The Power of Guilt in Grief

We all know that losing someone so fundamental to your life brings along many challenges, some of them more difficult to bear than others. However, the challenge I would like to focus on in this post is the feeling of guilt. This is a challenge that I often feel like I will never overcome, as it feels like there's always something you can find to make yourself feel guilty over. Especially when it is about the way you live your life without a person you have lost. It could be over anything, throwing away a pair of old socks that they bought you, forgetting their birthday, not noticing straight away when their favourite song is playing in the background, or simply just managing to live your life without them in the first place. There are so many endless possibilities on what could lead to feelings of guilt.

Now, I think it is important to remember that whatever it is that has made you feel this way, you have nothing to be guilty for when it comes to living your life. Sometimes it feels too soon to feel happy, I definitely felt like that for a long time, that I needed my mom's blessing to be happy and live my life without her. Yes, you have to make sure you feel ready to move on, but a part of moving on means focusing on yourself and what your priorities are which in turn brings along a lot of guilt. However, at the end of the day you only have yourself to rely on so you should not be too hard on yourself. Things over time will become easier, including dealing with guilt, but I cannot say that it ever fully goes away just like the grief itself.

Guilt can even sometimes make us feel more connected to the person we have lost, we don't want to start forgetting things or losing that connection we feel to the person who has passed away, which is something that we can gain from that horrible pang in your stomach when something reminds you of them. I can completely relate to that feeling because I used to do that, I would notice myself not getting as upset over things that I used to struggle with, and instead of feeling happy that I was progressing I saw it as a sign that I was forgetting my mom and that we were less connected which lead to a guilt and shame spiral that can be quite difficult to get out of. But we have to keep reminding ourselves that it is okay to be happy. We deserve to be happy and it is your right to feel happiness even when at one point you thought it would be impossible to ever feel anything positive again.

In reality, although it is natural to feel guilty about things when going through loss, feeling guilty does not serve you a purpose. Therefore it is something you should try your best to rationalise in your mind. You should try and remind yourself that you can live your life without someone being no longer physically in it and still honour them without consistently suffering and feeling guilty. You are completely allowed to flourish without them, as impossible as that may seem. I am not saying that any of this is easy by any means, and it's not something you can just complete and tick off of a checklist, but it is possible over time with a lot of patience, softness, and forgiveness on your part. One thing that I like to do is to put together a list of things that I wish I could do or handle better since losing my mom. For example, I still am unable to go to her favourite cafe in the city because it feels wrong to go without her. On the flip side to that I make a parallel list of things I have overcome since losing my mom. For example, the word cancer no longer triggers me in the same way that it used to. I can hear it, and say it and read and I don't immediately burst into tears, which is honestly really nice. Seeing this ongoing journey and progression really helps me to evaluate how far I have come without being too hard on myself and it makes me appreciate the little steps and improvements I have made so far. This helps with the guilt because these are all things that help me to live my life in a peaceful and happy way, and even though I would much rather have my mom here to witness my growth, I am confident that she is cheering me on wherever she is. So if you know that writing is something that helps you then I would really recommend doing something like this, and even if you've never writing before - give it a go! You have nothing to lose.

Kya (she/her)

~Grieve and Groove team~