Narrating Grief

While on a recent college visit with my younger daughter, we found ourselves at a charming bookstore on the outskirts of campus. As we browsed, I noticed a baseball cap with a phrase on the front panel that might pique the interest of any bibliophile. It stated simply: “Unreliable Narrator”. These words bring to mind a whole genre of books in which the storyteller cannot be fully trusted as their credibility, perceptions, or honesty are in question and may be compromised.

After seeing this hat, many would likely think about well-known books that use this unique narrative device. Instead, my thoughts turned to how grief affects our ability to tell our own story. Given that my professional background is in mental health, I have had some training in what is known as “narrative therapy”. While completing my master’s degree in social work, I was fortunate to work with a supervisor who specialized in this therapeutic approach, which focuses on separating people from their problems and re-authoring our personal stories to build a more empowering life story. Reflecting on this approach to helping people reminded me of a fundamental assumption in narrative therapy: the idea that we are all narrating our own personal story as we live our lives. 

The more I pondered, the more I saw how grief can temporarily shift our capacity to be fully reliable narrators for ourselves. When we are newly bereaved, we are unsure of ourselves, our sense of the world feels skewed, we may be unable to articulate a clear timeline of events, and we may engage in magical thinking. Put another way, we may struggle to be fully honest with ourselves and may find it hard to tell our story. As our identities often shift in the face of loss, we may need time to adapt to and reconsider our life circumstances. Before we can reliably incorporate the loss into the narrative of our lives, we must reflect and reconsider who we are NOW. Just like savasana is the most important part of yoga as it helps us integrate the practice fully, so too does the integration of loss into our life story help us find healing and - eventually - peace.