6 Things About Mother Loss That Every Therapist Should Know
Too often, I've heard from women that their therapist does not understand mother loss. They feel that their ongoing grief is frequently dismissed and that the wide-reaching effects of losing a mother are misunderstood by most clinicians.
Hope Edelman and I want to tell you about six surprising things about mother loss that all counselors should know.
- Grief for a mother lasts a lifetime. It is perfectly normal for a woman to continue to long for her mother throughout her entire life.
- The loss of a mother affects all of a woman's attachments, including her romantic relationships and her parenting.
- Approaching, reaching, and passing her mother's age at time of death is a significant and emotional rite of passage for daughters. Additionally, watching her child reach the age she was when her mother died can bring on complicated emotions, anxiety, and reactivate old grief.
- It's very common for a woman who lost her mother to feel a lack and deficiency around female identity and motherhood. Often these women will feel a sense of imposter syndrome around other women who have not experienced mother loss.
- Mother loss can lead to an intense fear of other losses. Health anxiety, catastrophic thinking, and fear of death or abandonment are common for women who have lost mothers.
- Women who have experienced mother loss often feel "stuck" in certain parts of their development, as if a piece of them never got to grow up.
If you are a mental health professional who would like to learn even more about working with mother loss, please join me and Hope Edelman for a six-week Mother Loss Certification program. Hope and I both bring a wide breadth of personal and professional knowledge to our work. Hope and I have worked with thousands of women and led dozens of retreats to help women who have lost their mothers.
The Mother Loss Certification is open to clinicians, therapists, counselors, graduate-level students, and any other professionals in proximity to grief. We look forward to providing you with the tools you need to support daughters through their journey of mother loss. Learn more and apply >>
Find books and online support for mother loss on my Grief Resource page.
What I Know About Grief
Twenty years after the death of my mother and ten years after becoming a grief therapist, there's a lot I know about grief. I've lived it personally and I've also held the hands of hundreds of others as they navigate their own process of mourning. After all this time and all this experience, there are a few things I know for sure.
Finding Meaning After Loss
I recently turned 40 and I spent the morning sitting on my patio writing in my journal and reflecting on the last year. Birthdays are always hard for me. No matter how festive or sweet or quiet or loud, something always feels to be missing. I always feel a strange sort of embarrassment or shame or melancholy, and I know that all of this has to do with no longer having the two people who brought me into this world.
Some years are harder than others, and this morning I was thinking about why. I realized that the years in which I didn't feel melancholy were the years in which I spent my birthday in service of some kind. This realization led me to think about the bigger concept of being in service.
It was a couple of years after my father died when I found myself working in helping capacities – first at a nonprofit supporting underserved school kids, then at an organization that helped homeless people find jobs, after that in hospice, and now in private practice as a grief counselor. Every single day now I talk to people who are hurting, people who are lost, and people who feel alone. Every single day I work to step out of my way and give something of myself to the community around me.
This is the number one thing that has led me out of my grief and pain. Finding a way to feel useful and purposeful in the world, making meaning out of tragedy, and giving what I can of myself, has changed my life. If you are grieving right now, or even just in pain of some kind, I recommend spending an hour or two, or even more, doing things for other people. I promise that those couple of hours will be the ones during your week that glow with peace and love.
There are no quick fixes to grief. It's a long process with ups and downs, but the things that I know that actually provide relief from the suffering are meditation, finding ways to be of service, and journaling.
If you’d like guidance on your grief process, my online grief program, A Safe Place to Grieve is now available in a self-guided version. Learn more here.
If you're grieving right now and you haven't tried these things, give them a shot. I promise they'll ease some of your pain.
Love,
Claire
Dealing with Regret in Grief
Today I want to explore grief and regret with you. To date I have never had a client who did not experience some form of regret following the loss of a loved one. Something left unsaid, a decision made near the end that they wish they could change, or a situation unresolved. After a loss these regrets can haunt us endlessly.
For several years after my mother died I obsessed about various things I did and didn't do towards the end of her life. It had been so hard to see her sick, so scary to see her turn into someone I didn't recognize, that I often withdrew from her, something that caused me great pain in reflection.
But by far, the hardest one was the night she died. I had left college and was on my way to the hospital, seven hours away. Halfway there I stopped to see a boy I had a crush on and decided to stay the night. Some of this decision came from avoidance and denial. But a lot of it was just my teenage naiveté. Nonetheless, my father called in the middle of the night to tell me that I had not made it in time, and that she was gone.
The remorse I carried over this ate me up for years. I couldn't believe that I had failed my mother in such selfish ways. I turned that fateful night over in my head like a Rubix cube, trying desperately to change the outcome. I cried and cried, and I wrote my dead mother endless letters telling her how sorry I was.
