Episode 35: Are Your Feelings of Grief and Loss Harder at Night?
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"Be busy, get busy, stay busy."
It's the mantra of life in the US and much of the world, and it's a good short-term fix for grief and loss. Emphasis on the "short-term." Do your feeling change at night? Many of us find our feelings of grief are much more acute in the evenings and at night, when the busyness of the day winds down. Suddenly we notice the loss of routines more; we feel the silence more, and the normal time of rest becomes anything but restful. If you find evenings and nights especially lonely and challenging, Grief Coach Wendy Sloneker has some ideas that can make the eves easier. |
Wendy discusses how your feelings may change at night and ways to help.
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You are Invited:
Listen to the episode, then consider making an appointment for a complimentary connection call with Wendy: https://www.wendysloneker.com/.
Listen to the episode, then consider making an appointment for a complimentary connection call with Wendy: https://www.wendysloneker.com/.
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Full Episode Transcript
Wendy Sloneker
Hello, you are listening to Heart Healing from Loss with Wendy Sloneker. This is episode 35. Hi, there, it's Wendy.
Hey, today I want to talk a little bit about something that comes up frequently. And, it has more to do with coping mechanisms. And just the general question of why is grief… Or, why are our feelings harder at night when we're experiencing a season of loss?
Now, number one… if this is you, if you're experiencing unending evenings and nights, I really want to share with you that you are not alone in this.
And I also want to talk about a couple of reasons why this might be happening. Because it is a question that comes up with my clients a lot. You are in very good company. And so part of this has to do with one our societal encouragement to be busy, get busy and stay busy. So when it comes to evening times, we may be able to manage and kind of throw ourselves into the daily activities, or the daytime activities, if you will.
Distractions distractions, some of some of my clients, and some of you this could be you that throws herself into what's going on during the day in order to distract or avoid or resist painful or challenging feelings. This is not wrong. This is something you've been taught and encouraged to do. I won't say it's working. I'm probably not gonna say it's working.
For the short term, it probably is working, you're able to sort of get going. (I'm going to talk about mornings too. So if you're someone who's having trouble with mornings, stay tuned.) But tonight, for right now, it's about why grief is harder at night.
And this has to do with the daily distractions or daytime distractions, that wind down, go away, or change. Evenings can be really difficult to keep working through if you have co workers, they may be going home, they may be getting to a space in their days where they are less available, or differently available.
Some of them might have kids, you know. You might have kids. But the availability of those around you, colleagues, friends, even family members may get different due to how the day changes. So this can be part of how a long evening can begin.
It gets different we're entering a different part of the day. Now, some of what you may be grieving or missing, or just experiencing some loss around, could be the routines that you shared with a loved one, or even a less than loved one. There could be still that change that comes about that you just miss how you used to either make dinner or manage the kids or figure out bath times or take a walk or just share your day.
This is where loneliness can hit really hard. And it's just a natural part of, of loss of days of loss of a season of loss. Now, it can get different, it does get different. And for a while, it may seem like it's not getting different enough.
Or that you know, the days are so busy and you're so tired. Either from grief itself or from the distractions that you're encouraged to put yourself through and you know, the work you need to do in order to earn a paycheck.
So I want to share that some of it could be that it's it's less easy also to distract yourself with lots of things to do when it gets quiet around you when it gets slower around you. When you're more tired after having just gone through a full day. It could be difficult to stave off or resist or avoid it can get more challenging to start or to fend off those hard feelings. And it may feel like it's harder at night. And that could be because, yeah, you don't have as much strength or willpower, someone call it spoons, to sort of continued to resist those feelings of grief and loss.
So one way you could look at it, even even if you don't love it, even if you don't like it, even if you hate it, you do not have to like this at all. And that could be a time when some of the most honest feelings about what's going on and what your experience is, is happening. If this is true, and if you're interested in shifting some of those feelings and processing them for good, what I'd encourage you to do is, you know, offer to yourself, just the simple statement of this is loss.
