It seeps around us in many forms. It may feel like restlessness, confusion, fatigue, overwhelm, frustration, irritability, anxiety, gloom, melancholy, a heaviness in our step and in the air – or just a sense of general unease that moves away every time you almost put your finger on it.

Do you feel this need to be done with 2021, and moving into a bright and new 2022?

Are you ready to hang out the closed sign and head into the end of year celebrations and break now, rather than in a months’ time?  You know that something isn’t quite right, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. The feeling is often elusive, but seemingly insignificant events can make you cry or respond with an anger that you did not even know was there.

Over the past few weeks I have had many conversations with many different people, from all walks of life and in different States, and a common theme has emerged. The best way that I can describe it is that it feels like a form of collective exhaustion. As though we are all just hanging in there, keeping our eyes focused on the road ahead, not daring to look around for fear that we may just veer off the road and self-destruct.

For a long time we lived with an illusion of certainty.

While intellectually we may recognize and even understand that very little in life is actually certain, we had carefully crafted a world where we at least felt that we could plan weeks, months and even years ahead. Just cast your mind back to job interviews of the past and the oft asked question “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”

And then came Covid 19. The pandemic has robbed us of the certainty that we took for granted, thrusting us into a world of ambiguity, fear and insecurity, exposing our vulnerabilities and draining our resilience.

Loss is part of being human, of living a life. Some losses we expect, and others blindside us. None of us saw the pandemic coming, and when it arrived, we did not know the extent of what it would take from us. Covid 19 has wrought innumerable losses upon so many, yet some are more obvious than others. Some we may not have even recognised as losses. And if we don’t recognize a loss, we do not realise that we are grieving.

You may not have experienced an obvious loss such as a death or divorce, but you may have lost a career, a home, a way of life, the ability to connect with family and friends, trust, safety, or one of more than 30 other losses that we can experience – and we have all lost certainty.

As borders opened and closed at a moment’s notice, lockdowns continued and our days are still marked by press conferences and daily case numbers, an underlying anxiety permeates across society.

Many of us consider ourselves resilient, and in a leadership role we want to lead by example and show strength for our team. As a professional you want to be strong and in control so that your clients have faith in your ability to help them when they are stressed and vulnerable.  And yet you suddenly find yourself crying in a meeting, you snap at a colleague, or perhaps, in the extreme, explode in rage.  These are all symptoms of unresolved grief.

Feeling overwhelmed, stressed, lost, tired, shattered, exhausted and literally in survival mode are all natural and normal reactions to grief and loss. Grief does not just show up as sadness. It is a cocktail of emotions that accumulate over time. Eventually there is no further capacity for another disappointment, another loss, and you snap. And you don’t really know why.

So it is tempting to hang out the closed sign now, take a deep breath and hibernate until the New Year arrives. I know, I feel it too. And most others I have spoken to over past weeks feel similarly. We are done with 2021, grief, loss and uncertainty.

However, if we take time to acknowledge the losses of the past year or two, and the grief that you may be feeling, we can navigate an easier path forward. It need not be so black and white.

And it is easy to begin simply by recognising these feelings as grief.

• There is something very powerful just in naming – out loud - these feelings as grief. It helps us feel what’s inside of us. For example, tell your colleagues “I’m having a really hard time right now,” or “I cried last night” or “I am so disappointed that I have to cancel another holiday plan.”

• When you name it – out loud and not just to yourself - you feel it and the feeling moves through you. Emotions need motion or they remain trapped in our bodies and can cause us pain.

• Acknowledge what you have been through, or are currently going through, without comparing your loss or grief to others, and then minimising your own feelings. Too often we tell ourselves things like, I feel disappointed, sad and overwhelmed, but I have no right to feel that way as other people have it worse than I do. 

It is more important to stop at the feelings. I feel disappointed, sad and overwhelmed. And then just take a few minutes to feel disappointed, sad and overwhelmed. The key is to really feel those feelings – and any others – whether or not another person is feeling anything, or ‘has it worse than you’.

All grief and loss is unique to an individual.

• Practice compassion – for yourself and others.  Everyone has different levels of loss, grief, anxiety and fear, and it will manifest in different ways.

• Next time you snap at a colleague, or they snap at you, take a breath and reflect on the behaviour. It is out of character for you, or for them – does it seem to be an over reaction? If so, this may be how you or they are dealing with grief, fear or anxiety, particularly if it has gone unacknowledged for some time.

Think about how you – or they – would usually respond and be patient, with yourself and your colleague. Perhaps take a moment to check in and ask ‘Am I ok? or ‘Are you ok?

By allowing yourself to express and acknowledge the emotional pain that is associated with the losses that you have experienced you are able to say goodbye to unmet hopes, dreams or expectations and are able to begin again, being emotionally complete with all of the things that did or did not happen.

You will then have the emotional resilience to enjoy all of the opportunities that 2022 will bring with it.

Written by Pip Ahern who is an Advanced Specialist, Certified by The Grief Recovery Institute and the Founder of Wondering with Grief. 

Grief isn't just caused by bereavement. There are over 40 significant life events that invoke feelings of grief. Many women have experienced loss as a result of domestic violence. This could be the loss of self, identity, career, their home, their community, a child or their children. It could also be a loss of trust in the people, systems, services and institutions purporting to offer help and assistance. 

Contact Pip if you are looking for a program to support your people through the challenges and grief brought on by the Covid 19 pandemic.