Navigating the Depths of Grief
Whitney is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Colorado, specializing in working with women with Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and women navigating matrescense, infertility, pregnancy loss, pregnancy, and the postpartum journey. Whitney is the founder of The Rylie Center for Hope and Healing.
I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend, a therapist, a mentor, a subject expert, and an author, among many other titles that I’ve collected in my tenure on this planet. The one title that I do not wear with pride is bereaved; bereaved mother, bereaved daughter, bereaved aunt, and bereaved friend. I can count more times than I would prefer the experience of being stricken by the loss of someone near to my soul, someone I have shared my life and heart with. Whether it was the loss of my freedom and identity on the eve of adolescence, the loss of my father in the early days of postpartum, the loss of a pregnancy and a child I had wished for many years, the loss of a friend to a cruel and unforgiving disease, the loss of a human life I was blessed to tenderly care for during their final days on earth, or the loss of my greatest treasure and life’s blessing early in my adult years—each shaped my personal narrative in profound ways.
The experience of grief is an unavoidable fate of the human condition. Yet, being the most tender of emotions, it paves the ultimate path to closure for those brave enough to walk it. Grief crosses our paths in many ways throughout our lifetime, but ultimately, there is undoubtedly one loss that is the most unraveling, a form of grief that comes without a cure.
There is no true way to prepare for grief, even with advanced notice. How does one prepare for someone to no longer be in their life? To no longer answer their calls or texts, to no longer meet them with a warm embrace, to no longer meet their eyes in a loving gaze, to no longer exist? The human condition was not designed to grapple with death or grief. It is an emotion for which we have no cure and cannot fathom the depths of it until we are in the midst of it, proving that we are capable of surviving the very hell of its existence within our souls.
Many great philosophers, poets, scientists, and writers have tried to explain and theorize the phenomenon of grief and loss but have fallen short. Its deeply personal nature is just that—uniquely and profoundly personal. We can theorize and personify the experience, attempt to explain its stages, and anticipate its leaps and turns, but until you board the grief rollercoaster, there is truly no way to prepare for or fully understand the experience you are about to endure.
Grief is innately personal, as no two experiences are the same. Each of our feelings and attachments to grief will never be identical. Without a grief playbook, there is no “right” or “wrong” way to grieve a loss. As a therapist, I am often asked, “Am I doing this right?” or “Does this ever get easier?” I always remind individuals that there is no one way to grieve, and it does not necessarily get easier; it just gets different. As grief evolves and reshapes our lives, we become more settled and adjusted to the disruptions. We may still find ourselves in the grocery store, seeing our loved one’s favorite cereal, or on vacation, suddenly struck by an image or memory. But rather than collapsing with sadness, we may instead smile, cherishing the sign from our departed loved one as a reminder of their presence surrounding us.
Grief does not get easier; it just changes. Life moves forward without the departed, but we never forget them in our souls. You continue your everyday life and activities, and your world changes and carries on. But it is not as if you are moving on and forgetting them. They have left an imprint on your heart forever, no matter how long you had them with you.
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Whitney Frost, Mental Health Therapist and Clinical Director
Whitney is a mom, wife, therapist, business owner, author, mental health advocate, and champion for policy change for all women and moms in the US, and serial entrepreneur. Whitney is an advocate for women navigating motherhood by creating equitable, quality mental and physical health care for all women and those identifying as women. Whitney is the founder of The Rylie Center for Hope and Healing, Colorado's largest perinatal collective.