I'm tired, I've had a full day, these are my real feelings, I don't love them. But here they are. This may be totally unpalatable. And that's okay. It can be totally unpalatable. And it may at the same time, strike a chord and resonate as true.
So if this is what's going on, and you're having a difficult time at night, acknowledging and just sort of letting yourself know, this is part of the process. You're tired after a long day, and it's, it's hard to ward off the real feelings of grief and loss, even for a little while. This is part of how you process a feeling.
So I want to congratulate you if you're able to do that, even if you hate it, totally hate it. And, you know, yeah, it's part of the deal, it will move along. In its time as, as it can. As you let it as well, part of processing feelings is like it's gotta come, it's got to the feelings have to come through you. Sorry. But that's, that's what processing feelings is, is the feelings are going through you.
I do have some suggestions. And I do want to offer a reminder that when you're in a season of loss, it can take a couple of things, a couple of things are really needed and necessary. One is certainly feeling the feelings. Now, we can be feeling the feelings all the freaking time because we have other things to do. So it's gonna be kind of a not a dance, but just a little bit of a step toward feeling the feelings and then a step back.
And then you may need a break because grief is also exhausting and requires a lot of energy, resources, effort. So break times, pretty important. And if grief is harder at night for you, you may be someone who's also experiencing challenges in sleeping. And I want to talk a little tiny bit about that in one minute.
So but what we've covered so far is that there's going to be a need for feeling some of the feelings at least a little bit of the time, in order to help them shift and move through you. The next thing that I mentioned was that break time.
And the other thing is when you're in a season of grief and loss, you do need some distraction. Now distractions at night may be a little bit different than during the day. If you've worked a full day and you're pretty tired, there are a couple of other things that you might consider doing. And that may be the following.
At night might be a good time to schedule some different types of self care. Really schedule them, with somebody else if you can. That could be some mild movement, maybe a walk or maybe a chat, maybe a check in with a friend. You can listen to a podcast, maybe mine. You can also find yourself a grief group or other form of support. Try to schedule some of your self care for nighttime when grief is harder. Being with somebody around that time can be a measure of support now It'll need to be the right person, somebody that you trust, that you feel safe with, that you can talk to, or that you can just kind of be with and podcasts. They can serve, they can totally serve.
I am going to offer, the idea that you can try a half hearted, something new. It does not have to be full hearted, it can be quarter hearted, a targeted, it does not have to be wholehearted. This was something that I found necessary and useful when I had creativity that up and left for a good year and a half. And the only thing that I was mildly interested in at the time was maybe learning a little bit about social media. This was back in 2012, when everybody thought social media was going to be a it wouldn't last it was a fluke, right? So we're it's just a phase, this social media thing.
And so I was half heartedly interested in it. And I ended up scheduling a couple of night classes to just sort of, maybe learn about it. I wasn't fully invested. It was something that I could manage. And it was the only thing that I had any kind of interest in at the time.
Now this can be you know, it doesn't have to be a school thing it can be, you know, let me review all the stuff that I've pinned on Pinterest and see if I want to actually try any of it. Let me see if that still applies even now.
So it may be something that just occurs to you or appears to you after a time and that's okay. But being on the lookout for something half hearted that you can try or do or experiment, be willing to make a mess, be willing to let it just be, you know, an experiment and let that be okay. Half hearted trying of something new can be useful.
You may have some people that you want to check in with, check in with others. This is okay. An earlier bedtime temporarily. For me when I need to do this. I kind of feel like I'm all of seven years old, just kind of sending myself to bed. And you know for a while. Many times in my life, I've had several seasons of grief where I've needed earlier bedtimes and it's okay that I feel like I'm a seven year old.
It's also okay, here's where I'm going to talk about sleep a little bit. It's okay, if you're not able to sleep. I remember during more than one season of grief, I would wake up reliably between one and two in the morning. And sometimes I was awake for the rest of the day. But I was up and so one that was frustrating as hell.
