Ciao and welcome back!

My lockdown has consisted of different phases – a rough outline would be first settling into what is happening, then finding my new quarantine routines, being adopted by my neighbours (this lovely family who also owns the apartment I am renting), becoming obsessed with a serial killer book series, getting spurts of creative inspiration for my music projects, becoming enthusiastic to cook and bake and try out new recipes and then that interest dying down (also influenced by me cooking together with my host family and eating yummy food there most of the time and learning about the simple ways around the Italian cuisine – really, less is more.), curiously learning new things around external topics of interest and myself, moving my body in various, new ways and constantly enjoying the sun on the balcony / garden.

As I spend my time either alone, or with my host family (a family of four with two young kids), I didn’t realize how my social skills as in interacting with strangers have become rusty. Has anyone else felt this way during the lockdown? This feels strange to me as a sociable person. And by socializing, I mean going to the grocery store, which makes me feel quite nervous on some days. Also, the importance of non-verbal communication has become radically evident to me, as I have discovered that speaking a new language with a mask covering most of my and others' faces, is extremely challenging.

Traditional Italian cuisine: gnocchi, Fettuchine pasta and pizza!

One of my favourite new podcasts is “Unlocking Us with Brené Brown” and I cannot recommend it enough (you can find it on e.g. Spotify or Apple’s podcasts). I’ve encountered such fascinating perspectives in general and around the current state of the world in these episodes that I would like to share and chew upon some of these thoughts on this platform. Today I want to talk about grief and comparative suffering.

Grief is what many are feeling at the moment around the lockdown. And like me, you might feel this is a pretty strong way of putting it. Yet, when we look at the definition of grief, it is a state of mind that follows the death – the end – of something. It’s not limited only to the loss of a person, but it can also be a job, a relationship, a trip, a connection, physical contact or routines; different matters of different sizes. After putting it this way, I am confident that grief does play a central role when it comes to evaluating how people around me are feeling at the moment.

Death and grief researcher David Kessler highlights the importance of naming the phenomenon – the feeling of grief – in order to allow ourselves to actually feel the feelings around it. Feeling the feelings is necessary to process grief and to eventually find meaning around it; within ourselves rather than the death itself.

Yet I observe plenty of neglect around the feeling of grief in my community: someone feels bad about having their working hours reduced and their income cut, but feel that they cannot be sad about this, as there are others who have lost their jobs. Someone else is feeling lonely at home alone, but cannot complain, as there are families stuck together, wishing for nothing else than solitude with two remote jobs, a home school, restaurant, nursery and madhouse to run in a home of six - and vice versa. Another person is upset about the cancelled ski and study trips this spring, not able to have a Vappu picnic and the lame viral graduation ceremony instead of the real deal, but feels the need to stay positive, as there are others who have more serious issues to think about than parties and champagne. Kessler found the accurate words around this, which I will take to heart: the worst loss is always your own loss.

Blame, fear and scarcity all lead to us comparing our sufferings with that of others. But when feelings of hurt and pain are being compared, these end up being denied. The thing is that this is not how feelings are meant to work. In fact, denied feelings tend to double in size and in turn invite shame to the party as an extra bonus. In addition to contributing to our own wellbeing, we need to process our negative feelings in order to be able to produce compassion and empathy. 

Mind you, the comparison also works in the opposite direction - we shouldn’t forget that it’s ok to also be ok and anything above that, even if others are struggling; enjoyment, fun, comfort, the best time of our lives... Also this shame around experiencing positive emotions during Covid times has been something I’ve picked up on. 

Brené Brown reminds us of how empathy and shame are incompatible and simply cannot co-exist, whereas secrecy, judgement and silence make shame grow exponentially. Fact is that when we feel shame, our internal focus on this overrides our capability to consider other people’s experiences, i.e. processing information about how they are doing and expressing compassion around it. We tend to misunderstand that empathy is not limited in its quantity and that there is enough of it for all of us and our grief. So how crazy is it that we participate in the grief comparison competition and lose in honour of someone else’s suffering, only to reach a point where we aren’t able to feel or show any empathy or compassion towards the winner – let alone ourselves? 

We are all so very different when it comes to our core essences and what lights us up, what we need in order to thrive. The lack of physically socializing might not be a grandiose loss for someone, who doesn’t socialize much, or doesn’t put a lot of value to it, whereas this can be a crucial element for others, a sort of life elixir. Exploring, seeing the world and learning about new places and cultures can be the main motivation for someone else, whereas routines and sticking to norms is gold for another one. Children’s perception of the world and life is often smaller and many of them may have never felt a bigger grief than the loss of things at the moment. Things that can seem just small and insignificant to us, like missing football practice. But how powerful would it be to give everyone permission to feel whatever it is they are feeling in addition to letting them see us bravely navigating through our emotions?

One thing worth mentioning around feeling the feelings around grief, whatever the subject of loss is and in whatever measure it presents itself, is that there is a difference between processing a feeling and dwelling on the shittyness of it. As unique as we are with having our feelings, also our ways of processing these vary, but essentially the last processing stages involve acceptance and finding meaning according to Kessler.

No one is interested in your disappointment in the cancelled Ruisrock 2020 festival in ten years’ time from now, least of all yourself. But by denying this grief now in the shadow of comparing your loss to others’, builds up that shame in you like lego blocks, potentially contributing to an entire internal shame tower, consisting of all kind of denied feelings along the way. This megatower may present itself as bitterness and hurt years later, maybe during the smallest of inconveniences, or just in general even, not to forget the incapability to have empathy for others’ pain. 

Seeking perspective to our stories is an effective tool for processing feelings. And whereas positivity shouldn’t be misused to deny feelings, positive psychology does offer helpful insights into what contributes to our wellbeing, for example practicing savouring and gratitude - even during hard times.

Quarantine Birthday celebrations, fresh veggies from the local farm and crostata pie

This perspective of looking into the energetics of the current state of events shifted something in me. I do feel grief inside of me – quite a lot of it, actually, and also recognize the tendency for comparative suffering at times. For me personally, however, there is not a lot of grief around the consequences of the pandemic specifically. I often get asked questions around the lines of: “oh what a pity that this happened right in the middle of your trip and ruined your plans, you must feel awful?” and I can see why some might fear that this is the case, but it isn't. This is mainly, because my trip was never set into stone. Yes, I had plans in place, but through the lens of my trip’s main mission: taking time for myself and focusing my gaze inwards, learning about the culture and language and enjoying myself; nothing has actually changed – quite on the contrary.

I am fortunate with my lockdown whereabouts. And what an experience it has been to be adopted into an Italian family – I have gained new social connections, instead of losing any, as many parts of my trip include solitude. In fact, I noticed that being en route and constantly on-the-go is not my preferred style of navigating through my sabbatical, so the lockdown will  also have an impact on the rest of my trip in this way. This full-stop has given me a lot of space and time to ground myself and even though it is not always easy, I wouldn’t have it any other way. But this is my story and perspective - someone else’s sabbatical might indeed involve strong feelings of grief currently.

It’s clear that this experience might have looked extremely different for me during any other life phase. It certainly also looks very different to other people, all around the world, including you. Let’s give the space for everyone to truly feel into their situations without judgement and comparison - there is enough empathy and love in this world for all of us.

Stay well & bacio! 💋 Cass