Grief Thought Leader: Lisa Michelle Zega
Our culture seeks to heal the heart with the head.
We think if we can explain it, we will make it better. So, we end up with lots of well-informed, hurting people, who try to help others heal grief by giving more information.
Grief Is Healed Through Emotional Honesty:
We comfort the grieving with well-intentioned truths, “You had lots of good years together”, “At least you have other kids”, “You will meet someone new”, “You are still young”. And all of this information does nothing to heal the broken heart. Even if it’s the ‘truth’.
“To heal grief, it is important to share the heart’s truth.”
Grief is healed through emotional honesty. And since we experience grief in connection to our relationships, it is healed with our emotional truth within a relationship.
It isn’t necessarily based on ‘the facts’. Instead, on the feelings our body holds from memories. What we believed, our perception of love, our sense of the relationship, and our needs and wants from it all play a role.
Emotional truth sounds like, “My dad didn’t get me”, “I was always in the way”, “I’m all alone”, “I feel seen”, “I knew he loved me”. They are what we feel is true. To heal grief, it is important to share the heart’s truth.
Energetic Relationship:
People are often reluctant to share their heart’s truth when someone has died. Moreover, they are afraid that somehow they are going to dishonor the dead. Or, do harm to the relationship. This is absolutely not the case.
Our energetic relationship to people lives in us. Whatever is unresolved in the relationship lives in our bodies. Sometimes there is unacknowledged anger, pain, or resentment. That energy lives in our body and it seeps out when we are triggered.
“Intellectual understanding is not the way to heal the heart.”
In additional, we are not hurting our loved ones when we are emotionally honest. We are healing ourselves and transforming how the relationship lives in us. And we are releasing anything that is not helpful to ourselves or the relationship.
Healing Begins With Awareness:
Healing begins with the awareness of the feelings that are deeply ingrained in us. The feelings that shape our lives, our relationships, and our choices all come into play.
Sharing the details of what happened in a relationship does not help a person heal unless they are releasing the feelings attached to it. This is why a person who shares the same experiences over many years can still be stuck in grief. They did not metabolize the grief in the relationship. Metabolizing the grief helps us heal.
In conclusion, intellectual understanding is not the way to heal the heart. The language of the heart is feelings. This is why emotional honesty is what the heart requires to heal.
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About the Author:
Lisa Michelle Zega is a Life Coach for Midlife Women of faith who are starting over after the death of a spouse or a divorce and are struggling with sadness and self-doubt. She helps them metabolize grief to retain all the nutrients, learning and wisdom and release the waste, so they can begin again with joy and confidence.
She was married to a pastor, divorced after 23 years of marriage and her boys stopped talking to her for nearly 6 years. Zega later buried a fiancé 5 months before their wedding day. She now lives with her handsome biker hubby, adorable Jack Russel and creative stepson outside of Los Angeles and enjoys a renewed relationship with her grown sons.
She’s a devoted Minnesota Vikings fan, enjoys people, loves to hike, read, travel and embraces the fullness of life — the joy, sorrow and all the in between. You can find more about Lisa Michelle at Legityou.com or Lisamichelle.legityou on Instagram.