There wasn't anything I could do. I would like my eyes would pop open and I'd be like, Yep, you're up. And some days I would make the coffee at one in the morning or two in the morning and other days, I would just allow myself to lay in bed and be bored. Not gonna pick up my phone. I'm gonna count it as rest. I don't want to scroll, I would prefer to be asleep. But for me to be laying down and resting. And just allowing myself to be there without doing anything, I can be conscious and not contributing value to the world or increasing and improving my productivity to in the freaking morning. I just let myself lay there. Sometimes I would go back to sleep. And sometimes I would not.
This is not wrong is part of what I want to share with you. Sleep gets interrupted. It goes a little haywire. Appetite can go a little haywire. Similarly, you may feel like all you want to do is sleep you may feel like you can't sleep at all. You may feel like you want to eat all the things you may feel like you have no appetite for anything. This is part of grief and loss. This is you navigating what's going on.
The other thing that can get all kinds of interesting and different is temperament. I, I felt in a while through menopause. I was totally having the shortest fuse I've ever had in my life. And I wasn't necessarily feeling a sense of loss I'll set the time, but it was definitely a lot of change and change in my body.
It's not wrong. inconvenient, totally frustrating, likely and wrong. Nope. Not even, this is part of the deal. So I want to say, Oh, one more thing. I'm trying something a little bit tiny and new at night to make a conscious shift. And I call this you know, your conscious shakeup, if you will. And it can be something small. If we're doing the same thing, night after night, and we're getting the same results, then maybe, maybe it's important to try to just, how can I possibly take a little bit of energy to make something a tiny bit different? And I'm not talking about, going out fricking dancing, I'm talking about? Am I going to try a different salad dressing? Or a different dipping sauce for my nuggets? Am I going to, let it be little and let it count? That is my suggestion for how can I make it a little bit different. So I'm not so focused on what's going on or what's missing. And I am consciously just trying something, the tiniest bit new, the tiniest bit different. Not every night. Nope. Go back to your regularly scheduled routine. Anytime that you want.
This is for those who are really done and tired of feeling sad, devastated, frustrated. Part of this is just helping yourself to make the smallest of changes in sometimes the most mundane ways. That does include dipping sauce, you know, from ranch to barbecue, and back again, it's okay.
But it may be different enough to help you move your mind just a little bit. And that's where a lot of progress can stem from its progress on its own and more can come from a little bit of a shift.
Now, for those who are finding it hard to wake up in the morning, because waking up is sometimes also really hard to do. I want to just spend a moment with you as well. Now, you may be having a hard time at night, you may be having a hard time in the morning. It may just be really hard times. It may seem like the whole day is hard. And this is this is also grief and loss. This is change. It doesn't make sense.
So I've heard it described by several clients that when they wake up, they kind of feel like there's the equivalent of a bull elephant sort of hanging out sitting on their chest. And that's not the most ideal way to start your day. But you know what? That that may not be something that's really in your control upon first awakening.
So one, I really want to just share with you that that is difficult. And that is something that is challenging, because we don't know when that elephant's going to sort of work its way down into either a small dog or hamster. We may feel like that emotional weight may never change, we may have that thought frequently.
It can change and it will change over time. Part of the way that you do this is to help yourself. Now, helping yourself I want to stick with the idea that small change is a big deal. So you kind of having the imagination of poking the packyderm off of your chest, put they get to go to the shower first. Send them into the bathroom so you can have a moment of just being present with yourself and noticing the elephant is not on my chest. I've sent it to the bathroom to take a shower. It's okay. And then if and when you're ready. You can roll just yourself out of bed and take the first step into the day, this is a minute by minute thing, and it's not easy.
So recognizing that it's not easy part of the work here, and I'm just gonna give you the one thing to think about and consider you don't have to do it. You don't have to do any of these things. Cuz, friends. These feelings are not wrong, they're unpleasant. You wish they would end. And it's not wrong, they're actually there for a reason.
So I think one of the thoughts I would offer is just, How can I? What do I need next? So not even how can I? What do I need in this next moment? What am I willing to do in this next moment, and try not to overthink it, but just move your feet to help your body get into position to pay or make that coffee, or brush some of your teeth, maybe all of them, because sometimes you don't really want to brush them off. Sometimes getting out of bed is all the work that you can do and managing to get over to the couch from bed is a total win. I'm going to ask you to count it. Because it's going to count when you count it.
