Grief occurs any time there is a break in an attachment; any time you lose something to which you are attached. Now, that can be a death. That can be a divorce. That can be a market collapse, where your money is disappearing. It can even be a positive transition. When you get a promotion or a new job, you’re going to get more money. You have a nicer office. You have new responsibilities. It’s a positive thing. But, in order to do that, you have to leave behind what you had before. You have to leave behind your old office. You have to leave behind the desk you had, the camaraderie you had with the people whose desk was around yours, the parking space you knew to go to, the general routine of your day, and even the feeling of competence that you knew you could do your job.
You move to the new job and everything’s different. The office is different, the people are different, you’re not so sure you can accomplish your job. It’s a positive transition, yes, and you’re happy, but you’re also grieving for what you lost, as you will do any time there’s a break in an attachment.
People are very attached to their money. And people are attached to their money in different ways. For some people, it is simply a tool. For some, their money is their security – like a security blanket. For some people, their money is their self esteem. “I have this much money; therefore, I am a worthwhile person.”
The more complex or intertwined the attachment is to the money, the deeper and more complex their grief is going to be in a market collapse where their money’s disappearing, because it’s not just their money; it’s these things, these attachments to their money that are disappearing.
The grief process is similar no matter what, whether it’s a positive transition, a market collapse, a death, a divorce - all the principles of dealing with it are the same. That is why people need to understand the principles. If you understand the principles, then you know what to do in all the different situations.
Sometimes, people say to me, “Amy, just give me the laundry list. Just say, ‘Do this. Say that. Do this. Do that’”, but if I give you the laundry list, that doesn’t serve you. If you don’t understand why you’re saying what you’re saying, you don’t know how to apply it in all these different situations of grief. Every situation is unique. If you understand the grief and the principles, you know what to say and when to say it.
A lot of people are very familiar with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. In 1969 she wrote a groundbreaking book called On Death and Dying. It was groundbreaking because it was the first time in history that anyone had studied the emotional processes of dying patients. When you find out you’re dying, what emotional processes do you go through until the point where you actually die? She found that she could generally classify the emotional responses into five categories that she called stages. In the field, we affectionately call them by the acronym DABDA - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages are valid. They’re the valid stages of receiving catastrophic news, or even just bad news.
If you find out you have a dead battery, you turn in the key and it’s (growling), the first thing you do is try it again, right? “No, no, no, I don’t have a dead battery.” You try it again. It doesn’t work, and again and it doesn’t work. It’s just getting worse. (Clap) You slam the steering wheel, and maybe let out a couple of choice swear words. Then you start bargaining with it. “Come on, baby, please start for me, please.” Then, “Oh, I can’t believe I have a dead battery. This is terrible. What am I going to do?” Then you finally say, “Okay, so I’ve got a dead battery. I’ll all AAA, I’ll call work and tell them I’m going to be late.” You see? In ten minutes you’ve gone through DABDA. We do that when we receive bad news.
The unfortunate thing that we’ve done with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s stages is we’ve called them the five stages of grief and they’re not. Many psychologists now say that people don’t really enter the tough part of grieving until they’ve been through DABDA because they can’t really grieve until they’ve accepted the fact that the death has happened. There’s a lot more to do and to cope with after that.
There’s also been a lot more research since the book was written in 1969. There have been all kinds of formulations of grief since then. Part of the reason there have been more formulations of grief, in addition to the fact that DABDA doesn’t go far enough beyond acceptance, is that we took the stages and made it seem like everybody’s in a box. First, you’re in denial; and then when you’re done being in denial, you get angry; and then, when you’re doing being angry, you bargain; and when you’re done bargaining, you get depressed; and on you do. We assumed that everybody went boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and you can classify people as to what stage of grief they’re in at a particular time and thereby track them accurately. I’ve had financial advisors say, “Well, shouldn’t I wait until they’re in the bargaining stage before I do that?”
That’s not the way it works. Even Elisabeth Kubler-Ross said people do not go through these in a linear fashion. It’s not boom, boom, boom in a predictable way. And not everybody experiences every one of the stages. Some people experience more of one, less of another. They might skip anger altogether, for instance. Some people never get angry when they’re grieving and that’s perfectly normal. That’s okay.
Grief is also not a straightforward process. It’s up and down, back and forth, round and round, with three steps forward and two steps back followed by four steps forward and another three back, it’s a roller coaster or a spiral. People describe it in different ways, but you go back and forth, and up and down, and round and round all the time. Think of the dead battery example. You get to the bargaining, but maybe then you go back and you’re angry again. Then you accept that it happened, but then you go back to bargaining. “Oh, come on. Maybe I could just try it one more time.” You flip around all over the place. We do people a disservice when we classify them in a little box.
