On anxiety

“We’re wired to seek safety, connection, and meaning. Grief disrupts all three.” - Claire Bidwell Smith

Last night, before an impromptu dinner with my parents, my father and I chatted about grief and how it accompanies any loss or ending, not just death. This was the topic of a previous post I did on grief, in fall of 2023. In that piece, I reflected on David Richo’s book Ready: How to Known When to Go and When to Stay, particularly within the confines of relationships.

Claire Bidwell Smith is an expert on the topic of grief and I appreciate that she has offered an additional stage - anxiety. She posits that unresolved grief is the underlying cause of the experience of anxiety; this makes sense to me - as I offered in my last reflection, I think we’ve lost an understanding of the grieving process in our modern world. Less and less is there space for time needed to move through the stages of loss and effectively reestablish those three core needs her quote above references.

This is a short post because - in all honesty - I’m still wandering a bit in the gray space of early grief.

As we close out May, do you find any space in your life that has anxiety? Is it possible the source of the anxiety is unresolved grief? Is there something you can do to make you feel safer, more connected, or more full of purpose to help ease the anxiety?