Let Go Of Guilt In Grief
“I’m just mad at myself for not being able to save him. I feel guilty because I was supposed to save him. I told him I would.”
This conversation came up recently when I was on a coaching call with a young widow. She had only lost her sweet husband about 6 months ago. He passed away after fighting cancer for over a year.
Sigh.
We, all widows, that is, experience guilt in some form after we lose our spouse. It takes many forms and we all wrestle with guilt in different ways.
We feel responsible for what happened.
We feel guilty for decisions that we made. We feel guilty for things we did. Guilty for things we said. Or the things we didn’t say. There’s guilt over not taking them to the hospital soon enough. For not taking the advice from a certain doctor. We feel guilty for letting them drive that night. Or for not insisting that they stay home.
These are usually the ruminating thoughts that keep us up at night. At least it was for me.
I was adamant about my feelings of blaming myself. For sure, it was my fault, for not stopping him from going out that night, even though there was no reason for him to stay home. In all honesty, I wanted him to go out and have a good time with his friends. He had been working so hard and deserved some down time.
Still, it was my fault.
That was always the nagging thought in my head – I should have done something different.
Anything different.
And this wouldn’t have happened.
Elisabeth Kubler Ross said, “Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion to death.”
The Illusion Of Control Over Life
All of us are victims of irrational thinking when it comes to grief and guilt.
Why? Because when we feel guilty it means that we believe in some sense that we have control over life. It’s an illusion of control over life and death.
Do we REALLY think we have that much control over when someone dies? Think about that.
The reality is, we have no control over when someone else is going to die. It’s not up to us. And yet, we think it is. We think there was some way we could have stopped it.
The only true reality is that life will do what life will do.
Hindsight is always perfect.
You did the best that you could with the information that you had at that time. I had a bereavement counselor tell me this one time. She is an amazing individual, there for me on my darkest days. There was one particular day where I was on the verge of a panic attack. She stood in front of me holding my hands. She told me to take a deep breath and say out loud, “I did the best I could with the information I had at that time.”
It worked. It calmed me down. The more I repeated it, the more it sunk in. It’s a true statement. Not just for me, but for all of us. You did the best that you could. Period.
Widows Feel Guilty For Feeling Happy
The other way that guilt can creep up is as we start to feel better. We start to move forward. We laugh. We find beauty in the world again. Life starts to open up for us again as we step back into the light. We feel genuine happiness that we never thought we would ever feel again. It’s unexpected, in the best way.
And THEN, we feel guilty because of it.
Why? Because we think widows are not supposed to be happy!
We paint a picture of what a widow should act like or look like. Widows wear black. Widows are always sad. Widows aren’t supposed to be happy people!
I remember that first time I laughed after Brent died. It was about a week after he died and my sister said something funny. And I laughed.
And then I felt horrible.
It all felt so wrong.
Widows don’t laugh.
I thought there was something deeply wrong with me.
On Episode 191 of Widow 180: The Podcast, I interviewed MaryJo Newell. We talked a lot about guilt and it made me feel so much better to hear that she had experienced this feeling too. The feeling that we should allow not ourselves to have happiness. Mary Jo said that she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to be feeling.
She said there was that gnawing voice in her head that told her if she was happy then she must not have really loved her husband.
Is it really ok to feel happy again? YES.
Is it really ok that a widow shows joy, gratitude, and appreciation for life? Yes, it’s ok!
Give yourself permission to live life to the fullest! There’s nothing wrong with that.
You are judging yourself for feeling joy. And by doing that, by judging yourself for moving forward, judging yourself guilty for happiness is holding yourself hostage.
Your guilt will then keep you hostage in the grief.
That’s not where we want to be.
It’s not where we want to stay.
Why Do We Blame Ourselves?
Why do we do this to ourselves?
Why do we punish ourselves with guilt?
One answer may be that guilt gives us something to focus on, something to understand. It gives us something or someone to blame for the loss because without something to blame, that means that our person just died for no reason. There has to be a reason, an explanation, so it has to be my fault. There’s no way that this just happened. Because what just happened is incomprehensible. We can’t understand it.
However, if we can blame ourselves then the confusion has somewhere to go.
The world doesn’t just let these things happen, so it must be my fault because that’s the only explanation for this.
We try to make sense of the senseless. Does that make sense?
What I came to terms with was this: What does guilt actually accomplish?
How is this judgment that I put on myself making anything better?
It’s not.
As long as I continue to punish myself, how can I move forward?
As long as you feel the need to punish yourself, you cannot get on with the business of living a happy life.
Give yourself permission to move forward.
Forgive yourself for any judgments you’re holding onto.
You did the best you could with the information that you had at that time.
Please be kind to yourself.
Got something to share? Email me at jen@widow180.com
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