Friends, this is no joke. Grief is sometimes harder at night. Grief is sometimes harder in the morning. We can't really control when it'll go but we can work with ourselves and learn to work with ourselves when we're in it.
I'm thinking of you. This is not easy. But I'm really really glad that you're here.
Okay, until the next episode. Thank you so much for listening and being right here with me. Because I really appreciate being right here with you.
Hello, you are listening to Heart Healing from Loss with Wendy Sloneker. This is episode 35. Hi, there, it's Wendy.
Hey, today I want to talk a little bit about something that comes up frequently. And, it has more to do with coping mechanisms. And just the general question of why is grief… Or, why are our feelings harder at night when we're experiencing a season of loss?
Now, number one… if this is you, if you're experiencing unending evenings and nights, I really want to share with you that you are not alone in this.
And I also want to talk about a couple of reasons why this might be happening. Because it is a question that comes up with my clients a lot. You are in very good company. And so part of this has to do with one our societal encouragement to be busy, get busy and stay busy. So when it comes to evening times, we may be able to manage and kind of throw ourselves into the daily activities, or the daytime activities, if you will.
Distractions distractions, some of some of my clients, and some of you this could be you that throws herself into what's going on during the day in order to distract or avoid or resist painful or challenging feelings. This is not wrong. This is something you've been taught and encouraged to do. I won't say it's working. I'm probably not gonna say it's working.
For the short term, it probably is working, you're able to sort of get going. (I'm going to talk about mornings too. So if you're someone who's having trouble with mornings, stay tuned.) But tonight, for right now, it's about why grief is harder at night.
And this has to do with the daily distractions or daytime distractions, that wind down, go away, or change. Evenings can be really difficult to keep working through if you have co workers, they may be going home, they may be getting to a space in their days where they are less available, or differently available.
Some of them might have kids, you know. You might have kids. But the availability of those around you, colleagues, friends, even family members may get different due to how the day changes. So this can be part of how a long evening can begin.
It gets different we're entering a different part of the day. Now, some of what you may be grieving or missing, or just experiencing some loss around, could be the routines that you shared with a loved one, or even a less than loved one. There could be still that change that comes about that you just miss how you used to either make dinner or manage the kids or figure out bath times or take a walk or just share your day.
This is where loneliness can hit really hard. And it's just a natural part of, of loss of days of loss of a season of loss. Now, it can get different, it does get different. And for a while, it may seem like it's not getting different enough.
Or that you know, the days are so busy and you're so tired. Either from grief itself or from the distractions that you're encouraged to put yourself through and you know, the work you need to do in order to earn a paycheck.
So I want to share that some of it could be that it's it's less easy also to distract yourself with lots of things to do when it gets quiet around you when it gets slower around you. When you're more tired after having just gone through a full day. It could be difficult to stave off or resist or avoid it can get more challenging to start or to fend off those hard feelings. And it may feel like it's harder at night. And that could be because, yeah, you don't have as much strength or willpower, someone call it spoons, to sort of continued to resist those feelings of grief and loss.
So one way you could look at it, even even if you don't love it, even if you don't like it, even if you hate it, you do not have to like this at all. And that could be a time when some of the most honest feelings about what's going on and what your experience is, is happening. If this is true, and if you're interested in shifting some of those feelings and processing them for good, what I'd encourage you to do is, you know, offer to yourself, just the simple statement of this is loss.
I'm tired, I've had a full day, these are my real feelings, I don't love them. But here they are. This may be totally unpalatable. And that's okay. It can be totally unpalatable. And it may at the same time, strike a chord and resonate as true.
So if this is what's going on, and you're having a difficult time at night, acknowledging and just sort of letting yourself know, this is part of the process. You're tired after a long day, and it's, it's hard to ward off the real feelings of grief and loss, even for a little while. This is part of how you process a feeling.
