In the last part, we focused on stages of grief and how some stages have a stronger impact than others. Furthermore, grieving is a person-to-person journey, and being aware of the same can help you plan your healing journey and seek help rather than neglecting it under the pretext that time shall heal. Time doesn't heal; it only makes you comfortable with the pain until you choose to stop hurting yourself and heal effectively. Choosing to heal doesn't imply you're selfish or forgetting the person. Choosing to heal only means allowing yourself a life that you rightfully deserve and cherishing the memories of a lost relationship in a healthy manner.

Grieving has a deteriorated impact not only on your well-being but on each aspect of your life.

  • Quality of relationships with others around and self
  • Ability to grow and evolve
  • Ability to use your potential to the fullest
  • Physical well-being

Grieving at the early stages may look like staying in your head with thoughts and going through stages of grief and your personal struggle to combat the same. We all want to have a warrior spirit to get through pain and struggles, but a single person never fights war. We need the proper support and guidance to win a battle and come out as a winner.

In the later stages, people who refuse to heal grief rightly might look more like accepting the pain as a part of their life than accepting the loss or terrible experience as a lesson, making peace with the fact one cannot be 100 per cent all the time or life and death is a part of nature- we have less control.

Real-life Examples

I recall an interaction with a colleague who was going through an ugly divorce. While my perception of her was that she was a headstrong and focused woman, her battles were masked up with a smile. In one interaction, she mentioned, "I lost 3 to 4 years of career growth because I could not deliver to the fullest potential. My marriage made me doubt my abilities as a person. I started questioning my accomplishments; simple tasks made me lose focus often, and I stopped exploring opportunities to grow at work and in my personal life. After five years, I still zone out at the thought of dating or giving myself a chance to be in a healthy relationship."

Another case related to this would be someone who lost his father while on board, while his sign-off was due in the coming days. Despite receiving support from the team aboard, he felt constant guilt for not being around his family in times like this. His colleagues took care of his workload, but he also suffered the guilt of not doing justice to work as he belongs to a senior leadership role. He reported loss of sleep and appetite, unexplained anxiety, and restlessness, feelings of blanking out while talking to co-workers. He had an episode of collapsing, too.

"In my case, work helped me to keep myself sane and in control of my vulnerability and high anxiety. It did affect the quality of the outcome- while others could not make the difference, I could. There were days when my concentration would not last more than 5 minutes. There was a constant need for reassurance, wanting to be surrounded by people but disliking their presence. In one of the meetings with a senior person, which I expected to last for 15 minutes max, but it extended to 1.5 hrs- there was a moment I wanted to scream at the top of my voice and just run and never come back."

Grieving people find the escape route that helps them to calm their minds. The question is whether being productive works as a coping or defence mechanism. Sometimes, not showing up at work is not a luxury many of us have, so what do you do? How do you get your grip back?

Choose to heal rather than allow time to make yourself comfortable with pain and trauma.

If you or someone you know find yourself in such a situation, please feel free to confide in our in-house counsellors Ms. Harshali Kotekar (hr2@executiveship.com) and Ms. Glenda D’Silva (welfare2@samundra.com). Rest assured all consultations are kept completely confidential.