Using Mindfulness to Cope with Grief

This is another story from our book Mindfulness for Transformation. The stories are written by members of our community.

By - Jane Bozier

I was in my twenties when I lost a baby, very unexpectedly and very traumatically. Not only did I lose my baby, I lost any chance of ever having another one, and what followed was a downward spiral of depression fuelled by loss, anger, darkness and despair.

My grief became my private internal space, which I shared with no one. I had a child already, and for a while I lost sight of her. I was consumed by such dark thoughts and feelings that they held me in a place with no hope, no answers and no future.

The conventional medical model of treatment was offered to me. I took antidepressants and had counselling, but I felt they were all in vain because nothing was going to bring my baby back.

The weight of the world that I had built around my loss was so heavy. I contemplated suicide; I didn’t really want to die, but I was just too tired to carry on living. I got everything ready, but just as I was about to go through with it, my daughter woke up and called out for me. I knew, in that moment, that I had to change–and so began my self-help journey.

I read book after book after book. I studied counselling. My self-help quest occasionally gave me bits and pieces of hope in the form of yoga, meditation and aromatherapy that I didn’t really understand but seemed to make a difference and complemented the medication that I was taking.

However, nothing filled the hole in my heart or replaced the emptiness. I knew that I had to find a way of living with what had happened.

I was in my forties when I was given a book called The Mindful Way Through Depression by Mark Williams, John Teasdale,Zindel Segal and Jon Kabat-Zinn. I didn’t read it, I just put the CD on every night and listened to the body scan. At the time, I thought it was a load of rubbish but, for some unknown reason, I kept going. I can’t say exactly how or why, but that feeling of being exactly where I was meant to be happened one night during the body scan. The invading thoughts that had haunted me for so many years were quietened each time I gently escorted my mind back to my body. A glimmer of hope arose.

I read the book and listened to some more of the CD; this time, the sitting meditation. With patience and practice, I noticed how much my mind wandered and how frequently the same thoughts arose. I noticed that I was caught on a hamster wheel of hopelessness, but paying attention to my breath seemed to help stop the spinning. This sparked my interest even more, so I signed up for a four-session mindfulness course online, which led to a five-day retreat where I completed a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course. I felt as if all my searching had led me to mindfulness. It had prepared me for this exact moment, and I was ready.

It was not an easy journey. So many of the thoughts and feelings that I had denied myself and hidden from others were surfacing, but I didn’t feel frightened anymore. It was such a relief to watch my thoughts pass over my head like clouds–it really did ease my mind. I stopped trying to suppress my thoughts, which had been taking up so much of my energy. It didn’t fill the emptiness that had long been a part of my life, but it did help me to walk side by side with my loss for the first time, to accept it as being a part of me–a part of me, but not the whole of me.

My daily practice helped me to learn more about myself, to understand that being kind to myself is okay and that what happened to me was out of my control. It didn’t happen because I was a bad person. There is no rhyme or reason for life’s events. Acceptance and letting things be have given me back my life–and, more importantly, my daughter–and for that I am grateful. My mental health has become my friend, not my foe. It is a part of the jigsaw of my life, one part of the complexity of being me, and when I am having a crisis, I understand that nothing is permanent. It will change, my thoughts are okay, they are not me. I’m not saying that dealing with a crisis isn’t an unpleasant experience, because it is. It’s such a dark place to sit. However, it lasts for less time now.

Grief turned my life upside down, leading me to depression. Mindfulness turned my life back upright; it centred me, and I felt I could breathe again. It found me 12 years ago–drawing together the small nuggets of hope that I had clung to throughout my adult life–and it clicked, made sense and changed everything. I am no longer controlled by my negative internal thoughts, and as a result I am more awake to the pleasant times. I have become more aware that most of my days are neutral, neither pleasant nor unpleasant,but each day gives me some moments of joy and happiness.

My mindfulness journey has given me so many opportunities, and I have met some wonderful people. I find there is always something to be grateful for and to smile about, especially my daughter and my grandchildren. I have realised that unpleasant moments are few and far between, and the majority of them are due to my choices anyway; they are my doing. I don’t get as stressed about the unpleasant moments that are not down to my choices–the things I cannot control. Instead, I do a three-minute breathing space meditation and carry on regardless.

I love to just breathe, to count each in-breath and each out-breath, especially when I am lying in bed. I have sand timers and snowglobes in each room, which act as visual reminders for me to pause at different times during the day for mindful moments. I love to smell the roses or freshly-brewed coffee, and I’m once again able to see the beauty among the chaos.

I spent so many years lost because I lived in the past and the future. I’m never lost with mindfulness to hand. It grounds me in the present by giving me mindful moments. I’m not lost anymore: I’m able to pause and be still.

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