So I want to congratulate you if you're able to do that, even if you hate it, totally hate it. And, you know, yeah, it's part of the deal, it will move along. In its time as, as it can. As you let it as well, part of processing feelings is like it's gotta come, it's got to the feelings have to come through you. Sorry. But that's, that's what processing feelings is, is the feelings are going through you.
I do have some suggestions. And I do want to offer a reminder that when you're in a season of loss, it can take a couple of things, a couple of things are really needed and necessary. One is certainly feeling the feelings. Now, we can be feeling the feelings all the freaking time because we have other things to do. So it's gonna be kind of a not a dance, but just a little bit of a step toward feeling the feelings and then a step back.
And then you may need a break because grief is also exhausting and requires a lot of energy, resources, effort. So break times, pretty important. And if grief is harder at night for you, you may be someone who's also experiencing challenges in sleeping. And I want to talk a little tiny bit about that in one minute.
So but what we've covered so far is that there's going to be a need for feeling some of the feelings at least a little bit of the time, in order to help them shift and move through you. The next thing that I mentioned was that break time.
And the other thing is when you're in a season of grief and loss, you do need some distraction. Now distractions at night may be a little bit different than during the day. If you've worked a full day and you're pretty tired, there are a couple of other things that you might consider doing. And that may be the following.
At night might be a good time to schedule some different types of self care. Really schedule them, with somebody else if you can. That could be some mild movement, maybe a walk or maybe a chat, maybe a check in with a friend. You can listen to a podcast, maybe mine. You can also find yourself a grief group or other form of support. Try to schedule some of your self care for nighttime when grief is harder. Being with somebody around that time can be a measure of support now It'll need to be the right person, somebody that you trust, that you feel safe with, that you can talk to, or that you can just kind of be with and podcasts. They can serve, they can totally serve.
I am going to offer, the idea that you can try a half hearted, something new. It does not have to be full hearted, it can be quarter hearted, a targeted, it does not have to be wholehearted. This was something that I found necessary and useful when I had creativity that up and left for a good year and a half. And the only thing that I was mildly interested in at the time was maybe learning a little bit about social media. This was back in 2012, when everybody thought social media was going to be a it wouldn't last it was a fluke, right? So we're it's just a phase, this social media thing.
And so I was half heartedly interested in it. And I ended up scheduling a couple of night classes to just sort of, maybe learn about it. I wasn't fully invested. It was something that I could manage. And it was the only thing that I had any kind of interest in at the time.
Now this can be you know, it doesn't have to be a school thing it can be, you know, let me review all the stuff that I've pinned on Pinterest and see if I want to actually try any of it. Let me see if that still applies even now.
So it may be something that just occurs to you or appears to you after a time and that's okay. But being on the lookout for something half hearted that you can try or do or experiment, be willing to make a mess, be willing to let it just be, you know, an experiment and let that be okay. Half hearted trying of something new can be useful.
You may have some people that you want to check in with, check in with others. This is okay. An earlier bedtime temporarily. For me when I need to do this. I kind of feel like I'm all of seven years old, just kind of sending myself to bed. And you know for a while. Many times in my life, I've had several seasons of grief where I've needed earlier bedtimes and it's okay that I feel like I'm a seven year old.
It's also okay, here's where I'm going to talk about sleep a little bit. It's okay, if you're not able to sleep. I remember during more than one season of grief, I would wake up reliably between one and two in the morning. And sometimes I was awake for the rest of the day. But I was up and so one that was frustrating as hell.
There wasn't anything I could do. I would like my eyes would pop open and I'd be like, Yep, you're up. And some days I would make the coffee at one in the morning or two in the morning and other days, I would just allow myself to lay in bed and be bored. Not gonna pick up my phone. I'm gonna count it as rest. I don't want to scroll, I would prefer to be asleep. But for me to be laying down and resting. And just allowing myself to be there without doing anything, I can be conscious and not contributing value to the world or increasing and improving my productivity to in the freaking morning. I just let myself lay there. Sometimes I would go back to sleep. And sometimes I would not.
