There are articles that teach you things about yourself and others that explain the thoughts that you have confused in your mind. Scott Berinato’s interview with grief expert David Kessler in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) brought me both things.
Although like everyone else, I can feel anger or sadness during this global coronavirus pandemic, I feel deep inside me the need to stay as much as possible in the present moment. And surely avoid projecting myself into an improbable future due to the current uncertainty. “Anticipatory grief is also more broadly imagined futures” as David says.
David Kessler tells us how to behave to deal with grief during these exceptional times:
- Find balance in the things you’re thinking: best images and worst scenarios
- Let go what you can’t control
- Focus on what is in your control
- Breath
- Stock up on compassion
- Feel your feelings and they move through you
- Let yourself feel the grief and keep going
- Realise that nothing you’ve anticipated has happened
- Think about what you feel
- Name what’s inside of you
- Name this a grief. “There is something powerful about naming this as grief” Kessler says.
The practice of meditation or mindfulness can greatly help us “To calm yourself, you want to come into the present.”.
David also talks about the sixth stage to grief that come after the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ classic five stages (denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, acceptance): meaning. He concludes by:
I believe we will find meaning in itDavid Kessler
My illustration of David Kessler’s interview:
