Today, Wednesday, Aug. 30, is National Grief Awareness Day. This awareness day was started in 2014 by Angie Cartwright, a public speaker and activist. Grief Awareness Day occurs on her mother’s birthday. Cartwright knows what it's like to be overwhelmed with grief through her personal experiences of losing her sister, her husband and her mother. In creating this special day, she hoped to raise awareness around the various ways in which we cope with loss and how painful and impactful grief can be. Grief Awareness Day aims to encourage open communication on loss and bereavement, while also informing the public about the facts of grief.
Unfortunately, grief is something we all will experience, and while it's very common, it’s rarely discussed. We experience grief in all aspects of our lives, whether that be a career transition, a breakup, the loss of an experience/ritual, a traumatic event, the loss of a pet, etc. Plus, we’re constantly experiencing grief and trauma from the news and social media, which may cause us to experience collective grief–when a group of people share an extreme loss or change.
There have been 476 mass shootings in the United States this year thus far according to the Gun Violence Archive. Most recently, the mass shooting in Jacksonville, Florida. Besides that, as a world and nation, we continue to experience tragedies like the wildfires in Hawaii, crises in Ukraine and extreme weather events across the globe, and that’s not even counting our personal losses. Mass trauma, violence and extreme weather events continue to be more common. Even if an event hasn’t affected you directly, indirect exposure through the media can have a wide range of effects on our mental health and well-being.
We are experiencing collective grief at an unparalleled level, especially in the most marginalized communities in our society. These tragedies can leave us feeling a range of emotions, like anger, sadness, frustration, powerlessness, numbness and more. We wish we had the right thing to say, but it's almost impossible to process and honor each and every traumatic event we're exposed to.
Grief is messy and untidy. It has no timeline. It comes out when we least expect it; a song plays that we haven’t heard in a long time, or the sky reminds us a little too much of a day where we've lost something. What’s important is to allow yourself to feel and express these feelings and remember there is no timeline for grieving. Grief never really goes away or gets smaller, but we learn to grow around our grief while still carrying on with our lives.
The process of healing collective grief looks different for everyone. It could look like sharing how you’re feeling with a friend or therapist, giving yourself time and space to feel and process these losses and/or taking a break from the 24/7 news and social media cycle. It could also look like being a part of solutions where you can and where you feel comfortable, like donating to relief funds, joining a local action group or wearing orange to support gun violence prevention.
Remember that this healing work isn't just for ourselves. It's for our people and the betterment of our communities. Taking care of ourselves leads to community care, which is the idea of cultivating togetherness to be able to support the well-being of our loved ones. Community care is the link to community healing, and through community healing, we can start to heal some of the impacts of mass trauma. It’s okay to feel however you’re feeling, and we’re here if you want to talk about anything at 913-268-0156.
