This too shall pass: Understanding grief during COVID-19 with Julia Samuel MBE

During our Digital Sisterhood series I have spoken honestly about the impact COVID-19 has had AllBright, our team and our plans for growth in the hope that others in a similar position can draw strength from our shared experiences. However I have not spoken as frequently about how COVID-19 has impacted me personally - as a mother, partner and team member.  

I recently had the privilege of speaking to renowned psychotherapist and author, Julia Samuel. Julia understands grief, she has helped many individuals overcome loss for the last 25 years, including Princes William and Harry, she quite literally wrote the book on the subject. In sharing my conversation with Julia, I hope that this too will be helpful to anyone struggling to understand and deal with the emotional upheaval caused by COVID-19. 

“Change is part of life,” Julia started “every few years or so there is usually a big shift that forces us all to learn and grow and thrive along with that change, rather than resist it. The difference with the change wrought by COVID-19 is that we don’t understand it so we don’t know how to handle it.” Julia continued, “our rational brain makes us think that governments, science and technology can teach us everything, COVID-19 bucks that trend. What we are learning right now is that we don’t have control over everything - when we are so used to so much information, this causes fear.” This is certainly a summary of my feelings towards COVID-19. The well-considered, thoroughly researched and diligently prepared-for plans my co-founder Anna and I had created for the future of AllBright have been cast aside by a situation beyond our control. It’s scary and incredibly frustrating.  

With this in mind, I asked Julia to share her advice when it comes to dealing with things that are out of our control, something I struggle with and know that many people within the AllBright community do too. Julia’s response cuts right to the chase, “your belief system tells you that if you work hard, acknowledge what you do not know and ask for help when needed, that you will succeed. However right now, most of that just isn’t true. The only way out of this mindset is to control your emotions. If you don’t manage how you feel, you will make the situation worse by acting out - perhaps venting your fury at the virus on others. Everyone has their toolbox of habits, be that exercise, meditation, baking etc - use the tools you have at your disposal to put you in the best possible position to deal with this situation.”

Alongside the sadness and fear caused by COVID-19, I have personally struggled with a sense of frustration. Like many people, every aspect of my life from my boxing class in the morning to the way I catch up with friends is now out of routine and seemingly, out of control. I asked Julia how I’m supposed to stay motivated enough to mediate my emotions and use that toolbox she mentioned. ‘Give yourself an inducement - you need to train yourself into a new routine. You could eat a lovely breakfast after you have showered and got ready each morning, or perhaps you call someone you love after you have exercised. The more we do something, the more likely it is to become a habit. When something feels like a habit, by definition the nervousness of something being out of the ordinary goes away.”

Building on the point about the uncomfortable nature of change, I asked Julia why we feel such a strong aversion to it. “Change can feel like a living loss,” she responded, “it has all the components of grief as something that was familiar and trusted has broken. We’re in unfamiliar territory, we have no map. Certainty is like control, we don’t have much of it right now.” 

My next question - how can we help our children as they go through their own cycle of grief over the changes they too are experiencing? “When we’re scared we become quite childlike,” answered Julia, “so you and your children are probably experiencing the same thing. Children of any age need the same truth we expect as adults. When children don’t have the truth, the answers they imagine to fill that knowledge gap can be far more frightening than the reality. Especially when fuelled by social media.” 

“I always start by asking children about what they know, what they understand. Make sure you acknowledge their worries and then, tell them the truth - that you are worried too. You are by far the biggest influence on their capacity to deal with this.” 

At the moment, some of us are experiencing very real grief, losing family members and friends. But we are also experiencing other forms of grief - losing jobs, money and security. I asked Julia to shed some light on the grieving process, she responded by explaining that there is no hierarchy of grief, we each need to allow other people their own grieving experience. “The most important thing you can do is acknowledge someone else's grief,” explained Julia, “never say ‘it will be alright’ or ‘you’ll get another job,’ you have to connect and acknowledge.” I know from experience that grief has a different timeline for everyone, it’s not something you forget or get over - more something you learn to live with, a new normal. Julia’s next words were particularly poignant, “pain is the agent of change in the grieving process, the thing that forces you to adjust. You have to feel it in order to allow yourself to adapt.”

Three weeks ago I experienced one of the toughest days of my career to date when we closed the doors on our clubs and said goodbye to a large number of our team, not knowing when we would see them again. We had been in our stride, we had a plan we were executing perfectly and then something happened that was almost inconceivable only a few months before. For weeks now it has felt like all I have done is make devastating decisions, one after another. I am constantly asking myself - did we make the right decisions? Did we support people as much as we could? Sometimes in the morning I wake up and for a moment, I don’t remember what has happened. And then I do. Then the weight in my chest feels even heavier.

Julia responded, “there is no way to ‘Marie Kondo’ your emotions, no tidy way of dealing with this immensely painful situation. The uncomfortable truth is that you have to allow the process of feeling those emotions to work through your system. Write them down, talk them out - do whatever you need to do. If you tell yourself ‘you must feel better, stop feeling like that’ you’re actually saying ‘what you’re feeling is wrong’ and you know that's not true.” 

My final point to Julia relates back to where our conversation began. I said to her - an entrepreneur’s vision of what is currently happening is ‘you’ve been given lemons, now make some lemonade.’ This upbeat, optimistic view of the world is one I am struggling to reconcile against the frustration I am still dealing with - in short, I’m p*ssed off! Julia laughed at my comments and responded in a calm and reassuring voice, “you aren’t there yet,” she said. “You need to stay afloat and survive in a way that also allows you to be self-compassionate. People often turn the fury of grief against themselves and then feel terribly guilty. Turn the critical voice in your head off and be kind to yourself.”

I feel as though I could talk to Julia for hours, she has so much understanding of a subject matter so many of us dread encountering. We both agree that we need to continue the conversation another time and in the meantime, I will be reading Julia’s latest book ‘This Too Shall Pass: Stories of Change, Crisis and Hopeful Beginnings.’ 

AllBright Connect is a safe space for women everywhere looking to share advice and support with one another. I encourage everyone to head to www.allbrightconnect.com. You can also listen to my full interview with Julia Samuel on IGTV here.