Eventually, years down the road, I was able to forgive myself. After I became a counselor I saw just how many people feel regret following a loss. And I was finally able to see myself in the context of so many others: as a human being, fallible and fragile, and full of love and fear and humanity.
We cannot change our past, but we can forgive ourselves. And we can recognize that we feel this pain because we loved someone so much. And that there is endless beauty in that.
If you find yourself consumed with regret following a loss know that working through these feelings is your path to healing and eventual peace. Find a therapist to talk through the emotions with. Write letters to your lost loved one. Forgive yourself.
You are not alone.
Love,
Claire
Mother’s Day Without Your Mom
This week I’m thinking nonstop about everyone out there who is facing Mother’s Day without their mom here. It’s really one of the hardest holidays to get through when you’re missing your mama.
Fortunately, you’re not alone. And there are more resources than ever to help you feel supported. No matter how you choose to actually spend the day - in bed with Netflix or out with friends and family - take a moment to connect inwardly with your mom, and also to connect with the sisterhood of women all around you who are missing their moms too.
Resource:
How to Get Support on Mother's Day
A Place for Motherless Daughters on Mother's Day Weekend
An Open Letter to Motherless Daughters on Mother's Day
Free Mother’s Day Call with me and Hope Edelman:
List of blogs:
After Loss: Rediscovering my Mom in Motherhood
How to Spend Mother’s Day After Loss
Healing from the Loss of a Mother
My Online Grief Program is now available anytime!
Although registration is closed for the live May 2018 session, I have developed a self-guided version of the course and it's available now!
First, I want to tell you more about where my motivation to take this path and create this program deepened.
I can tell you that when I was a little girl, the idea of growing up to become a grief counselor was not on my list of things to be. But I can also tell you that I am nothing but grateful for the work I do today. A decade of professional experience, working one on one with clients who are grieving, along with my own personal two decades of loss, has given me such a breadth of knowledge.
It is all of this experience and knowledge that I relied upon to design this program and create the content. For ten years I have worked in the field—first in hospice and now in private practice. I have walked alongside hundreds of individuals going through their own deep grief process and in doing so, I have learned so much—not only about grief itself but about how loss shapes us and enables us to see the world in ways we would never have otherwise.
More about my online program: A Safe Place to Grieve | An online course for overcoming the difficult emotions of grief
Over the course of this self-guided program, I help you tap into the aspects of grieving that I have found essential to healing and growing after losing someone you love. I'm with you every step of the way, thinking about my own personal hardships and triumphs and also about each and every client I have worked with. These individuals have truly taught me everything I know today.
Get the full details here.
Love,
Claire
A Safe Place to Grieve (Self-Guided Online Grief Program)
Dear Friends,
When my parents died twenty years ago I didn’t know where to turn for grief support. I felt so isolated from my peers, and the grief process I endured was incredibly lonely. I so wish there had been a program like the one I am now launching. And that’s exactly why I’ve created it.
I’ve been wanting to offer this to you for years. And now that dream has come true. A Safe Place to Grieve (previously called Growing and Thriving Through Loss) allows me to serve so many more individuals than I could possibly work with one-on-one. Now, anyone, anywhere, anytime can receive support, community, and guidance as they walk their path with loss.
During the live program sessions, participants also have access to our private Facebook group and direct interaction with me. This is one of the most healing parts of this opportunity for those who want to connect with others who have experienced loss and can deeply understand their what they've been through.
Of course, the online program experience is different than talk therapy, but I use the same tools and approaches to grief work over the course of these six weeks that I use in my individual sessions.
A Safe Place to Grieve self-guided program includes:
- Weekly videos (plus transcripts)
- Printable weekly workbooks
- Weekly audio meditations
- Printable journaling workbook
- Access to the program website
- Private Facebook group for sharing this journey with fellow participants and receiving my support
- Daily emails to guide you every step of the way
Throughout the course we move through the following topics in-depth, bringing healing and peace to all the different areas in which you are currently struggling.
Week One: What does it really mean to grieve? We explore the process and your own individual path.
Week Two: We dive into the deep stuff like guilt, anger, and anything left unresolved following your loss.
Week Three: All about anxiety. How it relates to your loss, how to manage it, and how to overcome it.
Week Four: What does it mean to find resilience within your grief process? We take inventory of your life and where the big shifts need to happen.
Week Five: Staying connected. The key to alleviating much of your pain is learning how to stay connected (or reconnect) with your loved one. There are more ways than you think.
Week Six: Moving forward doesn’t mean letting go. Embracing your new normal and learning how to make meaning and find purpose.
I hope to have the chance to share this program experience with you. I promise it won’t be scary or overwhelming. I’ve walked this path myself and I’ve walked it alongside so many others. There is another side to grief. Let me help you get there.
Sign up here to be the first to know when the next session is open for registration.
Love,
Claire