More and more of the psychologists, instead of talking about stages, talk about behaviors that people exhibit when they go through grief. Even then, people might exhibit all the behaviors at once, or one at a time, or this one, or that one, in no particular order. It’s a much more complete understanding, a better descriptor of the grief process than just Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ stages. If all you know are the stages, it’s not enough.
People are very concerned about saying the wrong thing. In fact, they are so concerned about saying the wrong thing that most of the time, they don’t say anything at all. They think it’s worse to say something wrong than it is not to say anything, so they just avoid the grieving person entirely. But that makes the grieving person feel isolated and alone, uncared for and unsupported. So, you do want to take a risk. Even if it would be the wrong thing, I’d rather have you say the wrong thing than nothing at all.
Really think about what you’re saying, say only what you mean, and some of it is just common sense. After my husband died, for instance, I can’t count the number of people who came through the wake, and the funeral and said, “Call me anytime. If you need anything, call me anytime.” But I never called. The grieving person doesn’t have the energy to call you. If the grieving person can even remember who said it and who didn’t, or who might have meant it and who didn’t, it’s another one of those things like, “How are you?” Do you really mean it? Do you really want to know the answer? You say “Call me anytime” but do you really want them to call you literally at any time?
It feels good to say it. Unconsciously, too, I think we say it as a way to relieve our responsibility. You told her to call you anytime. She’s not calling, so she must not need you. It’s an easy escape, an easy way out; but, it’s not accurate. The grieving person is sitting there thinking, “Well, gee, I could use this, but is that a big enough thing to call somebody for? I don’t know. I don’t want to be a burden and I don’t want to be rejected. I’ve lost so much already. I just can’t face having somebody say, ‘No, I can’t do that’.”
I remember taking the risk of calling somebody one day when I really could use some help. But their schedule that day didn’t allow them to do it; they had to say no. It’s reasonable that they had to say no, but I never called again. I didn’t want to feel like I was burden. I didn’t want to make them feel guilty if they couldn’t. I didn’t have the energy most of the time to pick up the phone anyway.
By the way, that is also a common phrase for financial advisors to say at the end of a meeting. You say to your client, “Call me anytime if you have questions.” If the client is not grieving, that’s a good thing. That’s fine. But if the client is grieving, they’re not going to call you.
So if the client is grieving, at the end of the meeting, come up with a short, concrete to-do list. Have them write it down to take with them, and you take a copy. Then say, “Now, I’ll call you next Tuesday just to check in, to see if you have any questions. I don’t mind reminding you until you’re able to get these things done, and I know it’s hard to keep track of everything, so I’ll be checking in with you.”
Then, every time you talk to her, set up the next time you’ll call. “Okay, I’ll call again in two weeks. I’ll call again…” Of course, the length of time between calls depends on what you’re trying to get accomplished and the complexity of the case, but you always set up another time when you’re going to call. And then, do it. Never tell a grieving client you’re going to do something and don’t do it. Never tell her you’re going to call and don’t call. Always follow up. Remember, if you are regularly checking in with her, she does not have to pick up the phone, and she doesn’t have to wonder if it’s a big enough question to justify interrupting your day. If I’m grieving, it’s such a relief to know that you’re checking in with me, that you care about me, and I don’t have to be the one that has the burden of having to call you.
One thing you should never, ever say to a grieving person is, “I know exactly how you feel” because you’re always wrong. Every grief is experienced totally uniquely, even though there are all these similarities and we’ve mapped out the grief processes and the behaviors and the stages. There are similarities in every grief process, yet every grief is experienced uniquely.
For instance, if a man dies, his wife is going to have a very different experience of grief than his kids because the relationship with him was different. If you have two women and their husbands both die at the same age, of the same thing, in the same town, on the same day, they’re going to have a very different experience of grief because their individual relationship with their husband is different, their personality is different, their support network is different, their prior experiences of loss are different. There’s all these factors that go into the experience of grief, and that determine how deep it is, how long it takes, what I, as an individual, experience about it. So, even though my husband died, I could never go to another widow and say, “I know exactly how you feel” because I don’t.
Instead, you say, “I can’t imagine how you feel. Would you like to tell me about it?” You invite, you open the door, and you let them talk if they want to talk. If they don’t want to talk, they don’t have to. But chances are, they’re going to talk.