that’s normal. And it’s fine. But it’s easier when we talk about it.
The one that I see hit my patients the hardest is the grief of a miserable IVF pregnancy. Oh friends, that one is rough. Because the identity shift from “I want so badly to be pregnant” to the immeasurable joy of “We did it. Time and money and tears and injections, but we did it” only to be immediately walloped by symptoms that make you question everything?
Oh boy, that gets to be a nasty mix of grief and anger, maybe even betrayal. And along with those feelings, guilt. Guilt because everyone is telling you that you should be happier than you have ever been in your life. But you can’t keep water down and your body is feeling less and less like yours.
The Season of Release
Autumn in Chinese medicine is the season of metal, which relates to the lungs. The emotion of the lungs? Grief. This is our time to find the places in ourselves that are grieving and sit with them. Maybe they’re not ripe yet, so we can give them a place to go:
- a therapist’s office
- a good friend’s ear
- a quiet moment of acknowledgement
Maybe, for now, we are done with them. We can give them an affectionate squeeze and send them on their way with a pleasant, heavy sigh.
The lessons to take home
The metal season teaches us that grief is a natural emotion to hold but not to hold onto.
It teaches us another, too: grief is as inevitable as change. Like the seasons, grief is circular, not linear. Sometimes things will come back to us and give us an opportunity to hold them briefly again. To look at them from the new perspective of who we are in this new moment, with all the new layers we’ve acquired since the last time we spent time together.
What we’ll notice as we sit and breathe with our old friend is that it’s softer and more faded. Every time it visits, it stays for a shorter time and softens more until one day it will be a thought and a breath.
So, ask yourself what you can sit with right now. Ask yourself what still needs to stay part of you as you navigate the changes in your life. Ask yourself what you are done processing and are ready to breathe out.
Then, take a breath in, smile, and let the autumn winds take it home.
Disclaimer: I am an acupuncturist in the state of Minnesota, and the information falls within my scope of practice in my state. However, unless I have directed you here as your homework I am probably not your acupuncturist. The information in this post is for general purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. As always, check with your own acupuncturist or primary care provider before making any lifestyle changes. This post does not create a patient-practitioner relationship and I am not liable for any losses or damages resulting or relating to the content in this post.
Jessica Gustafson is a licensed acupuncturist in St Paul, MN specializing in women’s health and fertility. She loves working with patients through the Health Foundations Birth Center on Grand Avenue in St Paul and doing home visits in the Twin Cities area. Check out the services page for more information! Follow Reverie Acupuncture on Facebook and Instagram for updates!