This is not wrong is part of what I want to share with you. Sleep gets interrupted. It goes a little haywire. Appetite can go a little haywire. Similarly, you may feel like all you want to do is sleep you may feel like you can't sleep at all. You may feel like you want to eat all the things you may feel like you have no appetite for anything. This is part of grief and loss. This is you navigating what's going on.
The other thing that can get all kinds of interesting and different is temperament. I, I felt in a while through menopause. I was totally having the shortest fuse I've ever had in my life. And I wasn't necessarily feeling a sense of loss I'll set the time, but it was definitely a lot of change and change in my body.
It's not wrong. inconvenient, totally frustrating, likely and wrong. Nope. Not even, this is part of the deal. So I want to say, Oh, one more thing. I'm trying something a little bit tiny and new at night to make a conscious shift. And I call this you know, your conscious shakeup, if you will. And it can be something small. If we're doing the same thing, night after night, and we're getting the same results, then maybe, maybe it's important to try to just, how can I possibly take a little bit of energy to make something a tiny bit different? And I'm not talking about, going out fricking dancing, I'm talking about? Am I going to try a different salad dressing? Or a different dipping sauce for my nuggets? Am I going to, let it be little and let it count? That is my suggestion for how can I make it a little bit different. So I'm not so focused on what's going on or what's missing. And I am consciously just trying something, the tiniest bit new, the tiniest bit different. Not every night. Nope. Go back to your regularly scheduled routine. Anytime that you want.
This is for those who are really done and tired of feeling sad, devastated, frustrated. Part of this is just helping yourself to make the smallest of changes in sometimes the most mundane ways. That does include dipping sauce, you know, from ranch to barbecue, and back again, it's okay.
But it may be different enough to help you move your mind just a little bit. And that's where a lot of progress can stem from its progress on its own and more can come from a little bit of a shift.
Now, for those who are finding it hard to wake up in the morning, because waking up is sometimes also really hard to do. I want to just spend a moment with you as well. Now, you may be having a hard time at night, you may be having a hard time in the morning. It may just be really hard times. It may seem like the whole day is hard. And this is this is also grief and loss. This is change. It doesn't make sense.
So I've heard it described by several clients that when they wake up, they kind of feel like there's the equivalent of a bull elephant sort of hanging out sitting on their chest. And that's not the most ideal way to start your day. But you know what? That that may not be something that's really in your control upon first awakening.
So one, I really want to just share with you that that is difficult. And that is something that is challenging, because we don't know when that elephant's going to sort of work its way down into either a small dog or hamster. We may feel like that emotional weight may never change, we may have that thought frequently.
It can change and it will change over time. Part of the way that you do this is to help yourself. Now, helping yourself I want to stick with the idea that small change is a big deal. So you kind of having the imagination of poking the packyderm off of your chest, put they get to go to the shower first. Send them into the bathroom so you can have a moment of just being present with yourself and noticing the elephant is not on my chest. I've sent it to the bathroom to take a shower. It's okay. And then if and when you're ready. You can roll just yourself out of bed and take the first step into the day, this is a minute by minute thing, and it's not easy.
So recognizing that it's not easy part of the work here, and I'm just gonna give you the one thing to think about and consider you don't have to do it. You don't have to do any of these things. Cuz, friends. These feelings are not wrong, they're unpleasant. You wish they would end. And it's not wrong, they're actually there for a reason.
So I think one of the thoughts I would offer is just, How can I? What do I need next? So not even how can I? What do I need in this next moment? What am I willing to do in this next moment, and try not to overthink it, but just move your feet to help your body get into position to pay or make that coffee, or brush some of your teeth, maybe all of them, because sometimes you don't really want to brush them off. Sometimes getting out of bed is all the work that you can do and managing to get over to the couch from bed is a total win. I'm going to ask you to count it. Because it's going to count when you count it.
Friends, this is no joke. Grief is sometimes harder at night. Grief is sometimes harder in the morning. We can't really control when it'll go but we can work with ourselves and learn to work with ourselves when we're in it.
I'm thinking of you. This is not easy. But I'm really really glad that you're here.
Okay, until the next episode. Thank you so much for listening and being right here with me. Because I really appreciate being right here with you.
